I know I said just one sports post a week, but...

...I thought I'd do one today because I'm so gosh-darn proud of the logos I made for our fantasy football league on Paint!  Check 'em out:

Aguascalientes (the "hot water" shooting out his top)

the Angels

B2s

Fiery Beagles

Buzz Lightyears

Clock BBQs

Flying Porkchops (Porkchop is my son's cat)

the State Ducks (dig that crazy letterman's jacket!)

the Elks

KCA's (the white elephant beinbg the symbol of the old Philadelphia A's)

Sunset Rangers

Greenwoods (elf-hat on a football)

And now, since I'm already this deep, here's the first Lokomotiv report!

This is the memorial at Josef Vacicek's grave.  He was my favorite player on the original Lokomotiv team who died in the plane crash that killed the entire team one year ago.  Those that were paying attention last year watched me chronicle the the teams rebirth as a minor-league team for a half a season last year.  The team is now back in the bigs (Russia's KHL) and have started the 2011-12 season.

The team from last year graduated eight players from the VHL squad from last year- the rest are on the new team that remains in the VHL.  The graduates were: Oleg Yashin, Alexei Kruchinin, Dmitri Maltsov, Vladislav Kartayev, Daniil Apal'kov, Andrei Konev, Yegor Yakolev, and goalie Nikita Lozhkin, who was called up when Canadian goalie Curtis Sanford began the season as is his usual on the DL.

The first two games were matches with the far western teams, who start out with an eastern swing.  Game one was against Sibir, and they took 1-0 and 2-1 leads on power-play goals.  We tied it up first on a goal by Alexander Chernikov, who played for Sibir the last two years, bagging 25 goals in 2 seasons.  The 2-2 knot was forged by Mikelis Redlihs, a Latvian who had posted 55 goals in 4 seasons with Dinamo Riga.  Then it became the Staffan Kronwall show.  Kronwall, a Swede veteran whose career boasts a 66-game NHL career with Toronto, Washington, and Calgary (1 goal) and 21 AHL goals over 7 seasons, put us up 3-2 at 12:24 of the 2nd, and pushed it to 4-2 with a second goal with a half-minute left in the second.  Apal'kov finished things off with a third period goal that made the final 5-2.  The goaltending for both this and the next one was done by KHL veteran Vitaly Kolesnik, who is coming off a struggle of a season for Salavat Yulaev last year (6-8-3, 3.13 GA AVE).

Game two was against Amur and it was a much tighter affair.  Maxim Trunyov, who comes over from Severstal trying to prove something (12 goals in 3 seasons), put us on the board with 5 seconds left in the first.  Amur tied the game about halfway through the second, but less than a minute later Yegor Averin (also in the prove something group, having totalled 28 goals over four campaigns in Omsk) put us up 2-1.  Despite two power plays in the third and pulling their goalie in the last half-minute, Amur couldn't muster a real threat and we started out 2 and 0.  Spartak is also 2-0, and Dynamo Moscow has two regulation wins and a shoot-out victory, so we're in pretty good company.  Next up is Metallurg Novokutnesk, Monday morning our time.

Pictures from a walk.

So, what does an inch of rain yesterday do for things?  Well, the normally dry beds in the woods are full...

...as well as the more well-known puddles.

They've been setting the trails up for cross country.  However, I think orange paint on every possible tripping hazard was a bit much.

The two does stopped for a few down the back trail.  We caught a glimpse of the rest of the gang bedded down on the other side of the ravine later, but couldn't get a good shot.

A mushroom as a tripping hazard?  Actually, there was a nearby root that ended up smile-shaped, and the shroom was in the middle of one of the eyes they decided to tack on.

Stony Run was running a little faster for the water influx.

Thought we'd go over and see who was hanging out at the pond by the Alumni Center.  Which reminds me, I'm going to put a map page on the blog so you can refer if you desire.  You'll find the AC right about where the ball diamond shows up on the bottom of the map (Google Earth isn't quite up-to-date yet.)

Considering that Purdue is an agricultural and engineering university, I shake my head at the pitiful job they set up for drainage at both the AC and the two new soccer fields.

Considering they sit on the high ground and have a pond just downhill, you'd think that the AC would dry pretty quick.  Still need to put in tiling, people.  I'm not an engineer, landscaper, or even a farmer, and I could figure that out.

The white line of current is where Stony Run joins the river.

Scrappy must have found the water too cold today.  He was content to nose around the beach.

This here is the last bend in Stony Run before it joins the river.

Did you know sports tourism is big in Ft. Wayne?  So is putting up colorful mastodons and giant shoes.  Sometimes, Fort Wayne is a strange town...

We had at least five helicopter flyovers (real choppers, not NASCAR Nationwide driver Brian Scott, whom we call Chopper because he spins out at least once every race).  Not sure what was up with that.

Time Machine Week 32

It's September 7th, 1970.  Yesterday a group of Palestian terrorists hijacked a 747 in Amsterdam and had it fly first to Beirut, and then Cairo.  Once in Egypt about 4:30 AM local time, the terrorists evacuated the 173 passengers and crew and blew the plane up.

"The hijackers told us the plane would be blown up, but they said it so politely and with such smiles that we couldn't take this too seriously," Cornelius Van Aalst, the flight's service supervisor, tells reporters in Cairo, after the ordeal. The hijackers were very friendly," according to Van Aalst, showing "exemplary manners" and helping to carry an injured woman in a blanket from the plane.

Ironic in all this was an ad in the Beirut english-language Daily Star, distributed on the street even as the hijackers were refueling there:

 

 

Later that same day, the Chicago White Sox set a dubious record in a doubleheader against the Oakland A's.  In game 1, they used, in addition to the starting eight, 3 pinch hitters, one pinch runner, a backup catcher, and 5 pitchers.  In game two, in addition to the starting eight, they used 6 pinch hitters (2 of which went in at first base and another in right field), a pinch runner, a backup shortstop, and 7 pitchers.  This gave a record total of 41 players used in two games.  The payoff?  The A's raced off to 6-0 leads in both, Joe Rudi homered in both, and Oakland won 7-4 and 7-5.

 

 

Rudi:  "Yeah, bring 'em on, bring on yer whole team... oh, you did?"
 



 

Welcome to this week's Time Machine, where among the usual good stuff. we sprinkle in Bobby Womack, Sam Cooke, the World Classic Rockers (who?), and the man who shot Liberty Valence  beat up Phil Spector.  All this and a new top dog.  Before we get started, a couple of notes- one good, one not so much.

 

 

Joe South, known for Games People Play and Walk A Mile In My Shoes, died of a heart attack at home Wednesday at the age of 72.  Don't it make you want to go home, now, don't it make you want to go home...

And 50 years ago this week, the Four Seasons cleared in a single bound such acts as Tommy Roe, Little Eva, Elvis, Nat King Cole, Neil Sedaka, Ray Charles, and Sam Cooke with their very first hit, as Sherry leaps from #12 to #1 in just their 4th week on the charts!

The hot 100 has 15 new members this week, including:  Ray Price's For The Good Times ("Lay your head... upon my pillow...); The James Gang's Funk #49 ("Sleep all day, out all night, I know where you're going...") debuts at #89; Simon and Garfunkel's last hit before they break up, El Condor Pasa, comes in at #60; and Glen Campbell's cover of It's Only Make Believe comes in at #55.

The birthday gang kicks off with Toni Basil's Mickey and ABC's The Look Of Love turning 30.  Hitting 35 years old this week are Rita Coolidge's We're All Alone, Linda Ronstadt's cover of Blue Bayou; and the iconic song of the era, Styx's Come Sail Away.  Turning 40, but claiming it's only 29, is Helen Reddy's I Am Woman; turning 45, the Young Rascals' How Can I Be Sure, the Youngbloods' iconic song of their era, Get Together, and a song that's been going through my mind (for no good reason) ever since I mentioned the Walker Brothers yesterday, the Soul Survivors' Expressway To Your Heart.  Turning fifty is a song I mention for Laurie's sake, Jimmy Dean's Little Black Book.  And turning 55 is Johnny Mathis' double sided classic Chances Are/The Twelfth Of Never.  Blow out the candles...

As we shift to the big movers, going up is one of the two songs I mentioned for being pokey in its ascent last time.  Sugarloaf's Green Eyed Lady zips up 29 spots to #61 this week.  (The other, Christies' Yellow River, is still in a lower gear, climbing 6 to #77.)  The Big Dropper is a former Where Are They Now and a one-week-peeker at the top 40, Lost Generation's The Sly, The Slick, And The Wicked.  It drops 29 to #68.

