First – this is not what’s stuck in MY head this morning. I have John Lennon’s Happy X-Mas (War Is Over) stuck in my head, as usual around the holiday. Wifey woke up with this stuck in her head, so I’m claiming “artistic license” and using her song.
She got out of the shower singing just one line from the song; “A lousy candle’s all I found”. Not even the entire verse, just one line. But I know that feeling.
So without further ado, here is John Kay and Steppenwolf – “Magic Carpet Ride”
In case you haven’t heard, I absolutely despise Christmas Music. It’s old, worn out, and just plain boring. Having said that, this is a close as I can get to playing a Christmas tune.. Enjoy!
Here’s what the crazy little elf, Ginger has been up to this week.
Saturday – I didn’t know she was into outdoor sports. She made a rock wall out of bows!Sunday – What a naughty little elf! She’s replacing the creme in the cookies with toothpaste!!!Monday – Watching her movie on the little screen, while Grinch is on t he big screen.Tuesday – Just like back home! Ginger is in a hand-made sleigh ornament!Wednesday – Look at the stuff she found in the couch!Thursday – I think she was trying to help us decorate.Friday and Ginger has a magic trick for the girls. She has some “magic seeds” for the girls to plant!
And that ends week two. Next week we’ll see just what grows from these magic seeds! What has your elf been up to?
Our sweet little, mischievous, elf has returned! The jury is still out on whether on not this is a good thing. Just as last year (here, here, and here), I will post weekly updates. We still have the girls weekends only, so I expect Ginger to do some silly stuff again this year.
Ginger returned Saturday, with a letter for the girls.
The girls think that Ginger put herself high upon the tree to keep away from our new dog.
On Sunday, Ginger somehow got herself into a plastic tub, then farted. The note asks if you want to smell it.
Granddaughter-the-younger was first up that morning and was brave enough to open the tub and smell. “She must have eaten too many candy canes!”. Later the girls were practically shoving their dad’s face into the canister “Smell it! Smell it!!”
Monday – Ginger used the computer chair to decorate the doors with hand made snowflakes.Tuesday Ginger was having a Igloo warming party. Kinda think that “igloo warming” sounds a bit counterproductive.Wednesday – She’s all Bedazzled!
Thursday was
a Fashion Show
with some friends!
On Friday, Ginger finished the Lego set for us!
Once again, Ginger The Elf has shown just what happens when a little elf gets bored. But she can also be helpful!
How sweet!
Got any silly elves at your place?? Check back next week to see what Ginger is up to!
As I’ve mentioned before Turkey Day 2018 is just around the corner. And that also means my birthday is right there too. But this isn’t a post about my birthday. It’s something very Thanksgiving related.
In a previous life, I was an on-air DJ. I didn’t do it very long, as the money just wasn’t there, and I had a wife and newborn to take care of. Back then I watched TV. There were several shows that I really enjoyed, Barney Miller, Taxi, and SNL were excellent shows (although I had trouble staying up for SNL). But my favorites were Cheers and WKRP In Cincinnati. Music and a bar? Even back then that was where my head was at.
WKRP and the cult movie FM were two of the reasons I wanted to be a DJ. I have not been able to find a source to watch FM again. Which is a major bummer because Martin Mull is so hilarious. But WKRP, well that’s a different story. I believe every episode is available on YouTube.
This episode has to be the craziest ever! According to the wiki page, it’s even based on a true story! Check out the wiki page for some very interesting facts about the show.
Many of the characters and even some of the stories (including season 1 episode 7, “Turkeys Away”) are based on people and events at WQXI.
As funny as this clip is, it leaves out station manager, Arthur Carlson, after the drop exclaiming “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!”
But my hero’s, intrepid newsman Les Nessman (winner of the Buckeye Award!), cry of “Oh! The humanity!” makes this so damn funny.
For those that are Twitter or Facebook buds (no? – why not? links below), you know of my “love” of anything pumpkin spiced. For those new to the game, this expresses my “love” perfectly.
Anything pumpkin flavored sucks. Yes, this includes the pie…
So yesterday Wifey® and I were doing the weekly shopping, and lo and behold what do we see in the cereal aisle? Pumpkin Spice everywhere!
Seems that life has jumped the pumpkin spice shark… So sad. I’ll just leave you with this tidbit.
This song has been going around and around for the better part of a month. I almost posted it before, but let it sit instead. In the time that it’s been on hold, I found out some more cool things about the song.
First, it was written by Shel Silverstein, he of The Giving Tree, Where The Sidewalk Ends and so many other cartoons, books, albums, you name it.
It’s based on a true story. From the article on Songfacts;
In the song, Sylvia’s mother is Mrs. Avery, and while that wasn’t her real last name, the rest of the story – exaggerated a bit – was true. Silversteen told Rolling Stone in 1972: “I just changed the last name, not to protect the innocent, but because it didn’t fit. It happened about eight years ago and was pretty much the way it was in the song. I called Sylvia and her mother said, ‘She can’t talk to you.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ Her mother said she was packing and she was leaving to get married, which was a big surprise to me. The guy was in Mexico and he was a bullfighter and a painter. At the time I thought that was like being a combination brain surgeon and encyclopedia salesman. Her mother finally let me talk to her, but her last words were, ‘Shel, don’t spoil it.’ For about ten seconds I had this ego charge, as if I could have spoiled it. I couldn’t have spoiled it with a sledge hammer.”
It’s interesting to know that it was based on a true story because I always thought it could happen to me!
Dr. Hook is one of my favorite musicians. His style (and by that I mean the Medicine Show since there is no real Dr. Hook) has always intrigued me. And of course, the crazy hit (also penned by Shel Silverstein) The Cover Of ‘Rolling Stone is absolutely hysterical! And it did land them on the cover. Although only in caricature.
