Time Machine week 4

It's May 16th 1972.  And other than watching myself celebrate my tenth birthday, I'm not sure what happened.  But I do know that despite HistoryOrb.Com saying it happened, this definitely did NOT happen:

Today in History for 16th May 1972

Historical Events Events 1 - 3 of 3
- "Don't Play Us Cheap" opens at Barrymore Theater NYC for 164 perfs
- Greg Luzinski's 500' HR hits Liberty Bell monument in Phila Vet ...

Yes, Greg Luzinski DID hit a home run on this day.  It was the NINTH home run of a major league career that saw him hit 307 home runs in all.  He did not hit his 500th home run on this nor ANY OTHER day.  I guess HO.Com needs to check their submissions from Philadelphia sports fans.

Sorry dude... come back in another 491 homers...  

UPDATE:  That may be a mark indicating distance on that 500 up there... but if so, it is a "yard" mark, not a "foot" mark, and Greg never hit a 1,500 foot home run either.


And welcome to Time Machine, where I'm looking at doing a number of little things that will add up to a satisfactory feature, and have probably the ultimate surprise guest on the "I never knew that song" video.  All that and the last top ten from KDWB in Minneapolis!  And here we go, into the week that saw Godspell's Day By Day, the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards' Amazing Grace, and America's I Need You enter the US charts for the first time.


In keeping with doing things a little different, I'm going to do this week's top ten NOW (because it's not very good), and save the ending for the KDWB chart (which rocks!).

Paul Simon sneaks up a couple of spots to #10 with Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard.

Baby Blue holds at #9 for Badfinger.

The Chi-Lites crack the top ten, up three to #8, with Oh, Girl.

Finally beginning to ride into the sunset, Sonny and Cher slip a notch to 7 with A Cowboy's Work Is Never Done.

Also slipping are the Stylistics, down a pair to 6 with Betcha By Golly Wow.

Joe Tex is also a tumbleweed, slipping 2 to #5 with I Gotcha.

(Isn't it funny that spellcheck likes Gotcha but redlines Betcha?)

Al Green moves up 3 to #4 with Look What You've Done For Me.

The Staple Singers rocket from 8 to 3 with I'll Take You There (and at this pace, I'm not gonna argue!)

Once again... Rockin' Robin at #2.

Once again... The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face at #1.

Now here's your Guess Which for the week- guess which of these will be on the KDWB chart!  Clue:  Two of 'em.
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Next up, let's look who's turned fifty since the last time we did birthdays.  2 weeks ago, the Beatles' PS I Love You and the Dixie Cups' Chapel Of Love turned 50; last week, it was Peter and Gordon with A World Without Love and the Rolling Stones with their first American chart hit, Not Fade Away; and this week, Elvis' Viva Las Vegas and Millie Small's My Boy Lollipop (AKA Rush Limbaugh's Barney Frank update theme) reach the age of 50.  Blow Out The Candles...


Another of my new experimental features I haven't tried yet is Wheel Of Fortune, where I use a random number generator to pick out a song to feature.  This week the spin gives us 1978... March... 4th week... and the #77 song.  And the winnah is...

Leif Garrett with Put Your Head On My Shoulder.  This cover, which peaked at 66 on Cashbox a week earlier, was released right between his top 40 maulings of Surfin' USA and Runaround Sue.  Right around this time, he signed with Scotti Brothers records, which is of note because of brother Tony Scotti of Valley Of The Dolls and Heaven Bound fame.  It was there he recorded his only original hit, I Was Made For Dancing (well, original in the sense that he was the first one to record it).  Garrett now spend his time trying to explain that the heroin in his pocket isn't REALLY drugs...or, maybe it is...


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And now, the top 40 debuts this week.  The Moody Blues come in at 39, up nine, with Isn't Life Strange, a song with one of my favorite choruses-

Wished I could be in your heart
To be one with your love
Wished I could be in your eyes
Looking back there you were, and here we are.

