Newspage go!

So as I tried to inject something fun into everyone's lives, I began to see it was going to be a test to find the first OTHER article after I skimmed all the Trump articles off the news.  Here's what I came up with.

FoxNews- a Bishop performing a memorial service for Baseball HOFer Roberto Clemente was punched during the service by a man in a white robe, who then ran away.  Nobody seems to know a motive, but it WAS in New Jersey, so...

CNN: A government adviser in Myanmar who supported religious liberty was shot dead at an airport in Burma (yes, I said Burma, not the M word) just after cradling a child in his arms.  Believed to be from the Muslim group currently being persecuted by the army of that darling of citizen's rights, Aung San Suu Kyi.

MSNBC:  The entire front page was Trump articles.  Talk about perspective.

BBC, Agency France Presse, and Deutsche Welle all had as their first non-Trump story the results of the socialist primary in France, with Benoit Hamon the unlucky sap expected to get pummelled by far right Marine Le Pen in the general.  An appendage to this story in the BBC article...


However, there have been reports of mismanagement, with one reporter from news site Buzzfeed saying she had been allowed to vote four times in the second round. She said she voided her ballot so as not to affect the outcome.
Journalists from Le Monde newspaper also claimed they were permitted to vote more than once in the first round.

Wow, who'd a thunk it?  Leftists voting multiple times...


Denmark's Copenhagen Post led with a wonderful story about how everyone loves soccer.  After that was a story about the ever-tightening immigration rules in the world's happiest nation.  Hmmm...


The Moscow Times led with a story about how avant-garde artists and writers did some amazing children's books back in the early days of the Soviet Union, teaching children about the wonderful new world of Communism.  Until Stalin started the purges and sent them all to the Gulags.

In the Philippines, the lead was on how President Duarte was going to carry on his drug war, despite the fact that all his cops are corrupt.

The Times Of India- and yes, starting here with a Trump story- led with a story that claimed that everybody in the USA "from the courts to the cabbies", were forming a wall of dissent against the immigrant ban.  Obviously, their reporter never went farther than the airport or the NY Times.  Shortly thereafter, they had an article about some Bollywood starlet's favorite sex position.  Seems they are following the BBC's lead in descending from professionalism.

In Australia, the first Non-T story involved Roger Federer hinting about retirement after beating Rafael Nadal in the Aussie Open tennis final.  And the tennis world shuddered.


Xinhua led with smiling people enjoying the Chinese New Year this weekend.  I'm guessing that since none of them were wearing respirators, this was not a Beijing story.

Obviously not a very funny lot, but I had my patience rewarded when I got to the Japan Times and found this:

SAGA – Two men with the same name who had run as candidates in Sunday’s municipal assembly election in Karatsu, Saga Prefecture, have been elected.

But for about 800 votes, the local election board could not differentiate which candidates they were cast for, causing such votes to be apportioned according to the proportion of votes each received from other voters.

Both men were named Shigeru Aoki, which is written using the same three kanji (青木茂). One was a 56-year-old incumbent assembly member and the other a 43-year-old challenger.

The election board had asked voters to write either their age, or “incumbent” or “challenger,” beside their name if voting for one among the 32 candidates running for 30 seats in the assembly.

The message did not get across to everyone. Some votes were judged to be invalid for failing to differentiate between the two, including ones that said, alongside their name, “the better-looking one.” The board decided the phrase defied objective judgment.

Campaign officials for both candidates reported receiving phone calls from voters that they had cast their votes to the wrong candidate, getting the “incumbent” and “challenger” mixed up.

Not trying to be the ugly American, but which one is "the better looking one"?

In an effort to gussy-up the post a bit, I saved a recent e-mail for entertainment value.  First off, I tried to google the sender's e-mail address and found a plethora of gobbledygoop, heavily on the porn-site side.  Moving on to the letter itself...

Hello,

Your email was found by our HR manager through recruiting agency for Procurement Coordinator.

We received many applications for this position and the screening process is still runing. The search committee is looking through your profile and we are glad to say that you have been chosen for an interview.

Payment rate you will get starts from $88,900.00 up to $135,100.00 per year. Also you get adaptable schedule, and benefits: health, life and dental insurance coverage.


Wow, sounds like a great deal, and I'm SURE I'm qualified for a job with those kinda numbers!  Please, tell me more...


The duties of the position:

- Negotiate with suppliers (If you ever heard me talk about suppliers at my current job, you'd be a bit skeptical of me being a good fit here...)

- Supervise a team of managers and control them  (Like with mind control?  GREAT!  Let me start right away...BWA-HA-HA-HA...)

- Monitor contract compliance and optimizes contractual obligations

- Develop long-term strategic sourcing plans

- Manage inventory and provide administrative help as required


So at this point, I'm thinking I'd be earning that money...  Next:

Please see conditions below:


- Be a citizen or a resident of the United States or have work permit (Got that covered)

- Aged 30 years +  (REALLY got that covered)

- Negotiation skills  (Ask any FB troll I've battled)

- Be punctual time manager (Truth be told, I used to be much better at this one... but lately my "efficiency" has mirrored the down-curve that my company has set as an example...)\

So altogether I have about 5% of what they're looking for under duties, and maybe 75% of the conditions.   That makes me eligible for for about $35,500 worth of that big salary, which still is about 20 months of what I'm making now.  So whadda I gotta do?

To verify your agreement for the position, please write the following and answer us back:

- Name and Surname

- Phone number

Thank you for time and interest in this position listing.


So, all I gotta do is just type out the words "Name and surname" and "phone number" and I'm in?  Great!  Just one question- does capitalisation count?

Sunday message- the Doppler effect

What is on my heart today comes from two very different angles.  The first of those angles you know some about if you read last week's rant about getting unfriended.  You can go back and look at that whole mess if you like; this story goes from there.

I don't take losses of people I thought were my friends lightly, so I debated the whole thing in my mind at work this week, trying to remind myself to be forgiving.  Which really wasn't a huge problem; it's not like her mindset was a surprise to me, although her inability to see past it to me was hurtful.  But at a certain moment, I entertained a thought about how hard headed about their beliefs these people are, and I connected the fact that she was Jewish with the Prophets being told that they were sent to a people who would neither see nor hear, lest they turn and repent.

And no, this isn't about Jews being hardened by the Lord, because this is a condition common to all mankind, as Paul tells us.  At a certain point, our souls make a choice in the way they are going to walk, a choice made in a way I believe is not wholly understood by mortal man.  And if these souls choose the false path, they fall from the grace of being able to connect God to themselves.  Thus you see comments like I saw on a FB post later in the week where someone lambasted new VP Mike Pence for "using his position to promote his religious beliefs".

Because these people are shaded from realizing that, for a believer, that faith is a RELATIONSHIP with God.  They look at "religion" as if it's just another political club, one they think should be proscribed- partly because of their own misreading of the US Constitution, and part because when you close God off from the God-shaped hole in every soul, a darker master fills it in.  And that darker master cons them into the "un-necessity" of God, and from there it's an easy step to convince them that "God" is just a limiting, harmful concept that needs to be eradicated.

