Time Machine co-ordinates VILXXII515113068

As we return to our Musical Tardis after the Thanksgiving break, we happen upon our second straight disaster- or rather the aftermath...

10 days ago, the coal mine in Farmington, WV, exploded with force that was felt 12 miles away.  Miners who were off duty and felt the blast ran to the site, only to find flames shooting 150 feet in the air.  21 miners escaped that day, but the flames burned on for a week, and official rescue operations were shut down today.  Almost a year later, they would re-open the mine to begin recovering bodies- they brought out 59 in a 9-year period before the remainder of the 78 men left behind were sealed in with the mine.  30 years after that, a memo came to light that the mine's chief electrician (on company orders) had disabled the safety alarm on a methane ventilation fan, thus allowing methane to build up without warning.


********************************************


Welcome to Time Machine, and in our usual timey-whimey way, we are presenting what should have been last week's Panel picks this week- so for those of you who are sticklers for perfection, let me refer you to the close of the 500th anniversary post-, and also giving you not one, not two, not three, but FOUR new M10 debuts!  Plus a MHOF drummer you prolly don't even know about, and the Strawberry Alarm Clock make an appearance!  It'll be a blast!  Ugh, that was in bad taste...


***********************************************

I have a lot of songs to share this week, so let's start with the one that debuts at #10!  With their first time on the M10 list, here are- The Beths...




The New Zealand band gives us Beauty Contestant #80, leader Elizabeth Stokes.


****************************************************

So, today, I have with us from the Strawberry Alarm Clock organist Mark Weitz, guitarist Ed King, and flute dude Steve Bartek!  Nice to meet you all!

M:  Nice to be here.  So this is the future?

For you it is, for me it's kind of a week in the past, but that's neither here nor there.

S: So do we make it big?

Well, not as SAC... individually, you had some success...

E:  Hey, let us in on it!

I can't- spoilers, you know...

S: Oh, come on!  You know you're gonna erase our memories or whatever anyway...

Well... Steve, you become a pretty big composer and orchestrator for TV themes, and you play lead guitar in a band called Oingo Boingo...

S:  Were they a thing?

Sorta- more of a cult thing...

E:  What about me?

Ed, you made it the biggest- you become a guitarist for iconic southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd...

M:  Oingo Boingo?  Lynyrd Skynrd?  Where did I end up? Rooty Tooty?

Um... you kinda faded out... though you have been working with Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins...

E: (Giggles)

Now, be nice.  Anyway, we have 27 contestants from 79 stations, so we best get at it.  Here's the one-vote wonders...

S:  Kinda like you, eh, Mark?

M: Put a sock in it, Bartek!  Let's get this going... We have Steve Miller's Band with Living In the USA at #80... The Ventures and the Hawaii 5-0 theme, which was getting an early start as it wouldn't hit the charts till next March...

E:  Here, let me have some!  Marvin Gaye got one vote for I heard It Through The Grapevine at #55... some outfit called Peggy and Jo Jo had Picking Wild Mountain Berries at #31- sounds right up our alley!

S:  My turn! "A garage band from Arkansas" called 5X5 covered Jimi Hendrix on Fire at #42... and the Bee Gees peaked last month with I've Got To Get A Message To You...

M:  Next up, Cream had White Room at #5... Joe Cocker was covering the Beatles' With A Little Help From My Friends at #69....

E:  Johnny Nash's Hold Me Tight was at #7... and Johnny Taylor's Who's Making Love at #6!  Say, the top ten didn't have much luck!

S:  Kinda like...

M:  DON'T go there...

S: Okay...  The Grass Roots had Midnight Confessions at #16... a girl group called the Goodies would debut in December and peak at #46 with Condition Red...

M: Finally a bit of famous and a bit of obscure- The Beatles had Revolution, which peaked at #11 last month, and this radio station had their house group, the CKXL Happy Feeling with their "Happy Feeling" jingle.  Wow.

Good job, fellas!  Here's the "also receiving votes" list.

