Time Machine co-ordinates VIXXII44992955

Well, we roar back to the beginning, AKA 1955, where the song that kicks off Martin Era 2.0- Bill Haley's Rock Around The Clock- is still rocking at 23 weeks on the chart!  And by roaring, I mean like Cat 5 Hurricane Janet, who slammed into southern Mexico yesterday, making it the first known storm of that intensity to make a continental landing.  She killed over a thousand- overwhelmingly in Mexico- including the crew of a hurricane hunter team that disappeared in its embrace, losing all 11 crew.  And the sad stuff keeps coming- Charles Bradley, who hit #5 on the M10 back around my birthday in May 2016 with the soul tune Changes, passed away at the age of 68.








I guess now the M10 is officially real world...

But now, let's get on with the fun!  A new (temporary) way of doing the Panel, more fun with the #1 lps of the ME2.0, and two new M10 debuts!  Don't be changin' the station now...


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So the reason for the "Changes" in the Panel is, well, they didn't have any charts for me to go through that year on my source!  But, a little digging brought me to the fact that Billboard was doing THREE different charts back then- one based on sales, one on what the DJs were playing (because no canned programming yet), and one for what the jukeboxes were raking in!  So I combined them, threw in Cashbox's one chart, and stirred well!  With a bit of a note to that end- Cashbox was in their era of, "if more than one act recorded the song, combine them", which Billboard thankfully was not.  So I had to do a little finiggling.  And what you get is- anybody who got a top ten on any of the charts is in the mix, with points by 20-19-18 etc.  And next, I am going to give you the results from the bottom up- except for the top three, which you get to guess the winner from.  Sound good?  Okay, then, let's bring in Rob Parissi from our POTMs, Wild Cherry, and get this underway!

You realize I was only five years old in '55, right?

I wasn't born yet.  What's your point?  Music lasts forever, unlike careers therein.

Ain't THAT the truth!

So just name off the song, who did it, and the highest it was charting on the four charts this week.  14 contestants, leaving off the top three.

Okay, then.  Lessee... first, with a high of #9 this week on the sales chart, Billy Vaughn's band with The Shifting, Whispering Sands.

Don Cornell, with a high of #8 on CB with The Bible Tells Me So.  Now THAT one I know...

Jaye P Morgan- yep, that chick that got too crazy on the Gong Show- was at #7 on the jukebox chart with The Longest Walk.

Say hey!  Bill Haley and his Comets were still as high as #5 on jukeboxes with Rock Around The Clock.

Wow, I know this one too!  Chuck Berry's Maybelline was #6 on JUKEbox AND CASHbox.

Les Baxter's band was at #6 on the DJ list with Wake The Town And Tell The People.

If I can just butt in on this next one, because it's a song my mom taught me to love- the Four Lads and Moments To Remember were at #5 on the sales list.  I remember being really little and thinking the part about "the time we tore the goal post down" was about tearing down the light pole in the parking lot of the Hi-Ho Inn in Poe..

FAS-cinating.  Next is Perry Como's Tina Marie, it was #8 with the salesmen and the Jocks.

Next was one of the songs there were two versions of floating around- but the one that makes our list was the Fontaine Sisters and their version of Seventeen, which was #3 on jukes.

Another double-charter was a song you may know- The Yellow Rose Of Texas.  The first one is by a cat named Jimmy Desmond.  He shared top billing on CB with the OTHER version, but was no better than #4 on jukes the rest of the way.

One more for me, and that is REDACTED, which was #3 everywhere but the jukeboxes, and that knocked him OUT of Chris' phoney-baloney top three.

HEY!  "Phoney baloney???"

Well, look! This guy ahead of him had three #4s, and beat him?

The guy with 3 #4s has a #2 on jukeboxes, and REDACTED got a TEN.

Pffft.  Don't seem fair.

Well, it's not like I can say "let's add him in NOW, 'cause we've already said who it is..."

Oh, yeah, Mr Timey-Whimey can't go back and fix it.

Rob, that's a great idea!  I'll just go up and change what you said to "REDACTED" and then he can play along too!

Easy when ya make your own rules...

Ain't it, though!  Thanks, Rob, and now, guys, you get a bonus and can pick from FOUR different contestants.  Two contestants, you know how they charted; the other two, the winner had 3 #1s and a 2, the runner up had the other #1, a pair of 2s, and an eight.  If that all sounds confusing, just ignore it, and choose one of these 4 gents:


Pat Boone and Ain't That A Shame...
Roger Williams and Autumn Leaves...
Love Is A Many Splendored Thing by the Four Aces...
or the other version of Yellow Rose Of Texas, this time by Mitch Miller!

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Debuting at #10 is ol' "Hootie" himself, Darius Rucker!  He's got a new lp due in October, called When Was The Last Time, and this one just got floated out there from it...






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So what fun can we have with the mounds of data I gleaned from the Billboard list of #1 lps of ME2.0?

Well, first I thought we'd look at the big list of soundtracks that the list accrued.  There were several that were one act deals that were differentiated from the more show/ensemble types.  First, the one act shows:

Doris Day's Love Me Or Leave Me
Pianist Carmen Cavallaro with The Eddie Duchin Story
Henry Mancini's The Music From Peter Gunn
Elvis' GI Blues, Blue Hawaii, and Roustabout
Ernest Gold and the Exodus soundtrack
The Beatles with A Hard Day's Night, Help! and Magical Mystery Tour (kinda)
Simon and Garfunkel's The Graduate (which was followed right after with their Bookends)
Isaac Hayes' Shaft
Curtis Mayfield's Superfly
Diana Ross' Lady Sings The Blues
Marvin Hamlisch on The Sting
Earth Wind And Fire's That's The Way Of The World
and Barbra Streisand's A Star Is Born.

Now, MMT was technically not a true soundtrack, as half of it was music from the movie and the rest was other stuff that got thrown in.  Eric Weissberg's Dueling Banjos was his own, with the title cut being part of the actual soundtrack, and thus didn't count.

