Monthly Archive for February, 2008

Camarata And The Mike Sammes Singers: Songs From Doctor Dolittle

Published on February 26, 2008 in Treasure. 3 Comments Tags: , , .

I saw “Doctor Dolittle” starring Rex Harrison and Anthony Newley during its maiden 1967 release. I was seven then, far too young to know I was witnessing a train wreck. On the contrary: my three year old brother and I thrilled to the film and the temporary relief its magical world provided from our own mundane existence. Afterwards, my brother and I pouted while our babysitter stopped at a drugstore on the way home. It was there I spied this album, and — seizing upon the balm it promised to my aching, fading memory — I threw a tantrum until the sitter bought it for me. But when I got home, I discovered to my disappointment that I had been taken in by a time-honored bait and switch tactic. What we had purchased was not the original soundtrack recording that I had imagined, but an album of faceless easy listening versions. This was a common fraud perpetrated on unsophisticated consumers back in those days, and I had fallen for it.

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Presidential Tchotchkas

Published on February 19, 2008 in Obsessions. 3 Comments Tags: , .

Here’s an article I wrote last year for a proposed column over at LuxuriaMusic. The column never materialized, and they never used it, so I decided to offer it up here as part of this week’s national President’s Day hoopla. As for Lux, they are poised to unveil a long anticipated, Drupal based site redesign. Once in place, their new account management and RSS feed aggregating features will hopefully give them all the fancy new content their heart may desire!

Whenever I’m in the vicinity of Austin, Texas, I always try to make time to visit the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum. It’s terrific facility; it’s even got a presidential automaton. But instead of spouting pithy patriotic sentiment like Disneyland’s Lincoln robot, the LBJ automaton tells jokes. My favorite gag has the punch line, “I know doctor, but I like what I drinks a lot better than what I hears” (you can fill in the rest of the joke yourself).

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1975: And The Changes To Come

Published on February 12, 2008 in Trash. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

Nowadays, it’s pretty much over. We’re all slowly coming awake to the realization that we’ve squandered vast tracts of our future for an illusory past, our intellectual capital for a culture that’s lost its memory, our once-noble ambitions for a population hooked on cheap thrills, our emotional strength for a brittle autophobia. Boxed in by increasingly limited options and driven to near madness by denial and distraction, the population casts about uselessly, desperate to ignore the darkness at the periphery. Eruptions occur with increasing frequency, stressing the structure at all strata, applying constant pressure on the facade, laying more and more bare the true face of what’s in store for us. The smart ones are just trying to keep still while they wait for the other shoe to drop — best to not stir up the dust any more than necessary.

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Activity And Funny Songs

Published on February 5, 2008 in Treasure. 6 Comments Tags: .

I’ve gotten good use out of the “Activity and Funny Songs” album over the years. It was volume eleven of “My First Golden Record Library,” a twelve record set that I got shortly after it was released in 1962. I had the whole thing committed to memory before I was five years old. Later, as a pot-smoking punk rocker, I used to party with it at 45 RPM speed. Now in my later years, it serves as the perfect fodder for a blog post. Listening to it all these years later, it evokes as many memories of intoxicated adolescence as it does early childhood. As you can imagine, this makes for a potent combination.

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