At 38, here's the one you won't believe.  Show of hands, who's old enough to remember when they had the bright idea of putting cheap 45s on the back of cereal boxes?  Here's an example:

 

Yes, that's Sugar Bear from what was then Super Sugar Crisp (now Super Golden Crisp since you can't say "sugar" on a cereal box anymore).  The band that was put together to give the suave bruin and his friends in the Sugar Bears their sound was a bit hard to track down, but included "a former member of the First Edition, a songwriter who had songs recorded by Sinatra and Rick Nelson", and a young female singer just starting our named Kim Carnes! So without further ado, listen to the Sugar Bears with their top 40 hit, climbing 4 to #38 (peaked at 51 on Billboard), You Are The One:






Whaddya think, Kim looks good as a bear?

Anyway, Todd Rundgren makes it into the 40 at 37, up eight, with I Saw The Light; Sly and the Family Stone move up nine to #35 with (You Caught Me) Smilin'; Neil Diamond moves to #34, up thirteen, with Song Sung Blue, or as my 2 year old niece at the time sang it, Song Song Boo; Speak Softly Love, AKA theme to The Godfather, comes in at 33, up ten for Andy Williams; and the big jumper, up 17 spots to land at #24, the Carpenters with It's Going To Take Some Time.


Which brings us to this week's You Peaked, and we have three formerly top forty songs that plunged out of the top 40.  The lowest peak belonged to the Partridge Family who stopped at 31 with Am I Losing You;  next was Bobby Vinton who hit 24 with Every Day Of My Life; highest perch fallen from belongs to Harry Nilsson's Jump In The Fire, which made it to 22.  Which reminds me, I never mentioned who fell out of the top ten to make room for Mr. Simon and the Chi-Lites.  And they would be Aretha Franklin's Day Dreaming (5 to 18) and Three Dog Night's Family Of Man (10 to 20).

And now, for the last time- the KDWB Minneapolis top ten!

10 (29 on CB)- April Wine, Could Have Been A Lady;

9 (42 on CB)- Bread, Diary;

8 (26 on CB)- The Rolling Stones, Tumbling "Dices" (Yep, misspelled it again this week);

7 (Your first winnah, 10 on CB)- Paul Simon, Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard;

6 (last week's #1, 11 on CB)- Don McLean, Vincent;

5 (30 on CB)- Dr Hook, Sylvia's Mother;

4 (Your other winnah, 9 on CB and spelled right this week)- Badfinger, Baby Blue;

3 (33 on CB)- Andy Williams, Speak Softly Love;

2 (15 on CB)- Jackson Browne, Doctor My Eyes;

And the LAST #1 on KDWB...

...Cat Stevens and Morning Has Broken!!!!!


At least KDWB didn't go the way of WKNR (Easy listening)... but there just aren't any more charts for them.

Next week, more of the same!  So tune, turn on... oops, wrong decade.  I thought I was in drive...

Oh, the places you'll go...

...with a reproduction 1863 map.  And here is the story of where I went.

The first thing I do with old maps is try to make a guess of the date of the drawing.  KC gave me the first clue when he pointed out...

...Canada was labeled "British Territory".  That told me "before 1867", as did a couple other items...

 

 

 

 First off, Alaska was "Russian Territory"...

...and second was "Austria" (rather than "Austria Hungary").  Prussia as a nation and Germany as an area didn't hurt either.  But Italy as a nation put us after1860, so now we had a range.  The thing that threw me off was that there was no mention of the Confederacy in the United States, so I guessed 1866.

But before I went to actually digging up a date, I noted a couple of things I'd never heard of before.  Here's one of them:

"Zanguebar".  Turns out this was the Portuguese mis-translation of the word WE mis-translated as Zanzibar.  In other words, this was the domain of the Sultan of Zanzibar, before he sold out to the British.  I had to go on Wikipedia-French to learn this, as anything in English came up with Zanzibar.

Another one I found that really tripped me out:

Not the part that the Hawaiian Islands were called the Sandwich Islands back then, but that the big Island could be spelled Hawaii or "Owhyhee."


KC, not as hip to the historical things as I, also liked this:

The Chinese "Empire."  A few other things to note here:  Don't you love how they spelled "Mantchooria"?;  Corea with a C rather than a K;   the H in Thibet; India as "Hindostan"; Chinese Tartary, which comes into play in the next picture; and even though there is a "Japan Sea", the island nation itself (off frame) in labeled Nipphon- which I knew Nippon but not with an H.

And one more thing I found pretty neat.

