Let’s see what happens when your host (me) has nothing to say, and instead it’s open mike night. Step right up, speak your mind, tell a story, sing a song, whatever.
1/24/2025
Anything goes #12
56 responses to “Anything goes #12”
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Great run of stories this week. Visiting your folks to saying goodbye again to Steph, you really brought us in. For such a private dude you really share in an intimate way which feels like you’re speaking to just the reader.
I have been a big reader in my youth but due to eyesight issues I have become limited. Being able to read you on a larger screen spark the enjoyement I’ve had in authors when I could bury myself in a book. Gardner, Kinsella, Vonnegut, Asimov, and many more.
Thanks Doug-
Thank you, kind sir. I try to be as honest as if I was talking to myself.
Sorry about your eyesight issues. Must be really frustrating. My vision is fading, but only in the ordinary way for old folks, and still, my basic browser font is so huge it blocks functionality at some websites.
Do you do audiobooks? I’ve tried, but find that my mind wanders farther when I’m listening than with eyeball-reading. Thank cripes for my cheaters.
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I listen to a lot of podcasts walking my pups but I haven’t delved into audiobooks. I don’t know if I can make that jump.
Reading is such an intimate excercise. You pick your pace and if there’s a passage that sticks you go over it and over it until it hits. I’ve never wanted to substitute what I loved to a different format, even if it’s voiced by the material’s creators.On a different note, have you ever heard of Ólafur Darri Ólafsson? No reason, just asking. It’s not like I’m thinking you’ve got an acting career you’re not sharing, it’s totally not that.
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That’s my thinking exactly, on audiobooks. It’s a whole different way of ‘reading’ and thinking, and I’m content with the way I’ve always read and thought.
I am not familiar with Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, but I saw THE MEG, and IMDB says he played The Wall. Is there an Ólafur Darri Ólafsson film better than THE MEG that you recommend?
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You know, I didn’t see the MEG, I probably should.
I know him most recently from the series Somebody Somewhere. His role was pretty small but it was quite memoriable. He’s also in the new season of Severence so I guess he’s having a moment.I had forgotton he was also in Trapped, which was a pretty great murder investigation show set in Iceland.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUP5uNDV6DA-
I wasn’t quite recommending THE MEG. Saw it in a theater, and I remember the carpet more than the movie, and that my Red Vines were stale.
TRAPPED looks cool, added to the list, grazi…
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I’ve never much liked FAMILY GUY. It’s too mean-spirited. But what do I know — that’s a terrific clip.
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I cranked up videos to find and re-comment about a song I highlighted last week, but YouTube steered me directly to this odd song which I think I posted a year ago, written and unarranged by the mysterious George “Shadow” Morton, and sung by some high school girls looking for work (who would almost instantly become The Shangri-Las), which is all Shadow could afford. Jeff Barry, half the songwriting team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich at Red Bird Records heard the girls singing the song and recommended recording and releasing it. The rest is more or less history, if you think history can be encapsulated in its concurrent music, which I sort of do.
So here, from 1964, unaccountably missing one of its four members are The Shangri-Las singing (OK, lip synching) Remember (Walking in the Sand).
Notes: The song as recorded was seven minutes long, and the producer, adding fade-in/fade-outs, snipped it to 2:11 for AM radio play. god deliver us from AM singles.
The girls were almost immediately shipped to England where they opened for a newly feted band, The Beatles on an extended continental and domestic tour. When they returned, the 2:11 single was #5 nationally, and they rushed back into the studios and, with a motorcycle somehow smuggled from the street to the 7th floor sound studio, recorded Leader of the Pack. The Beatles later admitted to being scared shitless of these tough girls from Queens, but judged them to be a fine opening act.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViaToHNTukE
John
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Look out! Look out! Look out! (Sorry, that’s what instantly comes to mind from ‘Leader of the Pack’.)
My memory is split pea soup on a foggy morning, and I may have said this when you shared the song way back when, too, but I’d always assumed the Shangri-Las were black. Is it Mary Weiss’s voice that fooled me?
Where can I hear the seven minute version?
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I remember seeing The Shangri-Las on American Bandstand.
I wanted to look exactly like Mary Weiss (lead vocal). Little grade school me, longed for perfectly straight hair. And a cute mini dress. I hated my freckles, and red curly hair.
Mary Weiss died a few days ago. On January 19.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_WeissThe 4th unaccountably missing member (in the linked performance), was Mary Weiss’s pregnant older sister. Betty Weiss had the baby in 1964.
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I hadn’t heard, which is nuts ‘cuz I’m one of those crazy old people who reads the obits before even reading the news.
Hey, I love freckles. So there!
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Doug, I don’t think the seven minute version was ever released, even on an album. Part of the problem was that the label which recorded it went under a few years later and much of their library was not sold in the fire sale. George “Shadow” Morton had moved on before the business failure and everybody else was scrambling to get a job at a new label. By the mid-70s when longer “album versions” of songs were being appreciated and sought after, I’m sure that many people were looking for the original recorded versions of The Shangri-las but there were no employees left and most of the originals were lost.
jtb
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I spent a half hour (standard research time) all over the Web looking for a release on vinyl, disc, tape or Web that had anything other than the 2:11 version, and I found a 2:19, but I suspect they were fibbing. There have been perhaps a dozen re-releases of early Shangri-las material, but the tape with the longer version was probably reused or lost. I had what I think was the original vinyl release (I was a pretty early fan), but it got lost in a tragic divorce. OK, it wasn’t tragic but it cleaned me out of foldable legal tender.
jtb
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I appreciate the effort, and apologize for the wasted time. Or maybe it wasn’t wasted time, if you at least enjoyed the hunt?
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I’m an old man. I rarely do things I don’t want to do.
jtb
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Sometimes I don’t even do the things I *want* to do.
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I was an original once, and I’m certainly lost.
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I did not hear that she died, but it seemed vaguely familiar, and I remembered that I remembered once I forgot.
(That’s a really dumb way to point out she actually died a year ago)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/01/20/mary-weiss-shangri-las-dies/
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Good catch.
I saw January as 2025. No wonder Doug was wondering.
That’s a great obituary.-
She’ll probably die again *next* January, and I’ll be sad all over again.
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Ok. I’ll set the reminder.
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Not dumb. That’s the way my memory worked too, but I never got to the part where I remembered.
Re-reading that obit, I like her even more.
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At The Strip Club (1)
Everywhere I went on my trip to Eureka I was around attractive women, and I had no clue what to say to them, just nothing, nada, zilch. I just watched them walking away, completely appropriately away, as I probably had 20 or 30 years on them. Driving home South I thought about blowing five bucks at the strip club and it was just opening as I walked in. I found a chair away from the action (so innocent) but they said I had to be up front by the dance floor for the girls to come out and dance, so I sat there pushing one dollar bills toward the bikini-clad women, the only loser there.
Soon the first one took off her top, exposing very round factory boobies, and I pretended to myself and her that I liked them, and told the young woman she was beautiful. Other dancers followed showing their tattoos and titties, beautiful asses and gymnastic flair twirling around the pole. I whined to the girls about not knowing what to say to women and asked their advice. The deal is they want to get you into the back room for a naked lap dance for seven or so minutes.
“I’ll be completely naked back there,” one said. “$45 dollars.”
“Well, that’s a lot of money,” I said. “I’ve seen a pussy before, aren’t men disappointed?”
“Oh no!” she said. “No one’s ever disappointed.”
Oh well, I went into the back with the big blond with the tits that might actually be real, she put on her music and I had to put my hands to the side of the couch. She stripped and danced very close to me and after a while it just became frustrating, that I couldn’t touch her.
“You’d have to be a masochist to do this,” I said.
I went back out where there were now a few men sitting around the dance floor, all looked to be locals from my part of the county down south. One dancer was very vivacious and she had me stand to get the little touches my dollars bought. (The girls, all young, beautiful, and friendly lean over you and bounced their titties on your head and face for a buck.) She was more hands on and I went back into a private room with her and saw she had eight piercings around her pussy.
“Would you like me to thread them with ribbon?” she asked.
This woman was hot and I told her so, she danced naked all around and over me, balancing on my legs, and with her it was like I was making love, well fucking. She grabbed my shirt and looked intensely into my eyes, she brought her pussy up to my face and now I regret that I didn’t tell her to hold it there while I tried for a good whiff.
I went back out to feed more dollars to the dancers, and thought about going back in with Dylan for another private dance. I debated, and when she reemerged I paid again and had another one, but I blew it this time because I talked too much, distracting her from her nasty routine.
Later, at home, I thought, “I could live like this, I need this! I could do a little dance a week with that hot brunette.” On second thought I should do a research project and have private dances with five or seven of them and rate them! Oh, yes, I’m going back!”