Our oldies feature this week is George Olsen and his Music.   George started out as a Drum Major at the U. of Michigan, and after a tour of Broadway formed his own orchestra. They forged a career that stretched from 1925-34 and charted 49 top 40's, 35 top tens, and seven #1s.  These included Their biggest hit, 1933's The Last Round-up, and 1926's Who? Who? was part of an eleven song-streak in 1926-7 in which they charted 3 #1s, 3 #2s, 2 #3s, and 3 #5s.  Unlike many of the other bands of the era, no future big stars were members- except for a lead vocal on In The Market For You (#9, 1930) by none other than singer and budding actor Fred MacMurray.

One former member who went on to form his own band was Orville Knapp.  Orville's orchestra was just getting big in 1934-6 when Knapp, an avid pilot, stalled his plane out and crashed.  Knapp's widow asked Olsen to take over the band, and he held them together for a couple of years.  But the members weren't exactly happy having Orville replaced by an outsider, several members branched out on their own, and Olsen disbanded the group in 1938.

Our Where Are They Now feature at #50 is a song called Screaming Night Hog.  Since we're two years prior to Deliverance, you would figure aright that this must be a Steppenwolf song.  Now, Steppenwolf was an intricate part of the big Mynah Birds/Rick James/ CSNY/ Buffalo Springfield soap opera we told here January of last year.  The band itself was formed in 1963 from the ashes of Canadian group the Sparrows.  They lasted till 1972, then reformed 1974-6.  After that, a mosaic of bands played under the Steppenwolf banner (one of them played just a couple miles from my childhood home once), most of which had little or nothing to do with the real thing.  The peak of this mess came in 1978, when one such group which actually had some real members of the original group were brought under the management of one David Pesnell.  This grouping was in the works of making an actual album, to be produced by future convicted murderer and HOF producer Phil Spector.  But Spector and Pesnell didn't get along, and one night they actually got into a fistfight which landed Spector in the hospital for three days.  Police dropped charges once they found out that Spector instigated the bout (surprise!)

The band's name was finally brought under the control of founder John Kay, who either plays in or licenses out anything SW-related.  Kay still plays with the band occasionally, even after a "final gig" played back in 2007.  Drummer Jerry Edmonton co-controlled the name with Kay until his death in 1993.  Goldy McJohn, who was a feature in the aforementioned Mynah Birds story, lives and occasionally performs in West Seattle.  Rushton Moreve was fired from the band in 1968 when he refused to return to L.A. because his "old lady" convinced him that a huge earthquake would soon dump California into the sea.  He died, appropriately enough, in a motorcycle crash in 1981.  His replacement, Nick St. Nicholas (a former Sparrow- go read the story, already!) and fellow member Michael Monarch are members of the World Classic Rockers, an all-star band a-la Ringo Starr's All-Star Band.  Former members of the WCR include Spencer Dvais, Mark Lindsay, Donovan, and Denny Laine; other current and formers include Randall Hall (who spent time with Lynyrd Skynyrd), Anysley Dunbar (who was a drummer for Frank Zappa's Mothers, Journey, Jefferson Starship, and Whitesnake), Fran Cosmo (studio stand in for the late Brad Delp of Boston), Bobby Kimball (Toto), and Joey Molland (Badfinger).

Six new songs enter the top 40.  Up 3 spots to #38 is Dave Mason with Only You Know And I Know.  Leaping from63 to 37 is Hotlegs' novelty hit Neanderthal Man.  Remeber when Elvis was the WATN feature with the song The Next Step Is Love, only to have the flip-side, I've Lost You, pass it into the top 40?  Well, now it makes the 40 as well, up 7 to #36 (while I've Lost You moves up a notch this week to #18).  Melanie leaps 13 to 34 with Peace Will Come (According To Plan).  A 12 spot climb to 32 for Mike Nesmith's First National Band with the haunting Joanne.  And it's Susan Jacks and the Poppy Family climbing 17 to enter the 40 at #31 with That's Where I Went Wrong.

One song enters the top ten- and one song RE- enters the top ten.  Thus, two must fall,  Those two are Signed Sealed Delivered (I'm Yours), from 5 to 11, and If You Let Me Make Love To You, from 10 to 12.

The Carpenters re-enter the top ten at #10, up one, with (They Long To Be) Close To You.

Blood Sweat And Tears are up 5 to #9 with Hi-De-Ho.

Bread slides down from 4 to #8 with Make It With You.

25 Or 6 To 4 to #7, up 1, for 60601, er, Chicago.

CCR moves up from 9 to #6 with Lookin' Out My Back Door.

Diana Ross hasn't climbed high enough yet; Ain't No Mountain High Enough goes from 7 to #5.

Clarence Carter moves from 6 to #4 with Patches.

Which brings us to this week's six degrees.