Independent Tartary, which we used to call Soviet Central Asia.  This was before the Tsar's troops had fully subjugated the area, and area was filled with kingdoms like the Emirate of Bokhara and the Khanate of Khiva.  Just as the rivalry with the British in the area, an informal contest called The great Game, was just heating up.


Oh, and check out Africa:

Note that what we now call Ethiopia was going by the ancient name Abyssinia, while "Ethiopia" was applied to what we once called "Darkest Africa", before Stanley and Livingstone mapped out the Congo valley.  I also noted how the Boer Republics of South Africa had not come into being yet... just Cape Colony, and "Hottentots."  Also, see the coastline as "North Guinea" and "South Guinea"?


So anyhow, I finally looked it up and found the story behind the map.  Alvin Johnson was a salesman and copyrighter for map maker JH Colton.  In 1859, Colton hit the financial skids, and Johnson and a partner named Browning worked a deal to pay his debts for the rights to his maps, which were engraved into steel plates.  The partners switched the images onto easier to use stone lithographic slabs, and Johnson and Browning was born.  Sometime in 1863 Browning was bought out by one Benjamin Ward, and thus the name change to what it is on my map.  With the easier to use lithos, they could just update the old Colton maps as needed, as Johnson was no cartographer himself.

Ward was bought out in 1866, and Johnson ran it himself  until 1879, when it became Johnson and Son.  This son, for whom I did not find a name, ran the business from Alvin's death in 1884 until 1887. 

The website I found most of this info on finishes Johnson's story thusly:

Alvin J. Johnson was not the most famous of American atlas publishers of the 19^th Century, in fact in most cartography texts he is merely an afterthought.  However, his atlases were extremely popular, as evidenced by their current availability relative to those of his competitors, and his success as a salesman and publisher helped establish the atlas as vital family reference book.  The fact Johnson most likely played a role in financially saving the failing Colton firm is probably as an important, if not greater, than his contribution to cartography.


Another neat thing about the Johnson Atlases- they were sold entirely door-to-door.

Birthdays and brawls.

For those I Facebook with, you already know it's birthday week around here.  If not, Laurie was born on May 11th, 1962, and me five days later.  So our one-day weekend was gifting time.  Laurie had come to me about birthdays one day last week.  She needed closet storage, and a wire menagerie she had bought previously had collapsed in the middle of the night several weeks back.  She asked, "I don't know what you're thinking about birthdays, but..."

"I'm not," I replied honestly.  "I've been too worn out to put any thought into it this year."

"I know you're planning something, you always do, "  she went on.

"No, seriously.  Haven't given it the first thought yet."

So she went on to suggest that I look for her a storage thingee.  "I know it'll be more expensive than the usual..."

"Not a big deal," said I.  "But how about this- we'll go together, you find what you want, I'll pay for it.  Given my track record with getting you what you'll actually use..."

She protested, but let's face it.  She is fifty-two this year, and she has probably used what I have gotten for her birthday over the last ten years or so once for each of those 52 years.  So off we went, and she found what suited her perfectly- at least as perfectly as what could be had at Meijer.  And as I nearly crapped my drawers trying to put the box into the shopping cart, I said, "This is your gift.  Mine is not helping to put it together.


Several hours later, this is what she built:

Damn nice, damn solid.  And plenty of room to store what doesn't get purged in the next wave of "Love It Or Pitch It."

In the meantime, I had been nosing around some nice wall hangings of old Jack Kirby Marvel Comic covers. (No, Bobby, that isn't what I got.)  Laurie did suggest it, though...but I said, I don't know where I'd hang it.  Next to them, however, was a reproduction of an 1863 world map.  If you know me, you know I am a history buff and old maps give me hours of amazement.  This was on canvas, 23X35, and more than what Laurie could justify to herself, which was fine with me.

"Besides," she said, "If you don't have a spot for the other ones, you REALLY won't have a spot for this."
"I'd MAKE a spot for this," I replied.  "Stuff would fly outta the way."

So she gets the bright sneaky idea of getting in touch with my firstborn, and they decided to go together on it.  So, later that afternoon...

Yup, right above the TV.  I will post later on about some of the neat things I found on/learned about this map.  Suffice it to say, that an authentic version from an antique dealer, about 2/3 the size, runs $235, and they paid a LOT less than that.