And now, those that were cast reproductions:

Oklahoma!
My Fair Lady
The King And I
Around The World In 80 Days
The Music Man
South Pacific
Gigi
Flower Drum Song
The Sound Of Music
Camelot
Carnival!
West Side Story
Hello Dolly!  (the cast lp, wherein the title tune was sung by Carol Channing, was replaced at the top after a week by Satchmo's version, which held the top for another 6 weeks)
Mary Poppins
Doctor Zhivago (youngsters, this is not a hotel search site)
Hair
 and Woodstock: Music From The Original Soundtrack and More

And you can count Jesus Christ Superstar, kinda, but the rock opera lp actually came before the broadway productions, and is technically not a soundtrack.

More lp fun in a little bit.

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So the Alvvays lp Antisocialites is out, and with the exception of In Undertow, the singles haven't quite tripped my trigger... HOWever, I went digging and found this gem inside, and debut it at #9...






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The other slice of the lp charts has to do with Greatest Hits lps.  Now, I mentioned back a while when this started that I didn't own many of the "great" lps according to Billboard et al because I liked doing the greatest hits thing, and I wasn't alone.  Here are the Greatest Hit compilations that made the top during the ME2.0:

Johnny's Greatest Hits by Johnny Mathis, which I mentioned last week was also his FIRST lp in America at least.  Guess that takes the debate out of the title for a while...
Time Peace: The Rascals Greatest Hits
Elton John's Greatest Hits (subsequently, this became "Volume One", at which point I once owned it
Beatles 1967-1970
Chicago IX:  Chicago's Greatest Hits, another I owned briefly
John Denver's Greatest Hits
Endless Summer by the Beach Boys, which was basically though not officially a greatest hits package- AND I owned...
Crosby Stills Nash and Young's So Far- which I owned...
and Diana Ross And the Supremes' Greatest Hits.

See, I had a MUCH greater percentage of THOSE...

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Stat pack:  Well, there's no #101 since the Cashbox chart only ran to #50- which also knocks the crap outta having a #55 in '55...

I knew 9 of the fifty-  six of those among our Panel Contestants...

The big mover this week was a chap who got a lot of his start in the Mystic Ballroom in Jasper, Indiana- Boyd Bennett and the Rockets.  In addition to being the other guy who did the Fontaine Sisters' Seventeen, he jumped from 45 to 34 with the rockabilly hit My Boy, Flat Top.

If you love Mitch "Sing Along With" Miller from the Ronco lps he had in the '70s, you'll love that Slim Whitman was at # 1 in the UK this week with Rose Marie.  Slim was having a time- he had 3 tunes in their top 40 this week.  The biggest song over there that was charting here was Frank Sinatra's Learnin' The Blues, #31 here but just behind ol' Slim there.


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And now, the rest of the M10.

The National is up a couple this week, at #8 with Dark Side Of The Gym.

But this week, it's Alkonost who's stuck, at 7, with War Is Closed By Us.

Ducktails waddle up 2 to #6 with Light A Candle.

And Jana Kramer's stuck at #5 with I've Done Love.

The queen has fallen- Lucinda Williams drops to #4 with Six Block Away, after 3 weeks at the top.

Squeeze squeezes up one more to #3 with Innocence In Paradise.

Alvvays- in its SEVENTH week- sneaks into the #2 spot with In Undertow.

And that means the new number one...

Dent May..

and Frankie Cosmos..

...with Across The Multiverse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the Panel?

Well, Redacted was Roger Williams and Autumn Leaves with 65 points...

then Pat Boone with 70...
 and the Four Aces with 71...

So the new President of Time Machine, with 79 points, is...

....Mitch Miller with The Yellow Rose Of Texas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Next week, we'll see if we can't scrounge up a few more charts in 1956!

The needle barely moves

So a couple nights ago (after I wrote The Torn Curtain, ironically), I got in a big FB dust-up with a friend of a friend who supports the NFL protest thing.  My point is not going to be to rehash the argument or bash the arguer.  No, I've been thinking of how I SHOULD have phrased my opposition to them. 

These guys, at least originally, started this over perceived (not saying false) police brutality, and unequal percentage of blacks in prisons.  So let's just take a side trip to a perfect world...

Where the protests have triggered a groundswell of changed hearts.  All bad cops, all higher ups with bigotry in their veins are weeded out.  All of them. 


Every cop has an equal understanding of what justice really means.  All administrators try to do their job fairly, without bias.


And the judges.  Let's say we weed out all the judges that have played fast and loose with "equal justice under the Law."  Of course, you utopians out there should remember that this would clean out, along with all the Boss Hoggs out there, the activist judges like the ones in the 9th Circuit and Hawaii who are defying the current President despite overwhelming legal precedent and legislation.  Might also take Supreme Court justices who make political comments with the robes off like Ms Bader-Ginsberg.  Weed them all out, until only fair, legal, Constitutional justice is left.

Oh, and let's add in the POTUS acting with dignity, not stirring crap up every few days on the modern Tower of Babel, social media.

Now, we have the perfect world.  Everything's fair.

So why are all these young blacks  STILL being killed?  In Chicago, in Detroit, in Baltimore- in Fort Wayne?

Let's clean out the prisons of everyone who is unfairly sentenced.  Why are there so many blacks still there?


Because you have cured a side-cause of the problem, not the main problem.  You've amputated the foot of the gangrenous diabetic, but they're still guzzling Pepsi (wonder why I thought of that analogy?), and are weeks away from coma.  This was the crux of my argument I referenced at the beginning.

Inner city blacks are disproportionately in one-parent (if lucky) households, members of violent criminal drug selling gangs, dropping out of school whether out of class or in it and just checked out.  They disproportionately have fewer job skills, lower education (don't believe me? In 2015, IPFW here in the Fort graduated a quarter of white, Asian, and Hispanic students, but only around 8% of black students.), crappier life experience.

So why is this?  To hear the media tell it, it's because The Man is holding him down.  So what happens when we eliminate those who would unfairly hold people back because of skin color?

