Raised on Radio #22- Ray Stevens

Ray Stevens turned 74 this week (the same day Yakov Smirnoff turned 62 oddly), and since he was inevitably going to show up here, no better time than now.

If you don't know, I grew up in a family raised on country. I never was a big fan, but I couldn't escape it. Inevitably, liked some of the songs that I was exposed to. There was Lee Roy Van Dyke's "Auctioneer Song", Johnny Cash's "Ghost Riders in the Sky", and even Conway & Loretta's "Louisana Woman, Mississippi Man" that caught my ear.

Even though, it wasn't my thing, country was going through some changes, and there were actually quite a few new songs at that time that appealed to me from the likes of Roseanne Cash, Rodney Crowell, Mary Chapin-Carpenter (singing a Lucinda Williams song), and Dwight Yoakam. That particular time frame closed pretty fast, but there was a brief instance that the world at large was introduced to the likes of Steve Earle, kd lang, and Lyle Lovett.

Like so many my age and situation, I ended up listening to a lot of Ray Stevens (defFrog can attest). My favorite things were music and comedy, so Stevens could check off both boxes.

It was also a bit of a heyday for Stevens. He had his biggest hits in the early 1970s (ten Top 40 hits from 1968-1976, including his standards "The Streak", "Gitarzan" and "Ahab the Arab". Eighteen songs in the Top 100 in that time). From 1984-1986, he may not have matched the national success he had (with his own tv show back in 1971), but he had jumped to MCA and was soon having good success on the Country album charts (He Thinks He's Ray Stevens #3, I Have Returned #1, Surely You Joust #11).

Also, this time, saw the release of two volumes of Greatest Hits, followed shortly by a collection of videos he shot for his hits which became a regular late-night direct mail tv advertisement.

Stevens, during his MCA years was the king of the country comedy album, and I just happened to be ages 10-12, so I was fan. Times change and tastes change, and as Stevens left MCA, it was only a matter of time before people like Jeff Foxworthy and Cledus T Judd were the new thing. I would be moving on to.

Into the 90s and beyond, Stevens never really went away, and occasionally his songs would match the thoughts of the Conservative country audience (Songs like "Osama Yo Mama" and "Obama Budget Plan" may give some hint) and have some success; though his chart-topping years seem to be behind him.

It's cornball comedy, sure, but occasionally I still like to yell out "Don't Look Ethel".

Plastique Valentine (#84 in a series)- The Magnetic Fields

Plastique Valentine is all about the complexities of love.

Well, it doesn't get more complex than this.

"The only girl I've ever loved is...Andrew in Drag".

(video is probably not appropriate for work)

Litigation Nation

I always meant to do a Fifty Shades of Grey post in 2012.  During the summer, I wish I had made a count of how many copies I saw.  The big booksellers often had displays in which they featured books that were 'similar'.  Friends and acquaintances often spoke of it, with those younger amazed by it, while those in their 50s and 60s often commented their was certainly better smut out there. I didn't read it of course, but the parts I did read (for science) were less explicit (and certainly less imaginative) than a Soft Cell record. 

Yet I also feel bad about saying anything bad.  It did encourage reading in adults (and I saw a lot of physical copies of actual books), and also provided a self-publishing success story.  Surely, something can be said for that.

Besides the obvious books with titles like "100 Feelings of Emotion" or something similar, there was a cottage industry based about the book.  There was the musical Spank , Fifty Shades parodies like the Fifty Shades of Chicken cook book and Fifty Shames of Earl Grey; and the tourism industry put together Fifty Shades vacation plans to cash in, with helicopter rides and $1000 bottles of champagne.

Of course, inevitably, the pr0n industry wanted in.

There's plenty of mainstream entertainment that the Adult Movie industry takes aim at, and Fifty Shades seems a natural fit.  Smash Pictures said that although they know the books were going to be filmed by Hollywood, they were going to stay true to the spirit of the book, and even lifted some verses.

Well, you can't do that.

"Beginning with the first XXX adaptation's opening scene and continuing throughout the next 2½ hours of the film, Smash Pictures copies without reservation from the unique expressive elements of the Fifty Shades trilogy, progressing through the events of Fifty Shades of Grey and into the second book, Fifty Shades Darker," the complaint continues. "The first XXX adaptation is not a parody, and it does not comment on, criticize or ridicule the originals. It is a rip-off, plain and simple." the plaintiff claims.

In more legal news (this time, a story you could discuss with your mom), Denny's was taken to court by the estate of JRR Tolkien.

While I didn't think such things worked, my friends went gaga over the Hobbit Breakfast- The menu includes such items as Radagast’s Red Velvet Pancake Puppies (named for the wizard Radagast the Brown), Gandalf’s Gobble Melt, Bilbo’s Berry Smoothie, and Hobbit Hole Breakfast



This lawsuit is a little bit more (*groan*) grey than the one above.  It's based on an agreement made in 1969 with Warner Bros.

“The original contracting parties thus contemplated a limited grant of the right to sell consumer products of the type regularly merchandised at the time (such as figurines, tableware, stationery items, clothing and the like). They did not include any grant of exploitations such as electronic or digital rights, rights in media yet to be devised or other intangibles such as rights in services,

The fight, then isn't over Bilbo Baggins figures, but intangible items.  The disputed items would include ring tones, online poker games, and yes, the Gandalf Gobble Breakfast.