Melanie Curran song - A History of Seattle

                  ---o0o---

Hot Sauce in Kitsap County

By Jack Brummet, Music Ed.

If you like Americana, and/or Bluegrass and raucous humor, you may just love this Melanie Curran album. It is the most hyperlocal collection I've ever heard, but you will enjoy it no matter where you live, because it translates far and wide. The tracks:

• RIP 305 Park and Ride
• Peterson's Topsoil 
• Old Shoes and Picture Postcards
• Hot Sauce in Kitsap County
• 7th Greatest Dancer in This Bar 
• Jefferson County Two-Step
• Thurston County Blues (Trd.) 
• The Kingdome Was an Inside Job
• Capitol Hill is Hell
• A History of Seattle

---o0o---

My niece Melanie has just relieved a new album. Check it out!

Audio Lost and found: some great downloadable MP3s from the great WFMU Blog

I love strange old audio ephemera, from the hundreds of Jean Shepherd shows I have to recordings of chatter on shortwave, the famous Buddy Rich rant tapes, and the "shut up and play" compilation of rock and rollers freaking out on stage and ripping into their audiences (Doiurtney Love, Mike Love, Elvis, Jim Morrison, Lou Reed, etc.). A great source all of this is the WFMU radio site that often releases free weird recordings that have slipped into the pulic doman.

WFMU's beware of the blog is a great web site and they always have lot of goodies for downloading. You should visit once in a while... in the meantime, here are three gems I recently found there that you can download.




1) How Do I learn. A collection of 6 MP3s from a collection of old educational film strips. Check out the cut "Who's afraid?" . . .it is genuinely spooky.



2) Flying Saucers Unlimited. This record is probably the score for Frank Stranges UFO documentary Phenomena 7.7. Pretty cool. The Reverend Strange is unquestionably way way out there.



3) Sound off Saxons! This is amazing. "Created as a keepsake for the 1965 graduating class of North High School in Torrance, CA, this album takes you through the school and introduces you to the multiple characters and events there — all with the corniest, dated humor you can imagine."

This is a wonderful slice of a world that has long since disappeared. It was already gone by the time I graduated from high school.
---o0o---

Hollywood Squares answers

I don't remember ever enjoying any of the quiz shows except Hollywood Squares. It was always interesting to see all these B list celebrities, and the screamingly campy, gay men that Americans hadn't even realized were gay. This show was tawdry, and depressing if you were a glass half-empty type, and hilarious if you could just accept it for what it was: good, clean knucklehead fun. The show, and the celebs liked to claim that their answers were completely spontaneous and unscripted. It's clear they were not. Here are a few of the gems that have surfaced on the 'net.

Peter Marshall: Paul, can you get an elephant drunk?
Paul Lynde: Yes, but he still won't go up to your apartment.

Peter Marshall: In Hawaiian, does it take more than three words to say "I love you"? Vincent Price: No, you can say it with a pineapple and a twenty.

Peter Marshall: According to Cosmo, if you meet a stranger at a party and you think he's really attractive, is it okay to come out directly and ask him if he's married?
Rose Marie: No, wait until morning.

Peter Marshall: Which of your five senses tends to diminish as you get older?
Charley Weaver: My sense of decency.

Peter Marshall: Prometheus was tied to the top of a mountain by the gods because he had given something to man. What did he give us?
Paul Lynde: I don't know what you got, but I got a sports shirt.

Peter Marshall: What are "Do It," "I Can Help" and "Can't Get Enough"?
George Gobel: I don't know but it's coming from the next apartment.

Peter Marshall: What are "dual purpose" cattle good for that other Cattle aren't?
Paul Lynde: They give milk and cookies...but I don't recommend the cookies!

Peter Marshall: If you find someone lying unconscious in the street, should you do anything?
George Gobel: I'd probably crawl around him, I guess.

Peter Marshall: Paul, why do Hell's Angels wear leather?
Paul Lynde: Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.

Peter Marshall: Charley, you've just decided to grow strawberries. Are you going to get any during your first year?
Charley Weaver: Of course not, Peter. I'm too busy growing strawberries!