The needle barely moves.

Because the fault isn't there.  It's in kids that are never inspired at home to learn and be productive.  It's men (and I use the term loosely) who feel responsibility ends when the imaginary condom comes off.  It's thugs who believe that "I got the pistols, so I get the pesos" is a universal truth.  Guys who believe their manhood is directly proportional to the caliber of their gun.

The fault is in lack of respect.  They don't respect others, they don't respect themselves. And while it is hammering the African-American community, it sure doesn't stop there.  But let's stay on track.

I caught grief for using "they and them" so much in that argument, so let's just say that there are a lot of African Americans who HAVE that respect, who TEACH those values, and I am not including those people in "they and them."  And there are TOO MANY out there who do fit this mold, and they need to look in the mirror.  And above them all are those who would say I am being "passive racist" for pointing it out, because we live in a climate where you don't dare blame the individual or make them take responsibility.  Somewhere along the rutted road, they are a victim.  Sounds like a certain bitter old white lady I know...

What I am is someone who can see when a little bit of something gets blown into a huge ordeal in the minds of people who lead with their heart and want to strike back in righteous rage.  I get that.  But when it's something like this protest, which could be 100% successful and not solve a damn thing, that's when I try to tell people, you are wasting your time.  My new favorite phrase is, "They're trying to save the burning house by filling the bathroom basin."

I kept trying to find a way to involve the old Charlie Brown joke about doing a good deed is like peeing yourself in black slacks- you get a warm feeling but nobody notices.  But this just isn't like that- EVERYBODY is noticing, everyone's either saying Charlie Brown's a freak 'cause he had an accident, or poor Charlie Brown, lend him your coat or something till he gets home.  And nobody is noticing that the reason he peed himself is he's having a stroke, that's just liable to kill him.

Fun with Indian science

Today I'm going to try and lighten the mood, and perhaps make you think.  Or at least make you giggle.  Or maybe I'll offend you, if you believe that God has an animal's head.  If nothing else, I'll make myself laugh, which is the better part of committing mass murder or something equally stupid.


My story starts with this article I found on BBC:


India's junior education minister, Satyapal Singh, raised a few eyebrows on Wednesday when he said that engineering students needed to be taught about ancient Indian scientific discoveries, including the fact that the plane was first mentioned in the ancient Hindu epic Ramayana.

I know this story well, as Charles Berlitz mentioned it in His The Bermuda Triangle.  The Ramayana told of an ancient nuclear (it seemed) war between two Indian civilizations some 10,000-odd years ago.  Complete with planes fueled by mercury (the element, not the planet), which prolly would have caused a toxicity problem had they not destroyed everything in the war itself.  Berlitz used this story to account for unconfirmed stories that the Harappan site of Mohenjo-Daro was radioactive and had a bottom layer of fused glass.  Other than Berlitz and his source, I've never seen bupkiss else about the radiation or the glass.

The article continues:

A speaker at a prestigious science conference in 2015 told his audience that the inventor was really a sage named Bharadwaja, who lived about 7,000 years ago.
Captain Anand Bodas, a retired pilot and head of a pilot training facility, also claimed that India had interplanetary aircraft thousands of years ago, along with sophisticated radar that was superior to today's systems.


And there is so much evidence for it!    Other neat claims were presented in a linked article, which included:

In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a gathering of doctors and medical staff at a Mumbai hospital that the story of the Hindu god Ganesha showed cosmetic surgery existed in ancient India.


This one almost resulted in a spit take for me.  You see, that "cosmetic surgery" he alluded to was the attachment by the god Shiva (Ganesha's daddy) of an elephant's head to his son's body, after first decapitating him in a case of mistaken identity.


"We worship Lord Ganesha. There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant's head on the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery," he said.


Okay then.  Even allowing for size differences, I have one big difficulty with this whole charming myth- if they were able to put an elephant's head on the body, why not just put HIS head back on?  Did Shiva chop, go back to bed, and get up the next morning, and say to himself, "Crap, I better find a living head to stick on him, before the wife notices"?

In another loverly scientific report, we have this:


The education minister for the western state of Rajasthan said in January that it was important to "understand the scientific significance" of the cow, as it was the only animal in the world to both inhale and exhale oxygen.


Uh-huh.  And what evolutionary niche would that help cows fill?

In another story:

A national textbook for 11-year-old students created uproar in 2012 when it was discovered that it said that people who eat meat "easily cheat, tell lies, forget promises, are dishonest and tell bad words, steal, fight and turn to violence and commit sex crimes".

And that explains the gang rape problem in India how?


In what can only be described as a complete distortion of history, a social science textbook believed to have been taught to 50,000 students in the western Indian state of Gujarat declared that Japan had launched a nuclear attack on the US during World War Two.

Hm.  That must have been when that great midwestern town of Hiroshima was destroyed.

The torn curtain

It's Sunday morning, and I just posted this to my FB feed:

You know, I am really trying to be nice today and not react to all the baiting being done on my feed by our stupid political atmosphere- particularly involving sports. When it comes to sports, I want to watch A GAME. I don't want to hear about anyone's political views, I don't want to worry about the NFL commissioner being a hypocrite (which he is) or which player is acting for a valid cause and which one's just a reverse racist (which many are). Nor do I need the President, who maintains an office that SHOULD be both respected and exude respect for others, mouthing off as if he's at a bar with the guys. I want you people that think kneeling down is good to go away, I want you people that think it's treason to go away, I want the politicians to go away, I want the people who are doing the kneeling down to go away, I want the handful of douchebags in law enforcement that make make such protests possible to go away, I want the racists and assorted other categories at the top of our "intellectual level" to go away, and JUST LET ME WATCH THE FRICKIN' GAME! Is that so much to ask?


Not too long ago, I responded to a woman on someone else's post who was whining in her unintelligent way about the "Orange Nazi".  I replied to her, "No, the problem is that this nation has lost its respect for much of what we once held dear.  At this rate, we'll soon be a nation of two-year-olds, all of us sitting with our backs to each other pouting.  Is this what you really want?"

