Serious Humor
 

THE TRUTH LIESWITHIN

February 7, 2004   Volume I  Issue 216

Environmentally friendly since late 1999

Made entirely of recycled bits & words 

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Commentary

If you are alive in the United States today, you are probably aware that today marks the fortieth anniversary of the Beatles coming to America. It was a Friday and it sticks out in my mind because I had just received my second transistor radio. The first, a Motorola six transistor model, was a gift for my bar mitzvah in Oct. 1961 from my parents. This new one was GE seven transistor job. In those days, they listed the number of transistors on these little AM radios because, the more the merrier. I guess it was a status symbol like a seventeen-jewel watch was, though I never did see a watch with less jewels. And believe me, the way my family shopped, if there was a lower-jeweled model on the market, and it was a bargain, we would have owned it.

The Beatles arrived at Idlewild airport(it had not yet been renamed JFK after the recently slain president) and gave their famous press conference. I can still remember the reporter asking John Lennon what he thought of Red China and John replied, "It goes well with a green tablecloth."

I reckon the world will never see a phenomenon like Beatlemania again because of the Zeitgeist("the temper of the times" for the Germanic impaired.) You see, we were all still in mourning for the end of Camelot. The news was depressing, with the Warren Commission trying to soothe our pain by blaming it all on Lee Harvey Oswald. In addition, music was really in a slump. We were coming off the early stages of Rock and Roll, the music they said would never last, and as usual, they were right. We had the original teenage idols, Dion, Bobby Rydell, Paul Anka, Chubby Checker, et al, beginning to fade, and Hootenanny and "Sing Along with Mitch Miller" was all the rage. Now you can readily understand why we were all depressed. The world was ready for a jolt of positive energy and the lovable Mop Tops were just the lads to provide it.

I was particularly excited because, as I have written about in the past, my teenaged dream was to be a rock and roll idol, so I was caught up in music. I was an aspiring drummer, who was forced to play the trumpet, as it was the only instrument my family would provide. I was looking for a new sound and I found it in a very unlikely place.

On Friday nights, my mother would be out playing canasta, and my dad and I would end up watching TV on the couch. Believe it or not, we only had one TV in those days and it was a black and white 21-inch Zenith console model. It was our first "big screen" TV. Are you getting the feel yet how different times were back then? So, my dad and I were watching one of the three networks(we only had seven channels in those days, three networks, three independents, and one PBS, which was called an educational channel in those days.) Dad and I were watching Jack Paar(who died last week at age 85) one Friday night in mid-October 1963. More accurately, I was watching Jack Paar and Dad was sleeping on the couch, which was his wont. Contrary to popular belief that Ed Sullivan was the first to feature the Beatles on TV, Jack Paar, on that October night had a film of a group in England that was taking Europe by storm. He aired a film of the Beatles playing the London Palladium. No one had ever heard of these guys here yet. And the song they were playing that night was "She Loves You." I had an epiphany when I heard that song. It was the sign I was waiting for. I had never heard a song like that before. My whole life, all fifteen years of it, had changed in that moment. It was the way I thought music should be. If I was creative then, I might have said, "Now that’s what they call Rock and Roll."

A few weeks later, I read about Beatlemania in Time Magazine and, all of a sudden, they were everywhere. In a few short weeks, they took America by storm. Their music was being played all over the radio and they were coming to America. So, when they finally arrived on Feb. 7, 1964, we were all primed. Our girls became screaming maniacs. The Beatles made their historic three-week appearance on Ed Sullivan and the sixties truly began.

As I mentioned before, we only had one TV and my parents did not watch Ed Sullivan. So, I missed the first and last appearance of the Beatles but I did manage to catch the second Sunday night gig by walking more than a half mile to a friend’s home, Jay Mancus, whose parents did watch Ed Sullivan, even when he had a "stinko" act like the Beatles on. I was so enthralled that I decided at that moment, that I wanted a guitar. I began saving my money from my paper route and babysitting jobs watching my brothers, a.k.a. the Monster Squad. My dad promised for over a year that he would drive me and my friend, Shelly Kantrow, to Sam Ash music store in Hempstead, NY so we could buy our first guitars. My dad reneged every weekend until, like Bart and Lisa Simpson petitioning Homer to go to Mt. Splashmore, we nagged him to death and promised to stop if he took us to Sam Ash. So, in June 1965, despite my dad’s protestations that I did not know how to play and my assurances that I would learn, we went to Sam Ash and I bought the guitar of my dreams. A Harmony Rocket II double pick-ups, four knobs, toggle switch, semi-hollow body, cherry red electric guitar. I plunked down seventy five of my hard-earned dollars and began teaching myself to play guitar without the aid of videos, CDs, or DVDs. Just me and a Mel Bay Learn to Play Guitar book. I literally practiced until my fingers bled. I had thick green calluses on my left hand from playing on harsh steel-wound strings. It was a mark I was proud to wear because it marked me as a guitar player. Not a bad thing to be in high school in those days, especially if you were not jock material.

Two months later in August 1965, Shelly and I plunked down $5.75 each and made a pilgrimage to Shea Stadium to see the Beatles in person. "See them" was right, because we were up in the nose bleed seats and all you could hear was fifty thousand screaming girls, including some chick next to me who was crying out for George. Shelly and I were probably the only two people in a crowd of nearly sixty thousand that went to hear the music and we were disappointed.

The opening act was Cannibal and the Headhunters doing their one chord one hit wonder, "Land of a Thousand Dances." You all know the song but you probably don’t know the name. "I said a nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah." If you thought that Wilson Pickett wrote that, you don’t know your music. After they finished that wonderful tune, the Goodyear blimp, which was hovering around with a sign saying "Welcome Beatles" disappeared. In its place, a helicopter descended from the heavens and the lovable lads from Liverpool magically took the stage. During the next half hour they played about ten songs. We could not make out one tune they played, though we knew the words to all of their songs by heart. This was the first stadium concert ever as the year before they played the NY Paramount theater and the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. Impresario Sid Bernstein booked New York’s newly built Shea Stadium at the site of the NY World’s Fair. The Beatles only had meager Vox tube amplifiers that were not powerful enough for such a venue. A few years later, when transistor amps took over, Woodstock was made possible. Actually, as it turned out, we had no great loss as I saw a film of that concert on TV about three years later. The Beatles were terrible on stage as they were off key and joking around. I guess they knew that no one could actually hear them so they didn’t try too hard. Besides, they were probably starting to get tired because a year later, they stopped touring all together.

Ironically, across from Shea Stadium, at the site of the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair, they had a time capsule which was to be buried at the close of the fair. I remember seeing in the time capsule a copy of the Beatles record, "I Want to Hold Your Hand." The time capsule was to be opened in 100 years or 2064. Now I probably won’t be around then, or if I am, I won’t know I am around then, but I’ll wager that when they open that time capsule, no one will know how to play that record even if they know what it is. Heck, there is hardly any way left to play it today as records are getting as scarce as hen’s teeth, let alone the equipment to play records on.

So, the music may have been a disappointment on stage that day, but the memory of attending an event, or "a happening" as we would say in those days, has lasted a lifetime. The Beatles and I grew up and came of age in the sixties, so we shared a common bond. Their music followed me through college and helped shape some of my world views. Though you may try to classify me as a liberal, I still prefer to think of myself as just another Beatlemaniac, and proud of it, buddy.

And THAT, was my two-cents plain!

the artist formerly known as

Meisterzingers

Nipped in the Bud

Janet Jackson’s spectacularly titillating and breath taking display of nipple jewelry on last Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime has the FCC and the Network up in arms. This from a network that displayed has-been Charlie Sheen in a sitcom rife with dick and ball jokes called "Two and Half Men" last fall. Apparently it is OK for Charlie to make mention of a man’s balls on prime time but we cannot see a woman’s nipples during the Super Bowl. CBS, one of five networks, apparently all of a sudden considers itself the arbiter of good taste. Well, I think that is just plain hypocritical. Naked breasts have been a staple of cable TV for many years so the Networks are just playing a little catch-up ball. Who watches the Super Bowl anyway? Certainly not I but mostly men, and I suspect that most of those men have seen worse. The human body is a beautiful thing and, frankly, when they got it, they are apparently going to flaunt it.

