Flashin' My Favorites for All to See

 

Yup, I heard most on AM radio, and some from albums I bought in the Seventies.

01 - Beginnings (single version) - Chicago - 1969  (2:49)

02 - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (single version) - Iron Butterfly - 1968  (2:53)

03 - Carry on Till Tomorrow - Badfinger - 1970  (4:46)

04 - Green-Eyed Lady - Sugarloaf - 1970  (6:49)

05 - That's the Way God Planned It (live) - Billy Preston - 1971  (4:33)

06 - Alone Again (Naturally) - Gilbert O'Sullivan - 1971  (3:36)

07 - DOA (album version) - Bloodrock - 1971  (8:28)

08 - Music - Carole King - 1971  (3:50)

09 - Hold Your Head Up - Argent - 1971  (6:16)

10 - Hoedown (live) - Emerson, Lake & Palmer - 1974  (4:16)

11 - Ride Captain Ride - Blood, Sweat & Tears - 1975  (5:05)

12 - All Around My Hat - Steeleye Span - 1975  (4:06)

13 - WOLD (live) - Harry Chapin - 1976  (5:05)

14 - I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramones - 1978  (2:29)

15 - Watching Over You - Emerson, Lake & Palmer - 1977  (3:53)

16 - We Belong to the Night - Ellen Foley - 1979  (5:08)

THIS LINK GOOD FOR SEVEN DAYS.

PERMANENT LINK.

See you Monday, fellow time travellers!

  

Soon to Be Your Favorites, Too!

 How can I share my joy at listening to a wide variety of music? I guess by passing some of it along. You won’t find a theme otherwise.

01 - 45 Single - Suburban Reptiles - 1978  (1:48)

02 - Private Eye - Buddy Wilkins - 1960  (2:23)

03 - TH Queen (live) - Destroy All Monsters - 1995  (3:06)

04 - Echo Beach - Martha & the Muffins - 1979  (3:33)

05 - Floating Dream - Peanut Butter Conspiracy - 1967  (2:09)

06 - The Fool on the Hill (Major/Minor Swap) - The Beatles - The Evolution Control Committee - 1994  (2:58)

07 - LA Sleaze - CPC Gangbangs - 2008  (1:48)

08 - It Hurts to Be Sixteen - Andrea Carroll - 1963  (2:05)

09 - Ghost Rider - Suicide - 1976  (2:30)

10 - Back of My Hand - The Jags - 1979  (3:20)

11 - Do You Dream in Color? - Living Links - 1990  (3:34)

12 - Behind Those Eyes - The Diodes - 1977  (2:31)

13 - Nursery Rock - Judy & Joyce - 1958  (1:58)

14 - Television Addict - The Victims - 1979  (2:57)

15 - Disco Biscuit - Lung Leg - 1997  (2:17)

16 - She Got a Nose Job - The Dellwoods - 1962  (2:16)

17 - Fragile Beings - X-Teens - 1980  (2:13)

18 - Pop Star - Swoons - 1994  (2:13)

19 - Bloody Ice Cream - Bikini Kill - 1996  (1:21)

20 - What the World Needs Now Is Love - The Staple Singers - 1968  (2:44)

21 - Age of Corruption - Alan Klein - 1965  (3:31)

22 - Shot by Both Sides - Magazine - 1978  (4:03)

23 - Danger Signs - Penetration - 1979  (2:27)

24 - Magic Colors - Lesley Gore - 1967  (2:29)

25 - Don't Wake Me Up - Midnite Snaxxx - 2015  (1:32)

26 - Three Stars - Tommy Dee with Carol Kay and the Teen-Aires - 1959  (3:11)

27 - Love from Abbey Road - The Beatles - Sacred Cowboy - 2011  (7:34)

28 - Get Off the Radio - The Sharks - 1980  (2:57)

Track 5 is a pleasant diversion, but the way-out imagery is less impressive than in Track 11.

Track 6 is a virtuoso display of techno wizardry. But it wouldn’t have been a hit for the Beatles this way!

Track 8 crystallizes a true observation. Of course, you can hurt at other ages too -- don’t tell Andrea. And that chinking wood block might have inspired same in the Man from U.N.C.L.E.! Ya think? I figured not.

