The Bug Going Around

Holy almost Christmas!

I've had some sort of 'bug' for weeks now (by which I mean a pathogen, not something of the hemipteran genus or, for that matter, anything slightly arthropodic). I haven't had more than a mild cold for a number of years. I used to get every little something that wandered by, and always had a difficult time getting rid of it; if the average person had it for three days, I could count on a week. 

This 'whatever it is' started the week before Thanksgiving. I've visited with my doctor, in her professional capacity, twice now. This week she reluctantly proscribed a second round of antibiotics. (The doctors no longer give a shot of penicillin, and keep the antibiotics to a minimum.) Had it not been that I am an asthmatic, she might not have done it. While I would normally agree to keeping such things at a minimum, I have to say that this second round seems to be winning the day.

I wrote "seems to be" simply because I have twice thought I'd gotten over it only to have it return. It's all centered in my chest area and up. After the first two weeks, my lungs recovered, but the other symptoms either returned, or remained. Doctor's nurse noted that this exact scenario has been reported by many patients. My energy levels, which had been disturbingly low, have been increasing.

All of which is this week's explanation for not getting last Saturday's radio show posted. (I felt decent enough both of the last two weeks to go to the studio to do my show, only to return to the mire both times.) I'm beginning to think that I should start a new blog devoted to excuses for not getting a post written, or finished.

I had wanted to spend a little time jotting down a few thoughts about the show and its subject. Last week's show was on December 12th;  Frank Sinatra's 100th birthday. Mr. Sinatra is one of the patron saints of my program. The holy trinity also includes Johnny Mercer as the Patron Saint of Songwriters, and Ella Fitzgerald as the Goddess of Song.

For many of my generation, and most of the younger set, Sinatra has been little more than a late night comedy show caricature, a mobbed up, intolerant arch-conservative, sexist pig. In his later years, he certainly seemed to be trying to live up to that image. But that isn't the real story, it's only the end game that went along with the need to continue performing after the voice had gone, when all that remained was a punch drunk vocal style that relied on arrangements which had once been breathtakingly dazzling, but which had become as punchy as the singing.

The real story is much more interesting, but as I'm working on tonight's show, I don't have the time to tell any of it. I did post a sort of highlights version on the show's Facebook page, using photos with biographical notes in the comments area. Hopefully, this link will take anyone interested to the post. (Non-Facebook types will be able to click through the slideshow, but won't be able to leave comments, or etc.) If that link doesn't work, use this one and scroll down to December 12th: Recycled Radio's page on Facebook.

At any rate, here's the 'Sinatra's 100th Birthday' edition of my little radio show. As always I hope listeners enjoy what they hear.




p.s. Happy Birthday, Mr. Sinatra. And Thanks for all the music.

                         

Welcome Hill and just another day.

It's been another busy week full of sturm und drang, various vicissitudes of life, and a few blessed moments of pleasure. The pleasure part involved not one, but two trips to Welcome Hill. And this year, I got to talk to the son of the man who started it.

A short jaunt across the river into New Hampshire brings one to a small cemetery started in the late 1770's. It is on the corner of a highway and Welcome Hill Road. The area is hilly and was home to hard scrabble farms going back into the colonial days. Occasionally, the farms would change hands. One family finally gave up and decided to sell; their land was bought by Leslie Hadlock not long before he went off to the war, the "big one'. He was stationed somewhere around the Netherlands.

As the story has it, as Mr. Hadlock returned after the war, the family in whose home he had been billeted gave him a gift - daffodil bulbs. Mr. Hadlock and his wife Marjorie began a garden. Every year they added more daffodils. On one side of the road there is a hill. On the other there is an outcropping with two benches, and a small path leading down into a dell. The woodland floor is covered in daffodils. Forsythia appears around the glade, as do a few varieties of magnolia. It is a magical place.

Mr. Hadlock passed some years ago. His wife passed a couple of years back, at the age of 102. (The obituaries had her age as 101, but her son said she was 102.) The son is now in his 70's, and has difficulty maintaining the garden; with the rest of the family farm and land there is too much to do. His children have moved away. If I had a car, I'd volunteer to help. He still has the hand painted sign that welcomed visitors, requesting they not pick the flowers - but it doesn't get put out anymore. Also gone is the tradition of putting out guest books for visitors to sign. I recall that one year the table they always used for the guest book was stolen. The younger Mr. Hadlock mentioned that his father used to greet visitors who came from around the world, and would talk with them for hours. During the war he'd seen enough of the world; after returning home, he and the Mrs. never left the farm again.

