Oh, What A Year!

Posted on April 5, 2012 by

Rather than print some cute little story about rabbits and chicks for Easter, we decided to offer up something completely different…but Happy Easter anyway!

As you’ve probably already figured out, being a baby boomer in this day and age is not for the faint of heart. And now we have the Justas Disease to cope with too. For example,

  • Just as we reach the age of Social Security the system starts to go bust.
  • Just as we find more leisure time our backs go out and we’re confined to the house.
  • Just as we finally get our kids out of the house, they get laid off and come home. Or we get laid off and they come home anyway to save on their rent.
  • Just as they invent a way to stream first-run movies in the comfort of our homes, we can’t stay awake through them, or there’s nothing we want to see.
  •  And, just as we can finally trade in the Dadmobile for a cool sporty car, the price of gas goes so high we can’t afford to drive it anywhere.

The Justas Disease is a terrible affliction. To alleviate the pain and frustration we went digging around in the attic (doesn’t everyone?) and found some very old, well let’s make that just “old” not “very old,” magazines with cool pictures and stories in them. Most of what we found was from the 1960′s, so for those of you can’t remember that time period due to memory loss for whatever reason, we now present some interesting stuff. First up was a Life magazine from June 28, 1968. The cover story was about the “new rock,” most of which can now be found on the oldies stations or over the PA at the supermarket.

The Boomers

Let’s see how well you were paying attention back then and how many of these artists and groups you can name. Remember, it’s June 28, 1968 (pre-Woodstock for younger boomers) and these groups were Life magazine’s pick of music they thought would be the next big thing. So get on your tie-dye shirt, roll up a…chair…and enjoy our short trip back to…where did we say we got this from, man? Far out.

Jefferson Airplane

Here’s the cover and yes there was lots of other interesting stuff inside. Things that kids today would not recognize or understand, like cigarette ads, giant cars with big engines, vinyl jackets and frost-free freezers. Our first quiz question is to name the group on the front (we cleverly covered up their name with a classic black censorship blob). We were going to toss out a clue but the chick on top and the dude in the lower right kind of give the whole thing away.

Janis Joplin with Big Brother & The Holding Company

Next up, Life apparently got some cheap thrills from listening to this new group which for a time had a female singer whose picture is cut off by the scanner. Oops. It would have given it all away anyway. But the way we did the picture is kind of symbolic and like, you know, represents…well nevermind.

Frank Zappa with The Mothers of Invention

The next group never made it to the rarified air of superstardom like some of the others here, but the group leader did a lot of solo work and was quite an interesting musician in his own right. If you missed it, or if small rodents ripped your flesh, a couple years after this they did a fun parody of Sgt Pepper, only the Indian influence in this group was the American kind.

Jim Morrison of The Doors

This next guy and his buddies had already been around a while by the time Life discovered them, but they were in many ways the definitive California sound of the late ’60′s. Like so many other groups they lost one of their members a few years later to booze and drugs, and they were one of the first groups to really piss off the cops and get chased off stage for things we will not mention here. The time had come, follow them down.

Cream (Clapton, Baker and Bruce)

One thing about rock groups at that time was they were an incestuous bunch who moved around a lot and, at least for the lead guitarist, this group was at a bit of a crossroads.  Ahem…they had all come out of other groups and were pretty well seasoned by the time they got together. The aforementioned lead guitarist went on to become an icon for rock and blues music, but he is still remembered for his work in this time period as well. They had not one but at least two super hits from their ’68 album.

The Who

The Beatles were of course still around 1968, but remember Life was trying to peg the “new rock” and they were old men in an industry where a career often didn’t last more than a year or two. Just the same, another English group (yes, the flag is a giveaway) from around 1965 was moving up fast at this time and would hit a pinnacle in just one more year. Obviously the Life editors could see that coming for miles…and miles.

Country Joe & The Fish

Right behind Pat Paulson this was our favorite presidential candidate for 1968 (name again cleverly blocked out) and we think if he was running this year (2012) he’d be a shoe-in against the line up of candidates around now. Best known for anti-war songs, two years after this photo they starred in the first, and last, rock western movie called Zacharaiah. Yes, it’s a cult favorite and we still watch it now and then, but their signature song only appears in another movie from 1969 about a little concert called Woodstock.

Jimi Hendrix

The last musician in the June 28, 1968 issue of Life to get his photo included was this guy and, frankly, if you don’t recognize that face you will be forced to sit in a room and listen to non-stop Lady Gaga tunes for several days. Yes, it’s the one and only Jimi and boy could we use him and Purple Haze back again (and again for our younger boomers, he is not to be confused with the guy from the ’80′s who did Purple Rain).

