thinkin' back on Amarillo

 

        In the country song "Y'all Come Back Saloon," every line and phrase of the lyrics has some kind of magic - it's weird.

Faded Love, and faded memories...

Miles and years played the cowboy

Like an old melody.

Out of tune, and out of time

...Was the late night benediction,

At the Y'all Come Back Saloon...

Every night in the shadows...

In a voice soft and trembling, she'd sing her song to Cowboy,

As a smoky halo circled round her raven hair...

        She played - tambourine,

With a - silver jingle,

And she must have known the words to at least a million tunes,

But the one most requested...

I had not listened to that song in several decades, and yet last week when I played it from You Tube, every word, phrase, and instrumental nuance came back, familiar, from memory....

-30-

1979 in theaters

 

1979 movie Kramer vs. Kramer had Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman in it.

        They play a married couple - she leaves him in their New York City apartment, with their young son.

Audience comments under You Tube video:

~~  This shows that mundanity killed more marriages than we would like to acknowledge.  

I think partners should switch back and forth between being homemakers and breadwinners if it is possible.  

        A man may love going to work and a woman may love making a home but they may also start hating the routine. Switching for a while can actually improve understanding between them, and they're less likely to develop resentment.

~~  When he grabbed that suitcase my fight mode was activated.  tf

~~  The way Meryl looks at her suitcase as Dustin takes it away.  Such tremendous talent!

-30-

with a silver jingle...

 That song I mentioned here yesterday is "Y'all Come Back Saloon" by the Oak Ridge Boys.

I played it on the radio (from a "45" on a "turntable") in the '80s, many times.

        (My memory told me it came out as a new record during my tenure in radio, but the Internet says the song hit the airwaves in 1977, so - whoops.  That song must have been in the "oldies" library.)

        I realized recently that I gave incorrect information in an earlier blog post here - I referenced the song "Sweet Dreams", which was a big hit for the great singer Patsy Cline - I said it was written by Willie Nelson.  But I looked up the info, and found that "Sweet Dreams" was written by Don GIbson, not Willie Nelson.

        I had my "music stats" mixed up - the Patsy Cline hit song that was written by Willie Nelson was "Crazy."

 - Crazy.

I'm - crazy for feelin'

So lonely

I'm - crazy,

Crazy for feelin' - so blue..........

Patsy Cline

Willie Nelson

The Oak Ridge Boys

-30-

late night benediction

 She played - tambourine,

With a silver jingle

And she must have known the words to at least a million tunes

But the one most requested - by the man she knew as cowboy

Was the late night benediction

At the Y'all Come Back Saloon

In a voice soft and trembling, she'd sing her songs to Cowboy

As a smoky halo circled round her raven hair

And all the fallen angels,

And pinball-playing rounders

Stopped the games that they'd been playin' 

For the losers' evenin' prayer

"Faded Love"! - and faded memories,

How they linger  in her mind

Miles and years played the cowboy,

Like an old melody 

Out of tune, and out of time

Every night in the shadows,

Thinkin' back on Amarillo,

He'd dream of better days and ask for "Faded Love"

Lifting high his glass in honor,

Of the lady and her song

He paid his check then lonely walked that broken cowboy home

She played - tambourine,

With a silver jingle

And she must have known the words to at least a million tunes

But the one most requested by the man she knew as "Cowboy"

Was the late night benediction at the Y'all Come Back Saloon...

-30-

we heart New York

         And one of the main things that's wrong with the Max series "And Just Like That" is, it isn't being shot in New York City.

"Sex And The City" was shot in New York City.

People used to say the city was kind of a "fifth character" in the show, besides Samantha, Charlotte, Carrie, and Miranda.

        It always looked wonderful.  You would watch, and feel like you were in the city.

There are people arguing back and forth on the Internet, saying the new (train-wreck) series, "And Just Like That", is indeed being shot in NYC, and other people saying No, it isn't.

I'm with the No It Isn'ts.

It does not look like the Big Apple, to me.

-30-

wit, fashion, and truth in the city

 I was trying to think of how best to describe why

Sex And The City

was great, and

And Just Like That...

is not.

        What occurred to me was:  sincerity.

Sex And The City was sincere.

