Frank Beacham's Journal

Jacques Cousteau was born 112 years ago today

Jacques Cousteau with his dive saucer

Jacques Cousteau was born 112 years ago today.

Cousteau was a French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the Aqua-Lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française.

After an automobile accident cut short his career in naval aviation, Cousteau indulged his interest in the sea. In Toulon, where he was serving on the Condorcet, Cousteau carried out his first underwater experiments, thanks to his friend Philippe Tailliez who in 1936 lent him some Fernez underwater goggles — predecessors of modern swimming goggles.

His two sons, Jean-Michel (born 1938) and Philippe (1940–1979), took part in the adventures of the Calypso. In 1975, John Denver released the tribute song, "Calypso," on his album "Windsong," and on the B-side of his hit song, "I'm Sorry."

"Calypso" became a hit on its own and was later considered the new A-side, reaching #2 on the charts. Cousteau's legacy includes more than 120 television documentaries, more than 50 books and an environmental protection foundation with 300,000 members. He liked to call himself an "oceanographic technician."

Cousteau was, in reality, a sophisticated showman, teacher and lover of nature. His work permitted many people to explore the resources of the oceans. His work also created a new kind of scientific communication, criticized at the time by some academics.

The so-called "divulgationism," a simple way of sharing scientific concepts, was soon employed in other disciplines and became one of the most important characteristics of modern television broadcasting.

Cousteau died on June 25, 1997 at age 87.

Here is a short film on Cousteau’s work

Phillipe Cousteau

Here’s a personal remembrance of shooting video for Jacque Cousteau's television show onboard the Calypso.

Cousteau had long recorded his documentaries and television programs on film, but in the mid-1970s he began using video.

While based in Miami, I formed Television Matrix, one of the first small format video production companies. I got a call to shoot video for Jacques Cousteau and his son, Philippe, on the Calypso for The Cousteau Society.

Over a few months, we shot several segments with Jacques Cousteau on the Calypso. The main producer on the shoots was Philippe, who worked closely with his father on his film and video production.

On June 28, 1979, while the Calypso was on an expedition to Portugal, Philippe — Cousteau’s preferred and designated successor and with whom he had co-produced all his films since 1969 — died in a PBY Catalina flying boat crash in the Tagus river near Lisbon.

Jacques Cousteau was deeply affected by Philippe’s death and it was the last I worked with him. He then called his eldest son, the architect Jean-Michel Cousteau, to be at his side. Their collaboration lasted 14 years.

On this day in 1855, a Navy ship sailed from New York on the first of several missions to buy camels for the U.S. Military

Before railroads, the easiest way to cross the United States in the 1800s was by horse caravan. But the military once tried to introduce a four-legged competitor — with humps.

On this day in 1855, a Navy ship sailed from New York on the first of several missions to buy camels in the Middle East. Members of the U.S. Army Camel Corps later took the animals on pilot treks through the arid American Southwest, and praised them as superior to horses and mules.

Although camels have been used by militaries throughout history, the Camel Corps was dissolved in 1861 when its lead advocate, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, left to lead the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Statues of Davis, whose side lost the war, have recently been removed across the South as part of a backlash against racism and white supremacy.

But a monument to Hadji Ali — a camel handler of Syrian and Greek descent who joined the Camel Corps expeditions after being recruited in a Turkish port — still stands in Quartzsite, Arizona. It was erected in 1934, the same year the last camel from the original corps died in a zoo.

Thanks New York Times!

Above, a mural depicting the arrival of camels at Camp Verde, Texas

Mural by Patrick Westphal

Manuel Noriega: A Personal Remembrance

Manuel Noriega: A Personal Remembrance

Manuel Noriega died five years ago today in Panama City at the age of 83. He had been in intensive care after complications developed from surgery to remove a benign brain tumor. At the time, he was still in prison, but had been granted house arrest to prepare for the operation.

A remembrance of Noriega is permanently seared into my mind. I will never forget him.

On Panama’s Contadora Island in 1979, while covering the late Shah of Iran for NBC News, I was arrested by Noriega, then Panama’s chief of military intelligence. It was early morning, and I exited the shower to find Noriega in the bathroom pointing an Uzi submachine gun at me. He ordered me to get dressed and then drove me in a jeep to a government-owned house on the island.

He said I was using a walkie-talkie that interfered with his private frequency. The walkie-talkie, which I bought in a gift shop on the island, was being used to communicate with the rest of my crew.

I apologized, but Noriega was having none of it. He made me and the other crew members he had also arrested sit on a couch and look at his porno magazines, while hysterically laughing at us. It became clear quickly that Noriega was a real sicko.

Time dragged by as we quietly waited, having no idea of our fate with this madman. Later that day, he took us in his jeep to the island’s airstrip. Our bags, removed from our rooms and hastily packed by his forces, were waiting there for us. We were told to board the plane and were flown back to Miami.

