I ordinarily don’t like commercials. I do like it when they try to be at least entertaining… This commercial has stayed in pop culture for over 50 years now. The commercial was created by the Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB) advertising agency. This Life cereal commercial appeared in 1972 and ran until 1984. It was one of the longest-running commercials in history.
I grew up watching Mikey’s brothers trying to get their brother who hates everything to eat the supposedly healthy Life Cereal. The phrase “Hey Mikey!” entered pop culture as a phrase used for unexpected approval of something.
Mikey was portrayed by John Gilchrist, and he is alive now and doing fine despite the urban legend that he died. A false rumor spread in the 1980s that John Gilchrist (Mikey) had died from eating Pop Rocks and drinking soda. This was completely untrue. He was alive and well.
Yes, word got around that the kid who played Mikey bought the farm by eating “pop rocks” and drinking soda. His stomach then exploded because of the lethal combination. A friend of his family actually called his mother in tears, saying she was so sorry about the loss of her son…when in reality he just got home from school.
What is interesting about the commercial is that the two kids playing his brothers are John Gilchrist’s brothers in real life.
John today is Director of Media Sales at MSG Network and is living a happy life with his wife and kids…and yes he still enjoys Life Cereal.
Hello everyone… I’ve missed talking to everyone and I wanted to get this posted before the weekend. I’ll see you tomorrow!
There are mysteries that we all have read about that were never solved. A few were D.B. Cooper, Jimmy Hoffa, and Amelia Earhart. Personally, I had my doubts about anyone solving them. D.B. Cooper was the alias of an unidentified man who, on November 24, 1971, hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft (Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305), extorted $200,000 in ransom, and parachuted out of the plane—disappearing without a trace. It remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in U.S. history. Is this certain that they found the right person? No, but it is sure looking that way.
This is a brief summary of the original hijacking. Shortly after takeoff, at around 3:00 PM, Cooper handed a note to flight attendant Florence Schaffner, who initially ignored it, thinking it was a phone number. He noticed that and whispered: “Miss, you’d better look at that note. I have a bomb.” He demanded 200,000 in cash, four parachutes, and a fuel truck ready at Seattle-Tacoma Airport for refueling. The flight attendant asked to see the bomb, and Cooper opened his briefcase, revealing what appeared to be red cylinders with wires and batteries.
The airline told the FBI what was going on and they met his demands. The FBI got together the money and they recorded the serial numbers so they could track him down. The plane landed in Seattle and he demanded that they go to Mexico City. He told them to fly at a low altitude (10,000 feet) and a slow speed of 200 mph. Cooper knew the Boeing 727 had an aft stairway that could be lowered mid-flight. He knew how to control altitude and speed to make a parachute jump survivable. At 8:13 PM, over southwestern Washington, somewhere near Ariel, Washington, and the Lewis River, the crew noticed a sudden pressure change…Cooper had lowered the rear stairway and jumped out into the night. That was the last known sighting of Mr Cooper. The plane landed in Reno, Nevada and the investigation started.
Through the years, money was found in a creek bed near where he jumped and he left a tie on the airplane. It wasn’t much to go on. There were suspects and one of them was Richard Floyd McCoy and four others but nothing could be proved…until an amateur YouTube documentary maker named Dan Gryder found something. He made a documentary after years of researching and actually traveling to sites. He heard from Chanté and Rick McCoy III and they claim their father, Richard McCoy Jr., was D.B. Cooper.
They had a very unique parachute in their mom’s old things and it matched the one that was given to D.B. Cooper. Gryder said: That rig is literally one in a billion. The FBI marked Richard McCoy Jr. off the list back in the seventies. What took his kids so long to say something? The brother and sister said they waited until their mother died in 2020 to come forward, fearing she could be implicated as the parachute that allegedly belonged to Cooper was found in her storage area outside their house.
