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"I would have made a good pope."

A few years ago, I wrote the core of the following bio for the All-Music Guide, who asked me to write a few essays for them (see the sections on Bluegrass and New Acoustic Music). I've expanded the bio for this and brought it up to date. The "Desert Island Dozen" and "Runners-Up" are musical favorites they ask their reviewers to list, and I've since expanded the musical list to cover many forms of media.

By vocation, Mike is a public safety software designer and programmer for Pamet Systems, Inc., based in Acton, Massachusetts. He has designed, written, and implemented his company's FireServer VMS package and many aspects of its PoliceServer VMS package, both of which are in use at more than one hundred fifty agencies in the U.S. In the 1980s, he served occasionally as a federally-approved expert witness and independent consultant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Defense Criminal Investigative Service, assisting and training Special Agents and federal district prosecutors as well as testifying in successful investigations of defense contract fraud totaling approximately $300 million.

By avocation, Mike's a cook, artist, writer, traveler, and something of a historian of Project Apollo and of the Eighth Air Force in World War 2. His interest in Apollo began in earnest when Frank Borman, Bill Anders, and Jim Lovell orbited the moon when he was nine years old, and hasn't waned since. Mike's a contributor to Eric Jones's amazingly detailed and fascinating Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, which resides on the NASA History Office web site. Several of Mike's detailed WWII-style flight jacket pin-up paintings can be seen on the front cover, title spread, and inside Hell-Bent for Leather (Nelson & Parsons), a history of flight jackets, and his jacket artwork has also been featured in several periodicals. He has also provided occasional research assistance to other aviation history authors such as the late Jeff Ethell. His latest artwork is still of beautiful women but is all pencil in nature, which he says is "much cleaner and infinitely less nerve-wracking" than painting on $400 flight jackets.

Click to see some of Mike's flight jacket artwork	Click to see some of Mike's other artwork

Mike's other interests include films and cartoons of the '30s and '40s, photography, massage therapy, and journalism. He says "The Larry Sanders Show" and "Mystery Science Theater 3000" were "the best TV shows on -- and off -- the planet." He's been an avid follower and booster of Progressive Bluegrass and especially its little-known yet rich cousin, New Acoustic Music (a.k.a. Americana), for years.

He prefers to cook in the manner of his hero, Julia Child, and says that he will someday own his own restaurant with, he hopes, an attached art gallery and massage therapy office. Mike has contributed to the comprehensive All-Music Guide and has been quoted in USA Today, Variety, TV Guide, and Multichannel News, proving that, even in the willy-nilly '90s, the occasional desperately slow news day still occurs.

Mike's web site, The Finley Quality Network (named after the fictional network of the Bob & Ray radio show), was selected as one of the "Top 5% of All Web Sites" in both the Movies & Television and Personal Home Page categories by Lycos/Point, whose review began: "Mike Harney's work here is just what we want out of a personal homepage -- packed with information and stuffed with yuks."

Finally, Mike says his general philosophy is reflected well in these words:

"Well, shit, friends, anything that can't be made fun of, anything, anydamnthing, is doomed to sink of its own humorless weight. You've got to laugh, dammit! You've got to find giggles throughout the day or simply fucking die! You've got to lighten up. Well, that's what this column is. A lighten up." - Harlan Ellison, L.A. Free Press, May 11, 1973 (emphasis his)

"Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest." - Mark Twain

"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell." - Harry Truman

...and here to see a recent picture of me, happy as a clam, with my two best friends, Becky and Haewon, outside the Shrimp Factory in Savannah, Georgia.

Just a Somewhat Ramblin' Man

"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him, a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating."
- Pearl Buck

Desert Island Dozens: I've put together, in fairly quick fashion, my lists of favorites in all types of media. Since I don't think someone would be given a lot of time to make such choices when it comes right down to it, and I know my choices would change somewhat from year to year (or even week to week), I decided to make the selections for each group in no more than fifteen or twenty minutes and mostly from memory. The exception is the Music section, because I wrote the original version of that a few years ago.

Hey, listen: If you've got Jean Shepherd's America or Shepherd's Pie, let me know. They're the only things on these lists I don't have (okay, I admit to having just a few episodes of the two series), so you'd be a big help when they ship me off to that foolish island.

