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.
CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES - an exhibition entitled Monet to Matisse: On the French Coast will be at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida to May 31st.
HAIL and FAREWELL to the Danish guitarist Jørgen Ingmann - who had a #2 in the US in 1961 with the song Apache and in 1963 (along with his wife) won the Eurovision Song Contest, the first Nordic country ever to triumph - who has died at the age of 89 ...... and to the English musician John Renbourn - who along with the late Bert Jansch were an ordered-pair of top-drawer guitarists who founded the band Pentangle ... who has died at the age of 70.
POLITICAL NOTES - the nation of Kenya is to hold the first serious prosecution of senior politicians accused of corruption in modern Kenyan history - aided by the Swiss government, whose ambassador to Kenya publicly declared, "This is a warning that Switzerland is the wrong place for your stolen money."
THURSDAY's CHILD is Emerson the Cat - a Maine shelter kitteh who was found abused, disfigured and abandoned. But a Facebook posting resulted in a gift of a cat wheelchair (which Emerson learned to use in short order), all causing the mail carrier to complain, "He gets way more letters and packages than I do and has a lot more clothes than I do ... because people keep sending him outfits".
YUK for today - for the second year in a row, the family-values network of Fox will feature an ... "exposé" of spring break, hosted by none other than Sean Hannity .... revealing that college kids are ....... drinking beer ....... and ....... and ....... you-know-what. For a family-values network, they sure do show a lotta skin (especially at ratings time) ... of course, for "informational purposes".
I like what Paul Waldman wrote last year in the American Prospect about the message being sent to that network's viewers:
"The president hates America, immigrants are destroying our culture, the kids are outta-control ... and it's not like-it-was, back in the day".
He elaborates:
On Fox, you can be like the stern father who discovers his teenage son's stash of Penthouse, looking through each issue carefully ... to understand the depths to which the boy has sunk ... lingering over each photo spread as you shake your head at how depraved the world has become.
And should a voice in your head alert you that you're finding this stuff ... dangerously titillating, you can remind yourself that the reason you're there is to express your dismay. After all, it's on Fox: the only network you can really trust.
SCIENCE NOTES - a five-seat submarine named
Cyclops II - that will be able to brave depths currently accessible by only a handful of research vessels - is expected to be ready by next year.
MUSIC NOTES - the city of Seattle is finally to begin construction of Jimi Hendrix Park - honoring its native son nearly forty-five years after his death.
FRIDAY's CHILD is Stanley the Cat - a kitteh in Kuwait who has adopted a helicopter mechanic, Staff Sergeant Daryl Casey with the Kentucky Army National Guard. At first, Sgt. Casey was afraid of leaving for home without Stanley ... but an organization called Nowzad will help him get Stanley back to his old ... actually, his new Kentucky home.
THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at two men named Jim Marshall - one a famous photographer, the other who created the Marshall amplifier - who changed rock & roll.
BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
EARLIER TODAY - host nation Australia defeated their rivals New Zealand to win the Cricket World Cup - after having defeated the defending champions (India) in the semi-finals.
Historical SEPARATED at BIRTH - former US president William Howard Taft and Scottish physician (and Sherlock Holmes author) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
...... and finally, for a song of the week ............... here's one of my favorite songs (performed by many) and its interesting provenance.
St. James Infirmary Blues has a long heritage, with as many origins as people have time to argue. The writer Rob Walker became obsessed enough with it to do some research, and his essay is as good a starting point as any for the musicologist to begin. He says the first text dates back to County Cork, Ireland in 1848, which later morphed into an English song with the title "The Unfortunate Rake", with a man viewing the corpse of his lady at St. James Hospital in London (possibly in a leper's ward).
But for a tune widely assumed to be in the public domain ... a copyright was actually granted in 1929 to a certain Joe Primrose ... who in reality was Irving Mills - best known today as Duke Ellington's manager from 1926-1939, although he was a titan of his era in the entire music business (publishing, nightclubs, recordings, etc.)
As was the practice of the day: his name often appeared as co-writer along with Ellington on certain classic songs (such as "Mood Indigo", "Solitude" and "Caravan" to name a few) although he actually contributed little, if anything to these songs. Ellington strongly defended his manager, perhaps out of gratitude for helping his career launch.
It was a famous 1928 Louis Armstrong recording in Chicago that really hit the big time in the USA, with "Joe Primrose" obtaining his copyright the following year. The song was even banned in certain places, as early renditions of it hint of the man suffering from a venereal disease.
Later versions avoid this, and its popularity has never waned since. A partial list of others who have recorded the tune include Bobby "Blue" Bland, The Animals, Lou Rawls, The Standells (of "Dirty Water" fame), the White Stripes, Jorma Kaukonen, Rickie Lee Jones ... and even the actor Hugh Laurie (of "House" fame).
Probably Cab Calloway (photo above, left) defines the song for most people today (having sung it in the "Blues Brothers" film). And very apropos, as Calloway's career was enhanced after he hired Irving Mills as his manager (photo above, right).
While no two sets of lyrics are identical in any singer's version, these stanzas seem fairly common. And below you can hear Cab Calloway sing it.
I went down to the St. James Infirmary
To see my baby there
She was stretched out on a long white table
So cold, and fine, and fair
Let her go, let her go, God bless her
Wherever she may be
She can search this world over
But she'll never find another man like me