Blog
May 18, 2020
May 12th would have been George Carlin's 83rd birthday. George passed away on June 22, 2008 and left us with some of the best comedy routines ever performed. He was making appearances right up to the end of his life. He had just finished an HBO special and was working on another. George appeared on the Johnny Carson show multiple times and even hosted it more than once. He also hosted Saturday Night Live and to this day is the only host to not do any skits during the show. That was his idea.
The early 1970's were very good to George and afforded him his own private jet for getting to shows and back. He made several albums as the clean dressing short haired comedian, then he transformed his look to long hair and jeans.
The seven words that you cannot say on television became his trademark, especially when he got arrested performing that routine at Milwaukee's Summerfest on July 21, 1972.
I was at that show and the photographs here are from that night! One picture shows him being hauled off the stage to be arrested! I'll never forget that night.
The stage manager was a friend of mine. He quickly emptied out his pockets that contained cocaine and marijuana before the actual arrest that some people were enjoying! Otherwise, the arrest would have been even worse! That full story will be in my upcoming book that I am currently working on.
Those seven words can be said in my blog though!! They are- shit, piss, cunt, fuck, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits!! I think I have heard a few of those since 1972 on television, haven't you?
Check out some of his You Tube classic video shows.
Here are some of my photos of that wild night in 1972.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
May 4, 2020
Being ordered to stay at home because of the COVID-19 virus, we are all starving for some real racing, at least I am! The iRacing events with drivers using simulators in their homes is interesting, but it just won't do.
Both the Indy 500 and the Kentucky Derby have been postponed this year. That has not happened since WW2. I suspect we will all remember this time period for the rest of our lives. The children will most likely remember the home schooling on personal computers.
For a blog this week, let's look at Arie Luyendyk through the years. I don't have photos of Arie during his IRL days here because my IRL files are buried in the closet and in time I will put them on my website. Here though are some good examples of Arie and his early days in CART and Indy Car.
At the time these photos were taken, I was a contributing photographer for Indy Car Racing Magazine. The magazine office was less than a mile away from the Milwaukee Mile track. The photos are from the Milwaukee Mile and Road America. See if you can figure out the year of each car for fun!
I like the style of these cars so much more than our present day Indy Cars. For sure they were not as safe as the current cars but wow, they were fast and good looking race cars!
Stay safe everyone and let's hope we have Indy Car back in action at Road America in June, with social distancing of course.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
April 20, 2020
In the past I have written blogs about John Prine who is in my opinion is the best songwriter and storyteller in the world. Steve Goodman was a good musician and friend of John's who would have to be the second best. John Prine lyrics are just amazing and to think he wrote some of his early material during his six years as a mailman in Maywood, Illinois!
John passed away on April 7, 2020 at 74 years old. It put tears in my eyes and I'm sure a lot of other people felt the same way. COVID-19 was stronger than John and took him to heaven. He is now with his buddy Steve Goodman who passed in 1984. When they did a show together it was really a fun time with many great songs and stories.
I had the pleasure of photographing John twice, in 1972 and then again in 1974 when I worked for the Bugle American newspaper. I have seen him probably six or seven times and every performance was just great.
My photographs of John are some of my favorite images. In 1974 when he played at Milwaukee's Summerfest Schlitz Country stage, I gave him a photo from the Milwaukee PAC 1972 show and had a few Schlitz beers with him backstage. It was called the Schlitz Country Stage after all so we had to have some Schlitz beer and it was flowing pretty good and I was only 19! John loved the photo and we joked about the 1972 photos where he had Pabst beer on his stool and now it was Schlitz! I always wanted to get a photo autographed by him and never did after all these years...
The 1974 photographs are fun to look at because it was about 100F and the Summerfest Skyglider ran almost right above the stage. John was talking to the people up there and they were talking to him which made for some interesting banter. It also made for some great photographs of him looking up at them talking and playing around.
John had some health issues and could not smoke anymore and he LOVED to smoke cigarettes! He often said that when someone would lite up a cigarette he'd rush over to get a whiff of that first puff! He even wrote a song about going to heaven and smoking a nine mile long cigarette.
My heart goes out to his family and to our Milwaukee promoter, Peter Jest and his wife Karen who became very good friends of John.
We lost a good one on April 7th. He will be sadly missed.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