Spill The Wine drops from the top spot to #3 for Eric Burden and War.  Instead of doing it the easy way through Burden, I decided to look at some of the other members.  Trouble is, most of the members either stayed in the War family or joined the splinter group Low Rider.  Lonnie Jordan, an all-purpose player, is the only founder still with the band itself; but even he had a side project with several of the Low Riders called The Other Side Of War.  They were supplimented by HOFer Bobby Womack in this venture.  Womack got his start when his brother and he formed a band called the Valentinoes, under the wing of Sam Cooke.  Their one big chance was with a country sounding song called It's All Over Now.  But DJ Murray the K played it for the Rolling Stones; and soon later, their cover had outstripped the original.  Womack's first reaction was, "Let Mick Jagger get his own song!"  But then he got his first royalty check; and once he had his eyes popped back in, he was quoted as saying, "Mick can have whatever he wants!"

Which got me wondering, just how much an act made off a 45.  I wasn't able to find an easy answer, because the process is quite complicated.  As far as I can figure, the going royalty rate now is 9.1¢ a song.  Then it gets broke down into "100 units" with 50 units to the songwriter and 50 to the publisher, who gets the expenses and what have you taken from ther side.  In addition, if the songwriter signs a co-publishing deal, he gets another 25 units out of the publisher's take.  Also, I found a tweet about the new economics of streaming music.  The tweeter says that iTunes pays around $.0033  a stream, and some other streamers pay as high as .0097 per.  However, another site claims that iTunes pays 10¢ per download to artist and 2.5 ¢ to the producer.  That would work out to $100K per million downloads.

Mungo Jerry moves up a notch to #2 with In The Summertime.

And that means the new #1 song isssssss.........

Edwin Starr with War!!!  Good God, y'all!


And that's another week in the can!  See you next time.



Time Machine special- Hal Davis 1921-2012

In looking into how to do a tribute to a man of stature, you have to let what you find dictate the story you tell.

Hal David, right, with Burt Bacharach

And while some of you younger folks, or those not so involved in music, might say, "Okay, he was a song writer,"  Or "he was that guy that worked with Burt Bacharach."  But this is a man who left an over 700-song legacy, including some of the best, most lasting, songs of all time.  His lyrics, as I discovered as I went through the list of his material, form the very skeleton of the music soul that inhabits me.  Now, I don't profess to know the man, except through his music.  What I intend to do with this tribute is to show that perhaps never again will we find a talent of this scale, that has touched so many for so long (save only for his partner, the music-man of the combine).

In my attemts to find a bottom to his bottomless well to start from, I found an article on Billboard by Fred Bronson.  He had put together a list of Hal's biggest chart hits, ordered by peak and length of time, and "adjusted by certain periods" so that a gold record from 1956 isn't overwhelmed by a 2012 hit that got downloaded a billion times.  In looking his list over, I decided to do a little modifying of my own.

- Three songs on his list were included because they were hip-hop hits that "sampled" certain of Hal's songs.  These do not make the list, and consist of:
     Slow Jams, by Twista with Kanye West and Jamie Foxx.  This was a #1 in 2004 and sampled Luther Vandross' version of A House Is Not A Home; this was #6 on his chart.
     Warning, by the Notorious B.I.G. from 1995, which sampled Isaac Hayes' cover of Walk On By; this was #16 on his chart.
     Rain On Me by Ashanti from 2003; it sampled Isaac Hayes' take on The Look Of Love.

-In the same vein, I took out of the main count a medley of Hal's What The World Needs Now Is Love with Abraham, Martin, And John, spliced with clips from inspirational speeches from JFK, Bobby Kennedy,  and Martin Luther King.  This combo was put together by DJ Tom Clay, and hit #8 in 1971.  If you've never heard this, and are interested in the time period, it will take you back to a time when we had the potential to change the world into something so much better- before a "trio" of assholes thought that they needed to make a point nobody cared about with a bullet. (The quotes around trio mean that, while I am no conspiracy theorist, I find it hard to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald could ties his shoes without help, let alone hit a moving target surrounded by secret service agents.)

-Also, I decided that multiple entries of the same song will be handled under the entry for the most popular version, though I will mention them.

- Finally, his list includes Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass' Theme to the movie Casino Royale, which hit 27 in 1967.  But this song was an instrumental, and though Hal did have lyrics in other soundtrack tunes, as far as I can learn this was an instrumental.  Hard to write lyrics when the song don't have any. 