E: Here, I'm up next!  So, Mary Hopkin got 4 votes for Those Were The Days at #3... The Beatles only got three for Hey Jude?  It was at #2.  Boy, the top ten DID get clobbered...

S:  I've got the Ohio Express with Chewy Chewy at #10... and Glen Campbell's Wichita Lineman at #21 with 2 votes...

M: Then we have- oh, what the heck, I get the foreign titled stuff?  Lo Mucho Que Te Quiero, is that right? By Rene and Rene at #76... and Stevie Wonder's For Once In My Life at #14...

E:  Nice Spanish lingo, Mark!  I got Both Sides Now by Judy Collins at #28... and I Love How You Love Me by Bobby Vinton at #26...

S:  Hey!  I only got one left!

But at least you get to add a story...

S: Oh!  Yeah!  Anyway, the dude went by Leapy Lee, because his real name was... (chuckle) Graham Pullyblank!

Group: (Laughter)

S: Hee, hee!  So anyway, his song was written by Albert Hammond, who I guess will be famous later on, and was called Little Arrows...

E:  How sweeeet...

S: ...and it got to #18 this week, and was #11 country.  There you go, boss!

Thanks, guys!  So here are your main contestants this week:  Choose from the Classics IV with Stormy at #17; the Supremes and Love Child at #1; Dion's Abraham Martin And John at #8; and Steppenwolf with Magic Carpet Ride at #4!  And now, let's fit in the next new M10 song!  Here is Juanita Stein at #9...





And we are definitely racking up the Beauty Contestants this week!

***************************************

So I finally got around to alphabetizing the label list, and one thing that struck me was how many were named after girls!  The biggest was Laurie Records (how about that?) with at least 15 top tens that I could find, including #1s Runaround Sue and He's So Fine, and Panel finalist Abraham Martin And John.  Others included Amy, who claimed Joey Powers' hit Midnight Mary;  Donna, which was best known for R&B star Brenda Holloway; Jamie, which had a lot of success with Duane Eddy's band; Karen, one of 4 labels owned by Ollie McLaughlin (all named after his daughters, with Moira, Carla, and Ruth), which claimed the Capitols' Cool Jerk; Paula, which was mainly a blues/country label but talked John Fred and his Playboy Band into popping it up with Judy In Disguise; Sandy, which was only notable for launching the career of Dr Hook frontman Ray Sawyer; and Sue, which is where Ike and Tina Turner (who apparently set some sort of record in how many labels they recorded on) got their start.


That said, while Atlantic grabbed the most hits this week with 9, it was once again a 4-hit label that won the battle for best average position-

Buddah!  They were riding the Bubblegum craze, and hit with the Lemon Pipers and Green Tambourine at #8 for the year, the Ohio Express with Yummy Yummy Yummy at 11, and the 1910 Fruitgum Company scoring twice with Simon Says at #24 and 1 2 3 Red Light at #39!

**************************************************

Third debut at #8 is a band with a #1 already under their belt- here's Foster The People...






This should be a theme song for me...


*****************************************

So once again the 6D victim leads us to an artist list rather than an actual 6D.  That winner/victim was yet another of this week's battered top ten- the Archies at #9 with Bang Shang-A-Lang.  It was at #9 on Cashbox this week, despite never getting past #22 on Billboard, go figure.  And as you may know, the Archies were a studio group, and on this single, Jughead was played by on Gary Chester.  Gary was a session drummer who played on an amazing array of hits, from 1958's Charlie Brown by the Coasters to 1974's Time In A Bottle by Jim Croce!  He piled up 59 top 40's, 47 of them top tens, and 10 #1s, which I have tried to rank by using both CB and BB weeks at the top and position on the year end charts when that failed.  So here are the top ten #1s that Gary Chester was drummer on:

10- Mr Lonely, Bobby Vinton (1 week on BB, #2 on CB)
9- Time In A Bottle, Jim Croce (2 on BB, 1 on CB)
8- Breaking Up Is Hard To Do (1962 version), Neil Sedaka (2/1)
7- Bad Bad Leroy Brown, Jim Croce (2/1)
6- It's My Party, Leslie Gore (2 each)
5- Will You Love Me Tomorrow, Shirelles (2 each)
4- Roses Are Red, Bobby Vinton (4 each)
3- He's So Fine, Chiffons (4 each)
2- Sugar Sugar, the Archies (4 each)

And at #1...