So Laurie's birthday is done, and mine's a-coming.  I told my boss I wasn't going to be anywhere near work Saturday (I knew a Friday was out-o-da-question), and sometime during the weekend you will find us at Red Lobster consuming two piping hot ultimate feasts and adding another layer of plaque to our arteries.

Today, though, I have Scrappy's latest adventures at the aptly named Hump'n'Dump.  Our cast of players for today...

The little gal on the left is Polly; the troublemaker in the center is Cooper; and of course, our hero on the right.  Now let me say first that for a dog "not used to playing with other dogs", Cooper was rough yet gentle, and despite acting like a cross between Mike Tyson and Ron Jeremy, he was pretty good and did no harm.

 

However, being smaller, it quickly devolved for Scrappy into a rousing game of Run For Your Life.

 

These two went at it constantly, never getting mad, but just a lot of extreme (for Scrappy) roughhousing.  Polly was content to run in a straight line and back once every minute or so, and then lay down under her mom, panting with a tongue I swear was longer than her tail.

 

 

Scrappy would try to get Cooper from behind, but Coop would just flop over, making it look like Scrappy was doing judo throws on him.  He'd just roll over on his back and say, "Come and get me, big boy!"  The little boy in the middle there belongs to Polly.  He and I had a nice conversation on what pine needles were and how far he could throw a pine cone.  He also showed me how he could jump over the back of a bench, to which I replied, "I could do that 50 pounds ago."

Finally, Cooper's mom got tired of trying to keep Cooper from looking like the horniest dog in the land, and they went home.  Polly's people, who'd been there much longer, followed suit.  Cooper, for his part, did NOT want to go.  He lay down and wouldn't move.  They coaxed him up, got him out the door, and he lay down again, as if he were part mule.  After physically picking him up, Cooper's mom got the point across.  Scrappy.  Just sat there, p.o.ed that his new friends had left.

"Scrappy, you ready to go bye-bye?"  No response.
"Scrappy!  Come here! You ready to go?"  Nothing.
"Boofus!!!  Wanna go for a walk?"  Amazingly, silence.
"You want to go home and get a dink (He doesn't really know "drink")?"
"Yip, yip, yip!!!"  So home it was.

Another one of those mashed up MWN and picture posts

ITEM:  I was thinking the other day how often I've talked about Scrappy's Landing, but I've never really taken you a tour.  So now, for your viewing pleasure...

Here's where we go in...

You have a turn here...

...and one here...

Then back this way...

Step over that fallen tree branch...

...one more turn..

And you are there!

ITEM:  A new type of Tyrannosaur has been found at a Chinese construction site.  Smaller than a T-Rex but bigger than a raptor, it's striking feature is a long snout.

So when it came for a name for the uneducated masses to use rather than the Latin  Qianzhousaurus, the scientists came up with one that any child could remember:

Pinocchio Rex.  From Professor Jungchang Lu and Dr Steve Brusatte, leading the excavation.


"It might have looked a little comical, but it would have been as deadly as any other tyrannosaur, and maybe even a little faster and stealthier.

"We thought it needed a nickname, and the long snout made us think of Pinocchio's long nose."


ITEM: Two from local station WANE.  First, a Paulding, OH driver had a bit of trouble parking...

Two men, aged 48 and 68, drunk at 5:22 in the afternoon, had previously ran down a fence on one property, glanced off the garage at the next, and finally pulled smoothly into the bedroom of a third.  This comes just days after a woman did a late-night version of the same thing, narrowly missed having a 2X4 go through her head, and walked away... for a few blocks, where she collapsed and was reported needing medical attention.  Luckily, FW Police were able to put 2X4 2+2 together and woman, car, and stranger's house were soon reunited- prior to a trip to the county jug.

ITEM:  Today, Scrappy and I got a refreshing misting from this fire truck at the Plex.


ITEM: One Jawan Jordan proved to have no grasp whatsoever of the obvious in my other WANE story.  He was reported in a suspicious vehicle.  When police approached, he sped off, leading the cops on a merry chase, ending in a grassy lot where Jordan abandoned car and passenger by jumping out of the still moving car.  A K-9 unit swiftly tracked him down, gave him a nice bite for resisting.  But the beauty of this story comes with what he said after the arrest:

Jordan later admitted to driving the Saturn, fleeing, and running off.  He told police he did it because he was tired of being arrested for being a suspended driver and because he had successfully ran from police before and wanted to see if he could do it again.  Jordan also said he was hiding from police after running on foot that he could hear the police radios and the police searching for him.