This leaves me with still a large group of hits, and this tribute will feature the top thirty.  This post is best enjoyed slowly.  Split your screen, pop up youtube, and play 'em as I count 'em down.  I'll warn you, though- if you are like me, grab your box of tissues, because there are a lot of throat catchers here.

Hal and Burt with their greatest beneficiary, Dionne Warwick.

 

30- Make It Easy On Yourself, The Walker Brothers, #16, 1965.  We've mentioned the Walker Brothers, who were neither Walkers nor brothers, in a somewhat recent six degrees.  They were known for their big hit The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore.  I didn't know this one by name, but as soon as I heard it, I remembered... and another tissue died.  Jerry Butler had done this first in 1962, and peaked at #20.

29- You'll Never Get To Heaven (If You Break My Heart), The Stylistics, #23, 1973.  My first reaction was, wow, this was Hal's?  The second was, for pete's sake, how did this chart so low?  Sometimes the old charts frustrate me SOOOOO bad...

28- True Love Never Runs Smooth, Gene Pitney, #21, 1963.  I did not know this one, but anything by Gene was great in my book.  You don't remember Gene Pitney? Go check him out, and come right back, because he's not done tonight.

27- Promises, Promises, Dionne Warwick, #19, 1968.  I found it ironic that she did a song by this name... but if I explained now, I'd be giving story away.  She'll be back a whopping 8 times.

26- 24 Hours From Tulsa, Gene Pitney, #17, 1963.  Once again, perplexed that this song didn't chart higher.  Probably not the most unbiased commentor in the world, though.

Gene Pitney

25- Sea Of Heartbreak, Don Gibson, #21, 1961.  Don was a Country-Western star who was best known for Oh, Lonsesome Me, which was a crossover #7 hit in 1956.  This one though- a surprisingly upbeat tune- was also a #2 on the country charts. Co-written not by Burt but by Paul Hampton, whose next greatest accomplishment was the theme to My Mother, The Car.

24- Don't Make Me Over, Dionne Warwick, #21, 1963.  This was Dionne's very first chart hit.  Sybil Lynch, who recorded under just her first name, did a hip-hoppy cover in 1989 that actually passed Dionne's version and peaked at #20.

23- Alfie, Dionne Warwick, #15, 1963.  The theme to a movie by Michael Caine, it was done both on the original movie and on the Jude Law 2004 remake by Cher.  I haven't listened to that version, but the Wiki article suggests her version got sunk because Sonny tried to channel Phil Spector in the production and found out he wasn't quite Phil Spector.

22- Wives And Lovers, Jack Jones, #14, 1964.  Another one I didn't know by name, but instantly once I played it.  He eschewed chart success for the big band sound.

Jack Jones on the cover of his Bread tribute lp.

21- Message To Michael, Dionne Warwick, #8, 1966.  One of my earliest memories- and one of 3 #8 hits for Dionne in the countdown, as you will soon see.

20- Do You Know The Way To San Jose, Dionne Warwick, #8, 1968.  See, that didn't take long!  One of two songs where the singer said that it was a "stupid" song, but it didn't stop them from raking in the rewards.  "L.A. is a great big freeway/put a hundred down and buy a car..."  Oh, for the good old days...

19- Johnny Get Angry, Joanie Sommers, #7, 1962.  The most surprising song for me.  Another non-Burt song; it was composed with Sherman Edwards, who'll be back a little later.

18- Anyone Who Had A Heart, Dionne Warwick, #8, 1963.  Done in one take, at the same session that spawned Walk On By.  Beatles major-domo George Martin thought it would make a good tune for Shirley Bassey, but gave it instead to Cilla Black, and up-and-coming Liverpudlian who was friends with John Lennon, and she took it to #1 in the UK.

17- Always Something There To Remind Me, Naked Eyes, #8, 1982.  Remember the irony thing back at #27?  I was going to say that it's funny that Dionne would record a song named Promises, Promises, because after Naked Eyes had their biggest hit with a song she did first (#65 in 1968, as the b-side of her hit Who Is Going To Love Me Now-which hit #33), they had their second biggest hit with a song with the title of- Promises, Promises.  Not the same tune, though.  R.B. Greaves also did a version which hit #27 in 1970.

Hal with his Hollywood star.

16- I'll Never Fall In Love Again, Dionne Warwick, #6, 1969.  Dionne was nominated for Grammys six times with Hal/Burt songs.  This one won her a best contemporary vocal performance at the 1971  awards. And, though our boy at Billboard missed it in his countdown, Tom Jones did a version that peaked at 49, dropped out, came back a few months later and peaked at #6.

