Step into my time machine week 78

It's October 21, 1976.  Tonight, Johnny Bench will hit 2 HRs, one a three-run shot in the ninth, to lead the Big Red Machine to a 7-2 win over the New York Yankees and a 4 to 0 victory in the World Series.  Bench will be named series MVP and Yogi Berra will say, "It got late (in the series) real early."  And somewhere in Georgia, less than 2 weeks from the presidential election, Billy Carter will tell an audience that his brother Jimmy is a scotch drinker and "I've never trusted a scotch drinker."  Soon we would see why.  Today, though, it is a breezy- but DRY- 46 degrees, and the mysterious Martin Time Machine has arrived to look at the pop charts of the day.  And the things we'll run into today include birthdays for two of the all time classics, a Where Are They Now that's a lot like a six degrees- and vice versa, the winner of the worst video I've ever seen award, and a new top dog.

We open with the hot hundred debuts this week, and we have what has to be the lowest total I've seen in a year and a half of doing Time Machine- three.  And the one that made an impact, celebrating its thirty-fifth birthday, is the fusion hit Dazz (disco-jazz) by Brick, coming in at #89.  But this was  far from the only song to have a birthday, and two of them are classics.  I was going to save one of those classics for a video at the end, but it's only a 45th birthday, so I'll just say congrats to Good Vibrations, which debuted this week in 1966.  Other birthdays include Melanie's Brand New Key and the Chi-Lites' Have You Seen Her turning 40, the Hollies' Stop Stop Stop turning 45, and the other classic- Patsy Cline's Crazy- turning 50 this week.  Blow out the candles...

The big dropper is also our Grandpa's chair song- Kiss And Say Goodbye stops off for its 27th week at #95, a 38-notch fall.  Englebert Humperdink rises 24, the top mover, to 68 with After The Loving.

Our look at the #1s of other years takes us to the sevens this week.  In 1997, we were towards the beginning of the 14-week run of Elton John's Candle In The Wind '97.  In 10 weeks, we'll be here again.  In 1987, ironically from a current events standpoint, Michael Jackson was the top dog with Bad.  1977 saw us amidst the longest 8 weeks of my "musical youth"; Debby Boone was on top for the third of her 8 weeks with You Light Up My Life.  In 1967, we kindergartners were grooving to Lulu's To Sir With Love.  And in 1957, a song that surprised me because I didn't think it was that old- Johnny Mathis' Chances Are.  Unlike Elton John, we won't see him at #1 again for 21 years.

Once again we have a problem at #49's WATN feature, as it is a previous featuree- the Beach Boys with It's OK on the way down.  While I was looking through the "It's OK story"  for anything salvageable, I found a sax credit for Roy Wood.  Being an ELO fan, I said "Roy Wood?  Hmmm..."  You see, Roy founded the Move a highly successful UK act that morphed into early ELO.  After ELO's first lp, Wood and Jeff Lynne decided to part ways, and Wood founded Wizzard.  Wizzard, an octet that included a cello, two drummers and two sax players (three each if you consider Roy could- and did- play all those instruments in the studio), had six UK top tens including 2 #1s.  Both of these I sampled this morning- a bit odd for American tastes, as was the bassist in the angel wings and roller skates in both videos.  Roy moved on to work both solo and in a variety of other projects- Roy Wood's Big Band, Roy Wood's Helicopter Band, and the Wizzo Band, to name a few- but his most enduring hit was a Christmas tune called I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday.  Hitting #4 in its initial release in 1973 ( the British have a bit of a contest over the top Christmas song every year, I understand), it also made the top 40 at #23 in 1984, #16 in 2007, and 31 in 2008.  Roy recently got an honorary doctorate at the U of Derby for lifetime achievement, and has put together Roy Wood's Rock & Roll Band to open for Status Quo for November and December dates in the UK.

