Day #1 of the End of Arden... plus something really stupid

As we walked out to the car this morning, there was a gentle rain starting, with a roll of thunder far in the distance.  One minute later it was cats and dogs with lightning everywhere.  Lovely.

At work, it was unusually solemn.  Like nobody really knew how to start things off.  Everybody with under 200 hours (including the new cutters) got the golden toe Friday, so it was especially quiet in my area with new cutter (call her J) gone.  We pretty much were having the smartass olympics at our end for the last 3 weeks, with cameo appearances by mechanic "Joe" who was developing an interest in J.  One after another, people wandered over and chatted about the situation throughout the day, and though it was still kinda sad (I told my boss I didn't know if I needed a grief counselor or an anger manager, or just something more distracting than work), things started to relax.

Best line of the day:  I was asked why cushions I cut 1500 of last week didn't have corners cut out.  (Answer: They don't get corner cut-outs.)  "Well, the sewer said they got corners, and we don't have the pattern in the book".  Later, I came up to the lady and said, "Given that heart failure is an apropriate alternative to finding another job, I wasn't looking at having the coronary right off the bat!"

J texted Joe and said, "Tell Chris I miss him."  I said, "Text her, 'Back atcha- and are you hungry yet!' "  (J would say "I'm hungry!" every morning between 7 and 7:30 without fail.)  Later, she texted Joe "Tell Chris, 'Sing it!' " (Another of our favorite running gags, usually said when the company CD player was playing somebody's cheap knockoff of Beat It.)  That made me laugh loud and really cheer up- until I heard the next lines on the song playing:

You can't be 20, on Sugar Mountain
though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon
you're leaving there too soon...

Arriving home, we had a "parcel at the office" note.  Scrappy and I decided to hoof it down there to see what it was, as it wasn't raining yet.  But thanks to Mr. I-must-check-out-every-insignificant-scent stopping to take a poop that I thought I might have to midwife, we got wet most of the way home.  Perfect ending to the day.


__________________________________________

Now comes the something really stupid.


Jake Naman knew something was about to happen.
The 18-year-old from Redlands, Calif., was sitting inside a cavernous building in Seattle waiting to hear from Dan Savage, the founder of the “It Gets Better” anti-bullying campaign.
Savage had been invited to speak to several thousand high school journalists attending a national conference hosted by the National Scholastic Press Association and the Journalism Education Association.
Naman, who is a yearbook photographer at Arrowhead Christian Academy, thought Savage was going to talk about his anti-bullying campaign. But the Christian teenager soon learned that Savage had a very different message for the students.
“I hope you’re all using birth control,” Savage told the teenagers as he began his remarks. From there, he regaled the young people who stories about his husband, describing how he looked in a Speedo. At one point, Savage imagined what it would be like with his husband on stage – telling the kids that they would have to pry him off his partner.

Naman was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the tone and tenor of Savage’s remarks. There were more lewd comments, profane words and innuendo. And then, Savage said something that made Naman take notice.
“The Bible,” Savage said with a elongated pause.
“”The very second he said the Bible and paused, I knew it was going to get ugly,” Naman told Fox News. “It was about to be a bashing.”
And Naman was absolutely correct.
“We can learn to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about gay people – the same way we have learned to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation,” he told the young students. “We ignore bullshit in the Bible about all sorts of things.”
Some will say what happened next took courage – but Naman said he was simply following the prompting of the Holy Spirit. And the entire moment was captured on a video that has now gone viral on YouTube.
The 18-year-old Eagle Scout and captain of the high school track team rose to his feet – and walked out – passing by hundreds of other students who were cheering the anti-bullying advocate’s profanity-laced rant.
“I felt like in my heart I couldn’t just stay there at all,” he said. “It was a really weird feeling I just had to get out. I didn’t want to cause a scene but I really could not stand to be in that room anymore.”
Jake Naman said he felt – bullied.
“If Dan Savage had gotten up there and said ‘God hates homosexuals and they’re all going to hell,’ there would have been huge outrage from that crowd,” he said. “As Christians we get the other side of that. When our faith is attacked like that – we are ridiculed for taking a stand against it.”
Naman thought that he was the only person who walked out – but when he got to the lobby – he learned that was far from the case. Arrowhead’s entire yearbook staff followed his lead – including his 16-year-old sister.
“I was shaking,” Julia Naman told Fox News. “I saw my brother pop up and leave and I took off after him.”
So did 17-year-old Haley Mulder.
“I never felt more hurt, felt persecuted,” Mulder said. “For me, my faith is what I Want to be defined by. For someone to say it was B.S. is really hurtful. I felt put down and bullied because of my faith.”
And then it got worse for the Christian teenagers. Savage directly targeted them with his remarks.
“You can tell the Bible guys in the hall they can come back now because I’m done beating up the Bible,” he said. “It’s funny as someone on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible how pansy-assed people react when you push back.”
Naman said a number of the girls began crying. He said it seemed like such a safe environment “But then Dan Savage went off and it didn’t seem that way anymore.”
“He had a position of power as a speaker and he was using that against a group of students who had never done anything to him,” Naman said. “I would consider that bullying.”
“He was completely insulting and degrading our faith,” his sister said.
Mulder said Savage needed to practice what he preaches.
“I felt it was ironic coming from a person who was talking about not bullying,” she said.
In all about a hundred students walked out of the speech, but Naman said many others wanted to. He said some Christian teenagers felt intimidated and were afraid of what might happen if they had left.
Still, the 18-year-old said one thing was certainly obvious – “The majority of the students did not support us at all,” he said.
Savage issued a partial apology over the weekend, saying he was referring to the walk-out as “pansy-assed” and not the students. However, he stood by his profane references to the Bible.