When I was a kid, May the 8th was marked in red on the calendar. Underneath the date, text used to read "VE Day". Over the years, as I grew up, the date stopped being marked and May the 8th became just another day. Once, it celebrated what was arguably the world's greatest accomplishment. On May the 7th, 1945 what was left of the German government surrendered unconditionally. Most of the nations of the world had banded together to put an end to the madness that had engulfed Europe for six years of total war. They formed the United Nations, and drew up a Declaration of Human Rights. This week's radio show took note of that day 70 years ago, still within the lifetime of people who lived it. Listen in - after a couple of songs du jour, to the music and news of a remarkable week, and a day that used to be marked in red on the calendar.

Chase the blues away

Sometimes one just has one of those weeks. I'm at the age where I can be cranky in a cute curmudgeonly way. For much of the week, I didn't feel my crankiness was anywhere near cute, but I think I managed to cover it up most of the time. I will say that by the end of the week, I found myself expending a lot of energy just trying to be nice to my fellow human beings. This week, my radio show fell on Ella Fitzgerald's birthday. Two hours of the 'First Lady of Song' was just what the doctor ordered.

If anyone reading this page is feeling cranky or out of sorts,

or if you're enjoying moments of inner sunshine peace,

I do hope you enjoy the show.

  

A Johnny Mercer birthday tribute.

On November 15th, my radio show's standard format was thrown out in order to give as much time as possible to a birthday celebration of one of the show's  patron saints, Johnny Mercer (born November 18th, 1909). It still wasn't enough time - I never got to play a number of Mercer standards like 'Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive', 'On the Acheson Topeka and the Santa Fe', 'Come Rain or Come Shine', 'Satin Doll', 'Dream', 'Something's Gotta Give', 'G.I. Jive', 'Autumn Leaves', 'The Glow Worm'... There's just too much to fit within a two hour show.

Mercer was one of the great lyric writers of the American Songbook. He also composed a number of hits. He recorded other songwriter's work and made hits of those, too. And he was the founder of Capitol Records where he signed (and guided the careers of) Nat King Cole, Margaret Whiting, Les Paul, Peggy Lee, Stan Kenton, Les Brown, Frank Sinatra (for what became the rebirth of swing), and many, many others. Technically he should be noted as 'co-founder', but it was his idea and creation. The owner of a chain of record stores heard about it from Harold Arlen, one of Mercer's songwriting partners, and signed on to run the business side. Mercer also brought in a Hollywood producer (and occasional songwriter) for fundraising. There's a lot to be said about Mr. Mercer, his life, his talents, stories about his songs, and so on and so forth. But I'm not going to tell them. Any man who can write, "I remember you, you're the one who made my dreams come true, a few kisses ago..." is more than capable of speaking for himself.




I hope anyone who cares to listen enjoys the show.
         

   

A Webb ring.... (or, Camping on Lake Lila)

 

Where to begin? A couple of months back, in early July, I posted a few pictures from a visit to the Shelburne Museum which was the creation of Electra Havemeyer Webb. Her father in law was William Seward Webb, who was named in honor of New York State's onetime Governor, who was also Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State. And the man who bought Alaska. He was a distant cousin of my family, a connection observed in the choice of my uncle's middle name.

William Seward Webb

Lila Osgood Vanderbilt

At any rate, William Seward Webb was from a wealthy land owning family. He married Lila Osgood Vanderbilt, the grand-daughter of railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt. After some trouble with one of their holdings, the Vanderbilts asked Mr.Webb to take over one of their railroads, which led to its expansion and the opening of upstate New York to commerce and travel. The general area includes Lake Placid and Saranac Lake, famous for its tuberculosis treatment. My great-grandfather had TB three times. He went to Saranac Lake back when. There is a family rumor of his having smiled at one of the nurses, causing a bit of a row with my great-grandmother. Part of the holdings Mr. Webb assembled included a 1,400 acre lake he renamed in honor of the missus. It was there he built what they used to call a "great camp" on the shore of the lake, part of his private 7,200 acre wilderness park. The family compound had its own private railroad station, which still exists in a state of splendid abandonment. The land was acquired by New York State in the late 1970's. Part of the deal called for the state to remove the lodge. The lake is now a wilderness camping area.