And Just Like That is not sincere.

Sex And The City told us a story, and even if some of the plot-lines or moments were a little absurd - well, so are life and relationships, sometimes.

        And you just went with it.

        Because the pace was right, and it - flowed.

And Just Like That doesn't flow.

They start a plot-line, or a theme, and then drop it with no resolution.

It's as if they're just throwing stuff around.

And not in an interesting way.

        One viewer comment on You Tube said it's like the writers of Just Like That are "giving the middle finger" to Sex and the City fans.

Why?

        For the sociopathic pleasure of expressing random hostility...?

It's odd.

        --------------------------------------------- Some people write comments saying that And Just Like That "has ruined" Sex And The City.

That, I can't agree with.  SATC is on Netflix right now, we can watch & it's of course just as good (or weird) as it always was.

        The producers (perpetrators?) of Just Like That have not taken scissors and cut up the episodes of the original series.  It's intact.  It's fine.  We can watch it.

        I think the people saying the new series has ruined the old series are just upset, and sometimes we exaggerate when we're upset.

an episode of Sex And The City where Carrie and "Mr. Big" fall into a restaurant pond

-30-

an off energy

 A comment about the TV series "And Just Like That..." said the show has "such an off energy."

        I agree.

--------------------------- The history of these TV shows and the movies can be a little confusing.

Here is the background:

From 1998 to 2004 there was a television series on HBO called "Sex And The City."  (People sometimes say it as "Sex In The City" but it's "and," not "in.")

        In the next few years after the show ended, two movies were made with the same characters.  The titles of the movies were -

Sex And The City, The Movie

and

Sex And The City, 2.

And now we are in the third season of a TV series called "And Just Like That..." which is about the same characters but now they are twenty years older.

        The original Sex And The City series on HBO had enthusiastic fans who loved the show.

        Then, with each feature film they made of it, the franchise lost support.  People didn't like the first movie as much as they had loved the series, and they liked the second movie less than the first one.

        Kind of a "going downhill" situation.

It seems like it would have made sense to let the franchise end, then, but they made another series, "And Just Like That..." and it's less popular, even, than the two movies.

        Some people like it, and - more power to them, I'm glad they're happy.  But many people do not like it, and I see their point.  I don't think it's good, and it's particularly distressing to fans, I think, because the original series was so good, and brought joy to its audience.

        And Just Like That is - as Joey Tribbiani in Friends might say cheerfully -  "abysmal!"

_________________________

In the HBO series there were four main characters:

Carrie Bradshaw, portrayed by actress Sarah Jessica Parker

Samantha Jones, played by Kim Cattrall

Charlotte York, played by Kristin Davis

Miranda Hobbes, played by Cynthia Nixon

_________________ After the second movie, Kim Cattrall wouldn't do any more.  They wanted her back on board for the new series, and tried to negotiate so she would be in it, but she refused.  (Although I think she did make a brief appearance in one episode of Just Like That.)

Fans of the original show have been in an ongoing uproar over "Samantha" not being in this show.  She is an excellent actress, and her character is popular.

        

        (In one episode, the four friends are having lunch and Charlotte is saying that her marriage isn't going well in the intimacy department and Samantha inquires about other people in the vicinity - "Anyone there you can [have romantic relations with]?" - only instead of the bracketed phrase, she says the rude word.

        The other girls cry out, in a chastising tone, "Samantha!"

        Samantha:  "What?  I'm just trying to be helpful!" 

'Outrageous' is her brand.

Outrageous, and practical.)

------------------------------------------------

Comments

~~  I still hate-watch it, but only once.

~~  No Samantha, no dice for me.

~~  I pretend AJLT doesn't exist.

~~  I used to love to rewatch the old series but this series stopped me from doing that.

~~  If you want a really funny show about sexy, 50-something women making a second go at life, check out Hot in Cleveland, which you can find on Paramount Plus.  It's hilarious, where AJLT is just grim.

~~  That's my main complaint about AJLT.  It's not fun at all, and the original series was fun.  Yes...we know they're all older, do they have to act like they have one foot in the grave?  Hell, even the Golden Girls did a better, funnier and wittier show about older women than this trash.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

        Something I enjoyed in The Golden Girls was Sophia - when she had arranged something the way she thought it should be - saying in that raspy voice, "My work here is done!"

