Thursday, November 24, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 28, 1940. (It was celebrated on two different dates that year, as well as 1939 and 1941. The New England states observed the traditional fourth Thursday in November) ."Pumpkin pies and Thanksgiving dinner at the home of Mr. Timothy Levy Crouch, a Rogerene Quaker living in Ledyard, Connecticut." Photo by Jack Delano for the Farm Security Administration. via

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Been there

With, and without, Philip

My preferred version of Blue Moon




Rodgers and Hart’s “Blue Moon” was originally written as “Prayer” for Jean Harlow in the MGM film, The Hollywood Revue of 1933. According to Richard Rodgers in his autobiography, Musical Stages: An Autobiography, Harlow’s prayer was to become a movie star, and the lyrics started out as “Oh, Lord, if you’re not busy up there, I ask for help with a prayer/ So Please don’t give me the air...” Unfortunately, because of a series of production personnel changes, the revue was scaled down to a spoof starring Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, and Jimmy Durante. There was no Harlow and no “Prayer.”

The Rodgers and Hart song’s next incarnation was as the title track for the 1934 film, Manhattan Melodrama, starring Clark Gable, William Powell, and Myrna Loy. Before the film’s release, however, the title was changed yet again, this time to “The Bad in Every Man,” and it was sung by Shirley Ross.
It was not long after this that music publisher Jack Robbins offered a “deal” to the songwriting team: If Hart would write a more commercial lyric, Robbins would “plug it from one end of the country to the other.” Robbins suggested the song should be one of those Tin Pan Alley love songs with the words June, moon, and spoon. Just to show he could do it, and with a large measure of cynicism, Hart wrote the lyrics to “Blue Moon.” Although he did not personally like the song, it soon became a number one hit, a million-seller in sheet music sales, and, in the end, his most popular song.

In its final form, “Blue Moon” was for Rodgers and Hart their only hit not associated with a Broadway show or a Hollywood film. While its success and popularity are both irrefutable, because of the simplicity of its construction it is not critically ranked among the top Rodgers and Hart compositions*

* via: www.jazzstandards.com

Monday, November 21, 2011

Agree? Disagree?

All in the family



Which one are you?

From LIFE, June 1949
Sadly it appears the effects on career took their time for young “movie hopeful” Jo Jordan, she didn’t get any parts until she played the mother in “Rattlers” in 1976, and most recently played the “old woman” in “Last Resort” (2009).

Monday, November 14, 2011

Beef

Just cuzDo I actually need to come up with a reason?

Early Madeline

Wrong on many levels

Grandma's fluffy pink marshmallow??????
Wet you're whistle while you shine it????
Mmm.. your kisses taste like Grandma????

Good to know!

Do not vaseline.

Worth Reading.

Penn State, my final loss of faith

I’m 31, an Iraq war veteran, a Penn State graduate, a Catholic, a native of State College, acquaintance of Jerry Sandusky’s, and a product of his Second Mile foundation.

And I have fully lost faith in the leadership of my parents’ generation.

I was never harmed by Sandusky, but I could have been. When I was 15, my mother, then looking for a little direction for her teenage son, introduced me to the Second Mile’s Friend Fitness program. It was a program resembling Big Brother, Big Sister with a weekly exercise regimen.

Instead of Sandusky’s care, I was sent to a group of adults, many of whom were in their 20s. They took me from a C-student to the University of Chicago, where I’m a master’s student now. They took the football team’s waterboy and made a 101st Airborne Division soldier.
I was one of the lucky ones. My experience with Second Mile was a good one. I should feel fortunate, blessed even, that I was never harmed. Yet instead this week has left me deeply shaken, wondering what will come of the foundation, the university, and the community that made me into a man.

One thing I know for certain: A leader must emerge from Happy Valley to tie our community together again, and it won’t come from our parents’ generation.

They have failed us, over and over and over again.

