Time Machine week 92

So we have landed on the uneventful day of September 30th, 1969- so uneventful that I Googled for 20 pages and the best I got was the prototype Concorde broke the sound barrier for the first time, and the UK islands of Jersey and Guernsey issued their very first postage stamps.

And that is basically what they looked like.  I was disappointed, expecting something more on the lines of:

...but whadda I know?  Welcome to this week's Time Machine, where we get:  A dirty story in the UK 10;  a new hit by a band that has one #1 to their credit on the M10; and we ask the question: "Who are Chet and Jackie Powers, Dino Valenti (or Valente), and Jesse Orris (or Otis) Farrow, and what do he, she, or they have to do with Barbarella?"  We aren't mailing in this one- strap in and let's go!


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The gang this week includes KIRL St Charles MO, WSNY Schenectady NY, WPOP Hartford, WCOL Columbus OH, WGBA Columbus GA, WTRU Muskegon, WABC New York, WSGN Birmingham, WSRF Ft Lauderdale, KJR Seattle, WIXZ Pittsburgh, and KIMN Denver.  They racked up 29 different songs this week- including the Hot 100 low charter Evie Sands with Any Way That You Want Me (which Birmingham had at #1, despite sitting #77 nationally) and the even lower charter of Isaac Hayes' version of Walk On By (which Birmingham- again- had at #5 despite being #128 on Cashbox's national chart).  Others, like Ms Sands, who got #1 votes but missed the Panel 4 include the Rascals and Carry Me Back (St Charles), the Rugbys and You, I (Ohio), Peggy Lee's Is That All There Is (Georgia), and Nilsson's Everybody's Talking (Florida).


The race itself was tight 2/3s of the way through, with the eventual #2 having a 5-point lead- until the #2 song at the time hit #1 on the last three stations to win by 7!  The Panel picks:

At #4 with no #1s but 14 points, the national #2- the Stones and Honky Tonk Women.

At #3, with the #1 vote from Hartford and 21 points, the national #4... Shady, turn your head here... Bobby Sherman and Little Woman.

At #2, with the #1 from Muskegon and 24 points- but only three on those last three stations, a 15-3 collapse worthy of the '69 Cubs- the national #5, Oliver's Jean.

And playing the part of the New York Mets, with 5 #1s and 31 points, the national top dog as well... stay tuned.


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Oh, and the "how low can you go" crowd this week:

At #101, CSNY with Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.  Oh wait, scratch the Y, Neil was off on his own on that one.

At # 131, a song the Nuns taught us at St Louis Besancon in second or third grade- Original Castle with One Tin Soldier.

At #142, a song that's come up a few times around here, Crow's Evil Woman (Don't You Play Your Games With Me).

At #144- and on it's first, less successful attempt at the American charts- Jethro Tull's Living In The Past.

And the lowest of the low that I know (or at least have heard)- at #147, Rick Nelson and his Stone Canyon Band with She Belongs To Me.

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Okay, show of hands, all of you that knew Duran Duran got their name from the character Dr Durand Durand in the film Barbarella?

Okay, so Jane had ONE thing going for her...

One of the stars in this cult classic was Anita Pallenberg, lover to 40% of the Rolling Stones at one point and one of the "woo, woo" voices on their hit Sympathy For The Devil.  Another of those voices was piano man Nicky Hopkins, who in addition to doing time with both the Stones and the Kinks, was in the equally-cult band Quicksilver Messenger Service.  And here is where the crowd of names I mentioned at the beginning comes in.  Was it four people?  Six?  Actually just one- real name Chet Powers, the driving force of QMS as well as a former lifelong carny, who picked up musical talents from his Dad at a young age.  He even tried the Air Force once, but his psych exam noted while he had a lot of potential, he had little patience with the USAF not doing things his way, and was asked politely to leave.  Chet, who buddy David Crosby once said, "could write a song on the way to the bathroom," was the author of the song that sat at #11 on CB this week but got ignored by the Panel- the Youngbloods' hit Get Together.


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And coming into the M10 at #9 this week- new Lucius!!!!!!!!!!!!






In all honesty, I have my work cut out for me in the next few weeks, as I can see no less than four songs on the M10 with a shot at number one- and (he said with a smirk) oddly enough, they sit at #s 9, 7, 5, and 3 this week!


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Okay, well he may be Scottish, but that's close enough, so let's have Peter Capaldi give us a bit of inspiration this week:

"Shouting at people keeps you alive, healthy, young, fresh. "

I'll have to remember to use that one at work!  In the meantime, let's...