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You are the most successful ladies’ man I know, kinda surprised you were ever at a loss for words.
As you know, I have zero strip club experience. I knew there’s no touching, from the movies, but hands to the side of the couch? You can’t even, ah, touch yourself?
John says they’re a joy, and you sure seem to have had a fine time, but I’m unable to imagine myself visiting a strip club and not wanting to leave as soon as I’d walked in.
Never heard the term ‘factory boobies’. Did you invent that? Excellent phraseology and I know exactly what you mean, although not from hands-on experience.
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Is there no search function here anymore? Maybe I’m missing it.
Wondering if you’ve seen Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
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I think I’ve seen it, but it was while I wasn’t writing so there’s no review, and I don’t remember anything but the title and Albert Finney and, I think, Phil Seymour Hoffman. It’s on the list, though.
Sorry, there’s no search function for the site except the old Google, if you input the words you’re looking for. It’s one of the dumb things about WordPress — installing a search engine is complicated, and complicated isn’t fun, so I haven’t done it yet.
There is a big list of movies reviewed.
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Only three months later, I am double-darn-delighted to announce that there’s now a search function, at the top of the page.
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I linked to this song a week ago and told the story about the young lady who belted it out at my folks house. I happened to listen to it again this morning, and heard something I didn’t hear before — some very hot traps playing, really snapping on the snare, possibly with some loosened tuning pegs. I did some research, and that’s Sue Evans snapping on traps. She’s had a wonderful career as a drummer, playing mostly jazz, but taking time to tour with Judy Collins and other performers. And she’s still at it.
During WWII, my Mom played traps in my Dad’s combo. He had a slightly drunk piano player, a Mormon double bassist, and a sober wife on traps, while he played harmonica with an improvised electric/acoustic pickup. Just before Mom and Dad got married, Mom had a kidney removed and nearly died. The docs told her she wouldn’t be able to have children. Eleven years later medical technology had improved and I came along, followed by my sister. When we grew up, we didn’t understand why there was a drum kit in the attic. Dad explained it to us and told us, “She was a damn fine drummer.” So they were making plans for their life without kids, then put those plans aside when kids came along. I’ve been sensitive to fine drumming since.
Also, my Koss cans cost more than my cheapass computer and slightly better oversize monitor combined. So I could hear Sue Evans clearly snapping the snare with slightly loosened tuning pegs, especially on the last verse. She was jazzing up some fine folk music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w70-1b9SCj0
Thanks for sharing my family memories.
John
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Thank *you* for sharing your family memories.
I had to google Koss cans. Wow. You *are* the music man, man. I’ve never paid even ten bucks for headphones, and I’m a headphones guy. I abhor earbuds.
But the main thing that kicked me in the groin here is that your parents were “making plans for their life without kids, then put those plans aside when kids came along.” It worked out great for you, and hopefully/presumably your parents had no regrets about it, but the actual moment I fell in love with my wife might’ve been midway through our first date when she said she didn’t want kids, even before I’d had a chance to say I didn’t want kids. We made damned sure we never had kids, and never had a moment’s regret about it.
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My Koss cans were around $200, but my computer is a scholastic desktop reject (free) and my screen was a gift from my Sis for helping her out at home. It was a long time ago, but I think it was just under $200. My hearing is pretty bad, so even if I figured how to route music to speakers, Martha would have to move out. “Very loud” is the lowest setting at which I can hear whether the bass is being plucked or slapped.
And the Koss cans also perform well at low volume, so I can listen to an audio book while I’m drifting to sleep and not wake up if the reader gets excited. They’re a little heavy, but the lightweight Koss cans are more expensive. There are limits.
John
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My increasing hardofhearingness is why I might consider looking under the rubble in this room for the box of stuff from my last office job to see if my headphones are in there. I sometimes worry that my movies are running too loud, and folks downstairs or in the kitchen can hear.
Where can I sign up for my scholastic desktop reject (free)?
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Right place, right time, and an administration that believed in federal funding for education. I’m gonna run it until it catches itself and me on fire. I’m afraid the next ship date is four years from now.
jtb
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Nice.
jtb
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I should note that my computer is a genuine reject. It doesn’t have a printer port and the back is held on with electrical tape. I was an IT guy in and around Pierce County for several decades and knew a lot of the people who were responsible for installing and maintaining (and junking out) desktop computers in these environs. When I fell on hard times due to medical bills, a few of my old buddies made sure I had a little computing power. Very little, but enough.
jtb
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When you describe your computer, I was picturing a 21st century Jed Clampett on the internet.