Don’t you agree that Track 13 is a buncha fun? Deedly-quack-quack, indeed!

I don’t know what a Disco Biscuit, even after listening to the song (Track 15)!

We’re all “Fragile Beings” (Track 17), but the X-Teens make it sound so fun!

Track 21 speaks for itself, but I wish I’d thought of it first! “I’m travelin’ so fast, I’m passing’ the wind!”

Track 24 -- wow -- what a pop-music depiction of the utter existential emptiness of lost love! (and co-written by Neil Sedaka, too!)

Track 26 is a curiosity, with disgustingly juvenile lyrics. It was a quicky rushed out to cash in on the deaths of Richie Valens, Buddy Holly, and the Big Bopper. The vocals are so maudlin! See what you think.

On the other extreme, Track 27 is just an astounding assemblage of Beatle beats!

And Track 28 signs us off. Hey, you!

THIS LINK GOOD FOR SEVEN DAYS.

PERMANENT LINK.

See you on Thursday.

  

Once More into the Future!

Yes, it's another forward-looking compilation of songs which address a future world and time.

01 - The Year 2,000 Will Turn Out Okay (live) - The Deadbeats - 1978  (2:19)

02 - Computer Dating (live) - General Accident - 1980  (3:27)

03 - Time Machine - Jack Donovan and the Knight Caps - 1959  (2:19)

04 - Kitchen Motors - Crash Course in Science - 1980  (1:58)

05 - World 2000 - Gary Knight - 1968  (2:50)

06 - Home Alone - Los Microwaves - 1981  (1:46)

07 - Waiting for the Future - Berlin - 1980  (3:16)

08 - Polyclimate Is Here - John Ruth - 1981  (3:42)

09 - Babies on Parade - The Body Electric - 1983  (4:47)

10 - Lost in Space - Androids of Mu - 1980  (4:04)

11 - Science's Fiction - Hates - 1982  (2:11)

12 - Cyborg - The Outcasts - 1979  (3:11)

13 - Metropolis - Schwefel - 1988  (4:47)

14 - The Ultimate System - Murder the Disturbed - 1979  (3:59)

15 - In Nineteen-Ninety-Nine - Al Bernard - 1924  (3:21)

16 - The Future Now - Psychic Youth - 1981  (4:19)

17 - Robot Holiday - The Spizzles - 1981    (2:23)

18 - Living in a Vacuum - The Higher Primates - 1980  (1:32)

19 - Here Is the News - ELO - 1981   (3:44)

20 - Into Overload - Overload - 1980  (3:08)

21 - Dumping-Cart Motion - Glass Museum - 1983  (3:04)

22 - Just Too Many People - The Miamis - 1976  (3:09)

23 - Everything's Moving Too Fast - Peggy Lee - 1946  (2:58)

24 - Shape of Things - Manual Scan - 1986  (1:41)

Of course, it's up to YOU to decide what kind of future you want.  Polyclimates, Robot Holidays, or just a surrender to an endless Dumping-Cart Motion.

THIS LINK GOOD FOR SEVEN DAYS.

PERMANENT LINK.

For myself, I predict that if you come back on Monday you'll encounter another socko, boffo music comp!

  

WELCOME TO ANTHOLOGY AUGUST!

Yup, because I'm such a creative compiler, I got a plethora of presentations for ya this month.  Some are new; some are representations of comps which have been updated and/or altered.

To begin with, here's Disc 11 of my 45s & Favorites.