10- Here it was a 4-week number one in August- Zager and Evans and In The Year 2525.

9- Sitting at #23 back home, Bob Dylan and Lay Lady Lay.

8- It peaked in the top 40 just a few weeks back- Mama Cass covering the Beatles on It's Getting Better.

7- Cliff Richard, along with former Shadow guitarist Hank Marvin, and Throw Down A Line, which didn't chart here.

6- Here, Oliver was in the top ten with a different tune- Good Morning Starshine, which had already made the top 3 back in July.

5- Two weeks ago, the Bee Gees peaked at #63 in the states with the unheeded warning Don't Forget To Remember.

4- It was at #13 this week back home- Johnny Cash and A Boy Named Sue.

3- Here comes our dirty story.  This song was sung in French by Jane Birkin (for whom the Birkin Bag was named- no, seriously) and Serge Gainsbourg- a song he wrote for then girlfriend Brigitte Bardot, but then dedicated and sang with Jane when they became an item.  It was called Je T'Aime... Moi Non Plus, which translates to I Love You... Me Neither.  Now the dirty part comes in when people started figuring out the lyrics.  One of the first was the original record company, Fortuna, which yanked the single from further production.  But another label called MajorMinor picked it up- but as a result, it found itself competing with itself, thus peaking here at #3 for MajorMinor while simultaneously charting at #16 for Fortuna- even though the only thing that changed was the label.

So, being me, I had to find out what the offensive lyric was.  Well, the first "translation" I found had a line that went something like "lying between your back".  Curious, I dug deeper to a blog that actually took the time to analyse what Serge was trying to say.  The word the crap translation took as "back" has a plethora of meanings centered around, shall we say, the female genitalia- ovaries, kidneys, and groin were all acceptable translations- and thus, why the record got banned to a certain extent.

2- The funny thing, we have a version of this song by Tom Jones in the US of A at #6 this week, and the definitive version was Dionne Warwick which also hit number 6

******* MISTAKE ALERT***** MISTAKE ALERT*********

(This is an interruption by the Idiocy Prevention Bureau, who notes that Jones' hit was a completely different song.  We now return you to your UK top ten.)


*******MISTAKE ALERT******MISTAKE ALERT*********


(Couldn't just tell me so I could erase it, could you?)  Ah, yes, well the version in question- which is the Bacharach/David comp that Dionne did, I'll Never Fall In Love Again- is at #2 in the UK for Bobbie Gentry.

And Tops of the Pops?

CCR, with a song that peaked here in June, Bad Moon Rising!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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And now, the M10.

Dinosaur Jr hangs on for one more week, slipping to #10 with Tiny.

The Monkees with Davy Jones singing Love To Love rise a pair to #8.

Agnes Obel and Golden Green move 2 to #7.

At #6-

Shakes slips from 1 to 6 with Strange Tides.  Laurie asked if that was the steepest fall from #1 on the M10.  Answer, no- tied for second.

The Explorers Club up 2 (a pattern develops) to #5 with their second hit, Quietly.

Castlecomer holds at #4 with Judy- one point away from being the biggest hit of their 4 M10 songs.

Shakes again, moving up (you guessed it) 2 spots to #3 with Tranquilize.

Keane may end up being the 11th song on the M10 to peak at #2, but they are enjoying it there- moving back up a spot to make it three weeks out of four.

And the #1s?  M10 Says:

...Dent May with Face Down In The Gutter Of Your Love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And, Panel says...

The Archies and Sugar Sugar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Next time, meet me in October 1962- for real this time!

The debate- C'mon look at the bright side!

And that would be... Hmmm...

I watched precious little of the debate, mainly because Hillary has a voice that, were I Bill, I'd have the doctor clip her chords during her next major surgery.  'Nails and chalkboard' is demeaning to chalkboards everywhere, but I digress.  The thing that was/is fascinating to me is that the snippets I watched seem to be the snippets everyone was talking about on social media.  To wit:

-The three minute bloviation about how Trump "had to be hiding something terrible" in his tax returns, followed by Trump's almost casual mention of the list of her SecState staffers taking the fifth on the e-mail scandal.  If he did nothing else right, he certainly nailed her there.

-The deal about the contractors he allegedly didn't pay ("allegedly" meaning "I'm not bothering to dig into this" not "every word out of Hillary's mouth is a lie"), and his answer that they maybe didn't do a good job.  If they don't do a good job, you don't give them a tip (or further business).  You don't pay them period, they'd have better committed something so stupid it sticks in your memory.