Now I could be all wrong about this, but it does strike me as interesting that the Lycos top fifty list of Internet searches indicates that Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl appearance is the most searched for link in the history of the list, even topping 9-11 related events, the previous record holder. TiVo, the digital video recorder maker and subscription service indicates that the Janet Jackson breast baring performance was the number one rewinding event in their short history. The number of rewinds of that particular event went up 180%. Apparently people who have TiVo were rewinding because, either they weren’t sure they saw what they saw, or they wanted to see it again. The really scary part is that TiVo can keep track of our rewinding habits. Scratch that item from my Christmas wish list.

The FCC is up on arms over the issue because apparently it violates their decency laws and they could fine CBS and each of its 200 affiliates $27,500. So, they apparently have a different set of standards for Cable TV since HBO has had explicit sex shows for many years such as "Real Sex" and "Shock Video." Now the government is supposedly incensed that the shocking display of Janet Jackson’s nipple was viewed by children. This is just another example of the hypocrisy of our government which objects to a small part of a naked human body being shown on our TVs but the violence of our children being killed in a war shown on the daily news is OK. Like Lenny Bruce said on the subject so many years ago, "In a porno movie, people make love and it’s nice and no one dies." That sounds a whole lot better to me.

One could make the argument that it was inappropriate and not suitable for children, and I would actually agree with you there. But then, I think that the Super Bowl is not suitable for grown ups either. I have never seen one and have absolutely no interest in it. But, of course, I am in the minority on that. I just happen to think that sex is far less obscene than violence. I may be in the minority on that as well, so maybe I have a chance of rallying people to the cause. If not, I have always traveled to the beat of a different drummer, that is, until Ringo came along.

Letters to the Editor

Re: A "Fresh" Ionic Breeze of Hot Air?

iRv,

Just a note to comment on the last couple of articles.... First, I thought you did a heck of a job on the Kennedy assassination. The media is beating a dead horse here... We all know that the Warren Commission was a bunch of bunk and that we will probably never know the truth of what happened due to the continual disinformation, therefore, it is completely acceptable and of course, entertaining to do a tongue in cheek humorous review of such material. I found it very entertaining. I am sorry that there are a few people who are not able to let go of the past. I hope you didn't take the criticism to heart.

Then you wrote the insightful and thought provoking article on growing old..... well, needless to say, I must be growing old. I don't feel old, but I could relate, all to closely, to what you were saying. I have found that healthcare is just too darn expensive for the average person, with the cost of everything else escalating at the same time. I personally was paying for what

I thought was healthcare coverage, but alas, found out that all my hard earned money was just filling someone's pockets and the coverage wasn't there when I needed it most. I am now in debt for around 50k for a two night stay in one of our healthcare facilities. Luckily I am not yet on a fixed income from the government but it looks like it will take all of the working years I have left to pay it all off. What grinds me even more is that I see reckless disregard for our healthcare dollars every day. All of us who are working are paying for the poor people to have what we cannot afford, healthcare coverage (like we are not poor?). I don't mind helping out the less advantaged people in society, but when I am paying for the young girl on Medicaid to have a pregnancy test (which I see you can buy at the dollar store) or the one who just wants to know if her unborn child is a boy or a girl so comes into the ER for an emergent ultrasound to find out, or the person who has had a sore throat for an hour and hasn't done anything for themselves prior to coming into the ER for treatment, or the person who has had some minor complaint for the last month (or sometimes year) that decides to come into the ER for treatment because it is easier than calling the family doctor and making an appointment and therefore fits into their busy schedule..... (how busy can an unemployed person really be?) And these are the people who we term disadvantaged? The ones that we are paying for their healthcare, who take no responsibility for their own health and well being or the costs that they are incurring..... to burden an already overburdened system....

Sorry, I got up on my soapbox again! How do we get the message out to people? How do we get them to take some responsibility for their own lives? We as nurses can't really educate them, because the hospitals are all in this contest to make sure that every person who comes in thinks they are the best care givers in the country and if we told people how to take care of themselves and just one person was offended, then we would get a bad rating and we just can't have that!! So here we are, most of us working people are unable to afford healthcare when we need it because we are paying for the unemployed and the younger procreators who aren't part of the workforce and don't have the common sense to take a Tylenol for a headache, to have the finest healthcare that our money can buy. Yes, there is something wrong with a system that only provides for the very wealthy and the very poor! Don't get me wrong, there are those that come into ER that really need to be there, but it is sad that they have to wait for their treatment, behind a long list of minor non-emergent complaints for their care.

If these moochers on the system had to meet certain criteria (like the rest of us) to have their visits paid by Medicaid, or they had to pay a small co-pay when they are seen.

I believe that we would curb a lot of unnecessary costs in the healthcare system. I have been reading many articles about how patients are much more sickly when they are admitted to the hospital these days and how care is suffering due to not only a lack of available nurses, but due to short staffing (by hospital administration) and overloading the already stressed nurses, leading to an influx of law suits that add to the increasing costs of healthcare in this great nation of ours...... I would like to tell the law makers and the insurance companies that they are looking at the wrong end of things to fix.... that adding hours to the healthcare providers (nurses and ancillary staff) days and under staffing and over stressing those giving the care, doesn't make for better or cheaper care. But that to control the costs by making the people utilizing the system, more responsible and better informed, that we can cut the costs of treating them in the ER and cut the duration of their illnesses and make everyone happier and healthier. My my my, I have rambled on long enough!

Thank you for opening your reader's eyes to the inequities in the system as well as the fumbling and inadequate attempts our government is making to rectify the problems. Maybe there are more of us out here that care about these issues and together we can really make a difference!

I have to tell you that you are very good at hitting the nail on the head and making me look at things from a different perspective!!! Keep up the GREAT work!!

With lots of love and respect,

As always,

Alberta, Owosso, MI

Thanks Alberta, I think that beating a dead horse is illegal, though it may not be in MI. I will have to check with my animal rights people there. As far as the other stuff goes, I try to shed some light on various issues that affect us and it’s nice to know that I occasionally succeed. Thanks for the kind comments. It sustains me in lieu of cash. (-Ed.)

I'm glad that you tried out that air cleaner because I was getting interested in something like that since we have multiple cats here in the house. I guess I will stick to looking at the Friedrich and the Whirlpool. I am hoping to pick up some of the cat hair that floats around waiting for someone, anyone, to put on a navy or black article of clothing. The minute dark clothes are spotted then we hear a great "sluuurrrrpppp" as the pants or the jacket ingests the floating hair almost instantly. The only thing missing is the giant "BBbbuuuurrrrrppppppp" at the end of the ingestion.

Fred M. Long Island

Glad you found it useful. Sorry I can’t help you with the burping problem. Perhaps some simethecone will be of use. (-Ed.)

I loved this article. As you know I have 6 pet birds and there was a recent discussion on one of the bird list about this brought on by one of those infomercials. Specifically:

Hump. You're nothing but a pinko comsimp radical.

B. S. Pyle

Capitalist pig

More of a beige one, I should think, though I do get definitely browner in the summer. (-Ed.)

Nice that you can talk in complete sentences, spell, and use
punctuation.

I think I would have exploded if I had to use a Microsoft/Windows based product. I'm a retired elementary schoolteacher. Enough said. Will go back through your archives.

P. Jean Champoux, of Westerville, Ohio

That is an amazing gift you have, deducing all that from my articles, since I do not believe we have ever actually spoken in person. You truly are Sleuth material. Welcome aboard. ( Ed.)

Hi Irv

Thanks for the issue

fyi - There's a date glitch here

December 24, 2004 Volume I Issue 215

Keep well

Phil

Thanks Phil,

For being the first Sleuth to notice that. Actually, I did as well and Guard Dog will be correcting it soon. What no one noticed, including me and my editor, is that I dated the article January 24, 2003. I guess it is because I don't write checks any more so I didn't get the usual chance to screw up the date in the beginning of the New Year like many folks do. (-Ed)

Glad to see you are back. I missed you.

Just me a happy lady,
Glyda Berend

Thanks.
Glyda. Next time aim better.(-Ed)

WebMaster's Corner

Regardless of your position on the war:

Please

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