So stepping back, when I connected my musings to my former friend, I said to myself, "When God darkens one's understanding, He doesn't mess around!"  And that, unfortunately, is true.  But we get darkened too, when we try to extend the blindness that God brings in matters of faith to those who just disagree politically.  GOD IS NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR POLITICS.  He is interested in being your God.  And that brings me to this post's other dynamic.

I have just started reading in I Chronicles when I noticed another of the million things in the Living Word of God that I hadn't noticed before.  Let me preface this by mentioning that, in my Bible, the forward to the Chronicles says that the difference between the two books of Samuel, the two books of Kings, and the Chronicles, is that Samuel/Kings is written as a political history, whereas Chronicles is a religious and moral history.

How then is it that, in 2 Samuel, we see the story of David and Bathsheba, starting with the phrase, "In the spring of the year, when kings go out to war, David sent out Joab with his army, but David stayed in Jerusalem..."; and then in I Chronicles, we see the same starting point- but NO mention of David's adultery, just a mention that Joab won the battle, and David put the crown of his enemy on his own head.  How is THAT a political, and not a moral, story?

Because of God's perspective.  Look at all the political repercussions from the sin:   The eventual discovery, the death of a son and heir, the revolt of another son as God's punishment of David- and, oh yeah, the birth of the next king, the son of the woman David committed the adultery with.

The moral repercussions?  David repented, sought forgiveness and received it, and continued on the track that God set him on.  Because he repented, his "moral trajectory" remained the same.  The story of his relationship with God was not centered on the sin, but on the faith.

And that brings us back to the beginning- that choice of faith that our souls make somewhere down our individual timelines.  God doesn't see the confessed sins anymore that we have fallen prey to along the way; when we make that choice, He sees that choice, that trajectory.  The rest doesn't become part of the story anymore.  That's why some of us see the Bible as the Living Word, and others see it as a collection of stories that man manipulated to take control of simple minds for some nefarious purpose.  That's why some see Mike Pence as a man who lives his faith, and others see a bully forcing a political agenda.  And that's why those who don't believe can't tell the difference between being "judgmental" and being discerning.

Do you know the Doppler effect?  It's an astronomical concept that you can test out along any highway.  If you face the direction a speeding vehicle is coming, the sound you hear is high pitched because the sound waves are being pushed together by the approach.  Similarly, both light and time are being pushed, though not to an extent that you notice it.  And when it goes past, the sound is deeper, more vibrating.  Now, sound, time, and light are being drawn out longer.  In space, it means an approaching star has a red shift, or tinge, to it, but a receding star will be blue shifted.

And this is as good an analogy for the difference in people as any- you see God differently depending on whether your soul chose to move towards Him or away from Him.  A long time ago, I, another friend who chose to remain anonymous, and an atheist named Joshua (ironic, no?) had a long comment battle on a post of mine.  One of Joshua's comments went thusly...

 I was a Christian for a long time. I abandoned religion because it's illogical. No one turned me away from religion nor did I have a bad experience. My only problem with religion is that it flies in the face of reason and all that horrible thing that have been done in the name of religion.


And here is the fallacy of the soul that chooses wrongly.  Equating Christianity- which by its truest definition is faith in God- with religion, which is basically man's conception of God.  He could never have abandoned Christianity HAD he been a Christian; he abandoned man's conception, because it did not fit his own.  His blue shift never let him hear the Word Of God as a believer.

Time Machine: Coordinates VV41312769

Well, if you pay attention to my closings and have learned to translate the co-ordinates, you realize yet again we have not gone where I promised.  What my wonderful scheduling didn't take into account was that, while we hadn't been to January 1967 recently, we HAD been to December 1966 just a few weeks back... GRRR!  So I have done the only sane thing possible:  We are going back to January of 1969- which I promised you LAST time- and I am going to excuse it by giving you a highly technical timey-whimey explanation- later.  Today, we are one day after Elvis went into the recording studio to start work on his huge comeback- and 3 days before the Beatles give their last public performance.  Nothing says ending of an era quite like those two items...

Hey, wait!  We had a comeback in 1976...

And I didn't... uh, "retire".. till '77!

That's true, fellas, but still an end of an era was coming.  But here at Time Machine, it keeps rolling on!  In addition to our usual hijinx, we have Paul McCartney's brother, Reg Dwight, Roger Miller's wife, Karen Carpenter, and 4 new M10 debuts!  So how about we kick things off with debut #1.  Gospel and CC fans know well the name Steven Curtis Chapman; they might not know the names Caleb and Will Chapman.  They are SCC's sons, and the leaders of a band called Colony House.  The third single from their lp Only The Lonely finally hits the charm and makes the list at #10... NOTE:  If you don't want to hear an interview with Caleb stuck to the beginning, scroll up to the 2:00 mark...






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We have a 51-station panel this week, giving us 13 candidates for next week's President.  They are:

The national #16 by Cashbox this week, the Foundations and Build Me Up, Buttercup;
Tyrone Davis and Can I Change My Mind, #20;
Tommy James and the Shondells with Crimson And Clover, the national runner-up;
Sly Stone's Everyday People, the CB #8;
Canned Heat's Going Up The Country, #15;
Booker T and the MGs with Hang 'Em High, #36;
Marvin Gaye and Heard It Through The Grapevine, #4;
Former M10 song If I Can Dream by Elvis, #9;
The Supremes and the Temptations tag-teaming on I'm Gonna Make You Love Me, the CB top dog;
Neil Sedaka's Star Crossed Lovers, which only charted in Australia (hint hint...);
The Doors and Touch Me, #3;
Brooklyn Bridge with Worst That Could Happen, #7;
Annnnnnd The Turtles with You Showed Me, #14.

Make yer picks, and we'll move right along with- another debut!  My boys from Australia, Castlecomer, have their fourth M10 hit with their new single, coming in at #8...





_____________________________________

All right, Paul, how about you explain about your brother being on our show today?

Righto.  Well, me brother Peter, who was not out trying to live off my fame, performed under the name Mike McGear.  He was more commedian than singer, but fate chanced him into a deal with a poet by the name of Roger McGough.  They and another lad took their act on the road as the Scaffolds, I guess because they were always expecting to be hung after a bad set.  But they ended up on the top ten (over here, anyway), with a song that was a do-up of an old folk song.  Not much into the musicianship end of things, they had some help in the form of Graham Nash, and a lad named Dwight something, I don't know, he was a bit more John's buddy than mine.  Oh, yeah, Reg.  I think he changed his name and has gotten along quite well.  Anyway, they also got Cream's Jack Bruce on the bass, and had quite the hit of it, in fact they were in the top ten this week.  Chris is going to play their tune, but he asked me to close with, um, ahem:  The number one song in the UK this week was Marmalade's cover of one of my silly tunes, Obla Dee, Obla Da.  The highest UK charter on the US charts was Stevie Wonder, a good friend of mine, with For Once In My Life, which was #3 here and #30 with you lot in the Colonies.  And the highest song in the US that was on our charts was Build Me Up Buttercup, which you had at #16 and we had at #6.  And now, the Scaffolds...






Thanks, Sir Paul, and thank the guys for me...

Going to be a bit of a poser with John and George, you know...

