that little bitty track meet...

"Could've been the three or four six-packs, I don't know,
but look at the mess I'm in" -- a phrase from the chorus of "Wasn't That A Party", is repeated several times during the song, and it clearly says "mess I'm in," but one version on You Tube sings that line as, "...look at the state I'm in" and you see a photo of this kid standing in front of a map on the wall, pointing at a state, circled in an ongoing magic-marker line....

Creative types building on the ideas and images of this song. 

One commenter typed,
For some reason the line, "someone took a grapefruit, wore it like a hat" cracks me the hell up.

It cracks me the hell up as well; like the internet commenter, I too find it challenging to specify the reason.

Like if the song said, "Someone put a grapefruit on their head" -- you would see an amusing mental image, but it would not be as funny.

It's the plodding, gently factual, earnest relating of the information, step by step, I think, that makes it better:

someone took a grapefruit, [serious, plain, could be called dull]

wore it like a hat 

[OH! change of pace -- ha ha, now we're happy....]

...someone under my kitchen table
[is kind of funny -- you can imagine]
talking to my ol' tom cat...
[makes it funnier]
...the cat was talking back!
[building up to Even Funnier]

...along about then everything went black,
[collapsing in giggles -- 'Yeah I'll bet!']

Build up - build up - swoo-oop down, and flow --
coulda been the whiskey
mighta been the gin --
a softly pleasurable roller-coaster -- a sweaving ride, but not scary....

(To sweave:  to simultaneously swoop, swing, and weave....)

The first time you ever hear this song, it's a process of --
What?
What?
Wait-a-minute....
because you cannot believe what they're saying....

In the 80s, I always heard the line,
"My head is like a football"
more as
"My heads-a like-a football" --
sung that way, has more of a jouncy, assertive rhythm....

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

"Wasn't That a Party" is, technically, a two-step, but it's too fast to really do the two-step to it -- must swing into the local version of the "jitterbug" or the more complex "shag"....

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

...sitting in
the back yard
blowing on a  si-ren
from somebody's
PO - lice car...(!?)

So you see, Your Honor....

-30-

someone took a grapefruit, wore it like a hat

(an ongoing, upbeat, staccato rhythm)

^ . ^ . ^ . Could've been the whiskey

^ . ^ . Might've been the gin

Could've been the three or four six-packs, I don't know,
but look at the mess I'm in

My head is like a football

I think I'm gonna die

Tell me, me oh, me oh my --
Wasn't that a party?!

Someone took a grapefruit

Wore it like a hat

I saw someone under my kitchen table
talkin' to my old tom cat
They were talking about hockey --
The cat was talking back!
'Long about then
everything went black.

Wasn't that a party....

     I'm sure it's just my memory
     Playin' tricks on me
     But I think I saw
     my buddy
     cuttin' down my
     neighbor's tree...(?!)

Could've been the whiskey
Might've been the gin
Could've been the three or four six-packs,
I don't know,
But look at the mess I'm in

My head is like a football --
I think I'm gonna die!
Tell me, me oh, me oh my --
Wasn't that a party

[Instrumental bridge]

     Billy, Joe, and Tommy --
     Well, they went a little far

     They were sittin' in
     my back yard
     blowing on a siren from
     somebody's PO - lice car!  -- 
So you see Your Honor --

It was all in fun.
That little bitty track meet
down on Main Street
was just to see if the cops could run

Well they run us in to see you
In an alcoholic haze
I sure can use those thirty days
to recover from the party.

Could've been the whiskey
Might've been the gin
Could've been the three or four six packs,
I don't know,
but look at the mess I'm in
My head is like a football
I think I'm gonna die.
Tell me, me oh, me oh my

Wasn't that a party

Could've been the whiskey
Might've been the gin
Could've been the three or four six packs
I don't know
but look at the mess I'm in,
My head's like a football
I think I'm gonna die --
Tell me, me oh, me oh my
Wasn't that a party...

Wasn't that a party

Wasn't that a party

Wasn't that a party

Wasn't that a party...

Oh! -- what party...

Mmmhh -- what a party

Hoo - hoo - hoo! what a party....

------------------------------
{"Wasn't That A Party," The Irish Rovers, 1980}

-30-

the lap of luxury

...with fine and rare precision....