Or words to that effect.


But I was WRONG.


After praying about the whole thing earlier, I realized that it ISN'T what we are becoming- it's nothing new.  We've always been less a nation and more a bunch of feuding babies.  Whatever legit emotion Colin Kaepernick has when he- well, when he USED to kneel down- it's been there in his kindreds for years.  Mouthing off and making sport (if you can call it that) the President has been done for years.  Regular Joes mouthing off about things they either couldn't possibly understand, are to lazy to look into past what somebody tells them, Ivory tower "teachers" trying to guide young minds not into education, but into their own preferred polemic, for years.


The difference being, we used to wall it off with curtains of decency and civility.  We kept things not fit for public consumption FROM public consumption.  Say what you will about Donald Trump, but the worst thing he did was to tear the last curtain down, so that the President, too, exposes his "uncivil side" to everyone, just like the rest of us.


So to wrap this up, to the world at large and whoever wants to take individual offense from this- You really should just shut up for a while.  Realize every judgment you bring down on someone else you are bringing the same down on yourself.  You may think that your intelligence, or your concept of faith, or your "care and concern" elevates you above the masses.  But in the words of a popular philosopher every bit as stupid and self-righteous as myself, "What difference, now, does it really make?"

Sunday Message: Photosynthesis for the simple

A pastor I listened to suggested, if you are hungry for Jesus' teachings, start at John 15.  This is the "I am the vine, you are the branches" passage.  There are many comparisons that Jesus makes between us as the bearers of fruit and Jesus the vine we are attached to, without which we can't bear fruit, or even exist.

The word that kept coming up over and over was "abide".  Joh 15:4  Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 

  So I looked into the word "abide".  It meant "to stay (in a given place, state, relation or expectancy)".  But it means more than that, if Jesus wants you to remain as a PART of Him, as a branch is to the trunk.  It means being a functional, integral part.  But how MUCH more?  It brought me to thinking of photosynthesis, a topic that seemed so simple when we were kids learning it in science class; but when I reviewed it in meditating on this, I saw things like pheophytin, proton gradients and NADPH, and knew I had to simplify before I started rubbing a finger over my lips and making baby sounds.  So I simplified:  a leaf is an input/output device.

Inputs

Sunlight:  the leaf absorbs the sunlight, which provides energy for the system to re-engineer the other inputs.  Sunlight is the grace of God the Father, enabling us to convert the other inputs into positive good for the rest of the system.

Water:  The Word of God through Christ, the roots of the system.  He provides the Living Water, which we use through the grace of the Father, to pull out what we need to live.

Air:  Air is drawn into the leaf, where the energy from sunlight combines it with the water to create the food that feeds the entire system, including the fruit.  Air is the Spirit, with which the Word from Christ becomes something that benefits us.

All three are needed for the leaf to do anything worthwhile.  A tree won't grow in a cave; the sunlight is most important.  But without the water, the sun will just wither the leaf.  And what is a leaf without air?  It is a memory pressed in a book, trying vainly to retain the beauty of life but having no function whatsoever.  And so too are we, because what is the output?

Output

The fruit:  The endgame of the branch is to make fruit.  And why is the fruit valuable?  It does two things:

1- It propagates the system;

2- It provides good for others.

So you believe you have fruit.  Does it meet these two conditions?  Does it grow the Church?  Is it sweet even to those who aren't in the Church?  If not, then maybe it isn't the fruit Jesus commanded us to bear.  And if it isn't, then we have to ask ourselves- which input are we missing?  And why are we missing it?

Are we hiding from God, like the tree that won't grow in the cave?

Are we immobile in time, ungrowing, having the seeming of life but really just a memory pressed in a book, because we won't accept the air of the Spirit's motivation?

Or have we fallen to Satan's greatest temptation- to be independent, a branch broken from the vine, saying to ourselves we have everything we need- and slowly dying of thirst in the process?

So I guess you can consider this a "nature's checkup" we all need to do.  Check the inputs; check the output.

Time Machine Co-ordinates VIXXI44892276

Today we land in 1976- September 22, 1976- and guess who's there to greet us?

Why, it's Charlie's Angels, who debuted on this day 31 years ago!  Honestly, I don't believe I ever paid attention once Charlie stopped talking, as I have very few memories of this show.  Probably because Wednesday at 10PM meant I was an eighth grader being sent to bed on a school night- if I was lucky.   Moms and Nuns were not real keen on sleepy kids in morning mass...


Anyway, welcome to an awake and lively Time Machine!  This week, we'll be starting a journey through the #1 lps on the Martin Era 2.0, with various facts and factoids to be shared, up until eventually I get to the lps with the most weeks at the top, and the acts with the most #1s to their credit! Along the way I will bring up the odd and the unusual, and hopefully have a lot of fun with the list!  Also, a bit of mythology, and a look at how the M10 is doing album-wise!  Hands up, assume the position, and let's go!


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This week, we have Harry Wayne Casey- the famous KC of Sunshine Band fame- here with us!  How are you, sir?

Just fine, m'man...  but I got a question for you!  How come you didn't put our single this summer, Movin' Your Body, on the M10?

Well, uh... I listened to it... it just wasn't what I hear when I think KC and the Sunshine Band.  Frankly, POWERS comes closer...


What?  They only have the two people, we have FOURTEEN in the band...

And yet... put your single up against their Dance...

Oh, what do you know about music!  You're as bad as Richard Finch...

SLAM

Sigh... another one run off.  Oh, well, let's get on to the Panel poll this week... 29 stations, 10 candidates, so you should have an easy time of it.

Walter Murphy, who in reality WAS the Big Apple Band, was at #4 on Cashbox with A Fifth Of Beethoven.

A vote from Australia for ABBA's Dancing Queen, which wouldn't hit here until April next year.

Sir Cliff Richard's first real hit here in the states, Devil Woman, was at #6.