Yeah, yeah, just do what you can.  Anyhow, it's time to move onto the 6D, where I ask the question:  What about the other two verses to Whiter Shade Of Pale?

Do you mind?  It's a secret...

Not anymore it ain't!  There always existed four verses to Procul Harem's great classic, but unless you went to a concert and they were obliging, you never heard 'em because they never recorded 'em!  But here they are...

She said, 'I'm home on shore leave,'

though in truth we were at sea

so I took her by the looking glass

and forced her to agree

saying, 'You must be the mermaid

who took Neptune for a ride.'

But she smiled at me so sadly

that my anger straightway died

If music be the food of love 

then laughter is its queen

and likewise if behind is in front

then dirt in truth is clean

My mouth by then like cardboard

seemed to slip straight through my head

So we crash-dived straightway quickly

and attacked the ocean bed  

In addition to being a great song at any length (a YT video has the whole song coming in at 9 minutes and change), it was also covered by Willie Nelson, along with another great classic Bridge Over Troubled Water on his lp (named after his own great classic) Always On My Mind.  That title tune was also part of the big Elvis comeback mentioned earlier, a #20 b-side.  It was written, along with other comeback hits like Suspicious Minds, by one Mark James.  And Mark James wrote the song that made #5 on CB this week but got no Panel love- Hooked On A Feeling, sung by BJ Thomas.

___________________________________

Debut the third:  Black Francis is the non de guerre of Frank Black, who was leader of the influential alt rock pioneers the Pixies.  The Orwells, a newer band, paid tribute to him in song, as their leader explained in an interview with Consequence Of Sound:

“Felt long overdue that we paid him some direct respect,” guitarist Matt O’Keefe explained in a press release. “We’ve been ripping him off for years, hopefully this chips away at the massive debt we’ve got to him.”

And their tribute comes in at my #7...

_________________________________


Ready for your helping hand?  Only three candidates managed more than 2 votes- so if you voted for Sly Stone, Tommy James, or the Doors, exhale, you're still in it.

____________________________________________________

This week we have a 69 in '69 from Kenny Rogers and the First Edition.  They had stalled after the psychedelic Just Dropped In a while back, and were looking to change things up with a country-plus-brass tune called But You Know I Love You.  It was 69 this week on its way to #19, and springboarded them back into the arena.  But that made them a bit too big for member Thelma Comacho, who left to pursue other interests.  After an audition process that just bounced a young Karen Carpenter, they selected Mary Arnold, who became famous as the third and till death wife of the great Roger Miller a couple years before.  Mary would make her FE debut on the single Reuben James.

Wow... that close to it being "Karen and Kenny"...

_________________________________________________

And now, what's left of the M10...


The Knocks and friends move up one notch to #9 with Trouble.

Black Joe Lewis slides 3 spots to #6 in week six with PTP.


And at #5, the high debut- a combo of Jagger like vocals with Philly Soul soundtrack- here is Foxygen:





POWERS powers their way up to #4- a four notch climb- with Dance.

Sweet twists up 2 places to #3 with the Peppermint Twist.

Hidden Cameras stay at #2 with Day I Left Home.

And the number ones?  M10 says...

Yep, Puddle of Mudd stays at the top with Gimme Shelter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That puts us at 14 weeks without a single-week #1.  (Strange Boy's single combines with the three previous.)  But this is not a record yet...at the very start of the M10, Island In The Sun, Space Song, Lisztomania, Traveller, Nightlight, Archie Marry Me, and The Wrong Year spent 17 weeks from September 11, 2015, to December 30th.

And the President for next week?  Why, that would be...

Tommy James and the Shondells!  Crimson And Clover had 47% of the vote, against the Doors with 19.6 and the Family Stone with 5.9!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next week?  Well, the schedule SAYS 1970... but I'm making no promises!

So the battle continues.

So I got unfriended on FB.  Why? Because, one night after reading an excellent article about Melania Trump, how hard she had to work to get where she is, the fact that she made Donald give her HIS number and made him wait a week before ever calling- the next day a friend commented on an idiotic meme (just love that about FB) that painted her as a golddigger.  I merely commented "A tasteless meme to start the morning".  Of course this led to a typical FB battle between me and this guy who posted it ( and others who agreed with me later on), who seemed to think his meme was "hilarious-and accurate."  To which, with the caption, "Well here's a laugh riot", I replied:

My friend- at least someone that I considered a friend- stepped in to defend her friend.  I responded, but put most of the effort into the battle with Mr. Judge-first. I first found it amusing that, jousting with me, he excused himself by being upset at her "misogynist, narcissistic" husband, which of course makes it acceptable to lie about the rest of his family. Later, as others pointed out the meme's sheer meanness, he excused himself by saying he didn't have an intrinsic problem with golddiggers, and was just "pointing out the facts."  After I introduced Buzz and Woody to the conversation, I turned off notifications and bailed.

However, I PMed my friend, who'd been at her local version of the women's march, and asked how it was that she could go along with attacking another woman on such a shallow basis, and if the solidarity of women only applied to those she agreed with.  Among the responses:

"...your judgmental, higher than thou attitude doesn't work for me..."

Closely followed, ironically, by this...

"...I judge the First Lady. She's pathetic and a sorry excuse of a role model...."

Oh, but that wasn't quite good enough.  Witness...

"...Your racist views against Muslims really bother me too..."

Oh, would be the racist view that I don't particularly want to be KILLED by one?

So, now, let's count up.  In explaining that I thought her and her buddy were judging someone without any facts, and wondering just why it is she would stand up for women- but only certain ones- I was labelled high and mighty, judgmental, racist, and was told I had no respect FOR HER.   And yet...

 "...But when others' perspectives differ from yours, and you resort to patronizing name-calling and labeling, I have to draw a clear line..." 

Yep, and apparently she gets to be on one side of the line, and I get to be on the other.



I am sorry.  Many of you know this person, and I don't ask for anyone to take sides here.  But the thing I am sorry about is that someone who should have known me better than that, had to do what I expect from the typical FB troll- " patronizing, name-calling and labeling"- and then accused me of doing the same.

You see, this is why the majority of conservatives and the majority of liberals are never going to get along anymore.  She gets to judge.  She gets to label. And she gets to have her opinion heard, with no chance that the other person might just be right.  THIS is not conversation- and THEY are not willing to have one.

I still hold out hope that this is not the way all liberals are.  Because I know a select few of you that read this are liberals, and though we disagree, we have never quite come to this.  And I appreciate you more than you know, because you show me we don't have to act like fricking idiots to each other.

But she is right about one thing- there is a line.  Like I told her buddy (or it might have been her on the post), I will be polite to those who are polite to me.  And I never insulted her friend (until I closed with the meme), despite her accusations.  But I do have my moments and I'll admit to them.

One of them came right afterwards, when I liked another meme:

Which I could prolly justify a million different ways, but then I would be just like her buddy.  I apologize to you all in FB land for hitting the laugh button on this.  And I apologize right now to all of you out there like my friend whose politics makes up so much of their self-esteem that they can't see past it to look at how other people feel- because I'm coming for you...

Because we need good things in life...