But back to our song, Silvia’s Mother. I found two very humorous articles about the song. The first is from UnNews.
4 October 2008
Sylvia’s mother, Mrs. Avery, who famously prevented her daughter from continuing her relationship with eyepatch-wearing boyfriend Dr Hook, admitted yesterday to lying during the famous telephoneconversation.
For the first time in over 35 years, she came clean about the call that ended forever hopes of a reunion between Hook and Sylvia.
Yes, Sylvia’s mother lied. What a surprise.
The second is from Ultimate Classic Rock. The article linked is an excerpt from Dear Mr. Pop Star, by English father-and-son team Derek and Dave Philpott. This is a collection of Monty Python-like letters to artists and witty responses from a large number of targets. The book follows the project’s online success over the past 10 years. It’s a “letter” written to Dr. Hook advising him what he should have done during the infamous phone call. The reply is written by Dr. Hook frontman Dennis Locorriere. It’s quite entertaining. (Hint: Click the link above to read it…).
So that’s all I have for this entry. Please enjoy the video, I have a feeling some folks may have never heard this track before.
Oh yeah, please leave your comments here if you can. Thanks!
(Granted, techniques have changed since I was a DJ, but the basic idea of keeping the music and your comments as coherent as possible is timeless)
So yesterday as I was driving home from work (in the rain of course), listening to Classic Vinyl, and they played a clip of Graham Nash saying how underappreciated Stephen Stills is as a guitar player. And I totally agree. Stephen, with his custom tunings, is an outstanding player. I love to listen to him play.
But here’s the issue. They play a clip about a guitar player and follow it up with what, Suite: Judy Blues Eyes, or maybe Southern Cross? Nope, they played Our House. Now don’t get me wrong, Our House is a wonderful song. But it’s a piano song – a guitar is not heard.
From the Wiki:
The song originates in a domestic event that took place while Graham Nash was living with Joni Mitchell (and her two cats) in her house on Laurel Canyon (Los Angeles), after they had gone out for breakfast and had bought an inexpensive vase on Ventura Boulevard. Nash wrote the song in an hour, on Mitchell’s piano.
In October 2013, in an interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s “Fresh Air”, Nash elaborated:
Well, it’s an ordinary moment. What happened is that Joni [Mitchell] and I – I don’t know whether you know anything about Los Angeles, but on Ventura Boulevard in the Valley, there’s a very famous deli called Art’s Deli. And we’d been to breakfast there. We’re going to get into Joan’s car, and we pass an antique store. And we’re looking in the window, and she saw a very beautiful vase that she wanted to buy… I persuaded her to buy this vase. It wasn’t very expensive, and we took it home. It was a very grey, kind of sleety, drizzly L.A. morning. And we got to the house in Laurel Canyon, and I said – got through the front door and I said, you know what? I’ll light a fire. Why don’t you put some flowers in that vase that you just bought? Well, she was in the garden getting flowers. That meant she was not at her piano, but I was… And an hour later ‘Our House’ was born, out of an incredibly ordinary moment that many, many people have experienced.
So, to get back on topic here. When you talk about a great guitar player you probably shouldn’t play a piano song right after. No matter how good that piano song is.
So here’s a live version of Suite: Judy Blue Eyes for you. Have a great Labor Day weekend for us in the USA or just a fabulous weekend everywhere else!
Welcome to a new series! The “What’s Stuck In My Head” series will be, mostly, music, but will also have other items I can’t seem to shake. Maybe a news item (but not a lot of politics), art pieces, meme’s, books etc… In other words, totally random, just as the blog title says.
So going off of yesterday’s random music video post, today’s “What’s Stuck In My Head” is a comedy video. I picked what I believe to be one the greatest comedy skits of all time. Abbot & Costello’s Who’s On First.
I do hope you enjoy that skit as much as I do. Please leave me a comment or two, and maybe a recommendation of something to add to the series. I’d love to hear from you!
On 19 August 1977 (41 years ago), we lost one of the greatest comedians of all time. Julius “Groucho” Marx. He was, at the least, the driving force behind the Marx Brothers comedy. Somewhere I have bootleg copies of all of their movies. A Night At The Opera, Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Duck Soup, and my favorite A Day At The Races. But I do have to admit that Cocoanuts, a story about the Florida land boom of the 1920’s is still very relevant today. Just read any of Carl Hiaasen’s “Skink” books or Tim Dorsey’s “Serge” books, and you can see they fit into the same mold.
Groucho has always been one of my favorites, from the grease paint mustache (said to have come about because he arrived late to set and didn’t have time to put the fake mustache on, or he hated taking off the fake one since it hurt!), the stooped over walk, and especially his always ready quick comebacks. To this day I still use one of his standards “Now that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!” (in a very poor imitation) in damn near every situation.
Some notable quotes:
I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.
Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.
From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend on reading it.
I sent the club a wire stating, “PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER”. (I have used this quote when giving lectures several times. My all time favorite.)
When he was turned down for membership to a country club due to being Jewish, it is rumored that he asked “Can my daughter go into the pool waist deep? She’s only half Jewish”.
I did watch reruns (I’m not THAT old!) of Groucho’s TV show You Bet Your Life, and while at times very funny, the censors wouldn’t let most of his asides on air. A lot of the Marx Brothers’ movies were “pre-code”, meaning there wasn’t as much of the more risqué stuff cut. Naturally, there was no foul language or nudity, it was the 20’s and 30’s after all, but a lot more innuendo was allowed then.
Here is one source for some audio clips of all the Marx Brothers. A quick search of YouTube turns up some great Groucho clips. Here’s one:
