Blinq

New England Fans

Sure they have two World Series rings and three from the Supes just in this decade. They also have too much time on their hands. Witness the entitled attitudes when A.J. Daulerio pokes a stick at Belichick and Brady, and the Athenians of America strike back. The action is in the comments.

(Yes, we're from there, but we're the sort of lovable losing Red Sox fan of the previous century.)

Maple Showers

One of the benefits of parents who live in Florida is the weather report. My dad, the amateur meteorologist, will go like this:

"It's hot today. Not a cloud in the sky. Really beautiful."

"What do you expect," I mutter. "It's Florida." Just because it's pleasant doesn't mean it's not hell.

I mention these always-sunny-in-Florida reports to my sister, who lives in New Hampshire's Mt. Washington Valley, where she's learned to live with demanding bears and snow in June. She gets it.

Today, I was able to return the favor to my parents.

I was walking the dog about 8 a.m. when I realized that a giant maple tree on the corner was shedding its leaves so hard and fast you could hear it -- like summer rain on a tin roof. Giant pinwheeling leaves the color of corn were carpeting the tops of cars underneath. It looked like time-lapse photography.

So I called Florida to report on the weather.

"Dad, you don't get to see this anymore," I began, and went on how the yellow maples were shedding their cover so fast they'd be bare by the time I came back from the walk with the dog.

As I was giving the sort of eye-witness report cell phones allow, I saw a person down the street taking pictures in front of her house. That maple, too, was in fast-forward.

"Have you ever heard fall before?" I shouted, and like a schoolgirl she replied, "I know! I know!"

Farther down the street yet another yellow maple was in free fall. I know so little about biology, and what makes them going into action all at once. The cold? The calendar? They must have all gotten the memo.

Turkey Tunes

It's started. WXPN's got some listener's holiday playlist on, and it begins well enough with Cheryl Wheeler's "Driving Home," which is appropriately dreamy, but it moves like a car stuck in traffic. Next comes a version of "Tobacco Road." This is a Southern gothic tale, not my soundtrack.

My personal favorite goes back to 1988, a 90-minute mixed tape called Music for An Expectant Thanksgiving, and it was -- the whole extended family gathering in Connecticut, surrounding my wife who was pregnant with twins.

It was a vibe, not a overly Thanksgivingy or thematic mix -- Richard Thompson's "Waltzing for Dreamers," Bruce Springsteen's "Valentine's Day" ("what scares me is losing you"), John Hiatt's "I Stood Up." Slow, warm, glowing. I'd play it today if I still had the tape player connected.

But that wouldn't be a universal list -- one that you might play at home and serve as your own musical comfort food. It meant something particular to me at the time. These things always do. That made me think, what's the perfect, more-literally Thanksgiving playlist?  I went looking.

"Wild Turkey" by David Crosby? "Thank You" by Led Zeppelin. "The Thanks I Get?" by Jeff Tweedy? My musical cupboard is a little bare on this theme.

It wouldn't take long for reinforcements -- "Cold Turkey" by John Lennon, Lightnin' Hopkins' "Long Gone Like a Turkey." But that's a lot of hunting and gathering.

Well, I found a groovous Thanksgiving  Playlist -- downloadable for the digital age -- on an MP3 blog called Boogie Woogie Flu.

From that rare Bird that was Charlie Parker to Wm. DeVaughn's one-hit wondrous "Be Thankful For What You Got" to a Yo La Tengo cover of same, it should provide a hearty soundtrack to the TV parades and Cowboys game and turkey with grandma's stuffing. You might blanche at the Redd Foxx and Wm. S. Burroughs, but they're welcome at our table.

Earfarm's got a tasty mix, too -- from Pulp's "Turkey Mambo Momma" to Cab Calloway's "A Good Sauce From the Gravy Bowl."

