Roger O Green

G is for “The Great One,” Jackie Gleason

Gleason’s first album, Music for Lovers Only, still holds the record for the album longest in the Billboard Top Ten Charts

I recently noticed that actor/comedian Jackie Gleason would have turned 100 on February 26, 2016, and will have been dead 30 years come June 24, 2017.

When I was growing up in the 1960s, I used to watch his Saturday night variety show on CBS fairly regularly. Gleason played a variety of characters, including the snobbish millionaire Reginald Van Gleason III, the put-upon character known as the Poor Soul, and Joe the Bartender, who always greeted the bug-eyed “Crazy” Guggenheim (Frank Fontaine) before the latter would break into mellifluous song.

The show featured Sammy Spear and his orchestra, and the June Taylor Dancers, who were often shown in aerial pattern kaleidoscope formations, probably my favorite part of the show.

Before that show aired, there was The Honeymooners. Gleason was Ralph Kramden, on a series also starring Audrey Meadows (pictured with Gleason) as his wife, and Art Carney and Joyce Randolph as the apartment building neighbors. It is a classic 1950s TV program, though I didn’t much like it when I saw it in reruns as a child. The bus driver really bugged me with his rants such as “to the moon, Alice,” as though he were going to punch out his spouse. The Honeymooners was reprised in the 1960s with Carney, but with different actresses.

My mother had several albums of music with Gleason’s name attached. He lent his imprimatur to “a series of best-selling ‘mood music’ albums with jazz overtones for Capitol Records… Gleason’s first album, Music for Lovers Only, still holds the record for the album longest in the Billboard Top Ten Charts (153 weeks), and his first 10 albums sold over a million copies each.

“Gleason could not read or write music; he was said to have conceived melodies in his head and described them vocally to assistants who transcribed them into musical notes. These included the well-remembered themes of both The Jackie Gleason Show (‘Melancholy Serenade‘) and The Honeymooners (‘You’re My Greatest Love‘).”

Jackie Gleason had a decent movie career. I watched him, much after the fact, in The Hustler (1961) as pool shark Minnesota Fats. I saw him in the first two Smokey and the Bandit films, but not the third one. I recall enjoying his last film, Nothing in Common (1986), with an upcoming actor named Tom Hanks.

But perhaps the strangest thing in his career took place January 20, 1961: “‘You’re in the Picture‘ was a… replacement game show. Contestants would stick their heads through a cut-out board and guess what character they were. The first installment was so much of a failure that on the second week of the time slot Jackie Gleason came out, sat in a chair, and talked about how horrible the first show had been. He was hilarious.”

Presidents Day 2017: Nixon’s the One

JFK Calls about Furniture

George Washington’s first inaugural address (April 1789), referring to himself: “One, who, inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpractised in the duties of civil administration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies.”

Now I Know: The Case of George Washington versus Pinocchio

John Quincy Adams: When The People Cheered

Presidents in Our Backyard – Part 1 (Martin Van Buren, Chester A. Arthur, Ulysses S. Grant)

The highest-ranked President who only served one-term is James Knox Polk.

Sarah Knox Taylor, the second daughter of Zachary Taylor and the first Mrs. Jefferson Davis

This is an actual standard fantasy I’ve had over the years: I’m captured, and the Americans think I’m a spy. I name all the Presidents correctly, including the year entering the office and political party – I really CAN do that – then they shoot me, because OBVIOUSLY, I’m a Soviet/Russian/Chinese spy, since NOBODY knows Millard Fillmore (1850-1853, Whig), who was New York State Comptroller before becoming Vice-President.

Worst president ever: The ignominy of James Buchanan – On the way to the Capitol for the inauguration of his successor on March 4, 1861, Buchanan told Abraham Lincoln, “If you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland [his home in Pennsylvania], you are a happy man indeed.”

Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address (1861)
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Lincoln’s Great Depression

Now I Know The Vice:President (David Rice Atchison) and John Wilkes Booth’s Heroic Brother

Are You a Presidential Beard Connoisseur?