Rick Dees, who pretty much was his Cast of Idiots, was at #5 with Disco Duck.

Chicago was at #7 with If You Leave Me Now.

Boz Scaggs was at #2 with Lowdown.

Wild Cherry sat at #3 with Play That Funky Music.

England Dan Seals and John Ford Coley at #10 with Really Want To See You Tonight.

The Steve Miller Band (and God help me if they win, because I haven't squeezed THEIR new song in yet either) were at 20 and falling with Rockin' Me.

And the snit-driven KC and his band were at CBs top spot with Shake Your Booty.  See, this is why you don't get all pissy- an easy list and your song was #1 on CB!  (Again, God help me if HE wins two in a row...)

There was actually one song that dominated this week's race, but you can choose from the short list of Chicago, Walter Murphy, Wild Cherry, and... er... Rick Dees.  Sorry KC, you got less than 7% of the vote, that's what you get for being a butt!


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So my survey of the Martin Era #1s comes from the Billboard charts, as CB apparently only did a year-end (or at least they aren't publishing the lp list).  And that brings up anomaly #1 in our story.  It seems that when stereo became a thing, Billboard found it novel enough to be a chart-worthy variation.  Thus, from May 25th of 1959 till August 10th of 1963, they ran a mono chart AND a stereo chart.  As it seemed to flow a lot better using the mono side (and figuring the stereo side prolly had smaller overall numbers), I compiled my data using the mono side. BUT in fairness, I thought I would let you in on what got missed that way- and what got added on.

The Mono listers that never made the stereo side were-

Exotica by Martin Denny, which included a favorite I've mentioned here before, the instrumental Quiet Village;

At Large by the Kingston Trio- which was one of 4 lps riding the top ten by these guys at the SAME TIME...so definitely well-titled..

Heavenly by Johnny Mathis;

Theme From A Summer Place, not by Percy Faith but by Billy Vaughn and his orchestra;

Five of the six comedy lps that made the list:  Allan Sherman's My Son, The Folk Singer and My Son, The Celebrity ( a third after the split, My Son, The Nut, would be the last #1 comedy lp until Weird Al);  Bob Newhart's The Button Down Mind Of Bob Newhart, and The Button Down Mind Rides Again- which BTW would be the first two live #1 lps of the ME2.0; and Vaughn Meader's The First Family.

Bert Kaempfert's Wonderland By Night (love that song!);

The original cast lps for the shows Camelot and Carnival!;

Peter, Paul, and Mary's debut record;

Songs I Sang On The Jackie Gleason Show by Frank Fontaine;

And Elvis with Something For Everyone- unless, of course, you liked stereo, it seems.


Now the stereo lps that made #1 there but not as a mono record were:

Film Encores by Mantovani;
The Lord's Prayer by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir;
2 lps by a guy I'll have to dig into later named Enoch Light- Persuasive Percussions with Terry Snyder, and Stereo 35/M with the Light Brigade;
Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd with Jazz Samba;
and Henry Mancini's Breakfast At Tiffany's soundtrack.

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One new debut this week, by a name you've seen here twice before- the band Ducktails, who have a new lp called Jersey Devil coming out in October.  This tune comes in at #8:





One YouTube commenter said, "This is the '70s jam I've been waiting for all my life!"  Maybe a tad extreme, but certainly gets the spirit.


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So a couple more notes from the "way back then" side of the lp story.  The first lp of ME2.0 at #1 was a soundtrack to a movie called The Student Prince.  This was done by Mario Lanza, who had the songs all but done and a bit part in the movie to film when he had a falling out with the studio and walked out.  Didn't hurt the movie company- just cut his parts, used his music, and made money off the soundtrack.

Yeah... I kinda got tooken on that one...

Another odd story was the on-again, off-again career of the soundtrack to South Pacific.  This lp, which I believe was the record holder for most weeks on the charts until Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, first hit the top on May 19, 1958 for a week.  Then it picked up single weeks again in mid-September and mid- November.  But it was when they kicked off that stereo chart in '59 that it really took off.  First a three-week stint to open the chart, then a month off before the single week after the Fourth of July- and then from July 20th TILL THE END OF THE YEAR, a 24-week stretch which, sadly, doesn't figure into my calculations because, as I said, I went with the mono chart.

But... zees eez not fair...

Them's the breaks, Ezio!


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Stat Pack:

The #74 in '74  was the Little River Band's first American hit, It's A Long Way There; still think it's one of their best.

Our #101 this week belonged to a name I'd seen around back in the day but never heard- Johnny Guitar Watson, with I Need It.  Johnny was an old hand, with a collection of fair to middling hits in the 50's and 60s  on the R&B charts, and remade himself to the funk era.  He cashed in a year later with a tune called A Real Mother For Ya, which just missed the top 40 in '77.  It was as close as he would get pop-wise, as he never broke #96 otherwise.

A new thing I thought I would look at is the hottest song- the fastest mover in the hot 100.  And the Bee Gees claim this week's hottest tune with Love So Right, which jumped 27 spots to #52.

Speaking of the hot 100, I finally broke halfway, knowing 63 songs.  Back in the basement next week, as we'll just be missing the cutoff for 1977 and reverting back to 1955.

In the UK, the top banana was Dancing Queen, which as mentioned earlier was a few months from hitting here.  The highest here that charted there was- really?- Disco Duck, at #5 here and #19 there; the flip was the Bay City Rollers, at #4 there and #14 here, with I Only Wanna Be With You.

And in a week of curiosities, remember last week, when the top song in the UK was Rod Stewart and Sailing?  Well, they had ALREADY re-released it, and it sat at #11 this week!  I would say something about too much of a good thing, but this week on Cashbox, the Captain and Tenille were dropping with Love Will Keep Us Together, even as their Spanish-language version was climbing.  And I used to sing along to both, so...


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Speaking of curiosities, one last one from the lp story:  The aforementioned Dark Side Of The Moon, with about a million weeks on the chart, got ONE, count 'em, ONE week at the top.

