BLOG TO COMM

Ya wanna know why I'm crazy? Ya wanna know why I'm sad? I'll tell ya, it's because none other than FRANK CADY himself has died. And nobody really seems to care like they did when Farrah Fawcett or Michael Jackson hit the carbon cycle. Not even Lindsay Hutton, who always seems to keep us up to date regarding the movers and shakers in our World Community who have sadly left us. Yeah, the ol' pooperoo, age 96, has left This Mortal Slinky and has passed on to much bigger 'n better things, and although it wasn't like we were next door neighbors 'r anything I miss the guy already! Not only did Cady play the role of General Store owner Sam Drucker on two concurrent series (the much-loved GREEN ACRES and its cornball "sister" series PETTICOAT JUNCTION, not forgetting the rare BEVERLY HILLBILLIES pop up when the storyline got rewritten regarding the Clampetts' origins as being from Hooterville 'stead of Bugtussle) but he was oft-sceen on various other series throughout them golden days. Avid OZZIE AND HARRIET fans'll remember him as Doc Williams for a spell, and of course he even popped up on that ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW "pilot" that ran on THE DANNY THOMAS SHOW as the proto-Otis who happened to be goin' by the name of Hoople (oddly enough, he later appeared as a Mount Pilot drunkard who befriended the corpulent souse in a '64 episode!)  And howzbout his boffo appearance as the father of the boy who got killed over a spelling bee ribbon in THE BAD SEED and hadda put up with his soused wife not to mention a whole slew of other tee-vee and moom pitcher appearances throughout them long gone suburban slob times when all we hadda worry about was how to get through six hours of school before all the fun started!!!

I'm sure a lotta you people out there already thought that Cady was dead, especially since he looked so old back inna fifties and sixties when we thought he was already in his seventies! Only goes to show you that when you are young, you should try to look older than you are so that when you really do get old people will think you look incredibly good for your age. Then again, if you wanna look like a senior citizen for most of your life that's your bizniz!

But hey, those Frank Cady memories just keep rollin' along. Can't forget all of those great GREEN ACRES moments and one-liners that he zinged throughout the show. Most vivid moments that enter my mind include the "Big Ben, Eiffel Tower, Bunker Hill" running gag, the board games Drucker was selling including MONOTONY, and of course the time he bought a cheap toupee which Mr. Kimball dropped in the pickle barrel thus turning the thing green! After Drucker put it on I gotta admit he reminded me of Elton John after his hair weave, and that's with the new green color added to it as well!

So long Frank...never did get to watch THESE ARE THE DAYS which you lent your voice to, but just like the recent passing of Duane Breyers had me looking up and digging old Hilda calendar art I get the feeling that I'll be buying the entire series on DVD soon just to hear your voice! Funny how death can do that to a feller...kinda makes me guilty for not paying more attention while you were alive but hey, I get that way sometimes.

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Not much new picking-wise this week. In fact there's hardly anything new about the following items which I've owned and enjoyed for nigh on a decade or so. Well, maybe now's the time to do a li'l re-evaluatin' and, in response to those of you who have caught on to my usual long-windedness and have commented so, I've tried to keep the resultant spew short and perhaps even sweet. Think I'll leave the mega essays for the next go 'round...y'see, I actually got up the courage (and some $$$) for an order to Forced Exposure just so's I can inject a li'l fresh lifeblood into my usually mundane existence but until that hefty package arrives it's gonna be oldies but moldies from here on in, savvy?

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Tiny Tim-SONGS OF AN IMPOTENT TROUBADOUR CD (World Serpent, England)

Dunno how I got on my latest Tiny Tim jag but I found this particular platter a pretty relaxing way to wind the day down, old fogie style. Listening to Mr. Tim rattle off the tales about femme pulchritude while strumming his original compositions is akin to back in the old days when my father'd tune in Arthur Godfrey and listen to that ol' pooperoo blab about everything from dearly-departed entertainment standbys to Colgate toothpaste. Tim's voice was pretty shot by the time this 1994 recording was made, but the original songs as well as his personal anecdotes about meeting Liz Taylor in 1947 to flipping over Tuesday Weld via DOBIE GILLIS (I never for the life of me would have thought that Tiny Tim watched television!) really make this a nice way to relive a long-forgotten part of your entertainment heritage. Only real beef is the final cut where the Nurse With Wound/Current 93 schlubs take Tim's opinions regarding the Antichrist and add their own electronic whirl to it which seems way more ridicule than homage if you ask me (and why not???)!

