FAREWELL TO STOMPIN' TOM CONNORS

One of the legends of Canadian folk music, Tom Connors (February 9, 1936 – March 6, 2013) released over 20 albums of original material, and wrote over 250 songs. I know: "name one of them." Well, if you ask such a question, you're obviously not Canadian.

Otherwise, you'd instantly say "The Hockey Song," or "The Consumer" (the theme song for the CBC series "Marketplace). He had #1 hits with "The Ketchup Song," "Big Joe Mufferaw" and "Moon Man Newfie." He was also known for "Sudbury Saturday Night" and for his breakthrough tune, the Top 30 "Bud the Spud" in 1969. His last significant hit single was "Canada Day Up Canada Way" in 1989, his first one to crack the Top 30 since 1973.

He was a prolific bastard, this son of unwed teen Isabel Connors and her boyfriend Tom Sullivan. Isabel couldn't take care of the boy, and his adoptive parents didn't do much better, so the wild roaming lad took off at age 15 to become a traveling troubadour. He learned Canada's folk songs and performed them with rousing enthusiasm. His nickname came from the old folkie habit of keeping time with a powerful foot…which led him to say "It's just a stage I'm going through!" He eventually brought a "stompin' board" with him to protect the venue's flooring.

Connors was not well known outside Canada, and liked it that way. First off, his material was steeped in the country's jargon, and secondly, his brand of very ethnic folk was not too commercial beyond his country's borders. This will be obvious when you download "Bud the Spud," which is not only aggressively "folkie" in melody and performance, but requires an interpreter who can explain the slang. Slightly more accessible is the traditional "Farewell to Nova Scotia." Elsewhere on the blog you'll find an entire essay about that song.

One of the only times Tom appeared on American TV was in 2004, only because Conan O'Brien had brought his show to Canada for a week and was eager to book crowd-pleasers his live audience would enjoy. He was lucky Connors didn't find any reason to object, because the feisty folky often warred with any figures of authority. He feuded with the CBC, who ultimately turned down a TV special the beloved singer-songwriter had financed. He also had a running feud with the Juno Awards (Canada's version of the Grammy) and returned the six statues he won: "You can give them to the border jumpers…maybe you can have them presented by Charley Pride. I feel that the Junos should be for people who are living in Canada…." Connors deliberately went on a nearly decade-long hiatus from recording. He also snubbed the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame when they attempted to honor him. He liked to control his work and release it his way…a reason why he ultimately recorded for the label he helped create, Boot (what you Stomp with, get it…) Among his albums through the years:

"The Northlands' Own Tom Connors" (1967), "Stompin' Tom Meets Big Joe Mufferaw" (1970), "Stompin' Tom and the Hockey Song" (1972), "Stompin' Tom Meets Muk Tuk Annie" (1974), "The Unpopular Tom Connors" (1976), "Stompin' Tom is Back to Assist Canadian Talent" (1986), "More of the Stompin' Tom Phenomenon" "(1991), "Dr. Stompin' Tom Eh?" (1993), "Stompin' Tom and the Hockey Mom" (2004), and "The Ballad of Stompin' Tom" (2008).

Connors' health was fading toward the end, a fact he noted on his website: "I want all my fans, past, present, or future, to know that without you, there would have not been any Stompin' Tom," he wrote in his farewell. "It was a long hard bumpy road, but this great country kept me inspired with its beauty, character, and spirit, driving me to keep marching on and devoted to sing about its people and places that make Canada the greatest country in the world….I must now pass the torch, to all of you, to help keep the Maple Leaf flying high, and be the Patriot Canada needs now and in the future.''

Stompin' Tom Farewell to Nova Scotia

Recorded live BUD the SPUD

VAN CLIBURN and THE CHORDS of FAME

Harvey Levan Cliburn…Van Cliburn to you…died last week (July 12, 1934-February 27, 2013). He achieved honors mostly given to sports heroes and rock stars…a ticker tape parade and a platinum album. He played the chords of fame —mostly Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto #1, and similar war-horses from Grieg and Rachmaninoff — and suffering from backlash and burnout, retreated into obscurity to pursue happiness and let the old-timers (Horowitz & Rubinestein) and newcomers (Brendel & Pollini) have the spotlight.

Any denizen of the dollar bin has seen Van Cliburn's first album for RCA. It was a million seller. a first for classical piano. Americans who never owned a classical album rushed to get it because the newspapers were full of Van Cliburn's story…how the 23 year-old kid invaded Russia and brought back a prize. It was as if he spat on their Sputnik, as the powerful Red Machine had taken the lead in the Space Race, batting a satellite into orbit. Van Cliburn brought them Ruskies back to Earth and gave America something to cheer about.

The thunderous ovations for the Texan (born in Louisiana) made it impossible for the Russians to rig the voting. The famous anecdote has the judges going to Nikita "We will BURY YOU" Kruschchev muttering that it would be impossible to deny Van Cliburn. "Is he the best?" Kruschchev allegedly asked. "Then give him the prize." Van Cliburn returned home to a ticker tape parade in New York City and a contract from RCA.

With his wavy hair and pleasant looks, the young man eased past Liberace as the dreamboat of ladies sans gadar, and his comfy set list of familiar concertos made him popular among anyone interested in experimenting with classical music. He turned out to be, along with Glenn Gould, one of the last superstar pianists, the kind of artist you'd ask for over the name of the composer. "Mr. Record Store Man, I'd like VAN CLIBURN's version of Debussy…")

Critics were quick to resent Van Cliburn's super stardom, especially since he played safe with showy romantic pieces. The high pressure of classical music, where most any mistake is magnified and any interpretation fuel for debate and complaint, is not for everyone. Victor Borge's nerves led him to jokes…and a new career in comedy over a promising but demanding start as a straight pianist. For Van Cliburn, some performances were erratic, while others were unjustly criticized. While the general public roared approval, and his tours and his albums made money, he was relieved when he could tell his mother (also his manager) that enough was enough. In 1978, only 43, he disappeared. He filled 15 rooms in Manhattan with antiques and enjoyed the night life of the city.

His sexuality was hardly an issue during the height of his fame. Celebrities were not being "outed" at that time, either because of pay-offs or an old-fashioned sense of propriety. Unless a star was being outrageous, the tabloids weren't likely to bother. The outre Liberace flounced about in effeminate sequined outfits but the tabloids even left him alone after he won a lawsuit against a magazine that couldn't back up their innuendo.It had to be tough for him, a pious Baptist, non-smoker and teetotlaler, to hold onto his secret, and to not speak out at a time when homosexuality was routinely described as an abomination in the eyes of The Lord. Ultimately, the public heard all about it in 1996, when sour ex-lover Thomas Zaremba, on the losing end of what had been a 17 year relationship, chose to file a Rock Hudson-type palimony suit. Zaremba lost, and with so many gays coming out of the closet, or being outed by radical gay activists, the news was a big yawn. Van Cliburn continued on, occasionally scheduling a few concerts just to keep up a certain level of fame. As for recording, no, the stores kept re-issuing his material from the late 50's and early 60's. Record labels simply didn't see any viability for him in an age when only die-hard connoisseurs were buying classical music and/or studying the differences between an artist's earlier and later interpretations of the same concerto. Van Cliburn sold mostly to those on a budget, and to less-than-serious listeners who simply wanted one album of "greatest hits," and could get it with"My Favorite Brahms," "My Favorite Debussy," "My Favorite Lizst," and "My Favorite Chopin."

A 1993 biography of him by Howard Reich had reminded readers, " “It’s important to remember that…were it not for the sweep and innate lyricism of his playing, as well as its technical brilliance, he wouldn’t have conquered the very demanding Russian public, and the rest wouldn’t have happened.”

Reminding people of what Van Cliburn once was, was easier than explaining his current limbo as basically a celebrity pianist. In 1997 he toured with the Moscow Philharmonic, but the stress was too much. He felt dizzy, and revised his program to scuttled his famous interpretation of Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto in favor of some easy solo pieces. Some critics were happy to have him back, but others were disappointed and complained about erratic performances and the tedium of hearing old classics. As the old pianists died off and the newer ones failed to become superstars, Van Cliburn found himself the recipient of such prizes as the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003, and the following year, the Order of Friendship of the Russian Federation. He remained a popular celebrity at galas and parties, and presided over his own charities that recognized emerging young classical artists. Last year, the music world learned of his struggle with bone cancer, and while still standing ramrod tall at public appearances, he looked thin and frail, despite retaining that full head of (now white) hair.

I have about 500 classical CDs in my collection, and at this point, still cling to about 100 classical albums on vinyl. I have to admit that I don't have many examples of Mr. Cliburn among them. I had the Grieg/Lizst album he did with Eugene Ormandy, but traded it away years ago. Oddly enough,I never grabbed that million-seller "Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1/Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 2" RCA album even when it was a buck. I do have a CD featuring his Rachmaninoff #3 (or Rachmaninov, as RCA preferred to spell it), and that's what you'll find below. It's the final movement (15 minutes), recorded in concert at Carnegie Hall, May 19, 1958. At the podium is Russia's foremost conductor of that era, Kiril Kondrashin (March 6, 1914-March 7, 1981). I would've upped the entire concerto but that's over 35 minutes, and a lotta bandwidth. The snappy "finale" should do. Sviatoslav Richter and Guiomar Novaes were 82 when they died, Vladimir Horowitz was 85, Claudio Arrau was 88, and Arthur Rubinstein and Wilhelm Kempff were both 95. Cliburn was 78, but that's actually a long time to keep any Van running.

VAN CLIBURN Third Movement (Finale) Rachmaninov Piano Concerto #3

MINDY McCREADY - "There But for Fortune" Marianne Faithful

She was one of the best singers in the world of country music. She really, really had talent.

If you were looking for "nice comments" about Mindy McCready's suicide, and glanced down at what was posted on the website for any of the tabloid newspapers on February 17th, you got:

"So long Mindy! Don't let the door hit you on your way out! Crackhead!" "Never heard of her. Who cares?" "Roger Clemens is a pig for tapping a 15 year-old!"

Yeah, there were a few "So sorry for her kids!" and "R.I.P." and "She's an angel now…" But there were a lot of variations on this remark:

"Didn't we all see this coming a mile away?"

To be honest, yes, the woman had a serious disease, physical and mental, revolving around substance abuse (mostly prescription drugs). Name somebody you know who broke your heart with an alcohol or drug problem.

Who? Who had you walking away because you couldn't do anything more to help? Who left you shaking you head, still feeling the pain? Who is the one you feel sorry for as much as resent for not being in your life anymore?

Yeah. I thought you could name somebody. That's why you weren't one of the assholes who had to, for whatever reason, snap a comment and kick dirt on the woman's face not 24 hours after she put a bullet in her head.

What separated Mindy from your average alcoholic waitress or pill-happy office good-time girl, or an ignorant meth hillbilly with too many boyfriends is that the woman could sing. "Blessed with a golden voice," Leonard Cohen might say. If only Mindy had refuge in Leonard's "Tower of Song," gated against temptation and with no more harmful danger than a crooked manager taking away some profits (as one of Cohen's did). This is a woman who parlayed a simple karaoke tape into a record deal, and had a #1 on her first album. 1996 was her big year of success and a promising future.

The last year of Mindy's life? Though overweight, not a viable artist to be booked on tour, and several years from a download-only comeback album that few heard of, she had a relationship going with a guy named David Wilson and they had a young son. She even did some press interviews to try and present a new image of health and optimism. Home was now a humble house in Heber, Arkansas. Still, there were rumors…about how long she could go without pills, and what strains a baby in the house and limited career prospects were causing. Some whispered that the couple was fighting.

On January 13th, Wilson died of a gunshot wound. Mindy was the one to call 911, and watched the life ebb out of him on the front porch. The report was suicide, but some had doubts. He'd bought a new truck a few weeks earlier, and was only a few days away from getting a six figure inheritance from his mother's estate. So, surely, depression and anger couldn't triumph over a new car and money, right?

In yet another questionable decision, not long after the shocking death, Mindy allowed "The Today Show" to come calling. She gamely told her earnest interviewer that getting through a terrible trauma can only make you stronger. So can answering tactless questions? The interviewer asked Mindy if David was having an affair.

Mindy said no. She said David was her soul mate. Next: "Did YOU kill him?"

"Oh God no…no…"

The camera got what it wanted…a very shaken, tearful mourner now reduced to raw nerves. Another question: was it suicide or could it have been murder!

"I don't know…" said Mindy, totally decimated. Where could she go from here? A rehab center. But not for long. With no traces of drugs or alcohol in her system she was cleared for release.

Billy McKnight, father of her older son, did a television interview of his own: "Perhaps staying in there and grieving around people that could help her over the death of her fiancé could’ve calmed her down, but the demons that she hasn’t beaten were there, and until she was going to face them, something was going to happen and everyone who knows her personally knew that….as sad as it is, it didn't come as a major shock because she's just been battling demons for so long and, of course, I was around her when she attempted suicide twice and I knew it was in her." He also nearly beat her to death one time.

And so it was, that Mindy McCready, no longer in rehab, and with nobody to call and nothing to say to any friend or relative, sat alone on that same porch where her "soul mate" (her words) died from his gunshot wound. That's where they found her, and for the first time, the general public knew her name.

Well…a few of the tabloids headlined her as the woman who had an affair with Roger Clemens. A few opened with a tease about a #1 Hit Record C&W Star suicide, then revealed the name. The "delicious schadenfreude," as the Kenneth Anger-type gossip writers would call it, of a suicide mirroring one that happened less than a month earlier, also pushed the story as a lead on the TV news. There were sudden tributes from C&W stars who hadn't let Mindy open for them or shunned her (in a "let go, let God" way, which one does with people mired in problems that require professional help). The late Mindy McCready, 37, who hadn't had a hit in 15 years, and not one song that was known beyond the world of country music, was now a superstar. CDs that weren't selling on eBay for 99 cents were being snatched, and eBayers with access to a computer print-out, were cashing in with $10 reprint photos for sale, and some were making R.I.P. souvenirs with tin button-making kits.

The details of Mindy's decline after her 1996-1998 platinum and gold albums was duly noted. So was her last superstar relationship (Dean Cain in 1998), her sparse output of albums (one in 1999 and one in 2002) and the increasingly regular incidents of out-of-control behavior: 2004 prescription drug arrest, 2005 beat-down by McKnight, 2005 drug overdose, 2006 kidnap by Mindy of her son from the protective care of her own mother, 2007 in jail, 2008 suicide attempt, 2009 appearance on "Celebrity Rehab" (her death is the fifth among alumni of that show), and a leaked porn tape that she ended up signing a contract on so it could be officially released. The most cringeworthy part of that video isn't the energetic sex from the buxom blond, but the unhealthy pride she shows in the interview segment that pads it out to an hour on DVD. Fittingly enough, Mindy talks in a noisy diner, alternately amused and disdainful of the eager questions about what her celebrity lovers were like.

Since you probably never heard of McCready before (unless you are a faithful reader of this blog…this is the third time for her), the song you should try first is "The Fine Art of Holding a Woman." At her best, Mindy could not only sing with power and clarity, but with emotion. She could sing heartache with the skills of a traditional artist (Patsy Cline) or a commercial crossover queen (Gogi "Wayward Wind" Grant or Crystal Gayle). In her prime, she also had the look of a star. She sent out the mixed message of come hither and back off…of "I'm easy" and "I'm hard." She was another of the Frances Farmer or Barbara Payton variety…someone wild, rebellious, restless, wanting someone strong but always being stronger, and if you said she was heavenly her reply would probably be "what the hell…"

"I was your sunlight, but now I'm just shade. I was your blue sky, now I'm jut the rain. I was your favorite song, but now I'm overplayed. If tomorrow's gonna be the same, I'll see you yesterday."

Those were the lyrics on the last song Mindy recorded. She was working with David Wilson on it; aside from being the boyfriend and father to her child, he was also her music producer. According to a friend of hers, Danno Hanks, the "perfect storm" that led to Mindy's suicide probably started here. The guy who had produced a comeback song, one she believed in, didn't have the optimism to stay alive. After his death, she fretted about getting the song to radio stations and, in the ultimate humiliation, having it posted free to YouTube. Said Hanks: "This was her suicide video. She wanted it out there because she knew that the video would get more play after she committed her suicide. She wanted the world at the end to know how she had been treated and mistreated and all the stuff that she had gone through."

Wilson's suicide may not have been fatal to McCready except for the chain of events that happened in its wake. She got a report from children's services that Billy McKnight was once again seeking custody of their son, and that at best, the agency was going to take both boys away to Florida to once again be placed in the care of her mother. She was an unfit mother. Then there was the court-ordered drug and alcohol tests. And following "The Today Show" interview, even more intense speculation that she had killed Wilson. The police did nothing to combat the rumor, even though Mindy had been instantly tested for gunpowder residue and cleared of Wilson's death.

"Saturday was a very bad day for her," Hanks told CNN. Her call to him mentioned the situation with her kids being taken away, but he had no idea how close to the edge she actually was. In retrospect, he wondered why the authorities hadn't kept her under observation rather than clear her for release from the drug and alcohol treatment center: "What (were they) doing was sending home someone who is now made even more distraught by having her children taken away and sending her home to a house that just had lots of guns because David was a gun nut...If she had known how many fans that she had out there and how many supporters she truly did have, she might have had the courage to go on. But I think she just felt she was alone, that nobody cared about what was happening to her."

The fine art of holding on. Aside from "The Fine Art of Holding a Woman," also below is a track from her last album, and a musical reminder from the late great Phil Ochs, "There But for Fortune." No, it's not a case of "don't play the chords of fame." It wasn't really fame that doomed Phil or Mindy, which is something you understand, and internet trolls don't. Emotional problems and substance dependency happen with or without fame. The trolls, the obscure and mediocre who rant their venom on anyone famous, even in an obit, somehow survive. If Phil's suicide had come during this age of anonymous Internet freedom the trolls would've happily typed: "Ochs? Never heard of him!" or "Kurt Cobain is somebody you should care about instead!" The cover version of Phil's song is the audio soundtrack from a TV appearance by Marianne Faithful from the 60's. Mr. Troll would probably type: "Marianne WHO? Never heard of her! I'd tap Taylor Swift. That would be sweet! I got pix of her that make me fap."

Let's give the last word to Wynona Judd. Hearing about Mindy McCready, she said: "Addiction is a disease and not a character flaw."

MINDY MCREADY The Fine Art of Holding a Woman

From the last MINDY MCREADY album, 2010: I'm Still Here

MARIANNE FAITHFUL TV soundtrack recording…performing "THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE" by Phil Ochs

MAURICE CHEVALIER - "You Brought a New Kind of Love To Me"

If Zeppo Marx was still alive, he'd be 112.

He was born February 25, 1901.

Zep (mockingly nicknamed "Zippo" after a famous monkey, then re-spelled) didn't get much of a chance to be funny in any of the Marx Brothers movies, but he sang a song now and then.

He was probably the only one of the four who stood any chance of getting off a boat by impersonating Maurice Chevalier.

He needed a good voice and also…a paste board? Washboard? Oh…passport.

Just to lighten up the blog postings (quite a combo, Mindy McCready above and the story of Dick Kallman below) here's the song the Marx boys all tried to sing in "Monkey Business."

Sing along, and work on your karaoke skills. PS, you might also want to study self-defense and how long you can go without eating, if the boat you're on happens to be from Carnival Cruise.

The familiar original version is in the movie, so here's the jocular and sonically more appealing re-make. Chevalier recorded it for MGM in the 50's, long after he stopped fiddling with Jeanette MacDonald. At this point in his life, he was also prone to sing "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore." You really believe he meant it? Chevalier, ehhhhhh?

Maurice Chevalier YOU BROUGHT A NEW KIND OF LOVE TO ME

HANK: DICK KALLMAN aka murder victim RICHARD KALLMAN

Dick Kallman?

A few non-senile baby boomers recognize the name and might even have something of his in a shelf or stored in a box in the attic: a few singles (John Barry worked with the budding singer), maybe a souvenir Playbill from a mediocre musical, or perhaps a blurry VHS copy of an episode from his cute one-season sitcom called "Hank." There was even a tie-in album where he sang rock, pop and show tunes.

Coming up on the 33rd anniversary of his death (July 7, 1933 – February 22, 1980), the Illfolks blog finally has finished the research and uploaded some his songs. Here's the story of a guy who realized his limits, retired from show biz after giving it a shot…and got shot anyway. No, his death was not due to a celebrity stalker, but due to his success as a businessman.

A silver-spoon child, Kallman's father owned the St. John Hotel in Havana, Cuba. His mother Zara Whitman had been an actress. When Castro took over, that included the St. John Hotel, so the Kallmans fled back to the states and set up a resort hotel in New Hampshire. Richard came to Manhattan to attend the High School of Performing Arts. A few years later, and he was recording for Decca and Liberty.

The ambitious lad tried for the soft pop stylings of a Pat Boone or Bobby Vinton with "Little Grain of Sand," while "Speak Softly" is sort of a creepy-haunting little middle-of-the-road tune that a better known Jerry Vale or a more energetic Jimmy Roselli might have driven into the Top 40. There was also an Elvis attempt on "I Cry to the Moon." While Dick's singles stalled, his rubbery good looks and modest charm got him into the touring company of "Come Blow Your Horn." His big break was replacing Robert Morse in the Broadway cast of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying."

From there, he achieved what little fame in show business he had: "Hank."

At the time sitcoms often starred affable fellows bumbling around to a laugh track. What worked in Danny Kaye and Eddie Bracken movies was aped by Jerry Van Dyke ("My Mother the Car") Ronnie Schell ("Good Morning World") and Kallman in "Hank," to name three shows that didn't last too long. There was always the chance an actor playing a hapless dolt or a pleasant-looking lamebrain could lead a show to ratings glory: Dwayne "Dobie Gillis" Hickman or Bob "Gilligan" Denver.

"Hank," broadcast at 8:30 (after "Camp Runamuck") didn't have a chance opposite CBS's "Wild Wild West." It was about a guy who sold refreshments out of a truck on a college campus, and secretly dated the blustery school president's daughter. He couldn't afford to attend school, but as the themes song reminded us, he vowed to "get his degree, his Phi Beta Key, and get them both for free," by sitting on on classes. Funny, back then, people were concerned that "education should be free." Now it's "music should be free."

Kallman, who had the same wan smile and bland "nice guy" features as Steve Martin, wasn't much of a heart-throb for teen girls of the day. Still, the push was on, with Kallman marketed for both the NBC sitcom, and for the unusually optimistic RCA album released for this rather unknown newcomer at the same time. A single (written by David Gates) was released and promoted on NBC's "Hullabaloo," in an episode hosted by Peter "Herman" Noone.

Dick's "Lookin' Around" just wasn't too hip. With its kind of stunted, familiar "On Broadway" rhythm strut, and Dick's Darin-esque swing, it was a little too corny for a 1965 girl to care about. Clean-cut cuties were not too popular in that era of Beatles supremacy. The best that can be said for "Lookin' Around" is that it's not the unintentional parody of rock that "I Cry to the Moon" was, something that was more Conrad Birdie than Elvis Presley.

After "Hank" was canceled, Kallman made a few films, toured the straw hat circuit in "Half a Sixpence, and made a brief appearance in a pair of 1968 "Batman" shows as "Little Louie Groovy," (Eartha Kitt the guest villainess) for which he no doubt is revered among Bat-bilia buffs haunting eBay for an autographed photo to add to "the Bat-collection." Dick made his final TV appearance in an episode of "Medical Center" in 1974. Ultimately he started a company that made dresses. His mother, after all, had left acting behind to be an interior decorator. Kallman was a success with the Burton Constable company (offices in London and New York) and began to collect antiques, which turned from hobby, to a business, to a death sentence.

Selling antiques in Manhattan doesn't mean renting an expensive gallery. Many dealers prefer office space instead of a store, and some, like Kallman risk working out of their home. Kallman had a duplex at 17 East 77th (just off pricey Madison Avenue and its rows of boutiques and galleries) that that was both a private living space and showroom. He often decorated the place with items he was willing to sell at the right price.

Those wanting to visit his "Possessions of Prominence," could do so "by appointment" only. Some 15 years after the "Hank" series and album, the man's show biz career was a mere footnote oddity to his recent triumphs in fashion and art. That's how he was portrayed in New York magazine, in an issue that hit the stands on February 4th, 1980. A few weeks later, a bullet hit him in the head, entering from his right eye.

Thursday night, February 21st, Kallman hosted five men for a dinner party. In the wee hours of Friday morning, with his guests now gone, his killer arrived. The glass in the vestibule door downstairs was shattered, and part of a screen broken. There was no similar damage to Kallman's apartment door. Apparently Kallman opened it figuring it was one of his dinner guests returning to retrieve something. Besides, he wasn't alone. Steven Szladek was there. Steven, 20 years younger than Kallman, was discretely reported to simply be his "assistant." Today he'd be referred to as his "partner."

One newspaper account had Kallman "wearing nothing but a robe," while another quoted police as saying he was naked from the waist down. His assistant was found "lying nude in the fetal position in a pool of blood." What confused detectives was the motive for the double-murder. Obvious treasures, including a 2.3 million dollar Titian painting, remained undisturbed. Was this an intentional killing, with a few items stolen just to make it seem like a robbery? Was it a robbery but the work of a violent, ignorant thief who grabbed what could easily be thrown into a sack and didn't know quality at all? Or was it possible there was a gang at work…a trigger man and a few others to haul away select items that might be hidden in drawers and closets?

Eventually an inventory revealed that items were indeed missing, and the detective work began. There wasn't much pressure from the press to find out who killed Kallman. Despite the gruesome nature of the crime, the story wasn't front page news because the victim Kallman was not a movie star, just an affluent businessman known in the antiques world, and with enough connections to get a puff-piece in New York magazine.

Gossip columnist Earl Wilson was one of the few to remember Kallman, and even so, the result was just a few lines amid the usual goggle about which star was at which premiere. Wilson recalled that the flamboyant actor was a friend of another footnote in the entertainment world, 1940's cabaret singer Dolores Gray. Gray holds the dubious record for winning a Tony despite few people actually seeing her show. "Carnival in Flanders" closed after just six performances, but she won the award anyway. Ten years older than Kallman, the 56 year-old woman enjoyed the company of her antiques-dealing ex-show biz friend. Wilson wrote: "They were seen at parties, and attended the recent opening of "Harold and Maude"wearing His and Hers full-length mink coats."

Ultimately in July of 1981, 27 year-old Charles Lonnie Grosso of Queens, was convicted of second-degree murder. A brief report in the New York Times noted that "paintings, jewelry and antiques stolen from the apartment have not been recovered." The Times did not mention any accomplices. Grosso was sentenced to 25 years to life, and may be reading this via an Internet connection in an upstate New York prison. If so, a word of warning, Mr. Grosso. Downloading copyrighted music IS sometimes prosecuted, so if you grab the four songs from Dick Kalllman below, you just might be asking for trouble.

DICK KALLMAN If you've got a Hankering for FOUR SONGS

SACRILEGE SERIES #10 - Middle Aged Duo Tweak THE BEATLES

Here's the first new addition to the SACRILEGE series in 5 years. Last one, a look at some Dylan parodies, was back in 2008.

Coincidentally, today (February 19th) the long arm of the law bonked a download actually posted in 2008. Only the third time it's happened at Illfolks. Paul Simon's people just objected to the memorial use of "Night Game" in a May, 2008 article about ex-major league baseball pitcher Geremi Gonzalez, struck by lightning. It happened on a rainy pier in Venezuela (the lightning broke the gold chain around his neck) not on a pitcher's mound, but "Night Game" seemed an appropriate and eerie song to use for the story. Five years later, and having gotten less than 20 downloads...YER OUT!

Well, it's Simon's song and over here, one respects what Simon says. Forgive the bot, for it knows not a sincere usage from a craven one.(Oh...and thank you, Paul-bot, for NOT bonking the SACRILEGE post that was a Not Necessarily the News parody of Simon and Garfunkel. A Rolling Stones bot actually bonked a NON-Rolling Stones song here, a parody that didn't even use the original music!)

Now for something completely different. And totally out of print and obscure...

This time, we go back to the heyday of Beatlemania…and a concept album making fun of it all, by Fisher and Marks.

Yes, the Fab Four inspired a ton of cash-in singles, such as Donna Loren's "My Boyfriend Got a Beatle Haircut." And yes, there were a few comical sourballs hurled their way, including "Pop Hates the Beatles" on an Allan Sherman record. But a full length album? You ask, WHY?

And I'll tell you. Because back then, comedy records were big business. "The First Family," Vaughn Meader's novelty-sketch album on John F. Kennedy, became a million-seller for the tiny Cadence label. That, and huge sales for Shelley Berman, Bob Newhart and others, had record labels gambling on every topical news story and trend. When Elizabeth Taylor began fooling around with Richard Burton, there was "All About Cleopatra." When the "Man from UNCLE" was a huge hit, up came "The Man from TANTE." And yes, when Beatlemania hit, another failed album was rushed out: "Coo Coo Beatles World."

Ironically enough it was on Swan, the Philadelphia label that had miraculously acquired the actual Beatles single "She Loves You" for American distribution.

And who were Fisher and Marks? Just a pair of local Philly comics, no threat to Allen & Rossi (who were having hit albums for ABC-Paramount and owned the catch-phrase "Hello Dere") or even Gaylord and Holiday (who were not having hit albums, and owned the catch-phrase 'Hi, Simply Hi.")

Al Fisher was born Albert Fichera and Marks' last name was Franco (which would explain the duo's other album, Italian comedy parodies ala Allan Sherman titled "Rome on the Range). They began working together in 1948, with Al doing stand-up and pudgy little Lou heckling him from the audience and then coming up on stage for schtick a little less frantic than Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. The team wowed 'em in Philly, and were regulars at a local club in town called Palumbo's. A decade later, the team even appeared in a few movies, 'Mister Rock and Roll" and "Country Music Holiday," both headed by country singer Ferlin Husky. The team became known around the country, opening for both comics (Joey Bishop) and song and dance acts (Jimmy Durante). While Steve Rossi ran through Marty Allen, Slappy White, Joe E. Ross, Bernie Allen, and then came back to Marty again…the durable Fisher & Marks combo continued in local venues until 1985, when Al suffered his third, and most damaging heart attack. He died a year later, July 16, 1986. Marks teamed with a few other comics after Al's passing, worked as a single, and died September 8, 2007 at the age of 83, no quite making it to his birthdate (September 27th).

Most fans agree that the team was a riot in live performance, and that the movies and record albums do not do them justice. Well, "Coo Coo" doesn't do The Beatles justice, either, and a good parody would have to wait many many years till The Rutles arrived. Much of the album is badly written schtick. Unable to fill it entirely with gags about long hair or Ed Sullivan, they padded things out with a sketch as Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, and a track called "The Real Fisher and Marks."

Since this is a music blog anyway, you get the few musical numbers, including "We Love Rock and Roll" (lyrics stuck atop "Barcarolle" of all things…and what the point of the bad Cockney-accented riddles are, who knows) and "Paul George John and Ringo : All The Way to the Bank," (public domain music "On Top of Old Smokey"). Ladies and Gentlemen, the comedy stylings of Al Fisher and Lou Marks, back when it was a Coo-Coo Beatles World.

FISHER AND MARKS "Coo Coo" BEATLES SONGS

You say HOLLO. God says GOODBYE. "Lyricist" Anselm Hollo

My favorite living poet is no longer alive.

He was the author of dozens of acclaimed poetry books, and also a professor (you can't make a living off poems). The finish line for Finnish-born "beat poet" Anselm Hollo loomed this past summer when he underwent brain surgery. He died of pneumonia January 29, at 78.

Like Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti and Rexroth, Hollo's early work was spiked with varied amounts of hip and frank language and a sense of humor. With these American wiseguys leading the charge (inspired by such groundbreaking older crackpots as Vachel Lindsay and e.e. cummings), Hollo, migrating to England, joined a bunch of like-minded Brit "beats" in re-defining poetry. This included readings at the "International Poetry Incarnation at the Albert Hall" in June of 1965 (before Dylan outraged anyone there). I got to know Hollo's work via a college poetry course that required the purchase of the Penguin paperback "Children of Albion: Poetry of the Underground in Britain."

The book, first published in 1969, was dedicated to Allen Ginsberg, whom Hollo translated into German (Hollo translated a lot of writers into a lot of other languages, with a popular anthology "Red Cats" giving Russian poets some exposure in English). Anselm was greatly admired by his peers, including Ted Berrigan who named his son after him (no, not Hollo Berrigan…). Yes, I am very proud of my autographed copy of "Howl," with its drawing and personalization from Allen, but I equally treasure the autograph Mr. Hollo gave me on "Pomology," a poem I felt should be printed out on high quality paper and framed. Especially with the poet's signature at the bottom.

In the poem, Hollo says you can eat an apple a day, or write a poem a day. And…"Any doctor will tell you it is easier to eat an apple than to make a poem. It is also easier to eat a poem than to make an apple but only just…" You can hunt around on your own to find the beginning and end of that one. The "Albion" book has it, as well as "A warrant is out for the arrest of Henry Miller" which was originally published in 1962 when "smelling of garlic & good fucks" was NOT the kind of line that Poetry Magazine would publish. They eventually did publish some of Hollo's more sedate works. "Any News from Alpha Centauri," published in Poetry in January 1969 had no tired allusions to mythos. A few lines dropped culture references far more modern, including The Mothers (of Invention). Not that it's easy to decipher why:

"in the bar there was a photo of Albert Eintein, a photo of Franz Kafka in the rented room/Louisiana Man by Bobbie Gentry in the bar/Mozart and The Mothers in the rented room/eyes and voices screens of solitude/he remembered the touch of a pair of hands…"

Actually I was always more attracted to Hollo's humble and conversational pieces, curios that didn't require a Rubik's Cube brain to figure out, ones which could hit you more like an Edward Hopper painting and give you an emotion right away. Some of his best poems were about the disconnected individual. Hollo's short "hello" poem for example:

"The phone rings. I lift the receiver. I say Hello to some utter stranger. he says Hello I am I. he told me to phone you whenever I get here. & so I did I did get here I'm phoning you now. this is a phone & I'm talking."

In the poem "& i heard a man, telling the sky," a mild man begins to roil with rage: "I have spoken kindly without causing offense I have spoken kindly, politely to customs officials…to policemen lifting me out of the rain into the shelter of well-built cells to presidents, ministers, headwaiters & whores all wanting to sell me what I never asked for…." The man plots his revenge but in the guise of "a peaceful Chirico puppet receding into the calm perspectives of the city pushing a red wheelbarrow full of plastic explosives crossing borders unnoticed in the guise of a walking egg…" (Pardon for not breaking the lines up the way they originally are on the page).

Hollo eventually came to America, found his refuge in Academia, contributed to poetry magazines and anthologized his works, and along with his second wife lived in a damn nice big home near the University of Colorado at Boulder. He also taught at the colorfully named Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, at Naropa University. Some of his lectures are over at the achive.org site for free download. In 2001 he was "elected" (by the POETICS bunch) as "anti-laureate," in response to the sappy, pretentious and dusty dopes who, thanks to politics and favoritism, would be appointed "Poet Laureate" to deliver some embarrassingly trite "official poem" for an inauguration or Library of Congress fete.

OK. This is a music blog…happily, Anselm Hollo joins it thanks to modern jazz composer Frank Carlberg (born in Finland). For his concept album "The Crazy Woman," Frank turned a set of modern poems into "lyrics," mated to the kind of music that, well, most "music loving" bloggers just can't deal with. "Dark Side of the Moon" or Zappa, yeah, but anything just a little wilder than Hendrix doing the fucking "Star Spangled Banner," uh, no, man. So you haven't found Carlberg's album in some forum, or stolen from a forum and posted to a blog with the password Fukhof. It has not been labeled "not to be missed" by some Swedish meatball stuck in the year 1968 and re-upping the Strawberry Alarm Clock. And it languishes at Amazon where you might get a 30 second sample, and Carlberg might get a nickel for every .99 cent download.

Not TOO far from the world of Zappa, or Yma Sumac, is "modern jazz" or "avant-garde jazz" or "annoying jazz" as most would call it, with vocals by Christine Correa. She has the task of keeping the words relevant under the smatters, smears and stutters of a jazz band clearly bent on doing something, anything, but Gershwin, Waller or even Miles or Brubeck.

The poems on the concept album include, among others, "Life is Sick" and "I Clearly Saw" from Jack Kerouac, "Veins" from Marina Tsvetayeva ("my veins slashed open…my life gushes forth….") "The Snow Man" by Wallace Stevens, "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks, and "The Crazy Woman" by Anna Akhmatova. Anselm has 3 poems, most of any writer Carlberg chose. The CD opens ("Godlike") and closes ("No Way & Now) with Hollo (you get these below) and there's a third poem in the middle, "Frogman." All the "lyrics" are very short. "Godlike" is only a few lines, so they are repeated three different times: "When you suddenly/feel like talking/about the times/in your life when you were/a total idiot asshole you resist/the impulse/&just sit there/at the head of the table/beaming."

"No way & Now" is even briefer. There's a death rattle in it, especially listening now that Mr. Hollo is gone: "…still cold& worse & gone & colder tonight & no way no…"

Let's end this obit-with-music by quoting the first two lines of a poem by Frances Horovitz, who naturally was chosen to be included in the Michael Horovitz "Albion" anthology where I first encountered Hollo. The poem is called "love poem" and the opening lines are:

your total absence

rehearsal of my death.

Thus does an obit point a bony finger at the reader's own mortality.

Goodbye, Hollo. Your works are still on the page. Where are you?

Christine Correa Two Songs with Poem-Lyrics by Anselm Hollo

GOLLY…gayly…Jim Nabors Gets Married but "You Can't Roller Skate…"

In some of these United States, two homosexuals can now get married. BUT…even if you're gay…remember this: "You can't roller skate in a buffalo herd…"

And so Jim Nabors, gay bachelor no more, a groom (or was he the bride) at age 82, is honored here via some of the goofy songs he sang in his character of Gomer Pyle, USMC. (You were expecting his serious stuff?? Here????) And yes, it includes a Gomer-cover of a Roger Miller novelty.

While few in their right mind, over the age of 12, and living somewhere not teeming with perpetual chiggers, is still watching "Gomer Pyle," it's hard to forget that show, or the one that spawned it. There are still very somber and devoted fans of "The Andy Griffith Show" out there, who find mighty powerful lessons in life from not just Sheriff Taylor and Opie, but even in the day-to-day struggles of dim-witted but kindly Gomer.

Nabors not only became a star during the Great Rural Sitcom Scare of the 60's (which included "Beverly Hillbillies" and its spinoffs "Petticoat Junction" and "Green Acres,") he also won praise as a straight (pardon the expression) singer. Some folks even chose his albums before the latest Sandler & Young or Robert Goulet, and he surpassed the success of Frank Fontaine (who, as "Crazy Guggenheim" with Jackie Gleason a few years earlier, dazzled MOR music lovers by speaking in a cretinous voice for comedy and then singing in a sincerely gooey baritone to show his serious side).

In the late 60's and early 70's, Nabors was still welcome on TV thanks to his humility and down-home way with either a joke or a song. He had his own variety series for a while, and guested on other shows of the day. Then the day passed, and he wisely devoted more time to business pursuits (running a macademia nut farm in Hawaii) than trying to release a new album, or get more than a few months of concerts in places besides Branson, Missouri.

As to why he got married now? Probably business as well as pleasure. You want to make sure that when you're gone, your partner inherits. Jim told a local Hawaiian newspaper reporter, "I'm 82 and he's in his 60s and so we've been together for 38 years and I'm not ashamed of people knowing, it's just…I'm not an activist. I'm not a debater." He was just a guy who found himself attracted to other guys, and happened to have a show biz career. Not everybody is good at giving radical speeches and marching in parades, and really, if you're a militant homosexual wanting everyone out of the closet and protesting, you'd be calling on an Anderson Cooper before shoving the microphone at a shy guy famous for saying "Shazam" over 40 years ago.

Oh yes. The early "marriage" rumor about Nabors and Rock Hudson. After this silly story became too big to be ignored, Hudson spoke out. Rightly convinced that his career (and new series "McMillan and WIFE") could be jeopardized, he used his comic finesse to explain that he hardly knew Nabors, and that the whole thing started as a prank. He blamed a campy pair of "middle-aged homosexuals who live in Huntington Beach, which is just down the coast…every year (they) give a party, 500 people or so…To make it amusing they will say "You're cordially invited…" and come up with some ridiculous shock attraction. And one year it was "the wedding reception of Rock Hudson and Jim Nabors." Hudson suggested any unlikely combination of two males stars could've been chosen at random.

Congrats to Jim Nabors on the real marriage. Below, no, not the "serious" singing, weird as it is (well, maybe not if compared to Bob Dylan somehow emoting "Nashville Skyline" in his own gooey "new" voice). You get four cuts of Jim singing as Gomer Pyle, which probably was not as easy as it sounds. One number is actually a narration (a popular form of C&W sentimentality) titled "Old Blue," and about a beloved dog (a fucking country obsession right up there with alcohol and marrying an underage cousin). Two songs written by Dave Gates to exploit the Gomer character ("Shazam" and "Gomer Says Hey") are here, too. As for the cover of Roger Miller, Jim enunciates it so well, you almost can understand every word. On the original, Roger sounded like he was singing "you can't chase phlegm with a kid on your back." But it's "change film." A reference to a long forgotten TV commercial. Gomer Pyle long forgotten? No, once you've seen or heard Gomer Pyle, it's hard to forget.

JIM NABORS 4 Songs sung as GOMER PYLE

TROGGS' LATE REG PRESLEY - CROP CIRCLES ARE A "WILD THING"

When Reg Presley (born June 12, 1941) died on February 4th, three words had to be added: "of The Troggs." If you were telling this sad news to some vaguely curious 20-something or 30-whatever, you probably had to use a lot more words. Like: "Presley was lead singer for The Troggs, who recorded 'Wild Thing.' Not The Kingsmen. Although The Troggs covered 'Louie Louie.' No, they didn't also sing 'Gloria.' That was Them. Them. Lead singer Van Morrison. No, Reg wasn't one of them. That was The Troggs. Oh for fuck's sake….no, no, 'Dirty Water' was The Standells. Which was the first punk song? Nevermind….just go listen to your fucking Maroon5 and Fun illegal downloads..."

Naturally the download below is NOT "Wild Thing" which you can find anywhere, but a lucky seven other cuts that are more typical of The Troggs place in time and more reflecting of their influences, like the mildly Rolling Stone-ish "I Can Only Give You Everything" (as opposed to satisfaction), the Byrd-y jangle "Little Girl" (written by Reg) and the Kink-esque strum-and-halt "Your Love" (which seems to reference "All Day and All of the Night"). For one of the many groups saddled with the "godfathers of punk" tag, The Troggs actually did a lot more than garage rock.

Reg Presley (born Reginald Ball, but given his cheeky new name in the same managerial spirit that would later transform Declan MacManus into Elvis Costello) didn't just write or perform in a rock group in the late 60's…and keep the group around for touring through the years. He had many other interests, and in 2002 wrote "Wild Things They Don't Tell Us," about his interest in crop circles and UFO's and other believe-it-or-not phenomena. He researched such experts as "self-taught Egyptologist John West." Quoting from the obscure tome:

"If we find graffiti on a wall, we would not dream that the person who put it there actually built the wall. Yet when Egyptologists find Egyptian hieroglyphs on the walls of pyramids, they automatically assume the Egyptians built them. The Sphinx, according to Egyptologists, was built around the same time as the pyramids. Yet John West, a self taught Egyptologist, recently discovered that the weathering on the Sphinx is water weathering. The kind of rain needed for evidence is still coming in." So aliens built the pyramids. And here's something even more baffling.

If they did….uh, so? So maybe they'll come back and build affordable housing in Scunthorpe? Maybe the next UFOs to create crop circles will do it in Cleethorpes and boost the tourist industry there? We're supposed to be happy that maybe, someday, more aliens will turn up in England? Hey, they are already doing it and building mosques, or transforming chip shops into curry houses…if that's you're idea of improving civilization in the U.K. Waiting for space aliens to do something besides build triangles, odd heads at Stonehenge, or make crop circles...I don't know, I don't have faith in them. They came to Earth just to be goofy sculptors? Or toss a big lizard into Loch Ness? That's a long trip just to play a game and leave.

Reg Presley was still playin' the game and keeping The Troggs on the road until last year, when he posted to his fan website about his worsening health: ""As you all know I was taken ill whilst doing a gig in Germany in December. During my stay in hospital tests showed that in fact I have lung cancer.I am receiving chemotherapy treatment and at the moment not feeling too bad. However I've had to call time on The Troggs and retire. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the cards and calls and for your love, loyalty and support over the years." And so it spiraled from there, for a regular guy who did have some unusual hobbies.

Crop circles. That's where it began for Reg. "It had been a long hot dry summer," he writes, "I entered the Pewsey Vale from the south-east, and used the road that runs along the southern side of east field where the crop formation was reported to be…I looked across the valley and there, as though a giant pastry cutter had been at work, I saw my first crop formation." OK, all you wild things and cosmic muffins, take it from there. I hope it makes your hearts sing.

Mr. Presley was optimistic in 2002: "After 12 years of intensive research…I have no alternative but to believe that humanity is on the brink of one of the greatest discoveries of all time….world governments have spent millions of pounds on investigations into the UFO phenomenon and have documented evidence of their existence. The lengths to which these governments will go to hide this information never cease to amaze me." Let's all believe in looking toward the heavens for some kind of answer. Maybe Reg Presley is now sitting on a cloud (mmm, one with free mp3 downloads) along with Elvis Presley, trying to find a way to rain down peanut butter banana chip butty sandwiches for us all! With just the right amount of Xanax in them!

Reg Presley on the Ball 7 from The Troggs

AND, ADDED BY SPECIAL REQUEST….

The Troggs give a good five minute thrashing to… MONA

ILL-ustrated Songs # 21 : PUKIN' MY HEART OUT OVER YOU - The Funny Boners

The great unwashed love to watch Springsteen swapping spit with his doo-rag wearing Corporal Klinger-nosed little shower buddy Stevie. Brooose fans, almost all of them male, thrill to the homo-erotic way Brooose holds his guitar up in front of another guitar hero in his band in a "you show me yours, and I'll show you mine" pose. They roar as he snarls hungrily into his microphone, like he's going to start going down on it, while singing anthems about smelly highways in New Fucking Jersey. These dopey Snooki-slobs love Broose's tuuuunes because each ditty sounds so much alike that even cretins who can't memorize more than one song can sing along anyway. What was that great one about getting diarrhea from a Newark Applebees, or a Rahway Burger King? Oh, yeah, "Born to Run." So here's to Puke Springsteen! Is this Photoshop job that far from the truuuuth?

Some bogs and low-rents…uh, blogs and torrents… actually post every monotonous album by The Boss, (not to mention Kid Rock or Ted Nugent or Bon Jovi and other arena retards). Sick puppies lap it up like it was their own turds with some undigested crunchy bits to re-chew. They bark out happy squeaks of "Thanks, Dude," or actually, "Thanks, Doody," because they love this shit so much.

In this ill corner of the Net, let's say that one stupid novelty single can often be more memorable, and even more artistic, than an entire discography of some tedious Top Ten hit-maker. No wonder that one stupid novelty single might fetch $20 or $50 on eBay while nobody's buuuying Bruuuuse's old Columbia albums for a dollar. An entire discography of other arena rock retards or flavors-of-the-day (like Duran Duran) remains unsold for a fiver. Every thrift shop and boot sale has a crate of Phil Collins stuff nobody wants. But...how many times are you gonna come across The Funny Boners?

So here's The Funny Boners, doing "Pukin' My Heart Out Over You." Like quite a few other stupid novelties you could name ("Who Let the Dogs Out," "I'm Henry the Eighth I Am" or "Someone Like You" by Adele) it's catchy. Like a cold. And you might have trouble getting it out of your head for a while. As opposed to that discography of Status Quo, which you can't get out of your basement because the garbageman won't touch it.

Yeah, it's the flip-side over here. There are "Dedicated Followers of Fashion," and curmudgeons sneering, "I'm Not Like Everybody Else." Neither side is exactly right, but a single isn't wasting as much of your time.

And so we pluck a stupid obscure black 45 rpm disc from the dark shelf, let it glint on the turntable for a few minutes, send it hurtling to a cloud (with more than a "this did not chart" sentence for it and a photo of the label) and appreciate that somebody took some time to try something that just might keep people from being sullen for a while. Which is about all that can be said for the one-shot dickheads called The Funny Boners. After all, all they are doing here is a kind of low-class version of a Phil Harris drawl-narration. If they wrote something really awful, 50,000 people might've been holding up Zippo lighters in front of them, like they do for a millionaire posturing in a workshirt and jeans costume and singing about how times are tough (to people who pay $1500 to a scalper for front row seats to hear him). Sample boners about life with a trailer trash bitch:

"I bought you a vacuum cleaner so it makes me all the meaner when I see the pile of dirt upon the floor. And inside the bedroom closet is a sixteen ton deposit of that dirty smelly underwear you wore. So I'm pukin' my heart out over you…"

Can you believe it, it was over a year ago, February 19, 2011 that the previous "Ill-ustrated song" turned up ("From the Indies to the Andies in his Undies" featuring Mr. Bean). Hopefully there will be more nauseating illustrated songs coming up in the future…

This Download might come back up…. PUKIN' MY HEART OUT OVER YOU

Listen on line or download it. Download it without wait time, garish photos promoting bogus dating services, idiot anime to bring you to a spyware site, and no Paypal banner asking for donations, nor any button to swindle you into getting a 'premium account' so some fat-cat cynical businessman can stay rich while artists and real music lovers stay poor.

FREDDIE "PARROTFACE" DAVIES - "I WANT ME SEED"

Pity today's little monsters. Childhood is all too short for these ga-gas. Practically after their first babble of "goo goo," they are experimented on with subliminal Mozart CDs in the nursery, scientifically treated with chemical baby formulas, and regimented to pre-school. Stuffed toys are soon replaced by technology and they are grasping at cell phones to play with, and touching buttons on the iPad. By the time they are six, they are like the joyless "Children of the Damned," of the George Sanders movie. Sci-fi has become real. They are soberly solving a Rubik's cube in a few minutes, jaded by everything, showing their adult sense of entitlement by demanding every possible game for their video consoles, and already adept at killing thousands of people in a few minutes of happy anime-cum-violence on the screen.

The attention span for crayons, Silly Putty or a yo-yo...gone. These kids are done with "Sesame Street" songs by the time they're in their Underoos, and by then they're whining because they can't dress like Lady Gaga.

And a record player? You and I might remember owning one, and having only a small amount of precious 45's to play over and over. Today's kid wants an iPod with ten thousand songs on it, and has the ADD syndrome that goes with it.

At one time, a kid could have a great afternoon just sitting quietly listening to records. What a miraculous thing. Open this magical box, turn a switch, wait for it to warm up, put the tone arm down on a flat disc…and listen! LISTEN. Listen to a song like...

"I Want Me Seed," or some other bit of silliness.

At one time, the road to any child's musical education, began with the "novelty" single. For 40's kids, it was 78's and hearing jolly tunes from Uncle Don or Smilin' Ed. Kids in the 50's may have started collecting with either 78's or 45's (the kiddie novelty tune Groucho offered, "Funniest Song in the World," came in both formats from Young Peoples Records). By the late 50's and early 60's, the line between kiddie tune and "novelty" was blurred by everything from "Charlie Brown" by The Coasters to "Purple People Eater" and "Monster Mash." And silly kid-oriented comedians from Soupy Sales ("The Mouse") to England's Freddie Davies came up with tunes that were light of heart. And head. How many kiddie TV hosts and singers are there now? How quickly do kids follow Lady Gaga instead?

"I Want Me Seed" could not be any more stupid if it was actually written by a bird. Still, thousands and thousands bought it, played it over and over, and if you had it and lost it, now it's back for you. In the song, Poor Freddie, shades of "One Froggy Evening" (the cult Warner Bros. cartoon about a ragtime-singing frog) has a wonderful bird who can sing beautifully. But the bird only sings for him. Any time somebody else is around, all it does is cry, "I Want Some Seed!" And "I want ME seed." (What a versatile avian, knowing both expressions).

Sadly (and some of us can easily find the tragedy in comedy), "I want me seed" is really utmost for a captive bird deprived of being with its own kind. Without sex or socialization with its feathered friends, it's only great pleasure is eating. (Right, YOU think your pet's love for YOU is #1...you also think the bird actually knows what it's saying when it repeats a phrase you drilled into its pea-sized brain). At least, in the picture, Freddie allows his bird out of the cage. I did that when I had a parakeet for a childhood pet. It's cage door was open most of the day (windows closed) and closed and cloaked only at night when it most naturally wanted to feel safe in sleep.

Childhood is a magical time, and brief. Kids should be allowed their innocence as long as possible, but it doesn't seem possible in this craven age. Don't you remember with great fondness so much of your kindly childhood influences? Kiddie stars I've known kept receiving fan mail even when they (and their fans) were very old. I'd walk down the street with someone who hadn't had a kiddie show (or any show) in 30 years, and up ahead, some pedestrian's grim face would break into a smile and as our paths met, there'd come a cheerful, "Hi, I grew up with you!" or just a call of the name, and a friendly wave. And hearing an old novelty song even Soupy's "Mouse" or Freddie's bird tune, can brighten a day by recalling a gentler time. Mr. Davies surely knows this, in getting e-mail on his website or when a fan-tourist drops by the store he now runs. He's semi-retired after a long and surprisingly impressive career on stage and screen beyond kiddie shows and novelty songs such as "I Want Me Seed." Who knows why the caged bird sings. I do know why it might cry "I Want Me Seed." Which is because it knows how futile it is to ask for its freedom.

FREDDIE DAVIES "I Want Me Seed" (although this download is free leech)

Instant download or listen on line. No payment donation requests here, no chicken-crap "wait time" while you stare at porn-come-on ads from spyware websites, no use of any cloud smelling of Kim Dotcom or any other porcine businessman who exploits creative artists and steals from them and keeps it all.

IAN WALLACE - the Bestiary of FLANDERS & SWANN

One of my earliest concert memories (and I could barely see above the adults in front of me) is watching Michael Flanders and Donald Swann perform their satires and silliness. It was an unlikely sight; a portly, bearded gent in a wheelchair and a bespectacled eccentric spidering over his keyboard with amateurish enthusiasm. But Flanders was expressive even behind the whiskers, and lively despite suffering the limit of his confinement. Swann not only chuckled over every line he'd heard from his partner hundreds of times, but had a kind of Stan Laurel sense of hysteria about him that was infectious. How did these eccentric songwriters on a bare stage manage to become smash hits on the West End and Broadway?

Their "Drop of a Hat" and "Another Hat" revues (the first arriving in 1956; they amicably parted ways in 1967) probably would not have happened if not for earlier cover versions of their songs, especially from Ian Wallace. The duo, who had mixed credits in solo work, had been invited to write for such shows as "Penny Plain" (1951) and "Airs on a Shoestring" (1953). Audiences were amused by their songs as performed by cabaret favorites of the day including Max Adrian, Joyce Grenfell, and especially the influential baritone Ian Wallace, who in his years before turning up in these light comic farragos, was an opera singer, and a quiz master on radio (27 years for his "My Music" show). The first important vinyl promoting the names Flanders & Swann came from Wallace, via his ep of four animal songs, titled "Wallace's Private Zoo." You get them all below. And yes, it's Donald Swann at the piano. From there, the duo timidly used their fame to stage an informal evening where they could sing all their own numbers their way. They were practically an overnight success after that!

If the name Ian Wallace seems familiar to you (and it's not because you've heard of the new wave drummer by that name) then you may have been around here in October of 2009 when I posted about him with a version of the F&S classic "Transport of Delight" which appeared on another of Ian's ep (four songs on a 45rpm) releases.

The Ian Wallace style is quite dated now, and would be even if he was performing Gilbert & Sullivan, much less Flanders & Swann. He over-acts at times, and sings with all too great an appreciation for his own rounded tones. It takes a comedian, not a singer, to get a laugh with the gentle lyrics and amusing images involving a lovesick warthog, forgetful elephant, "bodger" faced rhinoceros or mud-loving hippo. Probably his funniest cover version is "The Warthog," as he imitates both the female and male of the species and can't help but get caught up in the combo of pathos-and-piffle that often characterizes Flanders and Swann's best work. For more on Ian Wallace O.B.E. (July 10, 1919 – October 12, 2009) you can go to the man himself, and read his books with the Hippo allusions in the titles: "Promise Me You'll Sing Mud" and "Nothing Quite Like It."

For Flanders and Swann, well, all their work is in print. Many albums are faithfully rendered on individual CD, and there are single-disc compilations. You can get a lovely "The Complete Flanders & Swann" box set, with excellent annotation. Did I say "Complete?" No, it was joined by a second box set ("Hat Trick") which rescues the original Drop of a Hat album (the men recorded the songs twice…a UK performance and later the US Broadway version) and fills up the other 2 CDs with rarities. This includes radio archives, mild and no longer relevant revue and topical material, and "bootlegs" (mostly of numbers edited out of the official West End "Hat" and "Another Hat" shows) made by family members…things the true "completist" would want to study (more than laugh at). Still, I don't regret buying it, and neither would you if you're the type that wallows in glorious Flanders & Swann

IAN WALLACE The Four BESTIARY Songs of Flanders & Swann

Instant download or listen on line, no porn ads, pop-ups, links taking you to spam or spyware, and no Nazi New Zealand Mr. Dotcom trying to trick you into buying a worthless "premium" account with not a dime going to the create artists, just to his slimy, millionaire parasitic self.

THE DALY'S show: "WINTER RUSHES ON"

Sapristi! For a few weeks, there's actual winter. Yes, despite climate change, there's bound to be a week or two where the temperature actually hits the freezing level. So quick, before it's over, listen to "Winter Rushes On," because the weather's going to slip slide away into balmy temperatures very soon.

"Winter Rushes On" was the B-side for "Without You," a single released in August of 1964 on British Decca. It was imported for America's "Big Top" label, where there was some hope that The Daly's might be competition for other moody duos of the day. The hazy shades of "Winter Rushes On"'s words and lyrics could've been on Paul and Artie's "Sound of Silence" album. The song could've been covered as part of the filler on any Peter and Gordon and Chad and Jeremy disc.

The song is pleasantly sad, and well suited for a solo trudge on newly fallen snow. But be quick, as snow doesn't stick around long these days, and soon turns into the kind of dirty slush only suited for the eyelids of Adele or Nicki Minaj.

"Winter Rushes On" was written by only one Daly; John Patrick Daly along with Patrick Carroll. As you expect total obscurity from this blog, duly noted is: "Adieu Ma Maison," released around the same time, with the same melody but French lyrics by Alice Dona. She was a "Ye-Ye Girl," and her major recordings were between 1963 and 1965. Her version was apparently also covered on an old EP by the French fivesome called "Les Celibataires."

I haven't tracked down "Adieu Ma Maison," because every time I've been in a Paris record store and asked, the reply has been, "Adieu, Ma Twit." And the door gets slammed in my face. Which leads me to growl "Sapristi!" and skulk away with my baguette between my legs. However, when I invite Madame Dona to journey from the Ile De France to the Ile de Folks, I'll ask her to bring along a copy to give away (in the spirit of the "Free French" of Casablanca). Her birthday is coming up on February 17th. A month later, and there will be heat waves! Winter gone! "We were married in the spring...there was plenty to drink..."

WINTER RUSHES ON THE DALY'S

IN THE WINTER: Fat Pig Adele vs Little Kosher Janis

Fasten your seat belt, you're in for a bumpy rant!

One of the biggest (s)hits in recent memory is Adele's "Someone Like You." The U.K.'s most exported pork product ended up over-exposed on awards shows and a health hazard for anyone trying to navigate a store without hearing her loud, vengeful car-alarm bleating. The more you hear it, the less it becomes a tolerable Whitney Houston trumpet and more the bark of a novelty like "Who Let the Dogs Out." Even in Spanx and minus a coating of tart make-up, watching her perform is only slightly less revolting than seeing that "Gangnam Style" Korean galloping in place like a retarded pony.

"Someone Like You" isn't even such a good "paranoid bitch confronting an ex-boyfriend" song.

"You're married now," she says, "Guess she gave you things I didn't give to you. Old friend, why are you so shy? Ain't like you to hold back or hide from the light."

Hold back? If a grotesquely lumpy ex-girlfriend suddenly appeared, who wouldn't shrink away? Does a pedestrian jump in front of an oncoming bus?

"I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited, but...I couldn't fight it."

Two words: RAGING COW. Adele, alias "TORA TORA TORA" (that's fat cow, 3x too large) warns, "For me it isn't over."

At this point, I imagine the ex-boyfriend acting like Graham Chapman as King Arthur, and crying "Run away! RUN AWAY!" But galloping after him, is the fat horse of the apocalypse, her naggy siren voice shrieking with migraine-inducing anger: "Never mind, I'll find someone like you!" Then leave him the fuck alone Adele, and start dating at the Institute for the Blind.

"I wish nothing but the best for you..." she screams with all the sincerity of Kathy Bates opposite James Caan in "Misery."

Don't forget me…"

You think this guy could forget a nightmare of sex with Adele? The time she got on top and he had to call the paramedics to re-start his breathing? The time he went down on her and heard an echo? The way her sweat smelled like gravy?

By contrast, let's examine "In the Winter" by Janis Ian, a much more artistic and enduring "paranoid stalker" song from an earlier generation. Ian is also an enduring artist, who has remained viable for 40 years, putting out albums, coming up with a compelling autobiography, and continuing to tour. By contrast Adele, like Susan Boyle, will have the shelf life of a can of Spam.

The opposite of fat, gentile, British Adele, the former Janis Fink is short, Jewish and American. Instead of being a braying one-note, she uses a variety of vocal textures against an impressive variation of backing music; stark bony piano, groaning cellos, a dash of Psycho-violin, and when the suspense becomes unbearable, the full grandiose orchestra.

Big-voiced singers rely on loudness these days to score emotion. Janis, like most of her folkie influences, prefers to blend acting and attitude in with the singing. It works; all she has to do is mutter: "I met your friend. She's very nice. What can I say." Uh-oh.

Unlike Adele, who stormed in on her ex-lover, Janis has quietly emerged from the shadows:

"You have a lovely home." Double uh-oh.

Does she have a new lover? "No, I live alone."

Dementia drips from every plucked violin note, and no horror film actress ever delivered lines like that with more disquieting menace. No horror scriptwriter could invent a more disturbing or disjointed pair of sentences than these: "You're looking well. I'm not afraid."

BE afraid. Be very afraid. Will she kill the guy? Kill the new girlfriend? Kill herself? Her voice rises: "Lovely wife. You have a lovely wife!" Lovely. LOVELY! The killer's words in Hitchcock's "Frenzy" may have still lingered in Ian's mind.

The song's eerie navigation continues between major and minor, and between straitjacket calm (she seems soothed by imagining "extra blankets") and cold fury. It moves along contrasting Paul Simon-type alienation and vengeance (you fear she'll do some damage one fine day) until it climaxes with the uncorked bathos of "Macarthur Park" and its flurry of orchestral martyrs killing themselves to help Janis reach for those impossible notes.

Unlike Adele's number, you can listen to this complex little drama again and again, finding new musical accents and lyrical quirks. Did any of this happen or is it in her imagination? Since her ex-lover doesn't speak, is she speaking to a corpse? You can imagine many different scenarios. Maybe the guy's still alive but about to die. Maybe she'll kill them both and the last lines are her acceptance of a future in solitary confinement! You have till the Spring to figure this all out….

No download for the Adele song…just go into your local supermarket, stand under the speakers near the pork section, and you're bound to hear it within 10 minutes.

In the Winter Janis Ian

IN THE WINTER - Dusty Springfield & Barbi Benton

In the winter…Dusty Springfield sometimes didn't have a man to help shovel the sidewalk. Which was her choice. Barbi Benton had Hefner to keep her warm. But since he was always a bit spindly, that un-PC fur coat helped, too.

Both ladies covered Janis Ian's "In the Winter" while still in their prime. Both versions are below.

As you'd expect, the expressive Ms. Springfield almost does justice to the original, and the production values are fairly well copied. Give her an extra point for her British-Southern accent, which unintentionally makes "for a dime I can talk to God" into "for a damn." The sultry, smoke-dream singer always tended to put a romantic and soft edge on the heartache songs. Or, to put it in the country terms C&W singer Barbi Benton would understand, she was achy, but not breaky.

Benton, discovered by Hefner, was promoted via several covers and nude layouts for Playboy in the 70's (nice of Hef to share). She won fame but was not taken seriously when she was promoted as a singer. Nashville not too pleased with any titular competition for Dolly Parton, and probably wondering how C&W authentic a New York born Jew could be. With the hype and a decent song ("Brass Buckles") Barbi actually had a Top Ten C&W chart hit in 1975, and her first two albums went Top 20 in 1975.

Shifting to pop mainstream for her 1976 "Something New" album, she offered a decent if pointless cover of "He's a Rebel" (complete with backing chicks) and in a more ambitious choice, took the spotlight for "In the Winter."

It's a very credible solo performance, but taking into account that Barbi remained friends with Hef after their half-dozen years together, she doesn't have the heart of a stalker needed to make this song memorable. Her 1978 album "Ain't That Just the Way" went nowhere and after one more try with "Kinetic Voyage" in 1988, she pretty much retired from both singing and acting to raise her kids.

The winter of their careers? Dusty's last years have been well documented, and her sparse output in her last decade was mainly involved in gay-friendly duets with the Pet Shop Boys and re-mixes for the disco crowd that had become ardent fans ever since the whispers of her true sexuality became known. Barbi has occasionally surfaced for a photo-op at a celebrity event, but is apparently fine with her domestic life and the warm fuzzy letters she still gets from nostalgic fans.

In the Winter DUSTY SPRINGFIELD

In the Winter BARBI BENTON

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JOAN - "There But for Fortune"

The year started off on a downer, with the January 1st death of the most versatile female vocalist of the 20th Century, the under-appreciated Patti Page. But 2013's first set of posts begins with a salute to the living legend, female folkie Joan Baez, born on January 9th, 1941.

Joan has been a consistent presence on the music scene since the 60s, and aside from her love songs, protest songs, and her heartfelt concerts for so many good causes, her name will always be linked with a legend of folk music and protest…a certain scruffy gent who rose from strumming in clubs in Greenwich Village to writing songs covered by artists all over the world. Joan was eager to sing a song from the guy who turned heads during those early folk-rock days and who influenced so many people with his sharp wit, fascinating personality and both his beautiful ballads and his scorching songs of protest. Joan's name is forever linked with the one and only: Phil Ochs.

Oh yeah, Joan also put out an entire album of songs by some guy named Bob, who she was sweet on. And one of her best self-penned numbers, "Diamonds and Rust" was about him. But one of Joan's most famous singles, which you get in the download below, is Phil's "There But for Fortune." What do you get as a birthday gift for a woman who has everything the material world could give her, and more importantly, the respect and love of fans, friends and peers? She'd probably be the one to suggest that the gift of a song to others would be appropriate. Well, as long as it's ONE song, and not an entire discography on Pirate Bay.

"There But for Fortune" go all of us. Including Bob. I once mentioned to the brilliant Ms. Baez, her superiority to Bob. How? While she did a marvelous job in imitating Dylan's voice (in the midst of her cover of "Simple Twist of Fate") and even his look (if you remember the "Rolling Thunder" tour), HE, as great as he is, could never imitate Joan's voice or look like her!

During a live performance of "There But for Fortune," the crowd roared at the first notes. And she said, "You old Folkniks, you! It's MUTUAL!" We love you, Joan. Happy Birthday to the greatest and most enduring of the female folkies, still touring the world. Last year's concerts included Germany, France, Morocco, Italy, Austria, Ecuador, and…Sapristi…an entire month in the UK that included dates in Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Bristol, Salisbury, Basingstoke, Ipswich, Birmingham, London, Oxford, Nottingham, Cardiff, Plymouth, Poole, Cambridge, York, Gateshead, Glasgow and Brighton.

JOAN BAEZ There But for Fortune

JUSTICE FOR VICTOR JARA'S HORRORS

Singer-songwriter Victor Jara's work has lived on, both his activism, and his music. Jara (pronounced "Harra") recorded in Spanish, but whether you know the language or not, his work is still moving…with heartfelt vocals and good melodies. His mix of ballads and protest songs reminded people of another artist…Phil Ochs.

"Victor Jara was a friend of mine," Ochs recalled at the end of a rambling taped conversation with Harry Smith at the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan. "He was 27 years old…the Pete Seeger of Chile...When I was in Chile he came up to me and said, 'Hey, you, you're the North American protest singer, right? Phil Ochs.' I said, 'Yeah, you're a Communist and I'm a Socialist.' He said, 'Why don't you come with me and sing to the workers up in the copper mines?" Phil sang about the mines in Kentucky, so he surely was ready to sing along. Phil managed to get out of South America alive (the adventures are told in Michael Schumacher's bio of him). For Victor Jara, protest songs cost him his life. After General Pinochet's coup Jara was captured and brought to a stadium in Santiago that had become a death camp. Phil Ochs:

"So he goes to sing in front of 30,000 people, mostly soldiers and prisoners. Victor now knows he's going to die. So he prepares himself to die…trapped in the Santiago Stadium…they grabbed his fingers and broke them….Victor fell to the floor…they picked him up and said, "Sing, Victor, sing.' With the blood pouring out of his hands, Victor chose to stand up, wobbly, and sang. The other prisoners cheered. At this point they sprayed the stands with machine-gun fire to kill off a few...they took out a .45 and killed him. They threw his body with the other corpses. Just another dead body. His wife found him a week later. When that happened, I said, 'All right, that's the end of Phil Ochs.'"

The rebel in Phil did not die right away…he struggled to write new topical songs and appear at anti-war events. He also organized the "Evening with Salvador Allende" show at Madison Square Garden and persuaded Bob Dylan to turn up. A song that evening was for Victor Jara and sung by Arlo Guthrie, who quickly composed a melody to lyrics by Adrian Mitchell. He did a good job with his just-learned song, and you hear it below, live at the event. The full lyrics are here: http://www.arlo.net/resources/lyrics/victor-jara.shtml

"Then the generals seized Chile. They arrested Victor then

They caged him in a stadium with five-thousand frightened men

Victor stood in the stadium. His voice was brave and strong

And he sang for his fellow prisoners till the guards cut short his song

They broke the bones in both his hands. They beat him on the head

They tore him with electric shocks and then they shot him dead

His hands were gentle, his hands were strong…."

Jara died on September 16th, 1973. The dictatorship of Pinochet lasted through 1990…with estimates of at least 3,000 innocent citizens killed, and 30,000 imprisoned and tortured. Pinochet's power helped him remain free until he was finally arrested in England in 1998, and dragged back to Chile in 2000. He still avoided a trial for another four years, and was not close to conviction when in 2006, at the ripe old age of 91, he died of natural causes. Thousands of still-loyal supporters saw to it that the General had a dignified funeral and that any protestors were shoved away and threatened with violence.

Seven more years…and finally a total of eight men under Pinochet's command have been indicted in the cruel death of Victor Jara. Two men, one of them tracked down to America, have been specifically charged with homicide; the rest with aiding and abetting the murder. Hopefully the "we were just following orders" defense, which disgusted spectators at Nuremberg and similar trials, will not be considered an excuse for brutality and sadism involving civilians and fellow countrymen. Victor's widow Joan said, "We're pushing forward in demanding justice for Victor with the hope that justice will follow for everyone."

VICTOR JARA ARLO GUTHRIE

ROCK-A-BOUTS "She's a Fat Girl" tribute to GERARD DEPARDIEU

Back in the winter of 1958, Chancellor (best known for Fabian and Frankie Avalon singles) released a raucous bit of nastiness called "She's a Fat Girl," which Billboard, in an un-PC age, called "a novelty rocker with funny lyrics." The lyrics: "She's ugly, she's cross-eyed, got big ears, she got buck teeth…but you love her!"

This one-shot obscurity turns up on this obscure blog...as an excuse for a rant! Here's ranting about fat girl Gerard Depardieu! He was always ugly, but instead of buck teeth, he made millions of bucks because he did have talent. He appeared in some oddball and cult films ill folks might enjoy. He was a comical heavy to Harpo-idiot Pierre Richard in "La Chevre" and a bisexual tranny-bully to mousy Michel Blanc in the dark satire "Menage." You see him in his make-up in the image above, as well as in his current corpulent state.

Gerry's made headlines for pissing in public aboard an airplane (it could've been worse; it could've been Depar-doody) and for a recent drunk-driving incident on land (which could've gotten someone killed). While the latter case is still in the courts, the millionaire boor added to his notoriety via taking a Russian passport to protest paying high tax in France!

This is even more outrageous than his outrageous French accent! Russia?

Embracing Vlad Putin? ARE YOU CRAZY?

Listen, Fat Girl, if you were born and raised in Russia, chances are you'd already be dead. You would've been put in the Army and sent off to murder as many people in neighboring countries as you could, before being killed yourself. Maybe, Mr. Actor, you would've been trained by the KGB, sent off in drag to seduce and poison some British spy, and then knocked off to make sure you never talked. If you did manage to make movies in Russia, they'd be so crappy they'd only be shown in gulags where people were forced to watch as a form of torture. How many great Russian films have there been since the silent era?

Fat Girl, we're talking about Russia where girls who formed a rock group got sent to prison! Where creative people have no rights…certainly no copyrights. Where free speech is met by cruelty. Where starving homeless infants are denied adoption by Americans. The lean, hungry, pointy-nosed, plastic-surgery-faced Putin Devil keeps himself in office year after year to engage in activities that would make Rasputin puke. But…oh right, Fat Girl, YOU played Rasputin in a movie and Putin loved it. And he loved posing with you.

Gerry, I know you are a longtime reader of this blog, as so many rich, famous and important people are. But I have to say your Putin-Passport antics make you a DISGRACE. The Ruskies are happy anytime there's a disaster in the Free World (they never send aid). The Ruskies only support countries that are evil and dangerous to the free people of the world. The Ruskies steal all the movies, music and books from the countries that actually have creative and worthwhile product to sell. The Ruskies are so disgusting that anyone with brains and morality tries to escape, from Mikhail Baryshnikov to Milos Forman to Nadia Comaneci.

Fat girl, I am doing what I can. I have taken sanctions against you! For what you've done, this blog will NEVER, not EVER post that Levitt & McClure album you asked for. Nor any "not to be missed" really bad Psych albums that were reduced to mp3s the size of microfilm, farted out of Zinhof's ass and smuggled to Sweden. And most definitely NOT even a SINGLE, like "Sugar Lady" from the group Song, which your beloved Curt Boettcher was involved with! No! Instead of sunshine music or kewl psych, you suffer with the raunchy old Rock-a-Bouts, and their sax-spewing rockabilly song about an ugly fat girl! Adieu, Depardieu! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.

ROCK-A-BOUTS SHE'S A FAT GIRL