February 20, 2017

By the powers invested in me by the State of Interweb, I hearby proclaim this week as Week #292 of a verbal adventure that began, well, 292 weeks ago.

I’d like to also proclaim this the unofficial End of Winter, what with the pleasant weather we’ve been enjoying lately, but I’d better wait on that, just in case. Even so, people are already watering and mowing. Not me. The earliest we’ve ever mowed was last year when the machinery cranked up around March 20 or thereabouts. Usually (IS there such a thing as ‘usual’ in weather anymore?) we don’t mow until mid April.

Hey, don’t miss the Great Bend Community Theatre’s production of ‘Love,Sex and the IRS’ this week at the Crest in Great Bend. Performances are at 7:30 this Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, and they will have a 2:00 matinee for you on Sunday the 26th. VERY funny show! Great live theatre. If you don’t already have tix, you can buy ‘em at the box office, which will be open one hour before performance time each day.

We’ll do another music thing with you this week. We’ll call this list ‘Six Songs That Make Me Smile…a lot.” Laughing is optional also. All these, of course, are available for listening on YouTube.

1. People People Eater- Sheb Wooley. Sheb had been mainly a country artist until he got hold of this crazy thing in 1958. It soared to the top and stayed there for a while. There were a lot of ‘alien creature’ songs in the ‘50s, but this was one of the goofiest. In this case, all the creature wanted was to “get a job in a rock ‘n roll band.”

2. Witch Doctor- David Seville. The former Ross Bagdasarian came up with this gem, also in 1958, a ‘golden year’ for novelty material. One of the best sing-along novelties ever recorded. He topped it two years later with his Chipmunks.

3. Flying Saucer-Buchanan and Goodman. This ’56 classic is what’s known as a ‘clip song’ in the trade. There will be a story line (in this case, flying saucers, which were front page news in the ‘50s) interspersed with clips of popular songs of the day. Even if you don’t remember some of these clips, it’s still pretty funny.

4. Beep Beep-The Playmates. One of my wife’s all-time favorites, and ANOTHER huge novelty from ’58; this is the story of the little Nash Rambler that outran the big fancy Cadillac. And even at 110 mph, he was still only in second gear!

5. St. George and the Dragonet-Stan Freberg. Stan was one of the most prolific novelty artists of all time, next to Spike Jones. This is his mashup of the classic St. George and the Dragon story done in a ‘Dragnet-style’ delivery. Hilarious. “He breathed fire on me.”

6. Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh (A Letter from Camp)– Alan Sherman. In 1963 New York adman and comedian Allen Sherman wrote this whiney and very funny ‘letter’ in the persona of a 10-year-old kid who’s not having much fun at summer camp. The melody is actually a classical piece: ‘Dance of the Hours,’ from the opera La Giaconda. And a classic it is. Listen and love it.

Hope you enjoyed the list and the tunes. Feel free to tell us some of your favorites from the days when pop music was more lighthearted.

On we go to your responses to last week’s post…

Terry was first in with ‘Clessie Cummins’ as the Native American who gave her name to an engine manufacturer. No, sorry, it was Kim’s ‘Tecumseh’ that we were looking for. (Side note: a common local mispronounciation of Tecumseh is “Tecumski”. I’ve heard it often when someone is selling a mower on our Trading Post show, and they’ll say it “has a Tecumski” engine. Go figure.)

Well, more guesses for Frank Sinatra’s favorite non-gourmet food: Carole said it was fried calamari, and Ryan guessed it was Clams Posillipo. Hmmm. All I can tell you is that I’m currently reading Volume Two of James Kaplan’s exhaustive (the second volume is 900 (!) pages long) biography of Frank and it repeat-mentions the same food mentioned in the first volume, and neither of this week’s guesses are that food. Tell you what, if no one gets it this week, I’ll just tell you next week.

Okay, so that leaves that question still ‘out there,’ plus the one about the historical name of the old Radio Shack building at 12th and Kansas, and also the question about the unique history of the old bakery building in the 1200 block of Washington across from Washington school.

Here are two more: okay, speaking of industrial names, what motorcycle owes its name to a Native American? (This is almost too easy.)

What maker of fishing gear used to make explosive devices?

Have yourself an adequate week. Check in here again next Monday or whenever your little heart desires.

John