A similar idiot was one Randall Reynolds, arrested for violating a protective order from an ex several times.

Between February and April of this year, Reynolds continued to text the woman, call her, and leave items on her porch.  The woman filed seven different police reports in reference to it.
Reynolds admitted to police that he called and texted her because she had contacted him.  He also said he had been to the woman’s home on at least two occasions.  On one he had left a note and some flowers on her front porch.  Police took the note.  On the second occasion, Reynolds said he just walked by her house.
When detectives asked why he called, texted, and stopped by he said, “I guess I’m an idiot.”

By George, I think you're right.


ITEM: 

Greening up nicely.

Squirrels everywhere.

ITEM:  Apparently Swedes think cursing in English "(is) cute and charming", so one man in Gothenburg named his new sandwich shop "A F**king Awesome Sandwich"  (Not using the asterisks, BTW).  English and American expats are raising a ruckus,  because they have to raise their kids around such stuff.  Owner Christian Ingber, who- in an effort to be an equal opportunity offender- also owns a restaurant called Puta Madre (dare you to ask a Mexican what THAT means),  said the name was not to be taken too seriously.
"It's not the F word in a negative context," he told The Local. "It could be a question of humour, we thought it was a fun name. My seven-year-old daughter is not allowed to swear, but she knows how to use 'f-----g' in the right context."


Show of hands, those who believes there is a "right context" for a seven year old to use the F bomb.

ITEM:  Perhaps he would be better served just serving an F'ing awesome sandwich- like this one I stumbled onto.

Made by PYTs in Philly, this beast is a Southern-fried chicken patty AND a wonton filled with Pabst Blue Ribbon.  I was unable to find the price of this behemoth, but most of their offerings were in the $12-14 range. 

ITEM: The guests on Jordan's version of Meet The Press were getting a little out of hand discussing matters Palestinian, and as the poor host tried to calm them down, they began a tug of war with the desktop that separated them that led to the desks destruction.

My favorite part of the video, which you can watch here, was when the one guy actuall gets close enough to kick the other in the shin:

ITEM:  Actually saw some deer today.  They ran from a hiding spot after we got up from a rest stop, and paused when I could actually get a shot at them.

ITEM:   The winner of this year's Eurovision song contest was a bearded transvestite from Austria.  Conchita Wurst AKA Tom Neuwurst, won with a song called Rise Like A Phoenix. 

Speaking backstage later, Wurst said she felt Europe had taken a stand by voting her the winner.

Yup.  I got that.

ITEM:  In Dublin, a gangland bomber was placing an explosive device under a businessman's Volvo SUV.  Apparently, the seemingly sophisticated bomber did one incredibly stupid thing- he forgot that the clocks had reset to Daylight Saving Time that night- and the bomb went off in his face.  Police caught the bloodied man fleeing the scene- he must have gotten it close enough to planted before it went off that he didn't end up in the little terrorist's home in the sky.  But I'll bet he memorizes the local number for Time and temperature henceforth.


ITEM:  Can you explain why it's called "Gross Indecency?"  I can.  Wilson Benally and Sandra Kruser decided to have sex in public.  On the grounds of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Salt Lake City.  In broad daylight.  And WHILE a wedding was going on inside.  BUT that wasn't the gross part.  May I present to you 56-year-old Wilson and 60-year old Sandra:

Now THAT'S gross.

Sunday Message- because it produces patience...

Let's be honest here- when it comes to the "falling into various trials", I am a lightweight.  I have all my body parts, I have the best job I ever had, the companionship of a good woman and good dog, a decent home, a car that isn't raiding the piggy bank with every trip.  If I have some dread disease, I don't know about it, and not counting wisdom teeth, I've only lost one so far.  So trials for me are at this point a relative thing, and I might say that the ones that I have are all in my head.  Still, I can learn from them.