...this is going to be mainly a picture post.  So to the idiots on both sides spewing "alternative facts", the blogger who announced this AM their return after dealing with, among other things, the "election of the Orange Hitler", the woman who made a stupid scene on a plane and got thrown off, and the "commented on by a friend" meme that was as tasteless as anything put out so far that didn't come from the mouth of Madonna or Rosie O'Donnell, please refer back to this.  The rest of you that can think past divisions and sound bytes and actually LIVE a life, this is for you.

I think the "new pole crew" are having some difficulties with the wet weather.  Maybe if the Plex/IPFW hadn't decided that growth along the canal was a bad thing, it might be more stable... but that's just me.

Friday we went to the soggy duck pond.  We... may have damaged that fencing on the way in...

River side- definitely eating into the trail.  South side was way worse.

Couldn't have set there for five more seconds...

Saturday, the Peanut came for a visit...

Well, maybe THIS time...

Darn it, dad!  I'm watching the game...

Grandma, you so funny...

Chillin'...

And Sunday, before the rains, we got to see the Three Amigos..

Definitely Blacktails, just doing the water cooler thing at the pond...

Time Machine co-ordinates VIV41212066

Boy, the problem with co-ordinates is that you have to be coordinated.  And I flipped one little number- the last one- and instead of the 1969 I promised, I landed us in 1966- and on Australia Day!  And, not just any Australia Day- but the one on which Robert Menzies, the longest serving Prime Minister in history, resigned to end his 16-and-change year second term as PM.  Great men have long bios, and I'm doing a music post, so I'll just share what I liked most in reading about him- an exchange between himself and a heckler:

While he was speaking in Williamstown, Victoria, in 1954, a heckler shouted, "I wouldn't vote for you if you were the Archangel Gabriel" – to which Menzies coolly replied "If I were the Archangel Gabriel, I'm afraid you wouldn't be in my constituency."


I'm guessing that retort left Menzies with more support in the crowd than that heckler!  But anyway, it's time for Time Machine, and we have a BUNCH of candidates in this week's election;  a visit to a WWI battlefield in the 6D; another first on the M10- though maybe not the one you were expecting ; and the return of the  two acts that brought you a #7 M10 last spring- both of them!

"One thing about bureaucrats is that they never swallow their young. Leave them alone and you'll find them increasing every year."  Robert Menzies

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Let's kick things off with the higher of our 2 debuts- and the story to the comment in the teaser.  Back in March/April, the Knocks peaked at #7 with a tune called Classic, featuring both rapper Fetty Wap and electronica duo POWERS (their caps), of whose Christina Ru was a Beauty Contest semi-finalist a few weeks back.  This week, POWERS' new single comes in at #8- the first new 2017 tune:






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Okay, so somehow my brain flipped a 6 when I went after the 1969 charts this past weekend, and I ended up with a week in the life of 1966.  And a BIG week- 68 stations gave me a whopping 24 candidates for next week's President! And I have to give a special shout out to one of those candidates right front- a cut from the Beatles' Rubber Soul lp that was NOT a single by the Fab Four.  That song is Michelle, and boy is it on the charts this week!  David and Jonathan have a version at #55 on Cashbox this week, as well as on the candidate list (and at #24 in the UK); the Spokesmen also have a candidate with their version, at #126 on CB; and KJR Seattle had their vote for "The Beatles and others", which gets a Beatles vote on the Presidential race.  In addition to the ones that made the ballot, Billy Vaughan and his Orchestra are at #78, Bud Shank at #99, and the Overlanders- a Brit folk trio- were at #11 in the UK and would hit the top there later on.


In the meantime, let's see who else got votes in this shindig:

The Rolling Stones are on twice- with As Tears Go By, our current #3 on CB, and Get Off My Cloud, which peaked last year.

The Toys, famous for A Lovers' Concerto, were at #25 with Attack.
The Beach Boys were at #8 with Barbara Ann.
The Seekers didn't chart here but made #27 AC with The Carnival Is Over.
Bob Kuban and the In-Men were just starting out at #111 with The Cheater.
Ray Charles was at #32 with Crying Time.
Bob Linde had just hit the hot 100 this week with Elusive Butterfly, an all-timer of mine.
The Vogues were at #4 with Five O'Clock World.
The Bobby Fuller Four with I Fought The Law was at 112 and just starting out.


Are you noting the number of "bubbling unders" we have as candidates this week?  Three of 'em!

Jenny Take A Ride by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels sits at CB #18.
Paul Revere and the Raiders were at #23 with Just Like Me.
The Knickerbockers were at #24 with Lies.
Lou Christie was at #33 with Lightning Strikes.
Herman's Hermits and Listen People got a vote despite not having even snuck into the BUs yet- it would peak in March.

(Just a reminder or a note to newbies- the candidate list is all songs that made #1 on any of the charts I found this week.)

Of course, the 3 versions of Michelle, in their various spots.
A band called Pinkerton's Assorted Colors- which would eventually morph into the Flying Machine and hit big with Smile A Little Smile- with Mirror Mirror, which didn't chart here but was #9 UK this week.
Petula Clark's My Love, which perched at #14.
The T-Bones with No Matter What Shape Your Stomach's In, the CB #9.
Gary Lewis and the Playboys were at #5 with She's Just My Style.
The runner up on CB this week, Simon and Garfunkel and The Sounds Of Silence.
ANNNNND finally, the Beatles (them again?) with the two sided We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper, which was at #1- and #12, as CB split the pair.

And in the interests of giving you a fighting chance, let's lob out the 1-vote wonders- so don't for the Seekers, Pinkerton's Assorted Colors, David and Jonathan, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Herman's Hermits, either of the Stones, ONE of the Beatles, the Spokesmen, the Bobby Fuller Four, the Toys, the Raiders, Bob Linde OR Kuban, or the Knickerbockers.  DO choose from ONE of the Beatles, Mitch and the Wheels, Lou Christie, the Beach Boys, S&G, the Vogues, or Petula Clark.  Got it?  Good.

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Our 66 in '66 belongs to Chris Montez, who was trying to make a comeback.  Since his rowdy top ten Let's Dance in '62, he had not returned to the top 40.  Herb Alpert suggested he turn to softer ballads, as he had such a smooth voice.  The result was the song in question, Call Me, which would eventually hit #22 and had an impact beyond its peak.  It also gave him the leg up he needed to log 4 more top 40s as well as hits in the UK, the Netherlands, and our own AC charts.

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So, why don't we get a few words from this week's President, Sir Elton John...

I've always wanted to smash a guitar over someone's head. You just can't do that with a piano. 

Well, that is true... do you have something a little more relevant to our readers, dude?

 I think people should be free to engage in any sexual practices they choose; they should draw the line at goats though. 


You know, I'm becoming a little concerned about you.  Maybe you could just tell us about this week's UK charts.

Certainly.  Spencer Davis was at the top with Keep On Running, which just ended We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper's 5 week run at number one here.  You blokes didn't like it much, apparently; you only took it to #76.  Considering you took my Bennie and the Jets to #1, I am a bit concerned for you as well...

Potato, potahto.  Thanks, EJ, you've been a pip!