Peter Marshall: In bowling, what's a perfect score?
Rose Marie: Ralph, the pin boy.

Peter Marshall: Eddie, according to the Institute of Motivational Research, a wife should be beware if another woman takes an interest in a certain item of her husband's clothing. What item?
Ed Asner: Well, shorts immediately springs to my mind...

Peter Marshall: It is considered in bad taste to discuss two subjects at nudist camps. One is politics. What is the other?
Paul Lynde: Tape measures.

Peter Marshall: True or false...a pea can last as long as 5,000 years.
George Gobel: Boy it sure seems that way sometimes...

Peter Marshall: Is there a weight limit for bags on airline flights in this country?
Charley Weaver: If she can fit under the seat, she can fly.

Peter Marshall: During a tornado, are you safer in the bedroom or in the closet?
Rose Marie: Unfortunately, Peter, I'm always safe in the bedroom.

Peter Marshall: Can boys join the camp fire girls?
Marty Allen: Only after lights out.

Peter Marshall: When you pat a dog on its head he will usually wag his tail. What will a goose do? Paul Lynde: Make him bark.

Peter Marshall: True or false, George...experts say there are only seven or eight things in the world dumber than an ant.
George Gobel: Yes, and I think I voted for six of 'em.

Peter Marshall: If you were pregnant for two years, what would you give birth to?
Paul Lynde: Whatever it is, it would never be afraid of the dark.

Peter Marshall: According to Ann Landers, is there anything wrong with getting into the habit of kissing a lot of people?
Charley Weaver: It got me out of the army!

Peter Marshall: It is the most abused and neglected part of your body; what is it?
Paul Lynde: Mine may be abused but it certainly isn't neglected!

Peter Marshall: According to Movie Life magazine, Ann-Margret would like to start having babies soon, but her husband wants her to wait a while. Why?
Paul Lynde: He's out of town.

Peter Marshall: Dennis Weaver, Debbie Reynolds, and Shelley Winters star in the movie "What's The Matter With Helen?" Who plays Helen?
Charley Weaver: Dennis Weaver - that's why they asked the question.

Peter Marshall: Who stays pregnant for a longer period of time, your wife or your elephant?
Paul Lynde: Who told you about my elephant?

Peter Marshall: When a couple have a baby, who is responsible for its sex?
Charley Weaver: I'll lend him the car. The rest is up to him.

Peter Marshall: Jackie Gleason recently revealed that he firmly believes in them and has actually seen them on at least two occasions. What are they?
Charley Weaver: His feet.

Peter Marshall: If you're going to make a parachute jump, you should be at least how high?
Charley Weaver: Three days of steady drinking should do it.

Peter Marshall: Do female frogs croak?
Paul Lynde: If you hold their little heads under water.

Peter Marshall: You've been having trouble going to sleep. Are you probably a man or a woman?
Don Knotts: That's what's been keeping me awake!

Peter Marshall: In a very famous movie who said, "God, what a dump?"
Paul Lynde: Dumbo.
---o0o---

Hobos! A Link to a great art site: 700 hoboes

Even though they form the plural of hobo as hoboes [sic], this is a great site! When I was growing up, dozens of hobos tramped through our town, bracketed as it was between the Northern Pacific and Burlington Railroad lines. They would often come to the back door, offering to work for food. The 700 hobos project enlisted 700 artists to each draw a hobo picture.

From the web site: "In the beginning, there were hoboes. Then, a notable non-historian wrote some lies about them in his wonderful and wholly inaccurate almanac. That man was John Hodgman. The book was The Areas of My Expertise. Amongst the lies was a comprehensive list of notable historical hobo names, numbering 700. After Hodgman read the list into a music flattening device, one Mr. Mark Frauenfelder of the Boing Boing teletyped a suggestion that 700 cartoonists volunteer to draw one hobo each as a public service or for no particular reason. And so it was, more or less, and here they are. "

About the website - In March of 2006, 65 years after the end of the Hobo Wars, several members of the 700 Hoboes project decided to build a new, majestic home for these noble hoboes. Check this one out! Love, jack (I'm going to sleep).

---o0o---