For example, right now, we have a lot of OT.  I've worked many Saturdays lately, most of them nooners.  I don't care for them, as they usually mean I have zero outside stimulation as I am the only one working on my side of the building, and the radio stations I can get inside the building give me the two choices of a home and garden show or Led Zep, Pink Floyd, and AC/DC at least twice no matter how much time I listen.  But as trials go, not a big thing; and if I complain, God merely smiles and says, "Six days shall you work..."

My problem, my trial, is actually my reaction to it.  I have a self destructive tendency to "chew the bone" over it, grousing and mumbling until I explode, or end up in tears trying not to.  In other words, I do not hate Saturday work near so much as I hate myself for getting upset by it.  Keep reading, it gets better.

This week, it definitely wasn't so much the Saturday, as I was prepared for it since Wednesday.  And I had managed to get through a plethora of idiot irritations to get to it.  One day ended with me wanting to squeeze one last item out of my machine, but the server for the entire company went down and I ended up with a final 15 minutes of sweeping.  Thursday, I thought I'd do myself a favor at the end of the day and put a new blade on the machine.  I was still doing that Friday morning as we have a slight problem with a blade vendor who doesn't bother to quality-check their product.  One half hour after I got a working blade attached, the machine stopped dead.  A half hour later, a short was found right where I said it would be rather than the two other places they insisted on checking first.


So Friday afternoon came, and my boss came out in the last half-hour do give me the run-down on what needed done Saturday.

I looked it over and said, "This will be an all-day."
She said, "Definitely."

And away the process went.  It was like it had been in the back of my mind the whole time, waiting for an opening, and here it was.  So I start working on the stuff needed.  Immediately, here comes an item that someone felt HAD to be done first thing to prevent Armageddon- and I would have to switch racks to get the right color.  Then, the clamp that holds the rack in place stuck shut.  While that was being worked on, I secured the other rack as best I could, started the cutting, and the marker chalk broke off.  At this point, after a loud, "ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME???", I issued a curse to the customer buying this item that involved his boat and the bottom of a lake, looked up and said, "Whatever cosmic power thinks this is funny, hope you enjoyed it."

Okay, now, onto the point.

This morning, Dr Jeremiah focused on the first part of James 1:

Jas 1:2 My brothers, count it all joy when you fall into different kinds of temptations,
Jas 1:3 knowing that the trying of your faith works patience.
Jas 1:4 But let patience have its perfect work, so that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing. Yes, God pulled out the ol' "Count it all joy" on me.  But before I could say, "Where am I supposed to find the joy in this stuff?", he went on to explain a couple of vitally important parts I'd been missing.  First, the "count it all" part.  He said that when you dissect the original Greek wording here, you get something very much like, "Fast-forward to".  God's not asking us to look at a poop sandwich as if it is a cheeseburger;  He's telling us to remember what awaits on the other side of the trial.  Focus past the trial to the benefit derived there from.  "When this is all over, then..." is the point.  Even if you have to look ahead all the way to heaven.

A second thing he pulled out was that God is trying to "build the perfect beast" in us.  If He is working on a certain area, He's trying to prepare you for some job, some event, something coming up that will give Him glory.  And here's something I realized.  You know how the Bible teaches you will never be tempted beyond your ability to resist?  Well, I think you will also never be tested beyond what God needs to teach you the lesson He wants you to learn.  So I guess I must be a better listener than I thought... or else, maybe feeding five thousand isn't in His plans for me.

Finally, he brought up that "patience" isn't "Lay back and just take whatever happens".  Patience needs to be active.  It needs to be a teaching moment, a growing moment, a building-of-faith moment.


On my work desk, as I've mentioned, I have two things taped.  One is from Romans 8:20-"Creation is subjected to futility".  The Holy equivalent to "s#!t happens."  The other is for when the class envy of "wasting my weekends building luxuries for people who'd never share with me" comes around- it says simply, "Paul made tents."  I think Monday a third message will go alongside them. 

"Fast forward to joy."

Tmie Machine week three

Today is May 9th, 1972.  An Israeli strike force that included future Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu stormed a hijacked plane in Tel Aviv, saving all but one passenger and killing two out of four  Palestinian cretins.  In the meantime, further cretins at Mankato State University shut the entire city down for a day to protest the Vietnam War.  Funny how honor and privilege seem to part ways...