Like the hundred, the top 40 has three debuts this week.  Up 2 for its cup of coffee at #40 is Starbuck with a cool tune called I Got To Know.  Moving up 6 to #38 is bandleader and jazz star drummer  Norman Connors, with vocals from Michael Henderson (Miles Davis' bass player for several lps), and the ethereal You Are My Starship.  And rocketing from 45 to 28, we have Rod Stewart with Tonight's The Night.  That French part at the end was done by then-girlfriend Britt Eklund, whom he say he had to get "pissin' drunk" to do it and was paid not in royalties but a "new frock".  I have here the translation, which we all thought was something that we couldn't hear in English back then.  Actually, it translates to:  "I'm a little scared, what is my mother going to say(to think)? Come a little closer, kiss me. I adore you so very much. Oh, it's him, it's him I love you I love you I love you...."  Another illusion shattered.

Three songs enter the top ten, three fall out.  Dropping are Lowdown (4 to 14), Devil Woman (5 to 16), and Still The One (6 to 17).

Coming in at 10, up 6, are newly-minted MHOFers the Captain and Tenille with Muskrat Love.  At #9, climbing 4, is Blue Oyster Cult with Don't Fear The Reaper.  Holding at 8 are the Bay City Rollers with I Only Want To Be With You.  Heart climbs 2 to #7 with Magic Man.  Hall and Oates edge up 1 to #6 with She's Gone.  Rocketing into the ten all the way up at #5, a six notch climb, is Gordon Lightfoot's The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald.  Also rising 6 to #4 is Steve Miller with Rock'n Me. Walter Murphy, who got us started with all that Nude On The Moon stuff, holds at 3 with A Fifth Of Beethoven.  Which brings us to #2, our top dog last week, and the worst video of all time, and it's NOT Disco Duck.

Finding a legit six degrees for the duck was nigh unto impossible.  No list of musicians on the song could be found, and the voice of the duck, Ken Pruitt, was just a guy that Dees used to work out with.  Now Dees' wife, Julie McWhirter, is an Indy native who is a voice actor, having been at various times Kanga from Winnie The Pooh, Baby Smurf, and Sassette.  She was also Betty in the ill-fated Flintstones live-action movie.  But none of these things moved me forward.  In desperation, I went to Dees' web site.  He had a list of semi intelligent news articles, and the one that unfortunately- for me- caught my eye was that William Shatner, that musical virtuoso, had done a cover of Bohemian Rhapsody ( a song he claims he'd never heard until a year ago).  Figuring I'd survived Nude, I thought I'd survive this as well.

When I posted my review of Nude, Mynx suggested I might need a "cuppa tea and a liedown- or something stronger" to recover.  Let me tell you, after THIS one, it's definitely "something stronger".  MUCH stronger.

Though I didn't get the sound turned on to get the whole beginning, it starts with a teenage couple watching the night sky on the Hollywood Hills, wishing someone would "send them a sign" about something that I'm not brave enough to go back to find out what.  Then Bill Shatner's face appears in the stars (appears smushed up against the stars would be a more apt description), and he begins a semi-spoken word rendition of the song that will make nails down the chalkboard sound like Montovani.  Mixed into this is arty-cartoony versions of the zodiac doing various things up to and including background vocals, a guitar crescendo that has star-Bill shooting flaming meteors at downtown LA, and finishes with a few lines of similar treatment of Spirit In The Sky.  In the end, the kids find a smoking copy of Bill's new CD, which somehow they do not throw down the hill and run away as fast as they can.  All in all, this is a link that you want to e-mail to your worst enemy- but only if they are on a par with Hitler, Bin Laden, and Qaddafyduck.  It has real potential for a new torture technique.  (and speaking of the late great Qaddaffyduck, he might be hearing this a lot from now on...)

And that gruesome story leaves us only with our new #1- a song that would go on to spend 5 weeks at #1 in Australia, 4 in Holland, and 3 in the UK late in the year.  May I present our new top dog:

Chicago, with the Grammy-winning If You Leave Me Now!!!

That's it for this week.  And please, let's light a candle that six degrees doesn't turn up anything even more horrible next week!

Nude on the moon

Those of you that read the Six Degrees segment of last weeks Time Machine know that somewhere in between Walter Murphy's A Fifth Of Beethoven and Terry Jacks' Seasons In The Sun, we hit what I described as the most retarded movie concept of all time- a movie called Nude On The Moon.

Now you know me, I'm not just going to say something is stupid without checking it out to be sure.  So, this afternoon I watched Nude On The Moon.