Oh, and what was #1 lp wise THIS week?  Why, right in the middle of the last of FOUR stops at the top, Frampton Comes Alive!  It also claimed album of the Year on both Billboard and Cashbox.  Small wonder, we played it all summer long!

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And now, the rest of the M10...


The National stays at #10 with Dark Side Of The Gym.  And as I perused the current Billboard charts, I noted that their lp, called Sleep Well Beast, was at #1 on many of the subcharts that BB has for albums.  So I went looking, and it had debuted on their main 200 at #2!  So congrats there!


The Japanese House finally on the way out, falling from 4 to 9 in it's 8th week with Somebody You Found.

In Greek Mythology, Alcyone and Ceyx were a married couple who made the mistake of calling each other Zeus and Hera.  Which didn't sit well with the real King of the gods, so he hit Ceyx with a thunderbolt, effectively ending his reign.  Alcyone threw herself into the sea in grief, which isn't such a bad thing when your dad is a sea-and-wind god as well.  Zeus, when done being P.O.ed, turned them both into kingfishers, and the term Halcyon Days comes from the one week every winter that Halcyon's (Alcyone's) dad turned off the wind so she could lay eggs.  Now, somehow, the Russians turned all this into the legend of the Alkonost-

-half-woman, half bird, who makes music so beautiful that the hearer forgets his entire life.  Which is where the band Alkonost got its name, and they move up a spot to #7 with War Is Closed By Us.


At long last, Wayne Newton falls from #3 to #6 with The Letter...

...oh, don't mope!  You are in the top 24% of M10 songs all time with your seven weeks- and only 8% spent seven weeks on the chart without hitting #1!

See, it's not so bad....

Anyway, Jana Kramer moves up to #5 with I've Done Love.

A similar two-spot climb for Squeeze at #4 with Innocence In Paradise.

And back up 2 to #3 goes Alvvays with In Undertow.  The new lp, Antisocialites, debuted at #82 this week, and was in the top ten on all the subcharts where The National were #1- including a high of #4 on VINYL lps!  So congrats to them as well!

Dent and Frankie hang out at #2 for a second week with Across The Multiverse, so that means...

Lucinda Williams takes a third week at the top with Six Blocks Away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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And the Panel #1?  With 39% of the vote, it's...

...Wild Cherry and Play That Funky Music!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Next time, back to 1955!  More lp hijinx!  And maybe I won't make the POTM walk out for a change!

In case you weren't paying attention...

In case you hadn't heard, the hurricane season did not end with Irma and Jose.  In fact, Jose is still alive, but that's another tale.  The West Indies, battered by Irma, with islands like St Maarten, the Turks and Caicos, and Barbuda coming uncomfortably close to being wiped off the map by the storm, is in the crosshairs yet again, with Maria, a storm that went to a Cat 4 during the day (and we are awaiting a recon flight that may well call it a five) aiming a bit lower, looking to nail Dominica head-on, dealing damage to Guadeloupe just north, and with a track that will bring little comfort to a Puerto Rican populace who are still saying, "That was a GLANCING blow?" about Irma.

We have done a good job pitching in, donating and volunteering to help Texas (which is still underwater in some places from Harvey) and Florida.  But keep in mind:  We have resources.  We have insurance.  We have a vast hinterland in which to marshall supplies and house the temporarily displaced.  Places like Barbuda and St Maarten have had 90-95 % of buildings destroyed, communications cut, ports destroyed.

And next up is Dominica, an island nation where most buildings were designed, when rebuilt after the last 'cane, to handle up to Cat 1 winds- and are about to face winds that may double that strength.  I discovered a link to local radio station Kairi FM, and have been listening to the hosts taking calls, including one from the Prime Minister- who was telling people to PLEASE stay indoors (I would think the trick would be keeping the doors around you)...

And in between, playing praise and worship music.

The hosts have been begging people to take shelter "as best you can".  Against a storm whose eye- an eye so tight it's being called a pinhole- is half the size of the whole island, a storm whose furthest bands are brushing the South American coast- shelter is a relative thing.

So far, the Prime Minister says he has heard of nothing life threatening happening yet.  And the one host put it the best way possible:  "...but, I think, God is good..."


We've been on our knees a lot lately over these storms.  Please don't hesitate to do so one more time...

Pictures and the semi-annual rant against ranting

So truth be told I'm skimming over a lot of news and Facebook (its hillbilly cousin) political articles anymore.  BEcause.... when you see the same crap over and over again...  you know: the voices you hear from "the left" are only the most ridiculous, the most extreme- and, unfortunately, the minions that listen and repeat without stopping and thinking.  And what you hear on "the right", you get memes ( about 25% of which are actually humorous), the continuing reports on how ridiculous and evil the other side is, and the latest joke about Hillary's book (which is a self-telling joke if ever one existed, and in need of no further elucidation).  We bitch and complain about how Congress can't get together on things when we can't either, we bitch and complain about the platforms universities are giving whackjob profs and militant students in their thrall when the only one REALLY giving them a platform are those who keep posting what they said on FB;   in other words, we complain about the mess we make ourselves.


Thus, I am going to do my best henceforth to not be triggered by those who don't think on either side.  Eventually I'll prolly have to stop and tear some idiot a new one again, but I'm going to try to be selective and only go after Hollywood "experts on real life" and Ivory Tower pseudo-intellectuals when absolutely necessary, for example if they are starting to veer into a new, virgin level of stupidity or their lack of logic can be dismissed in a new and amusing way.  Everything else, I'll just shrug my shoulders and say...

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Having declared thus, let's move on to pictures!

What could this Gatling gun mean?

Why, it's Johnny Appleseed weekend.  BOOM!

Blow this up to see how much a slave would have run you.  That $1,200 in 1860 dollars would have you paying $33,804 today.  Wow!

This dude was the hit of the show.  He was a chocolatier, and he and his wife explained the history of chocolate making as they explained how to make chocolate- and even let us sample "chocolate tea".

Ran in to Honest Abe a lot...