Kim Cattrall in HBO series Sex and the City, (1998 - 2004)

-30-

McGovern - Shriver '72

 
inauguration day, 1953

When I was typing the last post here, I said I agreed with my Aunt Emmy - I agreed that my mother's vote was her own, she didn't have to vote the same as her husband - I did not agree with the part about my dad "brainwashing" my mom.

He was not the type to brainwash anybody.  And I'm sure Aunt Emmy meant that partly in jest.

Aunt Emmy's dismayed surprise that my mom didn't vote for the same candidate that she herself voted for was very similar to my surprise and consternation to hear that another aunt and uncle might be voting for Goldwater in 1964.

Unconsciously, I had an expectation that my nice aunt and uncle would vote the same as my parents.

        Aunt Emmy seemed to have similarly assumed that my parents would vote for the same candidate she was voting for.

        Thinking about this, I realized I'm the same way about music and movies and books:  someone recently mentioned that he grew up listening to the Oak Ridge Boys' music - this made me so happy, for some reason!

        (In the '80s, I played Oak Ridge Boys songs many times on my radio morning show.)

        In a conversation several months ago, I mentioned Fiddler On The Roof and the woman I was talking with said, "Oh yes, I've seen that," and there again, I was very pleased - elated, even! - to hear that she had seen that movie (or maybe she saw it performed as a play...).

I guess maybe it's a natural part of life and our relationships with other people, that we are happy to have an experience in common. - We have seen the same movie, we have listened to the same music, we have voted for the same candidate... I remember being very pleased and happy that my best friend Robin Coffey's parents were voting for McGovern in 1972, because my parents were voting for him, too.

        (Mr. Coffey worked at Chrysler, and their union was backing McGovern.

        My dad was a minister, so he didn't have a union.)

Robin and I did volunteer work for the campaign at the McGovern headquarters in Kent, Ohio.  We sat at a long table with other people and put campaign literature in envelopes and sealed them using a little bottle of water with a sponge at the top (so you didn't have to lick all of those envelopes)....

-30-

politics and religion

 Some people say, "Never talk about religion or politics because people get really mad."

When I was a child lots of people talked about politics and / or religion, and people didn't kill each other over it.

        When I think about the idiot in Minnesota who murdered two Democrats last week and tried to murder two other Democrats - and had a long list of other Democrats he wanted to murder, I wonder - is he a representative of the so-called "conservative" Republicans?

        (Going out in the dark of night wearing a mask and murdering people is hardly "conservative."  That's more like - radical.)

His roommate at his part-time living space near his work said Mr. Boelter is a Trump supporter.

------------------------------------------------

My dad used to tell the story of my Aunt Emmy saying he (my dad) had "brainwashed" my mother to be a Democrat.

        He told it with delighted, low-key humor.

        Dad:  "She said, 'You brainwashed her!'"

In 1952 the presidential election race was between Republican Dwight Eisenhower and Democrat Adlai Stevenson.

In 1953 my parents got married.

In 1956 the presidential election was again a contest between Republican Dwight Eisenhower (then the sitting president) and Adlai Stevenson.

        My theory is, that in 1952 my mom voted for Eisenhower (the campaign buttons said, "I like Ike") and then in 1956, she voted for Stevenson, along with my dad.

        (I was not born yet.)

And somehow that came up in conversation, and Aunt Emmy was taken aback to find out that Mom (Alice, to them) had changed over and voted for someone in the "other" party.

        It must be because my dad "brainwashed" her.

        LOL.

Aunt Emmy seemed to have felt that my mother should vote her own mind.  

        And this was even before "women's liberation."

I agree with Aunt Emmy.

And with my parents, for voting for Adlai Stevenson.

        (As Reb Tevye says in Fiddler On The Roof, "You are right.  -  And you, also, are right." ...)

John F. Kennedy; Adlai Stevenson

-30-

all the way with LBJ

         After last week's murder and attempted murder of two Democratic state legislators in Minnesota, it brought to mind the crazed hatred that some people seem to have for - "the other party," or "the other candidate."

If one reads online Comments, we see there's extreme, verbally violent negativity against "liberals" and "Democrats."

        It's kind of like, "Your team sucks!  My team is great!"

(From what I read, I gather some of these Comments are typed in by "Russian bots" - robot computers that are set to automatically put a bunch of propaganda online to try to make people go against "liberals" and "Democrats."

        So some of it is from people, and some is programmed from Putin's minions, apparently.)

Did this rhetoric drive the Minnesota murderer to put on a weird mask and kill people, last week?

        Or, are some people just crazy?

After President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, his vice president, Lyndon Johnson, became president.  In November of 1964 there was a presidential election; Johnson stood for election and a Republican from Arizona, Barry Goldwater, ran against him.

Johnson won.

It's hard to win over an incumbent. - Although - Ronald Reagan did it, in 1980; and Bill Clinton did it, in 1992.  

        And Joe Biden did it in 2020.

                ------------------------- I asked my parents, in 1964, who they were voting for and they said Johnson.  

        We were at my cousins' house one day and I asked my cousin Laurie Klingman who her parents were voting for, and she answered with a gentle smile, "I don't know for sure - probably Goldwater."

Goldwater ??!!

For a moment, I was floored. Astounded.

(Why?  Why was I so surprised? ... I ... asked the question...!)

Well, I guess it was a chatty, rhetorical question - I just kind of unconsciously  assumed her parents were going to vote for Johnson.  Because my parents were going to vote for Johnson.  And that must be the right thing to do.

Right?

[When you're a little kid, your parents are the source of information and the Right Thing.]

        I didn't say anything but I was really taken aback.

                (And now that I think about it, my cousin, who was four years older than me, might have been somewhat surprised by my question - she might have been thinking, "Why are you even interested in the presidential election? - you are in kindergarten! - this is not normal!" - LOL.)

        But she didn't say anything like that.  That was not her style.  She was very gentle, and even-keel, and beautiful.

And I guess I processed some at that time, and some later, to realize and understand, if you are voting for one candidate, that doesn't mean the other candidate is an evil demon.  They can both be good in different ways; you choose which one to vote for based on which one you think will do the best job.

        Not that the other one is a bad person, or anything.

Because it looked to me like, if my parents were voting for Lyndon Johnson, but my Aunt Carol and Uncle Ed were voting for Barry Goldwater, then both of those candidates must be - okay.

But many people who comment on the Internet do seem to want to believe that the "other" candidate, who they aren't voting for, is - super-bad or something.

Lyndon Johnson; Barry Goldwater

-30-

..."follow the money..."

 Yesterday, June 17th, it was 53 years since the Watergate break-in at Democratic headquarters, by operatives working for Republican President Richard Nixon.

        To learn about Watergate:

~  read All The President's Men, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

~  watch the film,   All The President's Men - can rent on Amazon Prime for $3.79

~  on You Tube you can watch Watergate Episode 1: "Break-In," Discovery Channel, August 7, 1994 - uploader / channel:  News from the Past

-----------------------------  ...Episode 1 is followed by four more episodes

Bob Woodward; Carl Bernstein, in the early 1970s

-30-

"the power of Christ compels you"

 This past weekend they had the largest manhunt in the history of the state of Minnesota, looking for the individual who murdered the Speaker of the House of their state legislature and her husband, as well as shooting a state senator and his wife, who survived.

Both couples were shot in their own homes in the 2 to 3 a.m. time of night.

The person alleged to have done this is Vance Boelter.  Police found him Sunday after a woman spotted him and called it in.

        Police say they found notebooks in the 57-year-old Boelter's vehicle with lists of people he wanted to kill, with their addresses.

He had apparently planned these activities, and stalked the victims and intended victims, who were all Democrats.

        Listening to reports and updates about this incident, I thought about two things:

--  grandiosity

and

--  evil.

Information about the suspect sounded like he was basically weaving stories about himself that he thought would make people think he was "important."

He had a "Security Company" on a website on the Internet, but no clients.

He wrote on the Internet that he had consulted on security in the Congo.

        (Oh - kay.... - ?)

This made me remember when a guy at work, years ago, told people that he used to work for the Highway Patrol in Colorado, and one of the managers said to me, "I don't believe he ever worked for the Highway Patrol in Colorado."