Save The Last Dance For Me by The Drifters, with 3 weeks out of four on BB and 6 on Cashbox!


******************************************

Final debut this week, at #6, belongs to a recent #1 act- Anna Burch:





****************************************

A quick Stat pack roundup:

Big mover was Neil Diamond's Sunday Sun, leaping from 95 to 58.  From there it would stall, peaking at #42 before falling out of the chart.

The #68 in '68 was Gary Lewis and the Playboys with Main Street.  It was done climbing this week, though, and never cracked the top 100 on BB.

At #101 was a lady named Patty Drew.  An R&B singer, she would peak at #93 with Hard To Handle, and her five charting songs all ended up peaking between #s 62 and 119.

I knew 49 here, and 17 in the UK, including the #9 Those Were The Days, #41 Love Child, #24 Hey Jude, and #48 Hold Me Tight.  I can't claim to know Panelist Little Arrows (UK #13), but I did know their #1- Hugo Montenegro's The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly theme.


********************************************************

Rest of the M10:

ELO hasn't surrendered yet, but Surrender moves down 3 to #7.

Lucius moves up one to #5 with Ghosting.

Sade rolls up 3 to #4 with The Big Unknown.

Blackberry Smoke stays a third week at #3 with You Got Lucky.

And something happens this week that has only happened once before in the 3 years and change of the M10- both the top two songs have at least 7 weeks on the chart.  The first time was back at the beginning of May with Lucius's Eventually at the top and Alvvays's Not My Baby right behind.

This time, it is Alkonost's Paporotnik at #2.

And a third week at #1 for...

...Roseanne Cash with Not Many Miles To Go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the Panel?  Well, if you took the Classics IV, you got 8.8 %...

Steppenwolf got you 7.6%...

Dion got you 13.9 %...

But the winner with 25.3 %...

Yet again the Supremes with Love Child!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It seems like it was only 5 weeks ago that they combined with Elvis as POTM!  Hopefully, I can negotiate a better deal with Diana Ross next week, as we head to 1969!

Wednesday Bible Study: Or, the short version

So this week we get back to our tour of the 3:16s and are in Ephesians this week.  Now I took a lot of notes, graphed the passage all out, but then found a new "Doc Martin's Rule" to help us out.  And our verse this week is this:

Eph 3:16  that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 

So with a verse that starts with a "(so) that", and ends in a comma, I start have to asking a bunch of "whys" in order to understand where we're at and where we're going.  First why is, " 'so that' what?"  In other words, what is it Paul was doing "so that" God would grant what He does?  And we get that two verses back...

Eph 3:14  For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 

So Paul was praying for them.  Why?

Eph 3:13  So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. 

And that makes us ask, why was Paul suffering to the point that his Ephesian brothers were at a point of possibly losing heart?

Eph 3:1  For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles-- 

Eph 3:2  assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, 

Eph 3:3  how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. 

Eph 3:4  When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, 

All right, so now we can put this together.  Paul was suffering ( at the hands of Roman jailers) in order to share with the Ephesians- and all Gentiles- what Christ had taught him.  The suffering, to them, was extreme enough that they were beginning to question its worth, and he prayed for them to the Father.  So now, we shift the other way and ask, what did he pray for?

