1932 #1: Depression music

ten cents in 1932 is about two dollars today

Cole porter
Cole Porter

Here are the songs that reached #1 in 1932 in the United States. From A Century of Pop Music by Joel Whitburn: “The record industry underwent an almost total collapse to the point of selling only six million discs in 1932 – compared to the peak of 140 million just five years earlier.”

The growth of radio, in addition to the economic woes, contributed to this phenomenon. Some of the songs reflect the difficulties of the era.

Night and Day– Leo Reisman with Fred Astaire. 10 weeks at #1. A song by Cole Porter from the musical The Gay Divorcee. I became much more familiar with the works of Porter after I bought the original Red Hot + Blue album in 1991. This song was also covered by Peter Sprague and Rebecca Jade on Planet Cole Porter
In A Shanty In Old Shanty Town – Ted Lewis and his band, 10 weeks at #1

Please – Bing Crosby with Anson Weeks and his orchestra, 6 weeks at #1
Paradise – Leo Reisman and his orchestra with Frances Maddux, vocals, 6 weeks at #1. From the film, A Woman Commands

We Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye – Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians with Carmen Lombardo, vocal, 5 weeks at #1

Paradise – Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians with Carmen Lombardo, vocals, 3 weeks at #1
All Of Me – Paul Whiteman and his orchestra, with Mildred Bailey, vocals, 3 weeks at #1. The song was written by Gerald Marks and Seymour Simons. It was given the Towering Song Award by the Songwriters Hall of Fame as a result of the countless covers, including by Frank Sinatra and Willie Nelson

Deuce

All Of Me – Louis Armstrong, 2 weeks at #1
Dinah – Bing Crosby with the Mills Brothers, 2 weeks at #1
Say It Isn’t So – George Olsen with Paul Small, vocals 2 weeks at #1. Written by Irving Berlin
Lullabye of the Leaves – George Olsen, 2 weeks at #1

Too Many Tears – Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians with Carmen Lombardo, vocal, 2 weeks at #1
River, Stay Away From My Door – Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians with Kate Smith, 2 weeks at #1
Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? – Rudy Vallee, 2 weeks at #1. From  Wikipedia: “Written by lyricist Yip Harburg and composer Jay Gorney,… [it] was part of the 1932 musical revue Americana; the melody is based on a Russian-Jewish lullaby. The song tells the story of the universal everyman, whose honest work towards achieving the American dream has been foiled by the economic collapse.”
Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? – Bing Crosby, 2 weeks at #1

Reisman, Whiteman, Olsen were on Victor
Lewis, Armstrong, and Vallee were on Columbia, though I also found the Armstrong recording on Okeh
Crosby and Lombardo were on Brunswick, except the Kate Smith cut, on Columbia

Philando Castile homicide has wrecked me

‘Are we all watching the same video? The video where a law-abiding man followed an officer’s instructions to the letter of the law and was killed regardless?’

In the roster of black men killed by police and available on video, the brutal, and totally unnecessary death of Philando Castile, and the acquital of the police officer who shot him, has hit me the hardest. As Trevor Noah said on the Daily Show, “I won’t lie to you, when I watched this video, it broke me.”

In case you can’t keep up with WHICH miscarriage of American justice this was:

“After Officer [Jeronimo] Yanez politely informs Castile that he’s been pulled over for a broken taillight and asks for Castile’s license and insurance, Castile calmly discloses that he has a firearm (Castile had a permit to carry the gun). Then the situation rapidly devolves. Yanez places his hand on his holster and tells Castile not to reach for the gun; within a few seconds, Yanez is yelling ‘Don’t pull it out!’ as Castile and his girlfriend try to assure Yanez that no one is grabbing for it. Then Yanez fires seven times into the car.”

Yes, watching videos of police brutality can traumatize you, especially if you’re black. “Research suggests that repeated viewing of terrorism news coverage can lead to symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“Though Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, had previously streamed the immediate aftermath of the shooting on Facebook live, the moment of the shooting itself was not made available to the public until this week.”

