...and a hero comes home

For those who don't follow Pat Miller's show on WOWO, you might not know who Lance Corporal Brandon Long is.

Brandon, seen here at Arlington, is a man who lost his legs for our freedom.  Today, at 12:35, he came home.  A motorcycle and police escort was to bring him up to the American Legion post in Leo to celebrate his return, and Pat, being a good patriot, put out the word for us to come out and either join in the celebration or be there for the procession.  The route ran past the Walgreens near us, so Laurie, Scrappy, and I sat along Clinton streets in temperatures near 107 F (according to Dwenger's electronic signboard; time and temp said 91), and were eventually joined by another flag waving couple and a pair of bystanders who decided to show respect although they had no idea what exactly was going on (remember when it was common to show respect in such situations?).

At exactly 2 pm, they came through.  Brandon, on the back of a three wheeler early in the procession, was part of a train of cycles and family and emergency vehicles that- going at speeds of I'm guessing 40-50 mph- took a full 6 MINUTES for JUST the cycles to go by.  And they were waving back at us, taking pictures, blowing horns and sirens.  Scrappy, although exhausted fro the semi-picnic and walk we had just took at Shoaff, barked and ran around, and Laurie almost cried.  This, Hanoi Jane, is how you are SUPPOSED to treat those that give their lives for your freedom.

Corporal, I salute you once again.  Thank you for your terrible sacrifice and your wonderful service, your tremendous courage and your brave heart.  And welcome home.

And Dodge City fades away...

Possibly the first song I ever teared up to- and there are thousands- was the closing theme to Gunsmoke.  I always had to watch to the very end; it wasn't over till the coffee pot with the big black spot appeared and the final fanfare sounded.

Funny how they always said that Remmington Steele gained its popularity because of the sexual tension between the two main characters that was never resolved.  Once it was, the show went down and swiftly out.  In a way, that was Gunsmoke, too- except that for 20 years, it never was resolved.  It was as if Matt and Kitty were the two pillars that held the town/the show up- to move them would collapse it all.  Back then, we would have rather seen the house stand than the love resolved.  "Those were different times, those were different days."

Matt Dillon was like Spock on Star Trek, or Vision in the Mighty Avengers- somewhat aloof, keeping his own counsel, calm in the face of anything.  He was Captain America- totally human, yet totally reliable.  You felt you could tell him a joke at the Long Branch, yet would wilt under his glare if you dropped a gum wrapper in the street.  And nobody could have pulled that off near as well as Jim Arness.


The actor was 32 when friend John Wayne declined the lead role in "Gunsmoke" and recommended Arness instead. Afraid of being typecast, Arness initially rejected it.

"Go ahead and take it, Jim," Wayne urged him. "You're too big for pictures. Guys like Gregory Peck and I don't want a big lug like you towering over us. Make your mark in television."


I'm not going to dig up his whole life on here; you can do that on your own.  But I will share with you what he said himself, on his own fansite:

Hi friends,

I decided to write a letter to you for Janet to post on our website in the event I was no longer here.

I had a wonderful life and was blessed with some many loving people and great friends. The best part of my life was my family, especially my wife Janet. Many of you met her at Dodge City so you understand what a special person she is.


I wanted to take this time to thank all of you for the many years of being a fan of Gunsmoke, The Thing, How the West Was Won and all the other fun projects I was lucky enough to have been allowed to be a part of. I had the privilege of working with so many great actors over the years.


I was honored to have served in the army for my country. I was at Anzio during WWII and it makes you realize how very precious life is.


Thank you again for all the many letters, cards, emails and gifts we received from you over the years. You are and always have been truly appreciated.


Sincerely,


Jim Arness

Just as Gunsmoke was the last survivor of the TV western, Jim was the last survivor of the core group on the show. Kitty- Amanda Blake- died in 1989 at the age of 60.  Festus- Ken Curtis- passed in 1991 at the age of 74.  Milburn Stone- Doc- died in 1980 at the age of 75.  Even of the rest- Dennis Weaver (Chester) died in 2006 and Glenn Strange (Sam the bartender) while the show was still filming in 1973- only Buck Taylor (Newly) outlasted Jim.  The Matt-Doc-Festus dynamic is still copied in so many show, but never truly duplicated.

