MODERN-DAY TECHNOLOGY...

...sometimes it can really save your A$$...

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Have you ever been Your Own Worst Enemy?: I at the checkout counter paying for something today, and out of habit just happened to check my wallet to make sure my Debit Card was in it, even though I wasn't going to use the Card for that particular transaction. And all of a sudden my brain began exploding; "OH MY GOSH,WHERE IS MY DEBIT CARD????" Talk about Instant Panic. Have you ever had one of those moments, in which your entire identity was put in jeopardy by a little plastic 3x5 card that You Can't Find All Of A Sudden? So I tried re-tracing my steps, and when that didn't work, I called my bank, thinking they could tell me where my Last Card Transaction Was. I'd used the Cash Machine at my bank (which I usually don't do), and had forgotten to take my card out of it. Well, guess what...the bank's ATM machine has a cool built-in feature in which, if your card isn't removed after the transaction is done, the machine "swallows" the card and stores it, meaning the bank clerk who replenished the cash machine this morning found my card within the bowels of the machine. So...modern technology Saved My A$$ets. Whew!

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It's kinda sad, really: My next-door neighbor has a sweet little female Pit Bull pup. Good fences make good neighbors, and yes, the dog's fenced in. She'll roll around on the grass and play with her doggie-toys scattered around the yard. She'll run along the fence as I venture out to check my mailbox...and I'll reach over the fence and pet her and rough-house with her a bit. She likes to play the game of the Moving Shoe. I'll touch my Shoe to the chain-link fence, and she'll sniff at it...then all of a sudden I'll move my Shoe to another place on the fence and she'll leap over to sniff at it again. She's really a cool little dog. I hope so, anyway. A pit-bull with a Pink Collar. Pink for a Pit Bull? Somehow that's kinda weird. I guess it's a good thing that dogs only see in black-and-white, or so I've heard...

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Anyway, a couple of days ago, her owner evidently headed out and went to the store, and was only gone for about twenty minutes, leaving his dog outside. I happened to be outside after he'd left, and his little-girl Pit-Bull Immediately Established A Different Demeanor with me...she became really wary, standing on the Porch, motionless, and all of a sudden, I got a little bit scared, even though the Fence separated me from the Dog. She was Standing Still, Not Moving, her eyes focusing at me, fixing me with a cold icy stare, sort-of like the impersonal stare of a Shark just before it Eats You For Lunch.

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It was then when I began to recall All the vicious Pit Bull Attacks I'd Ever Read About, and I began looking at the dog differently. No way was I going to go even Close to the fence. This is sad, because now my perception of my neighbor's dog has changed. All of a sudden, it's me who's wary. She was probably just doing her job, protecting her owner's house, and thought of me as a Threat. Me, the innocent guy who liked to play with her. But now, I'll never see her in quite the same light again. And that's sad. We do it with animals, we do it with our fellow Human Beans. Our frames of reference cause us to pull back from those who we think could hurt us. And all of a sudden, a Sweet Little Dog became something that could do me some serious damage. It's sad when Innocence like this becomes lost, because Dogs can Smell Fear, which makes them uncomfortable, after which they often go into Attack Mode. Reality "Bites" sometimes, doesn't it?

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It ain't over 'till the Fat Lady sings when the Cows Come Home: (or something along those lines)...That mixed-metaphor just about sums up the way the Seattle Mariners' fortunes have gone lately. After a promising start, they've only won 1 in their last 7 or 8 games, and all of a sudden, they've got a below-.500 winning percentage, all of a sudden their play is getting sloppy, and all of a sudden, they can't hit, and all of a sudden, they're IMPLODING, blowing up from within. Surprisingly, the problem ISN'T in the team's "starting" pitching. Sooner or later, Defensive errors (too many of them) are committed, and if that doesn't happen (or when it does!) the M's relievers end up feeding Fat Pitches to the opposition. Step right up and Take A Bite! My Dave Niehaus impersonation: "MY, OH, MY, THE MARINERS GIVE IT AWAY AGAIN! GET OUT THE RYE BREAD AND MUSTARD, GRANDMA; HOPEFULLY YOUR "GRAND SALAMI" WON'T TASTE AS BAD AS THIS GAME!!!" I'm almost tempted to do what Rick Rizz's patented home-run call suggests..."GOODBYE, BASEBALL!!!" Indeed, sometimes I wonder why I Even Watch Anymore. And then I remember: The M's keep finding New Ways To Lose. I find that perversely fascinating as I wonder, "How Are They Gonna Mess Up Tonight?" Let me count the ways...so I continue to watch...

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Not Bad for a Bubblegum Band: Back in the late '60s, a genre of music known as "Bubblegum" became really popular. 'Bubblegum Music' basically consists of melodically catchy little numbers that rock in a sing-song-sort of way with nothing serious in the lyrics. The Chief Bubblegum Purveyor was a record label called Buddah, which issued such Timeless Classics as "Yummy Yummy Yummy" by the Ohio Express and "Simon Says" by the 1910 Fruitgum Company. The latter group absolutely HATED being forced to record Bubblegum Music. They didn't want to record "Green Tambourine" (a number one hit), but label bigwigs said "either you record it or we'll find someone else who Will!" So the group re-considered their options and Recorded it. After that came the "Green Tambourine" album, which featured some fairly heavy rock in addition to 'gummy' little songs. After that, the group recorded another single, "Jelly Jungle", which is about as sticky as Bubblegum gets. It was a good song, but didn't chart very high. Alas, Bubblegum was losing its popularity to the increasingly Heavier Sounds Of The Day...such as Jimi Hendrix, or Blue Cheer, or Cream, to name but three heavy-Heavy musical acts who got their start in the Late '60s...

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Their second album, "Jungle Marmalade", released in 1968, was also the last album they made for Buddah (or for anyone else). And yes, it features 2 or 3 Bubblegum numbers written by their producers ("Record These Or Else!")...and then promptly turned over the sessions to The Group, who could record anything they wanted, as long as they recorded those 2 or 3 Bubblegum numbers. So, their albums (and especially this one) are fascinating mixtures of chirpy-pop as well as psychedelic and hard-core blues numbers. And ya know, the Bubblegum songs strike a nice balance, with their group-written, more experimental songs. Plus, on the "Jungle Marmalade" album, you get a beautiful version of a song The Byrds originally did, "I Was Not Born To Follow". In the Lemon Pipers' version, the song was outfitted with a dignified, slowed-down backbeat which gives Extra Bite to the song's surrealistic lyrics. "And in the end, you'll surely know, I Was Not Born To Follow..." Another song from the album, "Lonely Atmosphere", got some Very Limited Radio Play, before evaporating quite rapidly from the charts. Sadly, that song is misidentified as "Mirrors" on the record jacket, so record shoppers who might have bought the album based upon "Lonely Atmosphere" didn't know the song was on there. A sad fate for what is actually A Very, Very Nice Tune.

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Later on, I found a Canadian Copy of the "Jungle Marmalade" album, and discovered that "Lonely Atmosphere" wasn't on it. Instead, I found a rather uncommercial song in which the lyrics were barely decipherable...evidently, that song is "Mirrors". For U.S. copies of the album, it was removed in favor of the more marketable "Lonely Atmosphere". Finally, who recorded the most Bubblegummy-song of them all? I think that honor goes to the 'Other' group, the Ohio Express, for a little ditty titled "Chewy Chewy". It actually rocks. Well, kinda...