After returning to NBC’s offices in Miami, the phone rang and it was the president of Panama, General Omar Torrijos calling. Torrijos profusely apologized for Noriega’s actions to Don Browne, NBC’s bureau chief, and invited us back to Contadora Island to complete coverage of the Shah’s vacation stay there.

He absolutely promised no more trouble. Anxious to make the money on this lucrative job, I agreed to return with my crew. (Yes, I was VERY stupid back in those days!)

But first, when we arrived back in Panama, we visited Gen. Torrijos, who warmly welcomed us back to his country. He asked if I could deliver a box of Cuban cigars to his friend, Sen. Edward Kennedy, who liked them.

Each cigar had a band that had the words General Torrijos printed on it — a personal gift from Fidel Castro. I promised to send the cigars — illegal in the United States — to Kennedy when we returned. (That was not without skimming off the top row for myself!)

The rest of our trip on Contadora Island was without incident and we returned home a week and a half later.

A footnote to this story: Gen. Torrijos died in a plane accident on July 31, 1981. Colonel Roberto Díaz Herrera, a former associate of Noriega, claimed that the actual cause for the accident was a bomb and that Noriega was behind the incident.

Somehow, I was never surprised by this. Noriega became the defacto leader of the country before his arrest.

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched aboard the shuttle Discovery on this day in 1990 — 32 years ago

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched aboard the shuttle Discovery on this day in 1990 — 32 years ago.

The telescope has sent back images of celestial wonders, captured in stunning detail. The $1.5 billion telescope is the length of a school bus and orbits the Earth at about 17,000 miles an hour. It’s expected to keep working until at least 2020.

Hubble’s first pictures lacked clarity because of problems with the telescope’s mirror, necessitating a repair trip. All in all, Hubble has required five major repairs, replacements or upgrades. The last was completed in 2009.

Its successor, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, is scheduled to launch in 2020. This telescope, equipped with a much bigger mirror, is designed to see deeper into space than Hubble and may solve mysteries about how the first stars and galaxies were created.

Here is a Hubble image of the Pillars of Creation, part of the Eagle Nebula nearly 7,000 light years from Earth.

Thanks New York Times!

On this day in 1921 — 101 years ago — British writer E.M. Forster traveled to write A Passage to India

On this day in 1921 — 101 years ago — British writer E.M. Forster, 41, embarked on his second trip to India after an absence of eight years.

Forster would turn his observations of the country into his fifth and most critically acclaimed novel — A Passage to India — published in 1924. The novel explored racism and colonialism through the story of an English tourist who accuses a respected Indian doctor of attacking her.

Born in London in 1879, Forster was the son of an architect. His father died before he was two, and he spent most of his childhood with his mother and a great-aunt in an old house called Rooksnest, which later became the model for the country estate portrayed in Howard's End.

Forster was teased and tormented mercilessly at the private school he attended as a day student and remained shy and timid throughout the rest of his life. However, he found intellectual companionship during his university years at King's College, Cambridge, where he joined a secret society of intellectuals called the Apostles.

Forster began contributing essays and stories to the newly formed Independent Review in 1903 and published his first novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread, two years later. Like his later books, the novel looked at English discomfort with foreign cultures.

Forster traveled widely, visiting Greece, Italy, and India, and later served with the Red Cross in Alexandria, Egypt, from 1915 to 1919. He made many close friends among the intellectual and literary "Bloomsbury set," including Virginia Woolf.

Forster published five novels by 1924 and received an honorary fellowship from his alma mater in 1946, which allowed him to live in Cambridge for the rest of his long life.

Although Forster lived to be 91, he published no novels in his lifetime after A Passage to India, although a sixth novel, Maurice, which dealt with homosexuality, was published after his death.

Elspeth Beard was the first English woman to circumnavigate the world by motorcycle

Elspeth Beard, 27, shortly after becoming the first English woman to circumnavigate the world by motorcycle.

The journey took three years in the 1980s and covered 48,000 miles.

After her motorcycling feat, Beard bought the derelict Munstead Tower in Godalming, a 130-foot tower built in 1898. Over the course of five years, she renovated it, converting the former water-tower into a habitable house.

The renovated tower was featured on a 1995 episode of Homefront, and in 1994, the tower won the Royal Institute of British Architects award for South East England.

Today, Beard is a noted architect near London.

After nearly six decades of use, the iconic Route 66 entered the realm of history on this day in 1985 — 36 years ago

After nearly six decades of use, the iconic Route 66 entered the realm of history on this day in 1985 — 36 years ago — when the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials decertified the road and voted to remove all its highway signs.

