Jo Stafford, Restaurant Failure, My Undershorts, Got $1,000?, a Driving Tip, Parker's Dilemma and Who is the Most Vile Person in Media?

                                                 

Fly the Ocean in a Silver Plane 

Occasionally while driving, I listen to a local station which features music going back to before the 1980s.  (Down here in Palm Beach County, it’s called Legends Radio and is at 100.3 FM.)  Anyhow, the other day they were playing something  sung by Jo Stafford.  In case you're under age 50 and probably never heard of her, or may be older and have forgotten her, she was a very popular female vocalist in the days before rock and roll  from the 1940s until the 1960s. Her pure voice, singing songs of which you understood every single word, was a hallmark of the middle of the 20^th century.  And that song on the car radio brought me back to those days.  

In fact, I go back there frequently now when I get behind the wheel, having purchased three CDs which now reside in my car’s CD player, the contents of which includes 82 songs being sung by Jo (who was married to musician and bandleader Paul Weston whom you might also have forgotten) recorded by her for Capitol and Columbia Records half a century ago. 

Incidentally, I heard Jo sing in person back in the 50s when she did a Sunday afternoon gig at a club in Belleville, N.J., not far from Newark.  But getting back to the CDs, their contents ranges from the romantic "You Belong to Me" (fly the ocean in a silver plane), "I'll be Seeing You" (in all those old familiar places) and

Jo Stafford

“Long Ago” (and far away) to novelty numbers like “Shrimp Boats,” (are a comin' there's dancin' tonight) “Pistol Packin’ Mama” and “If You’ve Got the Money, I’ve Got the Time.” There’s also a sizable assortment of show tunes, religious music, country music and folk songs on the CDs.

   

Jo Stafford was the female lead singer with the Pied Pipers, who join with her in some of the selections along with Gordon MacRae, Frankie Laine and Johnny Mercer among others.  It’s wonderful to forget rap, rock and hip-hop and listen to her do some real singing of real songs “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening” (that’s on one of the CDs too) or any other time that you want.  

Okay, I would be remiss if I didn't give you the opportunity to listen to a bit of her magnificent voice.  Just click right here to spend a couple of minutes seeing those "pyramids along the Nile," etc.    Have a nice trip back in time.

Jack Lippman
                                                

Buddy, Can you Spare $1,000?

Many newspapers (some folks still read them) carried the recent Associated Press story which pointed out that a good percentage of Americans would struggle to come up with $1,000 if a crisis arose requiring such an outlay.  This is part of the feeling of insecurity which, in my opinion, is causing voters to support candidates who would seem to recognize their plight.  There may be less unemployment than there was eight years ago and health care expenses are slowly being brought under control through government intervention with insurers and health care providers through the Affordable Care Act, but many people still live “paycheck to paycheck,” and not manage to save anything for a rainy day.  (Things are even worse in areas where jobs once existed, but have now disappeared due to either advances in technology and outsourcing, or both.) 

Whether this does or does not apply to you personally, it is important that you be aware of it!  Click right here to read the article

JL

                                               
                                                

The Restaurant Business

Restaurants come and go, but sometimes I wonder about the intelligence of the people who open eateries, invest in them, and are shocked when they are forced to shut down a year or two later.  I am no genius and have no experience in the restaurant business, but over the past year, I’ve had experiences in two places which convinced me that they could not stay in business very much longer.  In both places, I had the opportunity to express my thoughts to a management person there who appeared to also have an ownership interest in the place.  Clearly, they ignored what I told them, or they already knew it and were powerless to change things.

One restaurant was obviously trying to save money by cutting the size of the portions of its signature dish and replacing experienced servers with novices. The other was offering a higher priced gourmet Italian menu in a location which previously was a pasta and pizza operation, with no reason to believe they would hang on to the existing clientele with an upgraded menu.  Both places are now shut down and their employees are out of work.  Sad. 
  
 
Part of the blame rests with the lenders, banks or otherwise, who were foolish enough to help finance these businesses.