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John's Children-THE LEGENDARY ORGASM ALBUM CD (Cherry Red)


It should be obvious to you as to why I don't spin this 'un as much as I do those John's Children platters that feature the talents of Marc Bolan. Mainly because there ain't any Marc on this 'un at all, but that don't mean THE LEGENDARY ORGASM ALBUM ain't total douse. Of course the backwards take of "Strange Affair" is totally needless (is there a reason why Cherry Red allowed this inna first place other'n perhaps some sorta legal screw to a publisher?) but the rest of this pre-Bolan outing, from the single sides to the "live" portion, is about as hot an artyfact of the First Great Punk Rock Era as any other garage band item you might be able to dig up. Enough lewd and lasciviousness on this one to give the bluest haired DAR member in your life more'n a few apoplectic pops and gurgles...try one out on her just for size!

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Paul Revere and the Raiders-LIKE LONG HAIR CD (Flash)

An obv. "grey area" release from the early days of Cee-Dees featuring what I believe is most of the Raiders' Gardenia LP as well as some single side rarities. If the mid/late-sixties version of the group continues to bring back living-room hipster values in your soul this will zone you back even further. From the choice '59/'61-era instrumental sounds (including two Wailers covers!) to the alternate take of "Sharon" to the boffo front cover snap showing the early pre-Drake/Fang/Smitty group in their matching blazers, LIKE LONG HAIR's bound to conjure up all of those long-repressed youthful memories just beggin' to burst outta your dark reaches. If you still hold the boffo '58-'66 season of pre- and teenage gulcher near and dear to your heart this'll play the soundtrack to your life as much as old home movies and b&w reruns!

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Ruins-REFUSAL FOSSIL CD (Skin Graft) 

Yeah, I reviewed this in the (probably) final issue of my own crudzine way back when, but that was sooooo long ago and besides I must admit I haven't played the dang thing since! So in many ways this was a lot like buying an entirely new item which not only sounds fresh to me, but keeps a whole lotta dough in my wallet as well!!! And as far as this "progressive" "heavy metal" group (who consider Gentle Giant as an influence!) goes, all I gotta say after listening to this is that the Japanese are a whole lot harder to figure out than I originally thought!

Being a bass guitar/drums duo you'd think that Runs couldn't get much outta their gear, but surprisingly enough these guys have the power and energy of a Motorhead with the stripped-down aesthetics of just about any art punk radical rock group of the eighties. That is, without the angst and pain brought upon by too much upper-middle class guilt. Mostly total noise hard-grate jackhammer music that really will not cozy up to most of the aficionados of either the metal or the prog camps, even when this set closes with some wild synthesizer solo that sounds like something Keith Emerson would cook up with a couple batteries hitched up to his babymaking machines.

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The Fleshtones-SOLID GOLD SOUND CD (Blood Red Vinyl & Tapes)

Should I feel guilty for pretty much ignoring this long-running true blue underground Amerigan rock 'n roll group, or at least for shoving 'em to the back of the burner while giving many lesser lights the big-time rah-rah instead? Gotta say that I don't particularly feel bad about it, perhaps because of the fact that whatzizname from the group co-hosted that show on MTV back inna effing eighties. Something like that's bound to get more'n my dander up I'll tell you!

But I do feel creepy for not devoting more of my time, heart, head, hands and feet to this perennial mid-Amerigan teenage suburban ranch house UHF-TV rockin' 'n rollin' group, especially since they seemed like thee ultimo rock 'n roll concept even back when I first read about 'em in the pages of THE NEW YORK ROCKER oh so long ago. This turn of the millennium platter's typical of the Fleshtone style and substance that I've been familiar with for quite some time...six-oh rock 'n roll w/a smattering of early-mid-seventies New York influx that does seem about as much akin to the whole gutter vision of the day as it would to the suburbanism that makes this group so appealing. 'n yeah, I could go on and do a track-by-track rundown padding this post a good ten or so paragraphs, but even that would be too hard a task even though I did spin this 'un through twice. Let's just say that, on a hot sunny Sunday afternoon SOLID GOLD SOUND sure made a fine soundtrack for thumbing through a box of Silver Age DC's that happened to get uncovered, and as far as tributes go I couldn't think of anything better!