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Our first debut, at #10, belongs to the Knocks themselves.  This time they pair with Jonathan Visger and his band Absofacto, from their new EP Testify:





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Credit Frank Hurley

This is the battlefield of Passchendaele, a town in Belgium that in July 1917 saw a cataclysm that led to 162 times the casualties on both sides as the town's current population.  This battle was memorialized by metal band Iron Maiden in the song Paschendale- one of the few IM songs I will admit to listening to.  Iron Maiden, like me, grew up watching Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner, an iconic late sixties spy drama that left me quaking under my cover at the thought of being chased by the Rovers.

Those things were messed-up scary to me!  Anyway, the IM connection is that, with permission, they have done not one, but two songs about the show- Prisoner, and Back In The Village.  What it connects them to is McGoohan, who also starred in Secret Agent ( or Danger Man in the UK).  You all should know (that is, you old farts like me) that Johnny Rivers had the hit single theme of the show- Secret Agent Man.  This tune was written at first as a submission for theme requests, which the writers amazed themselves by winning.  Those writers were PF Sloan and Steve Barri, who also wrote our 6D victim- Herman's Hermits with A Must To Avoid, which was at #6 on CB but got no Panel love.  Which, given 68 stations and 24 different #1 votes, is also a bit messed-up.


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Do you need another clue before we roll on to the end?  Well, how about this: only four songs- We Can Work It Out, Lightning Strikes, Sounds Of Silence, and Jenny Take A Ride, got more than 6.3% of the ballot. And, our winner clobbered the rest combined by 14.4%!  Turn in yer final ballot and hang on...


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And now, the rest of the M10.

El Michels Affair spends a week at #9 twice with Detroit Twice.

Radiation City might have thought they were going to get a second #1... but time ran out, and Zombies falls to #7.

Charly Bliss climbs one spot to #6 with Ruby.

Sweet twists its way up 3 spots to #5 with Peppermint Twist.

Grab on to something- for the first time since Thanksgiving, Strange Boy is NOT in the top 2!  Last week's #1 collaboration between the Shacks and El Michels Affair slips to #4- but not before tying Quiet Corners for most points in M10 history!

Black Joe Lewis moves a notch to #3 with PTP.

The Hidden Cameras slide into the runner-up spot with Day I Left Home climbing one spot.

And the #1s?  M10 says...

...Puddle Of Mudd, leaping from #5 with Gimme Shelter- making it the first M10 #1 cover!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the next President here on TM, with 39.7 percent of the vote...

... of course the Beatles with We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now next week is SUPPOSED to be 1967... but who knows?  Tune in to find out!

And this is why the next election will be a landslide- and why I'm ignoring you

So the other day I was reading a friend's FB post about Ben Carson when a woman claimed Carson was in over his head.  My friend pointed out that having no experience in an area is not the same as being incompetent, especially when you want to change the paradigm, the dynamics of what's always been done.  The woman replied that her opinion wasn't just based on that, but in listening to Carson's public appearances since running for President.  Her opinion based on what she saw was that he seemed "incoherent" and wondered how he could have possibly been a brain surgeon.

Should my friend, then, give more weight to her position?  Who knows?  We are doused in such a crapfest of opinions, how do we tell what is justified anymore?  That same friend had another woman on another post basically parrot the "thought process" of eminent expert Rosie O'Donnell, who wants MARTIAL LAW declared to prevent Trump's inauguration "until all criminal charges are cleared."  This woman too mentioned criminal charges, and my friend asked the sole pertinent question of her:  WHAT criminal charges?  Did he use substandard security in handling government secrets and then lie to congress about it?  Did he use his "legal skills" to prevent the incarceration or trial of a "loved one" accused of rape?  Just what criminal act had Donald Trump committed?

So the woman, as many I have seen who step into a bigger FB argument than their knowledge and intellect (not to mention agenda) can handle have done, posted a long-winded copy-and-paste bashing of Trump- which at NO POINT had anything amounting to a criminal charge in it.  When my friend pointed this out, she admitted, yes, it was a copy and paste, yes, it had no ACTUAL charges, but it CERTAINLY should make you see that he SHOULD be charged with something.  And if he hadn't been, it was just because the right law hadn't been found, applied, or manufactured.

Point being, there are just a lot of people out there who, instead of seeking meaningful dialogue to make a better country, are out there running their mouths to cause trouble.  Not because Trump has or will do something objectionable, but just because they don't want him to be President.  Take for example, another failed Democrat Presidential candidate- Martin O'Malley.  Remember him- the guy that got like 1% or so in a couple of primaries before he noticed no one was listening to him?  Well, what better way to get stupid people to listen than this garbage he tweeted Saturday:

Now is not the time for reconciliation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer didn't reconcile with the Nazis. MLK didn't reconcile with the KKK. Now we fight


I have recently been reading a book, Endgame, 1945: The Missing Final Chapter of World War II
by David Stafford.  Included are several pages about the liberation of Nazi death camps.  And I am telling you now, I am at the point of wishing severe bodily harm to anyone else who compares ANYONE in the USA of being like these inhuman bastards.  I didn't like it when it was used unintelligently against Obama, and I don't like it now.  You want to know what the Nazis were like, read something about them.  If you can compare anyone in this nation to that, you have an overactive, malignant imagination and really need to do some serious self examination before you inflict mankind with your opinion any further.

In just a few moments of reading various news sites, I have come up with more examples of stupidity.  Another recent battle with a FB "opinionist" had me being told how much other countries laughed at us when GW Bush was President, and they are laughing now.  Maybe if you only read the HIGHLY leftist BBC accounts, or perhaps the leftist "news" sites that she claimed she didn't use but then sited them over and over in her attack on me.  But, let's look at how some other countries are ACTUALLY seeing things.  From an article on Russia's love for the Obama administration:

Konstantin Kosachev, the head of foreign affairs committee in the upper house of parliament, described the White House's decision to expel Russian diplomats as an "agony of not even lame ducks, but political corpses."

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova went further.

"If 'Russian hackers' hacked anything in America, there were two things: Obama's brain, and, of course, the report about 'Russian hackers,'" she wrote on Facebook.

Zakharova charged that "Obama and his illiterate foreign policy team have dealt a crushing blow to America's prestige and leadership" and described his administration as "a bunch of geopolitical losers, enraged and shortsighted."

Obama's administration still has a few days left to "destroy the world," Zakharova wrote.


Not convinced?  Here's another from al-Jazeera:

There has been much talk about US President-elect Donald Trump’s hardline stance on immigration.

But Trump will be inheriting a well-oiled deportation infrastructure from the Obama administration, which has deported 2.5 million people - more than every single US president of the 20th century combined.


OUCH.  CNN and Politico don't report much on THAT, do they?

Or how about an article I found on Motherboard, in which scientists are rushing to archive data that they are terrified that Trump will erase?  Because he is an "anti-science" President... really?

“When government takes an active hand in framing science—an incoming chief executive who called climate change a ‘Chinese hoax’ and suggested that maybe vaccines do cause autism, a new EPA head who is a climate change denier, a key advisor who thinks that a president of the United States shouldn't be held accountable for what he actually says—it’s troubling,” Chris Labash, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University, told me.


