At 11:22 PM 1/7/2005, you wrote:
>A "Danny Boy" contest? Hours of it ...
>
>It reminds me of the "Naughty Marietta" joke in Woody Allen's Bananas: "No
>more! Please, no more! I'll talk!"
...............
>There used to be a college radio station in the San Francisco area which once
>a year played nothing but "Louie, Louie" for twenty four hours straight,
>without ever repeating a version. Actually, that was kind of neat.
WBAI in New York has a history of obnoxious fundraising programs that have
taken some odd turns over the years. In 1968 when Dylan released "John
Wesley Harding"[sic], the host kept playing "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine"
and had people call in to discuss what they thought it meant. And around
the same time--height of the Vietnam unpleasantness--the host said they
needed to raise X thousand dollars in the next 30 minutes, and he'd keep
playing one tune until he got the pledges. The song was Kate Smith singing
"God Bless America." He got the money in short order.
I read something last night on a woodwind-related bulletin board about
Artie Shaw--he said he got out of the music business because he couldn't
bear to hear himself playing "Begin the Beguine" anymore. Truth or
quip? Maybe both. I suppose you can feel trapped by your own signature
tune. This reminded me of O'Neill's James Tyrone in "Long Day's Journey"
drunkenly lamenting that he threw away his talent by becoming totally
identified with the role of Edmund Dantes in a potboiler version of "The
Count of Monte Christo."
I wonder if they will actually carve onto Shaw's tombstone what he's
supposed to have asked for. Two words: "Go away."
ken
-------------------------------------------------
Kenneth
Wolman <http://www.kenwolman.com>http://www.kenwolman.com
http://kenwolman.blogspot.com
"This is the best of all possible worlds only because it is the only one
that showed up."-- Russell Edson
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