01. Chelsea Morning - Joni Mitchell (2:30)      1969

02. One Tin Soldier - The Original Caste (3:38)    1969

03. Closer to Home (single version) - Grand Funk Railroad (5:30)    1970

04. We're for the Dark - Badfinger (3:53)    1970

05. Get It On - Chase (2:59)    1971

06. I'm a Man (single version) - Chicago (3:26)    1969

07. Timothy - The Buoys (2:43)    1971

08. 10538 Overture - Electric Light Orchestra (5:29)    1971

09. Doctor My Eyes - Jackson Browne (3:19)    1972

10. Old Man - Neil Young (3:23)    1972

11. Taxi - Harry Chapin (6:42)    1972

12. Undercover Man - The Edgar Winter Group (3:49)    1972

13. Helen Wheels - Paul McCartney & Wings (3:45)    1973

14. Get Ready (single version) - Rare Earth (2:51)    1969

15. Junk Food Junkie (live) - Larry Groce (3:04)    1975

16. Barracuda - Heart (4:24)    1977

17. Rock 'n' Roll High School - Ramones (2:18)    1979

18. Twilight Zone - Golden Earring (4:40)    1982

19.  Pressure - Billy Joel (4:37)    1982

These are all fun in different ways.  For me, the real curiosity of this group is Track 3, the "single version" of Grand Funk's "Closer to Home."  I bet somebody today could come up with a more succinct (and technically polished) version today using Audacity or some such.

THIS LINK GOOD FOR SEVEN DAYS.

PERMANENT LINK.

Travel down some backroads of your mind and check back in Thursday, fellow time travelers!
  

Super Clothes #10 - More PJs

Here are more pajamas endured by kids and grandkids at our house.

It's hard to tell, but there's a pair of black long pajama bottoms here.

The above size 8 set is from a concern identified as PCA on the label.

This size 10-12 set, with the same central image, is from a company called Allison.

This yellow set which gives away the Super Secret is labeled size 7.

I hope you got some super swag to wear to dreamland!  See you on Monday to begin a month of compilations!

  

Great Fun Nearly Ruined by Poor Production

I’ve read a dozen or so books by Kevin J Anderson.  I lo-oo-ove his Dan Shamble books.  The only one of his many tie-ins I’ve read was his take on Superman’s origins, which did not impress me as to being sanguine with the “true” roots of Superman.  Review here.

When we hosted Anderson in 2019 for SoonerCon 28, he was very friendly, witty, and insightful in person.  I bought ALL of the Shamble books from him, and he signed each one.

And, I’m an original Kolchak Kid, having watched Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak in 1972’s The Night Stalker and 1973’s The Night Strangler on ABC’s Movie of the Week.  So when Anderson plugged this comics hardback, I immediately ordered.

Came to find out there is one comic-book tale of Kolchak and Dan Shamble in a crossover tale, several alternate covers, and two text pieces.

I am NOT disappointed with the art or storytelling.  But the editing-proofreading of this project is VERY disappointing.

The first tale is the Kolchak-Shamble crossover comic story, titled “Unnaturally Normal.”  It’s a lot of fun, although the basic plot and most of the characters are transferred from a nearly identically plotted tale, “Wishful Thinking,” in Anderson’s 2018 collection of Shamble shorts, Services Rendered.

First page, first panel, a goof!  Look at the opening text box, an opening voiceover if you will.  Note that the LAST letter at the end of the first three lines is the FIRST letter of the first word on the next line!  What’s up with that!?!?!?

Read Shamble’s speech balloons circled here.  Somebody repeated the same words in BOTH balloons.  It’s a sure bet that in the script for this page, Shamble IS NOT saying the same thing twice!

The first text piece, featuring Kolchak, is called “On the Wrong Bigfoot,” written by Richard Dean Starr and Matthew Baugh.  Everything seems OK with it.  It’s a fun first-person piece in which our favorite reporter and the long-suffering Tony Vincenzo have some interesting encounters with several aspects of conspiracy culture.

The second text piece, called “Digital van Helsing – The Fate Worse than Death,” is by Anderson and Guy Anthony De Marco.  Like the other tales, it is fun to read.  BUT … the presentation is amateurishly inept!

In several places we have what looks to be a rewording which includes TWO word choices.  The one above can’t decide what to do concerning breakfast— to “think about” breakfast, or “contemplate” it, so we got BOTH!

This happens several places, as above when the narrator can’t decide whether to name Marvin or leave him a “young man.”  But it gets WORSE!

Look at the above page.  See all the circles?  In each place there’s a random insertion of the numeral 1 and a bracket, thus: 1｝

This happens ALL OVER this last story.

Don’t you HATE it with the medium ruins the message?  Ta-ta, see you on Thursday.

While the Sky Falls, It Will Talk to You

I understand the viewpoint that AI is "just a tool," but I'm still of the camp that tools can kill ya.

This article is from the September 3, 2023 Tulsa World.

Do you agree that many people are TOO ready to turn their lives to AI?  After all, anything designed to imitate the very imperfect human thought process can't be 100% trustworthy, right?

RIGHT?  I for one do NOT welcome our new robot masters!

See ya Monday.  

  

I Hope So Too

This article is from the July 6, 2025 Tulsa World.

MY APOLOGIES for the missing ending of the article's text.  The file is supposedly "corrupted" and that issue of the paper has gone to recycling heaven.  OOPS.

Come back Thursday and see if I have goofed up anything else!

  

It's a Super World

... Or at least, the fine Tulsa World newspaper cares a little bit about Superman!  (As previously demonstrated in Monday's post.)

Here are three more Kryptonish Kronicles:

This comic is from the July 11, 2025 issue.  Who'da thought that Barney Google and his buds could be so with it?

In this Page 2 editor's note from the same date, World editor Jason Collington tells his own autobiographical tale of Super Inspiration.

This strip is from the July 15, 2025 World.

See?  Super Stuff might be all around you, if you just look about!  See you Monday.

  

Superman Meets Mr Atoz

(That's a STAR TREK joke. Mr Atoz, get it? From "All Our Yesterdays"?)

This juicy compendium is from the July 6, 2025 Tulsa World.  (I don't know a finer newspaper in Oklahoma.)

See you Thursday, fellow fans!

  

In Other News ...

Of course, we're going to see the new Superman movie on opening night.  But cast your memories back a couple of decades ... 

Back in 2006, Superman Returns was the "new" Superman movie.  While there was a lot of good in it, there was just too much creepy x-ray spying and other stuff going on.  However ...

Somehow our local rag heard about my status as a big Superman fan.  I took a reporter and a photog on a tour of the Fortress of Markitude and ended up on the front page!

Above is the article as scanned from the June 28, 2006 Oklahoman.  Following are pix taken for the article.

Here I am showing off some issues in the Comics Closet.

This is a copy of Superman #158, which introduced (among other things) Nightwing and Flame Bird.

The above photo WAS NOT in the article, but it's me in 1963 with the same issue of Superman #158, when it was new.

Here I am with an (empty) box of wonderful Superman processed cheese food!

Here's a separate photo of the box, which can be studied in depth here.

See you at the movies!

  

The Trek -- or Pants -- of Theseus

That’s the title of my discussion-panel suggestion, used at 2024’s Soonercon 32. The panel summary:

Philosophical thought experiment: Does an object that has had all of its components replaced remains fundamentally the same object? Apply the “ship of Theseus” concept to Trek or other franchises. How much can be changed before it's not Star Trek, Star Wars, Dungeons and Dragons, or another cherished nerd franchise?

A lot of fun was had by all. And just last week I had fun when coming across this treatment of the “ship of Theseus” idea again!

I guess you could call this “the pants of Theseus,” huh? See you next time.

  

We'll See About This One

Here's a little note from the June 28, 2025 Tulsa World:

Note that in this article does NOT promise the end of sudden shutdowns.  The screen just won't be blue.  Progress marches on!

See ya Monday, fellow tech nerds.

  

Well, SOME of the Truth

Here's a clipping from the March 21, 1994 Tulsa World about the forming of what became known as the ARRB -- the Assassination Records Review Board.

If you wish to know more about the ARRB and its (lack of) findings, I encourage you to read the five-volume Inside the ARRB by Douglas Horne, one of the staff members.  Horne chronicles the cowardice and insight of several board members of higher rank than he was, and the attempts of some to make sure that no boats were rocked.

However, Horne explicates several important aspects of evidence that make the government's view (one or two shooters, no conspiracy, no government involvement) impossible to justify.  For one thing, the supposed autopsy photos and autopsy X-rays don't match each other, nor the recollections of either the autopsy doctors or Dallas doctors.

Read for yourself!  See you on Thursday.

  

Cards from the Past

Yup, these pieces of correspondence were part of the commercial lifeblood of both the periodical world and the post office.

This is a 1978 sweepstakes come-on from RD.  No, we never won anything from them.

We were with Cox from when they first hung cable in OKC (around 1979????) until around 2000, when their incessant rate hikes chased us away.  We were NEVER late in our payments, however inflated.

I have several of these puppies.  This one is addressed to "contest entrant," but I pestered those poor folks at The Twilight Zone Magazine at least half-a-dozen times.

Have you ever read a nicer rejection letter?

An aside to my snide friends:  I don't keep EVERYTHING.  I used all of these as bookmarks.

See ya Monday!

  

Worlds of Tomorrow!

As a longtime member of the defunct STAR OKC, the alive-and-well Soonercon and the Future Society of Oklahoma, as you might imagine I'm a sci-fi fan. Here's a VERY top-of-the-pile survey of a few concepts of some might-come-to-pass Worlds of Tomorrow.

Worlds of Tomorrow

            After the end of Star Trek’s run, Gene Roddenberry pitched several projects to the TV networks—to be honest, it was one idea, continually redressed. All were set on a future Earth, in the aftermath of a planetwide war. The TV-movie Genesis II aired in 1973, and starred a 20^th-Century man awakening in 2133 in an Earth populated by splintered outposts of mankind. A reworked version, Planet Earth, aired in 1974. A third telefilm based on the concept was broadcast in 1975. Its title—Brave New World.

            Miranda is the daughter of the sorcerer Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. When some mariners are shipwrecked on their barren island, she begs her father to save them. She eventually marries one of the refugees, the prince of Naples. In the play’s final scene, she addresses the crowd who is celebrating the nuptials:

O wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,

That has such people in't.

            Some pop groups have given the phrase “Brave New World” a sarcastic spin. Jimmy and the Boys’ 1981 “Brave New World” narrates a society populated by genderless workers whose mindless activity feeds the machines of progress. “Brave New World” by the Tender Violent Chords, from 1982, looks forward to spaceships and satellite eyes that watch the world without emotion.

            Some “new worlds” aren’t that great. Aldous Huxley’s dystopian look at a fascist future, the 1932 novel Brave New World, was a satirical riposte against the utopian dreams of H.G. Wells. In the future of Huxley’s tale, bottle babies and strict social castes are the norm. Technology’s sole aim is to keep the lower classes occupied so that the upper castes may indulge their government-sanctioned fancies. Huxley’s satirical title was a direct reference to Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

 Among the music groups or artists with releases titled Brave New World:

• Iron Maiden (heavy metal, 2000)
• Toyah (new wave, 1982)
• Styx (rock, 1999)
• Moskwa TV (synth-pop, 1987)
• Fuzzy Logic (jazz-funk, 1995)
• New Model Army (punk, 1985)
• Hawklords (space rock, 2018)
• David Essex (pop, 1978)
• The Bongos (new wave, 1985)
• Genetic Control (2005, punk)
• DDT (alternative, 1983)
• Ana Christensen (alternative. 1990)
• Steve Miller Band (rock, 1969)

       Ray Bradbury’s 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 foresaw a future in which independent thought is stifled through the suppression of books and learning. Bradbury originally said that the book was conceived in reaction to the McCarthy hearings’ chilling effect on free speech. In 2007, he revised his opinion to say that the book’s allegory also applies to mass media’s effect in reducing consumers’ interest in reading and literature.

            Perhaps the best-known tale of a future fascist state is George Orwell’s 1984, the tale of a metaphorical boot crushing a human face—forever. It’s a world full of surveillance and government-run everything. Who would want a world in which your TV watches you? Hello, Alexa!

            Some of the current organizations that claim to be working on a wonderful future world are the World Future Society; the World Future Council (offices in Hamburg, London, and Geneva); and the Future Worlds Center (based in Cyprus). Don’t forget the Association of Professional Futurists, or the World Futures Studies Federation, founded in 1973. Or our own Future Society of Oklahoma!

             Plenty of pop songs look ahead in time. Here are only a few: “Song for a Future Generation” by the B-52’s; “This Used to Be the Future” by the Pet Shop Boys; “The Future that Never Was” by Powerman 5000; “A Better Future” by David Bowie; and two songs called “Children of the Future.” One’s from the Steve Miller Band; the other is by Bloc Party.

See you on Thursday!