How VERY unlike the report on the BBC (of all places) a good while ago that talked about how the climate change crew had threatened scientists that disagreed with their conclusions, and fudged numbers to make "global warming" seem more realistic?  And having just looked at an article from the Salt Lake Tribune on the subject of autism and Trump, how do you make the leap from wanting to make sure of his facts to banning vaccines?  You see, Trump is not guilty- he's "guilty by association", and third hand association at that.  Kind of like how Jeff Sessions is a KKK supporter.


Or here, another article about that "dirty dossier" that John McCain ("the Annamese Candidate"?) supplied the FBI with on Trump from al-Jazeera that compares the "oh, that's okay" attitude for an MI6 agent who ran a personal attack on Trump to the "how dare they" Russian hacking of the ineptly run-and-secured DNC.  If I were you I would look at the whole thing, but here are some highlights for the time challenged:

Imagine a hypothetical situation: A former FSB officer provides a "dirty dossier" about US presidential candidate Hilary Clinton. He has left the Russian intelligence services and now operates his own private intelligence firm, with the implicit approval of the FSB.

Once the dirty dossier is published, its accuracy and sourcing is widely questioned - and even whether the media should have reported on the allegations at all. That FSB officer is then outed in the US press... Once his name is made public, a range of anonymous Russian security sources brief the Russian press that the officer is a "highly regarded professional," and former colleagues rally around him, saying much the same. His reputation is bolstered in order to make the allegations made against Clinton seem more credible. How would the US press respond?

This is in fact exactly what has just happened during Trump's final approach to the White House, except it wasn't the FSB - it was the British Secret Intelligence Service, colloquially known as MI6, and it wasn't a former FSB officer turned private investigator, it was Chris Steele, a former MI6 agent...

At the time the dossier was going round, I understand from talking to those who know Steele well, that he was privately very concerned about civil unrest on the streets, and was also deeply worried, as many serving intelligence officers were, about Trump's stance on NATO, and his sympathies for Vladimir Putin.


These are not unusual views among serving Western defence officials, and they are very legitimate criticisms of the pending disaster that is the Trump administration. Steele was also a man who had run MI6 operations in Russia, had been working with the assassinated Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko shortly before his death, and who greatly feared that Trump would take the United States into an alliance with the Kremlin....

I am no fan of either Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin - in fact, I despise both, but we can at least recognise that in the case of Trump, the mechanics of the US election were fairly carried out, and Trump did win. To thwart such a victory would do far more damage to US democracy than even Trump may manage (hopefully).


I wish he hadn't won, of course, and it is obvious that many within the US and British intelligence community wish he had not either, but democracy is more important than the private political views of intelligence officers. Whether it is the FSB or MI6, the principle of serving or former spies not getting involved with foreign countries elections is sacrosanct. You cannot, on the one hand, denounce Putin for doing it, and then be doing it yourselves.


Alastair Sloan (the author) is a London-based journalist. He focuses on injustice and human rights in the UK.


And this is what I am sick to death of- the left going about screaming about obstruction and the end of the world, and doing the same things and worse that they accuse the right of.  Let me wrap this rant up with an interesting piece from Philly.com on the 1917 Zimmerman Telegram (you know, the one whose skillful use led the US into WWI?) and the lessons it teaches on fake news:


"The greatest strategic threat the U.S. faces is the general ignorance of the past and how the past is with us every day," said David Kohnen, interim executive director at the U.S. Naval War College Museum.

Retired Rear Adm. Samuel Cox, current director of the Naval History and Heritage Command, said he sees parallels with Russia's recent actions, but stressed that England wasn't trying to diminish U.S. influence in the world by discrediting its values and democracy.

Cox focused on how many people refused to accept the telegram's authenticity because it didn't fit with their preconceived notion of reality, which he said is a reminder of the importance of driving misinformation and rumor out of political debate.


"If you have an environment where the truth becomes optional, like we're kind of facing today, once you're in that environment it becomes difficult to break out of it," he said. "People refuse to believe the truth because they can't tell the difference."


And so, those of you from the left that want to emulate Rosie O'Donnell running around like a fat, ugly Chicken Little, those of you that think that I am going to be humbled by your paste job from partisan hacks like Buzzfeed, and any losers out there that want to compare your enemies with the KKK or Nazis, let me tell you right now the only three responses your efforts will get from me:

1- I am only going to respond to you if I feel I can glean entertainment value from it.  Otherwise, I'll do my best to scroll right on by.

2- Your own efforts are going to suffer because I'll be ignoring those of you who are willing to try and make legitimate points with the rest.  Because that is the consequences of hate fueled stupidity.

3- You are only going to make me more resistant to working with your side, because these inane antics only destroy your credibility.  People keep telling you, the way you're acting is why Trump got elected in the first place.  At the rate you are going, it will be a landslide next time.  But you are too busy throwing your hissy fit to care.  So why should I?

Sunday message- the wisdom of Solomon

My Bible reading took me through the story of Solomon.  Yes, everybody knows his legendary wisdom, greater than any before him.  So how is it that he FAILED so miserably, that God rose up enemies against him, and shattered his kingdom?  Well, it was all those women, you might say.  Even Solomon admits (Ecclesiastes 9:9) that he would have been better off with one wife; instead, if he would have spent just one week per wife and one day per concubine, he wouldn't have made it through the cycle three times before his death.  But he knew that wasn't where the blame lay.

In the beginning, he understood.  As he built the House of God, ha was acting FOR god.  And he realized that the task of coming before God wasn't the building, nor the sacrifices therein.

1Ki 8:37  When there is famine in the land; when there is pestilence, blasting, mildew, locusts; when there is the stripping locust; when its enemy has distressed it in the land in its gates; any plague, any sickness, 
1Ki 8:38  any prayer, any supplication that shall come from any man of all of Your people Israel, who shall each know the plague of his own heart, and shall spread his hands toward this house, 
1Ki 8:39  then You shall hear in Heaven Your dwelling place and shall forgive and shall act, and shall give to each according to all his ways, whose heart You know (for You have known, You alone, the heart of all the sons of Adam)...


But there is a limitation to this thing he asked of God at the beginning- human wisdom.  While Elisha asked for a double-portion of the spirit of God, which removed all doubt, Solomon asked for wisdom.  But wisdom caused him to seek after logical conclusions.  He pushed the envelope, marrying all those wives in an effort to find that which was not vain; building until his people were at the breaking point, hoping to find an answer in accomplishment and legacy that he wasn't finding in pleasure; studying life through the eyes of knowledge to find a reason, only to say at the end:

Ecc 7:16  Do not be too much righteous, nor make yourself overly wise; why destroy yourself? 

For he had done all these things.  He had tried hard work; he had tried pleasure; he had looked into good and evil, wisdom and foolishness, and at the end of it, realized that all his wisdom had accomplished nothing.  Nothing that meant anything.  He should have been happy with each day's gifts.  He should have sought love and not pleasure.  He should have done his best at each day's work.  But the thing he found that was most important- he should have used that wisdom, not on the things of this world to simply obey God...

