Today's earworm: is that Long Island Iced Tea?

Watching the Marx Brothers in "Monkey Business" this afternoon, and hearing this tune in the midst of a Chico medley, it stuck... I suppose I'll need a good mixed drink or two to clear it from my head, or, perhaps Nat King Cole will smooth it out...



If this won't do it, nothing will.

There you go.

Today's earworm: holy day edition

Today's earworm: with gumdrops

So, when you handle a mess of gumdrops, what phrase naturally comes to mind?   My best bud and I were packing candies for Christmas and Hanukkah prezzies, and, of course, this little ditty kept repeating and repeating...



Not that there's a problem, yet, but, when you're handling pound after pound of sweets, you sort of have to worry that somebody is going to end up bigger than these ladies, combined.  That's a lot of joy, during the holiday season.

Today's earworm: Faithfull follower

Some evenings, this little melody comes back to me in the voice of Mick Jagger, some in my own magnificent contralto, and, more often than not,  in hers.



It's worth it, any way you play it.  Until the seventeenth consecutive hour you hear it.  Then, it's just another annoying tune.  So, play it with care.

Today's earworm: Pop Candy

Iggy Pop, that is.  And this is what happens when I spend all afternoon with my bestest bud, in the kitchen, assembling Christmas gifts...  a batch of coconut gumdrops, a batch of lemon gumdrops, and a lovely, lovely batch of salted whisky caramels, with a tiny, tiny touch of an SNL-Dan-Aykroyd-Julia-Child impression. Somebody gets to singing this, repeatedly.  And the someone singing is not the musician in the room...



I suppose it's better than something by the Archies.  So, now, which one is going to stick with you, all day?

Ain't I just the sweetest?  You're very welcome.

Today's earworm: a trip to the moon on Cole Porter wings

You know how it goes... it's just one of those things.



Of course, in my own mind, I sound even better than Peggy Lee...

in there, I'm a legend.

Today's earworm: not an exact fit

Some days run smoothly enough that no song can get stuck inside the head.  At least, I'm told there are people who don't suffer from day- or week-long earworms.  I, on the other hand, have no relief.  I get rid of one song by replacing it with another.  And, sometimes, they come back.

Today's little ditty usually turns a lovely afternoon in the garden into an hour of irony.  And, you just can't press out those wrinkles.




Still, be of good cheer.  The age of depressingly "relevant" pop music will, someday, come to an end, in the same way that SNL did.   ermmm.  well...  maybe they'll stop propping that corpse up, someday, too.

Meanwhile, have a perfect day.  That way, one of us will.

Today's earworm: not a poultry menu item

Jay Ward was a genius.  Anybody who disagrees with me can go to Hanna Barbera.



You're welcome.

Today's earworm: A trip to Denver

Okay, I read the biography of Samuel Ramey after I posted the Cole Porter number, yesterday, & found out that Ramey was born in Colby, Kansas.  It was, then, inevitable that my mind go a song with the city in it... one that I used to sing to one of my cats, while I sat in the bathtub and he sat in the doorway "singing along" (or, was it really that he was asking me why I'd continue to sit in that water, if it made me scream so much in pain...?).

anyhoos.  It's a song I've always had a soft spot for, but, well, after an entire day of it rattling around in my head, it's time to ask it to haunt somebody else for an hour or two...



Blue? I'm not blue.  Blue is just a Kansas summer sky.

You're welcome.

Today's earworm: catching a little seasonal spirit

No video, just one of the best modern Christmas pieces EVAH!



Between this and "Linus and Lucy", the holidays have begun to settle in.  I hope your preparations are going well.  This week's agenda, lots of cooking and baking, with lots of messy pots and pans and goofy grins...

Today's earworm: magic marker edition

Got a black magic marker... tryin' to make a tagger out of me...



No reason. Just carrying a Sharpie around in my pocket all day, & this song wouldn't leave me alone. Now, it can be your demonic companion, too...

I know how much you appreciate this.  And, you're very welcome.

Today's earworm: don't lower my ears too much

As.  If.

I go to the salon, and my hero practically pulls out the electric razor and reduces the mop to a controllable buzz cut (which, BTW, is why so many people assume I am less interested in men than I am...  well, that and the fact that I've been celibate for two decades, this coming year).

Anyway, I got my grey unruly mass removed, and, of course, had a great and magnificent melody in response to my own preference...


I like the song, but, even more, I like not having to waste tons of money on bottles of products designed to make me spend hours in front of a mirror being more than dissatisfied.  Let the hippies and the runway models lose fortunes on conditioner.

Meanwhile, just remember, it grows by itself.

You're welcome.

Today's earworm: don't knock it

We got lucky, today.  Mom called for diploma (dat's diguy who fixes dipipes), & he arrived with his assistant this morning, to see why our upstairs fixtures were backing up.