Ulysses S. Grant’s Veal & Sweet Potato Fries

The first President to ban immigrants?

Chris Churchill: A chat with President Chester A. Arthur

Now I Know: Grover Cleveland’s Pole Tax

‘All for each and each for all:’ Teddy Roosevelt’s Square Deal

Theodore Roosevelt holds that it is “unpatriotic, servile, and morally treasonable to proclaim that there must be no criticism of the President.” (1918)

Who was the first president to visit Canada? I was surprised.

Quora: Which US President had the most foresight?

Listening In: JFK Calls about Furniture (July 25, 1963)

Lyndon Johnson Speech Before Congress on Voting Rights (March 15, 1965): “There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans—not as Democrats or Republicans–we are met here as Americans to solve that problem.”

Lyndon Johnson orders pants.

Nixon Aide Reportedly Admitted Drug War Was Meant To Target Black People. “Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did.” Anyone who read Michele Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow already knew this.

Nixon’s Vietnam Treachery. This was treason.
US fatalities in the Vietnam war:
1969 – 11,780
1970 – 6,173
1971 – 2,414
1972 – 759
1973 – 68
1974 – 1
1975 – 62

Now I Know: The Red Menace (Nixon in China)

Three Presidential $1 Coins were issued in 2016, the final year of the program, for Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, and Ronald Reagan. Jimmy Carter had the audacity of still being alive; hope he’ll get one down the line, after he passes away.

Now I Know: Reagan and Gorbachev’s Green Pact

You Must Remember This podcast – Storm Warning: Ronald Reagan, the FBI and HUAC (THE BLACKLIST EPISODE #8)

10 Books to Understand the Obama Presidency

Presidential Payroll: What Commanders in Chief Have Earned Since 1789

Music, January 1971: All Things Must Pass

Atlantic’s Ahmet Ertegun recognized that the future of music was likely to be both album shaped and white in color.

Random music recollections based on the book Never A Dull Moment.

The Beatles had broken up but there was a Fab on the top of the charts. All Things Must Pass spent the first seven weeks of 1971 at #1 in the US, though, as a double album, or triple, if you insist on counting the jam, it was twice the price of a standard LP. The title song was the theme of my high school senior prom. I loved the All Things Must Pass album, but was sad that the box the albums came in was too flimsy, and fairly quickly.

Whereas John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band album was more difficult for me to grasp at first, with the primal screaming, though I did make it a part of my limited playlist at college that fall.

I was disheartened by the sometimes public sniping among the former Beatles, such as John’s towards George’s album, which was doing much better commercially than his. But because of a partnership agreement just before Brian Epstein’s death, they were joined at the hip. Harrison’s success was good for Lennon’s pocket too. So Paul could not leave the label as he wanted to do.

The leader of a Jersey cover band called Steel Mill made a trip to California and heard Van Morrison’s His Band and Street Choir. That album was one of my favorites, with Blue Money and Domino. That singer/guitarist, BTW, was Bruce Springsteen.

“Yes, we’re one of a number of long-haired groups who had been picked up in a sweep conducted by Atlantic’s Ahmet Ertegun when he recognized that the future was likely to be both album shaped and white in color. Ertegun had used his roots music calling card to sign Crosby, Stills & Nash; Iron Butterfly; Cream; and many other groups he really didn’t pretend to understand.” I did note that a lot of my favorite music of the period, from Sam & Dave and Roberta Flack and the (Young) Rascals to Led Zeppelin, was on the label.

The Yes Album did well, especially in head shops of the UK the first quarter of the year. It became another listening staple in my freshman year of college. So was Led Zeppelin III, which actually was #1 for 4 weeks in the last quarter of 1970.

