KAY KYSER'S "KOLLEGE OF MUSICAL KNOWLEDGE"

It’s time for a music quiz.  Are you salivating, Glo?

Here it goes:

1.  In a 1973 hit by Deep Purple, they are singing about “smoke” and “water”.  What song?  What smoke?  What water?  What famous group of the time is mentioned in the song?

2.  Who won the 1971 World Series and what was their theme song?  Who performed it?

3.  Who sang “Diamond Girl”?  Name the year within three years.  (Extra credit if you hit it exactly)

Janice Joplin (1943-1970).  She was

quite a "swill" singer! 

4.  What band did Rick Derringer start with at age 17?  What was their huge hit of 1965 and who did they knock out of #1 on the Hit Parade with it?

5.  Who sang “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” and in what movie was it featured?  It became Billboard’s number 1 hit of what year?

6.  Name the 1975 disco hit by The Silver Convention.

7.  Name Janice Joplin’s favorite booze.

8.  Who was Carly Simon singing about in her 1973 hit “You’re So Vain”?

9.  What brand of car is mentioned in a 1981 hit by Blondie that has been considered by many to be the first successful rap song?   Who is the lead singer?

10.  Name three hits from the J. Geils Band.

Extra credit question:  Who the hell was Kay Kyser?” 

This is NOT an open book test.   Anyone caught cheating will have to wash the blackboards after class and beat the chalk dust out of the erasers.

Good luck!  I’ll give you a reasonable amount of time to complete the quiz.  While you’re working on it, I’ll be hanging around the teacher’s lounge trying to find out more about the good looking babe who is the new English teacher!

WAKE UP AMERICA BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE

“The parallel between Benghazi and the IRS story is amazing.  (It’s) lying about lying, then lying about the fact that they are lying.  Then seeking to apologize for lies that they claim they didn’t tell.  This pattern is a culture of big government who believes that it is more important than the American people.”

……….Newt  Gingrich.

I doubt if Obama had any inkling of what 2013 might bring to his table after his easy re-election in 2012.  He even started off the New Year with a bang by beating the Republicans into an embarrassing cave in on tax hikes for the fiscal cliff.

Wow!  How rosy it looked for the guy who brings new meaning to “superego.”  At his State of the Union speech, he proposed a “left wing dream factory” according to columnist Charles Krauthammer with a declaration of war on global warming (even though temperatures are the same as 16 years ago and CO2 emissions are at a 20 year low).

House Rep Jason Chaffetz is talking of

possible impeachment proceedings. 

Also on the list was universal pre-school for 5 year olds in a country already drowning in debt.  He also felt confident in the Democrats re-gaining the House in 2014. 

Gosh, this being the President isn’t hard after all; except that it is, especially when you are, as Edward Klein called Obama in his book, The Amateur. 

When confronted by the lack of his intimidation on sequester by Republicans, he panicked like a schoolyard brat with silliness like airline delays and the cancellation of White House tours.  Looking foolish, he eventually caved in.

Need we discuss his embarrassment over the loss of his gun control bill?  Sure, why not?  I wonder how much gas he burned up at our expense to fly all over hell posing with grieving relatives of those slain by guns.  He lost 60-40 in a Senate that had 55 seats belonging to his own party.

Want more?  How about the Benghazi hearings? The IRS/Tea Party scandal?  The AP wire tapping by Obama’s buddy Holder (“Who, me?  Yes, you!”), and the latest:  HHS Secretary Sibelius trying to illegally get funds to prop up Obamacare.   Hell, as long as we are airing out this guy, how about a SECOND court ruling against his illegal appointment of members to the National Labor Relations Board while the Senate was off?  It’s like endlessly listening to Sonny and Cher sing “And the beat goes on.”

The Republicans have a great opportunity here if they just don’t blow it.  In the 1948 film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Humphrey Bogart (as Fred C. Dobbs) and Tim Holt (as Curtin) have been stiffed on

their wages by their boss McCormick as played by Barton Mac Lane.

When they see McCormick walking down the street dressed in a nice new suit with a young senorita, Dobbs says “Let’s get him….and get him HARD!”

That’s exactly what Republicans need to do.  Get Obama and get him hard.  I may add that they need to do it soon.  These types of opportunities have a way of disappearing if not quickly acted upon!

EIGHTEEN TV SHOWS CANCELLED! WHO CARES?

I was browsing through Drudge and Fox News this morning and besides airing my disgust about how screwed up this country has gotten under the power of Obama and his crooked cronies (Benghazi? IRS scandal with the Tea Party? Gun control? Immigration? and more), I managed to notice a piece from Entertainment Weekly.com  about eighteen TV shows that have been cancelled.

Before I looked at the list I wondered if there would be even one show that I have ever heard of, much less watched.  All of these shows were on “over the air” channels like ABC, CBS, ABC and since 99% of my viewing habits come from cable broadcasts, the chances were between slim and none that I knew the programs.