Welcome to yet another escapade in the new, slimmed down Time Machine, featuring the week that saw David Crosby and Graham Nash's Immigration Man and Jimmy Castor's Troglodyte (Cave Man) hit the charts.  This week, another humdrum top ten will be somewhat mollified by a look at the national charts, a four way battle for the "song I never knew" video, and "where do I gotta go to put up a picture at the end of the top ten?"   Hop in and let's find out!

Based on what is to come, I really think that I should start out with the top 40 debuts.  Annnnnd.... I have to fix a boo-boo there, as I left one off the list last week.  Back when Isaac Hayes and David Porter were running Stax Records, they had a hole to fill when top act Sam and Dave left them.  So they put together a group of 2 men and two women and christened them the Soul Children.  This group would sneak into the R&B top 10 three times, crossing over to the hot 100 each time.  Last week a song that peaked at 44 on Billboard made the Cashbox top 40- Hearsay, which moved 13 to come in at #36.  This was a song that got consideration for this week's video- but I thought them to be a lot like Sam and Dave (they did cover Hold On, I'm Coming) and went on to look for something a bit more unique.  They remain in the 40 this week (and thus won't be on You Peaked till at least next week!).

Now this week's 40 greets 5 songs...  At 40, up one, was another video contender.  Canadian-Cree Indian activist Buffy Sainte-Marie makes her one stand in the 40 with a song called Mister Can't You See.  Another pretty good contestant, but for me it was "Joan Baez with a tad more warble", so she too loses out.   Up ten spots to #38 is Dr Hook with Sylvia's Mother.  Sammy Davis cracks the 40 at 35, up 9, with Candy Man.  Up nine to 34 is another one I thought would have a video shot- until I heard it and said, Oh, yeah, I know this one!  That would be Run Run Run by Jo Jo Gunne, a band formed by future 50 Tracks judge Jay Ferguson and a bandmate after Spirit folded.  And the high debut, up 14 places, is the Rolling Stones with Tumbling Dice.

Is this what they meant in the line, "You've got to roll me?"


 

And all that neat fun sets the stage for my look at the local charts this week in 1972.  Now since we last did this three weeks ago on Volume Two's swan song, the consensus behind Roberta Flack and The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face has broken up a bit.  She remains on top on LA's KHJ.  But among the top ten, I noticed one song not even in the main top 40- this week's #45 nationally, Todd Rundgren's I Saw The Light, was at #8.  And I thought, let's look and see how many other non t40s are in the local top tens. 

None of them at Chicago's WLS, where Roberta still holds the top spot.  But, across the street at WCFL, Jackson Browne's Doctor My Eyes is at the top.  And down the list is Buffy Ste. Marie (Technically in the top 40, but barely) at #9, and at #10 is the first single by Loggins and Messina- off what was supposed to be a Loggins solo record but ended up with the title Kenny Loggins With Jim Messina Sittin' In.  That single, # 89 nationally, is called Vahevala, and it gets the video this week.



Over in Minneapolis, WDGY has Joe Tex's I Gotcha at the top, closely followed by Hot Rod Lincoln.  That must be the station that played at Mankato State.  Cross town at KDWB- with the second to last chart I have access to there- Don McLean's Vincent sits atop the chart.  But whomever typed out the chart must have been a Mankato State grad as well- they have "East Blue" by Badfinger moving from 7 to 4, and "Tumbling Dices" from 16 to 10.

In Detroit, CKLW has Oh, Girl at the top, with a bit of an uncharted oddity at #10.  You see, once upon a time, there was this singer by the name (or sobriquet) of June Conquest.  While you make your jokes about "summer floozies", let me continue.  She first tried to make it in the music world in the early sixties, as a solo act once and once as a duet with a guy whose name is lost to posterity and went only by "The Demon".  Later, she signed with Curtis Mayfield's Windy C records in Chicago, where she had a local hit called What's This I See ( which was allegedly a hit in Chi-Town, but apparently not on WLS).  Finally, one day her manager tried to get her some recognition by singing a duet with Sam Cooke's brother L.C.- but he never showed.  In the studio was a background vocalist who'd never stepped to the forefront before.  They recorded the song in CLKW's top ten- called I Thank You- and while it didn't do much, it launched a new career.  Not for June, but for her partner that fateful day- Donny Hathaway.  I don't know if I Thank You- featuring June doing Amazing Grace in the second stanza as Donny sings between her lines- charted, but it hadn't hit on Cashbox the first month or so after this week.  Runner up on the video list, btw.  Donny sounds pretty good, June sounds... fair.

