When I happen to hear a less frequently played record from the 60’s, I check to see where it peaked on the Billboard Hit chart. This one is from ’66, the ultimate year for Pop music. The opening bass notes seem to have been borrowed from “Blue Bayou”.
Surely this perfectly romantic, swoony delight must have been a #1 hit. Boys liked it, girls loved it, and their moms undoubtedly did too. And yet “Mr. Dieingly Sad” only reached #17! Why? The answer is that it faced some very tough competition.
I’m not as liberal as could be assumed from a lot of what I write here. For example, I think the deadly embrace between Corporate America and Organized Labor contributed to the inflation/unemployment spiral of the 1970’s. It also gave us some of the worst cars ever made.
A liberal theme I have expressed often is my distrust of Wall Street. The Federal Reserve and Treasury have served the needs of investment banks very well, but the big firms aren’t satisfied with borrowing money for free. They want unregulated markets, and the only rules of the game they will follow are the ones they write for themselves.
We are still living with the repercussions of the market collapse in 2008, and there is nothing to prevent it from happening again. In fact, it almost did happen again, as explained in a new documentary, Gaming Wall Street.
The documentary reminded me of a book I read that further explains how the system is rigged, and that markets are free only in the “anything goes” sense. Flash Boys, by Michael Lewis.
I recently said I’ve been driving an average of 4,000 miles/year. Considering the car was purchased five years ago this month, looking at the odometer today I’d say it’s been exactly 4,000.
I’ve been watching movies featuring Hollywood tough guy Lawrence Tierney.
Lawrence Tierney (1919-2002)
Tierney reminds me of a guy I knew in college, named Tom, who was a year ahead of me during my freshman year. Tom and his roommate were in the dorm room directly above myself and my two roommates.
We were a nerdy trio, while Tom was a tough guy majoring in Criminal Justice. He was also a major pain in the butt, taking delight in giving us a hard time. When I’d finally had enough of him harassing us, my roommates literally had to hold me back from taking him on. Tom seemed content that I would dare to challenge him, and from then on we were okay.
Tom is introduced a few moments into this video, and you will hear how he put his Criminal Justice degree to good use.
https://youtu.be/cpnU1tKpTKU?t=4336
One of the last screen appearances of Lawrence Tierney was in Quentin Tarantino’s first movie, Reservoir Dogs.
In an elementary school class we discussed this song.
The teacher encouraged questions about its possible meaning. Was it about growing up and leaving childhood behind? Much later, kids speculated that Puff was a reference to being high on marijuana.
The question I didn’t ask, for fear of sounding stupid was, what is ceiling wax? The question soon came to mind again, with this record.
This confused me for a long time, until eventually I saw something on TV that made me realize it was sealing, not ceiling, wax.
My Economics advisor at the small college I attended liked teaching there because he could express his views on Political Economy without getting in trouble. Avoiding trouble is also the reason I prefer having my old weblog to posting on fan forums.
Some of the controversies regarding classic comic books concern the various combinations of pencil artists and inkers. Here is an excellent comparison of original pencil art to finished inks.
Unused art for Daredevil #24, Pencils by Gene Colan, Inks by Frank Giacoia
Frank Giacoia was a top-notch professional. His direct and distinctive inking style was unmistakable, while adhering to the original pencils. Stan Lee often credited Joe Sinnott as “Embellisher,” rather than as an inker. On the left is a face drawn by Jack Kirby that Frank inked, and on the right is the same character as inked by Joe.
(L) From FF #97, pg. 10, panel 1 / (R) From FF #46, pg. 18, panel 4
A few years separate these two examples. In that time Jack had adjusted his drawing to accommodate the switch to smaller original art — from 12″x16″ to 10″x15″ — but I think it’s still a valid comparison.
Joe said he sometimes felt he put too much of his own style on Jack’s faces. But Stan brought Joe back to Marvel to ink “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” for a reason. As I liked to tell Joe, his “friendly faces” were the very thing that got me started reading the Fantastic Four. Here’s a picture I took looking over Joe’s shoulder as he drew Superman for a fan five years ago. As you can see, Joe inked exactly the same way that he drew.
Stan said he liked to see how artists handled mundane, everyday scenes. Here’s a panel from a Captain America story, half of it taken up with Stan’s dialogue, that shows how perfectly Joe enhanced Jack’s art, adding expressive subtlety to the faces.
TOS #95, “A Time to Die — A Time to Live!” pg. 4, panel 2