-The "birther" thing.  I tried to turn this part off, but Monday Night Football was in a "New Orleans' pathetic defense just gave up another Tevin Coleman TD" break, and had to come back.  His commentary on that one was so non-linear chronologically, it's a good thing Hillary had her face done by Mannequins are Us, or she'd have never been able to say.  “Just listen to what you heard.” with a straight one.


-The racial healing/police thing.  If Hillary had been capable of saying "people need to show respect for the police" BEFORE saying, "Police need to respect the people", I might have given her an edge on this one.  You respect authority.  People aren't authority, police are, so sorry to those of you that feel that this equals "Fascist police state".  But Trump left her off this hook with his racial healing "I have nothing to say" line.  Reminded me of the worst punt I ever saw, by Zenon Andrusyshyn for KC back in '78.  Straight up, straight down, downed 5 yards downfield.

- "I have a plan to fight ISIS on My website" Hillary tells us.  Right where ISIS can read it, says Trump.  "“I don’t think General Douglas MacArthur would like that too much.” He shoots, he scores again.

-NAFTA.  Hillary is still too enmeshed to see that, as Trump so eloquently puts it and I paraphrase in the words I've been using for decades, NAFTA is only good for our decline to third world power status.


But even at that, you have to look at how these two presented themselves.  Trump, as always, comes into the debate looking like he just woke up after a frat party, showing no evidence of substantial preparation.  Hillary, conversely, looked like young Betty Anderson on Father Knows Best winning yet another speech award back at Springfield High.  Just not as pretty.  And YET, he managed to catch her in the more substantial lies (including one that CNN pulled up a clip to show she was lying at the after party, I am told).


Was there a winner?  One tweet during the debate suggested "Today I learned that the real only winner is the voyager probe that's speeding away from earth at 39600miles/hour."  Me, I looked at it just like the GOP debates- if this were a scripted show, some HBO drama, Trump's bumbling, stumbling rhetoric would get him laughed off the stage.  Yet, every debate polls show he won substantially.  I kept saying, He HAS to pay people to take these polls.

Last night, CNBC had him winning 67% to 33.  Time had Trump 55-45.

CNBC and Time.  Wow, that must REALLY cost!

Scrappy's Sunday walk

So here we go on a typical Sunday walk- starting by going through the next addition to the woods.  I am trying to figure our distances on these walks, so that we know we have an excuse when we drop dead.  I didn't think to take a picture of our 1/4 mile post, but thanks to the magic of Google maps, here you go:

Just off the corner of River Run and Inland Trail.  From there we proceed into the north side of the woods...

Where we see some pretty flowers...

And here we are at the half mile mark- just before the first big bend in the Loop.

The 3/4 post was about halfway down the back stretch of the loop...

The south turn back into the woods- one of the prettiest spots in the world...

And here we are at the one mile mark- the intersection of main trail, creek road, and Dead Tree Road...

Easily found by being right at the gateway into the woods.

And here Scrappy sets a personal record- 1.17 miles into a walk before having to stop and... you know...

We hit 1 and a quarter at the very edge of Mushroom Ridge, looking down at the trail that runs south of the Alumni Center.

Scrappy decided it was a good point to take a break.

The mile and a half mark was right at the monument for the IPFW footbridge...

...so we stopped at the river for quick refreshment.

Bird vacation meeting at the swamp...

Mile and 3/4 was just past the wooden bridge on the greenway trail, just before the first high-tension tower.

And mile 2 ended just across from the Plex's dumpster.

A quarter mile later we are  in the complex and almost home.  And Boofus has a bad case of the "where am I going again?"s by this point.

And back home, some 2.4 miles later, some 1.6 pounds lighter, and some 6 points lower on the sugar scale.  Let's have breakfast!

Sunday Message- the ruts

So something I have learned in the weeks since I have done Sunday messages last is the existence of ruts.  No, not in the road, because it doesn't take much to discover them, but in my mind, perhaps in yours.  Ruts are formed when we go down the same pathways over and over again.  These pathways, I have learned, are destructive;  in psychologically addictive things like porn, the pathway wears wide enough that it becomes the easy path in the plinko game your thoughts play when you aren't really paying attention to them.

Imagine all roads leading to zero.

I remember on Star Trek TNG, Data once explaining "missing someone" as "the usual neural pathways not being used."  In the same way, we teach our minds to follow these pathways- some good, some bad.  That is the difference between Proverbs 22:6- "Train up a child in the way he should go,  And when he is old he will not depart from it"- and bad habits that last a lifetime.