TV has deteriorated badly over the years.  It has basically become a place for the younger crowd that enjoys programming a lot less sophisticated than we of a more advanced age enjoy.  The accent today is on more sex and violence and, of course, the shows stretch profanity as far as possible with plenty of double entendre attempts at humor.  Personally, I always like to perform my sex and violence at home and didn’t need any TV show to show me how it’s done!

Many thought TV had gone a bit over the edge in the early 1970s with All in the Family.  By “over the edge” I’m referring to the outspoken opinions of Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker and his ability to make the audience laugh at him while they laughed at themselves for having such silly sensitivities about the subject that may yet be the downfall of this country:  political correctness.

Archie was right.  Whether there is a coincidence or not, many outstanding lawyers are Jewish and many black guys are outstanding athletes.  So what?  Today, anyone saying that would hear a loud gasp and a “You can’t say that!”  If Archie were still here, he would tell you quickly why you can.

There were other great network shows in those days mainly because cable was not a factor.  My wife and I had a Saturday night ritual in the early 1970s:  We would grill a couple of nice steaks on the patio of our home in beautiful Shawnee, Kansas; add a baked potato, salad, a bottle of wine and turn on our 10 inch Magnavox color TV to watch All in the Family, Sandy Duncan, Mary Tyler Moore (with the great Ted Knight as “Ted Baxter!”) and The Bob Newhart Show.

Afterwards, we would take a shower together (only because it saved water! Ahem!) then head over to Kansas City, Missouri to do some clubbing.  Those were fun days.

By 1976 we had graduated to a 27” Magnavox floor model.  One day, while watching the four channels available, there was a knock on the door.  The devil had arrived in the form of the guy selling cable!  How could I resist Beelzebub when he offered a chance to see the Atlanta Braves baseball games and non commercial movies even if the first one we watched was Burt Reynolds in W. W. and the Dixie Dance Kings!

As far as those eighteen shows getting the ax, I have heard of two; both of which I have never watched.  They are The Office and 30 Rock.  Here is the entire list in case you care.

One of the great scenes from "Frasier" (.48) which ran on NBC from 1993-2004. Niles and Lilith in the sack! OMIGOD!

MORE MUSIC STUFF

Music is fun and entertaining to most of us whether it is from our own memories of pop tunes recorded during our lifetimes or before.

I love the old stuff because the tunes are so great and supply us with a vision of their times and some of the 

lyrics infuriate the holier than thou liberals of today who don’t understand the era that produced the songs.

Cole Porter (1891-1964)

 

A favorite is “Let’s Do it (Let’s fall in love)” written in 1928 by the prolific Cole Porter.  The irony in this song is in the opening chorus where it states that “Chinks do it, Japs do it, up in Lapland little Laps do it...” 

Porter wrote it for the show Paris which was his first Broadway success.  With the politically correct world that evolved, the lyrics were later changed to “Birds do it, bees do it”.  I think that is a cop out; I think Porter was just having fun with the first lyrics and meant nothing harmful with “Chinks do it, Japs do it” but as we know, tastes change and skin gets thinner  (The attached YouTube has the original lyrics).

I’ve been a music freak forever and still carry a harmonica around much to the disdain of some but, hey, that’s just me.  I’ve been following pop music since I was 6 or 7 and have never tired of it although some of the stuff today makes me glad I like what are now the oldies. 

One favorite from the late 40’s was a regular on the hit parade from WCKY in Cincinnati:  Peggy Lee and her then husband Dave Barbour doing “Manana”.  Peggy was great with any tune.

As the 50s arrived 1955 produced guys like Pat Boone with “Ain’t That a Shame” and Perez Prado with “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White”.  Bill Haley and his Comets snuck in that year with “Rock Around the Clock” which was a portent of things to come.

And come it did in 1956 with some guy named “Elvis” hitting it big with “Hound Dog” and “Love me Tender.”  Does anyone remember one hit wonder Jim Lowe with “Green Door”?

Can it really be 55 years since I got out of high school? That would be 1958 when “At the Hop”, by Danny and the Juniors, “Get a Job” by The Silhouettes, “Tequila” by The Champs, and “Yakety Yak” by The Coasters ruled.

The 60s were nice.  I spent 4 years in the Air Force; plenty of time to learn things I would never had learned by staying in Cincy.   Also a time to meet girls and dance and love in clubs from Texas and Missouri to Germany only to come home in 1965 and find my true love a month later.  Isn’t fate great?  The young guys today don’t know what they missed by not having to serve.

Meanwhile, tunes like “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, “The Twist”, “The Duke of Earl”, “Surf City”, “Sugar Shack”, All the great British invasion songs including “Downtown” by Pet Clark; Monday, Monday”,  “Crimson and Clover”, and many other great tunes came along.

Even today, I still like to occasionally turn up the volume all the way and break off the knob as I am doing while I write this paean to pop music.  So far while writing I have played The Smithereens, Donnie Iris, “Puttin’ on the Ritz”, Norman Greenbaum, West End Girls, Jefferson Starship,  One Night in Bangkok, Greg Kihn Band, and Yes. 

So many songs; so little time!

For a good look at Paris of the 1920’s see Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” (2011).