I'm sure now that some Hollywood copycat will now think a new, revamped Gunsmoke will make a great movie- Kitty will be a madam rather than a businesswoman, Festus might well be a drug addict, and Doc will be an anachronistic figure embittered by being past his prime.  And of course, Matt will have his choice of scantily clad women- and he will choose often.  And people who never knew the original will say, "how stupid, why would anyone watch this crap!"

But I won't be watching.  I'll be at home whistling the closing theme- if I can...

Step into my time machine week fifty-eight

This week on Time Machine- quite possibly the stupidest story I've ever told here, a story of extreme over reaction and the problems inherent in giving decision-making power to the uninformed.  And no, it has nothing to do with the election of Barack Obama.

Even as I continue to shake my head (literally), I begin this week's show with the mention that we had 18 songs debut in the hot 100, many of which I could mention and we'd all stare blankly. There are seven of these which deserve notation.  George Benson comes in at 91 with the song that did more than anything to open me up to soft jazz, the Grammy-winning This Masquerade.  At 82 is a cover you might not remember, but I do- Todd Rundgren doing his take on the Beach Boys' top dog Good Vibrations.  Next at 81 comes Tavares with the perky Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel.  At 71 Aerosmith hits with Last Child.  The Carpenters have one of their last really pretty hits with I Need To Be In Love coming in at 67.  And irony at 61 and 60- two classic bands, rivals throughout the sixties, beginning their journey together.  At 61 was the Beach Boys with their cover of Chuck Berry's Rock And Roll Music; at 60, the Beatles with Got To Get You Into My Life.

The big mover was Queen's You're My Best Friend, climbing 22 from 77 to 55 (and in more Irony, Dream On by Aerosmith drops out this week, and the new occupant of the grandpa chair is Bohemian Rhapsody); the big dropper is Only Sixteen, which actually drops only thirteen, from 33 to 46.

We are now in the land of being up to date on the #1 albums of the seventies- and it will be 8 weeks before we hit one I haven't featured yet.  This week's album top dog is the second coming of the Rolling Stones' Black And Blue, which took a week off last week in favor of Wings At The Speed Of Sound.  This makes B&B's third non-continuous week on top.

Two almost but not quite mentions this week.  Paul Simon peaked at 45 on our chart (and 40 on Billboard) with the title track to Still Crazy After All These Years- a song that certainly did better here in the Summit City than nationally. At 17 is where Neil Sedaka peaked last week with Love In The Shadows, a song whose UK b-side was Love Will Keep Us Together (which I mention again for irony's sake; his previous hit, the slow version of Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, was backed by Lonely Nights/Angel Face.  Still wonder why Toni Tennille slipped "Sedaka's back" in at the end of Love Will Keep Us Together?)

We have 5 count em five top 40 debuts this week. Coming in at 40, up 7, is the 9th of 11 top 40s for America, Today Is The Day.  Making a 16-notch leap to #39 is Irish band Thin Lizzy with The Boys Are Back In Town, their one and only top forty (which surprised me, because Jailbreak gets a lot of AOR play).  At 37, up 20, is John Travolta with Let Her In, the first of 4 trips to the top 40 for him.  Coming in at #35, up 8, are the Brothers Johnson with I'll Be Good To You, the first of 4 top 40s and first of three R&B chart #1s. And jumping 17 notches to #24, the Starland Vocal Band with their one and only trip to the top 40, Afternoon Delight.

Our look at the number ones of other years rolls into the 7s this week.  1997 was after Cashbox shut down; the #1 this week on Billboard that year was the Hanson brothers with MMMBop.  This was a song that I had to admit I never heard, so I gave it a listen.  Though far from #1 material IMHO, it was catchy.  1987 had at the top Atlantic Starr with Always (which I didn't think I knew till I listened, and then said, "Oh, that's Atlantic Starr!? I knew Secret Lovers, but...).  Next year at this time (i.e. 1977) KC And The Sunshine Band are on top with I'm Your Boogie Man.  Skipping ahead (or behind, if you prefer) to 1957, Elvis was just wrapping up an 8-week stay with All Shook Up.  And that brings us to 1967- or 2001- and the stupid story. 