And there you have it, all the intellect and courage of the atheist movement.  I know, before you comment, that many atheist don't act like this in real life.  But a lot do.  Put a kind comment on the Freedom From Religion Facebook page and see what it gets you.  So tell me- would you want to support an anti-bullying campaign led by this "gentleman?"  Point being, there are people who genuinely believe that there is no God, that logic and science tell them so.  But they are being led by those who live their lives to attack "something that doesn't exist."  And I know that their are those who would say, "I just want to make sure my children aren't exposed to the brainwashing of Christians."  But you'd rather cheer this guy.  Something's wrong with the picture, dudes.

Scrappy Sunday

Butterflies everywhere.  A couple about flew into me noggin, they did!

Lots of mud flats- river's way down.

Dad:  "Go ahead, Boofus, it's okay!"
Scrappy:"It's a little deep here for me."

Our normal spot- much better.

"C'mon, Dad, it's time to roll!!"

Down one of those never-taken paths...

...which had us stumbling onto this little bit of open...

...in the midst of more forest primeval.

And thence onto the mud flats.  Usually this is all river...

...but now it's where Stony Run dribbles into the river.

Along about here it started getting a little too mucky...

...and getting to the bank was even worse.  So it was back whence we came...

...but someboby thought it would be fun to walk all the way back in the water.  You should have seen his face when I told him I wasn't going that way...

...just so's he could play with the ducks way over there.

Bethsaida, Chorazin, Capernaum, and Martin LTD

Last week I talked about how prophecy seemed to indicate that the United States part in in the plan seemed to be analogous to roadkill.  I’m sure some of you might have said, “But we’re one nation (mostly) under God!  How can this be?'”  Well, this morning’s Ed Bousman sermon kinda pointed out I might need to answer this question.

Now, one way to do that might be to go down through the appropriate Biblical chapters in Ezekiel and Revelation and list all the similarities to Tyre and Babylon the Great.  But I think it might be better to list the qualities of the cities mentioned in the post title and then look at things.  These were three towns nestled at the north end of the Sea of Galilee.  Between them, they were the homes of the apostles, Peter, Andrew, James, John, and Phillip.  Capernaum was basically Jesus’ headquarters according to Matthew 4:13 and 9:1.  The list of miracles performed in the area was astounding- the feeding of the 5,000, healing a blind man, healing the centurion’s servant, healing a nobleman’s son, healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, curing the paralytic, casting out numerous demons.  As Ed Bousman said, “It should have been the easiest place in the world to believe in Jesus…”

…But what happened?

²⁰ Then Jesus began to denounce the towns in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. ²¹ “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. ²² But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. ²³ And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades.^[e] For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. ²⁴ But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”  Matt. 11:20-24

Just to flesh out what the reference to Sodom entails, Bousman reminded us of Jude 7:
⁷ In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
Get the picture?  Because Christ LIVED AMONG THEM and they refused to believe, they were going to be worse off than people WHO’D ALREADY BEEN ROASTING IN HELL FOR 4,000 YEARS!

And then, Bousman added the line that by now you must know is coming:  “Woe to you, Capernaum!  Woe to you… America…”
Just like them, we are the easiest place in the world to know and believe in Jesus.  And yet atheists are between 2-6% of the population and rising, and as many as 12% describe themselves as “non-religious”.  And these are old numbers, people.  And lest you say, well, 2% isn’t bad, remember that Mark says (1:29ff) that in Capernaum, the WHOLE CITY turned out after getting wind of the healing of Peter’s mom-in-law- but turning out doesn’t necessarily equal belief.

