Please click the "Like" button above if you like this post. The opening salvo of what will come to be known as Jackson's Valley Campaign was fired on May 8, 1862, at the Battle of Mc ...

Please click the "Like" button if you enjoyed this post. Peter Cozzens' Shenandoah 1862 is, as the name suggests, a history of Stonewall Jackson's 1862 Valley Campaign.  While th ...

 Please click the "Like" button if you enjoyed this post. I’m willing to accept the possibility that maybe – just maybe – Jerry Clower is a Southern thing. If you were to suggest suc ...

Wish I coulda been there. ...

Please click the "Like" button above if you like this post. You can listen along by pressing the green play button at right. Reggae music in all its various forms - ska, rock steady ...

Please click the "Like" button if you enjoy this post. My brother has a small pond behind his house, and several years ago he stocked some blue cats.  Every evening around 6:30, he t ...

Please click the "Like" button if you enjoy this post. A video short from "Young Frankenstein." ...

Please click the "Like" button if you enjoy this post. A movie short from "Young Frankenstein."   ...

One hundred years ago tonight, at 11:40 pm and approximately 350 miles southwest of Newfoundland, RMS Titanic struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage and, three hours later, broke apart ...

Tenor saxophonist Andrew Love, who partnered with trumpeter Wayne Jackson to form the Memphis Horns, died this past Thursday at the age of 70.  The Memphis Horns were part of the origin ...

" I know those law books mean alot to you, but not out here. Out here a man settles his own problems." ~ Tom Doniphon April 11, 1962 - fifty years ago today - "The Man Who Shot Liber ...

"I don't want him on my show.  I don't care what anyone says about him - how great a talent he is - he just won't be in my show and that's that." - Ed Sullivan. "I want to say to El ...

Elvis and Ann Margret on the set of Viva Las Vegas (1964). ...

"Shiloh" is a Hebrew word meaning "place of peace." One hundred fifty years ago today (give or take a day or two),the Battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing, was fought on April 6 an ...

Last night we watched "Man on Wire," whose subtitle should be "Crazy Ass Frenchman Tightropes the Twin Towers."  "Man on Wire" is a 2008 documentary that tells the true story of Philipp ...

This video - "Bulls on Top" - is just about the coolest fishing video I've ever seen. ...

[pro-player]http://johnmurrill.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/A-Fistfull-of-Yen-pt.11.mov[/pro-player]

[pro-player]http://johnmurrill.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/A-Fistfull-of-Yen-pt.2.mov[/pro-player]

  Buddy Holly & Waylon Jennings, circa 1959. ...

Click on the image at right and listen along. "Not Fade Away : Remembering Buddy Holly," is an album of Buddy Holly covers by contemporary artists. Sometimes these "tribute" albums w ...

The Indian Hawthorne in my front yard is in full bloom, which makes the bees very happy.  Trying to photograph them is an exercise in patience; the key to getting good bee photos is nai ...

Both of my grandfathers died when I was a child.  My grandmothers lived for many more years, and I was blessed with long and wonderful relationships with the two of them.  They were ...

Mr. Barton - John W. Barton, Sr. - passed away over the weekend.  Born in 1917, he was 95 years old at the time of his passing.  He was one of the kindest and most generous persons I ev ...

At its most basic level, Hugo is the story of Hugo Cabret, an orphan who lives inside the walls and mechanical rooms of a 1930's Paris train station.  Hugo's only companion is an "autom ...

Watching television while I was getting dressed the other day, Mike & Mike were debating the greatest individual accomplishment in sports history.  Was it Wilt Chamberlain scoring 1 ...

"It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death." Hmmmm... How many documentaries can say they were directly res ...

Can't take credit for this one, it comes to your courtesy of good friend Mary Morgan. Apparently, someone did not return directly to the North Pole. ...

Merry Christmas !!! As always, you can click on the pictures to see a bigger copy.         ...

As noted in prior posts, my exquisite taste in music is both a blessing and a curse.  Never is this more apparent than during the Holiday Season.  I swear to God, if I hear "Christmas i ...

  And now for something totally different.   Volume 1:     Volume 2:   ...

A quick Christmas twofer from Uncle Mojo. Enjoy. //         ...

Last week I posted an entry about one of my all time favorite movie scenes. It was from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. Here's another one of my favorite movies scenes.  It just so ...

Is this the greatest movie scene ever? I don't know what the American Film Institute would say, but here's what makes this scene so great. First, it's The Man Who Shot Liberty ...

I have superb taste in music.  Shortly after we first met, my wife once accused me of being a "music snob."  Of course, she was just jealous because her own taste in music was so lame b ...

The Honey Badger don't care, it just takes what it wants. This is the play from yesterday's game against Kentucky where Mathieu got credit for a sack, a fumble caused, a fumble recov ...

I hate bookstores, absolutely hate 'em. I had to go the doctor the other afternoon for an annual check-up, and when they were finally through poking and prodding, it was too late to ...

Sebastian Junger spent a year (summer 2007 - summer 2008) embedded with the Second Platoon, Battle Company (when did it stop being "Bravo" Company?), 173 Airborne Brigade, in the Koreng ...

U-High, currently the third-ranked 2A team in Louisiana, manhandled Loyola-Shreveport at Jeff Boss Field on Friday night.  The final score was 41-14, but it was never really that close. ...

Drive down Highland Road in the vicinity of Magnolia Woods and you will pass the Laurel Lea Shopping Center, a mostly unremarkable jumble of neighborhood stores at the intersection of H ...

The Tigers went on the road for their first SEC match-up and prevailed over State, 19-6.  Jarrett Lee (21-27 for 213 yards with 1 TD and 1 interception) had what was probably his best g ...