And then it gets surreal.

Moments after Yanez shot Castile, [Diamond Reynold’s] 4-year-old [daughter] climbed out of the back seat of the car in which Castile was shot…

Diamond Reynolds and her daughter were in the back of a squad car for “45 minutes until an officer drove them to a nearby police station for questioning…” While handcuffed there, “Reynolds shouted an expletive, and the girl said, ‘Mom, please stop cussing and screaming ’cause I don’t want you to get shooted.'” The girl also wished they lived in a safer place.

I’m watching this with my teenaged daughter, and she’s crying, and I’m crying. We show it to my wife and watch it yet again, and she’s crying too.

And where’s the National Rifle Association in this? The NRA has shunned a Second Amendment martyr. “Philando Castile died because he exercised his right to bear arms.” Even the very conservative Hot Air thinks so.

“Part of the irony of this verdict, Noah explained, is that it comes after years of people saying that the solution to unwarranted police shootings is to require police to wear body cameras, to eliminate any doubt about what had happened. ‘Black people have already taken that initiative, all right?’ Thanks to cellphones, every black person has a body cam now’ — and for Castile, neither a dashcam nor a cellphone mattered.

“Even worse, Noah went on with palpable horror, is that the jury of Castile’s fellow citizens did see this footage, and concluded that Officer Yanez had reason to claim self-defense. ‘Forget race,’ Noah said. ‘Are we all watching the same video? The video where a law-abiding man followed an officer’s instructions to the letter of the law and was killed regardless? People watched that video, and then voted to acquit?'”

The Philando Castile story hasn’t made me mad as hell. It has brought out a level of despair that even I, as melancholy as I can be, have not felt in a very long time.

April rambling #2: Knowledge, Freedom, Democracy

The Public Library: A Photographic Love Letter


Do Not Lose Heart; We Were Made for These Times

On earth as it is in heaven: Why Jesus didn’t call his followers to be safe

The Gaslight Zone, Part 1 and Part 2

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Gerrymandering and Marijuana

Can We Get Real About Opioids? and Opioids, My Mom’s Death, and Why People Trust Science Less

How my daughter died from a simple case of flu

The Perception of Liberal Bias in the Newsroom Has Nothing Whatsoever to Do With Reality

Facebook use is a predictor of depression

The Internet Isn’t the Wild Wild West Anymore, It’s Westworld

Killing the Church with Sunday School

Girl, 2, defends her choice of doll to cashier

Carolyn Kelly, R.I.P.
Mark Evanier’s getting by, with the help of Henry Fonda

Sheryl Sandberg: ‘Everyone looked at me like I was a ghost’

Letterman’s mom was everyone’s mom: Dorothy Mengering dead at 95

A Tribute to Carrie Fisher

The Public Library: A Photographic Love Letter to Humanity’s Greatest Sanctuary of Knowledge, Freedom, and Democracy

Dianne Bentley saved receipts, helped take down her cheating governor husband

Arts in the Parks

Not me: Two longtime artists offer stunning works in ‘Traces’ exhibition

“Let me help” (Thoughts on “The City on the Edge of Forever”)

Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in the 1960s

Ken Levine interview: Voiceover artist Randy Thomas

I wrote about helicopter parenting four and a half years ago, and someone wanted to know if I wanted to read Abandon Helicopter Parenting, Embrace Negotiation Parenting; xooloo has developed an app for that.

7 Tips for Donating Old Books Without Being A Jerk

Now I Know: The Slave Who Spied on the Traitor and The Campaign for the Other Gary and Taking “One Person, One Vote” Literally — and Accidentally

Queen Elizabeth has someone break in her shoes before she wears them

Dawn Wells: Forever Mary Ann

I keep seeing references to crushed Doritos in recipes, e.g. replacing bread crumbs on fried chicken, or as the crust for mac and cheese. Have YOU used them?