I accidently came up with an analogy this morning when I found my box of q-tips was down to the last two.  “Put one back in, “ my dumb jokey voice in my head said, “and it will keep returning every morning, like the oil and flour in the widow’s jars.”  I replied, It don’t work that way.  The flour and oil was a miracle.  Q-tips would be a convenience.”

Isn’t that what people want from God these days?  A “miracle of convenience”? How many times I’ve heard, “I won’t believe in a god without proof”- basically, Habeus Corpus, God!  That would make it convenient to believe.  Otherwise, it just gets in the way of my evolution, my homosexuality, my secularism.  Sorry, dudes, God never said belief is to be “convenient.”  At leats, by the world’s standards.

And yet, Jesus is right here.  In this nation.  I got a dollar bill right here that says so…

Suwon update

If you remember the criminally-botched rape investigation I featured in the post If You Think It's Bad Elsewhere..., I've just been looking up some more on this tragedy.  From the Korea Herald:

After partially revealing telephone records, there has been public outcry over the handling of the 112 call. The operator was found to have focused on whether Kwak  (the victim) had been raped and by whom, and failed to secure the location of the crime. The agent also reportedly left important information out when referring the case to the police, including the fact that the crime was taking place indoors and near an elementary school. Police arriving on the scene had initially searched neighboring playgrounds and yards.

Once the full record was disclosed, it was found that the victim had stayed on the line for more than six minutes. The victim’s pleas could be heard, while an officer said the call appeared to be about domestic abuse. Police initially reported that Wu’s voice was not captured on the tape, which was later found to be false. Members of Kwak’s family also reported that police on scene acted inappropriately with two officers sleeping in a police vehicle while the search took place.

Also it has been pointed out that some neighbors could hear her screams, and shrugged it off as a domestic fight and did nothing.  And, another consequence has been a spike in hate-tweets against the  Joseonjok (ethnic Koreans who lived in China and came "home" to work), egged on by the media's constant refering to the fact that the murderer was a Joseonjok.  One site said that, just like after the Japan earthquake the media reported every little tremor, now the media lights on anything to do with "Chinese" Koreans.  Sure is nice to see American "culture" being transplanted to foreign lands, ain't it?  Oh, and speaking of which, here's one of those tweets, where a Korean lets us know their take on "multiculturalism":

 Multiculturalism, you say? Are you illiterate? Don't you know history and ethnicity is what Koreans are proud of? It's a bullshit saying we should mix culture and whatever shit. Who the fuck speaks "multiculturalism?" Multiculturalism is made by immigrants of diverse background in the U.S., a nation where history is only about 200 years long. Stupid brats, U.S. is still in racist/cultural war against the immigrants. Also, 95% of the foreign laborers are underpaid daily laborers. You say it's "global age?" It's a global labor site. We should also require people to have money in their bank account and take fingerprints if they want to come. This is a global, low-skill laborer crime site.

Oh, yeah, but we're awful for wanting illegal immigration stopped.

The Great eighties countdown begins!

Yes, I am finally happy enough with the list and motivated enough to start this.  This is going to be a bit different than the last two lists.  For one thing, of this week's 20 songs, only thirteen charted on the hot 100; 2 were on the country chart, one made the adult contemporary chart, and three were charted on the Mainstream Rock chart.  In time, you'll also see entrants from contemporary Christian music and other genres.  Also, I'm going to try to give you the number of songs by each act.  You'll see from the comments that the "emotional connections" often aren't there or as strong; this was end of high school and after, and the "angst" of childhood and high school was being replaced, sad to say, with alcohol and recreational drugs.  Hopefully, though, I've plucked enough gems from the bunch to make this a lot of fun.  So, without further ado:

300- Turning Japanese, the Vapors, #36, 1980.  This English band claims the song wasn't about masturbation, but let's be real.  A #1 song down under.  (Should that be capitalized?  Down Under, then.)

299- Don't Know What You've Got (Till It's Gone), Cinderella, #12, 1988.  Didn't realize I even liked these guys, but Nobody's Fool just missed.  A Philly group, Bobby, but no Stylistics, eh?

298- Rainbow In The Dark, Dio, #14 mainstream rock tracks, 1983.  I found out that Ronnie James Dio actually thought this was "too pop".  Really?  First of two times for Dio on the list.