The FBI didn’t believe it until they got in touch with Gryder and he took them to the sibling’s parachute AND deteriorated money…some with the serials intact. Although it’s not official… the agents have said they are certain that McCoy was D.B. Cooper. I don’t know why it took them so long. He did the SAME thing the next year (1972) to a different airline. McCoy hijacked a United Airlines passenger jet for ransom in April 1972 and again asked for parachutes. To be fair though…the FBI thought it was a copycat at the time. From the New York Post: Gryder claimed the parachute at the McCoys’ home matched the modified parachute prepared by veteran skydiver Earl Cossey for police as part of Cooper’s demands before he disappeared somewhere between Seattle and Reno, Nevada. DB Cooper sleuths have raised the possibility that Richard Jr. was the fugitive for years given his own criminal past.
Richard McCoy Jr. was arrested for the hijacking of American Airlines a few days after it happened. They found him with a duffel bag full of money from the hijacking. He received a 45-year sentence but he escaped from prison in 1974 along with other prisoners in a garbage truck. Three months later he was found in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He went inside his home and was greeted by the FBI and he shot at them and was killed in the shootout.
He had the experience because he served two terms in the Army and then another one where he went to Vietnam. He was awarded an Army Commendation Medal and The Distinguished Flying Cross and he also served as a warrant officer in the Utah National Guard…and he did a lot of skydiving.
I contributed this to Dave’s Turntable Talk series. He wanted us to write about a musical scene. I picked The Paisley Underground Music scene.
I first picked the 80s Minnesota scene that produced bands like The Replacements, Hüsker Dü, The Suburbs, and Soul Asylum. It’s no secret that The Replacements are my favorite 1980s band but I’ve always been interested in the Paisley Music Underground Scene from Los Angeles that had some great music. Instead of listening to Thriller or Purple Rain…you would hear these artists that sounded like the 1960s bands that I always preferred. It was the same as REM when they began with their jangling guitars. “Paisley Underground” was a moniker that helped music journalists describe their sound, which didn’t fit the New Wave or Rock.
I didn’t find out about this music scene until around 2020 or so. I was looking at a CD set called Children of Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the Second Psychedelic Era, 1976–1995. The first version of Nuggets covers mostly the 1960s and Graham from Aphoristical Album Reviews is going through each song and he probably introduced the album to me.
I looked up the history of a band named Green On Red and found out they were part of this scene in Los Angeles in the 1980s. I wish I had known about it in real time because I would have been listening. The scene started in Los Angeles in the early 1980s, the music was a blend of psychedelic rock, folk-rock, and garage-rock influences from the 1960s, mixed with a little punk. The scene’s name reflected its retro-psychedelic sound, with “paisley” referencing the design patterns often associated with 60s fashion.
This scene was full of talent with bands like Rain Parade, The Dream Syndicate, Green On Red, The Long Ryders, Mazzy Star, The Creeps, True West, Game Theory, and others. The Bangles were undoubtedly the most successful band to come out of that group of bands. That really surprised me because there were some very talented bands in this.
The most known band to come out of it was The Bangles. You hear 1960s artists’ influence like The Byrds, Love, The Velvet Underground, and The Zombies. Many of the bands would contribute to each other’s albums and sometimes form sidebands out of two or three bands.
All in all…the scene lasted until around 1990. Many of the bands started to break up around that time…even the Bangles. If you like 1960s music…look up some of the bands that I mentioned. I only wish some mainstream stations would have taken a chance and played them more. Many of them would have fit in the mid to late 1960s to early seventies.
The beauty of this music was that it was not a retro-forced sound…it sounded totally organic.
One of my favorite toys growing up. To this day I like collecting vintage lighting fixtures like soft drink clocks or signs probably because of this toy. They came with designs that you could use to create different cartoons and clowns but I never used those. I liked to create my own masterpieces.
This toy allowed you to be creative in a very different way. It brought out the artistic side in you. You could design different things and it would light up your room in the dark with colors. Lite-Brite was invented by Joseph M. Burck, a senior designer at Chicago toy and game design company Marvin Glass and Associates. The company licensed Lite-Brite to Hasbro, which officially launched it in 1967. It became a staple toy in the 1970s.
Of course…when I got older I would make crude messages on the Lite Brite for friends. Lite-Brite is recognized as one of the greatest toys of all time by the Toy Hall of Fame. It has become part of our pop culture.
