Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders) is 70

“The farms of Ohio had been replaced by shopping malls”

Chrissie HyndeOne of my all-time favorite debut albums is Pretenders, released in 1980. It was by a group I thought was British. In fact, the lead singer. and primary songwriter was Chrissie Hynde, originally from Akron, Ohio.

She bounced around in the London and Paris music scenes for half a decade before the Pretenders were formed in 1978 with Pete Farndon (bass). James Honeyman-Scott (guitar, vocals, keyboards), and Martin Chambers (drums, vocals, percussion).

The second album, the less-than-inspired titled Pretenders II (1981) was solid. But then, Farndon was fired from the band in June 1982 and died less than a year later. “On 16 June 1982, Honeyman-Scott died of heart failure as a result of cocaine intolerance.”

After that, there was an ever-changing lineup, with Chrissie the only constant. When the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005, only the original quartet was selected.

The band now has 11 albums, but I’ve heard only the first four. Still, Chrissie has remained a busy working musician with collaborations with Emmylou Harris, Ringo Starr, and Brazilian musician Moreno Veloso, among many others.

Songs

The chart refers to the Billboard pop charts. Songs leading to my favorite. 

Brass in Pocket, #14 in 1980 – I enjoy this, at least in part, because she initially didn’t like her performance. “When we recorded the song I wasn’t very happy with it and told my producer that he could release it over my dead body… Now I like that song because it’s one of those songs that served me well.”
Jealous Dogs – featuring barking, always appreciated
I’ve Got You, Babe, #28 in 1985 – this cover of the Sonny and Cher classic is actually a Chrissie song with UB40, though it appears on the Pretenders: The Singles
Pack It Up – something about “your insipid record collection” always cracked me up
Back On The Chain Gang, #5 in 1983 – essentially Hynde, Chambers, and a pickup band of lead guitarist Billy Bremner of Rockpile, guitarist Robbie McIntosh, and bassist Tony Butler. It was used in the movie The King of Comedy, starring Robert DeNiro and Jerry Lewis. Love the clanging metal sound.

I Go To Sleep – written by Ray Davies, as was Stop Your Sobbing. Sleep was recorded by the Applejacks and Marion, but not officially by The Kinks. Davies is the father of Hynde’s daughter Eva.
Don’t Get Me Wrong, #10 in 1986 – I like the “jangly” guitar sound
Cuban Slide – part of the Extended Play EP between the first two albums
Mystery Achievement  – last song of the first album
God Only Knows  – the 2014 BBC all-star version of the Beach Boys classic features Chrissie
Middle of the Road, #19 in 1984 – she had said that the song refers to Tao Te Ching, which she interprets as “the middle way”
Precious – the first song on the first album. Howard the Duck is namechecked, the revered 1970s comic book, not the reviled 1980s movie
My City Was Gone, B-side of Chain Gang – “I went back to Ohio.” Great social commentary with a killer bass line.

Ultimate Classic Rock’s Pretenders list 

Peculiar year for American workers

The appropriately named Johnny Paycheck

It’s been a fascinating year for American workers. Job opportunities are coming back after being devastated by the pandemic. Yet it is clear that organizational leaders who expect the workplace to get back to “normal” are surprised.

Employees are quitting in masses. “Nearly 3.6 million Americans resigned in May [2021] alone. But it’s not an issue that’s specific to a certain industry, role, or even salary — it’s a workplace issue.

“A new Gallup analysis finds that 48% of America’s working population is actively job searching or watching for opportunities. Businesses are facing a staggeringly high quit rate… and a record-high number of unfilled positions. And Gallup discovered that workers in all job categories, from customer-facing service roles to highly professional positions, are actively or passively job hunting at roughly the same rate.”

Take this job and shove it 

From The Atlantic: “Why the sudden burst of quitting? One general theory is that we’re living through a fundamental shift in the relationship between employees and bosses that could have profound implications for the future of work. Up and down the income ladder, workers have new reasons to tell their boss to shove it.

“Lower-wage workers who benefited from enhanced unemployment benefits throughout the pandemic may have returned to the job and realized they’re not being paid enough.” The poor pay has been true for decades, BTW.

“Now they’re putting their foot down, forcing restaurants and clothing stores to fork over a higher wage to keep people on staff.” This means that some workers are getting close to, or exceeding, the $15 per hour wage so many have demanded for several years.

“Meanwhile, white-collar workers say they feel overworked or generally burned out after a grueling pandemic year, and they’re marching to the corner office with new demands… Gallup finds that it takes more than a 20% pay raise to lure most employees away from a manager who engages them, and next to nothing to poach most disengaged workers.”

Daily stress

There is a global workplace survey commissioned by Gallup. In the United States and Canada, workers there “reported the highest rate of daily stress in the world during 2020.” Working women, younger workers were more stressed than their counterparts. “Only about one in three U.S. employees and one in five Canadian employees are engaged at work. Burnout prevention requires both high engagement and high employee wellbeing.”