The #1 song on Cashbox this week in 1967 was I Got Rhythm by the Happenings.  And in looking at the story, I saw that one of their other big hits- See You In September- was part of a very dubious list.  Right after the September 11th attack, Clear Channel Communications released a list of 165 songs that they felt might be inappropriate to play because of the disaster.  Though they later denied the existence of such a list, they were outed by a newsletter Hits Daily Double, and the list's existence was later confirmed on Snopes.com.  What kind of songs made this blacklist? Well there seemed to be 10 main categories.  And allow me to highlight the real stretches.

First, songs that obviously had something to do with destruction.  Examples: AC/'DC -Dirty Deeds, Shot Down In Flames; Gap Band- You Dropped A Bomb On Me; John Mellencamp- Crumblin' Down; Edwin Starr (and Bruce Springsteen's cover)- War.

Second, apocalyptic references:  REM- It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine); Zager and Evans- In The Year 2525; Nena- 99 Balloons; Barry McGwire- Eve Of Destruction; Everclear- Santa Monica (Watch the World Die); Skeeter Davis- The End Of The World.

Third, anything to do with fire: Blue Oyster Cult-Burning For You; Boston- Smokin';   Jerry Lee Lewis- Great Balls Of Fire; John Mellancamp- Paper In Fire; James Taylor- Fire And Rain; Trammps- Disco Inferno; Talking Heads-Burning Down The House.

Fourth, anything to do with death: J Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers- Last Kiss; Queen- Another One Bites The Dust and Killer Queen; Paper Lace- The Night Chicago Died; Don McLean- American Pie; Wings- Live And Let Die; Billy Joel- Only The Good Die Young; Bobby Darin- Mack The Knife; Bob Dylan (or Guns and Roses) - Knocking On Heaven's Door; Beatles - A Day In The Life; Alice In Chains- Rooster; Blood Sweat and Tears- And When I Die; Norman Greenbaum- Spirit In The Sky; John Lennon- Imagine.

Fifth, anything to do with airplanes: Beatles- Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds; Phil Collins- In The Air Tonight; CCR- Travellin' Band;  Neil Diamond- America; Elton John- Bennie And The Jets, Daniel, and Rocket Man;Steve Miller- Jet Airliner; John Parr- Man In Motion;  Peter Paul And Mary- Leaving On A Jet Plane; Red Hot Chili Peppers- Aeroplane.

Sixth, missing persons: Three Degrees- When Will I See You Again; Zombies- She's Not There; Lynyrd Skynyrd- Tuesday's Gone; Los Bravos- Black Is Black; Chi-Lites- Have You Seen Her.

Seventh, anything to do with New York City: Ad Libs- Boy From NYC; the Drifters- On Broadway; Martha and the Vandellas- Dancing In The Street; Frank Sinatra- New York, New York.

Eighth-Any title that could possibly be misconstrued: U2-Sunday Bloody Sunday; Van Halen- Jump (but not the Pointer Sisters?) ; Steam- Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye; Pretenders- My City Was Gone; Brooklyn Bridge- Worst That Could Happen; Carole King- I Feel The Earth Move; Dio- Holy Diver; the Clash- Rock the Casbah; Petula Clark- A Sign Of The Times; Black Sabbath- War Pigs; Pat Benatar- Love Is A Battlefield and Hit Me With Your Best Shot; Fontella Bass -Rescue Me; Bangles- Walk Like An Egyptian; Animals- We've Got To Get Out Of This Place; DC5- Bits And Pieces(someone had a sick sense of humor on this one); Surfaris- Wipeout. 

Ninth, demonic mentions- AC/DC - Hell's Bells and Highway To Hell; Elvis, Devil In Disguise; Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels- Devil With The Blue Dress On; Santana- Evil Ways.

And finally, ones I just have to scratch my head over ( as if that isn't the whole list): Cat Stevens- Morning Has Broken and Peace Train; Simon And Garfunkel- Bridge Over Troubled Water; Rolling Stones- Ruby Tuesday; Youngbloods- Get Together; Red Hot Chili Peppers- Under The Bridge; Peter Paul And Mary- Blowing In The Wind; Peter and Gordon- A World Without Love; Ricky Nelson- Travellin' Man; Led Zeppelin- Stairway To Heaven; Kansas -Dust In The Wind; Hollies - He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother; Shelley Fabres- Johnny Angel; Jackson Browne-Doctor My Eyes; Beatles- Obla-Di-Obla -Da and Ticket To Ride; and the topper of all- both Satchmo's and Sam Cooke's versions of What A Wonderful World.
(Note: consider the entirety of cats 9 and 10 highlighted.)