UPDATE:

A day of making turkey and stuffing wound up with this accompaniment:

Be Thankful For What You Got    Yo La Tengo   
String Bean Jean    Belle & Sebastian   
Thanksgiving Waves    Eef Barzelay   
Pecan Pie    Golden Smog       
Mashed Potato Time    Dee Dee Sharp
Thank You (Led Zeppelin Cover)    Chris Cornell    
A Good Sauce from the Gravy Bowl    Cab Calloway and His Orchestra   
Sweet Potato    Imperial Teen        The Hair the TV the Baby and the Band
Turkey Mambo Momma    Pulp   
Thankful N' Thoughtful    Sly & The Family Stone 
Carvin' The Bird    Charlie Parker Septet 
I Thank You    Sam & Dave   
Surfin' Bird    The Ramones   
Holiday - (Madonna Cover)    Jack Johnson and G. Love 
One Big Holiday    My Morning Jacket    
I'll Be Yr Bird    M. Ward    
Blackbird    Elliott Smith   
Big Bird    Eddie Floyd      
I Hate To See You Baby Doing That Stuff    Lloyd Cole   
wild turkey (aka. leather winged bat)    David Crosby 
Be Thankful for What You've Got    William DeVaughn   
Thank You For Sending Me An Angel    Talking Heads 
Thank You Louise    Ryan Adams   
Thank You, Lord, For Sending Me The F Train    Mike Doughty 
Be Thankful For What You Got    Massive Attack    
Thank You    Led Zeppelin   
The Thanks I Get    Jeff Tweedy   
Thanks A Lot    Coffee Creek ( Uncle Tupelo + 1 )
Thank You Friends    Big Star    
You To Thank    Ben Folds      
The Thanksgiving Song    Adam Sandler       

Hy Lit & The $100 Hot Dog

This one is a gift, from Blinq pal Clark DeLeon, who spent yesterday under the yarmulke, attending the private funeral for Hy Lit.

Obits for the speed-talking Philly radio pioneer made reference to his legendary generosity.

Clark emailed a tale from the service that gives a taste of the Lit way:

One of the highlights ... was when Hy's best friend for 50 years, Steve Schulman (who owns a local advertising firm) spoke about the time they went to New York to pitch a rock and roll TV show idea, which the New York suits liked.  Steve would have been Ed McMahon to Hy's Johnny. An offer was made, but on the way home on the train, Hy kept saying, "I don't know.  I'd have to leave Philadelphia."  And Steve is saying, "Schmuck! We're talking New York!  Are you out of your mind?" (Steve didn't say Schmuck at the funeral.).  They arrive at 30th Street Station a little before midnight and they're starved.  But nothing is open.  No restaurants, no vendors.  "And if you know anything about Hy you know how important food is," Steve says.

  Finally they see an awning with someone moving beneath it.  It's a woman closing up a hot dog stand.  A very unpleasant woman as it turns out. "I'm closed," she says nastily.  They beg like drunks for anything.  Bread, a roll, anything. She has one hotdog left.  She hands it to Hy, along with one coffee in a cardboard cup. Steve looks at Hy like a puppy about to pee. Hy rips the hot dog in two "and he hands me the bigger half." Hy takes a sip of coffee and hands Steve the cup to share. Hy reaches into his wallet to pay the lady.  He hands her a one-hundred-dollar bill.  The lady, nastier than ever, says, "I can't make change for that."  Hy says, "Keep it." The lady says, "You're giving me a hundred dollars for a hot dog?!"

  And Hy says, "Just imagine what I would have given you if you'd have been nicer."

  Then Steve Schulman sat down without another word.

Amazing.

Hy Lit: A Musical, Link-Rich Tribute

CALLING ALL MY BEATS, beards, Buddhist cats, big-time spenders, money lenders, teetotalers, elbow benders, hog callers, home-run hitters, finger-poppin' daddys and cool babysitters.

Lots of fast-acting words written over the past few days to honor Hy Lit, the pioneering Philly DJ who signed off for good Saturday at age 73.

That little italic precede comes courtesy of John Morrison's obit in the Daily News.

In the Inquirer, Michael Klein wrote that Lit "came of age with rock-and-roll, in an era when disc jockeys talkedlikethis." "A dashing figure with a face for television," the Inky scribe wrote.

But, say you want to hear the man, himself:

My first record was Beyond the Blue Horizon, by Earl Bostic. I played it at Mickey Mouse speed, and then I opened the microphone, and said “Ahh sh-“. Charlie came rushing into the studio, and said, “You’re gonna be great!” Well the phones lit up. My first request was to dedicate a boss record called Tutti Frutti by the golden voice of the airwaves, Little Richard. So I got on the air, copying the hip style of the listener, and said “Here’s a boss record by Little Richard and dedicated to Baldy Bill, from Drexel Hill”. Little did I know that Baldy Bill was a school principal. I’d hear about this later on. As more requests came in I picked up on the listener’s crazy jargon, and slang, and sent it back out on the air with a rhyme.