So what do you think? How did Life do picking out potential winners for the 1968 music forecast? If you were living in a cave back then and don’t know any of these groups, we will, in our next post a week from now, re-run the pictures with their names. We were going to offer the actual magazine as a prize for anyone who could name all the groups and musicians, but we’re still reading an article about Gene McCarthy trying to return to the campaign trail after Bobby Kennedy’s assassination three weeks earlier (and ML King two months before that). 1968 was a pivotal year in many ways, not just for music, but we’ll leave analysis of all that to sharper minds than ours.

If everyone likes this kind of stuff we have a bunch more old magazines we found with different topics and photo essays we can present here. Let us know.

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School Daze: 1962 vs. 2012

Posted on March 9, 2012 by

What a difference 50 years can make! We found this floating around on the internet so we can’t take credit for writing all of it, but we wish we could because it’s a good satire on what has happened in schools since we were there. We leave it to you to decide if things have gotten better or worse!

Scenario 1:
Jack goes quail hunting before school and then pulls into the school parking lot with his shotgun in his truck’s gun rack. 

1962 – Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack’s shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.

2012 – School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

Scenario 2:
Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school. 

1962 – Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.

2012 – Police called and SWAT team arrives — they arrest both Johnny and Mark. They are both charged with assault and both expelled even though Johnny started it .

 Scenario 3:
Jeffrey will not be still in class, he disrupts other students.

1962 – Jeffrey sent to the Principal’s office and given a good paddling by the Principal. He then returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.

2012 – Jeffrey is given huge doses of Ritalin. He becomes a zombie. He is then tested for ADD. The family gets extra money (SSI) from the government because Jeffrey has a disability.

Scenario 4:
Billy breaks a window in his neighbor’s car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt. 

1962 – Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college and becomes a successful businessman.

2012 – Billy’s dad is arrested for child abuse, Billy is removed to foster care and joins a gang. The state psychologist is told by Billy’s sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy’s mom has an affair with the psychologist.

Scenario 5:
Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school. 

1962 – Mark shares his aspirin with the Principal out on the smoking dock.

2012 – The police are called and Mark is expelled from school for drug violations. His car is then searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario 6:
Pedro fails high school English.

1962 – Pedro goes to summer school, passes English and goes to college

2012 – Pedro’s cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against the state school system and Pedro’s English teacher. English is then banned from core curriculum. Pedro is given his diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.

Scenario 7:
Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from the Fourth of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle and blows up a red ant bed.

 1962 – Ants die.

2012 – ATF, Homeland Security and the FBI are all called. Johnny is charged with domestic terrorism. The FBI investigates his parents – and all siblings are removed from their home and all computers are confiscated. Johnny’s dad is placed on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Scenario 8:
Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee . He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him. 

1962 – In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.

2012 – Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.

Our thanks and a tip of the hat to the anonymous author who provided this for us.

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A Day In The Life

Posted on February 27, 2012 by

It’s a common belief that as we get older we have less energy and are less active. Well, it may be true that we do less, but it’s not for lack of energy. Mostly it’s for being too easily distracted and forgetting what we were going to do in the first place. As evidence of this, last Saturday I decided to water the lawn right after breakfast but ended up checking my email first.

Much later I went outside, unwound the hose, looked toward the driveway and noticed that my car needed washing. I put down the hose and went in the garage to look for a bucket and towels. Then I went back in the house to get the car keys and noticed mail on the dining room table that I’d brought in earlier. I decided to go through it before washing the car, so I put down the keys and sorted junk mail into the trash can in the kitchen.

Before opening bills I thought I would empty the trash, but it occurred to me that taking out the can would involve going past the mailbox again so I figured I might as well pay the bills first. I found my checkbook and saw there was only one check left, the rest were in a drawer upstairs. While looking for the checks I noticed a half-finished cup of coffee on top of the dresser and decided to take it downstairs to the sink before it caused a ring on the wood.

Back in the kitchen, I saw there were  still dishes in the sink from breakfast and started rinsing them to put in the dishwasher, but I ran out of  dish soap. I thought there was a spare bottle in the pantry and  went to get it, but seeing the food made me think about what to make for dinner. I chose a box of pasta and put it on the counter where I found the TV remote I must have left there the night before. To avoid missing it later I took it to the living room.

I remembered there was a show that evening I wanted to record on the DVR, but while trying to find the channel I noticed an old movie was on, so I settled down to watch for a few minutes. A car commercial came on that reminded me I had left the hose out, so I went to move it and realized that the lawn still needed watering. I moved the hose back toward the lawn but there wasn’t enough time to water before the movie would start again so I headed back to the living room.

By that point the lawn was still not watered, the car was unwashed, the hose lay on the grass, no bills were paid, the trash was not emptied, dishes were still in the sink and I couldn’t find the car keys to go to the store for dish soap. Despite accomplishing nothing, I was exhausted and settled back in my favorite chair to watch the rest of the old movie, but I felt sleepy and started to drift off. The last thing I remember before dozing was a female in the old movie saying “I’ll think about it tomorrow at Tara.” She was definitely my kind of woman.

(With thanks and a tip of the hat to the anonymous internet author who gave us the idea for this article.)

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A Hallmark Moment

Posted on February 14, 2012 by

Besides being the first television generation, baby boomers may also be the first (and last) Hallmark Card generation. Greeting cards were around long before us, despite what our kids and grandkids may think, but they didn’t have that “Hallmark Moment” kind of appeal.

We were indoctrinated into giving cards at a pretty early age, starting with Valentine’s Day. Who doesn’t remember getting those little cards with cute characters and sayings, all full of love and happiness, and spending hours deciding which kids to give one to and which kids to leave out. It was a lot easier to make a statement back then, and you knew where you stood by the end of the day.

It was probably the first version of “tagging” like on today’s Facebook. There might be 26 kids in the class and you’d only want to give out 25 because that kid who ate his buggers just wasn’t worthy, right? But mom would count them up and make sure everyone in your class was going to get a card from you whether you liked that or not. And then she’d send along a box of those little heart-shaped minty candies that could rot your teeth in 24 hours and had embarassing little sayings on them. Ah, those were the days!

Today, in our politically correct world, kids still give out cards in grade school but it’s mandatory that everyone get one. The teacher sends home a spreadsheet with names, email addresses and home pages for each kid, and the little ones have to print labels from the computer and can be done with the whole thing in about five minutes. That is certainly a far cry from the hours we spent agonizing over which card to give to the cute girl in the next row. It was a tough choice. Should she get the one that said “You’re the cowgirl of my dreams!” or the more subtle, “I’m shootin’ to be your valentine!” I may not have mentioned that I usually had cards with a cowboy motif.

As we got older and wiser, Hallmark strengthened its grip on our little libidos and by high school cards became the easiest way to show affection for someone. We had stopped sending cards to our guy friends by then, well most of us had anyway, and it could be a difficult choice whether to send just one card to one special girl, or to play the field and use the shotgun approach (notice the cowboy motif is still at work here). If you were smart and hoped to have a prom date in a few months you’d just pick one and maybe even send a flower along with the card.

Now delivering the card in those days was also a problem because while it was cool to give one, it was very uncool to be seen doing it. Valentine’s Day, by the age of 15 or 16, usually meant getting to school by 5:00 AM or so when only the janitors could see you, or so we thought. So picture, before dawn, dozens of pubescent boys sneaking around the school leaving cards and flowers and hoping they were picking the right desks. By 9:00 AM homeroom was in full swing and it was obvious who had been there early because we were drooped over half asleep.

Nowadays things are a lot easier. A young lad has only to text on his cellphone some pithy 128-character saying like “u r kewl” or “wanna hookup?” Granted that 128 characters, which is the maximum length allowed in a text message (or a tweet for Twitter users) is probably about 120 characters more than we might have used on our cards as kids, but…and this is really important…ours were written by hand and that counted extra. A wobbly or a confident signature could often tell a girl all she needed to know about her suitor and his confidence level. I have no idea how today’s girls figure it out from typed messages.

Back to Hallmark. As boomers moved through life, Hallmark tried to keep up with the changing times. By the 1990′s we were no longer sending cowboy cards, many had been divorced and remarried one or more times, some were still single and some were unhappily married but still together. Oh yes, a small percentage were still married to their first spouses and are still happily together today, but they didn’t really need Hallmark. Somehow they had learned to actually communicate with each other.

For a time Hallmark tried to put out divorce and bad relationship cards. I guess they figured that if couples were going to end up hating each other they might as well get in on the action and help them express their dislikes. Here are a few card samples from those dark days:

Love may be beautiful, love may be bliss.
But I only slept with you, because I was pissed.

I love your smile, your face, and your eyes.
Damn, I’m good at telling lies!  

I see your face when I am dreaming.
That’s why I always wake up screaming.  

Needless to say, this was not one of Hallmark’s finer moments and the marketing executives were, I’m sure, put out to pasture. But unlike earlier times, when all cards were happy and gay, in a 19th century way, our times are reflected in the greeting cards we use. Hallmark is no longer the power it once was. Competition and digital communication have taken a toll. But I will always hang on to that card I got in the fourth grade from Suzanne Filicello, a 9-year old princess with teased hair. It said, simply, “Stay away from me.” But I knew in my heart of hearts that she really didn’t mean it, or else I wouldn’t have gotten a card from her at all.

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Humor Is Just No Fun Anymore

Posted on January 31, 2012 by

“Most people have a sense of it [humor]. Some people don’t. I feel sorry for those people. The humor impaired.” Dave Barry, writer.

“I live in hotels tear out the walls, I have accountants pay for it all.” Joe Walsh, musician.

Around their third or fourth album, cd or “collection of tunes,” rock musicians often come up with songs about how hard life on the road is, how they paid their dues, how their lives suck even though they’re now worth millions. We’re supposed to feel sorry for them because it’s just so difficult being a millionaire with groupies throwing themselves at you.

A lot of movie stars do the same thing. They cry to Barbara Walters or whoever will listen, how their last movie ruined their marriage, ran off their dog, or alienated their friends, and the mere little $10 million they got paid just wasn’t worth it. Of course if asked if they would give it up and stay home the answer is usually a resounding “no.”

Artists are another breed altogether. They start suffering at birth, they disdain money and you are supposed to buy their artwork because it shows their inner turmoil over dealing with the unfair and heavy-handed forces of the universe. You can tell them apart from musicians and actors because, when interviewed and asked to talk about their angst, the response is usually something like “I speak through my art, not with inconsequential words strung together like a bad pearl necklace resting uneasily on the bloated neck of immortality.”

Today it’s not just the creative types who suffer and tell tales of how hard life is on the road. Bankers, financiers, politicians and many others have joined the “life is hard” crowd. Former President Bush and Dick Cheney both wrote books about their ordeals while in office, possibly hoping we will believe that the invasion of Iraq was really just due to indigestion or an off day. We expect a similar volume from the current president one day about the rigors of trying to take a Hawaiian vacation while getting constant phone calls about terrorists lighting their pants on fire.

Financial people are, of course, hard to feel sorry for in any situation, although some did have a tough time getting into their limos and past the hecklers during various protests. And of course you will hear from many of them how hard it is to make any real money with all those government regulations choking their businesses. If only we could bring back child labor, sweat shops and 60-hour work weeks, some will argue, America could be great again. On top of that, just being burdened with a name like “Morgan” is such a hardship because the little people just won’t hang you with you.

One group that suffers for their art but doesn’t talk much about it are writers. Usually they are so happy and relieved to get anything published they don’t want to upset the proverbial apple cart by complaining about life on the road during book tours. Besides, the budgets for that are usually pretty slim so trashing a hotel room or wiping out a mini-bar are not serious options for most authors. So we feel it’s time to open things up and let authors complain about how hard their lives are.

Take a look around and tell us you see lots of funny things to write about. You can’t can you, huh? No, because there is a serious shortage of funny in the world today. There may be just as many things to make fun of as ever, but writers risk their lives by satirizing people and events and situations that various special interest groups have made serious.

For example, our favorite author Jean Shepherd was able to build an entire story around a neighborhood bully and how his character Ralphie stood up to him when he was just eight years old. Today, that story would require vetting by a panel of psychiatrists, approval from school groups, consideration of any ethnic or economic conditions and, of course, a discussion on the history of bullying and legislative actions to eliminate it. Shepherd’s story, if done today, would have Ralphie in counseling, the bully sent off to a rehab program and the parents involved in a class action suit to implement zero tolerance rules. We dread to even think how the satiric bits about bullies in a Clockwork Orange would be affected today.

Sometimes a humor writer has to make something funny happen at great risk of physical harm or mental anguish. Making up a funny story about a nagging wife (or husband, calm down…) can lead to serious marital issues because the spouse is likely to take it personally. Describing a neighbor’s fall down the stairs while taking out the garbage is probably going to get you labeled as insensitive, and making fun of a neighbor’s loud music might get you a punch in the nose.

So here we sit, downtrodden, with no groupies and no tours and no hotels to trash, feeling sorry for ourselves. Humor writers pay their dues every day. We risk it all for our readers. The more we write the more despised we are by just about every special interest out there. They’ve made it a serious world and we are the last hope, the last stand against the anti-humor forces. It’s up to us to keep on stringing words together like a bad pearl necklace resting uneasily on the bloated neck of immortality.

Note: Many writers and performers, humorous or otherwise, have great affection for  their audiences or readers that is rarely seen or discussed. Here is our favorite sentiment about that as told by the late Red Skelton:

“If by chance some day you’re not feeling well and you should remember some silly thing I’ve said or done, and it brings back a smile to your face or a chuckle to your heart, then my purpose as your clown has been fulfilled.”

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More Shameless Self-Promotion

Posted on January 24, 2012 by

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“Protest on Web Uses Shutdown to Take On Two Piracy Bills”

Posted on January 18, 2012 by

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