------------------[excerpt]-------A brilliant notion struck Benjy as he listened to this impassioned speech.  Though he liked the idea of holding public office and of the dignity it conferred, he knew that his golf would be much curtailed by his canvassing, and, if he was elected, by his duties....[from The Worshipful Lucia, by E.F. Benson.]

[excerpt]------ So, tranquillity being restored, they sat together...and began plotting out the campaign for the coming municipal elections.

"Better just get quietly to work, love," said she, "and not say much about it at first, for Lucia's sadly capable of standing, too, if she knows you are."

"I'm afraid I told her last night," said Benjy.

"Oh! -- well, it can't be helped now.  Let's hope it'll put no jealous ambitions into her head.  Now, l'Economie is the right slogan for you.  Anything more reckless than the way the Corporation has been spending money I can't conceive.  Just as if Tilling was Eldorado.  Think of pulling down all those pretty little slums by the railway and building new houses!  Fearfully expensive, and spoiling the town:  taking all its quaintness away."

"And then there's that new road they're making that skirts the town," said Benjy, "to relieve the congestion in the High Street."

"Just so," chimed in Elizabeth.  "They'd relieve it much more effectually if they didn't allow Susan to park her car, positively across the street, wherever she pleases, and as long as she pleases. 

It's throwing money about like that
which sends up the rates by leaps and bounds;
why, they're nearly double what they were when I

inherited

Mallards from sweet Aunt Caroline.  And nothing to show for it, except a road that nobody wants and some ugly new houses instead of those picturesque old cottages.  They may be a little damp, perhaps, but, after all, there was a dreadful patch of damp in my bedroom last year, and I didn't ask the Town Council to rebuild Mallards

at the public expense.  And I'm told all those new houses have got a bathroom

in which the tenants will probably keep poultry.  Then, they say, there are the unemployed.  Rubbish, Benjy!  There's plenty of work for everybody; only those lazy fellows prefer the dole and idleness. 

We've got to pinch and squeeze so that the so-called poor may live in the lap of luxury. 

If I didn't get a good let for Mallards every summer, we shouldn't be able to live in it at all, and you may take that from me.  Economy!  That's the ticket!  Talk to them like that, and you'll head the poll."

A brilliant notion struck Benjy as he listened to this impassioned speech.  Though he liked the idea of holding public office and of the dignity it conferred, he knew that his golf would be much curtailed by his canvassing, and, if he was elected, by his duties.  Moreover, he could not talk in that vivid and vitriolic manner....

He jumped up.

"Upon my word, Liz, I wish you'd stand instead of me," he said.  "You've got the gift of the gab; you can put things clearly and forcibly; and you've got it all at your fingers' ends.  Besides, you're the owner of Mallards, and these rates and taxes press harder on you than on me.  What do you say to that?"

The idea had never occurred to her before; she wondered why.

=============================
{The Worshipful Lucia, by E.F. Benson.  Copyright, 1935 Doubleday.}

-30-

writhing under compliments

--------------------- [excerpt]--------------- His bicycle was ready for him; he mounted without the slightest difficulty, and the boy was soon left far behind.  Then with secret trepidation he observed not far ahead a man with a saucepan of tar simmering over a fire pot.  As he got close, he was aware of a silly feeling in his head that it was exercisng a sort of fascination over his machine, but by keeping his eye on the road he got safely by it, though with frightful wobbles, and dismounted for a short rest.

"Well, that's a disappointment," observed the operator.  "You ain't a patch on the lady who knocked down my fire pot twice yesterday."

Suddenly Georgie remembered the dab of tar on Lucia's shoe, and illumination flooded his brain.

"No!  Did she indeed?" he said with great interest.  "The same lady twice?  That was bad riding!"

"Oh, something shocking.  Not that I'd ever seek to hinder her, for she gave me half a crown per upset.  Ain't she coming today?"

As he rode home, Georgie again meditated on Lucia's secretiveness.  Why could she not tell him about her jugglings at the séance yesterday and about her antics with the fire pot? 

Even to him, she had to keep up this incessant flow of triumphant achievement both in occult matters and in riding a bicycle. 