The Webb's family vacation home 'Forest Lodge' at Lake Lila - a vacation home away from their vacation home in Vermont.

Not long after I moved to New York City (November 1972) I became friends with a co-worker at a bookstore. We understood each other. It turned out that he had spent several of his growing up years in a town very near mine in the southern part of New Jersey. Rich has been trying to get me to go camping with him for about 20 years. Now that I'm retired, I was finally able to do it.

The area surrounding Lake Lila is still privately owned, mostly by the Whitney's from what I gather. Access is by a 6 mile plus dirt road posted with numerous 'Private Property' signs which also state a warning to travelers to not get out of their cars. One arrives at a parking lot with various other signs, a registration book, and a .3 of a mile portage to the lake. No motorboats are allowed.

A mutual friend gave Rich a huge tent, big enough for a family of 5. We've both (ahem) grown a bit over the years ("expanded" might be more appropriate); this tent promised plenty of room. Rich had studied the campsites using maps and online satellite images and settled on one as our goal as it seemed large enough to host the tent. We hugged the shoreline looking for it, which made the initial canoe trip a long one - it's a very big lake. As we were approaching our desired campsite, Rich pointed towards an old dead pine tree on our left. Sitting at the top was a bald eagle. We reached our site, and after checking it out decided campsite 16 was indeed suited to our needs. As we began to unload the canoe, I looked back at the eagle. Something else moved. "What's that?", I asked. At that moment, the something else lifted its head out of the water. It was a huge bull moose. In rutting season. I grabbed my little digital camera, wishing it was my trusty old 35mm with my telephoto lens attached. Here's a detail from the larger photo:

I can not express how wonderful it was to be out camping again, away form the noise of modern life. My little studio apartment is on a very busy road. Even in winter the sound of cars going by can drown out the tv or the radio. Speaking of which, there were no sounds of someone else's tv or radio. There were no drunks or drugged outs arguing with colorful terminology. There were occasional sounds of airplanes, and one day a park warden's helicopter. Otherwise, it was the sound of windblown waves lapping against the shore, the rustle of leaves, the crackle of the campfire, geese flying by, one lone loon (which I saw one evening at twilight), an occasional songbird, and a rather angry red squirrel.

I forget if that is Mount Frederic or Mount Frederica. We never got to hike to the top. I hope to go back and do that one day.

A visitor to our camp's shoreline

There were many gloriously misty mornings.

 



The strip of beach at our campsite.

Canoeing on Single Shanty Brook - accomplished somewhat warily, as this was where the moose headed.
Sadly, we were so busy scrambling over a number of beaver damns that I didn't take any pictures of them.

Moose tracks

That little sliver of beach just right of the center of the photo was the site of the moose tracks above.
This was a very short walk from our campsite. 

My shoes drying out after scrambling over beaver damns and the like.
This was at our campsite - look closely and you can see the ropes we used to hang food so bears wouldn't get at it.

I posted several of these photos on Facebook, where people can click on a "like" button.
Based on that informal poll, the above was the most popular picture of the series.

Rich's selection of Lake Lila for camping had two main purposes - both concerned identifying and judging portage sites used for what canoeists call "the Whitney Loop". One was a right of way around a privately owned (and blocked off) portion of Single Shanty book. A recently opened access to Harrington Brook (above - flows into or out of Lake Lila) was the other - but the portage to access it is still under development and too much of a hurdle for aging gentlemen.

Saturday it rained. A lot. Sometimes quite hard. Made for some good idle time picture taking, though.

On Sunday the rain stopped and the skies cleared. Rich used his radio to get the weather report. On Monday and Tuesday (the day we expected to leave) more storms were expected. Crossing Lake Lila back to the parking lot would be too dangerous, so we decided to break camp while we could. While we were hiking one day, we met a group of guys who had arrived for a few days of camping. They were leaving at the same time. After our first trip to the parking lot, we were on our way back to the put in when they came by carrying our canoe and most of our supplies. Thanks again guys. 