There are three main sections to our target verse.  First, Paul has to show them that God has the resources to do what Paul asks for them.  I like that one commentator took the words "according to the riches of His glory" and reworded it as: " Out of the inexhaustible stores of grace."  One of the things that led Martin Luther to his protest against the church of his day was the concept of a "grace bank", that you add to with "small acts of kindness", and prayers to the saints, but most of all by paying to have masses said, and paying for indulgences from sin.  You could literally pay money to shave hundreds or thousands of years of "purgatory" from the deceased, because your "deposit" in the grace bank let God make a "withdrawal" in the name of the deceased you dedicated it to.

Let me be clear.  There is no "grace bank" that WE need to contribute to.  There is "the inexhaustible stores of God's grace", that we access through faith.

Second section is what Paul was basically praying for- that they be strengthened with power.  Here I had to dig a little bit further.  Strengthened comes from a word that translates as "empowered."  Empowered with power?  Again, look deeper.  The word used as "power" isn't so simple a term.  From Strong's concordance:

force (literally or figuratively); specifically miraculous power (usually by implication a miracle itself)...

So now, we see Paul isn't just asking God to prop them up, but is calling on miraculous intervention in their lives.  And in a way, God answered this prayer, as he would shortly be released from his first imprisonment in Rome.  A valuable lesson here, as Paul prayed for them, and the answer redounded to his personal benefit.

The third section explains the realm in which he asked for this empowerment- in their inner man, the "new man" that he constantly tells us to put on.  This means, as I have often pointed out, he isn't asking for God to improve their circumstances, but to improve THEM from within to handle whatever the circumstance was.  The focus isn't on the suffering that causes one to lose heart, the focus is on the "new man" with his goal of Heaven and the building of the Kingdom of God, that he not turn back and lose heart over the world.  But stopping here doesn't make that clear, so we have to ask- why does Paul want them to have this miraculous empowerment, and what should they do with it?  And we find he has three goals for them:

1- from v17, second half:

that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 

First, he wants them rooted and grounded in love.  He wants them assured of their salvation in Christ.

2- From the first half of the same (changed in order because of Paul's unique writing style):

 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith--

 with the next verse and the first part of v19:

Eph 3:18  may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 

Eph 3:19  and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,

Second, he wants them to advance from that position of being rooted to move on to comprehension of the love of this Christ in their hearts, because they cannot overcome their fears without His assurance.

3- And the close of v19:

 that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 

And there is the end goal.  Paul suffers that they may be made full; they should not be dismayed at his, or even their own, potential suffering.

So having done my first go through of this sequence, and thinking about how complex the whole process was, I moved on to my own nightly reading- and soon after starting, a found a verse that compacted the whole thing in one spot:

2Ti 1:12  which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me. 

And that is the entirety of Ephesians 3:1-19 in a nutshell.  Leading me to yet another valuable rule to follow.  If the passage is proving too hard to get a grasp on, just pray about it- God usually has a "simplified version" elsewhere.  Timothy was already a pastor and teacher- he did not need the "baby food" that the Ephesian laity did.  God uses the Bible to talk to a LOT of people on a lot of different levels.  If Paul puts it a way you don't quite grasp, look for the same idea in John, or elsewhere.  Odds are God will show you a way that will speak to YOU.

Around the world with spam

So today I decided I wanted to find out what really is on the other side of the earth from us here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  And amazingly, what I found was the second most isolated major city on the earth!


Now the exact spot is under several hundred feet of the eastern Indian Ocean, but the nearest land-ho to the other side of the planet is Perth, Australia- 11,109 miles from Ft Wayne.  That is to LA from my house and back about 3 times.

How isolated is Perth?  Well, let's start with- it is 1,661 miles from the nearest city of Ft Wayne's size, Geelong, Victoria.  (For comparison, Ft Wayne is 105 miles from Indianapolis- about 1/16th the distance.  Perth is 1,324 mi from Adelaide, 1,648 mi from Darwin, 2,043 mi from Sydney.  It's 1,919 mi from Perth to the capitol at Canberra- while Ft Wayne is only 451 mi from Washington DC.  Only Honolulu is more isolated from a comparably populated city (San Francisco).

In all fairness, there are two or three little communities near Perth that are actually a bit farther, along with New Amsterdam Island, a French possession with only a seasonal population.