Now that they were man and wife, she ought to be more open with him.  "But I'll tickle her up about the fire pot," he thought vindictively.

When he got home, he found Lucia just returned from a most satisfactory Council meeting.

"We got through our business most expeditiously," she said, "for Elizabeth was absent, and so there were fewer irrelevant interruptions.  I wonder what ailed her; nothing serious, I hope.  She was rather odd in the High Street this morning.  No smiles; she scarcely opened her mouth when I spoke to her.  And did you make good progress on your bicycle this afternoon?"

"Admirable," said he.  "Perfect steering.  There was a man with a fire pot tarring a telegraph post--"

"Ah, yes," interrupted Lucia.  "Tar keeps off insects that burrow into the wood.  Let us go and have tea."

"--and an odd feeling came over me," he continued firmly, "that just because I must avoid it, I should very likely run into it.  Have you ever felt that?  I suppose not."

"Yes, indeed I have in my earlier stages," said Lucia cordially.  "But I can give you an absolute cure for it.  Fix your eyes straight ahead, and you'll have no bother at all."

"So I found.  The man was a chatty sort of fellow.  He told me that some learner on a bicycle had knocked over the pot twice yesterday.  Can you imagine such awkwardness?  I am pleased to have got past that stage."

Lucia did not show by the wink of an eyelid that this arrow had pierced her, and Georgie, in spite of his exasperation, could not help admiring such nerve.

"Capital!" she said.  "I expect you've quite caught me up by your practice today.  Now after my Council meeting I think I must relax.  A little music, dear?"

A melodious half hour followed.  They were both familiar with Beethoven's famous Fifth Symphony as arranged for four hands on the piano, and played it with ravishing sensibility.

"Caro, how it takes one out of all petty carpings and schemings!" said Lucia at the end.  "How all our smallnesses are swallowed up in that broad cosmic splendor!  And how beautifully you played, dear.  Inspired!  I almost stopped in order to listen to you."

Georgie writhed under these compliments; he could hardly switch back to dark hints about séances and fire pots after them.  In strong rebellion against his kindlier feelings towards her, he made himself comfortable by the fire....--------------------- [end excerpt]
=========================
When I read these "Lucia" novels during the 1980s, I found them frothily entertaining, not even knowing why I liked them.  I told a friend about them, and gave her one, I think, and she too "got" the atmosphere & style....

Then in the 90s came the TV show "Friends" which I didn't like that much at first, but later learned to "get it" -- and then re-viewing the Lucia books now, comparisons with "Friends" often occur to me.
Not in superficial aspects --
"Friends" --
young people
in NYC
in the 1990s

"Lucia" --
middle-aged people
in small town in England
in the 19 -- not sure -- 20s maybe?

...but in substantive aspects -- the style of the story-telling and humor -- it's silly, but not dumb -- a tightrope to be "walked" with rare precision....

==========================
{Trouble For Lucia, by E.F. Benson.  Copyright 1939, Doubleday, Doran & Company.  Copyright renewed 1967 by Kenneth Stewart Patrick McDowall.  Copyright 1977 by Harper & Row.  First Perennial Library edition pub. 1984.}

-30-

a-b-c, easy as 1-2-3

...And one thing Jacqueline Onassis did to increase her clout at Doubleday was get Michael Jackson to write his autobiography, which came to be titled Moonwalk.

('I brought that in, now don't I get to do this project?...I felt sure you would support it.'  [Smile])

It said in Jackie as Editor that her grown children, Caroline and John Jr., brought Michael Jackson to her attention.  (Thought, she was unfamiliar with Michael Jackson??  In the eighties??!!  But then -- everyone has their own areas of focus, and there are only but so many hours in a day, and sometimes you don't know things that some other people know until one of them tells you, or you think to ask.

For example:  today, staring out at a band of colorful, small motorcycles, I asked, "Are those motorcycles?  Or are they some type of scooter, or something?"

"Crotch - rockets," came the deadpan answer.

[was almost sorry I asked, but -- it's good to learn something new.

...I think. ...])

==================
Things I heard about Michael Jackson's book fell into two categories --
1) from media, at the time, negative stuff -- like his childhood was abusive or something, and

2) from the NYC publishing world -- disparaging remarks about the book's substance -- like, what was the former First Lady doing, stooping to be involved with a project about someone who's popular...?  -- or -- whatever....