15- What The World Needs Now Is Love, Jackie DeShannon, #7, 1965.  The only song from the dynamic duo that Dionne ever rejected.  Burt said, "She might have thought it was too preachy and I thought Dionne was probably right", so they gave it to Jackie, who nailed it.  Another interesting story from Wiki:

In June 1968, following the shooting of Robert Kennedy but before he died (approximately 26 hours), the Jackie DeShannon version was played over and over on Los Angeles radio stations as an audio vigil. This also continued for a few days following his death.  Too bad nobody ever expressed that thought to Sirhan Sirhan.

14- Broken Hearted Melody, Sarah Vaughn, #7, 1959.  The jazz star is our other contestant who hit big with a song she considered "corny".  Also, our other song co-written by Sherman Edwards,  who is best known as the music man for the Happenings' #3 hit See You In September, with Sid Wayne supplying the lyrics.

13- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, Gene Pitney, #4, 1962.  It was written for the movie with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, but a dispute between the record company and the studio kept it off the soundtrack.  Apparently director John Ford didn't like it. 

Run that by me again, pilgrim- you don't LIKE that song...?

12- Walk On By, Dionne Warwick, #6, 1964.  The one song on the list that stops my breath at note #1.  By far the most powerful on the list.  Isaac Hayes' cover of this (mentioned in the "sampling section") hit #30 in 1969.

11- Wishin' And Hopin', Dusty Springfield, #6, 1964.  She also scored with a cover of The Look Of Love, which hit #22 in 1967.

10- Only Love Can Break A Heart, Gene Pitney, #2, 1962.  Gene Pitney was a great songwriter on his own as well.  His comp He's A Rebel by the Crystals is what kept this one from hitting #1.

9- What's New Pussycat, Tom Jones, #3, 1965.  The second biggest surprise on the list for me.  Just like Pitney, it's tough to beat Tom Jones.

8- The Look Of Love, Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66, #4, 1968.  Everybody and their mother has recorded this song, including Dusty Springfield, whom I mentioned earlier, and Claudine Longet.  Dusty's version was from the Casino Royale soundtrack.

Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66.

7- Blue On Blue, Bobby Vinton, #3, 1963.  Anyone who followed the sixties countdown knows how big a song this is for me.  My third big surprise on the list.

6- I Say A Little Prayer, Dionne Warwick, #4, 1967.  Believe it or not, we've finally run out of feature songs by Dionne.  Aretha Franklin hit #10 with this in 1968, and Diana King did it on the soundtrack of My Best Friend's Wedding in 1997, and the single made it to #38.

5- To All The Girls I Loved Before, Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson, #5, 1984.  Surprise #4 was co-written this time by Albert Hammond of It Never Rains In Southern California fame.

4- One Less Bell To Answer, the Fifth Dimension, #2, 1970.  Another breath stopper for me.

3- This Guy's In Love With You, Herb Alpert, #1, 1968.  And another.  The first song I (wanted to) play for Laurie.  Dionne also hit the top ten with this, reaching #7 in 1969.

2- (They Long To Be) Close To You, The Carpenters, #1, 1970.  Have you noticed that seven of the countdown- and five of the also-mentioned- are from 1968-70?  In fact, from the week I entered kindergarten to the week I graduated second grade, just counting the songs I memorized in doing this post, there was a Hal David song on the hot 100 102 out of 144 weeks- 70.8 % of the time.  Another current member of the Time Machine posts.

And, the #1 Hal David song...

 

 

 

 

... The very first #1 of the seventies, from the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid...

 

 

1- Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head, BJ Thomas, #1, 1970.  His follow up, Everybody's Out Of Town, missed the count by two spots, peaking earlier this year (Time Machine time, AKA 1970) at 26.

 

 

 

Wow.  Maybe only the Beatles can claim such a huge, influential songbook as Hal and Burt put together.  But the Beatles would be hard pressed to match the spread of years, the number of artists involved in the Bacharach/David songbook.  God rest you, Hal.  There'll never be another.

 



Just a note...

The Hal David tribute will be a special Time Machine coming out Thrusday morning.  Have your Youtube fired up!

There's got to be a Mon... er, Tuesday after...

So, it's the Tuesday after Labor Day.  Nice relaxing weekend.  A surprise party for Laurie's Bro-in-law Sunday, of which the highlight was his daughter singing us a song she'd written.  Hopefully I'll be able to share it with you someday, after it is protected from all the internet vultures out there.