I did not slander it, my friends.

Our main characters are three:  Jeff, the young, dedicated scientist, whose passion for science negates his passion for women; the Professor, an attempt at a wise, fatherly figure that looks more like the male lead in the cheesiest of pornos (which they actually have a little fun with later);  and the secretary Cathy, played by a woman only known as Marietta (and I don't blame her there), who is madly in love with Jeff who barely notices her.  Our plot:  Jeff and Prof are designing a rocket ship that will make them the first to the moon and back (film was released in 1961), and Jeff gets the exciting news that his Uncle Jed, a rich furrier, has died and left him 3 million dollars after taxes.  Insert your Clampett joke here.  At any rate, Jeff has determined that they are going to use the money to finish the ship, rather than wait for government funding, despite Prof's protests that he should use it and retire and find a wife.  (Mind you, by this point, Prof has already figured out the love angle and is trying to help young Cathy out.)

We mercifully contract "six months of work" into a couple of scenes each of Prof fiddling with a junior chemistry set and and Jeff taking readings from what appears to be a modified ham radio set.  Finally the day comes and Jeff and the Prof drive thru Miami to the launch site, passing the marquee of a movie theatre where the Prof went the night before (to see Hiding In The Sun, another nudist camp movie by director Doris Wishman).  Anyhow, they get to the place and gaze up at their "beautiful" ship (which we never really see from the outside) before climbing a set of painting scaffolds linked together to board their craft.

Now, mind you, as they take off they are wearing nothing more than the lab suits they've worn the whole movie.  After giving last instructions to each other over microphones (despite sitting right next to each other), there follows a few seconds of simulated g-forces ( that looks more like two guys trying to shit with their pants still up), and voila!we're in space.  Then comes a couple of peeks at the earth (or a play-doh model thereof) and suddenly they're in a patch of space where asteroids start swirling around them and they fall asleep.  They wake up when the amazing craft lands by itself on a green moonscape.

However as they emerge, they are not only dressed in spacesuits ( a welders helmet painted gloss white, a tube hooked to a scuba breather, leading to a tiny oxygen tank tied to their lower backs, brightly colored tights with Flash Gordon-style tinfoil accouterments on the torso and shorts), but are arriving on a world that suddenly looks very earthlike (not surprising since the whole moon-scene is filmed at the Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida).  There they find the gold nuggets (which Prof wants to take home despite the fact that "they will put us over weight and may cost us our lives", to "finance future projects") and eventually the camp of the nude race of the moon.

Except for two guys, this population turns out to be topless women.  About three of them show butt-crack too, to simulate nudity I guess.  At this point they flip up their visor (but they still can't stay long because their oxygen will run out, far be it from them to figure out they really don't need it) and begin to "observe", until each is separately seized by the two guys.  They are each then taken to a blonde chick with a magic wand, who taps them on the head.  They are then under her spell, and she leads them to some pit of no escape.  At this point the queen, who if you were watching the movie you guessed before leaving earth was played by Cathy the receptionist, summons everyone to the "great council".

Here she tells everyone "telepathically" (in a whispering voice more suited to telling ghost stories) that she believes them to be friends, who "come seeking knowledge of the heavens" and orders them released.  Then they spend the rest of the movie watching the day-to-day hijinks of a city full of nude women, taking pictures with an ancient box camera and writing notes on a pad.  (one of the girls here decided to make fun of Prof's cheesy porno mustache by putting a leaf under her nose and making faces, one of the few laughs not generated by mind-numbing stupidity.) 

Of course Jeff starts to fall in love with the queen, leading him to "communicate with her" to the theme song which I incorrectly reported as I'm Mooning For You.  It was, in fact, an equally insipid song called Moon Doll, and was written by one Judy J. Kuschner, Wishman's niece and much later writer of Wishman's horror flick A Night To Dismember with Samantha Fox.  In fact, anyone in this flick who had another credit at all had one for either another in the nudie series or some d-horror flick.

