Thursday, March 30, 2006

PREZZIDENT BUSH: CAUGHT IN MID-SMIRK!!!.
...and I woulda posted the photo if I coulda found it!

Ho-hum, another day, another newspaper, another Prezzidential photo. Prezzident Dubya Bush was shown addressing "whoever cares" from his podium. There he was, arms extended, and his face all contorted in that familiar "smirk" expression of his. And, that photo started my brain a-whirring..."what does this remind me of?", I asked myself...and then all of a sudden, it HIT me!

Remember MAD magazine? I guess it's still being published, although I haven't bought a copy in ages. Mad Magazine's freckle-faced mascot is the toothy character named ALFRED E. NEUMAN! Whilst reading the paper over coffee, I saw that photo; I tried unsuccessfully to find it on the 'net when I got back home. I wanted to post side-by-side fotos of Bush & Neuman, but I ran across THIS, which sorta puts both elements together. I do have an answer to the question, "What, Me Worry?": George, we're all worrying!
____________________

He's headed for the "Green Green Grass Of Home" dept.: I just found out today that British singer Tom Jones is 65! Ack! He was "knighted" in England today. Kinda reminds me of a quote: "Oh how good to be alive when the eulogies are read." I suppose now, he'll have to stop shakin' his hips when he sings. He's a royal member of British society, after all. I suppose, at the end of his concerts, he can now wish his audience "Good KNIGHT." (???) When John Lennon, along with the rest of the Beatles, was given the MBE (Member of the British Empire) medallion in the mid-60s, he said, "I thought you got these for driving tanks and fighting wars." Ya say you wanna revolution.....
____________________

Shake your rump to the funk on the disco hiway dept.: While having coffee today (while looking at that ugly newspaper foto of the Prezzident), a bunch of '70s DISCO music was spouting forth from the loudspeaker in the coffee shop. Van McCoy's "The Hustle", The Emotions' "Best Of My Love", and many other songs were a-thump-thump-thumpin' away. Although I'd never wear a white suit with gold chains, I always kinda did like disco. Am I a rock and roll traitor? I (sorta) like The Rolling Stones, after all; their 1978 song, "Miss You" was a nod to disco. I have a 12" disco single of the EXTENDED version of "Miss You" in my collection.

Another cool song from that time period was "Sausalito Summernight" by a Dutch Group called 'Diesel'. It was sort of a disco-rock hybrid-type of tune. Another of my favorite bands, Electric Light Orchestra, on their 1977 album, "Discovery", did a disco-flavored thing called "Last Train To London". The critics savagely cut ELO to shreds, saying that record was "Very Disco". And I always did like the Bee Gees' disco material; I thot they were very inventive in that genre. It was their way of "Stayin' Alive", ha ha. Of course, you can't blame bands like Black Sabbath or Grand Funk for runnin' for cover when disco was everywhere. Can't you just hear it now? "I AM"...thump-thump-thump..."IRON MAN!"...thump-thump-thump...(not a pretty picture!)
____________________

Baseball from a different perspective dept.: There was a baseball item on today's EDITORIAL page, which posed an interesting question: If the United States Team placed so poorly in the recently-completed World Baseball Classic, why then do we call our American-teams-only end-of-season event the "WORLD" series when teams from the rest of the world don't play? Especially if American teams aren't the worlds' best? This whole issue leaves me "off base". Meanwhile, it looks like Barry Bonds can't play 'till the powers that be are done investigating his steroid usage. Barry...maybe you could just retire? And, Jamie Moyer, he of the 50-mile-an-hour fastball is gonna be the Seattle Mariners' opening-day pitcher, and I guess he's as ready as he'll ever be. In his final spring-training tune-up, he only gave up 8 RUNS!!! Gonna be a long season, boys...
____________________

Diamonds may be forever, but the "Diamond Cup" sure wasn't dept.: For definitely sure, the memories have outlasted the race itself. The Diamond Cup, Coeur d'Alene's long-departed hydroplane extravaganza...when the race was held, crowds lined the west side of Tubbs Hill, along the trail, to watch the speedboats do their thing. And here is undeniable PROOF that our lake was indeed home of the hydro-races...


The year was 1968. We lost Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy that year. Jimi Hendrix had a big hit with "All Along the Watchtower". I was 14, in 8th grade, attending school at those two old buildings on 7th Street that I wrote about in the post below this one. The Beatles' "Hey Jude" charted, and held the #1 position for 9 weeks, setting a record that stood for a long time. Our local radio station, KVNI, broadcast on the frequency of 1240 Kz back then, and every night from Monday thru Saturday, aired a 2-hour rock and roll show called "Sounds Of The Town", where I first heard a lot of my favorite rock & roll music. And, I think this was the last year of the Diamond Cup. This brochure shows the "Miss Eagle Electric" in the water, with Tubbs Hill at "photo right" and Coeur d'Alene in the background.
____________________

Hey, I think I'm making progress here; I actually got this post done before midnight. I suppose I should be glad there's no such thing as a 'bloggers curfew' or I'd never get anything done here!

2 Comments:

Blogger Jinx said...

yep, they still have Mad magazine but last time I glanced at it in shopko, I didn't think it was as funny as I did as a kid. hmmm age getting me or bad writing?

12:01 AM  
Blogger Lil ol' me... said...

Hey, Jinx, probably a little bit of both. Since "Mad" is a satire magazine, maybe we don't identify with what "Mad" is satirizing, so we can't relate. Maybe there is bad writing in the shows "Mad" satirizes, so a satire of something "bad" is going to be worse than a satire of something "good"? I'm all confused now.

12:35 AM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home