Shaking your head yet?  Fine. Time to get on with the countdown.

Two songs come into the top ten, two fall out. Dropping are Rhiannon, from 9 to 11, and Fooled Around And Fell In Love, from 8 to 13.

Entering the top ten at 10, up one, are the Stones from the #1 album with Fool To Cry.  Up 4 to #9 are the captain and the ever-lovely Tennille with Shop Around.  Sara Smile moves two to #8 for Hall And Oates.  Henry Gross slips two to 7 with Shannon.  Holding at #6 are Pratt and McLain with Happy days.  Dorothy Moore rises a pair to 5 with Misty Blue.  John Sebastian, leader of the TV theme invasion, slips to #4 with former top dog Welcome Back.  Silver Convention edges up a notch to #3 with Get Up And Boogie.  At #2, up one for Diana Ross and Love Hangover.  And hanging on to the top spot for a second week-

...Wings and Silly Love Songs!!

Okay, that's another week in the can, folks.  Until next time, beware airplanes, fires, and signs of the times, okay?

"We'll save you, Superman!"

Today at work I was reminded of one of the funniest episodes of my youth, and thought it might make a good story for TAW.  It involved me as a freshman at Heritage High School and the things I did to survive.

Hah! Made that sound suitably grim, eh?  Truth is, I've shared some of my social backwardsness in the past here, so suffice it to say high school was not exactly my element as a freshman.  But I had learned long before that the best way to keep people from laughing at the things I was self-conscious about was to get them to laugh at anything else.  I used to be like an underground railroad waystation for passing jokes, and quickly used that to my advantage.  I got a rep amongst the seniors of the class for being a primo joke teller, and it wasn't long before I was asked on a pretty regular basis if I had some new one-liner.

Another, less fortunate, detail of my freshman persona was born in second grade.  In a manner I couldn't tell you then or now how, I fell off the monkey bars at 2 pm recess one day.  No real damage (and a pretty cool way to get out of the end of the school day, BTW), but one of the seniors my freshman year was a fourth-grader at St. Louis Besancon when I took my spill.  Now I was well known to be a part-time "super-hero" back then, and the fourth-grader-cum-senior retold the tale so that I was "attempting to fly" when I crashed.  Thus to some seniors I was "Underdog", and to others "Superman".

So, back to the main story:  One day I came to school with one of the best jokes I ever heard.  I would trade twenty of the half-witted jokes I do remember to recall how that one went; of course, I have forgotten it.  I only remember that it took a supreme act of self-will not to break up in the telling.  During lunch, I had just come into the main hallway (where most everyone came after eating) and one of the seniors asked if I had a joke- and I answered, yes, and a good one.  Suddenly, one of them ushered me to a centrally located seat whilst another proclaimed, "Hey, everybody!! Superman's got a joke."

I have to admit to a bit of nervousness as the entire area filled up with what had to be close to half of the school.  Normally, this was my element, but this was a BIIIG crowd.  So I began to tell the joke- I think I got halfway through the first sentence.  Then , the principal showed up.

Ivan Mulligan, since deceased, was a great principal and one of the truly class acts I have ever met.  Remind me to tell you the fishing story someday.  He sees the crowd, enters the circle, and finds a punky freshman surrounded by seniors, and decides I am outnumbered.  Before any of us knew what he was about, he took me by one arm and whisked me into the nearby office.  "What's going on?" He demanded.  I was just explaining the situation when a group of the seniors, recovered from the initial shock, burst into the office shouting, "Don't worry, Superman, we'll save you!"  I'm sure you can imagine that my next move was to put my head into my hands and wonder how even a good joke was going to top this debacle.  Finally getting the explanation over with, Mr. Mulligan released me to the seniors- and then tagged along, sitting to my right as I told the legendary joke.
God, how I wish I could tell you the tale right now.  What I do remember is that when the punchline came, the entire building (at least the inhabited part thereof) exploded with laughter like I'd never heard.  All except Mr. Mulligan.  And that was an act of will power.  With a stern look that fooled exactly nobody, he shook his head, got up, and walked away without a word.  And if that didn't make the joke even funnier, it sure made the memory sweeter.