Lite Brite commercial from the 1970s. Did you have one growing up?
I heard this song the other day, and I thought to myself, “I would LOVE to post about it, but I probably already have.” I checked, and to my surprise, I had never posted it before. This is one of the first songs I remember from my youth. I was three years old when it was released but I remember it through the seventies.
She wrote “Big Yellow Taxi” in 1970, inspired by her first trip to Hawaii. When she woke up in her hotel room she was struck by the contrast between the mountains in the distance and the large parking lot below her window. The difference between natural beauty and urban development influenced the song’s opening line, “They paved paradise to put up a parking lot.” Mitchell said: I wrote ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi to the hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart […] this blight on paradise. That’s when I sat down and wrote the song.
The song appeared on her album Ladies of the Canyon released in 1970. The album’s title references Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles, a hub for musicians and artists during the 1960s, where Mitchell resided at 8217 Lookout Mountain Avenue. Her home became a gathering place for notable musicians, including David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and future boyfriend Graham Nash. Laurel Canyon had a vast array of talent with CSN, James Taylor, Canned Heat, The Doors, Eagles, Linda Rondstadt, and more. My friend Dave wrote a great article about that music scene that happened in the late sixties and early seventies.
The song peaked at #67 (I checked that twice!) on the Billboard 100, #15 in Canada, and #11 in the UK. I would have bet the farm that it peaked higher than 67 here. There is a “but” to this song though…a live version came out in 1974 and that one did better. It peaked at #24 on the Billboard 100. Sometimes though it doesn’t matter where it charts. Some songs become ingrained into pop culture. Songs like In My Life by the Beatles never was released as a single and many artists have songs we all know and love that didn’t chart high or at all. And some charting songs are never remembered anymore.
Her guitar playing is unusual, to say the least. She doesn’t use traditional chords as much as other players. She makes up different tunings in open chords. That is why when you see her play, most of the time she is using a finger to bar all of the strings. I would hate to be her guitar tech. I can’t imagine how many guitars she takes on tour with her. I used an open G chord while playing Rolling Stones songs so I would take another guitar already tuned in G so I wouldn’t have to retune my guitar in many songs.
Big Yellow Taxi
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin’ hot spot
Don’t it always seem to go That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone They paved paradise, put up a parking lot (Ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop, ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop)
They took all the trees put ’em in a tree museum And they charged the people a dollar an’ a half just to see ’em
Don’t it always seem to go That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone They paved paradise, put up a parking lot (Ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop, ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop)
Hey farmer, farmer put away that DDT now Give me spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and the bees Please
Don’t it always seem to go That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone They paved paradise, put up a parking lot (Ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop, ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop)
Late last night I heard the screen door slam And a big yellow taxi took away my old man
Don’t it always seem to go That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone They paved paradise, put up a parking lot (ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop)
I said don’t it always seem to go That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone They paved paradise, put up a parking lot (ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop) They paved paradise, put up a parking lot (ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop) They paved paradise Put up a parking lot
A lot of 1950s songs still get played today and we remember them but this one doesn’t get the attention although Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnnie Ray, Blues Brothers, Van Morrison, and Bill Haley covered it as well. It’s hard to beat something this simple…it just works. You don’t need a think tank… it’s just a fun song.
Big Joe Turner (Joseph Vernon “Big Joe” Turner Jr. ) grew up in Kansas City, a major hub for jazz and blues in the early 20th century. His father passed away when he was young, leaving his mother to raise him and his siblings. Turner never formally learned to play an instrument, but he developed his booming, unmistakable voice by singing in church and later performing on street corners.
He was thriving in the Kansas City Blues Scene. He left school at age 14 (1925) to work in those Kansas Blues Clubs in the 20s and 30s. He would cook or perform as a singing waiter. In 1936 he moved to New York City.
Signed with Atlantic Records in the 1950s and had a string of rhythm & blues hits. His upbeat jump blues style helped transition R&B into early rock & roll. He wrote and recorded songs like Shake, Rattle and Roll (1954)… One of the first songs that bridged blues and rock & roll. It was later covered by Bill Haley & Elvis Presley. Probably one of the most important songs in Rock and Roll history.
