Ohhhhh, This Is Not Good On So Many Levels -- May 19, 2015

Updates

May 20, 2015: company now estimates 105,000 gallons "leaked." Rounds exactly to 2,500 bbls, but 105,000 gallons sounds a lot bigger.  Plains All American owns the pipeline.

Original Post

The LA Times is reporting that a ruptured pipeline "leaked" 21,000 gallons of oil off Santa Barbara. For newbies, there may be no other single place in California that could be a worse place for an oil spill. It's well known to be one of the most beautiful places in California and only the very, very rich are now able to afford to live there. I was surprised this was not the lead story in The LA Times today.

Oh, that 21,000 gallons? That works out to about 500 bbls. In fact it works out to exactly 500 bbls so I assume the oil companies provided the estimate in "barrels" but as is usual with smaller spills, the mainstream press reports the spill in gallons, 42 times larger-sounding.

I'm not downplaying the "awfulness" of this spill but I was surprised it was not the lead story -- until I saw the spill was reported in gallons.

The amount of the spill is still an estimate.

I love this line in the story: "It's unclear what type of oil had been flowing through the pipeline." Probably not whale oil; probably not Bakken -- there were no explosions or fires reported.

And regular readers know what video comes next:

Barbara Ann, The Who

 

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Etta James Janis Joplin

When I first heard Etta James on the Muscle Shoals album, I was shocked! That was Janis Joplin.

It turns out there is a connection:

The first time Janis Joplin ran away from home, the Texas teenager landed at Bob Will's old stomping grounds in Tulsa, OK.

Janis discovered Etta James singing rhythm and blues at the historic Caina's Ballroom on old Route 66 on the outskirts of [that] dusty oil town.

"I remember seeing a little white girl," James said. "At the time, this place didn't have any white people around."

"Well, when you had a black band, you had a black dance, when you had a white band, you had a white dance. This white teenage girl would come through the back door and sit in the corner while we were setting up. I thought she was the owner's daughter. That's why we never said anything about her being in the corner watching us rehearse."

"And when the show started, she would still be in the back. She would sit there and just look at me. I knew she was a fan."

James' stomp-down vocal style had profound effect on Joplin.

She was cognizant of the transition Joplin was making from blues singer to soul singer at the time of her death. James was a huge fan of Otis Redding. Her 1994 album, Live From San Francisco featured a growling Redding medley, and Redding had planned to produce James in early 1968.

Redding died in a December 1967 plane crash.

"I can relate because I always had a contralto (lowest female) voice," James said. "In school they said I was a girl that had a man's voice. The more I heard people like Johnny "guitar" Watson, Ray Charles and Otis Redding, the more I felt I could push and phrase it like a man. Hey, I love men's songs. I don't like wimpy girl songs. I like songs that have meat in them, that carry a lot of strength."

More at the link. 

The Greatest Hits Album, Etta James
Etta James: 1938 - 2012
Janis Joplin: 1943 - 1970, five years younger than Etta James