What a difference a year makes

Here is an exerpt from my post of exactly one year and two days ago:

You cannot keep working people 70 hours and tell them they are getting farther and farther behind indefinitely. Eventually you have to either realize that you are in over your head and no amount of worker effort will change that, or you press on and destroy your work force. I warned our production manager this day was coming. But corporate attitude seems to be that we can all reach a bit deeper, find that elusive 30% more efficiency we must be hiding so we can work all this overtime.



The truth is, you have a plant on the edge of the breaking strain. They couldn't even give us an enjoyable holiday: make us work 6 hours today with the veiled threat of "we should have worked you Monday."

And one year later? I think we've had one Friday "nooner" for OT all year;  I saw at Meijer over the weekend patio cushions (our product at my company, for you newbies) 50% off already;  My son, who works at the Ft.Wayne plant (again for you newbies, Ft. Wayne does retail, me and Laurie are in Kendallville doing the dot com end), says that Home Depot just cancelled the rest of their orders for the season, leaving them with $160,000+ in finished goods alone in the warehouse; and he tells us that he's heard that KMart is selling cushions at 25% off already.

A lot has gone into this:  a very late arriving spring; our biggest market, in the south, being rocked with disaster after disaster (no sense in having a patio cushion if your patio is either under the neighbor's house or downstream somewhere);  an economy that has shed itself of its Obama-fueled illusions of good health; and, IMHO, last year everybody and their brother bought cushions last year and just don't need new ones this year.  We are down, I heard, 33% from last year- ironic when you figure that we were thinking that business might more than double this season.

The game ain't over yet for us- it is only June, and in dot-com land that means we still got a decent four months of potential.  Retail is all but done, though, and we took a bath there, it seems.

I've heard them threaten 14 hours in the past, so let me publicly state this- I will NOT leave this house at 5 am and get home at 9:30 pm, period. When they ask that, they will find themselves facing a much bigger problem.  As we look foreward to another Friday off, I say again- What a difference a year makes.

Serbia, my Serbia

You know, I should not find it surprising to see Serbs protesting in favor of arrested mass murderer, Gen. Ratko Mladic, and revering him as a national hero.  This has always been the Serbian mindset, ever since they betrayed each other to defeat in Kosovo in the Middle Ages.  In 1903, after decades of trying to enter "respectable" European society, they assassinate- then mutilate- King Alexander Obrenovic and his queen and throw them naked into a pile of manure.  This is not an unruly mob, this is the military elite what did this- including the man code named "Apis", who was not only a high government official but the main supplier to the Black Hand terrorist group- whose splinter group led by Gavrillo Princep kicked off WWI by killing the Austrian Archduke and his innocent wife.

And yet, Europe went to war over the "poor Serbs" being "bullied" by Austria.  Why?  Because Russian saw them as "Slav brothers"; France saw Russia as their only chance of surviving the next war with Germany; And Britain needed the continental alliance with France, even though both were democracies who deplored the government system of their Russian "allies".  And a prime example of acting from politics rather than a careful consideration of who's involved is set in stone.  Grave stones, that is.  Britain should have known better- between the dismal results of the so-called Great Game with Russia and the wasted lives in their attempts to make something valuable of Afghanistan.

But does anyone learn?  We plunge into Vietnam to protect the "good guy', but was their a good guy.  In his book White House Years, Kissenger describes the Vietnamese mindset all to well.

"...a conviction that it was Vietnam's destiny to dominate not only not only Indochina but all of Southeast Asia... we were simply one of the hordes of foreigners whose congenital ignorance over the centuries had tempted them into Indochina, whence it was Vietnam's mission to expel them (not, I often thought, without driving them mad first)."  Kissenger, page 441.

And still today.  A blogger friend of mine was recently on a tour of SE Asia, and her last stop was in the city formerly known as Saigon.  She described verbal rudeness, physical semi-assault in the markets (She told the story about the "disturbing"Vietnamese from in-country on April 13th, and posted last week about the marks and pain she still had from the experience. 