Ecc 12:12  And more than these, my son, be warned: The making of many books has no end, and much study is the weariness of the flesh. 

Ecc 12:13  Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this applies to every man. 

Ecc 12:14  For God shall bring every work into judgment, with all that is hidden, whether it is good, or whether it is evil. 

So the lesson of Solomon is to go back to the beginning, when he understood without TRYING to understand.  When he realized that each of us has to come to grips with "the plague in our own heart", and bring it to God.  None of his wisdom or greatness ever brought him closer to God than THAT moment.

Time Machine coordinates VIII41111375

Today, we journey to January 13th, 1975, and our location is Kugaaruk in Canada....

...and it is COLD!  In fact, when you add 35 mph winds to a -60 F air temperature, you get a wind chill of -134 F... which is the coldest ever recorded in North America!  Now how they calculated that, when the latest NOAA charts only record wind chills UNTIL you get to -50, I don't know.  But I do know that Antarctica laughs at North America, because in August 2010 they recorded a temperature of -135.8 WITHOUT the wind!  In the meantime, it is 35.5 F as I type this, but my now malfunctioning temp gauge at the back door claims it to be 52.9.... I'm guessing it's time for a replacement...


Anyway, we have a LOT of stuff coming up on this week's journey, so instead of giving you the standard teaser, I'm going to name five bands:  the Zots;  the Golden Boys All-Guitar Band; and the Upfronts.  These bands all have two things in common- you never prolly heard of 'em, and they are the FIRST bands for three special gentlemen.  One is our 6D victim; one is his inspiration; and one is the man who wrote the song that connected them!  And I'll give you one more item... one of them is Elvis!  Stay tuned for the solution to this poser on the 6D later.  Right now, on with the show!


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First off, we're going to hit part of our Presidential Panel, our unknown song, and an M10 debut in one shot!  The song in question was #1 on an Australian chart that happened to be among our 27 panelists.  Further, this song was released nowhere BUT Australia!  It was off the 1974 second lp by a band you are all familiar with (if you're my age or like oldies)... Sweet!  It's a cover of  Joey Dee and the Starlighters' #1 from 1961, the Peppermint Twist.  And I liked it so much, I debuted it this week at #8! Originally from the lp Sweet Fanny Adams...






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So now you know one of the songs that got a vote (and you already know it only got the ONE vote, so don't make it your Presidential pick!), so let's give out the rest of this week's candidates:

George McCrae with I Can't Leave You Alone- a decent enough tune that only made it to #50 the year before here, but gets in because it was #1 in Lorenzo Marquez! (Yep, don't wanna vote for this one, either!)
Carl Douglas with Kung Fu Fighting, this week's Cashbox #10;
Neil Sedaka's Laughter In The Rain, the CB #5;
Elton John with Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, which was #3 this week;
Barry Manilow with Mandy, the national #2;
The aforementioned Peppermint Twist;
and the Carpenters with Please Mr Postman, the national #4!

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One of the parts of the new set-up I keep forgetting is the "year in" song, and we're at #75 on the Cashbox chart in 1975.  The song here was called Costafine Town, by a duo calling themselves Splinter, and they were the first act signed to George Harrison's Dark Horse label.  Thus it was not surprising that they had some all-star help on the tune.  George played bass, and two members of Spooky Tooth, the soon to be famous Gary Wright and drummer Mike Kellie, were also on the record.  Now, I had a little problem here because while I knew Spooky Tooth was Wright's old band, I tried to confuse it with Stealer's Wheel, which was Gerry Rafferty's old band (Stuck In The Middle With You).  I kinda redeem myself when I learned that guitarist Luke Grosvenor not only played in both Spooky Tooth and Stealer's Wheel, but also Mott The Hoople!  Which of course is neither here nor there.  Anyway, here's a peek at the tune, which struggled here but was top ten in South Africa and Australia:





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Next, a few words from English symphonic composer Ralph Vaughan Williams on the afterlife and music:

But in the next world I shan't be doing music, with all the striving and disappointments. I shall be being it. 



I like that!  Our UK chart peek today shows us that Christmas music is still dominating the UK charts with no less than 5 holiday tunes in their top 40, including at #1- Mud, a band a lot like Sweet in style, with Lonely This Christmas.  The highest US song over there was our #3, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds at their #17, while their highest on our charts was Gloria Gaynor's Never Can Say Goodbye, which was #6 there and #12 here.  And before I slip out of UK mode, I HAVE to bring up another song I saw.  It was, in fact, the last hit song for Rod Stewart and the Faces, and simply has to be my all-time winner for longest title of any actually good song.  The Title?  You Can Make Me Dance, Sing, Do Anything (Even Take The Dog For A Walk, Mend A Fuse, Fold Away The Ironing Board, Or Any Other Domestic Shortcoming).  And it was at their #14.

Geez, he couldn't just say, "I'm Your Handyman"?  Say, there's an idea...

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Our other M10 debut carries a story with it that's like the one I did a few years back on all the musical acts that connected to Buffalo Springfield, only shorter.  I mentioned Leon Michels of the El Michels Affair before, how he was a wheel with Big Crown Records, and the EMA were a mainly instrumental act.  What I didn't know before was he was a founder on two other bands- one of them the 2016 deceased Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, and the other is Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys' side project the Arcs.  The Arcs had charted on the M10 back at the end of September 2015 with Flower In Your Pocket- and like the rest of their debut lp (most of it, anyway) , Yours Dreamily, Leon Michels co-wrote it with Auerbach.  Another co-writer on that song in particular was one Richard Swift, the Arc's drummer as well as touring with the Black Keys and producing several acts that got stuck in the waiting list of the M10 recently- including Damian Jurado who had a Moody Blues sounding tune that just missed fighting its way into the count, and the Shins, who are there even now.  He is also the producer for a more famous new band, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats, whose SOB hit #3 on both rock and alternative last year.

All of which distracted me from the point, which was that I checked out some songs off of EMA's two 2016 lps, and one of them debuts at #9.





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And now, our co-Presidents this week, Elvis Presley and Paul Anka.

P: Elvis, Chris really had to do some digging to get to this story, and he found what he was looking for on a blog page by Hank Zevallos, who did a lot more digging than that!

E: Yeah?  An' what did they find?

P: Well, among other things, they found the name of your first band...

E: Aw, why'd they wanna go and do that?

P: It got started when the found out the name of Mac Davis' first band.  They were called the Zots.  And Chris thought it would be a neat tie in on his Six degrees story.

E:  So wait.  Mac an' me got the 6D song?

P: No, but the song that he wrote and you sang- In The Ghetto- was also recorded by a guy calling himself  Gene West.  And his first band- under his real name- was the Upfronts.

E: Can't say I know Gene West- or the Upfronts.

P: Not surprising, Elvis.  But "Gene" knew you.  You know the type- lots of talent, liked to get into trouble- ended up in jail.  Then he heard one of your songs, and decided he'd be better served dedicating himself to music.  He became an A&R man at first, sometimes doing recordings as a background singer, like he did with the Upfronts.  But eventually he stepped out from the shadows himself, and this week he does what nobody else has ever done-

E:  He kicked the crap outta Johnny Burnette?  'Cause I know I'd have liked to...