His success proved that older blues artists could thrive in the rock & roll era. This song was released in 1955 and has been covered 91 times.
Flip Flop and Fly
Now when I get the blues, I get me a rockin’ chair When I get the blues, I get me a rockin’ chair Well, if the blues overtake me gonna rock right away from here
Now when I get lonesome, I jump on the telephone When I get lonesome, I jump on the telephone I call my baby, tell her I’m on my way back home
Now flip, flop and fly I don’t care if I die Now flip, flop and fly I don’t care if I die Don’t ever leave me, don’t ever say goodbye
Give me one more kiss, hold it a long long time Give me one more kiss, hold it a long long time Now love me baby, till the feelin’ hits my head like wine
Here comes my baby, flashin’ her new gold tooth Here comes my baby, flashin’ her new gold tooth Well she’s so small, she can mambo in a pay phone booth
Now flip, flop and fly I don’t care if I die Now flip, flop and fly I don’t care if I die Ah, don’t ever leave me, don’t ever say goodbye
I’m like a mississippi bullfrog, sittin’ on a hollow stump I’m like a mississippi bullfrog, sittin’ on a hollow stump I got so many women, I don’t know which way to jump
Now flip, flop and fly I don’t care if I die Now flip, flop and fly I don’t care if I die Now, don’t ever leave me, don’t ever say goodbye Oh my!
If I had to name my favorite commercials, it would be a really short list. This Mean Joe Greene and Kid commercial would top the shortlist, though. People talk about famous Super Bowl commercials. This one is probably remembered the most. I loved it as a kid…watching Mean Joe Greene, who just by name alone would scare you…but to see him as a kind person giving a kid a jersey? It made me root for the Steelers at the time…although I pulled for the Rams in the Super Bowl…that didn’t help.
This ad debuted on October 1, 1979. It showed an injured Mean Joe headed for the locker room to encounter a star-struck kid (Tommy Okon) who offered Mean Joe a coke. Greene eventually took the coke and while limping away pitched his jersey to the kid.
The commercial spot aired repeatedly through Superbowl XIV where the Steelers beat the Rams 31-19. It took 3 days to film the commercial and Joe ended up drinking around 18 cokes to finish it.
When Greene found out Tommy Okon didn’t get to keep the jersey from the commercial, he mailed him an autographed jersey for Christmas. This says a lot about Greene’s character. Why didn’t the commercial people let the kid keep the jersey?
Coke looked at Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, and teammate Jack Lambert but Joe Greene won out. The right man got the job. The commercial helped to soften Joe Greene’s reputation. Before it aired, Greene said people were intimidated by him. This is a quote from Greene. “I was suddenly approachable, little kids were no longer afraid of me, and older people – both women and men – would come up and offer me a Coke.”
It was directed by Roger Mosconi, and produced by McCann Erickson for Coca-Cola. Tommy Okon was a nine-year-old child actor at the time. It was later remade multiple times, including versions featuring soccer star Zico in Brazil and other athletes worldwide.
Greene was injured at the time of filming. His limping in the commercial wasn’t entirely an act…he had been dealing with real knee pain. Between that and all the soda he drank, he later joked that it was one of the toughest things he had done in his career.
It also should be said how popular the Steelers were in the 1970s. They were the first team to win 4 Super Bowls and were without a defeat. They had one of the best defenses ever, and their offense was run by Terry Bradshaw. By this time, the team was aging, and they would win their 3rd Super Bowl against the Rams a few months after the commercial was filmed. They are considered one of the greatest teams in the NFL ever. Greene was nearing the end of his career. He was drafted in 1969 and would retire in 1981.
Maybe the most famous tear in pop culture is Iron Eyes Cody, an actor in Native American clothing who shows us the tragedy of littering. He debuted Earth Day, April 22, 1971, at the close of a public service advertisement for the anti-litter organization Keep America Beautiful.
The ad contributed to increased environmental consciousness in the U.S., particularly during the 1970s. The commercials helped spur the passage of anti-littering laws and programs such as The Clean Water Act (1972), The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976), and the creation of recycling initiatives in cities nationwide.
