Switched to Tin Pan Alley after breakfast. I go further into this "through the years" musical chronicle with Betty Grable, Alice Faye, and John Payne at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.
Listened to Stars while working on yesterday's blog entry. This K-Tel entry is one of their better records from the late 70's, with smashes like "The Things We Do for Love" by 10 CC, "Rich Girl," by Hall and Oates, and the dynamic "Devil Woman" by British superstar Cliff Richard. Other favorites here that still frequently turn up on oldies stations and playlists include "Year of the Cat" by Al Stewart, "Torn Between Two Lovers" by Mary MacGregor, "A Little Bit More" by Dr. Hook, "I'm Your Boogie Man" by K.C and the Sunshine Band, "Slow Dancin' Don't Turn Me On" by the Addrisi Brothers, "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel" by Tavares, and "Don't Leave Me This Way" by Thelma Houston. "Theme from Roots" by Quincy Jones is the darker instrumental title number from the epic TV miniseries that was huge in 1977.
Got bored after Stars ended and left a little bit early for the Thomas Sharp School. Stopped at the Crust N' Cravings pizzeria on Collings Avenue on my way. It was too hot to do anything like cooking. I quickly enjoyed a slice of sausage, a slice of tomato-broccoli, and a bottle of Coke Cherry Float Zero while ABC News droned in the background. I wasn't quick enough. I ended up being five minutes late.
That wasn't the worst problem we had this afternoon. Thankfully, the 8 kids at my table generally behaved themselves. They weren't even too bad when I had to line them up in a different place in the bathroom hall to keep them from bothering the custodians while they worked in the boiler room. It was after snack time when things got ridiculous. The kids ran around, screamed, threw pencils, kept tattling on each other, and were frankly an absolute mess.
They weren't much better once we got them outside. One little boy got his knee stuck between the bars of the slide equipment. We had to use Dawn dishwashing liquid to get it out. Thankfully, he was more scared than hurt. When his mother arrived, he was cheerfully pestering one of the older boys to see his Pokemon cards. I had a harder time keeping kids off the swings and talking to two girls who had a fight and had been pinching and yelling at each other. I assured them that yes, best friends do fight, but they also make up, and they would be better once they talked things out.
It was still way too hot to have them outside for long. It remains sunny and breezy but dry, in the lower 90's. We took them inside around 4:30, where they danced to "Zoo" from Zootopia 2 and songs from Moana, Moana 2, and Trolls. I had to talk to another best-friend pair when one young lady was upset when her best friend wouldn't let her be the crab while they danced to "Shiny" from Moana. (Her friend hadn't been behaving all day, including inside before we went out and trying to swing outside when she wasn't supposed to.)
Once again, we ended the afternoon by taking most of the remaining kids outside to the blacktop to play ball games. I left from there, with five younger kids and four older kids remaining. Stopped at CVS on the way home to use the bathroom and get a drink, Crest gum toothpaste on a good sale, and more of those electric toothbrush heads that I can't seem to find anywhere else.
Watched Match Game '90 when I got home. The next week was devoted to stars from the then-popular ABC series Loving. Gorgeous Perry Stephans and very funny Lauren-Marie Taylor were a lot more fun than most soap stars and made me understand why my stepfather loved the ABC soaps so much in the late 80's and early 90's. Fred Travelena tossed in a few dozen of his multitude of voices, while Betty White joked with Charles Nelson Reilly.
Finished the night in the California sunshine with one classic Beach Boys album and one that would take almost 50 years to get anything like a release. Smile was meant to be Brian Wilson's magnum opus, but its creation was so fraught with tension and Wilson's paranoia and perfectionism, it was never completed. They would salvage the smash "Good Vibrations" and my favorite Beach Boys song "Heroes and Villains" for other albums. Most of the other songs are more strange than they are songs. I think this is a bootleg release; I'm going to keep it, but I think I'll look around for The Smile Sessions 2-disc vinyl set later this summer for more of the full story.
Part of the reason Wilson wanted so badly to have that "magnum opus" was as a response to the relative success of their Pet Sounds. This is still considered to be by far their best album that actually made it out to the market in its original form. Wilson experimented with everything from orchestral music to exotica in music with darker themes than the norm for their songs. Though the hit was the bouncy "Wouldn't It Be Nice," my favorite songs are the thoughtful ballad "God Only Knows" and the traditional ode to the "Sloop John B."
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