But these pathways can be fought off.  Colossians 3 gives first a list of sins that you should have put off on becoming a Christian.  But then, Paul adds a list of actions that are more "sins of attitude" that we need to stop rationalizing away- anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language, and lies.  He goes on to tell us to refill these "pathways" with new things- he says, "Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth. "(v2)

Some of this, as we have talked about before, is perspective- looking at the earth from the Big Picture.  But as I learned from a sermon not long ago, Hallowing His Name as the prayer suggests includes obedience- an obedience born of something that is a level higher than respect.  And to help with the obedience end of things, Paul adds on a list of characteristics that become our second-nature responses in place of anger, wrath, etc.  That list:

Mercy.  I find it interesting that the KJV version on e-sword calls it "bowels of mercies".  Bowels were their concept of where feelings come from, as the heart was considered the source of intellect.  So in essence this means not just a case of, "It's against my better nature to show this mercy", but actually being empathetic, even with those we have little emotion in common with.

Kindness.  Here the first two words in the translation are "Usefulness" and "Moral excellence".  More than just patting the kid on the head, this is putting heartfelt belief into practice.  Get the idea with these?  It isn't just your "church face" that's needed here.  To fill in the ruts, you have to change the paradigm of your life.

Humbleness of mind.  This one is more tricky, formed from a couple of base words that COULD be combined to indicate "suppress yourself".  Take your ego out of the game.  The combined word can be used to come up with "modesty".

Meekness.  If you chase this down through enough of the words that relate you see things like "gentle", "mild".  Where you might say that mercy is the antithesis of anger, kindness of wrath, and humbleness of blasphemy, this would be the opposite of malice.


Longsuffering.  I find the interesting thing here is that this word combines the concepts of "patience" and "fortitude."  Not just waiting it out, but waiting it out in STRENGTH.

Forbearing.  Literally, "to put up with."  Pretty much the same concept with people as longsuffering is with circumstances.  Again, doing it with strength.

And forgiveness.  That the peace that you offer to their face is the peace you show walking away.  A lot tougher, no?

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This is a lot of work, right?  You betcha.And that may be the most important thing I learned these last couple of weeks.  If I want to fill in my ruts, I have to work at it, and quit giving myself the 'excuse mes' that litter my life.  (For a good example, not saying several of the things I just said in trying to convince a rather large spider that just went past to assume room temperature with the help of my shoe.)  One thing is to not give yourself "scriptural outs".  Like say, you have this problem, and you compare it to Paul's thorn in the flesh, and tell yourself it is there to keep you "humble", and then do nothing about it.  The thing is, it's the FIGHT that makes you stronger, not the fall.  If you do like me, and pat myself on the back and say, look how humble it's making me, but don't fight, you are NOT hallowing His Name.

Now, if you will excuse me, I've got some fairly deep ruts to fill.

Time Machine week 91

Today is September 23rd, 1977, and today's big event was the release of Steely Dan's lp Aja.  Aja was a #3 smash, and spawned three singles- Peg (#11), Deacon Blues (#19), and Josie (#26).  I was telling myself that there were more than that, but then I remembered- about the same time Deacon Blues was peaking, they hit with the title track from the movie FM (No Static At All), which made #22.  All of which got a helluva lot more play here than those numbers would indicate.  Not as surprising for FM- our local top 40 station refused to play it, being an AM station, until they switched to FM about halfway through its run.  And thankfully that happened today, because the next biggest news was Cheryl Ladd replacing Farrah Fawcett on Charlie's Angels.

Y'know, I think I gotta side with Lee Majors here...

Anyway, welcome to the 91st edition of the fourth volume of Time Machine!  (Does this mean Chris is planning a surprise for #100?  Maybe....)  This week, we have three new M10 debuts- and for the first time, they are all by acts who have hit the chart before!  Also, another nice tight Panel race, a special on the Bubbling Under guys, and who are the Funky Kings- and how can they be connected to the Andy Griffith Show?  So sit down, pour yourself a Black Cow (virgin, of course), and let's have at it!


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First, as always, the Panel intro- KHJ Los Angeles; WHYI Ft Lauderdale; CKLG Vancouver; WHB Kansas City; KYNO Fresno; WRKO Boston; KTKT Tucson; WCVS Springfield IL; WDRC Hartford; KROY Sacramento; WPGC Washington DC; and WLBZ Bangor.  They combined for 26 different songs, including the low national charter, Heart's Barracuda (Which I never liked because when it came out, so did my appendix), along with one song that hadn't made the US charts yet- Dan Hill's Sometimes When We Touch.  They also included a handful of #1 votes that didn't make the P4:  Leith Garrett's Surfin' USA (and thank you Ft Lauderdale- it was at 42 nationally), Ronnie McDowell's Elvis tribute, The King Is Gone (KC), the Commodores and Brick House (Fresno), and one of the biggest hits that NEVER played in Ft Wayne, the Floaters and Float On (Hartford).