 

The return to our modern world has been a bit disconcerting as I find myself once again engulfed by the sounds and the noise of other people's living. Thanks, Rich, for keeping after me for all these years to do it, and Thanks for all the trouble you took as part of the process of including me. Next time we've got to get to the top of the mountain, and find that railroad station.

I look at these photos now, sitting at my computer, cars whizzing by in the rain, and they seem a remote dream. A dream I long to dream again.


    

"Did you ever undress in front of your dog?"

For several years now, I've been one of those people who wakes up repeatedly during a night's attempt at sleep. Early this morning, at 4:20am, I woke up with one thought on my mind, "why did I take the pork chop out of the freezer before I went to bed? That wasn't what I'd intended to make for tonight's dinner." I was perturbed, but I'm not sure if it was over the waking or the pork chop.

The news finally reached the online services I read this morning. Jonathan Winters passed on Thursday. I hate writing phrases like that. Words like "died", or "dead", euphemistic terms like "passed away", are all so final. "Passed" is not much better, but it leaves things a little more open. See, the thing is this; Jonathon Winters can never die. He lives every time a comedian takes an off the wall chance to either succeed or fail, and quickly changes the subject no matter the reaction. He lives every time Robin Williams performs in public. Williams famously referred to Winters as his "mentor", to which Winters replied he'd prefer "idol".

When he was 7, his folks broke up and Jonathan was taken to live with his grandmother. You can just tell he didn't fit in anywhere, and must have spent a great deal of time alone in his room. I can relate. He left high school to join the Marines and fight in the second World War. He married in 1948, and shortly thereafter found himself in need of a watch. Watches were much more expensive in those days than they are now; the young couple couldn't afford one. His wife challenged him to go to a local amateur contest and win the needed funds. He did, and got a radio show out of it. Sometimes there weren't any guests. He made them up. He soon found himself in New York working at a comedy club.


One night a janitor sweeping up at the club told him that doing imitations of famous people and making fun of them was okay, but asked him why he didn't make fun of regular folks, the people he'd left behind in small town America. The odd ball characters in his head were let loose. One of those characters, Maude Frickert , was basically stolen by Johnny Carson as a recurring character on the Tonight Show as "Aunt Blabby".

In the later 1960's, I heard that Winters had been institutionalized, locked up in a sanitarium. They only let him out to perform. There was some truth to the rumor, and in later manic sketches if a character was too much or didn't work there might be a quick aside, "No, not that one, they might put me back in." It was typical Winters.

Winters could throw out a punch lime, but his real humor was in his characters. All of it seemingly improvised on the spot, and quite "off the wall", a trait that only his contemporaries Jean Shepherd and Ernie Kovacs shared.

Like Kovacs, Mr. Winters gallops through many of my early tv memories. He was a guest on any number of shows, particularly when Steve Allen or Jack Paar was the host. Paar once gave Winters a piece of wood and challenged him to do something with it. For a few seconds he used it as a fishing rod, then a judge's gavel, then as baseball bat, then a lion tamer's whip - cracking it over the heads of the audience before a quick look at one person with an, "Oh. Sorry." And it was on Jack Paar that he famously asked the audience if they'd ever undressed in front of their dogs. (Pause.) “You think about that for a minute. A bird somehow doesn’t count. Or a cat. But a dog.” (Pause.) “They really stare.”





While it's true that almost every comedian or comic writer of the last 50 years, right down to those working in the business today learned form him (whether they know it or not), I don't like to think of a world without him. This morning's pork chop incident suddenly plays in my mind, and I giggle. Jonathan Winters taught me that. In one of his few movie appearances, he played twin brother undertakers in the film adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's "The Loved One". One of the brothers devises a plan to cope with a crowded cemetery by launching coffins into space, labeled "Resurrection Now!" If only.