Maybe last year for the alpacas- owners are getting out of the business to retire, and are selling their stock...

Lincoln speechifying.

And yes, we ran into the CBS News guy, but as we never watch Sunday Morning and didn't know him from Adam, was no big deal.  At least Saturday morning the crowd was WAAAY down from what I'm used to... in all the years I've been going, it was the first time I walked up to the Central Lions stand for my buffalo burgers without waiting- and first time I got a sarsparilla refill without a 1/2 hour plus wait in line.  Speaking of buffalo burgers, I got a text later in the afternoon from KC...

"First buffalo burger for Peanut."


Sunday I tried making it up to Scrappy (for not being allowed at JAF) with a walk.  It was warmer than it looked, humid, and the mosquitos made a late season appearance.  Still...

Big ol' shroom.  Scared the Shroom slayer off...

This poor little guy was lying curled up on the trail in the woods.  A little prodding got him moving unwillingly, and screeching at us like a madman.  Guessing he fell out of the nest and was stunned and scared, really didn't see any other injuries.  Hopefully momma will come looking now and/or he'll snap out of it enough to move to cover.

In the meantime, we did run across one deer, but the skeeters were annoying and Scrappy was in slo-mo, so we headed up Dead Tree Road, and saw this:

Darn it!  Why didn't you tell me the fox was RIGHT HERE!!??!

Time Machine co-ordinates VIXX44791575

Today we edge ever closer to the cut-off line for Martin Era 2.0, dropping in on September 15th, 1975- one day before Motorola's Martin Cooper gets a patent for the first hand-held cell phone, and one day after the second of three nut cases (one earlier, one stab, in 1911; one later, spraying acid, in 1990) slashed up Rembrandt's The Night Watch.  AND we missed out on Elizabeth Ann Seton's canonization.  But it's a MONDAY, so whaddaya expect?

"Zounds, Eowin!  I didst know we were a group of cut-ups, but verily..."

Now, let us shift our artistry to music, as we take in a Time Machine this week in which the M10 wrestled me for all it was worth before giving me a count that set a record for the highest jump to #2- or did it?  Also Chris's 10-cent tour of the greatest lps of all time, a couple of cowboys, and an sad but ironic story at #101!  Make sure you're fully charged, and away we go!


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First up, I have our first debut.  And THIS was a battle too, as the song I originally had slated for this spot managed, during the wrestling match that was the M10 selection, to get tossed out- and so did the next one, etc, till we got to this one.  This band recently had a #1 on the Adult Alternative chart, and this one comes in on the M10 at #10- they are called The National:





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This week, Mr Paul Anka stops in to help with the Panel picks.  Greetings, and congrats on your #12 showing on our recent Biggest Hits Of Summer deal!

Oh, well thank you!  Which song put me there?

Well, more than one, including the one that one the Panel poll last week, Having My Baby!

I liked that one.  Odia was such a sweetheart.  Died far too soon.

Yes, but let's not dwell on that.  Drove the last guy right out of here talking about it last week.

I understand.  Let me see the list.  Um.  Uh-uh.  Very ni-

Um, you are supposed to READ the list aloud... Oh, and BTW, 18 contestants from 51 stations this week.

Forgive me.  a-HEM.  Let's see...

So our first contestant is At Seventeen by Janis Ian, charting on Cashbox at #3.
Neil Sedaka- say, did he make that summer list?

Just missed.

Too bad, he's a dear friend.  Anyway, his Bad Blood was at #63, but it was a new debut.
Ballroom Blitz by Sweet was at #18.
The Stylistics had already peaked at a low #57 a few weeks ago with Can't Give You Anything But Love.

We call that, "they didn't get the memo."

Hm?  What memo?

Never mind.  Go ahead.

Yes, Orleans was at #19 with Dance With Me.
Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Reynolds were at #2 with Fallin' In Love.
David Bowie was at #5 with Fame. 
Bad Company was at #11 with Feel Like Making Love.  Not the Roberta Flack song?

Not quite.

Is this right?  Sweet gets another vote, this time for Fox On The Run?

Yeah, it was on an Australian chart- wouldn't hit here until next January.

You mean January 2018?
No, I mean January 1976.  Please keep it straight.

Oh, okay.  Um... Next is Games People Play by the Spinners, climbing at #26.
KC and the Sunshine Band is at #4 with Get Down Tonight.
Johnny Rivers' cover of Help Me Rhonda comes in at - well, no, it peaked at #30 back in August as well.  Is this a memo thing?

Yep.

Okay, I got it now.  The Pointer Sisters are at #25 with How Long (Betcha Got A Chick On The Side).
John Denver is sorry... oh, oops, John Denver with I'm Sorry at #10.
Dickie Goodman's Mr Jaws was at #27 this week.  Was I on that one?

Nope, sorry.

Oh, thank God.  Glen Campbell with Rhinestone Cowboy- say, there's one of your "couple of cowboys"- is at #1.
Austin Roberts, who got mentioned last week (so say my notes), is at #21 with his Rocky.
And finally, David Geddes with Run Joey Run was at #9.  Say, this was fun!

Glad you enjoyed it!  So to narrow the focus a bit, there were four main contenders, but one ended up getting clear of the pack.  Pick from Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Reynolds; David Bowie; KC and the Sunshine Band; and Glen Campbell, and we'll get the results later on.

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So as I did the Stat Pack this week, I found it odd that while we had a Rhinestone Cowboy at #1, the UK had a "Rochdale Cowboy" at #38.  I was curious as to whether this tune by one Mike Harding- a bit of a cut up, as I read- was a take off on Campbell's hit.  Not quite...






In the rest of the SP, we have the UK #1 being Rod Stewart with Sailing, a tune that crapped out at #58 here.  The #75 in '75 was the Ohio Players with Sweet Sticky Thing- and that group will play into what passes for a 6D later on.  This tune would stop at #33 on Billboard and make #1 on the R&B chart.

I lose last week's bet- I knew 49 songs.

