DOLPHINS MEET A PYTHON

Recently Sypha, a resident Burmese python at Florida's Gulfarium Marine Park (where my grandson Mark works with the reptiles) paid a visit to the bottleneck dolphins.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hHBfKlxXp5g

OVERLOOKED CONCERT FILM: THE T.A.M.I. SHOW (1964)

 The T.A.M.I. Show was (IMHO) one of the greatest concert films ever made.  T.A.M.I stood for  either "Teenage Awards Music International" or Teen Age Music International" -- take your pick, the publicists couldn't make up their minds.  The concert featured popular rock and roll and rhythm and blues acts from both the United States and England.  The advertising tagline was, "THE EXCITMENT, ENTERTAINMENT AND MUSIC OF TEENAGE AMERICA!" -- and that it was.  The concert was held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on October 28 and 29, 1964.  Free tickets were given to high school students of the area.  Among those in the audience were a future film director John Landis and future teenage heartthrob David Cassidy, both seventeen.  Among the go-go dancers on the stage was a young Teri Garr.

The concert film was produced by Lee Savin and directed by Steve Binder (who also directed Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback Special, Diana Ross Live in Central Park, and -- God help us! -- the Star Wars Holiday Special).  The film was released on November 24, 1964.  In 2006, the film was selected for the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for its "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significance.

The show was emceed by Jan and Dean, who performed the original theme song "(Here They Come) From All Over the World," whose lyrics mistakenly had the Rolling Stones originating from Liverpool.

The acts:

• Jan and Dean (Jan Berry & Dean Torrence) - "(Here They Come) From All Over the World" -- sung over the credits
• Chuck Berry - "Johnny B. Goode" and Maybelline"
• Gerry and the Pacemakers (Gerry Marsden, Les Maguire, Les Chadwick, & Freddie Marsden) - "Maybelline," "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying," and "It's Gonna  Be Alright"
• Chuck Berry - "Sweet Little Sixteen"
• Gerry and the Pacemakers - "How Do You Do It?"
• Chuck Berry - "Nadine"
• Gerry and the Pacemakers - "I Like It"
• (Smokey Robinson and) The Miracles (Bobby Rogers, Ronnie White, Pete Moore, & Marv Tarplin -- a fourth member, Robinson's wife, Claudette, had stopped touring three months earlier because of health reasons, although she remained in the group for recording sessions) - "That's What Love Is Made Of," "You've Really Got a Hold on Me," and "Mickey's Monkey"
• Marvin Gaye (backed up  by The Blossoms -- Fanita James, Darlene Love, & Jean King) - "Stubborn Kind of Fellow," Pride and Joy, "Can I Get a Witness," and "Hitch Hike"
• Leslie Gore - "Maybe I Know," "You Don't Own Me," "Hey Now, "It's My Party," & "Judy's Turn to Cry"
• Jan and Dean - "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena," & "Sidewalk Surfin' "
• The Beach Boys (Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Carl Wilson, & Dennis Wilson) - "Surfin' USA," "I Get Around," "Surfer Girl," & "Dance, Dance, Dance"
• Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas (Mike Maxfield, Mick Green, Robin MacDonald, & Tony Mansfield) - "Little Children," "Bad to Me," "I'll Keep You Satisfied," & "From a Window"
• The Supremes (Diana Ross, Florence Ballard, & Mary Wilson) - "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes," "Run, Run, Run," "Baby Love," & "Where Did Our Love Go"
• The Barbarians (Jerry Causi, Ronnie Enos, Bruce Benson, & Victor "Moulty" Moulton -- remember Moulty? the drummer with a prosthetic left hand?  (He lost in an explosion when he was fourteen.) - "Hey Little Bird"
• James Brown and The Famous Flames (Bobby Byrd, Lloyd Stallworth, & Bobby Bennett) - "Out of Sight," "Prisoner of Love," "Please, Please, Please," & "Night Train" 
• The Rolling Stones (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Bill Wyman, & Charlie Watts) - "Around and Around," "Off the Hook," "Time Is on My Side," "It's All Over Now," "I'm Alright," & "Let's Get Together"

Wow.  Just wow.

Keith Richards has said that following James Brown -- who, after all, was the hardest working man in show business -- was the worst mistake of their careers, because it was almost impossible to follow Brown's explosive performance.  For his part, Brown resented having to appear before the Stones; rather than closing out the show.  Brown decided not to rehearse his set, so no one had any knowledge of what he would be singing.  Brown vowed to make the Stones regret they had ever come to America and he pulled out every stop.  Jagger, however, knew that he had to create a high-energy set to follow Brown, and he did -- to bring a historic close to a historic concert.

Billed as the first T.A.M.I. Show, there was never a second.

For all you geezers out there, do you remember watching this?  What were your favorite songs?  your favorite group?