        I was kind of surprised by that.

        It had not occurred to me to question what someone said about a job they used to work in.  I would just take it at face value.

        The manager, Jim, had worked in environments where there was a wider variety of people than the environments I had worked in, and he kind of opened my eyes to being a little skeptical, sometimes. ...

Item #2:  evil

A friend and I had a conversation in the late '90s where I mentioned a crime that had been in the news and I said, "You know, I think we don't think about 'evil' very much, because we don't want to think about it, it's too disturbing and scary, and also - this is modern life, we don't believe in an actual person whose name is 'Satan' who goes around causing Bad Things.

        But then we hear about some of these crimes, and abuses, and if you really think about it, you realize - even if you don't want to - evil does seem to exist."

And she understood what I was saying and she agreed.

To contemplate evil, I think of the movie The Exorcist.  

(A little extreme.)

        It came out when I was a freshman in high school.

        (My family had just moved to a small town in the Midwest.

                  Great time to move - when you're starting high school.  

          That's scary enough! - You don't need The Exorcist! - LOL!)

I didn't see the film at that time - I read about it in either TIME magazine, or Newsweek.  Reading about it was bad enough.  I thought, "Well, that sounds just horrifying."

        One guy at our school saw it and talked about it.

I sort of saw it, a couple of decades later when it was on a cable TV channel - had it on while doing some things at home, and prepared to cover my ears and close my eyes, or just simply turn it off, at any moment.

"The power of Christ compels you!

The power of Christ compels you!..."

...And the reason I think of these things is, when I listened to the news reports about these murders, and planned murders, in Minnesota, law enforcement people used the word "evil" several times.

        One of them used the word "evil" twice in one sentence.

That's new.

-30-

consolation prizes and slanting floors

 

        Listening to a video on You Tube about the situation-comedy How I Met Your Mother, I thought to myself, "It sounds a lot like Friends."

        As I continued to listen, the video narrator mentioned that the couple makes love on the kitchen floor in the first episode.

        And I remembered, 'Hey, the couple in Mad About You did that, too.'

On Mad About You, I think it was in the first episode - or maybe somewhere in the first season, anyway....

Then a little further on, it said the young couple gets an apartment and the floor is uneven.

        That theme - mini-theme, if you will - was also in Mad About You.  The wife is convinced the floor slants and her husband tells her it's her imagination, the floor is fine.

As the video continued, I heard it say there was a plot-line where the wife leaves to pursue career goals and then she returns and the husband asks her, "Am I just your consolation prize?"

 

        And I remember that line from the 1989 film When Harry Met Sally.

-------------------------------------------------------

        There are several theories that say there are only so many plot structures for stories:  I found this example in a "short" video:

overcoming the monster

rags to riches

the quest

voyage and return

comedy

tragedy

re-birth (the protagonist goes through a transformation).

        But then I also thought, those components from When Harry Met Sally and Mad About You weren't plot structures, they were just - moments.  Phenomena.  A floor that slants.  People being intimate in their kitchen...

Those aren't plots or even stories, they're moments, components, punch-lines...

Friends was on from 1994 to 2004, ten seasons.

How I Met Your Mother, Google tells us, was on for nine seasons:  2005 - 2014.

        Right after Friends.

Doing this little bit of research and reflection reminded me of something I have observed before:  so many TV series are set in New York City!  

Friends

Seinfeld

How I Met Your Mother

Mad About You

Sex And The City

        When Harry Met Sally wasn't a TV series, it was a feature film, and it, too, happens in New York City.

(Hollywood writers:  "All people live in New York City.  No people live anyplace else."  haha)

When Harry Met Sally...

-30-

getting here is one thing...

 

Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952

In the movie Coal Miner's Daughter, when Tommy Lee Jones, portraying Doolittle Lynn, says, "Getting here is one thing, bein' here's another..." it reminds me of politics and government - to get elected president, you run a campaign.

That's one job.

If you win, then you are required to govern, and that's another, separate job from campaigning.

        In 1952 there was a presidential election in the United States of America:  on the Republican ticket were Dwight Eisenhower for president, and his running mate Richard Nixon, for vice president.

        The 1952 Democratic ticket offered Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson II for president, along with John Sparkman, a U.S. Senator from the state of Alabama as vice president.

        The Republicans won, that year.

Four years later, in 1956, the Republican ticket was the same:  Eisenhower / Nixon, for re-election.

        

The Democratic Party offered the same candidate at the head of the ticket:  Adlai Stevenson for president, but with a different vice presidential candidate:  Estes Kefauver.

(My history professor during my junior year in college, Arnie Offner, spoke of Estes Kefauver - our teacher said he rushed home every day from school to watch hearings on TV being conducted by Kefauver.

        Television was relatively new at that time. ...)

The Republicans won, in 1956.  Dwight Eisenhower (nicknamed "Ike") was the incumbent - it's hard to win over an incumbent.

Four years after 1956, in 1960, the Republican candidate for president was Richard Nixon, Ike's "veep" (vice president) for the past eight years.

        The Republicans' candidate for vice president was Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., an ambassador to the United Nations.

The Democrats' candidate for president that year was the U.S. Senator from Massachusetts John Fitzgerald Kennedy, with running mate (for vice president) U.S. Senator from Texas, Lyndon Baines Johnson.

The Democrats won, that year.

John Kennedy was our president from 1961 to November 22, 1963, when he was murdered in Dallas, Texas.

        As a really little kid at that time, I saw what a Vice President was for:  he steps in and does the job if something - "happens" - to the president. ...

1956

John F. Kennedy in 1960, Democrat candidate for U.S. President, with Lyndon Johnson, candidate for Vice President

-30-

successful people don't quit

 

After Loretta and her husband Doolittle have the fight in the movie Coal Miner's Daughter, in the next scene, she's back in wherever they're staying - a hotel, or a house, in Nashville.  She's alone, looking sad and upset.  She's sorry about the fight.

        He comes in, with his wrist bandaged - he has been to the emergency room....

        He has been thinking.

He sits in a chair and says, "Babe, what I think I'm gonna do is get me a job somewhere, drivin' a truck, or bein' a mechanic, or doin' something that I'm - good at."

Loretta:  "You're good at managing me.

                 I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you."

Doolittle:  "Gettin' here is one thing, and bein' here's another.  My job's done, baby, I'll just get me another one."

Loretta:  "Doo, if it's gonna break us up, honey, I'll quit."

Doolittle:  "Successful people don't quit, baby."

She lowers her head, her hand to her forehead.

He says, "You got another one of your headaches, don't you?"

Then he gets up and walks over to her and holds out his hand with a wedding ring on one finger.  We, the audience, see it but Loretta doesn't see it because her face is cradled in her hand - she is not looking up.

He speaks her name and she looks up and sees the ring.

-------------------------------------------------------

        When they got married, he had some money, saved from working in the coal mine in Kentucky, but they didn't have gigantic amounts of money so he didn't spend on a wedding ring.

In the movie we see, a couple of times through the early years, he asks her what she wants for a present, for anniversary and what-not, and she says a wedding ring.  At that time, he thinks it's a waste of money and at one anniversary he goes to the pawn shop to find a ring and ends up buying her a guitar instead....

        But now, after the fight, he makes the point that he loves her and wants to make things right between them by getting her the ring.

-30-

get in the car

        This one scene in the movie Coal Miner's Daughter kept playing over and over in my mind.

An actress named Beverly D'Angelo plays the part of real-life country singer Patsy Cline.  Early in Loretta Lynn's singing career, she met Patsy Cline and they became friends.

        Miss D'Angelo is a formidable screen presence - in one scene where she and Sissy Spacek (as Loretta) are having a quiet heart-to-heart girls' talk,  Beverly walks around wearing slacks, kitten heels, and a boxy top and somehow looks sexier than if she wore the most stupendous, low-cut evening gown you could find.

It's funny.

        The main scene I was thinking of is when Loretta Lynn and her husband Doolittle, and Patsy Cline and her husband Charlie, are out together and "Doo" is drunk and combative and telling Loretta she mustn't wear make-up because he doesn't like it.

He has told her that, before - "You know I don't like it"....

        Earlier in the movie when he says, "Forget the lipstick, I like you better natural" she goes along with that, partly because she respects his opinion, and partly because they're running out of time to take her photograph to go with her first record.

But now, later on, in Nashville, after some country-music chart success and associating with Patsy Cline, Loretta wants to "try" a little make-up.

        Doolittle likes her to have her singing success, which was his idea in the first place, but then the confidence and independence she gets from it is making him a little resentful.  Like he's losing some of his influence and - well - control. ...

Plus, he's drunk and unreasonable.

So they're out, and a nice time is turning into something else as Doolittle demands Loretta not use make-up and she says decisively, "I'll wear make-up if I want to!"

He says, "You'll do exactly what I tell you!"

Loretta:  "I'll do just what I want!"

(He slaps her and says) - "Don't you talk to me like that!"

Loretta:  "Don't you hit me!"

        And she round-houses him with her purse and either sprains or breaks his wrist.

Patsy Cline intervenes, grabs Loretta, says, "Hey, hey, get in the car!"  [Doolittle is scrambling to grab his wife and Loretta, purse in hand, kind of wants to take another swing at him - Charlie is hoping Doo will calm down and everything will be ok...]

Patsy:  "Charlie, get in the car and drive!

             Loretta, get in the car!

             Charlie, get - get in that car and drive!"

Domestic violence is never funny.

And yet - we can't, with this scene.

                "Get in that car and drahv!!"        LOL

-30-

(Marilyn Monroe saying, "I think it's just elegant!"

An interesting and informative conversation on You Tube:

video titled -

Tina Brown on TRUTH, Trump and the future of journalism

uploader / channel:  The News Agents

--------------------------------------------------------

currently on Netflix:

Alfred Hitchcock films,

Rear Window

The Man Who Knew Too Much

on Amazon Prime:

The Seven-Year Itch   (Marilyn Monroe)

-30-

little sister, don't ya do what your big sister done...

 When I was working at the country music radio station, a singer named Dwight Yoakam emerged with non-pop-oriented COUNTRY music - his attitude was get back to the basics.

He had a song, "Little Sister" which was a cover of a song that Elvis Presley had done.

I played the Dwight Yoakam record, "Little Sister" on the radio many times, and one time I played it on a weekend day - I was alone in the radio station, and I said on the air that I liked that song and I thought Mr. Yoakam's version of it was even better than Elvis Presley's. 

        I wasn't trying to make anybody mad, I was just so happy to play the song, I was - enthusiastic. 

And the door of the radio station opened and this guy tromped in and was mad at me for saying anyone was "better" than Elvis Presley.

I was somewhat surprised.  I just talked to him, and listened to him, and calmed him down.

        It was - unexpected, and a little weird.

-30-

are you ready for the country?

 

After living in Boston, Massachusetts for five years listening to Album Oriented Rock radio station WBCN I got hired at a country music radio station in the Midwest, doing the Morning Show.

WBCN played rock-and-roll - the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, the Supremes, Aretha Franklin....

        At the country station where I worked, it was Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, the Oak Ridge Boys, the Statler Brothers, Janie Fricke, Reba McEntire, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers... I didn't know a lot of that music, but I did know some.

Before I left to go to college in Boston, in the small town where I went to high school I heard country songs such as "Luckenbach, Texas" by Waylon Jennings; "Good Hearted Woman" by Waylon Jennings (and, I think), Willie Nelson; "Lucille" by Kenny Rogers (she picked a fine time to leave him...); and "Are You Ready for the Country" by Waylon.

        And there was a country song I already knew when I started working at the country station - and I knew it from WBCN in Boston! - believe it or not.  It was "I'm Gonna Hire A Wino to Decorate Our Home" by David Frizzell. 

 

        The Boston morning disc jockey Charles Laquidara thought it was an hilarious, genius song and for about two weeks he played it every day around the same time, when I was getting ready to go to work.  Even though it didn't fit WBCN's rock music format, he showcased the song because it was good.

I loved it, too, and I was glad to find it in the "oldies" record collection at the station where I was working.

Like Charles Laquidara, I got to play that song for the people.

...We'll take out the dinin' room table,

Put a bar along that wall,

And a neon sign will point the way

To our bathroom down the hall...

        

-30-