Righteous

So I was kind of needing to hear a little music. Dave was doing his reggae show on the community radio station I help to run, but it just wasn't what I was looking for. While idly drifting along in the web, I looked in on the blog and this morning's post, which I finished just in time to head out to work. I ended up watching and listening to all the songs again. God but I loved those songs back then. I still love them now. Momma Cass sends me, what can I say? Love the voice and the persona. Watching and listening to her makes me happy.

Okay, here comes the confession. I was a Righteous Brothers fan. I have more than one of their 45s. As a teenager I was a huge fan of those bombastic Phil Spector wall of sound productions that played like mini rock and roll operas. I wrapped myself in them as I embraced my loneliness. You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' was great. But there was one other song that was just mournful teenage superb. It was sung as a solo by Bobby Hatfield. I was 14 when it was a hit, I loved it then and I cherish it now. Here's a clip I found on YouTube of Hatfield singing it on the old Shindig show. Hatfield sings and moves like a cross between Sam Cooke and Johnnie Ray. This clip is before the image makers took over and cleaned up the 'Brothers' look and movements into a more homogenized product. If you look for the version of this recorded one year later in color, you'll see what I mean. Here it is the way I remember it, and the way I prefer to remember it, and them.

Her own kind of music

My gosh, but the birthdays this month.... Today there are a number of people to celebrate whom I've admired, who have given me pleasure, or who have influenced my life in one way or another. But one name on the list today stands out for her songs, which were popular as I was growing up. Cynthia Weil trained as an actress and dancer, but discovered that she had talent as a songwriter. While working at the office of Don Kirshner's and Al Nevin's Aldon Music Co., she met and married songwriter Barry Mann, who had written and performed the hit song "Who Put the Bomp". Together they became major players at the Brill Building, the 1960's incarnation of Tin Pan Alley, writing many of the top pop hits of the day. Young Stevil loved many of their songs. Last year, the couple was awarded the Johnny Mercer Prize, the highest and most prestigious award which can be given a songwriter.

Many of the Weil-Mann collaborations expressed a social consciousness unusual for their day. One, "Only in America" was written for the Drifters but was reworked into an uncontroversial song by Leiber and Stoller for Jay and the Americans. I first heard the Drifter's version, and like it better.

 

A few other favorites include:

 



The following song was one that I often played on the jukebox at a favorite Boardwalk diner in Ocean City, NJ. There is a lip synch video of it which is staged on a beach that I would have put here but it sounds like it was recorded underwater, so I'm using a different version with less visual quality. No matter, it still expresses my teenage angst. Hell, it expresses my adult angst for that matter.

 

There are so many other songs that anyone my age would recognize instantly, But finally, I have to post this one. As of 2010, it was the most popular song ever to appear on radio with over 14 million plays. And yes, I have the 45rpm record.

 

So Happy Birthday Cynthia Weil - and Thank You for so much wonderful music!

A moody, sensitive young man

Marilyn Monroe called him, "The only person I know who is in even worse shape than I am." He was nominated for three Best Actor Academy Awards and one for Best Supporting Actor. He was James Dean's idol - Dean used to call him just to hear his voice. The Clash recorded a song about his sad later years. He was stunningly handsome. The New York Times noted that he was known for his portrayals of "moody, sensitive young men". His mother raised him as though he were an aristocrat, partially home schooled, and educated in French, German and Italian. Today is the birthday of another Stevil fave, Montgomery Clift. His is a hell of a story.

One of the foremost actors of his day, with a penchant for re-writing the scripts of movies in which he appeared, Clift was disfigured in an horrible automobile accident. He was patched back together, but he never really recovered. His health suffered, and he became addicted to pain killers and alcohol. During his last years people thought he was often drunk or drugged, but an autopsy showed that he had a thyroid condition which would make him appear so while cold sober. He was only 45 years old when he died. But he lives on as George Eastman in A Place in the Sun, as Morris Townsend in The Heiress, as Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt in From Here to Eternity, and in roles in projects as diverse as The Search, Red River, The Misfits, and Judgement at Nuremberg among others. His performances have given me a great deal of pleasure over the years, and I just want to wish him a Happy Birthday.

From the opening sequence of A Place in the Sun

With Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun

Both of them were just so damned beautiful to look at (sigh).

Near the beginning of his film career, in Red River

After the accident, in The Misfits

Happy Birthday, Monty.