And for all you whippersnappers out there who were too young to have seen The T.A.M.I. Show, here's your chance to see what real music  was like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnFbkV17O08

INCOMING (SORT OF)

Okay, this one was scheduled to go up this morning, Monday, September 14.  For some reason, Blogger slotted it for eleven days ago, on September 3.  Strange, because I just updated the post yesterday evening.  Go figure.  So to read it, you have to go back a few days...

Thanks a heap, Blogger.

HYMN TIME

From 1926, The Wisdom Sisters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F646oOslREY

THRILLING COMICS #3 (APRIL 1940)

Thrilling Comics, an anthology series, ran for eighty issues from 1940 to 1951, and introduced a number of comic book heroes; the very first issue, for example, brought us Doc Strange (not to be confused with Marvel's Dr. Strange), the second introduced the Woman in Red, the nineteenth, American Crusader, and issue #56 gave us Princess Pantha.

Thrilling Comics #3 introduced its readers to The Ghost, a pulp hero created by G. T. Fleming-Roberts in The Ghost Super Detective (January 1940).  Sometimes known as The Green Ghost, he appeared in 14 original stories from1940 to 1944, seven in that magazine (which was retitled twice during its brief run), and and then in six issues of Thrilling Mystery; the final story was published in Thrilling Detective, but was rewritten to give the character a new name and all mention of The Ghost was dropped.   (Sic transit gloria mundi.)  The comic book Ghost had a much better showing than his pulp magazine counterpart:  he went to appear in 49 more issues of Thrilling Comics and made an appearance in Black Terror.

In this issue we learn the origin of The Ghost.  He's George Chance who was taught magic by yogis in India after his father died.   Arriving in America, he is asked to performance a party that evening, but the host suddenly died, supposedly by suicide, before the part took place.  George smalls a rat and determines to find the truth; in doing so he dons a disguise as The Ghost and vows to dedicate his powers to fighting crime.  The "suicide" is part of a clever and deadly insurance plot by villains Tanko and Trask,  buT they are no match for The Ghost!

Also in this issue:

• Dr. Strange is in the Orient when vital military secrets are stolen.
• The Three Comrades -- Lucky, Books, and Cal -- go into action when German spies steal a book that reveals the location of the treasure of the Aztec King in code.
• It's the Woman in Red versus The Terror as "Death Stalks the Grange," frightening a lonely old ladt.
• The Lone Eagle, the famous American ace, enlists in the British air force to aid democracy.
• The Rio Kid is always on the hunt for adventure and he finds it in an Arizona cowtown.
• And in a juvenile adventure, Marco Polo Jones is panning a trip to the Milky Way.  see, all the poor kids in the world don't have enough milk to drink, so Marco Polo Jones is going to round up all the cows in the Milky Way and bring them home.  Joining him is young Polly (whose mother tells her that milk is good for her) and Snowball, Marco Polo Jones's chauffeur (an offensively Black character).  So off they go in a covered wagon pulled by a winged Pegasus.  This tale is the epitome of twee.

Some winners here, a few turkeys, and one loser.

Enjoy.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=102390

FORGOTTEN BOOK: THUNDERHEAD

Thunderhead by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child  (1999)

I've been on a Preston & Child kick for most of this year, having read fifteen of their novels thus far.  Thunderhead was their fifth collaboration and their third standalone novel.  It introduces Nora Kelley, a young assistant professor of archaeology at fictional Santa Fe Archaeological Institute, one of the premiere institutes of its kind in the world.  Nora's father Pat was also a talented archaeologist, although one give to quixotic flights of fancy; he went missing sixteen years before while exploring the remote redrock canyons of Southern Utah, leaving Nora's unstable mother to raise Nora and her younger brother, Skip.  Their mother died six months ago, leaving their abandoned family home in ruins and Skip, who had recently earned his degree in physics, to embark on a fast road to alcoholism and despair.  Despite urgings to sell the property, Nora stubbornly hangs onto it and to memories of better times.

Then Nora receives a letter, mailed five days before, written by her father sixteen years ago to her mother.  Where did the letter come from and who mailed it?  In the letter her father tells of finding an ancient Anasazi trail that led to what he was sure was the fabled city of Quivera -- the lost city of gold and the center of the Anasazi civilization.  could this be true?  Had her father found the perhaps mythical city?  And what had happened to him sixteen years before?

Then when Nora was visiting her ancestral home, she was attacked by two beings?/men? covered in fur and acting like wolves but demanding that Nora give them the letter.  The two were dispersed by a neighbor with a shotgun, but Nora was shaken.  Nora's apartment was then apparently entered:  things were not in their usual place and her dog was missing.  Afraid both for her and her brother and determined to find answers about her father's disappearance and the lost city, she sets out to organize an expedition, which was eventually financed by Ernest Goddard, the Chairman of the Board of the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute.

The expedition, to be led by Nora, would include one of the world's leading geochronologists, one of the country's finest physical anthropologists, a high-end ( and expensive) camp manager and cook, an imaginative scient from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (who had altered a satellite's orbit to use image sensing to locate the Anazasi trail), a cowboy wrangler in charge of the needed horses for the expedition, Dr. Goddard's archaeologist daughter (she had to go along -- this one was a deal-breaker), and Bill Smithback, a cocky journalist hire to record the expedition.