JL

                                               
                                           

A Little News about my Underwear

I buy my undershorts in Kohl’s which is not in a class with Saks nor Nordstrom as department stores go.  But their “private label” underwear is a pretty good product.  Also, I occasionally purchase “private label” shirts and walking shorts from Dillard’s, another department store. They are fine products too, reasonably priced when on sale.  What gets me is that Kohl’s and Dillard’s, for some reason, choose to put snooty sounding, pseudo-British names on these products.

 

My Kohl’s undershorts are labeled “Croft & Barrow” and the stuff I buy at Dillard’s is labeled “Roundtree & Yorke.”  I wonder if Messrs. Croft, Barrow, Roundtree and Yorke ever get together at their club for “a spot of tea.”  That would be quite appropriate since the garments carrying their names all are made in some part of Southeast Asia where tea is indeed the beverage of choice.  Do these stores actually think that there are customers out there stupid enough to somehow believe these products are “better” because they have some kind of British connection?  You bet they do!

(Incidentally, the only other places these “Brit” brands are sold seem to be on the internet, where overruns and sizes that don’t sell end up.  In marketing them, however, these sites don’t mention the Dillard’s or Kohl’s origination of these brands.)

JL

 

                                

Kathleen Parker's Dilemma

 
Parker

A recent Washington Post column by that most intelligent of right-leaning columnists, Kathleen Parker, was headlined “Clinton’s Nightmare: a video of her lying for 13 minutes.”  Such a video indeed exists, Parker has viewed it and she talks about it in her column.  A critic of both Trump and Hillary Clinton, Parker concludes her piece by suggesting that “a person who can admit to mistakes, express genuine remorse, apologize for errors of judgment or failures to act, and who revises history only in the service of truth – that person could become president of the United States,” and signs off with the words “If only.”  She isn’t talking about Donald Trump. Read the column.  Take a moment and click here

to access it.  

Clinton

JL

                                          
                                              

Which is the "Vilest"? 

I have a problem.  I was thinking the other evening about who is the vilest person on TV.  After due deliberation, I settled on two ladies, and I am perplexed as to which one deserves the title.  One is Jeanine Pirro, a former prosecutor, who has a Saturday evening legal commentary program on Fox News.  The other is Katrina Pierson, media spokesperson for the presumptive Republican candidate for President, who frequently appears on various news channels, enunciating his positions.

   

Pierson and Pirro

 

Pirro is vitriolic in her attacking anything Democratic, particularly if it has anything to do with the Clintons. Pierson knows no limits in defending her employer, and has the ability to make a stinking lump of horse manure seem like a filet mignon when she appears on TV, fooling no one other than those already of her persuasion.  Both of these ladies exist in the media world only because of the freedoms provided to them by the First Amendment to the Constitution. In some countries, they would be in shackles in a dungeon somewhere.  But not here.  God Bless America!

Once you have the opportunity to see and hear them both, let me know which one you think is the most vile, and we will award her the crown. 

JL 

                                                

Traffic Tip

There was an accident recently in my neighborhood in which one driver was killed.  Due to storm damage, the traffic light at an intersection had automatically switched to a flashing red signal for one street and to a flashing yellow signal for the other.  Apparently, the driver at the flashing red signal stopped, and incorrectly assumed that the car coming up to the intersection from the left also faced a flashing red signal, and would yield to the vehicle already stopped and waiting on its right.  It didn’t, and a fatality resulted.  

Lesson to be learned:  A flashing red traffic signal means “come to a full stop and then proceed with caution when the intersection is clear.”  Only when there ALSO is a sign indicating “four way stop” may one assume that other vehicles at the intersection are ALSO facing a similar flashing red signal!  They may not be! Extreme caution at such intersections is always necessary;  drivers should never assume that they know what drivers of the other cars at the intersection will do.

JL

 

                                                  
                                          Zebra Longwing - State Butterfly of Florida

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