Desert Island Dozen: Films
In mostly chronological order
I have most of these on laserdisc so I would have to have a decent player on the island, of course.
(Dual-sided play, couple megs of memory, Virgil's Root Beer dispenser...nothing special.)

      

The Thin Man (1934) This film and its thirteen-year run of sequels (After the Thin Man, Another Thin Man, Shadow of the Thin Man, The Thin Man Goes Home, and Song of the Thin Man) starred William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, a before-their-time detecting couple. Not only was Nora frequently smarter and funnier than Nick, she held her booze better than him, too. The entire series is available in a boxed set of laserdiscs.

It's a Gift (1934) One of the best W.C. Fields films.

Swing Time (1936) Fred Astaire and an absolutely gorgeous Ginger Rogers become famous dancers in this light comedy.

Twelve O'Clock High (1949) This film is often included in lists of the best war films, but it's also a classic anti-war film. Gregory Peck stars as General Savage, who replaces an 8th Air Force B-17 bomb group commander who has gone soft. Savage soon finds out why, the hard way.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963) In what is possibly the best black comedy ever made, Kubrick tells the story of one General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), an Air Force base commander who has taken it upon himself to send his B-52 group beyond the fail-safe point and start World War III if at all possible. Why? Water fluoridation, for one thing: "I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration and indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids." Peter Sellers (whose best -- and unrelated -- quotation may be "Finally, in conclusion, let me say just this.") shines in his triple roles of American President Merkin Muffley, Royal Air Force Group Captain Mandrake, and German science advisor Dr. Strangelove, and George Scott is amazingly funny as General Buck Turgidson ("I'm beginning to smell a big, fat, commie rat."). The War Room pie fight that originally ended the film was removed early on in the editing process and will never be seen (only stills remain), but you can get a beautiful new transfer on laserdisc that was released a couple of years ago. One of the best lines in the movie: "Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) "There are some people that, if they don't know, you can't tell 'em." - Louis Armstrong

A Christmas Story (1983) Written by Jean Shepherd, which means you can't go wrong with this one. The story of Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley) and his lonely quest for a Red Ryder BB gun "with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time" for Christmas. The story is warmly nostalgic and reflects Shepherd's childhood in Indiana in the '30s, as does most of his writing (see Books section). In the movie, Ralphie is thwarted at every turn by every grown-up he encounters. They've all apparently been taking meetings about this and have thrown up an "impenetrable BB gun web" around Ralphie, claiming that he'll shoot his eye out. As if that wasn't enough, Ralph also must deal with his whiney brother Randy, his arch-enemy, Scut Farkas the bully ("I swear, his eyes were yellow"), the death of innocence (well, in regards to Little Orphan Annie and Lucky Pierre, anyway), writing a...ugh...theme, and possible incarceration for his part in encouraging a triple-dog dare involving a metal pole and the freezing point of a tongue during all this.

The next three are understated films in which not a lot of action occurs. However, if you're anything like me, you'll be drawn into the experience almost completely. A nice feeling.

Local Hero (1983) A Texas oil firm (headed by the somewhat loopy Burt Lancaster, whose psychotherapist ends up harrassing him by the end of the film) sends a negotiator with a Scottish-sounding name who isn't really Scottish (Peter Reigert) to buy up all the property in a small village on the coast of Scotland. They'd like to replace the quiet spot with an oil refinery convenient to the North Sea. The natives are secretly overjoyed, because they're going to become rich, but feel they must put on an outward reluctance so as to improve their negotiating position. If, by the end of this movie, you don't want to move to this village, there may be little hope for you.

Hope and Glory (1987) Tells the story of a young boy and his family in London during the Battle of Britain. This film was wonderfully accurate and reminded me of the anecdotal book Children of the Blitz quite nicely, thank you very much.

A Midnight Clear (1991) Another very good anti-war film, this one tells the story of a small group of American soldiers sent on patrol during the Battle of the Bulge. What they encounter -- caroling German soldiers who pelt them with snowballs at night -- is quite unbelievable to them, but it's real. The Germans want to surrender. The story gets complicated from there.