That's from his bio, written on his HyLitRadio.com Web site.

Hungering for his voice? You can listen in with Bruce, of Some Velvet Blog, who creates  a musical trip down memory lane, starting with  Lit's speed-talking spoken-word intro to Marah's "Christian Street."

These aren't fresh words, but they're essential ones: Jonathan Valania's 2004 profile in Philadelphia Weekly, which includes this classic scene:

It's January 1964 and WIBG jocks Hyski and Joe "the Rockin' Bird" Niagara, the two biggest names in Philadelphia radio, are knocking back complimentary beverages at a swanky "Meet the Beatles" cocktail party at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. Disc jockeys and concert promoters from across the nation have been flown in to rub elbows and trade japes with the Fab Four. Hyski staggers out of the cocktail party with one thing on his mind: getting the Beatles to Philadelphia.

The next day he calls up William Morris, the Beatles' booking agency, and asks what it will take. Twenty-five thousand dollars, they say. Hyski doesn't even blink. He'll be there tomorrow, he says, with a certified check. Thank you, Mr. Lit, says the booking agent. The Beatles will be on your doorstep Sept. 2.

At Phawker, Valania weighs in, with links to an infamous 1962 New Jersey investigation. He calls his post, "Hyski O'Rooney McVoutie O'Zoot Has Left the Building."

You can watch CBS3's report. Or sign a guest book. Or just snap your fingers in tribute.

No 'Ho Ho Ho'

From Sydney, Australia comes this little gift of political correctness.

Santas have been told to find another way to greet children because the time-honored "ho ho ho" might be offensive to women. Comes from a Daily Telegraph report:

One disgruntled Santa told the newspaper a recruitment firm warned him not to use "ho ho ho" because it could frighten children and was too close to "ho", a US slang term for prostitute.

I'm sure next they will be telling pirates to cut the Yo Ho Ho crap.

For Richard Stans

I am crushed. Crushed.

I was killing time at my editor's desk, impressing her with some of my favorite opening lines from songs, and quoted Lloyd Cole and The Commotion's near-perfect:

She crossed herself as she put on her fins .....

I mean, is there anything better than that?

Except for the fact that she did not put on her fins, according to a quick search of a lyrics site. She put on her things, which is much less interesting -- so general as to lose all powers to conjure a vivid visual image. But a word that does seem to make sense with the rest of the song, which is called "Forest Flower," and I recommend, still. Even if it is not about some deep sea religious experience.

This led to some of my editor, Avery Rome's, favorite mis-heard lyrics.

Some enchanted evening?

For years she thought it was a song about Sam and Janet Evening.

You know, she said. The Evenings. "I thought 'who are these people?' "

To which I related the "steak can't buy a job" line from Bruce Hornsby's "The Way It Is."

Took a while to realize it was "cuz they can't buy a job." Much less interesting. But more real.

I'm not asking for any "For Richard Stans" goofs here. Don't want to hear about "scuse me while I kiss this guy." But does anybody got anything good and quirky along these lines???

The TV Pioneer and The Dirty Trick

Sally Swift's revealing Brushes with Greatness get around to her Mal Johnson story, on the occasion of the black broadcast pioneer's passing.

Sally worked under Mal -- a founder of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists -- while a student at Annenberg, and uses her space today to relate a Brush with History Itself that Mal related.

In it, we learn a very juicy version of really happened behind the scenes to make John F. Kennedy triumph over sweaty, shadowy Richard M. Nixon during that 1960 debate that boosted TV's distorting influence.

It has to do with a TV legend's dirty trick and allegiance to one candidate.  We're not supposed to have such things, let alone use them to sway elections.

Here's another account of Air Conditionergate, from Presidential Debates: Forty Years of High-Risk TV by Alan Schroeder

That Springsteen "Boycott"

I was so happy to be hating Clear Channel.

Reports last week that the radio nowhere giant had issued an edict banning airplay of Bruce Springsteen's Magic, CD gained major traction on good blogs across the land. (See here, here, here, for instance.)