Now this was an era where the popular songs weren't necessarily anywhere close to my radar, and if I was picking MY four favorites, I would have Panel also-rans from ELO (Telephone Line), the Brothers Johnson (Strawberry Letter 23), Heatwave (Boogie Nights), and KC and the Sunshine Band (Keep It Coming Love) which managed a grand total of 15 Panel points- not enough to crack the top four combined!  Sigh.  So who DID they pick?

At #4, without a #1 and 16 points, the national #14, Shawn Cassidy's That's Rock And Roll.

At #3, with 19 points and #1 votes from Boston and Bangor, Carly Simon's Bond theme Nobody Does It Better, the national # 7.

At #2, with 22 points and the #1s from LA, Vancouver, and Tucson, the national #2, Fleetwood Mac's Don't Stop.

And at #1, here and nationally, with three #1s and 27 points- another movie theme, but you'll have to wait to find out which one.  But if you combine "#1 movies" and "1977", I'll wager you can make a good guess...


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Debut #1 is the fourth single from the lp of the Summer, the Monkees and Good Times!  This song was supposed to be Davy Jones' follow up to I Wanna Be Free, but things didn't work out... then.  See what you think now.





Love To Love debuts at #10.


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So, I was looking at the little scrawny 10-song Bubbling Under list this week, and I wondered if our friends at Billboard had a bigger list.  Turns out, Cashbox usually had the bigger list, with no more than 35 songs on BBs (with a two song exception) ever.  And as I researched, I found some very fascinating (to me) facts.  The most weeks at #101 without ever cracking the hot 100?  That would be Prince's protege Vanity and her band Vanity 6, which was stuck at 101 for SEVEN weeks with Nasty Girl.  Also, the record for most weeks in the BU without breaking through- even with this teeny little ten song list they had- was over a year- and the top two were not only by the same band, but from the same lp- a tape I wore out twice!  Pearl Jam Ten had two singles that got stuck in the BU- Alive, which hung up for 61 weeks, and the very next cut, Even Flow, which hung for 55 weeks!  How, I ask, is this possible?  Guarantee you these songs had no such problem in Ft Wayne...

And I have an even more amazing story on the subject, that I'm going to save for a bit.  But next...

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Debut at #9 is Danish songbird Agnes Obel, who returns with a tune that took me a couple plays to really get into- and a video I may NEVER understand.  This is not a clip I will ever want to watch intoxicated- particularly with the character at the 2:53 mark!




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BTW, that BU list this week:

98- Helen Reddy, You're My World
104- LeBlanc and Carr, Falling
106- High Inergy, You Can't Turn Me Off
107- One of my favorites from the "one hit wonders' next hit" feature I did a while back, David Soul's Silver Lady
And the bottom bubbler- 110- Burton Cummings, My Own Way To Rock.

Moving back to that story, it seems back in June of 1979, there was a three week BU called Ready N Steady, credited to "D.A.".  When chart guru Joel Whitburn was researching the BU, though, he could find nothing on this one song- no notes, no song, no records, nothing.  Only a record label, which he found the physical address and it was an abandoned warehouse in Detroit- and a girl group from the area called the DAs who said they never heard of it.  That was in '93, and so up until this very year, Whitburn had given this up as some trick played on BB, a non-existent song that somehow made the charts for 3 weeks.

But was it?  In 1986, two men copyrighted the song.  And one day, a copyrighter with a musical interest found this and tracked back one of the men.  His name was Jim Franks, who wrote the song with Dennis A. (D.A.) Lucchesi, who passed in 2005.  Jim told the copyrighter that Dennis, a mortgage broker, used to play in a local band called DA and the Dukes (I think), and that a record promoter heard them and liked it.  The song was recorded on tape- never pressed to vinyl- and somehow this promoter managed to finagle it a spot on the chart.  Then, this year- an actual tape finally surfaced.



So the amazing journey of the song that didn't exist- but really did- ends after 37 years.

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As I heard today that Ringo Starr has a new song coming out, I thought it might be nice to let him have today's quote.  Take it away, Mr Starkey:

America: It's like Britain, only with buttons. 