Monday KC came over for the day.  The highlight there was that earlier in the week we decided to make picks on all the college football games, and when the game last night started we were both 60-17 with me having VA Tech and him taking the Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech.  It wasn't a bitter contest- I told KC that I'd rather see GT win anyway, so it was a wash for me.  The game goes to OT, and my team won.  Which was funny after all the "You're the pro expert, I'm the college expert" I heard this weekend.  So of course we had to pick next week's as well.

Today Scrappy and I actually went for the morning walk.  It wasn't pleasant this weekend to do so- four days of Isaac's humidity and all we've gotten is a half inch sometime between Saturday night and Sunday morning and maybe an eighth before that.  Neither one of us have the breath for a long walk.

So what do you see on a walk the day after a holiday weekend?  Big Mac boxes.  Microwave holders for hot pockets.  A dirty diaper.  A condom wrapper.  The case for a porn dvd.  And, believe it or not, an empty box of macaroni shells.  Top it off with the relentless humidity trapping a stale funk in the air that can only be described as akin to used deep-fryer oil.  When the most pleasant thing about a walk is picking up your dog's doo-doo...

So I look around for inspiration.  Try to log on to a job staffing outfit's page to start an account, and it won't let me submit because every time I hit submit, it erases my answer in a drop-down that asks which branch of the business I want.  (Last week, another one wanted the last four of my SS#, but always removed the zero that begins it and said I was short a number.)

I looked around at the news.  Here in Ft Wayne, one of our big events is the Johnny Appleseed festival.  Tons of food, native American stuff, frontier music, a grand time.  This year, PETA wrote the organizers and claimed that since Johnny Appleseed was a vegetarian (Which he may have been; he was a local pioneer known for planting apple orchards in the newly-opening wilderness), that the festival should go vegan.  I'm sure that when the laughing died down, the organizers politely said, "Thank you, no."  PETA then said they'd pass out flyers.  Thus, I know what I'll be tramping over this year.  But here's the thing, and it applies to ANY group trying to make a difference out there.  If the organizers had said what a great idea, let's remove the buffalo burgers, pulled pork sandwiches, turkey legs, tenderloins, etc., that are being grilled all over the festival grounds, the attendance would drop from a quarter-million over 2 days to about 10,000 people, half of which would leave soon after finding out what the deal was.  So, yes, let's kill the event to make a point.   ORRRRRR... how about just getting a permit to set up a vegan booth in the festival?  Still makes your point, and you'd probably get a lot more customers.  Jesus never got up on the stage of the 1st Galilean Church in Jerusalem and healed people en masse.  He went to them, and made a difference one person at a time.  PETA should try that.  At least then I might actually look at their flyer while I'm in line for a buffalo burger.

We are about a half-hour away from the Russian hockey league KHL making their season opener between Avangard Omsk and Dinamo Moscow.  Lokomotiv Yaroslavl returns to the league after the entire team was killed in a plane crash one year ago.  Relax, I'm not going to do a story on every game this year like I did last when their reborn team played half a minor league season.  But I probably will do a once-a-week with the Fantasy Football report so that those who don't appreciate it can ignore everything in one shot. Oh, and a tip of the hat to the Melbourne Ice (15-6) who beat the Newcastle North Stars 4-3 a week ago Sunday to win the Aussie league hockey championship for the third straight year!

I am thinking about serializing one of my favorite longer stories I wrote onto the blog somehow.  Where The Train took 12 pages of a notebook longhand, this story is much more complicated and fills the better part of three notebooks.  Still trying to figure a way how, or if, this should be accomplished.  If you've an idea, or just want to shout "Please, NO!", feel free to comment me.

OH, and I'm going to let you know that the passing of song lyrisist extrordinaire Hal David this weekend has not went without notice.  Be prepared for a very special Time Machine this week, either a stand alone before Friday or totally disrupting the regular Friday episode.  Fans of music from the 50's to the 80's will not want to miss it.

Okay, that about covers it.  Now, off to find some inspiration for MYSELF...

Fantasy Football draft!

Yes,its that time of year where once a week (guaranteed) you will see one post of unimaginable boredom here- fantasy football season.  I hope you will forgive any typing miscues- my keyboard has been wanting to eat random letters lately.  Anyhow, let's take a look at 1) what I'm talking about, and 2) this year's draft. 

Long ago in a galaxy far away, I was first introduced to fantasy football (FF).  I played 4 or five years in a league with a friend of mine.  Most of the guys were people he knew, so when he drifted away, the league went belly up, and I just didn't know anyone else who enjoyed this type of madness.  Except my kids, so we put together our own league.  That was 16 years ago.