At the time of the commercial’s debut, the counterculture was starting to embrace Native American Culture. Iron Eyes Cody could be seen in printed ads, television, and billboards. He was known by the press as the “Crying Indian.”
Born on April 3, 1904, as Espera Oscar de Corti, Cody’s parents were both Sicilian immigrants (Antonio de Corti and his wife, Francesca Salpietra). He grew up in Gueydan, Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, where his parents ran a grocery store.
He portrayed Indians in television shows and movies dating back to 1926. His last appearance was in the 1970s spoof movie The Spirit of 76 released in 1990. He played the role on-screen as well as off…He would deny he wasn’t Native American as late as 1996 and until he passed away in 1999 at the age of 94.
Real or not he did have an effect on me…To a young kid, this hit home. I remember this commercial rather well and there is another anti-littering commercial that I remember. Only people in Tennessee would probably remember it was called “Tennessee Trash.” I have it below the Iron Eye’s Cody video.
The ad remains one of the most memorable and emotionally impactful of all commercials to be made.
The below commercial in 1976 was so popular that they remade it twenty-two years later. I have to say the song will stay in your head. It was filmed on an unopened stretch of I-24 at the time. The theme was sung by country singer-songwriter Ed Bruce and features Irving Kane as the ultimate litterbug.
I loved these commercials when I was a kid. I wasn’t allowed to have a dog in the house (which is probably why I’ve had three Saint Bernard house dogs). Some poor dog would be bewildered by a miniature chuck wagon, then scurries through the home and into the kitchen cabinet or tv after it.
In 1967, Purina launched “Chuck Wagon” as their latest dog food innovation. Packaged as dry dog food, adding warm water would rehydrate the serving to some extent, as well as cause the meal to produce its own gravy
The commercials had a Western theme, playing into Chuck Wagon’s branding as a hearty, wholesome meal for dogs. The animated mini chuck wagon would appear from unexpected places—such as behind a cabinet door, under a table, or from inside a dog food bag…creating a playful and imaginative effect. I can’t tell you how much this worked during that time period.
In some shots, stop-motion animation was used, where the wagon was moved frame by frame to give the illusion of self-propelled motion. In other cases, puppetry techniques such as invisible wires or rods helped guide the wagon across the floor.
Now… this was hard to believe but in 1983 Atari released a video game based on this commercial called “Chase the Chuckwagon.“
I was told as a kid that a Magic 8 Ball could predict the future. I bought it hook line and sinker…I was also told by my older sister (8 years older) that snakes bite the second person in a line while I was merrily leading the way hiking in the woods as a 5-year-old…so I caught on pretty quick after I stepped on a snake…didn’t get bit though…but I never let her forget it.
I bugged my mom till she got me the mysterious Magic 8 Ball. I was amazed at this toy…well it wasn’t a toy to me. I thought this was great. So being 5-6 years old I thought I would put it to use… Oh, Magic 8 Ball should I color in the encyclopedias with my crayons? I shook it up and waited for the triangle to give me the answer… “signs point to yes”…those signs must have pointed in a different direction than my Mom… she wasn’t a fan of the Magic 8 ball after that.
Abe Bookman invented the Magic 8 Ball, a fortune-telling toy currently manufactured by Mattel.
During World War II, a man named Alfred Carter in Cincinnati created a tube-like fortune-telling toy. To help him he got his brother-in-law to help…that would be Abe Bookman. they created a 7″ tube device with glass on both ends with a pair of floating dice with responses. It was sold as the “Syco-Seer: The Miracle Home Fortune Teller.” Their company was called Alabe Crafts.
Carter died in 1948 and Bookman revised it into a crystal ball but it still didn’t sell really well. Then the Brunswick Billiards company commissioned Bookman to make them one shaped like an 8 ball as a promotional giveaway.
After the giveaway was finished Bookman kept producing them shaped like an 8 ball.