"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale..."

***************************************************


Today Facebook has been awash with the latest go round of a message that is being passed on both by bots in some machines and by gullible people that believe about anything.  It usually comes to you in Messenger, and it looks like this:

Hi….I actually got another friend request from you yesterday…which I ignored so you may want to check your account. Hold your finger on the message until the forward button appears…then hit forward and all the people you want to forward too….I had to do the people individually. Good Luck! PLEASE DO NOT ACCEPT A NEW ONE FROM ME AT THIS TIME


I have had about four of these in the past, and another one just as all the official posts about "don't fall for the latest hoax" started getting posted, and other friends started "warning" that they weren't sending them out.  Here's what I think you should all think about:

1- How many of your friends start a message with "Hi..."?  This we shall call "clue you don't have #1".

2- "I actually got another request..." ACTUALLY?  REALLY?  Gimme a break, do real people talk like this?

3- I got it yesterday, and just at random decided to tell you about it today.  Awfully prompt of you...

4- The sender now spends twice the time telling you how to FORWARD the message to everyone you know as they did telling you there was a problem.  So, what is the PRIORITY here?

5- Not to mention these instructions you didn't figure out until you told everyone BUT ME ("I had to do the people individually. Good Luck! ")  But, through the goodness of your heart, you decided to devise away to spread the news much more efficiently BEFORE you finally got to me?

6- "and all the people you want to forward too…"  Nice grammar, there.

7- PLEASE DON'T ACCEPT A NEW ONE FROM ME AT THIS TIME... Why not, you took one from me, right?  But, if not at this time, should I wait a few weeks before accepting more requests from you?  After all, how will I get to the Facebook Friend Limit of 5,000 without having you on my list multiple times?


Sigh...


Long story short, I just delete these messages.  Because with the skills I gleaned from a semester of Critical Thinking are more than enough to deduce that the point of this message is for me to keep passing it on.  Why, I don't know.  I don't care, either.  And I sincerely hope that those who send it to me are just unaware that a bot is using their account for a base camp.  But it's hard to tell, a few months ago when this swept the world the FIRST time, I pointed out to a FB friend and her Sister-in-law that they should probably just change their passwords.  Their replies?


"I don't know how"
"Me neither"

Sigh.

Thanksgiving slices

So I don't have a bunch of food pics to celebrate our Thanksgiving feast Saturday, but I do have something of what we're thankful for...

This was my grand project over the weekend.  If you remember, I took all the pictures I had at work down, for reasons discussed here.  And wanting something great to do with them, this is what I came up with.  It wasn't as easy as I surmised, and Laurie's imput kept me from turning green and bursting out of my clothes with a roar.


Then, on to the fun...

This believe it or not, is one cranky Peanut- and how Mommy got him entertained by letting him watch videos of HIMSELF playing in the bathtub.  Vanity, thy name is Martin!

And this is a Mommy-baby wrestling session.  I regret that I was never fast enough to get him bonking her on the head with his duplos, as I was groggy from Trukey and about to be groggier with beer.

And speaking of groggy, this was the scene soon after 5 minutes of intensive crying for no real reason.

KC and I had had to run back to their house to get his fooler, and here I have to pick a bone with our fellow holiday travellers.  Halfway there, at the busiest intersection on the way, despite our loud music, I heard an ambulance coming perpendicular to us.  Everyone slowed and stopped at the intersection all way- except one gigantic asshole who came through from our direction when the ambulance, running hot, was LESS THAN A CARLENGTH from the intersection!  Not long thereafter, at a far less busy intersection in which a second lane merged into ours, another thundering dunderhead zipped down the quickly evaporating lane at breakneck speed in order to cut us off and pass.

I swear, how many accidents from inconsideration do you have to see on the news?  How many road rage incidents?  HOW MANY HAVE TO DIE to get you home 5 minutes sooner?

Okay, rant over.