This year, the NHFFL is in its 16th season.  Laurie, KC, and I each own 4 teams.  One of mine, the B2s, captured last years title with a 53-21 win over KC's Sunset Rangers, who had broke an amazing streak of 9 playoff appearances without a win just a week before.  Each of us has a flagship team and three others.  Mine are the two-time champion KCA's, which was also my team in my first league- therefore, they are celebrating their 20th (I think) year on existance.  Laurie has the Super Bowl XI champion Elks (a play on her initials, LKE), and KC's team is (and remember, he was 7 when he came up with the name) the Clock BBQs.  Laurie also owns Scrappy's team, the Fiery Beagles (which began life as the Fiery Dragons).

My other three teams are:  the Aguascalientes (Aguas for short), the aforementioned B2s (which were my hanmster's team, but I no longer have hamsters, so it's a hamster memorial team, I guess), and the State Ducks (named because I had a shirt that said "State Dock Marina" and KC misread it- accidentally on purpose- as "State Duck").  KC also runs the previously named Rangers, as well as the Buzz Lightyears and the Flying Porkchops (Named after his cat, who does not fly).  And Laurie's other two teams are the Angels (actually Arden's Angels, but with us no longer being employed by Arden, the name will likely be shortened) and the Greenwoods (who won the very first championship, folded during the Great Shake Up when we drew Laurie into our web, and ressurected a couple years ago).

Among the names who did NOT get picked this year were the incredibly fragile Michael Vick, the incredible weenie Mark Sanchez and his understudy, Tim Tebow, all but one of the New Orleans four-headed running back group (Darren Sproules), the at-the-time holdout Maurice Jones-Drew, and anybody on the Colts whose names weren't Luck or Vinitieri.

KC had the unfortunate fortune of having both the turn-around picks.  We draft last season's last-to-first, and turn around first to last for the next, and so on.  So, KC had both last year's worst record (Clock BBQs) and best (Rangers), and got both turn arounds as well as the #1 pick.  The top pick caused a lot of debate.  We all agreed that Cam Newton and Aaron Rodgers would go in some variation of 1-2.  KC would have his pick ( and being a Vikings fan, had no intention of taking Rodgers), but his Buzz Lightyears team picked fourth, and he wanted to make sure of getting Matt Stafford with either the first or the fourth.  So he tried to swap picks to get to third;  Laurie had the second pick for the Beagles, and told him she'd take the one of Cam or Rodgers he didn't take.  My KCAs were third, and I told him I wasn't sure who I'd take after Cam and Rodgers were gone.  So he gave up, took Cam, Laurie took Rogers, and much to KCs delight I took Ray Rice #3 (Because I have this thing about taking the big dog backs first).  KC then took Stafford fourth, I took Eli Manning fifth for the Ducks, Laurie grabbed Drew Brees 6th for the Angels, KC took the Year's Big Chance and drafted Peyton Manning 7th for the Porkchops,  Laurie took every woman's pick Tom Brady 8th, the B2s took the indestructable Ben Rothlesburger 9th and my Aguas grabbed Arian Foster 10th.  Laurie made Phillip Rivers the Greenwoods pick at 11, and the Rangers took Matt Forte to round out the first round.

New England had the most drafted with 8; Green Bay had seven, as did Pittsburgh and Chicago; Carolina, Minnesota, San Diego, Denver, Washington, Atlanta, Houston, Philadelphia, and the Giants all had 6; the 49ers, Dallas, Oakland, New Orleans, K.C., Buffalo, and Seattle all chipped in 5; the Titans, Tampa Bay, Baltimore, Detroit, and the Cardinals had 4; Miami, the Jets, and St. Louis had 3; 2 from the Colts; and Jacksonville and Cleveland put in one each.

The rookies were well represented.  The KCAs took both Robert Griffin III and Doug Martin;  Justin Blackmon went to Buzz; The Ducks took another Redskin rookie, RB Alfred Morris; Porkchops, who took Peyton for starting QB, ironically took Andrew Luck for the backup, as well as Cleveland rookie Trent Richardson and Bears wideout Alshon Jeffery; and the Rangers grabbed Seattle's Russell Wilson.

The 12-game season opens this week, with Beagles-Rangers, KCAs-Greenwoods, Angels-Aguas, Clock BBQs-B2s, Buzz-Elks, and Ducks-Porkchops.  GO KCAS!