All right then!  Shall we...

10- Deniece Williams had a hit in the UK with That's What Friends Are For (no, not that same song), which peaked at a BU 103 here.

9- Eddie and the Hot Rods, going by the slimmed-down name of The Rods, were here with Do Anything You Wanna Do.  Not a US charter.

8- The Emotions were at #21 this week in the States with their former #1 Best Of My Love.

7- Our Panel's #3, Nobody Does It Better.

6- The cringe worthy novelty song by Meri Wilson, Telephone Man.  Another tune you'd never see on MY chart, it was 30 CB/18 BB in late August.  Thankfully my only real exposure to it was the Ronco novelty lp that was advertised incessantly that summer.

5- Donna Summer makes a habit of making our British list with songs she never released here.  This time it is from the movie The Deep, called Down Deep Inside.

4- We had two songs on the UK chart this week that were pioneering electronic instrumentals.  The first is by a dude named Jean-Michel Jarre, and his tune from the lp Oxygene is Oxygene Part IV.

3- My aforementioned fave Silver Lady by David Soul which as I said was 107 this week.

2- The other electro-instrumental, which was listed under the genre of "Space-Disco", belongs to a band called Space, and their record was called Magic Fly.

And tops of the pops- as well as #26 on the US charts?

... the King with Way Down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Got time for one more debut?  The Explorers Club is back...




And they come in at #7....

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If you recall, a time or two before we've mentioned that the Darling Family on the Andy Griffith Show were actually the famous bluegrass act the Dillards.  After his days with the family band, banjoist Doug Dillard joined Byrds' founder Gene Clark on a couple of lps as Dillard and Clark.  Their most popular song was called Train Leaves Here This Morning, which was also recorded on the Eagles' first lp.  It was one of three songs written by non-members on the self-titled lp; and everyone by now knows Jackson Browne's Take It Easy was another.  But the third non-Eagle credit on that lp belonged to one Jack Tempchin, on Peaceful Easy Feeling.  Jack belonged to a band called the Funky Kings, who took a song called Slow Dancing into the top 20 Easy Listening.  But with a slight title change, it became our 6D victim this week at #10 for Johnny Rivers- Swayin' To The Music.

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And the rest of the M10:

The Explorer's Club debuted up at 7 and not at 8 because their previous #1, California's Callin' Ya, moved back up a notch to 8 in week # 9.

Which brings us to #6 which is Dinosaur Jr skating down a pair to # 6 with Tiny.

Shakes cuts the sandwich at least in half (remember last week?), moving from 10 to 5 with Tranquilize.

Judy becomes Castlecomer's biggest hit on the M10, moving into the #4 slot.

Keane slips a spot to #3 with Somewhere Only We Know.

Dent May also improves his best chart position, as he moves into the runner up slot with Face Down In The Gutter Of Your Love.

And the #1s?

 M10 says... as it has for three weeks now...

Shakes with Strange Tides!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the top of the Panel...

....Meco with Star Wars/Cantina Band!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FWIW, John Williams' orchestral version of the theme was #3 in Bangor... That sounds like the beginning of a good running joke, lol!

Next week, 1969!  Be there!

Fun with our friends at the BBC

You know, there are some days that you can look at the news headlines and not get anything but depressed.  No amusement in stupidity that is just purposeful agendaism.  (Squiggly red line tells me I have just coined a new word!)  But here at the Martin World News family of posts, we say, you just haven't looked at the right newspage yet.  So pull up a chair, and...

Yep, news hot from the BBC!

ITEM ONE:  How to handle a mistake at your office

In Egypt, they take their news seriously.  A few nights ago, their news channel was to broadcast a recent interview of President Sisi (I don't believe that's supposed to be pronounced "sissy") by America's news bastion, PBS.  Unfortunately, somebody in editorial forgot to check their time-stamp and ran a year-old interview instead.  Shortly after someone in the newsroom exclaimed what passes in Arabic for "Holy S#!t!", the clip was taken down and they immediately went to a McPharoah's commercial.  Too late for the Chief of news of Egypt State Television;  He had no more finished a spit take on his Earl Gray back at home when he was informed -

"Mostafa Shehata confirmed he was fired.
But he told AFP news agency that it was "illogical" as other people had been involved in the transmission as well, putting it down to "fate". "


And ESTV agrees- and are looking to root out who was responsible.  But, Shehata- whose name is evidently Arabic for "scapegoat", is the captain who precedes the ship in sinking.  Can you imagine that happening in America?  Why that would be like if Brian Williams- er, wait, if Chris Matthews- er, wait- nah.  Just forget it.


