I found this old photo of Truman, taken right after we had moved into the house here in Tucson. He hadn’t figured out that it was OK to jump up on the window sill yet, so he used this approach to see what was going on in the desert.
Console.
I’m old enough to remember when color televisions were considered “special”. At least they were considered special to me because we didn’t have a color television until 1976. I remember the event; the black and white television situated in living room atop of cabinet of some sort stopped working on a Thursday night. I remember being in a panic that I would not be able to see our cartoons on Saturday morning, but Dad went to the Zenith dealer in town and bought a 19-inch color TV and brought it home and we were able to watch ElectraWoman and DynaGirl in glorious color. We watched it on Channel 9, the local ABC affiliate, which at the time was WNYS-TV. The television looked pretty close to this:
Both sets of grandparents had color televisions in the early 1970s. Grandma and Grandpa Country had a Zenith console that sat on the floor that took a minute or so to warm up after turning it on. It looked like this:
I don’t remember Grandma and Grandpa Country getting this television, but I do remember Grandma and Grandpa City getting theirs in 1972 or so. I rode onto the west side of town with Grandpa City and he picked out a television to be delivered to the house. It was an RCA and it had a new feature of the time, turning on immediately when you flipped the switch. It would make a loud electric “hum” sound for a brief moment as the picture snapped into place. The controls were tucked behind a door that pivoted out the entire control panel. It was quite heavy.
A couple of years later Grandma and Grandpa City had cable television installed and I was excited to see shows on WPIX (11 Alive!) and WTBS from Atlanta. That was kind of a badge of honor amongst the geeks in elementary school, having grandparents in the city that had cable. To this day I can remember my grandmother mentioning my uncle had stayed up late “watching a movie on Home Box” (instead of today’s “HBO” we use today).
I sit here watching television with my husband on our new 55-inch Samsung flat panel television that was a third of the price of our previous television purchased 10 years ago. I wonder how the younger folks today would enjoy ElectraWoman and DynaGirl on a 19-inch Zenith.
1989.
One of the very first songs I ever played as a club DJ was from Lisa Stansfield’s album “Affection”. This particular track wasn’t as well known as “All Around The World”, as it’s a bit more uptempo and dance floor friendly. The track was never officially released in the United States, but that never stopped me from playing tracks as a DJ.
From 1989 (but released in 1990 in the UK), here’s Lisa Stansfield “What Did I Do To You”?
Man Size Love.
I’ve posted this video before, but this song has been hanging out in my brain for a few days.
This track was released the week I graduated from high school, and I remember cranking it up on the radio in my 1978 Plymouth Sapporo while I was driving alone along the shores of Lake Ontario. At the time it was a song that I wouldn’t really sing along with in public, as a few years earlier I found myself singing in the hallways at school, “because we are living in a material world…” and before I could finish, an older student named John asked if I was a material girl. I stopped singing pop songs between classes for a little while because of that.
From 1986, here’s Klymaxx with “Man Size Love”.
A Little More Love.
I was in fifth grade when Olivia Newton-John released “A Little More Love”. I was fascinated by the track, mostly because of the musicality of the tune. The backing vocals are very entrancing to my ears, especially the variations of the title lyric. I used to blast this tune during recess on an ancient record player amidst the chaos of Miss O’Rourke’s fifth grade class in room 209. I’d listen with my friends Joyce and Renae, two of a minority of students in that class that actually had any chance of finishing our primary education.
I was sad to hear of Olivia Newton-John’s passing yesterday. I’ve always enjoyed her music and I liked her performance in that wacky movie “Xanadu”. I have another story about that title song that involves baton twirlers; I’ll save that for another day.
One of my best friends in high school was obsessed with ONJ like a good young gay boy and yesterday his husband shared that he had the opportunity meet her shortly before his passing from cancer. That made me smile; I hope Scott and Olivia get a chance to reminisce about his visit with her now that they’re both on the other side.
Rest In Peace, Olivia Newton-John. May your soaring melodies continue to soar.
Hat tip to keyboard guy with the mustache. I remember him from the ONJ performances on TV in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
International Cat Day.
Truman took a break from his busy pre-lunch nap for a selfie on International Cat Day.
FOMO.
Now that I’m in my middle 50s I worry that I haven’t done enough in my life to meet my own expectations of what my life should have been. But then I realize that I have a solid career, am a private pilot, and am currently enjoying life in the desert southwest with my husband of well over 25 years with men we call family.
I am currently sitting on our roof watching another thunderstorm roll in during this year’s monsoon. It’s awe inspiring.
And then I realize my life is more than I imagined as a kid in Central New York.
And there’s zoo much more to come.
Old Times.
Since I’m still in the COVID hot zone and haven’t been out of the house in a week, my husband suggested we do a drive-thru lunch pandemic style. He felt I needed a little fresh air. Armed with a mask for drive thru interaction, we went to Culver’s. Culver’s is our traditional pandemic drive thru of choice. The grilled chicken sandwich was enjoyable as was the company.
Caturday.
Truman was slightly annoyed with the change in routine while were in California. Mike did a great job of tending to Truman needs, but there was no one to loudly arouse from slumber at dawn.
He’s now back on his routine and purrs with happiness.
Make That Move.
Back in my radio days in the 1990s we programmed a weekend of “The Top 500 dance songs of all time”. It turned out to be very popular and we received a lot of positive feedback from listeners on the promotion, but it wasn’t very easy to pull off in the small studio. We were playing music off CD at the time and a lot of the tracks were were looking for hadn’t been released on CD yet. Record company reps thought we were a little crazy for a Top 40 Rhythmic/Dance station to focus on “oldies” for an entire weekend, but ultimately it was a lot of fun. We ended up downloading a handful of tracks over Napster (and subsequently burned them to CD) and playing a bunch of vinyl I had found in the basement of the gay bar I DJ’d at at the time. I borrowed a couple of Technics MK1200 turntables from a DJ friend and wired them into the studio for the weekend. We ended up using a list from a now long-gone Los Angeles radio station (I think it was called Groove 100?) that we found on the a Geocities site; we took their top list and just played the 500 songs we could muster together in order. It took quite a few weeks to put this all together. I wish I had kept the list and I wish I had recorded the weekend because it was a lot of fun playing tracks outside of the usual music rotation. It was 1999 and I had modeled our station after “103.5 The New KTU” in New York, which improved ratings enough to garner enough revenue to make the station financials strong enough for the owners to sell the station for a hefty profit.
Anyway, one of the songs we had a really hard time finding but ultimately ended up being played from a vinyl copy was from 1981. “Make That Move” by Shalamar came after “Second Time Around” and has a similar vibe.
Here’s an abbreviated version from their appearance on “Dance Fever” with Denny Terio.