Anyway, the time comes to go, and Jeff doesn't want to leave.  Despite feeling the same, the queen knows he can't survive there (though I'm not quite sure why), and taps him with the magic wand once again so Prof can lead him back to the ship (which is now back on the green-cheese moon) and take off with the girls all waving goodbye.  Of course, they soon discover that camera, gold nuggets, and note pad have all been left behind.  Which is a shame, because after an afternoon of taking pictures of nude women and jotting down notes, the Prof says at one point, "Jeff, we're getting some really good data here!"  Indeed.

Next scene, we are back on earth, and the Prof is calling Jeff from "the field", where he says that government inspectors looking over the ship "don't believe it could even get off the ground".  His dreams crushed.  Jeff falls into despair, until Cathy enters the room.  She just stands there, and Jeff stares at her in a way like in the old Bugs Bunny cartoons, where Bugs would stare at Fudd and see a giant carrot;  sure enough, a few seconds of back-and forth and Cathy "turns" into the queen (although where the queen had her hair down, the "vision" has it up a la Cathy).  Jeff takes her in his arms and says, "It's a miracle... I thought I lost you forever, but here you are on earth."  Cue up a couple lines of Moon Doll.  The End.

To sum it up, if you just like to look at boobies, you'll love the second half.  If you demand a little more physical interaction in your porn, don't bother, you'll only get frustrated.  If you were hoping for an interesting sci-fi flick with boobies, set your bar waaaaay low and you might be okay.  If you want a soaring romance and gripping plot, go back to your Jackie Collins novellette.  Me? Even I have standards in stupidity, and this wandered away from them almost from the start, when the Prof picks up the phone and waits for Jeff to talk (He says, "Professor!" rather mildly to which Prof replies, "Jeff!  Don't get so excited!"), and continuing continuously thereon.

NHFFL week #4

Going to be brief here, I have a head that wants to fall off and a dog that will have to be let out by leash due to the complex is redoing our porch fences.

Big game goes to the Rangers over the Aguas 30-21.  5 different 6 point scorers for the Rangers, who are now the sole undefeated team.  KCAs hold off a furious comeback by the hard luck Beagles (20 points from the Jet D) 37-34.  Beagles are the league's 2nd highest scoring team and even with the worst D are 1 point to the good. But because everyone brings their A game to play them, they have just the 1 win.  Angels blast the Greenwoods into last place 55-25 behind 30 points by Ahmad Bradshaw and Aaron Rodgers.  Rodgers will probably throw 2 TDs on the bye week at this rate. Ducks blast the Clock BBQs 37-24 behind Michael Turner's 2 scores.  In the battle for first in the Gold division, B2s (in a fitting memorial for Cassie) topped the Elks 28-25, holding them off as the Elks had a Santonio Holmes TD Monday night to pull close for the umpteenth time.  And finally, Porkchops end Buzz's 2 game winning streak 27-18, Dallas Clark's TD being crucial.

Dan Wheldon

I'm not going to pretend I watch IRL after the 500.  Nor am I going to say that Dan was my hero, despite the fact I picked him to win last May.  But the hurt was real, the tears did demand release.  Anytime you lose a 33-year old with his life ahead of him and a family to support, it is tragic.

But tragedy has a lot of shades.  Watching the Brickyard this year was about as exciting as if Dale Jarrett and his UPS friends were running the race in big brown trucks.  Because Stock cars don't belong on a open-wheel track.  They look stupid, and the result is boring.  Conversely, having open wheelers on a NASCAR track is like hopping the starship Enterprise at FWA and jetting to Indy.  I get that IRL was looking to "jazz up" its finale, literally going for broke in an attempt to get ratings up.  But why not just have an IRL race at Charlotte, and the winner is the one who keeps from flying off the track the longest?  Shouldn't take more than a half-hour, you can run it as a warm-up to the NASCAR race.

Apparently, the drivers were talking all week about the potential for danger in this race.  I've heard two separate reporters say that every driver expressed reservations about this race.  Now I'm going to ask a question we all know the answer to, and I wish that everyone involved in this race being held would answer this question in his own heart.  If you all knew that something like this was likely to happen, why the hell didn't any of you say, "F this, I'm not doing it"?  It might have only took one of you standing up to set off a chain of events that would have led to Dan Wheldon being at home with his wife and babies tonight.