The vast area they we headed to was basically unexplored and unknown -- a huge system canyons and desert, prone to dangerous floods and animals.  It would be hard trek.  The lost city -- if it exists and if they find it -- should be hidden in a steep cliff.  Not much is known about the Anasazi, the native Americans who ruled this land a thousand year ago -- their culture, their religion, their form of government, and even their language is a mystery, unsolved even with the many shards and relics they left behind; their civilization suddenly and mysteriously vanished without a trace about 1500 A.D.

To get the answers she wants, Nora has not only to face the harsh physical landscape, the contrarian members of her expedition, and the dangers of flood and landslides, but also whoever -- or whatever -- wants her to fail.  And are these forces trying to protect the fabled city, or are hoping to gain its riches for themselves?  And there's witchcraft and cannibalistic cults, to boot.

An exciting thriller filled with the fascinating lore and history of the Southwest.

Nora Kelly, went on to be featured in a number of Preston-Child books about FBI Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast, and graduated in 2019 to her own series of (thus far) five novels.  (SPOILER ALERT:  In the Pendergast series, she eventually marries Bill Smithback, ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT: only to lose him on their first anniversary; Smithback was also a veteran of the Pendergast series, going back to the first novel, Relic.)

Douglas Preston is a journalist who has written ten nonfiction books, many about science and exploration, and a number of these about the American southwest.  He has published seven novels on his own, including the Wyman Ford series and Jennie, which was made into a Disney film, as well as two novels with his daughter Aletheia.

Lincoln Child is the solo author of eight horror and technothriller novels, including the Jeremy Logan series. Three of his solo novels were New York Times bestsellers.  He was a book editor for St. Martin's Press, leaving the company in 1985 when he began a career as a systems analyst.  Since 1995, he has been a full-time writer.  In the mid- to late-eighties, he published five horror anthologies, including three in the Tales of the Dark series.

Together, the pair have written thirty-seven novels, including 23 in the bestselling Pendergast series, five in the Gideon Crew series. five in the Nora Kelly series, and four standalones, most of which were bestsellers.  Their first collaboration, Relic, was filmed in 1997 as The Relic by Peter Hyams and starred Penelope Miller, Tom Sizemore, Linda Hunt, and James Whitmore -- the film was praised by Siskel and Ebert, although many critics disagreed ("brainless monster mayhem...too predictably derivative," "a bad reworking of elements from Aliens, Species, Jaws, and Predator," and "good novel, bad adaptation." and the film turned out to be box office bomb.

Bottom line:  the Preston & Child books are amazingly addictive and Thunderhead is thunderously so (see what I did there?).

YOURS TRULY, JOHNNY DOLLAR: DEATH TAKES A WORKING DAY (FEBRUARY 3, 1950)

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar aired on CBS Radio from February 18, 1949 to September 30, 1962, featuring private investigator Johnny Dollar investigating unusual insurance claims involving suspicious deaths, possible frauds, missing persons, or other mysterious circumstances.  Each episode was related in flashbacks during a report to the insurance company and carefully notated various business expenses the Johnny incurred.  Investigating insurance claims is a risky business, and Johnny often ended up in personal danger.

Johnny Dollar was first portrayed by Charles Russell (Dick Powell had the role in the pilot back when the show had been provisionally called Yours Truly, Lloyd London [producers quickly changed the title, fearing legal backlash from Lloyd's of London], but opted to go with Richard Diamond, Private Detective instead).  Edmond O'Brien was the second to play the character, from February 1950 to September 1952.  O'Brien -- who would be 101 years old today [Happy Birthday!] -- already had a strong film career with such movies as The Killers, White Heat, and D.O.A., and would go to later films as Shield for Murder, The Barefoot Contessa(winning both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor), and Seven Days in May (winning a Golden Globe and gaining an Academy Award nomination); from 1951, O'Brien regularly appeared in television anthology series and other programs, including starring roles in Johnny Midnight, Sam Benedict, and The Long, Hot Summer.

In "Death Takes a Working Day," O'Brien's first outing as Johnny Dollar, our hero investigates the murder of policy holder Loyal B. Martin, who had been shot in the back twice.  The suspects:  Martin's young wife who married him for the honey, his long-serving housekeeper whose romance with Martin had been shunted aside when he married another, his pecunious brother who may been in love with Martin's wife, and the private detective who was Martin's bodyguard and who may also be in love with the beguiling Mrs. Martin.  In the end, Johnny Dollar submits an expense account totaling $823.

Produce and direct by Jaime del Valle, written by Paul Dudley and Gil Dowd, and featuring the voice talents of Irene Tedrow, Walter Burke, Ted de Cosia, John Boehner, Gene Bates, and Ed Begley.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP5yyk6VXR8&list=PLneoVXdPCzrfDyffrXvlgykS4WVzvv4pa