Donny and June

Finally, I check in at Pittsburgh's KQV.  Always the trend-buckers, they have Sammy Davis' Candy Man at the top.

This week's You Peaked is a paltry lot.  Gladys Knight's version of Help Me Make It Through The Night tumbles after stopping at 37... and after Sammi Smith had took it to #8.  And the inaugural video tune, Alice Cooper's Be My Lover, halted at 36 and has begun its fall, though still clinging to the 40 at #39.

Two songs enter the top ten... and that means that two take a dive.  Those are In The Rain (4 to 18) and Horse With No Name (8 to 20).

So three of the top four don't move... and all but one have gotten their picture posted.  According to Time Machine Law, each number one only gets the artist's picture put up one time.  Otherwise, come October and November of 1977, we'd be seeing a lot of this:

"You... light up my-yy life...."

and while the sight may not be terrible, after a while you'll curse me for the ear worm she brings.  So, once again, I'm going to mix up the top ten, just so's I can get the one who HASN'T been pictured in the top four to end the show.  Okay?  Let's do this!

Like a breath of fresh air in a stagnant room, Badfinger enters the top ten climbing from 14 to 9 with East Baby Blue.

Sonny and Cher, the epitome of "for better, for worse", climb one more spot to #6 with A Cowboy's Work Is Never Done.

Little Michael Jackson holds yet another week at #2 with Rockin' Robin.

Also up one spot, Aretha Franklin with Day Dreaming at 5.

The Staple Singers say, I'll Take You There, and they get two steps closer to doing just that, at #8.

I bet you probably guessed this... The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face is STILL at #1.

Climbing a pair to #7, Al Green with Look What You've Done For Me.

The one mover in the top 4- The Stylistics' Betcha By Golly Wow, moving on up a notch to #4.

The other new debut, up just one, Three Dog Night's The Family Of Man at # 10.

And this week's picture winner- holding at #3 for a second week-

...Joe Tex with I Gotcha!!!


Hope you enjoyed the show!  See you next time!

And on the third day...

...he ceased to rest and posted something.  The barely-moving Mr. Martin is back to life today, and has a couple of things to share.

First, how about something neat?  A FB post gave out a website for the international space station that has an extremely neat live-streaming set of cameras on Mother Earth!  Check it out at (your link here) !  It is cool as crap!

Next up, I'd just like to say, where did Karen Richards find 16,704 idiots to vote for her in the primaries?  Now I will admit I am a registered independent and could not vote.  But I could have voted 8,000 times and not prevented the most dimwitted County Prosecutor since Eric Holder's youth from passing the primary hurdle.  I hope you all enjoy it when the next gang thug she gives a plea deal to robs you, rapes you, or sells your kid drugs.

As I told a co-worker, "I think she had a failed breast enhancement, and now just has the one boob between her ears."

 Oh, speaking of which, I got an e-mail from someone who could probably do well with at least 16,704 Ft Wayne residents.  Check this bit of electronic brain surgery out:


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"If you interesting"...   "If you don't like this info , please reply us!"  Got to love Chinese scammers who use Google Translate.


Finally, here's an 80 degree F trip to the hump'n'dump:

Scrappy meets Sam the yellow lab.  Sam and he got along great... until the same thought crossed their pea-brains simultaneously.  Scrappy tried the hump game first, but found it swiftly turned around on him.  As his owner peeled Sam off (just moments before Scrappy began to sing Something's Burning in soprano), Scrappy doubled back, and it was my turn to play peel the dog.  They were good for another 5 minutes or so before Sam initiated round two, with similar results.  Another five minutes, round three erupted.  This time, Scrappy was in no mood and turned with a growl and went into his "rearing stallion" pose.  Unfortunately for him, Sam was uncaring and tried to do it from the front instead.  Scrappy twisted his back leg under the weight and fell down, and Sam got taken home early.  No worries, Boofus is fine.

It was too hot after that to wander around...

Discovered my camera has a "take picture 10 seconds after detecting a face" button.  Too bad it didn't have a "tell stupid to smile" button.