The Magic 8 Ball that we have known since then has contained a 20-sided polygon inside a hollow plastic ball, floating in a liquid-filled, 3-inch diameter tube. The liquid largely consists of dark blue ink and alcohol. The predictions, yes, no, or non-committal, appear on each triangular face of the polygon.
Bookman marketed it as a conversation piece, a paperweight and then a toy.
Ideal Toys bought Alabe Crafts in 1971. Next, Tyco Toys bought the ball in ’87. Mattel owns it today and sells one million units a year.
Here are the magical statements of the Magic 8 Ball
I like a couple of Fire on the Mountain songs: The Marshall Tucker Band and this one. They’re two totally different songs, but both are really good. I want to thank Jim for this because he sent me some information about this song in an email.
Fire on the Mountain’s music was primarily written by one of the Grateful Dead’s drummers, Mickey Hart, with lyrics by the band’s lyricist, Robert Hunter. The song’s groove reflects Hart’s rhythm sensibilities, while Hunter’s lyrics (as with most of his) are open to interpretation and rich with imagery.
The song initially existed as an instrumental titled Happiness is Drumming, which appeared on Mickey Hart’s 1976 solo album, Diga. The instrumental version already contained the core melody. The song evolved into the version that the Grateful Dead began performing live in 1977 and eventually included on their 1978 album Shakedown Street.
The first time I heard the song was a live video of The Grateful Dead playing in Egypt in 1978. I’ve watched that concert many times, and it’s fantastic. This song was one of the songs that got me into the band. When they played it live, the song was frequently paired with Scarlet Begonias.
The Dead didn’t always do commercially huge songs but some songs like this one…should have been at least released as a single.
Robert Hunter: “Written at Mickey Hart’s ranch in heated inspiration as the surrounding hills blazed and the fire approached the recording studio where we were working.”
Fire On The Mountain
Long distance runner, what you standin’ there for? Get up, get out, get out of the door You’re playin’ cold music on the barroom floor Drowned in your laughter and dead to the core There’s a dragon with matches that’s loose on the town Takes a whole pail of water just to cool him down
Fire! Fire on the mountain Fire! Fire on the mountain Fire! Fire on the mountain Fire! Fire on the mountain
Almost ablaze, still you don’t feel the heat It takes all you got just to stay on the beat You say it’s a livin’, we all gotta eat But you’re here alone, there’s no one to compete If Mercy’s a business, I wish it for you More than just ashes when your dreams come true
Fire! Fire on the mountain Fire! Fire on the mountain Fire! Fire on the mountain Fire! Fire on the mountain
Long distance runner, what you holdin’ out for? Caught in slow motion in a dash for the door The flame from your stage has now spread to the floor You gave all you had, why you wanna give more? The more that you give, the more it will take To the thin line beyond, which you really can’t fake
Fire! Fire on the mountain Fire! Fire on the mountain Fire! Fire on the mountain Fire! Fire on the mountain
I have this hanging in my music room. I saw it on shirts, bumper stickers, and walls everywhere once upon a time. This phrase was used in a song from the 1930s called “Truckin’ My Blues Away” by Blind Boy Fuller and is the origin of this image.
In the seventies as a kid…I remember this phrase and picture everywhere. I saw bumper stickers, pics in magazines, and on patches for pants. In one local restaurant I went to as a kid they had this poster in the dining room. Fast forward to the 90s and the picture was still there. The place was sold in the 2000s and I tried to get the poster but they threw it away…arghhhh. It would have been cool to have that original one.
Besides the smiley face…it’s one of the most iconic graphics of the 1970s. It was created by Robert Crumb for Zap Comics in 1968. The image was used many times without his permission for years. It was claimed that the Trademark symbol ™ was not on the original drawing.
Crumb went to court and the court ruled it Public Domain. The decision was later reversed in 1977. He sued many for using it including Amazon 2005. Crumb also came up with Fritz the Cat…
Quotes from Robert Crumb on the drawing.
For a while I was most well known for that [the Janis Joplin album cover, and for “Keep on Truckin’.” That was a drawing that came out of LSD trips, and the words came from a Blind Boy Fuller song from 1935. I drew it in my sketchbook and then for Zap. It sort of caught the popular imagination. It became a horrible popular thing.