But do we learn the lesson- look WHO it is we're helping before we jump in?  Look at the Pakistanis, the Iraqis.  How about the Egyptians ( the "broken reed" of Ezekiel 29:6-7) who we're about to sign off on another Obama $2 billion bailout?  Or the Libyans who are very glad for our help in getting rid of Qaddafyduck?  His supporters already stand in line protesting the NATO strikes.  Say what you want about Mubarek- he kept Sadat's word with Israel for 35 years.  Who, of all the nations we are currently "helping", will we be able to say that about in 2046?

Memorial Day for Jim Tressell.

Anyone who knows me knows that today's announcement of Jim Tressel's resignation at Ohio State is a cause for celebration.  That said, I would like to sidestep gloating for irony.  What makes a man like Tressel wait until Memorial Day to do something he should have done a long time ago, if not at least two weeks ago?  Is he suggesting subtly that he has died for the cause, a martyr to a system out of control?

That would be accurate in a sense, if a laugh.

The system he lost his job protecting is the same one Pete Carroll was smart enough to jump off of just before the torpedo hit at USC.  It is a system of money and the power derived thereof- that same system that made OSU prez Gene Smith look down his nose at Boise State and Utah, et al.  We are richer than you, more powerful than you.  That not only makes us better, but  more deserving.

This is a system founded on TV contracts, bolstered by the monstrosity that is the BCS (who is not only besmirching the teams but the bowls themselves- look at the punishment and near expulsion that they handed the Fiesta Bowl for participating in a system THEY encourage), and built around the elite of the college football world- the Texases, Alabamas, USCs and Ohio States.

I found it amusing moments ago to read in a Texas alumni site called the Burnt Orange Review where the writer excoriates Tressel for not resigning earlier, for the constant stream of lies and disavowals that led him to today's action.  He also goes on to blast ESPN for constantly feeding us investigative lollipops instead of tracking down evildoers like Tressel and OSU.  I wonder how he would feel if ESPN woke up from the disingenuous lethargy he describes and turned their sights on the Longhorns.  For the reason I found the article amusing is that it is his own Longhorns that manipulated the PAC-10 into taking Colorado off his hands, got Nebraska to agree to a self-imposed exile from the Big-12, all in the name of coercing the powers that be into giving U of T football a network of their very own.  This was all very legal, and all very much a part of that same system.  I'd like to know how many "Buckeye discount" type arrangements are going on in Austin.  The university slogan "What happens here changes the world"  is a good ad for their institution.. It is also a symbol of the arrogance these programs operate with- an arrogance shared by Ohio State.

Did Tressel share that arrogance?  Well, he did give himself a 5-game suspension over the incident.  Why wait for actual authorities to rule on the case, right?  Except that what he probably regarded as less-than-full disclosure the rest of the world defines as lying.  So, in an attempt to secure his own opinion of his actions, perhaps, he hired two weeks ago the former chairman of the NCAA's Committee on Infractions, Gene Marsh, to be his lawyer.  Any body want to bet that Gene studied the case for two weeks and said, "You're dead, Jim." (Sorry, I've been watching Star Trek all day.)  And that that is why he has had a change of mind (the day he hired Marsh, CBSSports.com ran an article titled, "Jim Tressel won't be resigning").  Which would also be amusing except that CBSSports.com has been op-ed-ing itself out of relevancy for some time now.

The one bright light on the opinion horizon was ESPN college analyst and OSU alum Mark May, who I just got done watching as he said Tressel should have resigned "months ago" and that with the extent of the revelations coming out even as we speak, Gene Smith will likely be next.

Good.  Smith's arrogance, unlike Tressel's, is not a matter of debate.  I've a feeling that when it's all said and done, Smith will bow out to avoid criminal complicity, let alone NCAA sanctions.  But when the sun comes up the next day, Ohio State, Texas, USC will still be there.  The BCS, the TV sports networks will still be there.  And the system will install another disciple- likely a more subtle one than Gene Smith- and the system will go on.  Ohio State will still sneer at her weaker brethren, Texas will continue to manipulate things until it creates the Big 12 that earns them the maximum profit, and the NCAA under the wings of its wonderful head Miles (Yeah, I fired Bobby Knight) Brand will continue to ensure us that the education of the student-athlete is the #1 priority.