Of course, the answer is that these are driven individuals that would compete in a parking lot if IRL decided that was the place for a race.  I hear Franchitti and Kanaan are going to get the younger drivers together to tell them why this happened and what they can do to prevent things like it from happening.  I also heard that Jeff Burton marched into the NASCAR Veep of competitions' office today to discuss safety concerns about this track.  Bravo, gentlemen.

Did someone really have to die to get you to do this, though?

I know that NASCAR leads the world in working on safety.  And I know that Wheldon himself was working with IRL to make their sport safer.  But let me boil Sunday down to its simplest turns.  The IRL ran a race on a track not built for their cars, a track they hadn't raced on in eleven years, laced it with incentives to be cutthroat in order to save their spot on ABC, and as a result a driver who was running in just his 3rd race all year died.  I don't know that I have to watch it every weekend to think that might lead to trouble.

Add to this a comment I heard on the coverage late Sunday:  "If you take all the ovals like Vegas out of the picture, the IRL is a road-race circuit with a highlight at Indianapolis."  Sorry to hear it.  Sorry you couldn't sustain your other Indy style tracks. But if you can't sustain your sport without putting your athletes at unreasonable risk, then maybe you should just say goodbye.  People in NASCAR bitch about restrictor plate racing, but it saves lives.  If they can do it right, IRL should too.

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Just to lighten things up, here's the latest entrant in the "Least amount of effort put into a scam e-mail" category, and I'm not sure that anyone can beat this one. The "from " is a Mr. Water Bill (I kid thee not), and it goes like this:

Do you need urgent loan? if yes reply back

That's the whole thing, guys.  It don't get more streamlined than that.

Sunday sports stuff

Okay, praise and worship the Lord? Check.  Clean up last night's mess? Check.  (AKA the second round of the beer tasting. Lesson: if you grew up with lager, amber beers aren't significantly different from dark beers.) Take walk?  Rain shortened, but check.  Good, now let me do my FCS and KHL stuff.

First off, let me begin by explaining why I do a FCS football ranking.  (FCS is the second tier of College football.)  This week, I had ranked 6 teams in my top 25 that the official coaches poll did not.  These teams went 5-1 with an average victory margin of 10.3 Saturday.  On the other hand there were 6 teams that the coaches ranked and I did not.  One of them, Richmond, was off this weekend. The remaining 5 went 1-4 with an average loss margin of 24.8.  Hooray for me!

I still have Georgia Southern at my #1 spot, as do the coaches.  In fact, the one thing that the coaches and I differ on in the top 4 is in our choices of 2 and 3, with the coaches putting Northern Iowa at 2 and I put Wofford in the runner up.  We agreed on Montana State 4th.  All won by at least 17 this weekend, with the only real competition being faced was Northern's 31-14 win over a South Dakota State team that "also received votes" from the coaches.

 My top seven remained the same, with Lehigh #5, followed by Jacksonville St., and North Dakota St.  But I am at last giving up on Appalachian St. being as good as last year. After a 49-42 win over a Citadel team that all the good teams- even punchless William AND Mary- beat easily, I dropped them out of the top 10 to 11th.  Also falling from the top ten was New Hampshire.  A team that both I (9th) and the coaches (6th) apparently overrated, they got clubbed by that same "punchless" W&M team 24-10 and fall to 14th.  Taking advantage were: James Madison, which moves up 2 to 8th after blowing out woebegone Villanova 34-10 (which, being a "punchless" W&M fan I enjoyed thoroughly); Sam Houston St., who beat a halfway decent Nichols St. team 47-7 to take 9th; and Montana, whom I hate to move up because everytime I do, bad things happen to them.  Nevertheless, they came back to beat tough Portland St. 30-24 and slide into 10th.

Norfolk St. moves up into 12th, and with last week's #16 Towson topping last week's #14 Old Dominion 39-35, Towson moves up to 13, while ODU falls to 18.  Liberty was 17th on mine and "also receiving votes" on the coaches last week; they played Coastal Carolina, who was ignored for good reason by me and ranked 20th on the coaches poll.  Result?  Liberty 63, CC 27.  Liberty moves up to 15th on my list, while CC sinks into obscurity.  Indiana St.'s mighty Sycamores roll over Western Illinois 46-24 and move up to 19th.  Oh, and Delaware, much higher ranked by the coaches last week (8) than me (13) got drubbed 21-10 by UMass a team I had at 21 (and still do) and they had "also receiving votes."  I suspect that this week the coaches might have the Blue Hens a little closer to the 17th I dropped them to than last time.