Hope you all had a great holiday, too!  I'll be thinking of you as I spend this vacation week doing absolutely nothing....

Sunday message: Joseph part three- selling holes

As my former Sunday School students have heard me say more than once, the best messages come to me in the shower.  And so it was, one day this past week, I was praying on the "Five Guys" from the last Wednesday Study (AKA Part 2 of this series), and trying to learn what applied TO ME from their stories.  And a single, seemingly part of a certain verse unconnected to them came to me-

 “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess..."

This was from Mark 10's tale of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus, claiming he wanted to inherit eternal life, and had kept the commandments from his youth- Jesus' answer to him started with this sentence...


“One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess..."

What did the Five Guys lack?  What did they sell to God?

Job had to sell his self-righteousness- his concept that anything HE did gave him a standing with God.  In return, he gained humility.

Noah? He had to sell the world as it was- everything he knew, the very fabric of life, anything he had known from a child.  In return, he got a new world, a new life, a new promise.

Abraham's treasure he had to sell was Isaac, of course, but more than Isaac:  he had to sell the idea- and I struggle with how to phrase this to make it make sense- he had to sell his concept of doing things any way but God's way, no matter how counter-intuitive it might be.

Daniel was selling his own life- along with those of his friends and all the wise men of Babylon- in order to gain their salvation.

And David?  He had to sell the concept of his position allowing him to do whatever he wanted- in effect, he had to sell his kingship, down to its very core idea.


I think this will make more sense as I apply it to myself.  Bear with me a bit longer.


If you really dig into what they were selling, it was the LACK of what they needed to serve God.  Look at Job.  He had to sell his lack of humility when faced with Almighty God.  Abraham had to sell everything that kept him from depending on the Promise.    Every one of them ended up having to sell the lack of what God needed in them.


They were selling HOLES.

Lesson one: What God asks you to give up, you don't NEED.

So I had to ask myself first, what was my treasure?  Well, if you look in your life, you can probably come up with dozens of things you treasure.  Does God want you to give any of them up?

Are any of them holes?

I ask that because, as I meditated further, I saw the point in the rich young ruler.  He came seeking eternal life, not a CHANGE IN HIS CONDITION.  Jesus told him to sell all he had, give to the poor, and CHANGE HIS CONDITION by following Him.  I pose to you, a man who desired eternal life, who had kept the commandments as diligently as he claimed to have, wasn't saddened because Jesus asked him to give up money and he was greedy.  I pose that he could have handled the giving up of the money- but the CHANGE necessitated by FOLLOWING Jesus is what he couldn't handle.

And here is where I found MY application.  I have an obedience problem- big in one area, smaller in others.  I have spaces where I say, "But God will forgive me later."  And when I came down from that shower to read my daily Bible section and it practically SHOUTED at me about my big "treasure", I knew.

I have to sell my disobedience.  I need to sell the "but that's just me" things that God doesn't WANT being me.  It was soon later that another "seemingly random" verse came to me:

And Jesus said unto him, “No man, having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.”

Luke 9:62.  I wouldn't have understood this, except that a pastor I listened to recently said the Kingdom of God is NOT heaven- it is the Church working here on earth.  I pray a lot that these posts get to the right set of eyes, to whoever it is out there that needs them.  But this tells me, it ain't gonna happen unless I sell my hole.  I cannot write this up, and then go on as before.  I know that, I tell myself that all the time.  But then, to finish me off, Chuck Swindoll said something the other day when talking about Moses that hit me right between the eyes- here is my best paraphrase:

"So Moses would go up the mountain to get the word from God, then come back down to tell the people.  Then he would be summoned back up for more, and come back down. Up, down, up, down.  Climbing a mountain is hard enough, let me tell you- and here is an 80 year old man, going up, down, up, down.  He had to be panting, thinking, Lord, what is this all about?

I'll tell you what it was about.  It is about taking God seriously."

Boom.