It was totally believable, right? After all Magic is shot through with sobering tableaux of soldiers coming home from a messed-up war, and isn't Clear Channel that right-wing company that banned the Dixie Chicks?

No, actually.

That was Cumulus Media, although Clear Channel station managers did, in fact, sponsor many of the pro-war rallies way back in the glory days right after 9-11.

So this Springsteen report? 

Great conspiracy theory. But you can't dance to it.

The report came from Fox News' Roger Friedman, who quoted "sources" for his scoop. He left politics out of it. Blamed age. Here's the report:

Bruce Springsteen should be very happy. He has the No. 1 album, a possible Grammy for Best Album of the Year for "Magic," an album full of singles and a sold-out concert tour.

Alas, there’s a hitch: Radio will not play "Magic." In fact, sources tell me that Clear Channel has sent an edict to its classic rock stations not to play tracks from "Magic." But it’s OK to play old Springsteen tracks such as "Dancing in the Dark," "Born to Run" and "Born in the USA."

Just no new songs by Springsteen, even though it’s likely many radio listeners already own the album and would like to hear it mixed in with the junk offered on radio.

Why? One theory, says a longtime rock insider, "is that the audience knows those songs. Of course, they’ll never know these songs if no one plays them."

"Magic," by the way, has sold more than 500,000 copies since its release on Oct. 2 and likely will hit the million mark. That’s not a small achievement these days, and one that should be embraced by Clear Channel.

But what a situation: The No. 1 album is not being played on any radio stations, according to Radio & Records, which monitors such things. Nothing. The rock songs aren’t on rock radio, and the two standout "mellow" tracks — "Magic" and "Devil’s Arcade" — aren’t even on "lite" stations.

The singles-kinda hits, "Radio Nowhere" and "Living in the Future" — which would have been hits no questions asked in the '70s, '80s and maybe even the '90s, also are absent from Top 40.

What to do? Columbia Records is said to be readying a remixed version of "The Girls in their Summer Clothes," a poppy Beach Boys-type track that has such a catchy hook fans were singing along to it at live shows before they had the album. Bruce insiders are hopeful that with a push from Sony, "Girls" will triumph.

I’m not so sure.

Clear Channel seems to have sent a clear message to other radio outlets that at age 58, Springsteen simply is too old to be played on rock stations. This completely absurd notion is one of many ways Clear Channel has done more to destroy the music business than downloading over the last 10 years. It’s certainly what’s helped create satellite radio, where Springsteen is a staple and even has his own channel on Sirius. ...

I read this and started steaming. Then a little voice started whispering somewhere in the back of my head, "ah, is this actually true?" Not according to Clear Channel.

The radio behemoth, which owns six Philly stations, issued a news release the other day in response to the Banned in the USA rumors.

It quotes airplay stats from Mediabse that show Clear Channel is playing more "Magic" songs than any other radio group in the country. It owns "only 8 percent" (it's words) of the radio station in the U.S. and in the first days after the record's release, it was responsible for 21 percent of the airplay those songs received.

It doesn't say what has happened since the first few days, so if anyone has heard the songs on 104.5 fm please call our listener line.

One Clear Channel chap I talked with said he had not heard any such edict banning late-model Springsteen songs. He mentioned Some Clear Channel stations had sponsored sneak previews of "Magic" when it came out last month.

The woman behind Obamagirl revealed

If you fell in love with the young lady who fell in love with Barack Obama - then felt hurt when it came out that she was just lip-synching someone else's words - maybe you want to see the real deal in person Friday night.

Need more?

What if I told you this is the same velvety voice you heard but didn't see in the "My Box in a Box" parody of the truly inspired Justin Timberlake skit on Saturday Night Live?

They are one in the same -- a Philly native and Temple senior named Leah Kauffman. She's appearing in her own flesh at The Manhattan Room, 15 W. Girard Ave., Friday at 9 p.m.   She 's the backroom talent hired by Ben Relles, the Wharton grad who created the satirical BarelyPolitical.com. That Philly-run site has been acquired by NextNewNetworks, a new-media company founded by Herb Scannell, who was president of Nickledeon. A lot's been riding on Leah's pen and vocal chords. Now we get to see the face.

So how hideous must this girl be?

You can see Leah, herself, dissing Ann Coulter on this new video that attacks the bellicose blonde blade's recent comments about Jews and heaven. Not so hard to take, as my people would say.