Chopped liver

Music

Just a clown singing Pinball Wizard to the tune of Folsom Prison Blues

The Beatles – Home Recordings, May 1968 (white album)

Coverville: Elton John cover story

Back in June 1980, the legendary Chuck Berry performed in the little village of Ladner, British Columbia, Canada

K-Chuck Radio: Music to help pretty plants grow

5 truly explosive performances of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture

Appreciating an Unusual Beach Boys Album

Who has opened for the J. Geils Band?

Linda Hopkins; blues singer won Tony for best actress

The Neuroscience of Singing

There is a reason to have a B# and an E#

John Coltrane Draws a Picture Illustrating the Mathematics of Music

Monkees Star Mike Nesmith Reveals All on Drugs, a Near-Crippling Illness, and Jack Nicholson ‘Bromance’ in New Memoir

Where Have All The Bob Seger Albums Gone?

Genesis Tour Manager Recalls His Role in One of Rock’s Most Embarrassing Moments

Rock’n’roll shrimp named after Pink Floyd because of its deafening vocal ability

January rambling: broken spaghetti

poll

Has America gone crazy? “It’s hard to know why we are the way we are, and — believe me — even harder to explain it to others.” Plus ignorance as a virtue.

Barack Obama’s 2015 State of the Union address: annotated. And the official website for House Republicans has posted on YouTube a doctored version of the SOTU address which cuts out comments where the President was critical of Republican rhetoric on climate change.

How Expensive It Is to Be Poor.

Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Dustbury writes: “Depressed? ‘Buck up,’ they say. ‘Smile a little.’ They are, of course, full of crap.”

Last year Roger Ver renounced his US citizenship to avoid paying US taxes. “Now he’s upset that the ‘tyrants’ in the US government won’t give him a visa to visit Miami.”

From Forbes, hardly a liberal bastion: Bibi Netanyahu — aka ‘The Republican Senator From Israel’ — May Have Made A Fatal Political Mistake.

Solving homelessness in Salt Lake City.

Hetero privilege: holding hands. Also, SCOTUS takes up marriage equality. I too would have cited Loving v. Virginia, because I do that.

Remembering Auschwitz: 70 Years After Liberation. Also, Auschwitz Survivor Gena Turgel Walked Out of Gas Chamber Alive and the BBC flew a drone over Auschwitz.

Research Finds That Guns Do Indeed Kill People.

The strike that changed Milwaukee by Michael Rosen.

Eddie’s cancer updates. Then, Ronald Keith and Michael Edward get married in Chicago, “an event 25 years in the making!”

Ursula Le Guin on the future of literature.

A Pharmacist’s tongue-in-cheek guide to patient etiquette.

Major progressive New Testament scholar Marcus Borg has died.

How Lakes Can Explode Like A Can Of Soda.

Why you can’t actually break spaghetti in two: “Invariably a third piece is formed, and sometimes a fourth.” And speaking of broken: a copy of one of the largest check I’ve seen.

Dustbury’s memory does not serve him well. Sounds like me.

Burger Math and Cereal Killers and the smallpox boat and 8-6-7-5-3-0-….

Yitang Zhang solves a pure-math mystery, involving prime numbers.

Steampunk in New Zealand.

Uthaclena goes off the tracks.

My favorite haiku of the month.

Operation Downfall.

Why Are Some People Better at Drawing than Others?

Cartoonist Jorge Gutierrez interviews Sergio Aragonés.

In honor of the first anniversary of Pete Seeger’s death, check out the January 2015 issue of the Monthly Review.

Paul McCartney describes his feelings re: the fact that the band’s music is now being used as a point of focus in college-level popular music courses.

Paul Simon and John Lennon co-presenting the GRAMMY for Record Of The Year at the 17th GRAMMY awards.

K-Chuck Radio: You can go, but we’ll still have hits….

Muppets: Yorick and Zizzy Zoomers. Also, the very significant I Love My Hair and The Color of Me, plus Nick McKaig’s rendition of the theme from The Muppet Show and how Jim Henson worked and a long interview with Frank Oz.

How Yogi Bear’s collar revolutionized television, plus Daws Butler on You Bet Your Life; the cartoon voice artist was quite short.