Some 2,200 miles long in its heyday, Route 66 stretched from Chicago to Santa Monica, California, passing through eight states.

According to a New York Times article about its decertification, most of Route 66 followed a path through the wilderness forged in 1857 by U.S. Navy Lieutenant Edward Beale at the head of a caravan of camels. Over the years, wagon trains and cattlemen eventually made way for trucks and passenger automobiles.

The idea of building a highway along this route surfaced in Oklahoma in the mid-1920s as a way to link the state to cities like Chicago and Los Angeles. Cyrus S. Avery, the highway commissioner, touted it as a way of diverting traffic from Kansas City and Denver.

In 1926, the highway earned its official designation as Route 66. The diagonal course of Route 66 linked hundreds of mostly rural communities to the cities along its route, allowing farmers to more easily transport grain and other types of produce for distribution.

The highway was also a lifeline for the long-distance trucking industry, which by 1930 was competing with the railroad for dominance in the shipping market. Route 66 was also the scene of a mass westward migration during the 1930s, when more than 200,000 people traveled from the poverty-stricken Dust Bowl to California.

John Steinbeck immortalized the highway — which he called the "Mother Road" — in his classic 1939 novel, "The Grapes of Wrath."

Beginning in the 1950s, the building of a massive system of interstate highways made older roads increasingly obsolete. By 1970, modern four-lane highways had bypassed nearly all sections of Route 66.

In October, 1984, Interstate 40 bypassed the last original stretch of Route 66 at Williams, Arizona, and the following year the road was decertified. According to the National Historic Route 66 Federation, drivers can still use 85 percent of the road, and Route 66 has become a destination for tourists from all over the world.

Often called the "Main Street of America," Route 66 became a pop culture mainstay over the years, inspiring its own song written in 1947 by Bobby Troup. The song, “Route 66” was later recorded by artists as varied as Nat "King" Cole, Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones as well as a 1960s television series.

Here, Asleep at the Wheel performs “Route 66”

Thanks History.com

The Gay Parita Sinclair Station, three miles west of Halltown, Missouri, on Route 66

Photo by Peter Armstrong

A bricklayer’s dream, Route 66’s surface varied from pavement to dirt to brick.

Photo by Peter Armstrong

Here, the road is shown near Auburn, Illinois

A Weekend in Woodstock

This weekend I tagged along on a wonderful trip to Woodstock, New York with David Kinney, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who is working on a new book on Bob Dylan for Simon &  Schuster. It was partially wonderful because I had to do zero work whatsoever while David did all the heavy lifting, and because it was jammed packed with events that any Dylan fan would have loved to have experienced.

In two days, we visited Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramble, met Elliot Landy, photographer of Dylan, the Band and rock’s elite during the 60s, and hung out for two and half hours at Big Pink, the house where the infamous Basement Tapes were made. 

David got some great interviews—all of which I’m sworn to secrecy not to reveal. However, I can say that Woodstock is like any small town, except that it experienced a period of extreme fame within the lifetime of many of its current residents. The fallout from that fame is still evident everywhere—with all the stories, jealousies and continuing misunderstandings that one learns to expect from human nature.

I especially enjoyed meeting Don and Sue LaSala, the current owners of Big Pink. Though tourists continue to come on pilgrimages to the historic house constantly, they were charming and friendly and allowed us inside, both in the famous basement and upstairs in the living quarters. 

To sit around a warm, friendly fire in Big Pink with truly nice people was a strangely ghostlike disconnect. To me the house is sacred ground, where amazing art was made by extraordinary people. Yet being there was so “now” and in the moment. The LaSalas are determined not to allow Big Pink to become a museum, but a living real place where art continues to be made. I admired their attitude. 

Of course, Levon Helm connects to those days and his “barn” still continues the tradition, as we found Saturday night at the Midnight Ramble. Carolyn Wonderland, a wonderful blues singer who reminded me of Janis Joplin, was the opening act. Levon’s regular band was there, led by the former Dylan guitarist Larry Campbell. 

Levon’s voice was weak, and Larry did most of the speaking. But it was a very substantial show that lasted more than three hours. At $150 it’s expensive, but worth it.

We met Elliott Landy on Sunday at Bread Alone, a small Woodstock coffee shop. Though Landy took some of the great rock and roll pictures of the 60s, he was definitely a very lucky guy who was at the right place at the right time. What years he had in 1968 and 69! 

Perhaps some of his most famous pictures were of Bob Dylan and Band. He shot Dylan at his first Woodstock home on Byrdcliffe Road, and the Band at various locations in town. Many of his images have become icons. Perhaps best known is the photograph of Dylan tipping his hat used on the cover of Nashville Skyline. All by Elliot Landy.

David’s book will probably be published in 2012. We’ll all have to wait until then to really learn what we accomplished on this trip.