Odds & Ends: News/Humor (with a "Who Lost the Week?" poll)

CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.

ART NOTES — an exhibition entitled Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas will be at the Seattle, Washington Art Museum though May 13th.

Three artists featured until mid-May

DEBAUCHERY CENTRAL — thirteen years ago, an elderly English couple sat down to watch a Doris Day video (purchased from a supermarket bargain bin). Except something went wrong … it was an all-female Italian sex film. The news report told of the supermarket’s dismay, yanking all of the copies, etc. But the BBC report did not run the money quote at the end (which it should have):

"My wife and I were very shocked but we watched it until the end because we couldn't believe what we were seeing”. 

SIGN of the APOCALYPSE — for the fourteen months after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he had been appointed by George W. to be the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority … to run Iraq not like a country, but like a business .

Fifteen years later, Paul Bremer just completed a season as … a ski instructor at Okemo Mountain Resort in Vermont.

THURSDAY's CHILD is named Matisse the Cat— a kitteh who wanders from home to visit stressed-out students at the University of Pittsburgh, looking for a comfortable leg to rub up against.

 Matisse — the Campus Cat

A SOUTH AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY is that of Uruguay— which by diversifying its copper-oriented economy, increased its spending on science and technology and becoming the first Latin American country to make all its beef exports electronically traceable (a way of reassuring buyers that problems like foot-and-mouth disease are caught early) — has resulted in fifteen straight years of growth.

HAIL and FAREWELL to the avant-garde jazz pianist Cecil Taylor— the winner of a MacArthur fellowship in 1991 who said decades ago, “I am not afraid of European influences. The point is to use them, as Ellington did, as part of my life as an American Negro” — who has died at the age of 89.

FRIDAY's CHILD is named Moon the Cat— a Minnesota kitteh with a cleft lip (and a blue left eye and a green right eye) … adopted by this boy from Oklahoma who has … a cleft lip, a blue left eye and a green right eye.

Moon the Cat & new friend

BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.

THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at the Museum of Sex in New York — re-visiting (after a twelve-year lapse) on a fact-finding mission to a venue (just south of the Empire State Building) that is not a must-see, but is worth a stop if you are in Manhattan and does its job of presenting historical and present-day information in a definitely non-sordid way.

Reader suggested GRANDSON-GRANDFATHER? — from Elwood Dowd — Interior secretary Ryan Zinke and and Percy Dovetonsils (as portrayed by the old TV star Ernie Kovacs).

Sec. Ryan Zinke (born 1961)

  Ernie Kovacs (1919-1962)

.....and finally, for a song of the week ............... years ago a friend asked ME who wrote the song When You Wish Upon a Star? - assuming it was a staff writer for the Disney company. Without the search tools we have today, it took awhile to learn that the music was composed by Leigh Harline, who was indeed a staff writer for the film company ... as was the lyricist Ned Washington - albeit for only a short while.

But over time, when I kept seeing Ned Washington's name come up as the lyricist for many songs you could hear in nightclubs and piano bars — and to this day, even —  well, it's worth a look at one of Tin Pan Alley's most prolific writers ... whose name seems unjustly lost to history, more than forty years after his death. He is someone whose work appeared on stage, films  ... and even television later in his career: in other words, the Triple Crown.

Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1901, he was the only one of six children not to receive music lessons - perhaps, as has been speculated, because he didn't need them? He began his entertainment career as an MC on the vaudeville circuit, which led to him becoming an agent for certain entertainers, which led to his writing material for their acts ... and especially song lyrics. One of the songs he helped write was chosen for a 1928 Broadway revue, Singing in the Bathtub (although, heaven help me: I can only think of Bugs Bunny warbling this song). He was hired by Warner Brothers and wrote for a number of Broadway shows over the next five years.

But it was when he received a contract in 1934 (at the age of thirty-three) from MGM to come to Hollywood that his career took off. Later he wrote for Disney (as previously noted) and also for Paramount Pictures. What made him particularly attractive to the studios was his ability to write lyrics for any number of composers - and these included Victor Young, Hoagy Carmichael, Jimmy McHugh, Max Steiner, Dimitri Tiomkin and Bronislau Kaper.

Beyond his songs, the films he worked on is quite impressive: for Disney, it was the film "Dumbo" as well as "Pinocchio" - for which "When You Wish Upon a Star" won him the first of his two shared Academy Awards. For the other studios: the list includes "For Whom the Bell Tolls", "The Unforgiven", "No, No Nanette", "Little Johnny Jones", "The Greatest Show on Earth", "Gulliver's Travels" and High Noon - the title track of which was his other Academy Award winner (and a hit later for Frankie Laine).

Some other film (and TV) songs you may recognize: A Town Without Pity (which was later a hit for Gene Pitney), "Gunfight at the OK Corral" and the theme to Rawhide - which became another hit for Frankie Laine - all of which were written with Dimitri Tiomkin as his composer.

But many more of his lyrics appeared in films that - even if the film was forgettable - the songs that survived became an integral part of the Great American Songbook, which you can hear today. A partial list (along with the composer of the music) must include My Foolish Heart as well as Stella by Starlight and I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You (w/Victor Young), The Nearness of You (w/Hoagy Carmichael) and I'm Getting Sentimental Over You (w/George Bassman).

Ned Washington wrote well into the 1960's and died just before Christmas, 1976 at the age of 75. Besides his two Academy Awards (and he was nominated for nine others) When You Wish Upon a Star also received a Grammy Hall of Fame award and is a sort of Disney theme song.

Tellingly, his work has been used in contemporary films such as "Fred Claus", "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", "The Black Book" and "Shrek". And best of all, four years before his death: Ned Washington was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame for his life's work.

 Ned Washington (1901-76)

Of all of his songs, I particularly like the title track to the 1947 film On Green Dolphin Street with music composed by Bronislau Kaper. And while it has been recorded by many performers (especially since Miles Davis made it famous), when it was sung by the late Carmen McRae it was special ... and below you can hear it.

Lover, one lovely day, Love came, planning to stay Green Dolphin Street supplied the setting The setting for nights beyond forgetting

And through these moments apart Memories live in my heart When I recall the love I found on I could kiss the ground on Green Dolphin Street

x xYouTube Video