SamuraiFrog pointed me to The Way They Was: Six Totally Different Shows The Simpsons Has Been.

The Origin Of “The Trix Rabbit”.

What the Marvel Super-Heroes looked like on Saturday mornings.

Ken Levine on hosting this month’s Friday Night Spotlight series on Neil Simon for TCM. And Mark Evanier makes some corrections to those intros.

NO “BLAH BLAH BLAH”.

The NFL finds that Patriots used underinflated footballs. Perhaps coach Bill Belichick can’t help but channel his inner Richard Nixon. Go, Seahawks!

The TV show Parenthood just went off the air. I watched it religiously. From PARADE: What I Learned About My Family From Parenthood’s Braverman Family.

Why local social media goddess Kristi Gustafson Barlette took a break from social media.

From the Onion News Network: Judge Rules White Girl Will Be Tried As Black Adult. And from the Onion: I Don’t Vaccinate My Child Because It’s My Right To Decide What Eliminated Diseases Come Roaring Back.

GOOGLE ALERTS (me)

I am described as a Kirby Delauter Super Fan, which made me LOL, literally. I have witnesses.

The page turner.

Arthur on Mario Cuomo.

I asked Arthur about Facebook quizzes. Here’s one he did: What Is Your 2014 Anthem. He got Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off. I got John Legend’s All of Me: “Wowzers, what a year right? 2014 may have held some special things in it, but this isn’t your first nor your last rodeo. People like you who give their full efforts here on this planet are rare, so anytime you need a reminder of how important you are let this legend from John ride and just reminisce. Thank you for putting so much love, positivity, and good vibes into the atmosphere… it may not seem like too much out of the ordinary for you, but Picasso didn’t know he would grow to be Picasso while he was painting either. We appreciate it, so just stay committed to giving all of yourself (into the right situations of course) in all your endeavors!” Positivity?

GOOGLE ALERTS (not me)

Cole Memorial Hospital’s maternity unit announces that Potter County (PA)’s New Year’s baby on Jan. 1 at 2:20 p.m. Roger Bradley Green.

May Rambling #1: Depression; and ABCW’s Leslie gets married

The thing I remember most about the 1964-65 World’s Fair in NYC , as was true of many people, was the Belgian waffle.

music.clockMy April was much better than my March, but between blog connectivity problems (more anon), and back pain that kept me out of work for a couple of days, followed by four days out of town for work training, which compressed other tasks, I didn’t a chance to update the April Rambling since April 17. Moreover, I discovered some links from as much as two years ago I was GOING to use but they fell through the cracks. Meaning that I’ll do another one at the end of the month. Always said that if blogging got too hard, I would not do it. And this, comparatively, is the easy post I need right now.

An article about depression I was going to include in a different blog post. Some of the earlier posts from this blog I liked too. The blogger also linked to the TEDx talk Andrew Solomon: Depression, the secret we share. “The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality, and it was vitality that seemed to seep away from me at that moment.” When I imagine many people’s understanding of depression, I think of that famous scene in the movie Moonstuck where the Nicolas Cage character says “I’m in love with you,” and the Cher character slaps him and says, “Snap out of it,” as though that were the answer.

Developed in conjunction with the World Health Association (WHO), this link provides a quick adult ADHD screening test. (I scored in the “likely” range.) But I believe that daydreaming is NOT a disorder; so does Amy. Amy also notes: my faith can’t be pegged on whether This Actually Happened or That Actually Didn’t; I concur.

Why Anthony is a bit uncomfortable with fundamentalist Christians, even though they share many of his theological convictions, in a musical motif.

Was Jesus gay? An Anglican priest says, “Probably.” And The Top 8 Ways To Be ‘Traditionally Married,’ According To The Bible.

55,000 Christians: We’re ‘Appalled By Sarah Palin’s Twisted Misrepresentation Of Our Faith’

Helping Kids Deal with Overcoming Loss. Also, LIKE…Ummm Let’s Learn to Communicate…Dude!!