   Click to visit HBO's series site

From the Earth to the Moon series, 1998, HBO. Tom Hanks was executive producer of this astoundingly good series and also directed and co-wrote some of the twelve episodes. The fact that he's been a space nut since he was a kid shows through in every episode. I think he infected most if not all of the actors, writers, and crew with his enthusiasm. I saw the series during its original airing on HBO and recently bought the series on DVD. The thing's so damned good that I watched all eleven hours twice in the first two weeks I had the DVD set. (I suppose I should reveal at this point that, like Hanks, I've been an Apollo buff since I was nine years old.) This series handily redeems television and can make you forget every crappy sitcom and vapid "news" program ever made. Sure, just briefly, but still...

Twelve O'Clock High series (first season with Robert Lansing, 1964-5)

Monty Python's Flying Circus, 1969-1974, BBC

Fawlty Towers series, 1975, BBC

Jean Shepherd's America and Shepherd's Pie series, '70s and '80s

Connections (10-hour series) by James Burke, 1979, PBS

The Norman Conquests (a trilogy of plays by Alan Ayckbourn starring Tom Conti), late '70s, British and PBS

NBC News Overnight, 1982-1983, NBC

Danger UXB 13-part series, Masterpiece Theater, 1978 (British and PBS) Pictured, from the series: Patch designed by the Queen for members of the Royal Army Engineering Bomb Disposal Sections, WWII

Oppenheimer series, early '80s, American Playhouse, PBS

The Great American 4th of July and Other Disasters (written by Jean Shepherd), early '80s, American Playhouse, PBS

Mystery Science Theater 3000, 1988-present, KTMA-TV Minneapolis, The Comedy Channel, Comedy Central, and now on The SciFi Channel

The Larry Sanders Show, 1992-present, Home Box Office

Some favorite cartoon characters: Betty Boop, Tex Avery's and Preston Blair's Red (the best animation of a woman ever created, shown at left), Beaky Buzzard, Tweety Bird, Foghorn Leghorn, early Droopy Dog, early Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny, early Chilly Willy, and Jay Ward's Rocky & Bullwinkle gang of several.

As a writer for The All-Music Guide, I chose the following as the albums I'd like to have with me if stuck on a desert island. Many of these are of a genre sometimes called New Acoustic Music. I also wrote an essay for the Guide that explains just what the heck New Acoustic is and offers up many prime recorded examples. It's here, embellished with some posters and other photos, and is called New Acoustic Music: An Introduction.

Drive, Bela Fleck, Rounder 0255 New Acoustic, Bluegrass

Released, Todd Phillips, Varrick 011 (LP, cassette only) New Acoustic, Jazz

Hull's Victory, Dakota Dave Hull, Flying Fish 294 Traditional, New Acoustic, guitar-oriented

Places, Bela Fleck, Rounder 11522 New Acoustic, Jazz, banjo-oriented

Pointing Up/Playing by Ear, Preston Reed, Flying Fish 70111 Solo acoustic guitar

The Duo, Darol Anger & Mike Marshall, Rounder 0176 (LP, cassette only) New Acoustic, Jazz, mandolin-oriented

Slide Rule, Jerry Douglas, Sugar Hill 3797 New Acoustic, Progressive and Traditional Bluegrass, dobro-oriented (Grammy Award, Best Instrumental Album)

A Robot Plane Flies Over Arkansas, Tony Trischka, Rounder 0171 (included on the CD compilation Dust on the Needle, Rounder 11508) New Acoustic, Progressive Bluegrass, banjo-oriented

Odd Man In, Tim O'Brien, Sugar Hill 3790 "weird-country, electro-acoustic, folk-beat, walking-the-line-between-several-genres acoustic music that rocks a bit, but you understand the words"

Another Way to Find You, Chris Smither, Flying Fish 70568 Acoustic blues guitar

Last of the True Believers, Nanci Griffith, Philo 1109 "Folkabilly"

Original Underground Music from the Mysterious South, Norman Blake & The Rising Fawn String Ensemble, Rounder 0166 (included on the pictured CD compilation Natasha's Waltz, Rounder 11530) Traditional, New Acoustic, "one of the finest instrumental recordings of all time" (Dave Hull)