Maine, after a tough win over JMU last week, struggled to beat CAA doormat Rhode Island 27-21 and slip to 20th; #22 San Diego, #23 South Carolina State, and #24 North Dakota (which last week I rechristened North Bakota for whatever reason- probably the same reason that once every Saturday Northern Iowa becomes Northern Ireland) were victims of the numbers game and held their positions despite impressive wins.  And finally, little Elon lost its brief grip on the last spot on my poll after getting schwacked by Samford 43-31. Taking their place is Jacksonville, who shellacked Morehead St. 50-14 to get back to 5-2.

Next week features two top 25 games- #13 Towson against hopefully resurgent #16 W&M, and #14 UNH looking for redemption against Hen-slaying #21 UMass.  #6 J-ville St.  has a big boy game against Kentucky; Sam Houston faces McNeese St., one of those teams that they ranked (17) and I didn't and got beat; Maine faces the well-rested Richmond Spiders; and Lehigh and JMU take the week off.




Moving on to the KHL update.Dinamo Moscow and SKA continue to dominate the west, despite Dinamo getting blanked Friday by Canadian goalie Michael Garnett and his Traktor team 2-0.Moscow started the week with a 6-5 win over Magnitogorsk in which they trailed most of the game and score twice in the last 5 1/2 minutes to win.  That was enough for the Magnitogorsk team- favorites in the East but struggling at 5-7- and Coach Alexander Garkov got the axe. SKA kept pace with wins over Red Army 4-2 and Salavat Yulaev 4-2 (despite being outshot 39-24) to go to 7-1-2 and tied with Moscow (8-5-1) for the top with 26 points. Dinamo Minsk had the only other winning record in the west at 6-3-4 after a 5-2 win over Barys Astana.  The third Dinamo, Riga, has started to recover from a horrible start with a 4-2 win over Poprad and a 2-0 blanking of my still-struggling team from Ekaterinburg.  They still lead only Vityaz (who got a rare point with a shootout win over Severstal

In the East, the battle is between Traktor (who won twice this week, also topping Ak Bars 2-1) and Amur, who posted a 6-1 rout of Spartak and a 5-2 win at Vityaz.  Not far back is Avangard, who had just a shootout win over Torpedo to their credit this week.  Dropping back was Ak Bars, who also lost surprisingly to Poprad 4-1.  More surprisingly is the continued schnide that Salavat is on.  In addition to the previously mentioned loss to SKA, they also fell to Sibir ( on Vladmir Taraseko's hat trick) 6-3, and to Metallurg Novkutnesk 1-0. Sibir is working its way up, though, with Tarasenko striking for a goal and two assists in a 3-1 win over Severstal.  The woes slightly abated for Salavat today, though; in one of the games already complete when I began this, they had at least gotten a point in a 3-2 OT loss to Red Army.  Ekaterinburg split this week, with a 1-0 win over Neftekhimik behind Evgeny Lobanov's 28 saves which puts them at 3-9 for the season.

So the actual standings coming into this morning's games had Moscow and SKA both at the top of the West with 26, followed by Minsk at 24, Torpedo at 20, Spartak and Atlant at 19, Severstal and Red Army at 18, Poprad at 15, Riga at 14, and Vityaz thugging along at their usual clip with 8.  In the East, it was Traktor at 28, Amur at 26, Avangard at23, Ak Bars at 22, Salavat 19, Sibir 18, Yugra and Novokutnesk at 17, Magnitogorsk and Neftekhimik at 15, Barys at 13, and Ekaterinburg at 9.

Looking over at the scoreboard one more time, there's still just the four games finished- Salavat's OT loss to Red Army; Amur won again, 4-3 against Severstal; Novokutensk took out Vityaz 6-3; and Sibir lost to Avangard in a shootout.  And among the four games going on, Ekaterinburg is down 4-1 to SKA in the third.  Whatcha gonna do?