Everytime I give in to my "just me" disobediences, I am looking back.  I am not taking God as seriously as He demands.  Proof of that?  My subconscious tried to get me to type "requests" right there instead of demands.  God DOES NOT request anything.  If you want to serve God in a way such as to bear fruit, you have to sell your hole.

M10 bonus page

So this week you just get the week's M10, but fear not!  I already have much of next week's post done- so much, in fact, that I am going with what should have been this week's week, as I had done the Panel polling before realizing that "typing day" was Thanksgiving!  Anyway, we have one debut but it's not only a surprise- an act with 2 national top 5s but nothing in the top 40 since 1986- but it is bound to be a big hit here- and I heard part of it's opening on a new Allstate commercial despite the fact it was just released last week!  But first, we start in order.

#10 is the two week #1 Apathy by Frankie Cosmos, slipping from 6 to 10 in week number 8.

#9 and holding- Elvis Costello and the Imposters with Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter.

#8 and holding- the Derevolutions and Research Cognitivity.

And now... at #7, from an upcoming movie called Widows... here is Sade.....






I really never expected to her her (actually them, I am told, the band is named after her) in my countdown, but, wow...


Blasting up 4 from 10 to 6 is Lucius with Ghosting, from the Mom+Pop Records tenth anniversary lp.

#5 and holding- Bad Wolves and Remember When.

#4, another former top dog- ELO's Surrender, down 2.

The surprise of the week part two- Blackberry Smoke's You Got Lucky holds at #3.

And that's because Alkonost's Paporotnik instrumental track leapfrogs it into the #2 spot.

And leaves us with a second week at #1 for...

Rosanne Cash and Not Many Miles To Go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


And there you go!  See you at the Musical Tardis next week!

Scrappy's Thanksgiving

Yeah, it's me, and Daddy thought it would be nice of me to do a "things I'm thankful for" post.  This has been a rough year to be me.  I'm stuck on this water thing, I'm losing eyesight and hearing (the other day I stood in front of an open door waiting for Daddy to open it...), I slip and slide all over this new wood flooring, and trip over my own feet everywhere else.  Daddy has been so upset he couldn't give me my "best summer ever", but we done okay considering how bad we're both falling apart (ask Daddy about falling out of bed Tuesday morning...)  So we're gonna look back at some of my moments this year...

Here I am teaching Peanut how to beg for food...

It was nice enough to get some late december walks in...

Mommy and me on Christmas eve...

And here I am selecting the latest Beauty Contest winner!

This was some ice-cold water in January

Here I am, stuck again!  I'm thankful for a patient Daddy!

Early spring trip to the Green Hole

I still cut a handsome figure, if I say so...

Here's where Daddy was playing with some setting on his camera and caught me with my tongue out.  BTW, it was April Fools Day.

We saw a lot of deer this year!

Before I got so sick with this water thing, Daddy was letting me go off my leash for a few walks.  Not a good idea now, Daddy says.  He'd need a crane to get me out of the creek!

In May, the muskrats and groundhogs came out...

Oh, boy!  We saw deer at the pond!

On Happy Boofus Day, I got to go to Shoaff Park...

...and to Culvers!

I was really thankful for that!

By summer, it was really hot.  I was really thirsty all the time, and Daddy was so sad this day.  He was wondering how many more walks I had left.  But I'm still here!

Daddy said this was another Bunny Summer.  Groundhogs too, but I wasn't as interested, since I couldn't smell 'em so good.

Then we got that darn wood floor.  More like wood ice.

This was the morning daddy thought it was funny that I had dew on my nose...

And that night, we shot a video of a deer and her babies.  We saw one of them poop!

This is about the last toy I got.  I don't play much anymore, so I don't use 'em.

I don't go to the doggie park much anymore.  I'm getting too grumpy about doggies messing with my ears anymore.

This was from that night that these two deer kept following us around...

Daddy laughs, but I get so mad when my water holes are dry...

Wow, lookit 'em go!

It was such a beautiful fall...

So, yeah, I have my problems, but I have a lot to be thankful for... hey, food's here!  See ya later!