Take Keep On Truckin’… for example. Keep on Truckin’… is the curse of my life. This stupid little cartoon caught on hugely. … I didn’t want to turn into a greeting card artist for the counter-culture! I didn’t want to do ‘shtick’—the thing Lenny Bruce warned against. That’s when I started to let out all my perverse sex fantasies. It was the only way out of being “America’s Best Loved Hippie Cartoonist.”
No, it’s not a new or old rock band. I have posted on many icons and events of the 1960s-1970s but never really concentrated on this big fellow.
I know as a kid…Bigfoot was part of the culture and kids thought yea…he is real. Native American legends tell of large, hairy human-like creatures that have been part of Indigenous cultures across North America for centuries. Many tribes have their own names and variations of Bigfoot, each with distinct characteristics and significance.
The most famous film clip was the Patterson-Gimlin footage from 1967.
Jeffery Meldrum is a professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University, and he’s known for being one of the few academics to openly study Sasquatch. “It’s all so easy to say, ‘Obviously that’s a man in a fur suit.’ Until you see it up against a man in a fur suit.”
The National Geographic documentary Mystery 360: Bigfoot Revealed, where they went absolutely all-out to try and recreate the Patterson-Gimlin bigfoot with modern technology (suit and all…) but ultimately couldn’t. Before this documentary, everyone assumed there was someone with a gorilla suit.
No matter how real the subject in the film appears, how much muscle movement you think you see, or how unhuman they claim the gait is, the subject has no corroborating specimen, and can therefore be no more than a question mark. The film has always been, is, and likely always will be an unsettled controversy.
In 2003 Bob Heironimus, a retired Pepsi bottler from Yakima, Washington came out and said that he played Bigfoot in the film. “It’s time to let this thing go. I’ve been burdened with this for 36 years, seeing the film clip on TV numerous times. Somebody’s making lots of money off this, except for me. But that’s not the issue — the issue is that it’s time to finally let people know the truth.” Heironimus, 63, makes his full “confession,” as he calls it, in a published book by paranormal investigator Greg Long. He also wanted money from the film and filed a suit but it never went anywhere.
Tom Malone, a lawyer in Minneapolis, on behalf of Bob Gimlin, an associate of the now-dead Bigfoot filmmaker. “I’m authorized to tell you that nobody wore a gorilla suit or monkey suit and that Mr. Gimlin’s position is that it’s absolutely false and untrue.” And the mystery lives on . . .
Many have broken the film down frame by frame and investigating it. It’s really interesting.
I remember on television that some shows featured Bigfoot. The Six Million Dollar Man featured Bigfoot and don’t think we were all watching at the time. There has been many documentaries on him and movies including Harry And The Hendersons. We cannot forget the monster truck Bigfoot.
Bigfoot is part of our popular culture and will probably always be but I would guess he peaked in the 1970s.
After watching that Maria Muldaur video last week with Leon and Willie included…I wanted to listen to some of Nelson’s songs this past week. This one I remember as a kid. This song was on the album Shotgun Willie. It was a turning point for Willie Nelson…he left Nashville’s mainstream country for the Country Outlaw scene.
I remember Outlaw Country back when I was a kid. Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Charlie Daniels, Johnny Cash, and Willie Nelson are who I remember the most. It was a no-frills version of country music. This was not as polished as what you heard on country radio. It had an authentic and raw sound that people were happy to hear.
I always thought they brought the Rock image element and feel into country music with these artists. Many of them would have songs that crossed over to the pop charts like Waylon, Willie, and Kristofferson.
Willie is an American icon, reaching people like Johnny Cash did in country music and beyond. He crosses genres quite well with his music and laid-back image. I also love his guitar Trigger. That guitar is an N-20 Martin. He bought the guitar in 1969 when someone stepped on his Baldwin Guitar. He had the pickups on the Baldwin moved to the Martin. Willie came to love the guitar, he said: “One of the secrets to my sound is almost beyond explanation. My battered old Martin guitar, Trigger, has the greatest tone I’ve ever heard from a guitar. … If I picked up the finest guitar made this year and tried to play my solos exactly the way you heard them on the radio or even at last night’s show, I’d always be a copy of myself and we’d all end up bored. But if I play an instrument that is now a part of me, and do it according to the way that feels right for me … I’ll always be an original”
Shotgun Willie marked a huge departure from Nelson’s previous work. Out came the Willie Nelson that we now know. His look and music changed.