The great sixties countdown week 12

Here we are again, delving ever deeper into the songs that built my childhood.  Starting with:

80- Poor Side Of Town, Johnny Rivers.  "To me, you were the greatest thing this boy had ever found/ and girl, it's hard to find nice things on the poor side of town".  And the guitar chords that come next.

79- It's My Party, Leslie Gore.  Be it ever so maligned and parodied, I still love Leslie Gore.

78- Whiter Shade Of Pale, Procol Harum.  Always reminds me of a end-of-the-world party, as the life oozes out of civilization.  Did you know this is the most-played song in British broadcasting for the last 75 years?

77- Popsicles And Icicles, the Murmaids.  Written by David Gates, soon to be of Bread.  My ex tried to sing this once, got it mixed with the Raindrops On Roses song, and it came out, "These are a few of my favorite slugs."  What was I thinking???



76- A Sign Of The Times, Petula Clark.  What can I say about Ms. Clark I haven't already?

75- Homeward Bound, Simon And Garfunkel.  Nothing describes my poetic talents better than "All my words come back to me in shades of mediocraty, like emptiness in harmony."

74- The Sounds Of Silence, Simon And Garfunkel.  "And the sign says, 'the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, and tenement halls..."  Say what you want about Rhymin' Simon, the boy could write.

73- A World Of Our Own, the Seekers.  Any excuse to listen to Judith Durham again.



72- Tuesday Afternoon, the Moody Blues.  Maybe my all time favorite of theirs from the excellent Days Of Future Past lp.

71- Silence Is Golden, the Tremoloes.  Also like the Four Seasons original, but this was the hit, and the harmony is more distinctive here.



70- He's So Fine, the Chiffons.  Another can't-have-a-sixties-countdown-without song.  Even worked for George.

69- A Hard Day's Night, the Beatles.  Paul's "when I'm home.." part is the best.

68-Love Is All Around, the Troggs.  Man, how memories come back of seeing her face before you, as you lay in your bed, thinking over all the things she said?



67- What The World Needs Now Is Love, Jackie  DeShannon.  Brings to mind a time when you thought man might end the world at any minute, and musicians were trying to sing us back from the brink.

66-Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon, Neil Diamond.  Always loved this song.  Loved it again when Urge Overkill redid it for Pulp Fiction.  The strings make this for me.

65- My Special Angel, the Vogues.  The most powerful vocal-group song of all time, to me.

64- Positively Fourth Street, Bob Dylan.  I think this is his best vocal performance ever.  So much power to it.

63- Nowhere Man, the Beatles.  I remember being in the shipping office with the lead and the supervisor.  Supervisor, bitching about plant manager, said "He's as blind as he can be."  We replied, "Just sees what he wants to see/ Nowhere man, can you see me at all?"  Super, 26 years old, says, "What the hell are you two talking about?" Laughed our asses off at him.

62- Kind Of A Drag, the Buckinghams.  Just love the rocking, "roller skating" tempo of this tune.  And the horns.

61- The Lion Sleeps Tonight, the Tokens.  Another can't-have- without pick.

And that's a wrap for another week- and just three more to go.  To close out, let's do as Hootie says, and listen to a little Dylan.  Ain't Bobby so cool?

A walk with Scrappy

The scars healing over...

Scrappy after a chipmunk that just went by

Nice catch!

Puffballs littered the woods this year- more than I've seen before.

Looking across the creek to a tiny streamfall.

I actually made it across this dry...

...to check out this scene from the other side.

The tiny streamfall from above.

So we followed the stream.  The first time it had water in it that we've traced it.

Scrappy wanted me to follow him under this.  I don't think so.  But then we found that the stream and accompanying trail led to...

...the back yard of the retirement village.

Looking down on the stream valley.

On the way back, we heard something in the patch of woods south of the new soccer field.  Scrappy investigated every hole...

...and there were a few.  But when we came out, we found out we were wrong...

Actually we had heard our 2 deer, and they ran across the soccer field and into the woods when we came out.  I swear when the bigger one has his "flag" flying, his tail is the size of a bushel basket.

While I'm posting pics, here's one from the "normal walk with Scrappy" project that I've never gotten around to.

Aww....

 One more note: the post on Cassie last night was the 500th on this blog.  One more piece of special irony..