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

I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".

OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.

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

ART NOTES — the first in-depth study of hospitality settings in an exhibition entitled Edward Hopper and the American Hotel will be at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond to February 23rd.

NOTING THE PASSING of some Watergate figures who — unlike today — were not permanent sycophants. Sunday saw the death of Egil "Bud" Krogh, who went to jail for  authorizing the White House “Plumber’s Squad” to raid the offices of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. (He also helped facilitate the visit to the White House by Elvis Presley, bringing him in to see Nixon). He resolved to repent for his crime, became friends with Daniel Ellsberg (even doing speaking tours together), lectured on ethics and was re-admitted to the bar. He died at the age of eighty.

Rep. Tom Railsback (R-IL) was one of only a handful of Republican moderates who in 1974 worked to craft potential articles of impeachment against President Nixon, despite the fact that Nixon had campaigned for him in his Quad Cities district. He died just two days shy of his eighty-eighth birthday.  

THURSDAY's CHILD is named Bazooka the Cat— a North Carolina kitteh whose owner had died of dementia and overfed the cat to the point of his weighing 35 lbs. He was adopted by a marathon runner … who had lost 125 lbs herself and could relate.

SPORTING NOTES — while baseball has never been as popular in Mexico as it is in Cuba, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, the president of Mexico (nicknamed AMLO) is going all-in to try and change that: with governmental promotion, the country hosting MLB games this coming April, its baseball team having qualified for the Tokyo Olympics and he was the first Mexican president to throw the opening pitch at a game in seventy-two years.

Well, tweeps, I’m a broken man! My sweet wife of 29 years @tkaminar1 has just informed me that she wants to divorce me and marry @RepAdamSchiff. At least she’s getting an amazing man!

— John Kaminar (@jidk1187) January 25, 2020

HAIL and FAREWELL to the first high school coach to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, Morgan Wootten— with a 1,274-192 (86.9%) winning record, celebrated as am imaginative high school history teacher as well as for his athletic post, praised by college basketball coaches as the best in the business and whose St. John DeMatha team (fifty-five years ago on January 30, 1965) was the only team to defeat Power Memorial when it was led by Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) by a score of 46-43 — who has died at the age of eighty-eight.

FRIDAY's CHILD is an English kitteh believed to have died on a roof… then located cold yet alive, and reunited with its family.

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

YOUNGER-OLDER SISTERS? — TV star Lili Reinhart (the CW’s Riverdale) and Canadian film star Sarah Gadon (A Dangerous Method). 

...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… a look at four songs that have meaning beyond the music. Two are songs that caused families to ponder … and the other two are songs that men and women (alternately) could point to their mates and say “This speaks for me”. Feel free to add your own ideas.

One of the more unconventional Beatles’ songs from Sgt. Pepper was one in which none of them played any instruments (only an orchestra). She’s Leaving Home is a tune that caused many parents to have a re-think.

Yet the story came from Paul McCartney reading the Daily Mail about a 17 year-old Melanie Coe who abandoned her family, with her father quoted as saying, “I cannot imagine why she should run away; she has everything here”. Interestingly, a 13 year-old Melanie Coe had met the Beatles in 1963 (when they were on their way up) when she won a lip-synching contest at the “Ready, Steady, Go” music show.

Even more interestingly: she did not recognize herself in the song until years later when her mother saw a McCartney interview, mentioning her by name. Two years ago, Rolling Stone interviewed her for the 50th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper.

For this song, Paul supplied the music and lyrics for the main verses, while John added the chorus: quoting his Aunt Mimi with lines such as “We never thought of ourselves”.

As a native of Long Island, New York: Harry Chapin was a sort of hero to me, and I took his death in a 1981 car crash hard. The former Washington Post sportswriter (now veteran ESPN host) Tony Kornheiser was a friend of his, saying at that time:

Harry Chapin could have been a millionaire.

Harry Chapin maybe should  have been a millionaire.

But every year at least half of his concerts were free, either for charity or as a benefit.

While my favorite song of his is “Taxi”, the song most people know him for is based upon a poem that his wife Sandy had written, about parents who are too busy to have much time for their children. And when Harry was away touring when his son Josh was born, he converted Cat’s in the Cradle into a song.

Reaching #1 in the charts and besides those who listened to the song on the radio, it became a parable for many a church sermon: when preachers could use popular culture to express ideas. It was used in Northern Ireland during “The Troubles” — when political activists were taken to task — and was also a hit for Joe Kid Ugly.

I also recall a VH-1 program last decade looking at socially conscious songs, with stand-up comics examining songs and making jokes and one-liners about them. The one song that they showed non-humorous clips over was this — with one female comic saying, “Boy, this song had a lot of people talking” and a young man saying, “Harry has been gone for many years … and I miss him”.

For a song that many women feel speaks to them, its lyrics were written by John Bettis — a member of the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame— who also wrote lyrics to the Carpenter’s “Top of the World” as well as Whitney Houston’s “One Moment in Time”.

In fact, Bettis and his co-composer Michael Clark had no thought of having the song recorded by an R&B group. Yet producer Richard Perry heard a demo and — sensing it would be a big hit (one that women could point to their dates as what they wanted in a lover) he arranged for the Pointer Sisters to record Slow Hand— which reached #2 on the charts. Conway Twitty later had a country hit with it.

When I was in high school, the radio played a seemingly non-stop variety of Jim Croce songs after he died in a September, 1973 plane crash. The next year, my favorite song of his was released posthumously — and it provided a vehicle for many men to say what they felt inside, yet were unable to express.

His widow Ingrid describes a heated discussion she and Jim had over their finances and — noting that Jim “hated confrontation” — stormed out of their bedroom. The next morning, he awoke her gently by singing the song he had just written — and I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song would reach #9 on the charts, and would later be a hit for Clint Black.

What other songs have expressed your own thoughts, that enable you to point at them and say “This”? Feel free to add comments.