I speak not specifically of our parents -- I have two loving ones -- but of the public leaders our parents’ generation has produced. With the demise of my own community’s two most revered leaders, Sandusky and Joe Paterno, I have decided to continue to respect my elders, but to politely tell them, “Out of my way.”
They have had their time to lead. Time’s up. I’m tired of waiting for them to live up to obligations.
Think of the world our parents’ generation inherited. They inherited a country of boundless economic prosperity and the highest admiration overseas, produced by the hands of their mothers and fathers. They were safe. For most, they were endowed opportunities to succeed, to prosper, and build on their parents’ work. MORE HERE

Friday, November 11, 2011

Veteran's day

Lest we forget
1918. Washington, D.C. "Walter Reed Hospital scenes." Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. View full size.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

ATOMCOL for Mighty Muscles!

All and all...

I'd rather be sailing.

The Alligator King

Well do you???

I ask you,

Is sex EVER the answer?

Time for the Christian right to start banning strokes!

Rugby player who had stroke woke up gay and became hairdresser

A rugby-playing straight man claims he woke up homosexual after suffering a stroke.

Rugby player who had stroke woke up gay and became hairdresser
Chris Birch retrained as a hairdresser and now lives with his partner Photo: Wales News Service / Splash News
Chris Birch, 26, suffered a stroke during during a freak training accident when he attempted a back flip and broke his neck.
But folllowing his recovery he quit his bank job to become a hairdresser, grew to hate sport, called off his engagement and started dating a man.
"I was gay when I woke up and I still am," he said. "It sounds strange but when I came round I immediately felt different. I wasn't interested in women any more.
"I had never been attracted to a man before - I'd never even had any gay friends. But I didn't care about who I was before, I had to be true to my feelings."
Prior to the accident, Mr Birch was planning on settling down with his girlfriend and spent weekends playing sport and drinking with his mates.
Mr Birch, of Ystrad Mynach, South Wales, said: "Suddenly I hated every­ thing about my old life. I didn't get on with my friends, I hated sport and found my job boring.
"I started to take more pride in my appearance, bleached my hair and started working out. I went from a 19st skinhead, to a 11st preened man.
People I used to know barely recognised me and with my new look I became even more confident."
He retrained as a hairdresser and now lives with his partner Jack Powell, 19, above the salon he works in.
Two years ago it was reported that Alan Brown, from Malvern, Worcestershire, woke from a stroke to find he was able to paint and draw in incredible detail, despite no previous evidence of the skill.
The father of three said the experience must have 'flicked a switch' in the creative part of his brain.
And Mr Birch certainly has no regrets about his transformation. 'I'm nothing like the old Chris now but I wouldn't change a thing,' he said.
"I think I'm happier than ever, so I don't regret the accident.
Stroke Association spokesman Joe Korner said: "During recovery the brain makes new neural connections which can trigger things people weren't aware of, such as accent, language or perhaps a different sexuality."

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Owning a dog

Is it for you?

It's been a blue morning

A product of experimentation and brain storming

She's not scared of water.  Judy's not scared of anything.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Worth Reading.

My Gay Lifestyle 

Professor of Theater and Chair of the Theater and Dance department, Ursinus College

I live the gay lifestyle, the gay lifestyle that is often mentioned by some Republican candidates for president. For those who are unfamiliar with the lifestyle, this is a typical day:
7:00 a.m. I wake up, and just as I have done every morning since puberty, I choose to be gay today. This will come as a great relief to my gay, homosexual, male lover who lies beside me. Because being gay is a choice, our relationship is a gamble day to day. Even though we have both chosen to remain gay and to be together every day for the past 16 years, we never take anything for granted. One of us just might throw in the towel one day and give up the lifestyle.
7:30 a.m. I take a gay shower and let the gay water rinse off my gay body.
8:00 a.m. I have a gay breakfast of cereal with milk, and a good, strong, gay cup of coffee. I am fortified for another day of ruining the fabric of American society. MORE

Corn fed

Whoopsie! Now how's he going to pay for that?

Are you meeting Dick?

And enough of it?

Today's vocabulary words

Your choice! Use all,or at least two, of the following in casual  conversation:
"silent sufferer"
"rectal irritation"

"Softage"

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Tuesday, November 1, 2011