ITEM TWO:  And you think we'll have it bad with Trump

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who gained the low income newsers' attention a week or so ago by calling Barack Obama an SOB and hurting his feelings, turned his loveable wrath on the European Union.  The EU is getting a bit nervous about having dealings with a man who is waging a wholesale campaign to eradicate "drug dealers" in his country.  With the death toll rising, they thought they would put a dignified word in his ear about being careful and respectable.  Now, the BBC was a bit too dignified and respectable to print EXACTLY what he said in response; however, one can always count on The Independent:

Speaking at the Sulong Pilipinas-Local Governance Dialogues in the southern city of Davao, the President said: "When I read the EU condemnation I told them f**k you.


"You are doing it in atonement for your sins. They are now strict because they have guilty feelings."


It seems that Duterte, which is apparently Tagalog for "potty-mouth", finds it hypocritical that former colonial powers, who "killed thousands" back in the day (which is true, BTW) should whine about him eliminating a couple thousand "criminals".

He may be right, for that matter.  However, there's a lot in HOW he says it.


ITEM THREE:  1,001 uses for roadkill # 678


Would you believe a purse?

Yes, a woman in New Zealand found a roadkill cat, put the remains in her freezer, then spent 300 hours turning "Tom" into a purse.  Claire Third then put the purse up for auction on TradeMe with an opening bid of NZ$1- and got 500 times that for it.  It fetched the equivalent of just under $400 USD.


Apparently, the social media comments (one requested, "How much to have myself made into a bag?  Probably around 50 years from now by estimate", to which she replied, "Free with proof of natural death") started to get to her, though, and she had a delightful way of expressing that:

She said she'd been "quite upset" by some of the comments, and had had to take the day off work.
"There are some really weird people out there, and I don't know what leather couches they've been sitting on."


So, apparently leather couches are a thing in New Zealand.  Who knew?


ITEM FOUR:  From the people who brought you Rio 2016

The newly minted mayor of Rome, the beautiful Ms. Virginia Raggi of the Five Star Movement, has just announced that Rome will not be pursuing it's bid for the 2024 Olympics.

Ms. Raggi is in an unenviable position.  First, you have her Five Star Movement.  Here's a description of mess #1:

The Five Star Movement does not define itself as left or right wing. Rather, it runs on an anti-establishment platform that has won support from across the political spectrum.

Direct democracy is a founding principle of the movement, with candidates and policies chosen through online voting. It also stands against the perceived corruption of established politicians, and only fields candidates with a clean criminal record. 

The movement is an ardent critic of the Euro and has promised to call a “consultative referendum” on the single currency should they get into power.


So basically we have Libertarians on dope here.  And Ms. Raggi was elected to Rome's highest post, which means she has inherited one of the great steaming piles in the civilized world, incapable of even picking up its trash without help from the Cosa Nostra.  Into a city which struggled to provide basic services the old way, you mix in:

Even prominent members of the movement have criticized Ms. Raggi’s close aides and chosen staff members as unfit to govern. Her lack of experience became more evident through the summer, during which questions were raised about her administrative skills as well as about transparency and honesty, two of the movement’s main selling points.

At the end of August, a snowball effect began after rumors about the large salary of Ms. Raggi’s chief of cabinet led to her resignation.

Soon after, another crucial member of Ms. Raggi’s cabinet, her budget adviser, quit, lamenting a “transparency deficit.” Then, in one day, top managers of Rome’s transportation and garbage agencies resigned, too, reinforcing a sense of administrative paralysis.


And to this, they wanted to add an Olympics.  And some are calling for her head because she nixed it.  And with Boston and Hamburg already having dropped out, that leaves Paris, Los Angeles, and Budapest remaining.  I would give Budapest the opening nod here, since they have the most negatives- a world-class immigration problem and a government ready to go all Donald Trump on them and the EU.  Paris is a walking security issue, and LA- well, they say the Big One can come at any moment.  Maybe someone should just invent an online Olympics, eh?


ITEM FIVE:  What?  You were expecting Hartman and Piscopo?

North Korean state TV usually has two types of programming- that which portrays leader Kim Jong Dung as something interesting, and that which bashes South Korea, the US of A, and whoever pissed them off the most this week.  But now, they have added a comedy show- relatively speaking.  Basically army soldiers doing skits about #s 1 and 2 above, it is called "The stage of optimism that Songun presented"- Songun being their military-first policy.  Hre's a clip of South Korea's President with Barack Obama:

Obama is the one with the bandage.  He has just fallen down in shock over the latest North Korean nuclear test.  Funny stuff.  And so realistic!