But I checked Moonwalk, and found this:
[excerpt]---------------- After that first Steeltown record, we began to aim for all the big talent shows in Chicago.  Usually the other acts would look me over carefully when they met me, because I was so little, particularly the ones who went on after us.  One day Jackie [Jackie Jackson, one of his brothers] was cracking up, like someone had told him the funniest joke in the world. 

This wasn't a good sign right before a show, and I could tell Dad was worried he was going to screw up onstage.  Dad went over to say a word to him, but Jackie whispered something in his ear and soon Dad was holding his sides, laughing.  I wanted to know the joke too.  Dad said proudly that Jackie had overheard the headlining act talking among themselves. 

One guy said, "We'd better not let those Jackson 5 cut us tonight with that midget they've got."

I was upset at first because my feelings were hurt.  I thought they were being mean.  I couldn't help it that I was the shortest, but soon all the other brothers were cracking up too.  Dad explained that they weren't laughing at me. 

He told me that I should be proud, the group was talking trash because they thought I was a grown-up posing as a child like one of the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz.  Dad said that if I had those slick guys talking like the neighborhood kids who gave us grief back in Gary [Indiana], then we had Chicago on the run.------------------------- [end excerpt]

{Moonwalk, by Michael Jackson.  Copyright, 1988. Doubleday.  New York, New York.}

-30-

we're going to psyche them out

In Greg Lawrence's book, Jackie as Editor, various folks the author interviewed discuss changes in the publishing business which took place in the late 1980s - early 90s.

Cost-cutting methods
and
profit-maximizing methods

at one publishing company which was bought by a German company are described ...
("More pr-r-r-ofits now!"...
[Vee haff vays of mekk-ing you talk!"])

The part that stayed in my mind & puzzled me somewhat was where it said that in the

earlier incarnation, the way of doing business as a publisher was -- you can make bigger money on some types of books, and then smaller amounts of money on books you publish that have a little more esoteric appeal, not so much mass popularity, but it's still important to publish those, too, for -- like --

A.  the good of mankind,
B.  status and prestige of the publishing company, and
C.  future opportunities if the author of that "little" book becomes better known.

The company's PROFIT would be the overall results (profit-and-loss results) (and -- cost / benefit analysis, right?) of all the various sectors, and the different books they published, put together, and then calculated and analyzed.

-----------But then after the co. was sold to the conglomerate, one of the things that changed was that Profitability Analysis was then applied in the same way to

every book that was proposed. 

Making it more and more difficult to ever bring out a book that was about something that wasn't already hugely popular.  (So much for pioneering new ideas....)

[How much Money can each book possibly gr-rind in here...?]  And not looking at other aspects....

Instead of each book and sector making its own contributions which add up to a whole, it would be like each product (book) is supposed to yield similar profit-results as every other one.
(Why?)
(Because they say so.)

It sounds weird, to me, because if, with every business, they tried to run it that way, nothing would ever survive -- Oh, we didn't make a profit on Monday, so we won't work any more Mondays, only Tuesdays through Fridays.
Reason why?
Well, Mondays aren't profitable.
(See?  See those numbers?)

It's short-term thinking, being held up, not as something to avoid, but rather something to emulate.

It kind of sounds like Enron and then some of those other companies -- I asked somebody who understands accounting, once, What did they do?  And he said, they arranged the numbers so that the near-term quarter would look good.

Instead of actually doing the real work, making an actual profit, for the year, and then writing that down, for-real, on a real piece of paper.  Numbers which would not need to be arranged, but could just be written down, regular, reflecting actual profit.  Or loss, as the case may be.  (Like -- "Last year the losses were $----.  This year the losses, as you can see, were only $---.  The year after next we will begin to make a profit, and build from there.  The numbers support this projection, as you can see"....etc. etc.)

But instead of doing that, some "executives" found that it was more profitable for themselves (not the companies) to make it "look good" for the quarter, and then bail, or -- "skip town" ...

Since Enron the news has been full of such schemes and scams, from global to local, & in between.  (Is it Monkey see, Monkey do?)  And if one gets away with it, another one can, too.  Who has been allowing this?