297- Dirty Laundry, Don Henley, #3, 1983.  Despite the left-leaning politics of Henley, a cool tune.  First of two for Henley on the list.

296- I Ran (So Far Away), A Flock Of Seagulls, #9, 1983.  Damn, a lot of 1983s here.  An English band with a unique sound- so unique that they were nearly a one-hit wonder.  Another #1 from Australia.

295- Subdivisions, Rush, #105, 1982.  Rush hit #8 mainstream and #3 on the album track chart.  A great look at being cool- or being cast out.  The Canadian band will be back a couple more times on our list.

294- Everybody Have Fun Tonight, Wang Chung, #2, 1986.  "On the edge of oblivion/All the world is Babylon/And all the love and everyone/A ship of fools sailing on".  Truer words...

293- Where Have All The Good Times Gone, Van Halen, #17, 1982.  The second of their Kinks covers (You Really Got Me) and one of three of theirs on the list.

292- Seasons Change, Expose, #1, 1988.  Our first #1 on the list is probably as big a surprise to you as it is to me.

291- That's My Job, Conway Twitty, #6 country, 1988.  Around 1986-88 was my country period.  And this one was a big tear-jerker for me.

290- At This Moment, Billy Vera and the Beaters, #79 (1981) and #1 (1987).  Like everyone else watching Family Ties- as well as at least one guy ON the show- I fell in love with Tracy Pollan.  This was her and Michael J. Fox's theme song.

289- Old And Wise, Alan Parsons Project, #21 adult contemporary, 1982.  One of six by APP on this chart.  Colin Blunstone, late of the Zombies, sang lead on this.

288- Cult Of Personality, Living Color, #13, 1988.  A song to challenge how you look at political figures.  It was written over the course of just one rehearsal.

287- The Devil Made Me Do It, Golden Earring, #79, 1983.  The 50th anniversary of this Dutch band was celebrated last year.  One of a pair of GE tunes on the list.  The Continuing Story Of Radar Love was a very good greatest hits album.

286- Black Velvet, Alanna Myles, #1, 1989-90.  Actually, I was deceived into thinking this was a 1989, but it was released on December 17th, so I left it in.  This Canuck had #1 in Norway, Switzerland, and Sweden, and top 5 in 8 others.  A great tribute to Elvis.

285- Hello Mary Lou, the Statler Brothers, #3 country, 1985.   I couldn't let the countdown pass without the Statlers.  We used to have great fun with our typing teacher, who was a big fan.  Especially when they did a radio spot for McDonalds.

284- Shooting Shark, Blue Oyster Cult, #83/ #16 mainstream, 1983.  One of two songs I saw a lot the week my dad was in hospice before he died.  "It's a hard road to love you..."

283- Stone In Love, Journey, #13 mainstream, 1981. I was really surprised to see that this didn't chart on the hot 100, with how big Journey was becoming at this point.  One of three on the chart for the boys from Frisco.

282- Sunday Bloody Sunday, U2, #7 mainstream, 1983.  I like the way U2 got to the point of political battles.  "The real battle is people dying, that's the real battle."  A story of 1972's bloody Sunday massacre in Derry.  One of three spots for U2.

281- Same Old Lang Syne, Dan Fogelberg, #9, 1981.  A true story that happened to Dan on Christmas Eve, 1976.

That's the first round, gang.  Let me know whatcha think... and maybe come back next week for more?

Out with the old...

Today we got the news that our plant was closing June 29th.  A lot of things I could say about this- but I'll defer for now.  They're being very generous on severence, and giving plenty of warning.  It still sucks, though, and thankfully they were wise enough to send us home and pay us for the half- day so's we didn't just stand around and get ourselves all worked up.

I'd rather do that alone.

Twenty years for me, 25 for Laurie.  I knew not the first thing about really working when I went there.  Don't feel much like I know anything about it now, other than I'll somehow have to do it somewhere else.

But you know what?  It's nuthin' but a thing, and life rolls merrily on.  I have a blog friend who has it a lot worse.  Years of CHF, fighting weight and diet, fighting for insurance coverage, trying to see one last daughter through to adulthood.  And then... the bad news she wasn't prepared to name on blog, so as to give it a permanance and reality.  But the word "chemo" spells it out in big Gothic font.  The other day, she posted one of those posts where you laugh about what you're going through, except the jokes ain't funny and you're working to an audience of yourself.  Before I could read the whole thing, she'd taken it down.  To me, even that's a poignant moment of courage-  "You are NOT turning me into one of those people!  You can't have my dignity!"  Bravo to you.

And you know what? It's nuthin' but a thing, and life rolls merrily on. Scrappy and I went out for a walk and ran into mama fox and three, maybe four, adorable little kits sunning themselves.  I tried to video, but by now you are all familiar with my camera, so if you really want to hear it, let me know.  Mama fox saw us last, and jumped up, yipped at her already amscrayed litter (hence "hearing" the aforementioned video), and split.  Scrappy, as usual, never noticed until she stood up and yipped. 

Those little buggers were so cute, and so happy, and where will they be months from now?  Where will any of us be?   Sometimes all we have are a few stolen sunny moments.  Or one more school dance.  Or two months of work.

Time Machine week 13

Can you imagine a better cover on a Time magazine than the one for April 27th, 1970?  Yes, it's time for a normal, run of the mill Time Machine this week.  Oh, except for one thing:  If you look under President Nixon, you'll see a link to my new Martin Hall Of Fame Page.  Which of course means that next week I'll be doing the third class of inductees right here on this very program, so feel free to peruse the current roster and nominate anyone of your fancy.  Also, I got my card from Lyndylou at The Giggle Fest for this month's Great Postcard Campaign!  And don't let all the pictures of shirtless men keep you from visiting her- even though they made my visit a brief one, LOL.

This week, we have the only US Congressman to hit #1; the villainy of Lord Marmaduke Ffogg; the benefit by Bowser that didn't quite pan out; and we link the Beatles to... the Beatles?!?  Let us move on...

12 songs debut in the hot 100- and I'll mention 2 of them.  The Carpenters bring their version of Ticket To Ride in at #96; The Doors hit with Roadhouse Blues at #91.  Other birthdays this week include, turning 30, John Mellancamp's Hurts So Good and Rainbow's Stone Cold; turning 35, Bob Seger's Main Street, Alice Cooper's You And Me, Al Stewart's On The Border, Aerosmith's Back In The Saddle, Andy Gibb's I Just Wanna Be Your Everything, Manfred Mann's Spirits In The Night, Peter McCann's Do You Wanna Make Love, and Waylon Jenning's Lukenbach, Texas (Back To The Basics Of Love); turning 40 are those greedy Carpenters with It's Going To Take Some Time, Neil Diamond's Song Sung Blue, CCR's Someday Never Comes, Neil Young's Old Man, Elton John's Rocket Man, Bill Withers' Lean On Me, and Mouth And McNeil's How Do You Do?; and finally the Young Rascals' Groovin' turns 45.  Woof, what a bunch!

Today's look back into the past brings us to a household name- Rudy Vallee.  Rudy and his Connecticut Yankees were at #1 this week in 1929 with Honey, and 1930 with The Stein Song (The University of Maine theme).  Rudy's chart run was from 1929-39, and racked up 71 top 40s, 49 top tens, and two more #1s- 1932's Brother Can You Spare A Dime, and 1937's Vieni, Vieni.  Rudy was at first more of a band leader and reluctant singer, and he formed the Yankees, which started out with 2 violins, 2 saxaphones, a piano, a drum, and a banjo.  At one point he recorded for Hit Of The Week, which put out one record a week, sold at newsstands at a low price on what amounted to laminated cardboard.  Soon he branched out into movies, and had parts in movies such as I Remember Mama (1948) and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying (1967).  He also had cameos on TV shows like Here's Lucy, Petticoat Junction, and Chips, as well as a 1984 cameo on NBC soap Santa Barbara.  But one TV appearance was bound to go down in history:

Lord Marmaduke Fogg's first and only appearance was in three part story ( "The Londinium Larcenies", "The Foggiest Notion", and "The Bloody Tower") in the third season of the 1960s Adam West Batman show, where he was played by Rudy Vallee. His plan was simple, use his lordly title and palatial estate to open a girls boarding school and use it to recruit upper crust young ladies to be trained in the fine art of criminality and steal the Crown Jewels. However Lord Marmaduke Fogg could never have counted on no one less than the President of the United States calling on Batman personally to go help out Scotland Yard in solving the case. Despite his bevy of bloodthirsty beauties, killer bees, and a fog spewing pipe, he proved no match for the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder who (with an able assist from Batgirl) put an end to his sinister scheme.

