I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
ART NOTES - a photography exhibit by the Swiss-born Guggenheim Fellowship recipient entitled Robert Frank in America will be at the Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University in California through January 5th.
MORE THAN 10,000 abandoned mines in the north of Canada have been abandoned by its owners - leaving the taxpayers to clean-up arsenic and other hazardous materials left in its wake.
WHILE THE REJECTION of independence in Scotland did not provide a boost to secessionist movements around the world .... it hasn't stopped them in Spain and Québec (and perhaps even in .... Texas?)
SIGN of the APOCALYPSE - the former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke was turned-down .... from being able to refinance his home mortgage.
THURSDAY's CHILD is Mufasa the Cat Burglar - an Australian kitteh whose family has to ask neighbors if they are missing any items ... since Mufasa has been lugging them home.
WITH THE UPCOMING 2020 SUMMER OLYMPICS set to be held in Tokyo, the Japanese government is under pressure to rein-in verbal abuse and hate speech directed at non-natives, primarily Koreans.
YUK for today - although the Scottish independence vote was "no", the vote was 85%-15% in favor of finally admitting women to the legendary Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews .... although a local historian wryly noted that there were:
"15% of members who are still the old fuddy-duddies: the old chaps in their tweed suits going, 'No, we don't want to do that' - in 2014".
THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the
Top Comments diary with a look at the 2005 reunion concerts by my favorite rock band
Cream - I had to wait thirty-seven years (and travel to London) to see it .... yet a childhood dream came true.
FRIDAY's CHILD is Peanut the Cat - a New Zealand kitteh who - after his family moved 150 miles away .... tried to return to their old home ... before being identified by his microchip four years later (as seen on video).
HAIL and FAREWELL to the 1960's pop bandleader Paul Revere - (given name Paul Revere Dick), who led his band The Raiders with hit singles such as "Kicks", "Hungry", "Him Or Me - What's It Gonna Be?" and the 1971 No. 1 single written by John D. Loudermilk, "Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)" - who has died at the age of 76.
BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
YUK for today - one of my must-read bloggers is the Georgia native (and former aide to Zell Miller) Ed Kilgore - who noted:
British article claiming Kim Jong-Un has been overthrown - says Pyongyang on "lockdown." How could you tell?
SEPARATED at BIRTH - two noted musicians: the late Velvet Underground (and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame) guitarist
Lou Reed - as well as jazz/rock pianist
Chick Corea - the winner (or co-winner) of twenty Grammy awards.
...... and finally, for a song of the week ....................... it's the fifty-three year-old song Stand By Me - whose origins are a 1955 Gospel song by the Staples Singers. Ben E. King (photo left below) and a member of the soul group The Drifters - adapted it for a secular audience, but was unable to interest the group's manager: "It’s not a bad song, but we don’t need it".
After leaving the Drifters in 1960, Ben E. King began recording as an Atlantic Records solo artist (although his first album release of singles did not occur until 1963). After recording songs like Spanish Harlem he had a little studio time left over one day. Fatefully, the legendary songwriting team of Jerry Lieber & Mike Stoller asked King if he had anything in reserve, with that extra time available? And when King sat down at the piano and sang them his rough version of this song .... well, they were mighty glad they asked.
Lieber & Stoller went to work adapting it once again, adding a more contemporary sound plus a string section (and Mike Stoller utilized the bass line as the song's intro) - hence, the songwriter's credits read "King-Lieber-Stoller". It reached #4 in the US and #1 in Great Britain in its original release and when a film of the same name used Stand By Me as its theme song in 1986, a re-release made it up to #9.
The rest is history: it was ranked #122 on the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time by Rolling Stone, and in 1999 the performing rights organization BMI declared it as the fourth most-performed song of the 20th century: with about 7 million performances.
Its appeal is almost universal - with noted cover versions by performers as diverse as: Otis Redding, Mickey Gilley, Seal, U2, Green Day, Ronnie Milsap, Lady Gaga and in TV commercials. It was also featured in Lieber & Stoller's Smokey Joe's Café Broadway musical.
When Ben E. King was asked what cover versions he liked, he mentioned David Ruffin (of the Temptations), Prince Royce and Sean Kingston. He added, "the one that held up in my head the most was the John Lennon version from 1975 - he took it and made it as if it should have been his song, as opposed to mine".
Yet there is one cover version that not many people are aware of ..........
In 1963, an up-and-coming athlete from Kentucky named Cassius Clay (photo right, above) - yes, the future Muhammad Ali - recorded the album I Am the Greatest - a (mainly) spoken album .... yet on which he did sing "Stand By Me". And below you can listen to it.
When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is
the only light we'll see
I won't be afraid
No, I won't be afraid
Just as long
as you stand by me
If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
And the mountains
should crumble to the sea
I won't cry
No, I won't shed a tear
Just as long
as you stand by me
And darling, darling:
Stand by me, stand by me