Due to the fact that a growing portion of the news on TV in recent years is blown up as BREAKINGNEWS, it’s a wonder there’s any news left in one piece. It strikes me that TV ‘journalism’ has fallen into such a decrepit condition, even Humpty Dumpty wouldn’t want to trade places with what remains of it. To those of us who fondly remember the class of Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and the like, cable news overkill is a heart-breaking state of affairs — and heart-breaking affairs, of course, can only leave….
Yes, friends, I’m afraid this world has come to a pretty pass. My heart aches for the return of the good old days when men were men, women were women, news was news, and Presidents were a cut above a pain in the dis-ass-ter. Pardon my language, but that’s the….
“….any day with Ella Fitzgerald is a grand day. ….that song [is] another one I hadn’t heard before.” –from a June 13 comment to my last (June 6th) post by Silver Screenings (a blog published by ‘Ruth’)
In my reply to Ruth, I noted that with June 15 nearing (the 23rd anniversary of Ella’s death), I’d use the occasion to post a remembrance, including clips of other songs she may not have heard Ella sing. Over the years, I’ve probably done over a dozen Ella clips, including a half dozen in my April 25th post titled THE FIRST LADY OF SONG. After screening a few previous Ella posts to try to avoid repetition, hopefully the songs that follow will fall fresh on Ruth’s ‘Ella-fan-true’ ears (as opposed to mistermuse’s Elephant ears).
Let’s start with an early Ella (as ‘girl’ vocalist with Chick Webb’s Orchestra in April 1936):
Next, we turn from the swinging Ella to a more dreamy Ella:
Before you tune out, I know some of you guys aren’t fans of my kind of music (or the songbirds who warble it), so next time I’ll consider a return to posting about your (and Mexico’s) favorite tweeter of note, Donaldo el Trumpo — mean-o-while, I bid you a fond….
I bring this up because IF I WERE A RICH MAN made me think of U.S. Senate Majority Leader MITCH McConnell and wonder if there’s a satirical song substituting the word “Mitch” for “Rich” in the song title? So I did a Google, and though the search for IF I WERE A MITCH MAN led nowhere, I did find this:
Sorry about that. There must be a better song (or at least, a less depressing one) with a politician’s name in the title. In fact, I happen to know of a few such songs, and if I were a pitch man, here’s one I could plug to lead you out of Mitch depression:
Remember that, as FDR said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself (except, of course, the fear that The Donald could be re-elected). Hence I elect to sing the praises of my candidate to oppose Trump….
Yes, The Donald will soon find that he has met his match, man. The Wintergreen of his discontent fast approaches. Eat your hearts(?) out, Donald and Mitch man.
No doubt you’ve noticed that America’s quack President, Donald Trump, ducks any probing questions he doesn’t want to answer — particularly about his many phony claims, disingenuous spins, grandiose con jobs, and cheap-shot insults. For example, on May 23 he tweeted agreement with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s claim that former U.S. Vice President Biden has a low IQ. Taking on one of my undercover-reporter gigs, I asked The Donald if a low IQ is worse than a MONUMENTALEGO. Obviously, he didn’t like the question. Ergo, he didn’t answer. Or maybe he was too busy correcting his tweeted misspelling (“Bidan”) of Biden’s name. But I’ll give him a pass on that one; after all, even I make a spelling misteak on rare — or medium rare (but not well done) — occasions.
Pause.
My fellow Americans, I began this post intending to satirize more (out of countless) examples of Trump perfidy, but what’s the point? We all know what Trump is. Blowing his bilge back at him sticks like water off a duck’s back. It’s time to get quackin’ and get serious:
In 1984, members of the Oxford Library Club for Retired Professional People were especially looking forward to hearing a guest speaker on “Old Age, Absent-Mindedness, and Keeping Fit.” Unfortunately, the speaker forgot to show up. –excerpted from the book 1,000 UNFORGETTABLE SENIOR MOMENTS
MAY being OLDER AMERICANS MONTH, and ME being an older American, I’ve decided to post a post predicated on passing on — make that on passing along — hoary words of wisdom concerning a subject I’m surpassingly qualified to write about, namely …. ….hmmm….uh….ah…. longevity (ha ha — you thought I forgot what I was going to write about, didn’t you?).
Actually, I must admit to being a bit of a senior citizen-slouch when it comes to longevity — at least, compared to this guy:
And of course, that there this guy is himself a slouch compared to this here this guy:
Methuselah, as all my bible-believing brethr’n and sistern know, was said to have lived 969 years (Genesis 5:27), so you might think this song is my inspiration to keep marching on:
But (and I quote) “Who calls that livin’ when no gal’s gonna give in to no man what’s 900 years?”
So there you have it from Bobby Darin singing the lyrics of Ira Gershwin. Or you can take it from Senior Muse quoting the words of Oscar Wilde: “The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is not young.”
As we know, our beloved, above-the-law President, Donald “Stonewall Maximum” Trump, is not one to account for his violations of civility, humanity or legality, but in case he ever feels a need to make excuses for his base….instincts, he can grab on to one of the following old floozies — I mean DOOZIES — for justification. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, he may even want to lay claim to them all — no matter the doozies became noted quotes ere Trump ere heard of them or the quotees (well, maybe he heard of the first one.)
“I haven’t committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law.” –DAVID DINKINS, former NYC Mayor
“I care not who makes the laws of a nation if I can get out an injunction.” –FINLEY PETER DUNNE, humorist
“Suppression is 9/10ths of the law.” –EVAN ESAR (a pun on the expression “Possession is 9/10ths of the law.”
“I simply misremembered it wrong.” –MARK KIRK, former Republican Senator from Illinois
“My friends, no matter how rough the road may be, we can and we will, never, surrender to what is right.” –DAN QUAYLE, VP of the United States under George H.W. Bush
“There are people in our society who should be separated and discarded.” –SPIRO AGNEW, V.P. of the U.S. under Richard Nixon
“I AM the Federal Government.” –TOM DELAY, former GOP Majority leader, after telling a business owner to put out his cigar due to a federal law against smoking in the building
Now that’s a quote we can lay on THE DONALD without DELAY.
Today being the birthday (5/6/1915) of the great director/actor Orson Welles, I’m going to risk repeating myself by repeating myself….with a few selections (including the following clip) from a past post acclaiming Welles and his role in the classic film THE THIRD MAN:
To those who think the likes of this 1949 film has appeal only for seniors (like me), I’d say such films are called classic because they’re ageless, not made to capitalize on what’s ‘in’ at the moment. To demonstrate, here is a non-senior citizen explaining why she loves it:
Of Welles, the man grown from “boy genius,” much has been written, but I won’t go into the details of his life/legend here — they can be readily culled by clicking this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Welles (or less readily culled from recommended books like ORSON WELLES, a 562 page biography by Barbara Leaming). Instead, I will call on some of the wisdom he left behind….and I quote:
Even if the good old days never existed, the fact that we can conceive such a world is, in fact, a confirmation of the human spirit.
Living in the lap of luxury isn’t bad except that you never know when luxury is going to stand up.
I don’t pray because I don’t want to bore God.
Race hate isn’t human nature; race hate is the abandonment of human nature.
Don’t give them what they think they want. Give them what they never thought was possible.
We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.
When people accept breaking the law as normal, something happens to the whole society.