P: No, he has the first 6D victim that was a #1 song the week it got no Panel love! You see, Gene West is really...

...Barry White, and a song that was originally a country song, You're My First, My Last, My Everything, is both #1 on CB this week AND the 6D victim!  And now, there's just one more thing to mention-

E:  Aw, man, don' do it...

P:  I've got to.  That first band of yours, when you were kids with the Burnettes in the Lauderdale Courts complex in Memphis- the Golden Boys All-Guitar Band.

E:  That's burnt, Paul.  Just burnt.

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Thanks guys!  And before we hit the rest of the M10- which has an new record of its own to brag about- here's your clue to the contenders for next weeks Presidency.  If you picked George McCrae, Sweet (even though I told you not to!) Manilow, Sedaka, or the Carpenters, you are not in the top two.

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And now, the remaining M10:

Ducktails and Surreal Exposure slip back down from 7 to 10.

Ruby by Charly Bliss swaps places, going from 10 to 7.

Melody's Echo Chamber relinquishes the top spot after a three-week stay, falling to 6 with I Follow You.

Puddle of Mudd's Gimme Shelter and Black Joe Lewis' PTP remain stuck at 5 and 4, respectively.

The Hidden Cameras jolt up into the #3 slot, a 3-notch climb for Day I Left Home.

Radiation City moves up a notch to #2 with Zombies.


And that means that the #1 song does what one other song ever did- returns to #1; does what no one has ever done, returning to #1 after a 3-week absence; does what only 3 other songs have done in claiming a fourth week at the top, and moves into a tie for 4th on the all time points list!  and that song:

...the Shacks and Strange Boy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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And next week's President, with a victory margin of a whopping 51.8% to 18.5% over Carl Douglas...

...Elton John with Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Wow, this was a workout!  Tune in next time when we head for peaceful 1969!

Newspage go!

Before we kick off, something serious.  I have a friend whose daughter has a friend in diabetic coma.  Add please to your prayer lists, my friends.

And now....


Headline #1:  Paging Captain Obvious...

Report: Biology kit for children includes dead frog soaking in formaldehyde

Well, duh.  Apparently the problem starts with "formaldehyde is a known carcinogen".  What isn't anymore.  I guarantee you, I will by the time I get cancer have consumed, handled, or respirated 70% of the world's known carcinogens, and it will be something stupid like "prolonged exposure to the paint used for the letters on your keyboard" that will get me.  Additionally, the education challenged found the booklet that went with it was "insensitive" (for graphically explaining what to do with the frog), and a YouTube video showed kids abandoning the booklet all together and just ripping it apart by hand, one child saying afterward, "Today we learned something interesting: How to kill something.”  Two words:  ADULT SUPERVISION- which means more than just posting a video you took when you should have been providing guidance.  Next case!


Headline #2:  And it probably hurts their little cow ears, too...


Vegan denied Swiss passport over 'annoying' campaign against cowbells

Yes, a Dutch vegan, Nancy Holten, whose children are Swiss somehow tried for a visa but was turned down.  It seems she made too many enemies in her campaign to get Swiss dairy farms to stop putting cowbells on their cows.  “The bells, which the cows have to wear when they walk to and from the pasture, are especially heavy.  The animals carry around five kilograms around their neck. It causes friction and burns to their skin.”  (11 pounds to you and me in America).


Under Switzerland’s system of extremely local democracy, a meeting of local residents was asked to vote on her application to become a naturalized citizen.

They rejected it by 200 votes to 60, the Swiss newspaper 24Heures reported.

A local government spokesman said the application was rejected because Holten keeping “rebelling against traditional things”, making people wonder why she even wants to be Swiss.


Headline # 3:  Yep, had to be the food...

Nude woman steals police car, claims she was poisoned 

So the situation here:  an admitted user of both spice and meth strips in the middle of the street, steals a cop car and goes for a 70-mile joyride, and when apprehended, tells the police:

"I've never gone a trip like that," Lisa Luna said in a jailhouse interview with KPHO.

The 31-year-old from Mesa told reporters she's used spice and methamphetamine in the past, but "never felt like that before."

Luna said she believes a relative may have been adulterating her food before a Maricopa County Sheriff's Deputy said he found her walking naked down a road last Thursday.

"She had been giving me stuff that had been making me feel really weird," Luna said. "I don't know what it was."

You know, though, I think I'll stick with the Dutch/Swiss vegan...

Headline #4:  Why you should always keep your info up-to-date

Supposedly, according to a link from a friend's law office, it was the bank's fault a couple got a divorce- or was it?  Paraphrasing from the story on The Indiana Lawyer:

Meet our married couple- she's an attorney, he's a retired IRS investigator.  They switch house insurance policies without informing the bank.  The bank pays the old company from the escrow, then finds out that the policy got switched.  They then pay the new policy from the escrow, informing the couple to take the refund check that's coming their way and deposit it in the escrow.  They decided to spend it, and so their payment goes up.  Funny how that works, right?


So they refuse to pay the higher payment, and demand the bank refund the escrow.  Good luck with that.  The mortgage goes into default, and the couple sues the bank for $300,000 because the whole ordeal led them to a divorce.  So what does the district court say?  This from the article, because I can't put it any funnier:

“RESPA requires servicers to correct account errors and give requested information to borrowers. Perron and Jackson were not harmed by an uncorrected account error because there wasn’t an error in the first place,” Sykes wrote. “Nor were they harmed by an information blackout. They knew Chase had paid the $1,422 from the escrow account to Allstate and why. They also knew why the December 2010 payment was held in suspense. … Simply put, Perron and Jackson weren’t harmed by being in the dark because the lights were on the whole time.”


Headline #5:  Depends.  Did you ask them?


From the BBC:

Did Trump answer our questions?


This headline made you think, is the BBC getting the CNN treatment?  Most of the free world knows by now Trump told a CNN reporter he was on the naughty list, and I'm sure the ideologically-similar political editor at BBC News thought this was a clever way of playing on that.  But when you READ the article, here's what you get:  the BBC had ten questions for Trump, but for whatever reason had nobody at the presser to ASK them.  I assume that has to do with the fact that they are going to give the company line no matter what Trump would have answered.    So they then parsed the presser to see a) if anybody actually DID ask the questions, and b) what he answered if they did.  I am beyond SMH at the incredibly piss-poor journalistic integrity it takes to come up with something like this.  I can't wait to see if CNN adopts the Fantasy-Presser approach to getting their answers after Trump told them to go fish.


Headline #6:  And if you want a little more BBC hypocrisy...

Fury over India flag doormats on Amazon

Yes, Amazon Canada is selling doormats with India's flag on them, and the Foreign Minister is threatening visas of Amazon employees, etc.  And I can kinda see his point; I'd be pissed too if they tried to sell our flag like that.  HowEVER, we are talking about the same nation that painted pictures of the gods on the sides of buildings to stop people from urinating on said walls- and failed.  Somehow I can't believe the majority of the population is terribly insulted.


Headline the last:  I didn't think Bloomington let out until May...

I'll let this headline speak for itself:  From Xinhua...

Liu Yunshan attends Party School graduation ceremony