Runners-Up

Late As Usual, Sam Bush, Rounder 0195 New Acoustic, Traditional, mandolin-oriented

Just in Time, Maura O'Connell, Philo 1124 New Acoustic; vocal-oriented

6- and 12-String Guitar, Leo Kottke, Takoma 7024 (now Rhino 71612) Solo acoustic guitar

Guitar Music, Leo Kottke, Chrysalis 21328 Solo acoustic guitar

Within Reach, Tony Furtado, Rounder 0290 New Acoustic, Traditional, banjo-oriented

Crosscurrents, Gerald Trimble, Green Linnett 1065 Celtic, New Acoustic, cittern-oriented (mandolin family)

Buddies of Swing, Peter Ostroushko, Red House 17 Swing, Jazz, mandolin-oriented

In the Dark with You, Greg Brown, Red House 08 Folk guitar

Stranded in the Moonlight, Tony Trischka & Skyline, Flying Fish 304 (LP, cassette only) New Acoustic, Progressive Bluegrass

Reel & Rock, David Holt, Flying Fish 372 Traditional, banjo-oriented

Quintet '80, David Grisman, Warner BSK 3469 New Acoustic, mandolin-oriented

Aerial Boundaries, Michael Hedges, Windham Hill 1032 Solo acoustic guitar

Tools of the Trade, The Cache Valley Drifters, Flying Fish 290 (LP, cassette only) Progressive Bluegrass, Swing
This album includes what I think is the best version of Ray Noble's big band tune, "Cherokee," ever recorded, performed on two guitars, a mandolin, and a bass.

• Connections, The Day the Universe Changed, The Axemaker's Gift, and The Pinball Effect by James Burke
• Coming Into the Country, The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed, The Curve of Binding Energy, The Pine Barrens, Table of Contents, Giving Good Weight, Encounters with the Archdruid, The Survival of the Bark Canoe, Oranges (150 pages on...yes, oranges), In Suspect Terrain, Basin and Range, Rising from the Plains, and Assembling California by John McPhee
• The Glass Teat, The Other Glass Teat (both essays on television), An Edge in My Voice, and Harlan Ellison's Watching by Harlan Ellison
• The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film by Michael Weldon
• Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe, Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America, and Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
• In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, The Ferrari in the Bedroom, Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters, and A Fistful of Fig Newtons by Jean Shepherd
• The Serpent's Coil and Grey Seas Under by Farley Mowat
• Old Glory: An American Voyage by Jonathan Raban
• HAL's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality edited by David Stork (see the online edition at MIT Press)
• Distant Water: The Fate of the North Atlantic Fisherman and Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs, and the Chesapeake Bay by William Warner
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (sic) by Douglas Adams
• Dateline America, On the Road with Charles Kuralt, A Life on the Road, and Charles Kuralt's America by Charles Kuralt
• A Mencken Chrestomathy and A Second Mencken Chrestomathy by H.L. Mencken
• From Julia Child's Kitchen and The Way to Cook by Julia Child
• The Most of S.J. Perelman by S.J. Perelman
• The Unabridged Mark Twain by Mark Twain
• I Been There Before by David Carkeet. Mark Twain returns to Earth with Halley's Comet and Twain historians try to catch up with him.
• Chariots for Apollo: The Making of the Lunar Module by Charles Pellegrino and James Stoff. A proviso: NASA's chief historian has told me that Grumman employees of the period report several inaccuracies in this book.
• Chariots for Apollo: A History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft by Courtney Brooks, James Grimwood, and Loyd Swenson, Jr. (NASA)
• Apollo: The Race to the Moon by Charles Murray and Catherine Cox
• A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin
• First of the Many: A Journal of Action with the Men of the Eighth Air Force by Capt. John McCrary and David Scherman (1944)
• Psychiatric Experiences of the Eighth Air Force, First Year of Combat: July 4, 1942 - July 4, 1943 (Restricted - Not To Be Republished) by Maj. Donald Hastings, Capt. David Wright, and Capt. Bernard Blueck, Army Air Forces. Some rather hairy case histories. (Here's an excerpt from one.) Not surprising, really, considering that ten percent of Allied casualties in WWII were in the U.S. 8th Air Force, based in England, and in the first year of air combat, 8th Air Force aircrew members had just a one in three chance of finishing their 25-mission tour without being wounded, killed, or shot down and captured.
• Castles in the Air by Martin Bowman
• Impact (restricted Army Air Force Intelligence magazine of WWII) 10-volume reprint collection, originally edited by Edward Thompson
• The Best of Robert Benchley by Robert Benchley
• Of Mice and Magic by Leonard Maltin
• The Fleischer Story by Lesley Cabarga
• Tex Avery by John Canemaker
• Write if You Get Work, From Approximately Coast to Coast: It's the Bob & Ray Show, and The New! Improved! Bob & Ray Book by Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding
• The Happy Isles of Oceania by Paul Theroux
• High Weirdness by Mail by Ivan Stang
• The Whole Pop Catalog by the Berkeley Pop Culture Project
• Jaguars Ripped My Flesh, A Wolverine is Eating My Leg, and Pecked to Death by Ducks by Tim Cahill
• A Confederacy of Dunces by John Toole
• Reporting World War II, Part One: American Journalism 1938-1944 and Part Two: American Journalism 1944-1946 edited by The Library of America
• All of Ernie Pyle's WWII reporting: Ernie Pyle in England, Brave Men, Here is Your War, and Last Chapter (Pyle was killed by a sniper's bullet on a small island in the Pacific)
• All of Ed Murrow's WWII reporting

  Good ones I forgot the first time:

• Benjamin Franklin: Essays, Articles, Bagatelles, and Letters; Poor Richard's Almanack; Autobiography edited by the Library of America
• Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, Volume 1: 1832-1858 and Volume 2: 1859-1865 edited by the Library of America
• Mark Twain: Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays, Volume 1: 1852-1890 and Volume 2: 1891-1910 edited by the Library of America
• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information, and Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative by Edward R. Tufte
• The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 by David McCullough, who also hosted Nova's "A Man, A Plan, A Canal: Panama" episode.

  Brand new (10/97):

• Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child by Nöel Riley Fitch

Classic
• Rita Hayworth, shot taken during Life session but not in the magazine, 1941
• Rita Hayworth, Down to Earth movie poster, 1947
• Rita Hayworth, Roving Redhead painting by Philip Castle. The picture here is from one of his books, Airshow. I have a signed print of the original as well.
• Marilyn Monroe, in a beautiful photograph by Kirkland. I've never seen her appear more relaxed and content.
• Ginger Rogers, Professional Sweetheart publicity still, 1934
• Jean Harlow, bear rug publicity still, in poster form, 1934
• Lana Turner, on couch in flower print dress, the very definition of "come hither," 1938
• Carole Lombard, standing in slinky dress, 1939. A wonderfully funny actress, whose "My Man Godfrey," "No Man of Her Own," and "Nothing Sacred" help her define "screwball comedy." She was tragically killed in a plane crash outside Las Vegas, along with her mother and twenty others, while returning from a war bond tour in Indianapolis in early 1942. Shortly before her death, she said, "Sometimes I speak when maybe I shouldn't, and I do get a little raw when I joke around with the fellas, but at least I consider myself a real person. There's too many phony people in this world, but with me, what you see is what you get, honey!" Her husband, Clark Gable, said some years later, "Women and sex were easy to come by in Hollywood, but good companionship is something else. Carole was the best companion a man could ever hope to have. When that plane went down, I lost the love of my life."

  Modern

• Emmanuelle Béart, Manon of the Spring publicity still
• Suzy Amis, headshot
• Tracy Griffith, headshot
• Helen Slater, headshot
• Meg Ryan, headshot

  Honorable Mention, Hollywood

• Jane Horrocks, Memphis Belle publicity still

  Honorable Mention, Non-Hollywood

• "Pretty!" - Crow T. Robot, Mystery Science Theater 3000, many episodes
  A very nice poster sent my way by the folks at Victoria's Secret corporate PR. This woman has the distinct honor of being an icon, too, which you might recognize from various pages on this site:

                
A T.C. Lando's menu; Chocolate Chip Toasted Pecan Cookies, Jennie's Vanilla Hugs™, and Betty's Vanilla Bars; Virgil's Root Beer

Desert Island Dozen: Permanent Hut Reservations