Listen to:

Lord If I Ever Needed Someone – Van Morrison
Every Little Thing – Yes
What Is Life – George Harrison
Give Me Some Truth – John Lennon
I Hear You Knocking – Dave Edmunds
Gallows Pole – Led Zeppelin

Music Throwback Saturday: Banana Boat

Harry Belafonte will be turning 90 on March 1, 2017

I knew the song Banana Boat (Day-O) by Harry Belafonte. Everybody knows that song, even fans in Japan, who would sing it TO Harry.

But looking on the charts for February 16, 1957, I found TWO songs with similar titles, the Belafonte song at #5 and The Banana Boat Song by a group called The Tarriers at #7, a recording that, to my knowledge, I had never heard.

The Tarriers was a folk trio of Eric Darling (d. 2008), Bob Casey, and the future movie actor Alan Arkin (guitars). Darling, who played banjo, replaced Pete Seeger in The Weavers from 1958 to 1962, then formed The Rooftop Singers with Willard Svanoe and Lynne Taylor (d. 1982), who sang with Benny Goodman and Buddy Rich.

Harry Belafonte, of course, is a living legend. Five years ago, I wrote about Belafonte on the occasion of his 85th birthday, which means he’ll be turning 90 on March 1, 2017.

The Tarriers’ Banana Boat Song got up to #4, but it was #1 in Detroit, Milwaukee, St Louis, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Toronto. It first hit the Top 10 on December 29, 1956, jumping from #21 to #9, staying in the Top 10 ten more weeks, for a total of 19 weeks in the Top 100.

Harry Belafonte’s Banana Boat (Day-O) went from #14 to #9 on January 26, stuck at #5 for four weeks, but was in the Top 100 for a total of 20 weeks. It was #7 on the R&B national charts and got to #1 on the pop charts in Atlanta, New York City, Buffalo and Los Angeles.

Listen to:

Cindy, O Cindy – Vince Martin with the Tarriers (#9 in 1956) here or here

Banana Boat Song – The Tarriers here or here

Banana Boat (Day-O) – Harry Belafonte here or here

Walk Right In – The Rooftop Singers (#1 for two weeks in 1963) here or here

Tom Cat – The Rooftop Singers (#20 in 1963) here or here

Mama Don’t Allow – The Rooftop Singers (#55 in 1963) here or here

More Belafonte

He cannot be the sole authority of truth

“He progresses from learning of the existence of a new (to him) concept, to misunderstanding completely what it is and why it’s controversial, to wanting it, developing a strong opinion about it, painted in a childlike understanding of the world and of morality to expressing outrage that anyone could have an opinion about it that diverges from his own.”

I haven’t written much about a certain resident of New York City AND Washington, DC AND Palm Beach, Florida. It’s not for lack of interest. Some of it has been a lack of time. But mostly, it’s that it’s too hard, with so many issues popping that I can scarcely keep up. I’m amazed how Lawrence White does it. But I’m not inclined to make this blog only about him; I have a life.

It appears that 45 wants to be seen as the sole authority of truth. The sycophants around him have said pretty much the same thing. This is particularly problematic because, as it was the case LONG before he took office and more so now, he lies. He lies ALL of the time. Or as Scott Pelley of CBS News gingerly put it recently: “It’s been a busy day for presidential statements divorced from reality.”

Orange has thrown around the fake news canard as he lied about the murder rate in the US being at a 45-year high. He lied about the media coverage of terrorist activities, making journalists spend their time fighting back.

And then there was the press conference of February 16, 2017 that was fact checker’s dream. Or nightmare.

The man tweeted one morning, “Thank you to Prime Minister of Australia for telling the truth about our very civil conversation that FAKE NEWS media lied about.” The only problem is, no one had any idea what he was talking about. From the Washington Post: “It was unclear exactly what [he] was referring to, however. Turnbull did not deny the candid and frank exchange between the two men, with sources close to him describing [Orange] as a ‘bully’ in news reports.”

I thought I had missed some news detail, which, I suppose, was the point. As a local editor mused, “This is more than a little curious. Did the president just make up what a foreign leader said? Did he imagine it? Is he gaslighting us all? Or, did his administration feed false information to the press so he could accuse it of getting the story wrong? Any one of these scenarios is serious.”