As the Russian horde overwhelmed the last remaining Berlin defenses at the end of World War II, Adolph Eichmann shed his SS uniform and vanished into the Austrian Alps.  Eichmann, who h ...

I went gator hunting with my brother and one of my sons at Grosse Savanne Lodge this weekend.  A cool snap had lowered temperatures overnight and the guides were concerned that the ch ...

Recognizing that most of the music I listen to (blues, reggae, and what is disturbingly referred to these days as "classic rock") was recorded decades ago, I decided to lively up myself ...

On a hot June afternoon in 1876, George Armstrong Custer, commander of the United States Seventh Cavalry Regiment, impetuously decided (against the strenuous advice of his Indian scouts ...

I took these pictures last night at the LSU - Northwestern game in Tiger Stadium.  The Tigers did what they were supposed to do - they put the game away early against a weak opponent ...

Sigh. Please tell me that really didn't happen. Please tell me that on a day when our punter was averaging - AVERAGING - almost 57 yards per punt, and our defense had played great ...

LSU looked good against Oregon last night.  The offense was a little conservative, they will need to the throw the ball downfield more often and more efficiently to beat the likes of We ...

Empire of the Summer  Moon, by S.C. Gwynne, is the story of the rise and fall of the Commaches.  Gwynne convincingly makes the case that the Commanches - not the Sioux, not the Cheyenne ...

I took these pictures last week while my wife and I were in Orange County taking my oldest son to college (Go Chapman Panthers!).  Some of the pictures were taken south of LA in the Cry ...

I recently finished The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second installment in Stieg Larson's trilogy thriller built around the enigmatic character of Lisbeth Salander.  Fire picks up whe ...

I saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes while I was in SoCal taking my son to college.  Rise is a prequel to the classic Planet of the Apes and contains several clever plot devices to link ...

Took this photo right at dusk. ...

I live in Baton Rouge about 3 miles from the College Drive exit/entrance onto Interstate 10.  If you get on I-10 at College Drive and drive 1,831 miles due west, the interstate abruptly ...

Eric Clapton had been busy.  He broke into the music scene with the Yardbirds, left in 1965 for John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, broke away from the Bluesbreakers in 1966 to form Cream w ...

Oh man, I was so looking forward to Cowboys & Aliens.  I've always been a Harrison Ford fan, I thought Daniel Craig did the impossible when he actually improved on Sean Connery as 0 ...

Wow.  I just finished reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larson, and, for once, I believe the hype.  I'm obviously late to the party, since it appears that everyone I know ...

I recently read Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, a collection of essays, reviews, and other works by the late wild man, Lester Bangs, one-time critic for Rolling Stone and Creem ...

Here are some pics I took at the 2011 Baton Rouge Balloon Festival in August.  Unfortunately, thunder storms canceled all of the night activities on both Friday and Saturday, including ...

Jonathon Gould's Can't Buy Me Love melds elements of a traditional biography of The Beatles with musical criticism and pop sociology.  There's nothing "new" here:  no new revelations, n ...

Charlie Wilson's War is no doubt best known for the movie of the same name starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.  I've never seen the movie but I just finished ...

Alec Griffin, Rich Waldner, and Bryan Carter fly-fishing for reds. [pro-player]http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEYFrk16ook[/pro-player]

Hellhound On His Trail, by Hamptom Sides, is a masterful retelling of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.  The book tells two stories; the first relates James Earl Ray's escape ...

Not much to say about this one - it's all been said before.  I've seen the movie many times, but only now read the book for the first time.  If you haven't read this book before, stop w ...

Outspoken sex therapist Allen May recently left for a bonefishing trip to Palmyra Atoll. Armed with a box of flies tied by yours truly, May set out after the elusive Bones and ha ...

I just finished reading Daniel Allen Butler's The Other Side of the Night, which tells the story of Carpathia and Californian, the two ships in the vicinity of Titanic when she sank on ...

Conscious of the adage that any color fly works for Redfish as long as it's gold, I went in search of a metallic gold estaz-type material for wrapping fly bodies.  My go-to source f ...

Here's a short video I put together using Final Cut Express.  The video is a compilation of footage taken over the last 2-3 trips I've taken, in late 2010 and early 2011.   ...

Allen May - noted anthropologist, former Baton Rouge resident and member of the Red Stick Fly Fishing Club, and current resident of Bozeman, Montana - recently called me from the sports ...

Celebrated Easter with a crawdad boil.  Life is good.  Happy Easter to all!                   ...

Took this one today at the LSU Rural Life Museum.                 ...

One hundred and fifty years ago today, the Civil War began when Southern forces began bombarding Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.  The bombardment ended thirty-four hours later when th ...

The roses are in full bloom at the All America Rose Selection display garden at the LSU Burden Research Station / Rural Life Museum.  It's a veritable cornucopia of photo opport ...

"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."  Jonathon Swift. As a general rule, I don't re-read book ...

This weekend, I took my oldest son to visit Chapman University in Orange, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.  We flew into John Wayne Airport in Orange County.  What ...

The azaleas bloomed in Baton Rouge this year during the period March 17-27.  These pictures were taken around town during that time period.  A severe storm blew through on March 30 and ...

I just finished reading The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors:  The Extraordinary World War II Story of the United States Navy's Finest Hour," by James Hornfischer.  The book tells the ...

The premise is simple enough.  You're stranded on a desert island, but somehow, you saw it coming, and you had the foresight to bring your ten favorite albums (CD's if you prefer) with ...

Along with half the population of South Louisiana, we went to Walt Disney World and Universal Studios in Orlando over the Mardi Gras holiday.  Here are some pictures from the trip.  ...

I enjoy tying with rabbit strips ("zonkers") more than with just about any other material.  They're easy to tie with, come in a wide arrange of colors and styles, and have a fantastic, ...