The song was originally written by Johnny Bush and Paul Stroud in 1972. Willie’s version would always be the definite version of the song. If you listen to Bush’s version compared to Willies…you will quickly see the difference between mainstream country and Outlaw country. This song did well for Nelson…it peaked at #12 on the Billboard Country Charts and #3 on the Canadian RPM Country Tracks charts. Bush was happy about Willie covering it…they were friends and Willie took the song to a huge audience. Outlaw country artists sought more creative control over their music, production, and image… breaking away from the Nashville establishment.
The late Toby Keith with “I’ll Never Smoke Weed With Willie Again” and yes it was a true story.
Whiskey River
Whiskey River take my mind Don’t let her mem’ry torture me Whiskey River don’t run dry You’re all I’ve got, take care of me
Whiskey River take my mind Don’t let her mem’ry torture me Whiskey River don’t run dry You’re all I’ve got, take care of me
I’m drowning in a whiskey river Bathing my mem’ried mind in the wetness of its soul Feeling the amber current flowin’ from my mind And warm an empty heart you left so cold
Whiskey River take my mind Don’t let her mem’ry torture me Whiskey River don’t run dry You’re all I’ve got, take care of me
I’m drowning in a whiskey river Bathing my mem’ried mind in the wetness of its soul Feeling the amber current flowin’ from my mind And warm an empty heart you left so cold
Whiskey River take my mind Don’t let her mem’ry torture me Whiskey River don’t run dry You’re all I’ve got, take care of me
How cool was it that Motörhead and Nick Lowe were labelmates? That shows you the diverse talent in Stiff Records.
I’m going to wrap it up this week with some Nick Lowe. This was his second and last single for Stiff Records. You know what? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Nick Lowe song I didn’t like. I was going to include The Damned and Lene Lovich this week but they will be coming soon. A blogger named Warren asked about Lene Lovich and I will have a post on her in the coming weeks…thank you Warren for the suggestion. I already had today’s posts written.
Listening to this song and I’m struck by backup vocals going on. He paints a sound picture with layers of backups with a simple musical structure. Yes…I get really excited by power pop (hence the blog’s name) done right and Lowe does it right. When you listen to this song…it fits in so well with Lowes catalog that I would have thought he wrote it. But this is some Brill Building brilliance here made better by Lowe. Simple yet so likable.
Carole King and Gerry Goffin wrote the song. Tony Orlando first recorded it in 1961, peaking at #39 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and Billy Fury recorded it as well. This Lowe version was later included as a bonus track on re-releasing his 1978 album, “Jesus of Cool.”
I hope you enjoyed this week and these posts might have introduced you to a new song. I have a new appreciation for this record label…what they were able to do and the talent they found. In the middle of disco, Led Zeppelin, reggae, Pink Floyd, and other types of music…Stiff Records made a home for these different type of artists to flourish…thank you all for reading.
And remember Stiff Records… If it ain’t stiff it ain’t worth a f***
A short bio on Nick Lowe talking about his career I thought you might like. Have a great weekend!
Halfway To Paradise
I want to be your lover But your friend is all I’ve stayed I’m only halfway to paradise So near, yet so far away
I long for your lips to kiss my lips But just when I think they may You lead me halfway to paradise So near, yet so far away, mmm
Bein’ close to you is almost heaven (heaven) But seein’ you can do just so much It hurts me so to know your heart’s a treasure (treasure) And that my heart is forbidden to touch, so
Put your sweet lips close to my lips And tell me that’s where they’re gonna stay Don’t lead me halfway to paradise Mmm, so near, yet so far away
Oh, uh, oh so near, yet so far away Yeah, yeah so near, yet so far away
PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture 