Time Machine week 15

I am seriously starting to wince whenever I look up what happened on each week’s target date.  In the last month, I’ve hit “Houston, we have a problem”, Kent State, and this week I bring you the great Lubbock, Texas, tornado of May 11th, 1970.  This monster first touched down somewhere near the campus of Texas Tech and at its peak ripped a 2-mile wide path through downtown Lubbock.  26 people died, a quarter of the city was devastated, and the damages topped $250 million.  Those damages included the 21-story Great Plains Building, twisted to a point that early the next morning the sheriff warned “it could fall at any time”.  Not only did it not fall, but after debating its fate for a head scratching 5 years, it was finally remodeled and still stands today.

Welcome to Time Machine, where we look back to an era of simpler, joyful music. (If you are upset at not getting your time machine fix, blame Blogger- it obviously doesn't know the difference between 9 AM on May 11th and whatever time it was planning to put this up.) Today, the teaser includes working from the Friends Of Distinction to radio jingles in six easy steps; the very first record by an African-American, and believe me, the lyrics would not be approved by the NAACP, the AARP, the SCOTUS, and likely the KKK might be a little leery; a Where Are They Now salute to one of the most long-lived quartets in history; and other such bits of funnery.  Climb aboard; my time machine has not been co-opted by Donald Rumsfeld!

First off, we had 12 debuts on the hot 100 this week in 1970, but despite some familiar names, we’re a bit short on the notable end.  Mountain’s Mississippi Queen, made famous in this generation by a Miller Genuine Draft ad, comes in at #89.  Up at 69, probably my favorite Elvis song- The Wonder Of You, debuts.  Its B-side, Mama Liked The Roses, came in at 72.

The birthday list is a bit scraggly this week.  Turning thirty is Juice Newton’s Love’s Been A Little Bit Hard On Me; turning 45 are the Mamas And The Papas’ Creque Alley, Aretha and the Heavyweights’ Respect, Tommy James and the Shondells’ Mirage, and Him Or Me (What’s It Gonna Be?) by Paul Revere and the Raiders.  Turning 55, the Coaster’s Young Blood.  And turning 50, Ray Charles’ I Can’t Stop Loving You, Freddie Cannon’s Palisades Park, and David Rose’s The Stripper.   Oh, yes, and one more turning 50 today…



…that’s right, Laurie turns the big 5-0 today!  (Not gloating, it’s my turn Wednesday.)  In honor of the occasion, and to make some of you feel even older than you usually do, here’s the top 5 from the week of our birth:


At #5, Elvis with Good Luck Charm;

Number 4 was Shelly Fabares with Johnny Angel;

3 was Mr. Acker Bilk’s Stranger On The Shore;

#2 was Dee Dee Sharp with Mashed Potato Time;

And at the top were the Shirelles with Soldier Boy!  Blow out the candles…

The big dropper this week was the Supremes falling off the ladder from the top 10 with Up The Ladder To The Roof, tumbling 14 to #45.  The big mover, up 16 to #70, are the Chairmen Of The Board with (You’ve Got Me) Dangling On A String. 

Today my discovery on the #1s of past years took me at random to 1891 and a man named George Washington Johnson (1846-1914).  Born in a slave household, he learned music from observing the flute lessons of the master’s son.  He became an expert whistler, earning money by whistling popular tunes for spare change.  In 1890, he was ‘discovered’ by a couple of the first recording companies looking for records to stuff their nickel machines with.  Johnson became the first black recording artist of all time, but it was hardly a deal.  Each record had to be recorded INDIVIDUALLY, so he spent his days singing the same song to three or four machines at a time, 50+ times a day, at 20 cents per performance.  Put this in perspective, the man sold between 25 and 50 thousand records between 1890-5.

Kinda got that Samuel L. Jackson thing going on, eh?

The thing is, he basically had just 2 songs, featuring him both whistling and singing.  The one was called the Laughing Song.  The other?  it was called The Whistling Coon.  I kid you not.  It took me a half-hour to find the lyrics to this, just to make myself believe a black man of any era would sing this:
Oh! I’ve seen in my time some very funny folks,
But the funniest of all I know
Is a colored individual, as sure as you’re alive,
As black as any black coon;
You may talk until you’re tired,
but you’ll never get a word
From this very funny, queer old coon;
He’s a knock-kneed, double-jointed, hunky-plunky moke,
And he’s happy when he whistles this tune:-(Whistles.)
Oh, lie’s got a pair of lips, like a pound of liver split,
And a nose like an injun rubber shoe,
He’s a limpy, happy, chuckle-headed, huckleberry nig,
And he whistles like a happy killy-loo;
He’s an independent, free-and-easy, fat-and-greasy ham,
With a cranium like a big baboon;
Oh, I never heard him talk to anybody in my life,
But he’s happy when he whistles this tune
Oh, he’d whistle in the morning,
through the day and through the night,
And he’d whistle like the devil going to bed.
Oh, he’d whistle like a locomotive engine in his sleep,
And lie whistled when his wife was dead;
One day a fellow hit him with a brick upon the mouth,
And his Jaw swelled up like a balloon,
Now he goes along shaking like a monkey in a fit,
And this is how he whistles that tune .
By 1905, his fame was evaporating, records were copied from the master, and a vaudeville buddy got him a job as an office doorman.  He did eventually record two more songs- not surprisingly called The Laughing Coon and The Whistling Girl, in 1897.  He had two common law wives that died under mysterious conditions.  The first, only known as “the German woman” , was found dead in their apartment in 1895; and the second was found beaten to death in October 1899; George was tried and found not guilty.

Wow, we’re in the middle of a feature-triple-feature!  Next up is the Where Are They Now feature.  This week at #50 are the Four Tops with their cover of It’s All In The Game.  The amazing thing about this group was how long the original group- Levi Stubbs, Duke Fakir, Obie Benson, and Lawrence Payton- hung together.  The original four stayed together for 44 years, from 1953 until Peyton died in June of 1997. Theo Peoples, recently of the Temptations joined in his place, until last year he left and was replaced by Spike Bonhart.  Stubbs left the group after a stroke in 2000, replaced by musical director Ronnie McNeir.  Stubbs passed away in 2008.  Obie Benson was claimed by lung cancer in 2005, replaced by Payton’s son Roquel Payton.  Fakir, at 77 years old, is the only surviving original- and is still touring!

Feature #3 in a row is our new falling from the heights section.  Five songs that peaked outside the top ten are now on the way down.  BJ Thomas’ Everybody’s Out Of Town stopped at 21 and is headed down at 33.  Gladys Knight’s You Need Love Like I Do topped off at 28 and is at 34 this week.  Mark Lindsay peaked at 31 with the underrated Miss America, and is now down to 39.  Family Stone spin-off Little Sister peaked at 20 with You’re The One, which slips now to 49.  And last week’s WATN  feature, BB King’s So Excited slides 9 to #59.

Four new songs in the top 40.  At 40, up 2, are the Doors with You Make Me Real.  At 37, up 18, is Vanity Faire and Hitching A Ride.  The Sandpipers come in at 35 with Come Saturday Morning, rising 9 spots.  And the high debut, up 12 to #3, are the 5th Dimension with Puppet Man.  And with two songs joining the top ten, two drop out.  The droppers are Instant Karma (5 to 19) and Come And Get It (7 to 20).

Bobbi Martin comes in at 10, up one notch with a song I’ve had in my heart ever since I did the story on looking for her father a few weeks back, For The Love Of Him.  Up three to #9 are the UK band Marmalade with the haunting Reflections Of My Life.  And at #8 for the second week, our six degrees victim.

The Friends Of Distinction ( at #8 with Love Or Let Me Be Lonely) are a quartet formed by Harry Elston and Floyd Butler. Their original group themselves the Hi-Fis and included Lamonte McLemore and Marilyn McCoo.  They were discovered by Ray Charles, they backed him up on his 1964 tour.  The Hi-Fis split after the tour, with McLemore and McCoo going on to form the Fifth Dimension .  The 5D had their big breakthrough with the Jimmy Webb song Up Up And Away, which hit #7 in 1967.  In the UK, however, the song flopped for them, but became a #3 hit for the Johnny Mann Singers.  Johnny Mann hosted a patriotic musical show on syndication, Stand Up And Cheer, from 1971-74, which featured a salute to a huge American flag at the end of each episode (and this was the guy who charted in the UK, go figure.)  the JMS are still together, making a living off radio jingles.



Tyrone Davis moves up 2 to #7 with Turn Back The Hands Of Time.  The Ides Of March march up 4 to #6 with Vehicle.  Kenny Rogers and the First Edition climb one more to #5 with Something’s Burning.  The Beatles cling stubbornly to #4 with Let It Be.  Another former top dog, the Jackson Five’s ABC, slips one to #3.  The Guess Who ascend to the runner-up spot with American Woman, up from 3.  And still holding that #1 spot, Norman Greenbaum and Spirit In The Sky.

Woof, that was a mouthful!  Tune in tomorrow for the eighties countdown, and if you see Laurie today- have yer paddle ready.

Andrew Basiago, past present, and more past.

First, read this:

A lot of people have a hard time trusting lawyers as it is, but what about one who claims he was part of a secret government time travel program when he was a kid?
Since 2004, Seattle attorney Andrew Basiago has been publicly claiming that from the time he was 7 to when he was 12, he participated in "Project Pegasus," a secret U.S. government program that he says worked on teleportation and time travel under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
"They trained children along with adults so they could test the mental and physical effects of time travel on kids," Basiago told The Huffington Post. "Also, children had an advantage over adults in terms of adapting to the strains of moving between past, present and future."
Skeptical? You're not alone. Hong Kong physicist Shengwang Du issued a paper last year saying time travel is impossible, because nothing moves faster than the speed of light, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Nevertheless, Basiago's claim gets support from Alfred Webre, a lawyer specializing in "exopolitics," or the political implications surrounding an extraterrestrial presence on Earth. Webre said teleportation and time travel have been around for 40 years, but are hoarded by the Defense Department instead of being used to transfer goods and services faraway distances.
"It's an inexpensive, environmentally friendly means of transportation," Webre told The Huffington Post. "The Defense Department has had it for 40 years and [former Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld used it to transport troops to battle."  (Courtesty the HuffPost.)

Andy as a child enjoying the sights and sounds of Gettysburg during Lincoln's Address.  According to him.



So let's take a little time trip with Andy and, well, Andy.  You see, he claims to have run into himself during one (or two, if you prefer) of his five or six trips to the Ford Theatre the night of Lincoln's assassination.  If you're still with us, it's not so hard to imagine him/them doing an interview with a certain humble blogger.

We meet at an outdoor table at a neighborhood McDonalds (my choice, natch).  A curtain of light shimmers open and a boy in "contemporary clothes" but shoes about four sizes too big (Like the ones at Gettysburg- "I had been dressed in period clothing, as a Union bugle boy," he said. "I attracted so much attention at the Lincoln speech site at Gettysburg -- wearing over-sized men's street shoes -- that I left the area around the dais and walked about 100 paces over to where I was photographed in the Josephine Cogg image of Lincoln at Gettysburg." - followed by a second Andy wearing the same pants but a Homer Simpson t-shirt instead of an Aeropostale original.

"Boy, " Andy "H" says.  "It's been a long time since I've been to a McDonalds.  Can I get a couple Big Macs before we start?"
"You did,"  I said, pointing at a pair of bags sitting at the table.  "About 15 minutes ago."
"Don't you know how bad that stuff is for you?"  Andy "A" says.  "This era still had 'pink slime'."
"Don't care," says I.
"Don't care," says Andy "H".
"So," I go on as "A" and "H" tear into their bags.  "What made you pick me as the guy you give the interview to?"
"Why," "A" begins, it's an honor to meet with the man that singlehandedly derailed Tom Henry's presidential campaign."
"He hasn't done that yet," says "H".
"Ooops..."
I jot down a note to look further into Fort Wayne's beloved mayor and go on.  "All right, I guess we should start with some questions any skeptic would have.  The tech you claim to be using is supposedly being kept under wraps by DOD."
"Why would anyone be skeptical of that?" "H" asks.
"Not the question, " I say.  "My point I'm going to get at is, if Rumsfeld used it to move troops... Why didn't they use that to get Bin Laden..."
"Who says they didn't?"
"Or Qaddafy?"
"Couldn't nail down his name's proper spelling.  Kinda hard to calibrate when a letter here or there could send you to Fiji, or Des Moines, or..."
"Or Bashir Assad?"
"I told you, we got that.." "A" sputtered.
"Haven't done that yet, either," "H" interjected.
"Crap..."
I scratch my head.  "If you used this tech to get Bin Laden, why the copter crash?" I ask.
"It was supposed to be there as a cover story," "H" said.  But it was the first time we teleported a moving vehicle, and nobody thought to see if fuel teleported without evaporation."
"Just one of those unfortunate bugs," "A" agreed.

Of course, there are risks. Basiago remembered feeling extreme turbulence while going through the vortal time tunnel. Webre said one tragedy occurred in the early days of the technology in which a child in Project Pegasus arrived a few seconds before his legs.
"He was writhing in pain with just stumps where his legs had been," Webre said.

"Moving on," I muttered.  "If you- that is, your 2012 self- is 49 years old and no longer involved in the project, then how is it that you here- as ten year olds, I'm guessing- know things that haven't even happened yet?  Have you went into the future as well?"
"Don't be silly," "H" scoffs. "You can't go into the future."
"Why not?"
"Because," says "A" with a roll of the eyes."You can go into the past because the present has already happened.  You might accidentally change something, but that just makes more pasts and presents.  But if you went in the future, you could never come back."
"Why not?"
"Because the future hasn't happened yet.  If you went, you'd find nothing, and when you'd try to come back, there'd be no way to find your way," "A" explained.
"Because there's nothing in-between to connect to," "H" added.
"So how do you know..." I begin, starting to feel a headache coming on.
" 'Present-Andy' keeps in touch," "A" said.
"We keep each other updated," "H" added.
"Mmmm" I nodded.  "Let's see... Project Pegasus is- or was- a secret government project..."
"Yes, the Project Pegasus in Marvel Comics is based on it, " "H" interjects.
"Hide in plain sight," "A" nodded.
"Mark Grunewald came up with the idea," "H" said.  "He was a genius, as a comic editor and a project group leader.  He is missed."
"Well, by the comics world and the present," "A" put in.  "I mean, we still talk to him."
"And check out his Monday morning briefings."
"But Mark.. oh, never mind," I shake my head.  "What I was going to ask was, what were their goals in sending you and the others into the past?"
"Finding new technology," "H" said casually.

Basiago said he experienced eight different time travel technologies during his stint in the program. Mostly, he said, his travel involved a teleporter based on technical papers supposedly found in pioneering mechanical engineer Nikola Tesla's New York City apartment after his death in January 1943.

"The machine consisted of two gray elliptical booms about eight feet tall, separated by about 10 feet, between which a shimmering curtain of what Tesla called 'radiant energy' was broadcast," Basiago said. "Radiant energy is a form of energy that Tesla discovered that is latent and pervasive in the universe and has among its properties the capacity to bend time-space."

"New Tech?  In the past?"
"How do you think Tesla developed what he had?" "A" replied.  "He worked from what had gone before.  Graham Bell, Whitney, Benjamin Franklin..."
"George Foreman..." "H" added.
"The boxer?"
"Yeah, I guess," "A" said.  "Although he's actually famous all down through history for the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine."
"Shhh," "H" cautioned.  "They haven't stumbled onto all its uses yet."
"Damn," "A" cursed.  "They should give me a cheat sheet..."
"I put it in your mailbox tomorrow," "H" answered.

Resisting the urge to bang my head on the table, I tried one last time.  "So, then, what era does Present-Andy actually live in?  Is he actually here, a 49-year-old, in 2012, or..."
"2012?" "A" choked on a fry.  "WTF..."
"Shit, we aren't supposed to be here till 2015!" "H" exclaimed.  Pulling a quarter out of his pocket, he shouted into it, "Emergency retrieval!  Emergency retrieval!"
"Wait!" I shouted at the panicked child/children.  "What's so bad about being in 2012?"
"We can't be here for the rapture," "A" shouted.  "We haven't become a Christian yet!"
I could just hear "H" scold "A" as they faded into the shimmering return of the field that brought them, "At least they knew that one..."  And with a short rush of wind, they were gone.

I looked at the empty seats before me, the normal sky, the unfinished food on the table.
"Oh well," I said.  "More for me..."

Saturday disaster, Sunday fixes

I've already clued in Bobby G. on Saturday night, so I'll let the rest of you in on all the fun.  The idea was to go to Cinema Grill (for those who don't have one, dinner and a movie in one shot) to watch The Avengers.  Let me skip to the disasters, then I'll move on to the good things sprinkled within.

THE MOVIE:  Here's the situation:  Iron Man is stuck inside the rotors of the Helicarrier (which he is trying to restart).  He's waiting on Captain America to throw a certain switch so he can get out without becoming the Human Steel-Wool Pad.  Cap is dangling from a cable about twenty feet from the switch an 30,000 feet above the ground, with somebody shooting at him, and his shield back in his footlocker.  Thor, after just having gotten bounced about by the Hulk, has just escaped Loki's death trap, and is currently picking dirt clods out from between his teeth.  The Hulk, for his part, took a u-turn at a fighter jet and is on his way to joining Thor in dirtclod-picking.  The expendable heroic S.H.I.E.L.D. agent is explaining to Loki with his dying breaths that he'll never win.  And the Black Widow has just B!tc#-slapped a mind-controlled Hawkeye into dreamland (and all of this is happening more or less simultaneously.  Just then, half the theatre's speaker system blows and takes the AC with it.

THE TEMPER TANTRUM:  I yell at Laurie and KC as they try  to stop me from storming away long enough to get our refund.

THE CAR:  Is dead.  A little clicking, some pre-psychotic flashes from the dashboard, and that's it.  Repeated attempts to start only makes the car refuse toi give the key back.

THE NEW BATTERY: $119.

SOCKETS:  Have to fall under the exact geographical center of the car.

But now, the good things:

THE RESTROOM TRIP:  Which I took as the manager came down and announced that the speakers were blown, that he was "concerned" that this might happen "because this was a loud movie".  That comment would have pushed the tantrum to a whole new level of embarrassing, I guarantee it.  But, thankfully, I was upstairs having a urinary.

THE MOVIE:  What we saw of it might have been the best movie I ever saw.  Seeings as I have been reading the Avengers since I was six years old, I might not be an unbiased judge.  But it's blown away Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2 its first weekend, so I don't think I'm alone.

THE MEAL: Was very good.  And I don't think many people paid for it- I know we didn't.  And I don't think anyone else did either, but again, I was having that urinary at the time.

CORONA:  Was a pretty decent beer.

LAURIE'S SISTER AND BROTHER-IN-LAW:  Came to the rescue.  Tried unsuccessfully to jump it.  There were no previous signs the battery was bad, and I was afraid it might be the computer brain.  But...

LAURIE'S NEPHEW ANDY:  Lives less than a mile from the theatre, so we called him.  He is a car expert, and you can find his shop on Facebook at The Swap Shop.  He hooked a tester to the battery and proclaimed he was "98% sure" it was indeed just the battery.  Very nice of the damned thing to die so close to him.

THE SUPERMOON:  We had a great view as it rose over McDonalds.

BROTHER-IN-LAW:  Came back and picked me up after a day of fishing Sunday to get the battery tested (D.O.A.) and help me install the new one.

FISHERMEN:  Carry mini-fish nets to retrieve wayward sockets.


And now, the net results:
One new battery, during good weather and near home.
A free meal, and three free passes to The Avengers when we decide to try again.
Laurie and sister bonded over I-Pad games.
Saw half of a good movie.
Know what to order for drinks next time.
Realizing, as Laurie pointed out, "The biggest disaster wasn't anything that happened, but our response to it."
So, The Avengers, Laurie's family, and Andy for coming out on his night off, get an A+.
Cinema Grill gets an A for the grill part, and an F on the Cinema part, though they have the chance to raise their grade with extra credit.
Car, especially the battery, F.
Chris, D+ (I'm pleading extenuating circumstances to raise my grade.)

The great Eighties countdown week two

Welcome back, my friends, to my countdown of favorite tunes from the eighties.  We're a long way from the big time, so let's get busy!

280- All those Years Ago, George Harrison, 1981, #2.  A tribute to John Lennon, who we all liked after he was dead.

279- Over The Mountain, Ozzy Osbourne, 1982, #38 Mainstream charts.  I was alway conflicted over listening to the "evil" Ozzy back then.  But the line "Don't need no astrology, it's inside of you and me"  appealed to me.

278- Pride (In The Name Of Love), U2, 1984, #33 and #2 mainstream.  The second of three for U2 on the countdown is their tribute to Martin Luther King.

277- We Didin't Start The Fire, Billy Joel, 1989, #1.  The only BJ album I ever owned was Storm Front.  And despite the novelty of this song (as novelties don't usually hit big with me), it was a good strong lp.

276-  Everybody Wants You, Billy Squier, 1982, #32 and #1 mainstream.  The world loved The Stroke.  We loved all the rest.  One of 3 for Mr. Squier in the countdown.

275- Waiting On A Friend, Rolling Stones, 1981, # 13.  Just a nice, relaxing tune from Mick and the boys. One of four for the Stones.

274- Would I Lie To You, Eurythmics, 1985, #5.  If you'd have told me after I first watched the video to Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This that I would ever like anything by a chick with a red crew-cut, I'd have been both skeptical and wrong.  In fact, we'll see them once more later on.

273-  Roam, B52s, 1989, #3.  Another one that actually snuck in from 1990, but the album, Cosmic Thing, came out in 1989, so it's all good.  They'll be back again as well.

272- Let My Love Open The Door, Pete Townshend, 1980, #9.  The Who's lead guitar hit from his solo lp Empty Glass.

271- Hey Nineteen, Steely Dan, 1980, #10.  From the lp Gaucho.  This is what you get picking up younger women.  One of two from Becker and Fagen on the list.

270- Roll Me Away, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, 1983, #27.  The Distance was one of Bob's Best albums, and this was one of his best tunes on it.  He'll be back two more times.

269- Who Can It Be Now, Men At Work, 1981, #1.  I always thought these guys were one of the best things to come from Australia.

268- Crazy Train, Ozzie Osbourne, 1988, #106, and #9 mainstream.  Hey, there's ol' Oz again!  The second of two times today, and second of three on the list.

267- If You're Gonna Play In Texas, Alabama, 1984, #1 country.  I never cared much for their ballads that crossed over to pop, but let 'em break the fiddle out, and I'm there.

266- In Your Letter, REO Speedwagon, 1981, #20.  Like everyone else back then, we played the crap out of High Infidelity. one of two on the countdown.

265- Darlington County, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, 1984, unreleased.  You knew we had to have some lp cuts on the list, and here's the first, from Born In The USA.

264- Here Comes The Rain Again, Eurythmics, 1984, #4.  Here come the Eurythmics again, with their other song on the countdown.

263- Union Man, Neil Young, 1980, unreleased.  I even had a hard time figuring out which album this was on. (Answer- Hawks And Doves.)

262- Four Little Diamonds, Electric Light Orchestra, 1983, #86.  So you thought you were rid of ELO, did ya?  Well, Did ya?  From Secret Messages, one of six in the countdown.

261- Eminence Front, The Who, 1982, #68, and #5 on mainstream.  Come and join the party, baby.... One of 2 on the countdown.

And there you have another week of hits and oddities from the memory of Martin. Tune in next week to see what I'll dig out next!

Time Machine week 14

Gott get down to it

Soldiers are cutting us down

Shoulda been done long ago

What if you knew her and

found her dead on the ground

How can you run when you know?

Welcome to May 4th, 1970.  Time machine seems to be landing in a lot of pivotal places lately, and here's another.  Whether you see innocent kids blown away by an oppresive government or leftist -inspired troublemakers and a few misloaded guns, this day changed everything.  We all grew up.  And none of us learned.

Time Machine is a loaded weapon today as well, as class # 4 of the Martin HOF gets inducted today, and the inductees include our Where Are They Now feature; our big dropper becomes part of a somewhat new somewhat feature; and our six degrees has more different people and groups than any in a long time- and I never get past the second degree!  Let's think good thoughts and move onward...

15 songs debut in the hot 100 this week, and we feature four of them.  Blues Image comes in at 95 with Ride Captain Ride.  Mac Davis is at #88 with a song which, if you've never heard it, you need to- Whoever Finds This, I Love You.  At 78 come the Moody Blues with Question.  And up at 75 is Freda Payne with Band Of Gold.

Our other birthday songs this week include, at turning 30, Joan Jett's cover of Crimson and Clover, Karla Bonoff's Personally, Ronnie Milsap's Any Day Now, and .38 Special's Caught Up In You; turning 35, England Dan and JF Coley's It's Sad To Belong, Barry Manilow's #1 Looks Like We Made It, Peter Gabriel's first single, Solisbury Hill, and Rita Coolidge's cover of Jackie Wilson's (Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher And Higher; turning 40, Jimmy Castor's Troglodyte (Cave Man); turning 45, Music Explosion's Little Bit Of Soul; and hitting the big 5-0 Johnny Tillotson's It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin' and one from ANOTHER new MHOFer that I'll mention in a bit.

Oh, heck, why not now?  In the Top Men Category, we have two inductees- with 15 top 40 hits (including The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, which turns 50 this week), Gene Pitney; and with 9 top 40s and a pair of #1s, The Righteous Brothers!
In the Top Women category, two inductees-  with 11 top 40 hits, Dusty Springfield; and with 25 top 40s including a #1, Gladys Knight and the Pips!

The big mover this week is a catchy instrumental by the band El Chicano, Viva Tirada, going up 22 spots to #53.  El Chicano, does what is termed "Chicano" music (go figure) and is still active despite the deaths of founding members Bobby Espinosa and Rudy Regalado within months of each other in 2010.  The big dropper is not only in the top forty, but part of a new feature.  Kinda expanding on the almost but not quite that I've done on and off, we will be looking at all the chart songs that don't make the top ten and are beginning their sad descent (providing anyone actually knows them).  We have two on the list- first up is our week's big dropper, Neil Diamond's Shilo, which I was astounded that it climbed no higher than #23.  It falls 15 to #38.  And Then Came Bronson theme Long Lonesome Highway by Michael Parks peaked last week at 13, and falls to #20 this time.


In the Golden Oldies category, I have two new inductees.  First, with no top 40 hits, no #1s- or all of them, depending on how you look at it, the late lamented Mr. Dick Clark.  And with 20 top 40s and a #1, with or without the Bellmonts, Dion DeMucci!!
In the Not Quite Rock'n'Roll category:  A recent #1s of the past featuree (said feature returning next week, BTW), with 83 top 40s and 21 #1s in the days before Billboard, Al Jolson.  And our Where Are They Now feature, with 7 top 40s (including this week at #50 So Exited)- and three R&B #1s, the man, the legend- BB King!!!

There is way too much bio to go through on this great bluesman, so we'll stick more or less to topic.  In 2006, he had went on a "farewell tour" of Europe.  "...on June 28, 2009 King returned to Wembley arena to end a tour around Great Britain with British blues icon John Mayall. When questioned as to why he was embarking on another tour after already completing his farewell stint, King jokingly remarked that he had never actually said the farewell tour would be his last...During a press conference on November 29 in São Paulo, a journalist asked King if that would be the actual farewell tour. He answered: "One of my favorite actors is a man from Scotland named Sean Connery. Most of you know him as James Bond, 007. He made a movie called Never Say Never Again."

That pointed out, I add that this man, who has performed over 15,000 times in a 63-year career, will be here in Fort Wayne in just 18 days!  Oh, if I had money to throw away frivolously...

We have a pile of top 40 debuts this week.  Leaping 19 spots to #40 is Tom Jones with Daughter Of Darkness.  Up 13 to #39 are The Moments with Love On A Two Way Street.  At 37 are The Who, climbing 4 with The Seeker. Joe Cocker moves up 13 to #36 with The Letter.  Dionne Warwick comes in at 35, an 11-notch rise, with Let Me Go To Him.  The Airport Love Theme by Vincent Bell flies up 10 to #33.  Diana Ross moves 12 to #32 with Reach Out And Touch (Somebody's Hand).  And because I think I missed it last week, I'll mention that Mark Lindsay climbs 3 spots in his second week to 31 with Miss America.

Ready for the last two categories? the first is My Personal Choices, and one inductee enters there- with only the one top 40 (which wasn't even one of my favorites) Todd Rundgren and Utopia!!
And last but not least, the Big Names category gets 3 inductees.  With 8 top 40s, and 5 #1s on the Alternative Chart, R.E.M. !!  With 23 top 40s and 4 #1s, the Jackson Five!! And with 14 top 40s and 2 #1s, Tommy James and the Shondells!!  Check out the Martin Hall Of Fame link on the top (under Nixon) to see the whole list.

Two songs edge into the top ten, two tumble out.  Up The Ladder To The Roof falls from 9 to 14, and Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes goes from 8 to 24.

The Ides Of March climbs a notch to lead off the top 10 with Vehicle.  Up from 12 to 9 is Tyrone Davis with Turn Back The Hands Of Time.  The Friends Of Distinction (high class Quakers, perhaps?) move from 10 to 8 with Love Or Let Me Be Lonely.  Next comes a run of three tunes that hold their place- Badfinger's Come And Get It at 7, John Lennon's Instant Karma at 5- and our six degrees victim in the middle.

The First Edition, featuring "hippie" Kenny Rogers (at #6 with Something's Burning)  were, with one exception, former members of the New Christy Minstrels.  You could almost say "who wasn't?" because the still-extant NCMs have had some 300 members at one point or another.  The founding spirit was Randy Sparks, who named the band after a group that personal hero Stephen Foster penned most of his songs for, Christy's Minstrels.  They formed in the late fifties, and after having some success in their "first" incarnation, he dropped back to be producer/business mgr.  Among the members in NCM 1.0 were Jerry Yester, who went on to play piano for the Lovin' Spoonful on hits like Do You Believe In Magic, as well as producing for his brother Jim Yester's band- The Association.  Another was prominent folk singer Dolan Ellis, who was named Arizona's State Balladeer in 1966.

Dolan left in 1963, to be replaced with Barry McGuire- who would go on to hit #1 solo with Eve Of Destruction.  Barry sang lead on their 1963 hit Green Green (their first of 3 top 40s, peaking at #14.)  Also joining about that time was Peggy Connelly, who had been married to comedian Dick Martin since 1957.  Another next waver was Gene Clark, who would soon leave to join Jim (later Roger )McGuinn and David Crosby in the Byrds- in fact, McGuinn was slated to join as well, but bailed to be accompanyist for Bobby Darin.  Can you say this story is a name-dropper's paradise?

From 1963 to 1966, Larry Ramos was a member; but like Yester, he left to join the Association, and was featured on Never My Love and Windy.  It was in 1966 that Rogers and his future First Edition bandmates joined, along with Kim Carnes (#1 in 1981 with Bette Davis Eyes, remember?) and Karen Black, who gained fame as an actress in such films as 5 Easy Pieces, Airport '75 (where she landed the plane), Day Of The Locust, and Nashville.

I have heard that John Denver was a NCM, but found no proof of this on their website, which has an exhaustive membership list (and I mean exhaustive!).  So I dug deeper, and found that Sparks had sold his shares of the NCM in '64 and started a band called the Back Porch Majority, which was intended to be the NCM's "farm team".  It was this group that Denver was a member of, so he was actually just "shirttail relations".  One other name I took note of was legendary Novelty act Spike Jones' son, Spike Jones Jr.

Sparks spent much of the next 30 years being opening act and writer for Burl Ives until Ives' death in 1995.  Then he leased, and finally bought, back the NCM name and continues to manage the group to this very day.  See why I only went 2 degrees?

Let It Be tumbles a spot to #4.  The Guess Who move up 1 to #3 with American Woman.  The new MHOF act the Jackson Five slip from #1 to #2 with ABC.  Which means our brand new #1 top dog is....

Norman Greenbaum with Spirit In The Sky!!!

If you missed last Saturday, go back and check out week one of the Great Eighties Countdown, and be back here Saturday for week # 2!

The end, days three and four

First of all, I'd like to say if you had me list my top ten sports athletes who would never commit suicide, Junior Seau would be in the top 3.  What price glory?

Anyway, moving on.  Day 3 was a nothing-happening sort of day, unless you were Aquaman and were able to breathe well in all that humidity.

Late in the afternoon, my boss opened the overhead door in our department to get some air.  Temperature went up 5 degrees just like that.  (BTW I have the heater thermostat right next to my table).

Oh, and somebody thought it would be fun to turn the OT list upside down on the bulletin board. I quickly pointed out that someone was tramping on my immaturity gig.  It remained upside down until this AM, when several wags pointed out that when 10 hours OT gets turned upside down, it becomes 01 hours.  By lunchtime, the list was now sideways.

I was still on day 25 of making 743s (a chair cushion for K-Mart).  In the last two days alone, I've accounted for around 2,000 of them.  The sewers just love me these days.  I finally told Victor that in honor of our plant closing, the company will be sending a free 743 to every man, woman, and child in America.  Company owner BS will be dropping by your house soon.

One of the fabrics I was using has a tendency to have some rolls come in stretched out and a pain to lay up.  Also, most fabric vendors use little plastic tacks to indicate where defects have occured.  This stuff seems to be tacked whenever they manage to put 5-10 yards of good fabric together without a defect.  Probably 70% of defects go unmarked, and since I'm bringing 2 plies down the table at a time, half of those 70% will be making their way to Mr. and Mrs. America.  And I frankly got too mad to care.  In my frustration I slipped up in repressing all the things about the closing that made me mad, and soon I was ready to kill.  I finally asked myself what would make me feel better.  And I answered, "To see one of the corporate people who came up with one of the "good ideas" that helped make us so damn inefficient this year, point at him/her and shout, 'You!  You're a sonufabitch and here's why!' "

After that, I began to calm down.  And I told my boss, who suggested that I talk to production mgr. ODP (don't expect me to explain what THAT stands for on a family show), because he's well versed in anger management.  "I need to deal with the anger, not increase it!" I exclaimed.  "Oh, yeah, that wouldn't work, would it?" she replied.

After lunch, our bag vendor came in to look into what he'd have to repossess, and became interested in our saws, as they are veering into the fabric business.  I was cutting the aforementioned yellow crap when I looked up to see said vendor filming me on his cell.  Boss said, "Smile!"  I said, "I'll be doing a comedy show later," and continued on.

Victor says a bunch of the sewers might not show up Friday.  Yeah, blow off a day of time-and-a-half with two months left on your job.. . and they wonder why we're closing.

Finally, near the end of the day "Joe" came over to chit chat.  Inventory chick (who was somewhat low-cut today) goes past, and drops her pen right in front of us.  As I pause to watch her bend down to get it (Hey, now, you would too), I go, "Nice Job".  As I'm saying this, Joe drops his pen as well, so I say, "Nice job" again.  When Joe rises, I added softly, "But it was more fun watching her pick hers up than you."

the end... day 2

Today I was really struggling.  Not because of the closing, but because I was helping with the K-Mart/Sears dot.com stuff.  This means A-cushions (front and back different) tons of bands and welt, and the annoying big table that I described a while back, with its annoying computer mouse.  Then, our boss came over just as I was going onto the next thing with a retail order which "is suddenly urgent".  I raced back to my table with bells on my toes.  Suddenly, our HR person posted something on the bulletin board.  Just so you understand how silly this is getting, let me recap in chronological order:

Friday, 6 AM:  Told that the reason that OT was cut from 10 to 6 hrs was because "Corporate doesn't want to pay OT when our efficiency is so low".  Note- this is not a lie, boss just didn't know what was coming.

Friday 9:35 AM:  All the new employees (including two cutters, maybe two sewers, and a "support person") were taken into the break room, told what was going on, and escorted out.

Friday 9:45 AM:  The rest of us were called into the break room, given the bad news, and sent home. (Now you know why we came in Friday at all.)

Friday 10:50 AM: Discovered that the self addressed stamped envelope that was supposed to be in with our settlement statement we had to sign and send back was not in the package after all (Signing, among other things, was to indicate that the envelope was there.  Ooops.)

Monday, 7:30 AM:  Asked plant manager (who was the only one to escape the purge) when we'd be getting the SASE.  "You mean, it wasn't in there??"

Monday 10 AM:  Locally produced SASEs passed out.

Tuesday, 9:05 AM: Given the "suddenly urgent " retail order.

Tuesday 9:10 AM: Notice posted on bulletin board.  Whole plant 10 hrs OT Friday.  Sewers on 12-hour shifts starting Wednesday.  Mind you, we aren't "efficient" enough to rate OT.  11 people fired Friday.  Now we have OT.  WTF??

Tuesday 9:17 AM:  Funniest line of the day:  Lead man in packing, "M", looks over at the sewers who just found out they are looking at 12 hour shifts, and says, "Congratulations, ladies."

Tuesday 9:35 AM:  HR person takes down 12 hour notice, tells sewers it's cancelled.   (Yep, 20 minutes later.)

Tuesday 9:36 AM: Inform HR person, "As long as this place is turning into a circus, I don't like heights and don't wanna train lions, put me down for getting shot out of the cannon.  After all, you can only screw that job up once and you won't have to worry about getting yelled at about it."  Funniest line honorable mention.

Later on, I kept giving helpful suggestions to our inventory chick.  She was trying to figure out yardages on the Lowes fabric (which was getting sent to our other plants, along with the JC Penny fabrics.  Suggestions included, "Considering the way they've sent fabric to us, you oughta pull the yardage tags out and send the stupid things unmarked."  Later when she told our boss, "I have this roll here (little bitty thing) that says '28.96 yds'. I have this one here (same fabric, also little bitty) that says, '21.8'.  And this one (again, same fabric but easily 4 times the amount on the other two combined) says '16. 35'. "  My response- "Just right down the total on the tags, and the total the system says we have, and a note that says 'Pick one'."  For her part, she wanted to pay corporate back by sending it all to them.  Nice, but fairly impractical.  I also tried to talk her into a road trip to Michigan to attempt a palace coup, but she seemed uninterested.

Funniest line of the day # 2- I was holding the door open for several ladies as we left and QC guy comes up.
Me: "You're no lady.  I'm shutting the door."
QCG: "Yes I am..."
Me: NO, you're NOT!"
QCG (in his gentle spanish accent):  "Yes, I am. Don' you see ta way I walk?"

And no, I didn't look to check it out.