It’s not just MORE money workers desire. Americans Are Willing to Take Pay Cuts to Never Go Into the Office Again. “A new survey shows 65% of workers who said their jobs could be done entirely remotely were willing to take a 5% reduction to stay at home.” But NOT a 20% reduction.

It could be worse

From Newsweek: In June, “The Supreme Court threw out a lawsuit that claimed the Minneapolis-based Cargill and the American arm of Switzerland-based Nestle ‘aided and abetted’ slavery by knowingly buying cocoa beans from farms that used child labor.

“Six African men brought the lawsuit, claiming that they were trafficked from Mali as children and forced to work long hours, then locked up at night, at cocoa farms in Ivory Coast, the world’s leading producer of cocoa. The group sought a class-action lawsuit on behalf of themselves, as well as who they say are thousands of other former child slaves.

“But justices ruled 8-1 that an appeals court improperly let the lawsuit against the food companies go forward in the U.S. as the respondents’ injuries ‘occurred entirely overseas’, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a majority opinion for the court.

A 2020 report funded by the U.S. Department of Labor found that the cocoa industry in West Africa was exploiting 1.6 million child laborers and that the use of child labor has risen despite industry promises to reduce it.

True? Fiction?

The American Dream. The Forgotten Employee.

The SCOTUS abortion ballet

“enlisting private citizens to do what the State could not”

abortionIt’s not that I’m happy that the Texas state legislature passed legislation severely restricting abortion. It’s that I’m unsurprised. I’ve come to expect dreadful things from the Texas legislature – see its recent restrictive voting bill.

These bills were signed by its terrible, awful, not very good governor, Greg Abbott, who’s always in fierce contention with Florida’s Ron DeSantis as my least favorite state chief executive.

The latest bad law in Texas bans abortion as early as six weeks. For women with regular menstruation cycles, they have only two weeks after missing a period to determine pregnancy. This is before most people even know they are pregnant.

Vigilantes

Worse, the state law allows anyone to sue a person or organization that provides abortion care or even helps someone obtain an abortion. As Truthout notes: “The drafters of SB 8 established a novel scheme to prevent lawsuits against state officials by privatizing enforcement and deputizing private persons to sue people who provide abortions.

“The bill gives any non-governmental person the right to sue abortion providers and those who ‘aid and abet’ them, financially or otherwise… Defendants must pay plaintiffs who win their lawsuits a $10,000 bounty plus attorneys’ fees. In other words, Texas is bribing its residents to sue people who help women get abortions.”

This variation on vigilante justice is not only constitutionally dubious but potentially dangerous to the potential defendants. The targets “could include anyone — doctors, nurses, friends, spouses, parents, domestic violence counselors, clergy members or Uber drivers.” Given the rage people have over vaccine requirements and mask mandates, this is scary stuff. As VoteVets noted: “In a state with fewer restrictions on guns than on reproductive health care, that kind of vigilante justice is pretty terrifying.”

Supreme Court punts

So I’m furious with the SCOTUS abortion ballet. In a one-paragraph, unsigned order, the court acknowledged that the providers had “raised serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the Texas law.” But that was not enough to stop the law from going into effect. The court explained it’s because of the way the law operates.

Specifically, the court observed, it wasn’t clear whether the state officials – a judge and court clerk – and the anti-abortion activist whom the abortion providers had named as defendants “can or will seek to enforce the Texas law” against the providers in a way that would allow the court to get involved in the dispute at this stage.”

That’s legal mumbo jumbo for BS. As Chief Justice John Roberts notes, SCOTUS has allowed the state to allow the implementation of a law that could be unconstitutional. “The Court’s order is emphatic in making clear that it cannot be understood as sustaining the constitutionality of the law at issue.”

As Justice Sonia Sotomayor explained in dissent, the Texas “Legislature took the extraordinary step of enlisting private citizens to do what the State could not…The Court should not be so content to ignore its constitutional obligation to not only protect the rights of women but also the sanctity of its precedents and of the rule of law.”

Onerous

In a state that leads the country and much of the developed world in the rate of maternal mortality, women in Texas will now have to travel to another state to secure an abortion or resort to life-threatening back-alley coat-hanger abortions. There is no exception for rape or incest.

Biden said the Court’s [in]action in Woman’s Whole Health “unleashes unconstitutional chaos and empowers self-anointed enforcers to have devastating impacts.” He added, “Complete strangers will now be empowered to inject themselves in the most private and personal health decisions faced by women.”

Future

Does this mean that Roe v. Wade has been overturned? Not necessarily. This was a wuss non-action by SCOTUS. The Court will address Roe in a  Mississippi case soon. The Court’s actions in Texas DOES make me nervous about Roe’s future.

It’d be nice if Congress would pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, but I’m not encouraged. 

1981 #1s: I Know Every Song

2 H&O, 2 Blondie

Hall and OatesOften, there have been #1 songs, even in my lifetime, that I have never even heard of. Then there’s 1981 when I was in my late twenties, and I’ve heard every single track that reached the top of the Billboard pop charts.

