Your Hit Parade

Several posts back (Inner Sanctum), I rattled off the names of a few vintage TV shows our family used to watch.  I forgot one of our favorites:Your Hit Parade.  It ran 1950-59, preceded by 15 years of radio broadcasts, hosted by Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, and others.  My brothers and I speculated on which song would be numero uno, got it right most of the time.

Allegedly, the TV show featured the 7 most popular songs of the week, based on record sales and play frequency on radio, jukebox, and so on.  I use the term allegedly because the much-touted selection procedure (Authentic Tabulation!) was never divulged, and perhaps wasn't all that authentic.  But that's beside the point.

The show aired on Saturday nights, the songs arranged in countdown mode, and usually sung by one of the 4 regulars pictured above: Dorothy Collins, Gisele MacKenzie, Snooky Lanson, Russell Arms.  Guest vocalists appeared sporadically.    

Rock and roll was the show's demise.  The above-named artists were great with show tunes and big band songs but weren't able to make the transition.  Poor old Snooky botched Elvis' Hound Dog hit so badly- several times - that he was credited with bringing the show to its knees.

Bookworms

BOOKWORMS

12" x 24"

Acrylic on Hardboard

I get a kick out of doing semi-abstract paintings that viewers can study a bit and maybe figure out the name.  Trish nailed it in 2 minutes, then was grossed out because she'd seen the real thing.  I didn't know there was a real thing, thought it was just a person who reads a lot.  Like me.

So, I had to google bookworms and find out what they looked like.  Here's a picture of one. Ugly little sumbitch!  My worms are colorful, slim, graceful; dare I say, elegant? 

Are You A Turtle?

When I was in college, there was this funny turtle thing making the rounds.  I had no idea how or when it started and didn't much care, too much on my plate.  Recently, the turtle thing popped into my mind for reasons unknown, and I became curious about it.  Here's the story.

To become a member of the Turtle Club, you had to answer 3 questions which had obvious lewd answers and alternative answers that weren't lewd.  One of the standards was:
Q: What does a woman do sitting down, a man do standing up, and a dog do on 3 legs?
A:  Shake hands

If you answered the questions correctly, you became an 'official' member of the Turtle Club. Members would ask other members, "Are you a turtle?" and the only acceptable response was, "You bet your sweet ass I am."  Typically, the question was asked in a public or social gathering where it would have been embarrassing to make the required 'sweet ass' response.  The catch was, if you didn't answer correctly, you had to buy the other guy a drink.

Nowadays, saying 'sweet ass' in a social gathering wouldn't even raise an eyebrow but that wasn't the case in the 40s - or even in the 60s, when I became a member.  Back then, the usage such words was restricted to men's locker rooms and similar venues.  JFK was allegedly once asked if he was a turtle, which of course, he was.  This occurred at a press conference.  He responded with, "I'll buy you your drink later."  NASA got into the act, too.  On several occasions, while on world wide radio broadcast, the ground control people asked astronauts in orbit, "Are you a turtle?"

It all started in WW II with a group of bomber pilots stationed in England seeking diversions from their dangerous duties.  One of the pilots came up with the turtle club idea, a sham society inspired by the likes of 'friendly societies' like the Ancient Order of Foresters.  Thus was born the Ancient and Honorable Order of Turtles, the official name of the Club.

Are you a turtle?