Sometimes, I just like a blog post because I totally agree with it. SamuraiFrog hates second-hand smoke, and goodness knows, my tolerance is extremely low. Dustbury is put off by visiting folks who constantly have the TV on, even when they’re not watching it; also, the assumption of privilege.

Arthur wrote:

Sometimes I offer…information unsolicited, but most of the time I don’t say anything unless asked rather than appear to be a “know-it-all”. How do YOU decide when to share a fact and when to remain silent?

I say less and less, barring someone potentially coming to bodily harm. That is unless we’re having an interactive conversation about a mutually interesting topic, like the chat I recently had with our departing intern about music, which involved Woody Guthrie, the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album, and Sly & the Family Stone.

Reading Literature Makes Us Smarter and Nicer. As though I didn’t know.

Leslie, my most helpful majordomo on ABC Wednesday, got married on May 1 to her Lorne. She wrote about JOYOUS JUMBLE of JITTERS and Lists and Magical Music and being a little nervous about the nuptials and their Odyssey, which began in 1969; let’s PARTY! A shoutout from Reader Wil.

SCOTUS Justice Antonin Scalia’s Blunder Is Unprecedented.

GayProf is back with University Admini-o-crats.

Man Buys 10,000 Undeveloped Negatives At a Local Auction and Discovers One of The Most Important Street Photographers of the Mid 20th Century. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but great pictures.

The extraordinarily 80s Crossgates promo film, touting the local mall I eventually learned to hate.

Taking Rube Goldberg Seriously: What fictional inventions say about American ingenuity.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

5 Clearly Fake News Stories The Media Told You Were True.

List of the 101 Best Written TV Series from the WGA, West.

The insanity of political correctness continues.

This Man Somehow Solved The Hardest ‘Wheel of Fortune’ Puzzle Ever! Hey, I got the first word…

The Comics that Corrupted Our Kids!

Rebecca Jade, niece #1, singing I’d Rather Go Blind, the Etta James song.

Tosy: U2 – ranked 90-81.

50 Years Ago last month: the 1964-65 World’s Fair Opens in Queens, New York. Our family did not go until 1965, and the thing I remember most, as was true of many people, was the Belgian waffle. Frog has a sidebar about the Fair.

What 1939 Thought Fashion in 2000 Would Look Like.

Pavlova and friend.

More on the five-second rule.

Knowing my penchant for Chucks, someone sent me this: Chuck Taylors vs. Jordans: Sneaker love goes head to head.

Viola Smith plays drums on “Snake Charmer” (1939). She was one of the first professional female drummers.

Harry Belafonte’s journey to the top.

Neko Case and the case for/against religion.

Apropos of nothing, almost every time I read something about swimming, the Peter Gabriel song I Go Swimming, from the live album, pops into my head, especially that opening bass line.

Book Review: Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust by Ken Scott.

Evanier on coincidence, again. This involves Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Mort Meskin, and a phone call from Sid Jacobson.

Al Feldstein, R.I.P. He was the MAD magazine editor for nearly 30 years, starting in 1956, so I grew up with his iteration of the publication.

What else did I see the late Bob Hoskins in, besides Nixon and of course, Who Framed ROGER Rabbit? (Here’s a bit of music from the latter.) An episode of Frasier, the movie Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005), and most recently, 2010’s Made in Dagenham, which I didn’t see until the following year.

Muppet related: Tick-Tock Sick and The Bug Band play The Beatles and Born to Add and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and Pöpcørn and Hey, Food.

50 Shades, Chapter 24 and Chapter 25, and Chapter 26. The end, Hallelujah!

The blog is dead, long live the blog.

GOOGLE ALERT (about me)

Be careful what you ask for, Roger! This becomes the music choice when Jaquandor is too busy to pick a “traditional” Something for Thursday. Buying a house WILL do that to one.

Arthur name checks me a tittynope.

Dustbury sympathizes with my new computer purchase. Then the Sooner explains why Oklahoma residents who produce their own energy through solar panels or small wind turbines on their property will now be charged an additional fee.

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