All of them went gold. Four of them, as noted below, went platinum. I own at least half of them in a physical form; some you’ll even guess.

Physical – Olivia Newton-John, ten weeks at #1, platinum. #28 RB. As startling as transformation as the one Sandy went through in the movie Grease.

Bette Davis Eyes – Kim Carnes, nine non-consecutive weeks at #1. As I may have noted, Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon wrote this in 1974, and Jackie recorded it.

Endless Love – Diana Ross and Lionel Richie, nine weeks at #1,  platinum. #1 RB for seven weeks. The title song from a Brooke Shields movie I had never heard of.

Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do) – Christopher Cross, three weeks at #1. He was HUGE for a very short time.

Kiss On My List – Daryl Hall and John Oates, three weeks at #1. I can’t resist singing the harmony vocals of this song.

Two weeks at #1

Jessie’s Girl – Rick Springfield. I never even watched General Hospital, yet I knew he was on it.

I Love A Rainy Night  – Eddie Rabbit. #1 on the country charts for a week.

9 to 5 – Dolly Parton. Also #1 on the country charts for a week. I enjoyed the movie with Parton, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dabney Coleman.

Private Eyes – Daryl Hall and John Oates. Love the handclaps.

Rapture – Blondie. Also #33 RB.

Celebration – Kool and the Gang, platinum. Also #1 for six weeks RB. The #1 song in my short-lived disco dancing phase.

Morning Train (Nine to Five) – Sheena Easton. Another 9 to 5 song!

A single week at the top

The Tide Is High – Blondie.

Keep On Loving You – REO Speedwagon, platinum. Friends of mine referred to them as REO Spudwagon.

Medley: Intro “Venus”/Sugar, Sugar/No Reply/I’ll Be Back/Drive My Car/Do You Want to Know a Secret/We Can Work It Out/I Should Have Known Better/Nowhere Man/You’re Going to Lose That Girl – Stars on 45. “This single with its 41-word title continues to hold the record for a #1 single with the longest name on the Billboard charts, due to the legalities requiring each song title be listed.”

the One That You Love – Air Supply.

Cave Inn Coffeehouse in New Paltz

Main Street

mulled ciderSomething triggered a recollection of my days at New Paltz. During the 1975-76 school year, after I broke up with the Okie, then dropped out of college for a semester, I lived in a coffeehouse.

It was called the Cave Inn, something I didn’t remember the name until helped by a New Paltz alumni group. What I DO remember is the address, 143 Main Street, right next to the bus station. It was run by the Student Christian Center, under the leadership of Paul Wiley. But the music played every weekend wasn’t generally overtly Christian.

The residents’ jobs were to rent to set up, serve cider during the event, and clean up afterward. It was not a heavy lift, and I felt that the rent was quite reasonable. This setup went on for a number of years before and after my time there.

That year, I lived with two guys, both named Mike, one blondish and the other brunet. For some reason, they actively hated each other. They yelled a lot, and at least once, chairs were thrown. I tried to be the peacemaker, usually without much success.

The dark-haired Mike sang Alice Restaurant at least once at the coffeehouse. I have a specific recollection of people singing Take It To The Limit by the Eagles, and me being singing the high harmony, usually beyond my reach.

Culture break

The one problem is that Paul wouldn’t let us stay during the winter break, though I could leave my stuff there. I had no other place to live. My parents had moved to Charlotte, NC in 1974. So I stayed in Queens, NYC with my mother’s aunt Charlotte Yates for three weeks.

I went to a few cultural things with Charlotte, but far more with her sister Ida Berman. She was an accomplished photographer. It was probably the first time I had gone to at least a half dozen museums and art galleries.

Meeting Paul

When I first attended New Paltz in 1971, I was having serious doubts about the efficacy of Christianity. Yet I would occasionally hang out at the Christian Student Center on Plattekill Avenue, where Paul worked and I think lived. I wasn’t going to church, but I guess I wanted to be Christian-adjacent.

In the fall of 1974, when the Okie and I were breaking up, it became clear to me that there was no way I could finish my five courses. I just didn’t have it in me. But it was after the midterm point. One could not drop courses unless one had been seeing a professional: a doctor, or psychologist, or the like.

Or a pastor. I don’t know that I had been talking to Paul specifically about my immediate difficulties; I just don’t know. But he signed off on the form, and on December 4, I was able to withdraw from two classes. I received an A and two B’s and 2 W’s, I think, though I could look it up.

And ever since, every December 4, I remember that, sometimes, you just have to give up. Quit. Resign. It was a useful life lesson.

Coda

After I moved out of 143 Main Street, I moved into 145 Main Street, the large house in front of the Cave Inn. I’m told it was the Agonian Sorority House until it was sold. It’s now the New Paltz Hostel, according to Trulia. I met a friend there I’m still in touch with.

 

Ramblin' with Roger
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