It seems that, in the process of his having replaced a badly corroded stand pipe (for escaping sewer gases, among other things) as it ran through the attic & out the rooftop, he knocked a little bit of the old iron pipe downward into the depths of pipe below.  It wasn't much, but what there was, was enough to catch in the gradually growing roots on the way to the sewer.  Had he not been called back to clean out the little bit of chaff he'd dropped, we'd have had the roots grow really big in the pipe, & we'd have had a very big plumbing problem in time.  As it was, he and his assistant spent a total of 2 hours, including cleanup, and the main drain was easily cleared, when he got to it.

So, as I said, we got lucky.  Two small things combined to make a medium problem, and...  well, we can rest easily, tonight.

Which is why I've been wandering around the house all afternoon humming this eminently hummable ditty,


and expecting it will stick with yooooooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-oooh, too.

If you're lucky, you can thank me later.

BTW, some clothes from the disco era should not be revived.  Like her hat.  Sadly, I think it showed up at a royal wedding, last April.

Today's earworm: leftover turkey edition

Not the song, although some will say it is.  No, it's that, last week, Mom & I had amassed enough store credits to come home with a fourteen-pound turkey hen, no charge.  Now, I'm the sort of person who could eat roast turkey 45 weeks of the year without tiring of its flavor, but poor Mom gets tired of it after three days, and Pop looks at is stale after a week.

Our freezer is full, too, so there was no option of putting the bird on ice for a month, until I'm back to being the house-sitter while they gallivant across the landscape...  the bird had to be cooked.

So,  I asked friends to come over for supper, last night.  Free food, shared with others, becomes free food squared.  And, since the freebie is a bird... well, the classic has been buzzing about since mid-afternoon Monday.   Sigh.


Here's your free bird.



No gravy or stuffing, though, so it's a low-carb offering  You're welcome.

Today's earworm: troosers-free edition

I am a Scot.  Sort of.  A few generations ago, one of my ancestors arrived in this country from the highlands and proceeded to do the American thing by taking a local wife...  very local, at that.  But that's not important right now.

What makes me a further Scot (sort of) is my education...  I attended a college whose mascot is The Fighting Scot (lately, he's taken a turn toward creepiness, in the same vein as the Burger King, since the school sprang for an actual, molded mascot head and full costume, instead of allowing one of our burliest young men to sport the colors about his loins).  We are the Monmouth Scots.  For fifty years, our pep band was the Highlanders, a pipe (of the bag variety) and drum band.  Parades in this town did not start until the Highlanders were playing "Scotland the Brave".

Needless to say, we know a few good, old-fashioned Scots' drinking songs.  Most folks remember best "The Drunken Scotsman", and, I confess, I have "enjoyed" some mornings awakening to its chorus rattling about in my head, too.

Today, however, the weather has turned chilly and windy, the direction of the sort which proves the truest, bravest Scots for what they are.   For, as one fellow once explained it, you know you have a true Scots Man if he wears his kilt all year and has sons born late September.



Who needs troosers when you have this getting you dancing out of bed in the morning?

You can thank me after breakfast (we're not having haggis).

Today's earworm: YOU don't want to hear it!?!

Sunday morning.  Long day, yesterday.  Long day today, from auction to art class to company at dinner... no rest, probably until after Christmas.

And if you have more for me to do,



Never mind.  I'm not listening.  I keep hearing this song instead of your voice.   Now, you get to hear it, too, since I'm sharing it.  Isn't that generous of me?

Today's earworm: not like we love our freedom

Today, I'm going to be selling off most of my collection of dolls (yeah, I'm half a century old and still play with dollies).  If you're in Galesburg or its surrounding area, please stop by and HELP ME




by buying a few of my wee things, or some from the other members of the Warren County Doll Club (soon to be officially renamed the West Central Illinois Doll Club) -- maybe you have somebody you still haven't shopped for, for Christmas.  If you come early, and buy lots and lots of dolls and accessories, we can all go home early, free and clear of another burden.

And, if you're just going to hang around the house and read blogs and surf the net, we'll see how long you last, with this rattling around in your skull...

Today's earworm: rock on!

Lately, I've been tuning out the political news on television, and swinging toward music programming.  Not that I have anything against political hacks promoting their favorite fictions, or anything... it's just that, if you hear it once, you'll hear it forever echoed by others, and it's so much better to have it echoed simply by a somewhat mad mind, internally...



But, politically speaking, as they're still arguing budget and deficit and spending beyond the moon and taxing beyond all income.... all my dear children aren't going to be allowed to go anywhere but into debt.  The poor rocking chair is going to be lonely a lot longer.

And you'll be humming segments of this until Congress gets itself under control, or until the end of civilization... whichever comes first (don't put money on the first-position horse in this race).

Today's earworm: Barry Manilow, with apologies

Some folks are not exactly crazy about this singer/songwriter/entertainer.  I've become one of those people.  Unfortunately, once a singer's repertiore becomes ensconced in one's own mental music library, one will continue to play back stuff at inconvenient places and times.

For example, upon hearing about the disagreement over who shot at whom first, in Pakistan/Afghanistan this past weekend, one lonely little line from a Manilow song came to stay...





The crucial line starts right around 1:15.

And, now it is yours, as well.  You may thank me later.