The tune at #101 at first blush might seem a bad taste pun- the song is called A Friend Of Mine Is Going Blind, and it's done by John Dawson Read.    But no joke this- a childhood friend had MD and was losing his sight.  It would get to #72 on Billboard.


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So our next debut, at #8, is from a band celebrating their 21st anniversary- and on their website, they quipped that they were thus coming of age.  That band- my Russian faves, Alkonost.

In celebration they have released a two sided single- one side, the a-side in Europe, translates out to Path To Spring.  The other, the a-side here, is in English and actually comes from their 2000 lp Songs Of The White Oak, but updated for 2017.  And that side is their 2nd M10 hit.





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So in researching the chart hit that got no Panel Love- the Isley Brothers' Fight The Power at #6- I found out that the lp this was from hit #1- making them the third Afro-American act to have a #1 lp, after the Ohio Players (see?) and Earth Wind and Fire.  Which got me to looking into the albums list, and from there a subject we broached once before- the Billboard all-time top 200.  As I didn't have time to do a lot of research (yep, forgot to do the 6D again), I decided to kinda do a "best of" on that greatest of all time list.  So here are Chris's highests from the Billboard all-time list:

The highest over all lp- Adele's 21 at #1, natch.

The highest I have no desire to hear:  Whitney Houston's debut at #11

Highest lp I have listened to all the way through:  Michael Jackson's Thriller at #3

Highest one I've ever owned:  Alanis Morrisette's Jagged Little Pill at #7

Highest one with an M10 single- Avril Lavigne's Let Go (from which I got I'm With You) at #58

Highest from an act I'd never heard of:  Jazz bassist Michael Henderson's Going Places, #44

Highest that I have played the most recently:  Sgt Pepper at #54.

Highest that I have the CD in the car:  Y'know, I tend to get greatest hit CDs , and thus I'm pretty sure I don't have ANY of them on CD out in the car.  I think the closest I come is August And Everything After by Counting Crows (167), from which 5 tracks are on the greatest hits package Films About Ghosts.

Stay tuned next week for a better treatment of #1 lps.


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And now, the rest of the M10:

As quick as it came up:  Phoenix's Telefono, from 10 to 5 to #9 this week.

TWO of our debuts from last week move up 2 spots each- Jana Kramer's I've Done Love from 9 to 7, Squeeze's Innocence In Paradise from 8 to 6.

Alvvays slips a notch to #5 with In Undertow.  It was SUPPOSED to go up...

The Japanese House slides- not as far as I first purposed- to #4 with Somebody You Found.

And the consummate "lobbyist" on the M10- Wayne Newton- defies gravity and holds #3 for a third week with The Letter.


Now, coming into today, the biggest jumps to #2 on the M10 looked like this:

Nothing But Thieves' Trip Switch, from #7.
Flo and Eddie's Keep It Warm; Pom Poms' 1-2-3; and Melody's Echo Chamber's I Follow You, from 8.
Eleanor Friedburger's Two Versions Of Tomorrow, from #9.
 And so it would seem that the clear new champion would be the song this week that jumps from #10 to #2... but wait.  It depends how you count it- because The Joy Formidable DEBUTED at #2 with Liana.  So you have to decide if that was a jump or a bolt from the blue.  If you want to phrase it as "within the countdown", then the record that can only be tied, never broken, belongs now to Dent May and Frankie Cosmos with Across The Multiverse, because THEY went from 10 to 2 this week.


 And that means the winnah and still champeen...

...Lucinda Williams with Six Blocks Away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And that Panel pick?  Well, Glen got 9.8%; H,JF, and R got 11.8%; and Bowie got 19.6%.  But the winner, with 25.4% of the vote...

...Harry Wayne Casey and the Sunshine Band!


Next time, it's 1976!  Be there!

Picture catch up

So looking back, I see I have shared NONE of the smattering of pictures I have taken in September.  Well, that changes now...


A couple of Saturdays back, we talked Laurie into coming with us on our journey.  Of course, nothing spectacular occurred...

Sunday, it was just me and Scrappy...

So hurry it up already!

...but this was the infamous "wow, we're both petered out" day, and nothing of note came our way.

Tuesday was a beautiful afternoon...

And we enjoyed a visit with nature...

...though someone was a tad impatient...

...and not even a mushroom around to slay!

Wednesday was a funny day.  We took off late, passing the socceristas on the way through to California Road.  coming back towards the woods, we had to wait on them clearing out in their cars to cross back over- not only did Scrappy wait like a good boy, but he watched so carefully that when a break came, he was off before I could get more that "le.." of "Let's go" out of my mouth!  So up towards the fields we went, when we came upon this tableau...

SEVEN deer- including a nicely topped buck!  The pics are not great b/c it was dusk and my camera isn't an infra-red job (feel free to start a GoFundMe page if you like), but it was sure fun to be there!


That brings us to THIS Sunday...

...where we see they are indeed finally removing the structures from around the new electrical towers... 

...ducks and geese are returning for a brief last visit...

They've even rebuilt some of the bank they crushed trying to get the fool things up!

So I told Scrappy we'd better take one last trip down the boardwalk before they pull it.  Ten feet after this, he said goodbye by pooping on it.


And that brings us to yesterday...

...where our only contribution was yet another fallen tree in the woods, this one bringing a buttload of vines with it.


So how's that Peanut doing?  Well, papa says the Doc reports him in a low percentile on height and weight, to which I said, "Don't worry, so were you."  And we officially have the "this is for when you are in high school and friends come over" picture...

Yeah, see if you think it's still funny in 14 years...

  And one more thing I have to share with you.  Comic Book Resources amuses itself these days by making various lists, for example, Top 15 times Hulk crapped in his purple trousers, you get the idea.  So last night they had one where they took panels from classic comic books, and suggested you take them out of context.  The one that caught my eye had to do with a story about a villain the Justice League had defeated, only to have him come back and announce that he'd given them all a deadly virus that they would spread to others.  Watch Batman as they ponder the fate of their loved ones...

Very nearly did a spit take on THAT one!