More seriously, you had health insurance, and still the bills led to hard times?
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No. I lost my health insurance when I had to quit my job because I couldn’t walk because of severe back pain. I had three separate back surgeries when I wasn’t working and didn’t have insurance. The hospital gave me the uninsured rate, but it still cost over half a million dollars, my entire IRA. I’ve lived on the corner of desperation and poverty since. Of course, now I’m an old man, so I get some Social Security and get federal old people insurance which covers some, but not all, medical and medicine costs. I take 8 different cardio meds, and pay about 30% of the cost out of a bank account that is always hovering around empty. I’m not complaining — just trying to answer your question.
John
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So without your IRA, you would’ve been destitute. What an ass-backwards country we got here, and it’s getting rapidly ass-backwardser.
It ought to be illegal for health to be a financial worry. Health ought to only be a health worry.
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Harris’s campaign is proof the DNC would rather appeal to the right than the left. The election is proof appealing to the right doesn’t work. The Democratic Party needs to go left, or drop dead and get out of the way.
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Every vote you get to the polls adds 1 to your vote count. Every opponent you convert adds 2. It might be an annoying practice, but it’s mathematically sound. And there were also Harris-funded efforts to get lefties like me to the polls. I got doorbelled in a heavily Democratic LD/CD, and I received several mailings, only one from the asshole and I declined to purchase a fake coin.
jtb
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The Democratic Party is never going to go left. They just stand in the doorway and block up the hall.
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We love the things we love for what they are.
Robert Frost via jtb
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I just posted a brief comment that now appears to appear in two places in this stream. How can you be in two places at once when you’re really nowhere at all?
jtb
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I am easily confused. Does your screen show comments twice?
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My man Bob!
Also we hate the things we hate for what they are. Liver, for me.
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Yes, at least for a while. It’s possible the duplicate goes away eventually, but it’s happened at least twice in the last week. As long as it eventually vanishes, I won’t complain. And it gave me a chance to misquote (just barely) the name of a pretty good Firesign Theater album. Quoting without a net is like being an active member of the Flying Wallendas: sooner or later you’re gonna fuck up. Consequences vary.
John
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Firesign Theater, man. They ruled comedy back in the day, before (and better than) Saturday Night Live. Kids at school used to trade tapes. On the Kid Comedy charts, Firesign was second only to Bill Cosby, but Firesign aged better.
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OK, this time I left a little comment and looked under “comments” and there were three copies. On the bright side, the number is rising arithmetically instead of geometrically.
No, I didn’t do anything different, like stutter the enter key.
No, I didn’t get any error messages of any kind.
No, I am not a member of the Communist Party. Are they still going?
John
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Yup, they’re still going. I know a few genuine reds. But I don’t know what’s happening with the duplicates you’re seeing. It only happens when you’re looking?
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Well, it might be happening when I’m not looking, but when I’m not looking I can’t verify that. If it’s not happening to anyone else, I wouldn’t worry about it. It might just be this free scholastic fell-off-the-truck platform of mine. I’ll try not looking, but I’m not sure I can verify it under those circumstances.
I think I arrived in the middle of a zen koan and am now looping through states of existence.
John
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Lmao. Again. Clever, as usual.
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All the commies I knew slipped away when the Soviet fleet turned back in 1962. I saw them around town for a couple of years. Then I didn’t.
As I recall they mostly wore small caps with a short brim in front. The Lenin look, or possibly the Lennon look.
Now you want Socialists, I got Socialists. Although I think they prefer the lower case s. Equality in every motherfucking thing.
John
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Wait a minute, the horse is still breathing. Russia is now an oligarchy and heaven knows what China is. These commies: Is their homeland North Korea? Cuba? What’s the modern communist state?
jtb
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The pre-programmed response I’ve heard from Commies is, “There has never been a Communist state.”
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I like pinkos and pinkoism, but like most things in life, lack a detailed understanding. Strolled into a bookstore once, not knowing it was a Marxist bookstore until I couldn’t find the sci-fi section. The guy behind the counter was wearing one of those small caps with a short brim in front.
Nobody does more damage to Marxism and Leninism than people who go around quoting Marx and Lenin.
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