Author: DOuG pRATt

Let’s Play Muzak DJ!

The cable TV service Music Choice has a channel with the genre that, as a kid, made my skin crawl, but now I’m coming to appreciate. Easy listening! It’s called Elevator Music, but for me the reason it made my skin crawl is that I always heard it at the dentist office, while having my teeth drilled!

The video has 12 minutes of the Music Choice Easy Listening channel, started at a totally random point. I’ll use that as the springboard for the rest of the post.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/JUL07/EZListening.flv 400 300]

Well, let’s see what’s in there. A bit of “Something,” followed by Zamfir doing the love theme to Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Western, “Once Upon A Time In The West.” Then Acker Bilk did “Jean” — nice coincidence for my sister there — and blind pianist George Shearing had Petula Clark’s “Call Me,” which is a nice coincidence for me! Lastly is a portion of the old standard “Dream.”

Acker Bilk is best remembered for “Stranger On The Shore,” so let’s hear that.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JUL07/AckerBilk.mp3]

And “Jean,” from the movie The Prime of Miss Jean Brody, was originally a single for Oliver. I have that, too.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JUL07/Jean.mp3]

I’ve been woefully lax in posting all of the Petula Clark material that I have. I’ll get back to that at some point, with a vengeance. For the moment, I’ll give you the studio recording of “Call Me”…

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JUL07/CallMe.mp3]

… and here’s Pet’s 1970 appearance on Dean Martin’s show, after she stopped being so stiff and stagy, and was truer to herself — smooth and sexy. But yikes, those corny guest cameos are too much to take! Who wrote this stuff? I can see why variety shows didn’t survive the next generational shift. But having Dom Deluise, Paul Lynde, and Alan Sues, and Charles Nelson Reilly all appearing in the same bit …? The times were certainly changing!

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/JUL07/CallMe.flv 400 300]

Sorry about the video quality. It isn’t one of my own transfers. I had to fix the aspect ratio, and that resulted in the jagginess of the image.

Finally, here’s “Dream” from Frankie’s album Nice ‘n’ Easy.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JUL07/Dreams.mp3]

Colbert On Demand

I’ve made mention that the one weak spot in Verizon’s otherwise fabulous FiOS TV service is the free video-on-demand selection. But heck, they’re new and have only 500,000 customers so far. Some bright spots in the free line-up are clips from Comedy Central.

The first few moments of the video has the intro. The reference Colbert makes to a previous appearance by his guest goes back to last October, during my first attempts at embedding video.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/JUL07/ColbertFonda.flv 400 300]

Old Yorker, J. B. Handelsman

New Yorker cartoonist J.B. Handelsman has died at 85. Like a lot of artists and cartoonists whose eyesight holds up, he worked pretty much up to the end. He wasn’t a favorite of mine, but anybody with staying power at The New Yorker must be respected.

Here’s a mini-gallery of Handelsman cartoons from 1965-1970. Click to enlarge. I picked those years because Handelsman seemed conservative, and that was a time of great upheaval. I consider these to be the best of the bunch, and I’ll be honest and say that compared to other New Yorker cartoons, I don’t think they hold up very well. Handelsman’s humor could be dry to the point of being banal, even when insightful.

J.B. Handelsman in The New YorkerJ.B. Handelsman in The New YorkerJ.B. Handelsman in The New Yorker

J.B. Handelsman in The New YorkerJ.B. Handelsman in The New YorkerJ.B. Handelsman in The New Yorker

J.B. Handelsman in The New YorkerJ.B. Handelsman in The New YorkerJ.B. Handelsman in The New Yorker
© The New Yorker

A Generation Fades Away

This is e-mail I received from Mr. D. F. Rogers. It is posted here by permission.

First Iwo Jima Flag Raising

The last of the Iwo Jima flag raisers has died. He was in the 1st group, of course, not the 2nd more famous group. He lived long enough to have his story told and to receive some credit for his participation. But that’s it, every day another wave washes away another group of WW II vets. [Link]

Charles W. Lindbergh (no relation to the Nazi sympathizer) is the guy standing behind the Marine in the foreground with the carbine. The guy in the cap, holding up the flag, is Hank Hansen, from Massachusetts. He was originally thought to have been in the famous Rosenthal pic and his mother was included in the activities back home during the bond tours, as shown in Flags Of Our Fathers. [Link]

They are also looking for the remains of the Marine who filmed the famous flag raising, standing right next to Joe Rosenthal. He was killed several days later and his remains were left in a cave that was sealed up by explosives. [Link]

There’s a signed lithograph available. [Link] The most poignant thing about this page is the photo of the men at the new WW II monument in Washington DC.

Vets at WWII Memorial

Over 60 years later, and the long shadows of WW II still remain, even as the people who lived and fought in that era fade away.