Well, that sucked, part two

Well, not sucked, exactly, but the festival didn't have that certain je ne sais quoi I usually get from going.  Part of it, quite frankly folks, is this body is getting old and worn.  The last two times I've tried to use the exercycle, five minutes in, the center of my chest says, "No mas!"  And yesterday's once minor exertions put me down today with "absolutely nothing in the tank".  Both will be spoken to at my next Dr visit coming up in just over two weeks.  But that wasn't the only problem.


In festivals past, there has been, well, more from the festival itself.  For instance, it never was a challenge before to run into the Bagpipe group or the fife and drum group and follow them around a while.  In three hours, I saw the bagpipes once (and heard them one other time), and heard once but never saw the f&d boys.   The trappers encampment, which used to be mainly Native Americans, seemed all but bereft of them, their places taken by Anglos hawking the same stuff they were at the other end of the park.  Now the food was still great, and it is the one time of year that I wish I was Dan Blocker so I could eat something of everything.

"Not sure I appreciate that remark... but let's eat!"

And there were the other problems I took in.  First, I foolishly decided on long pants, a decision I REALLY regretted by the end of the story.  Second, I became obsessed with distance walked.  You see, I have one of those pedometers, but it only works half-assed.  (For example, it gave me "one mile" from front door to start of festival grounds, and a more-accurate mile and a half the same path back.  And by my own estimations, it lost 30%-40% in the thick of the crowds.)  Thus, while it claimed "4.31 miles" for the whole day, I guessed it at more like 5 1/2.  Third, Laurie took Sunday shift off because she felt "like someone beat me up" and was home in bed.


However, I wandered off with joy in my heart and tried to make the best of things.

Wasn't sure it was a frog or a clump, so far into the swamp

Crossing the St Joe bridge

I hadn't seen this firing range chart for the cannons before

That's not the camera's fault.  Their glass was that messed up.

"Close quarters, march!"

This dude was really good.  He built the act as a young man by talking to old boys who had run real medicine shows.

The bluegrass band was good- but about the only ones I found.  And they got about half-pissed when the bagpipes came by.

And not just because I abandoned them to go listen to the pipes.

This stuff always amazes me.  How did man even come up with this?

Be neat if there were more than just the alpacas, but I guess they are really not equipped for gorillas.

Usually I sit and listen to Lincoln, but I was just too pooped.

I did hit my main goal- a couple of Buffalo Burgers and a cup of cold cider- though I nearly had to share both with a pair of intelligence-impaired bees.  And I did score a prize at the antiques row-

-a Champagne Velvet cork cap from the fifties!  CV was a brewery from Terre Haute IN.  The background that you see there is our fantasy football scoreboard, on which Scrappy set a record this week by scoring 70+ for a second straight week...



Anyway, back to the story.  By the time I got done with my feast, the cloggers were clogging disco, the pipes and fifes were in hiding somewhere, and the folk stage was doing a "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" for the history-impaired, so I decided to get one of those big refillable bottles of ice-cold sarsaparilla and call it a day.  And of course, I picked a line that immediately went into slow mode- the line to my left was going half-again as fast, and the one on the right was at least twice as fast.  Additionally, I had a group of teens in front of me teaching me far more than I ever wanted to know (especially while sweating to death) about Pokemon Go.  It quickly became apparent that the right line was moving so fast because it had two people working together, helping two people at a time, while the one I was in had two workers for whom every order seemed to be confusing.  Two people away from the front, a guy came up with, no kidding, two shopping bags worth of bottles to refill.  At this point, the other line had mercy on us and invited us over.  A drink never tasted so good!  However, I was so wiped at this point I abandoned my thoughts of hanging out for another cannon firing and came home.

I straggled in some 4 hours after I left, more dead than alive, shared a maple candy with Scrappy, and hit the showers.  I did learn some valuable lessons:

- I may have to bite the bullet and start parking at the Coliseum lot.  Not that I'm the only cheapskate- the entire south side of the greenway trail (clearly posted "No Motorized Vehicles"), as well as most of California Road past it, were filled in.  But because the 1.5 mile there-and-back MIGHT be getting too much.

-Shorts, not jeans.

-Dark tees that don't show off buffalo sauce so well.

- NO figuring distances.

_ Thank God once again for Stick, without which I would have fell in the plentiful mud more than once.