He’s just as politically correct as the ones he criticizes. It “makes it impossible to talk about white supremacist terrorism, or right-wing terrorism of any kind. He can’t criticize Vladimir Putin.”

See John Oliver’s take on the issue.

His lackeys lie as well. Press Secretary Sean Spicer references an imaginary Atlanta terror attack to defend the travel ban.

And in a bit of doublespeak that quite literally gave me a headache, counselor Kellyanne Conway said that the things 45 says that are untrue are less important than the “many things he says that are true.” WTH?

Interestingly, he is always talking about OTHERS lying. It IS quite a clever distraction.

Also:

*He often does not understand what he is talking about

Watching Him Try to Puzzle Out What ‘Asset Forfeiture’ Means Is Deeply Discomfiting: “What’s striking here is the manner in which, over the course of an exchange that lasts perhaps a couple of minutes, he progresses from learning of the existence of a new (to him) concept, to misunderstanding completely what it is and why it’s controversial, to wanting to reinstate and expand civil asset forfeiture so cops can steal your stuff developing a strong opinion about it painted in a childlike understanding of the world and of morality (‘Who would want that pressure, other than, like, bad people, right?’), to expressing outrage that anyone could have an opinion about it that diverges from his own.”

He Is Signing Executive Orders That He Doesn’t Read or Understand. It is well known that he is intellectually lazy.

The conservative publication Foreign Policy says his big mouth has already weakened America.

He and Spicer don’t know, or don’t care, that THEY called the Muslim ban a ban, not the “lyin’ press.” Presidents have always misled. This one seems not to understand what the truth is.

*He runs a White House Devoid of Integrity

The ‘swamp’ he promised to ‘drain’ is growing again

The president is using his continued ownership of Mar-a-Lago to line his pockets. “‘Swanning through the club’s living room and main dining area alongside Abe, he was — as is now typical — swarmed with paying members, who now view dinner at the club as an opportunity for a few seconds of face time with the new President…’ To capitalize on the the premium people are willing to pay for access to the president, the Trump Organization recently doubled the Mar-a-Lago initiation fee to $200,000.” Orange has spent two of his three full weekends as president there.

Conway is hawking Ivanka’s wares, likely violating federal law, after he used his Twitter bully pulpit doing the same thing.

In general, it’s White House, Inc.

*He is petty and vindictive.

He demands an apology from Senator John McCain for saying that the failed raid in Yemen was not a success.

Who disses someone at the National Prayer Breakfast?

Just read the daily links from the relatively apolitical Mark Evanier.

*He surrounds himself with scary folks

Advisor Stephen Miller: “Our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see, as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.” Will not be questioned? He’s been a schmuck for a long time.

I would like to think DT and Steve Bannon’s coup in the making was hyperbolic. America’s Leading Authoritarian Intellectual Is Working for 45. Michael Anton, operating as a senior national security official, has written a “textbook justification for authoritarianism.” This makes Robert Reich’s question about the thugs at Berkeley not very far-fetched.

In other words: he is unfit to serve. I’ve moved from thinking that the Orange one could be impeached to the belief that it’s inevitable.

I’ve said it before, others have said it: this is NOT about Hillary losing. Some of it’s about policy, but it’s as much about the chaotic way it was done, his temperament, his judgment, his distressingly odd vocabulary.

And I was going to throw out there some solutions about how to deal with him. The problem is that I have a LOT of them collected. Some contradict others. Guess I need to synthesize these some more.

But I will say this: we need to be kind to one another. When you’re nasty to your potential ally in this fight, because you’ve been doing it longer, or know more, or have status, or are politically “pure”, you’re doing it wrong. If you drive away folks who mutually dislike Orange, how on earth are you going to reach out to those folks who support him currently, but may be persuaded otherwise down the road? They’re out there and we need to provide them somewhere to go.