-------------------------------
The kind of books that Jackie Onassis liked to publish were, many times, the ones that some cynic would say, "That's going to sell about three copies," right after she got finished saying, "These are subjects that people should care about."

So when the "business" m.o. changed after the co. she worked for sold, she might have felt very discouraged -- however, what she did was develop strategies.  According to several different JBKO biographers, she would make plans ahead of time for selling her proposed acquisitions in meetings with the bean-counters:  she would prepare, with a colleague, telling the person, "We're going to psyche them out."

------------ I really like that, somehow.

To make good stuff happen -- two quotes to remember --

Kurt Vonnegut - "The triumph over anything is a matter of organization."

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis - "We're going to psyche them out."

-30-

what happened no one's fun anymore

Outside, the snow was coming down.

------------------------
This morning pushing curtain aside, to look and see what kind of a day it was so far, saw snow accumulated white on the ground -- and then a short time later, passed windows and said, Oh no, not more...!  Additional flakes were swirling down in a meandering multitude. 

And I thought about how, when it snows it seems like it gets quiet outside.  As if the snow brings Quiet with it.  Does snow actually muffle the everyday noises?  I think it does. 

It made me think of an SATC ("Sex And The City") episode from Season 6 where it snows in NYC during a party Carrie Bradshaw attends in the elegant Upper East Side apartment of a character on the show played by Candace Bergen.

You see an Exterior shot of New York buildings, and it's snowing, quietly, in the darkness.
Then, Interior shot:  Carrie opens the door to the bathroom.
The voice-over (her voice) says,

"Outside, the snow was coming down.

...And inside, it was going up."

In the bathroom another female party guest has this straw and is sniffing cocaine off of the counter-top.

(?)  Good grief.

"Close the door, close the door!  Want some?"
"Oh, no, thanks."

--------------------  In that same episode this actor I had seen before only a few times in my life, in various roles, popped up again -- Wallace Shawn.  What a card!  There's something about him -- you watch him act once, and you don't forget him.  He has an engaging "vibe" about him. 

First role I remember Wally Shawn in was Woody Allen's film, Manhattan.  Shawn was the former husband of Diane Keaton's character....he's only on for a few moments, and yet you don't forget him!

He showed up on "Taxi" in an episode about arranged dates -- he's one of two men having dinner in a movie called "My Dinner With André" (public TV in about 1983, I think), and Shawn also appeared in several episodes of "The Cosby Show" in the 80s -- he was Bill Cosby's neighbor who would borrow his tools and forget to return them -- or maybe Bill Cosby (Heathcliff Huxtable) borrowed his tools, can't remember which....

On the SATC episode, Candace Bergen had asked Carrie to bring along a date, for her -- (Carrie's boyfriend of the moment is a sort of jet-setting sophisticated artist, and Enid [Candace Bergen] may have assumed that all of this guy's friends would be the "dashing" type....)
As Enid greets Carrie and her man at the door, the date they've brought for her emerges from the background:  it's Wally Shawn!

Enid -- takes him in, visually -- and greets him with inflexible politeness, and when he goes to deposit his coat, Carrie says apologetically, imploringly, in a voice that's almost a whisper,
"He's very sweet!
And -- "
(pointing at her own head)
"-- smart !"

The way people generally do.

Candace Bergen growls irritatedly,
"He's - a - hobbit!!"

Wally Shawn starts to make points with the Candace character a little later, however, when the cocaine-partaking guest, in her tight, spaghetti-strapped dress, lights up a cigarette and Candace says, "There's no smoking in here, please go outside."

Cocaine and Nicotine Woman:  "We're twenty stories up, there's no outside."  And then proclaims to the room in general,
"What happened to New York?  This used to be the most exciting city in the world, now it's nothing but smoking near a f---ing open window.  No one's fun anymore!"

Wally (Hobbit) Shawn moves to take the situation in hand, goes over to the Party Girl -- gently, "Now, our hostess has already said, there's no smoking"...He tries to make the situation better, not worse.  And he doesn't just sit and stare, waiting for a train-wreck.  I admire people like that. 

(His "stock" went up with Candace Bergen, too, I think....)

-30-