Frankly I don't understand why Lord Marmaduke Fogg never made another appearance after the Adam West show. Don't get me wrong, he definitely needs some tweaking to make him a reoccuring Batman villain, but not a lot. Obviously he needs to open his Boarding School of Crime in Gotham rather than London (or Londinium as it was bizarrely called in the show), but he could easily be a British Ex-Pat. And wearing a removable cast due to faked gout is silly when faking a limp means he could use a cane with a hidden sword instead. The rest practically writes itself. Perhaps Lord Marmaduke Fogg had served with Alfred Pennyworth in her majesty's secret service before turning to a life of villainy. Robin could easily fall for a girl in his Academy of Crime, or Batgirl could go undercover. Such a setup would not necessarily make him one of Batman's greatest rogues, but an aristocrat who takes in wayward and abandoned children and gives them paramilitary training so they can live a life operating outside the law could surely serve as a dark foil for a Dark Knight with an army of teenaged squires.


This comes from the Entertained Organizer Blog.  Vallee died in July of 1986.

The big dropper hangs in the top 40:  Bridge Over Troubled Waters slides from 22 to 35.  The big mover this week is Joe Cocker's The Letter, which leaps 30 to land at #49.

That brings us to our Where Are They Now spot, and at #50 this week we have Dennis Yost and the Classics IV with a tune called  The Funniest Thing, a smooth, simple, wistful ballad like all of their hits.  The original band was Yost, Buddy Buie, JR Cobb, and Joe Wilson.  Cobb and Buie, who would go on to form the Atlanta Rhythm Section, wrote the band's big hits- Spooky (#3, 1968), Stormy (#5, 1968), and Traces (#2, 1969).
 Yost continued to put line ups together; then, in 2006, he took a serious fall down a flight of stairs.  To help the Yost family financially, Jon "Bowser" Bauman put together an all-star charity bash.  Joining him at the show at Rhinos Live in Cincinatti were Denny Laine (Wings, Moody Blues), Chuck Negron (3 Dog Night), the Skyliners, and Ian Mitchell (Bay City Rollers), among others.

Denny Laine, Ian Mitchell, Jimmy Jay "DJ to the stars", Dennis, and Ronnie from Ronnie and the Daytonas at the Yost benefit.



Unfortunately, the benefit went in the red, and it amounted as little more than a morale booster for the Yosts.  Over the next several months, Dennis groomed Tom Garrett as his replacement, and passed away in December of 2008.  Buddy and JR are still involved with ARS, and Garrett continues Dennis' legacy in the Classics IV.

Four songs hit the top 40 this week.  Marty Robbins eases from 42 to 38 with My Woman, My Woman, My Wife.  Van Morrison zooms 14 up to #33 with Come Running (and I guess he did!).  Also up 14 to #32 is Ray Stevens with Everything Is Beautiful.  And jumping 16 to land at 25, Simon and Garfunkel with Cecilia. 

Two songs join the top 10, two fall out. The droppers are our new grandpa chair sitter, House Of The Rising Sun (8-24), and Bobby Sherman's prophetic Easy Come, Easy Go (7-18).

Coming in at #10, up one, are the Friends Of Distinction with Love Or Let Me Be Lonely. The Supremes move up a notch to #9 with Up The Ladder To The Roof. Edison Lighthouse drops 3 to #8 with Love Grows etc., etc.  Badfinger slips one to #7 with Come And Get It.  The First Edition checks in on page #6, up 3, with Something's Burning.  John Lennon and Instant Karma drop 2 to #5.  Blasting its way in at #4, up 8 spots, are the Guess Who with American Woman.  And that brings us to our six degrees victims.

With groups like the Beatles, or songs like Let It Be (which falls from the top spot to #3 this week), the rub isn't finding the connections, but in finding ones you haven't tried yet.  So let's start this time with the record's producer, one-time star and current convict Phil Spector.  Phil had went from founding the Teddy Bears (To Know Him Is To Love Him) to inventing his famous Wall Of Sound.  The "Wall" was performed by a consistant group of studio hands who were watched over by Spector's two lieutenants, Jack Nitsche and Sonny Bono (who, with Cher, hit #1 with I Got You Babe, and his later election to Congress made him the only Congressman to ever have a #1 hit).  Together, the pair wrote the song Needles And Pins, which was recorded by a band called the Searchers.  When this song hit the US charts in 1964, they became the second act from Liverpool to hit the American charts.

Wanna guess who the first was?

So that leaves us with a 2-horse race.  Horse in the place spot would be Norman Greenbaum, who moves up 3 to #2 with Spirit In The Sky.  And that means our new #1 is...

The Jackson Five with ABC!!!!

Next week, the new class in the MHOF!  Send those nominations in, I'm easy!

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