you may remember me

Hard to believe that it's been 14 years since Phil Hartman was murdered.  Some of his "Troy McClure" lines are amongst the most often heard/said Simpsons quotes in our house, "You may remember me from such self-help videos as "Smoke Yourself Thin" and "Get Confident, Stupid"" or "Gay?! I wish! If I were gay they'd be no problem! No, what I have is a romantic abnormality, one so unbelievable that it must be hidden from the public at all cost." are just a couple...

I can't think of anything I ever saw Phil in that I didn't love, SNL, Newsradio, obviously the Simpsons and, of course, Pee Wee's Playhouse.  I found this little clip of Pee Wee and Captain Carl, discussing women.  Phil's legacy is huge, here's a small piece of it.

sad girls

From an early age, I always liked songs with hand claps and strong backing vocals.  You can appreciate how much I liked Donna Summer's "Bad Girls" with it's "toot-toot, beep-beep" opening.  Of course, as a young girl, I had no idea what the song was about.  I just knew that I like it and I loved Donna Summer's amazing voice.

One of the first LP's I bought with my own money was "Bad Girls" by Donna Summer.  I seem to recall my mother being pretty upset when she saw it.  I had no idea what prostitutes were and, of course, there were photos of Donna and other women, dressed as "ladies of the evening" all over the cover  I think my mum got over the shock eventually and I almost wore those records out.  As a school girl in the 1970's I loved to sing along with "MacArthur Park", "Hot Stuff", "Last Dance" and (of course) "On The Radio" -  Donna was the Queen of Disco and her music was infectious.

I was shocked and saddened today to hear that she'd died at the very young age of 63.  She was a massive talent and her star shone very brightly. Cancer sucks and I'm very angry that it's snatched away another talent, too soon

Yay!! Pudsey!!!

Again this year, we got totally wired to Britain's Got Talent.   I had a short list of folks I was cheering for this year, Ashleigh & Pudsey, The Sugar Daddies and The Showbears.  Really though, both Mark and I, dog nuts that we are, wanted to see Ashleigh & Pudsey win it.  We'd cheered for Tina and Chandi in 2010 and were very disappointed that they didn't take the final. We actually cheered out loud when they called out that Ashleigh & Pudsey had won.  Our dogs, who we cannot imagine every doing something like this, were totally confused at our cheering.

If you haven't seen it yet, here is the performance from Ashleigh & Pudsey during the Finals.  He never takes his eyes off of Ashleigh.  I sure hope he got to have a steak for dinner after that performance!!

Islands In The Cheese

When I was in high school, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's "Islands In The Stream" was a huge hit on the radio.  After school, and on weekends, I worked as a cashier at a local grocery store and the radio played over the address system in the store.  Each time "Islands In The Stream" played (and it was a lot), I would groan quietly and roll my eyes.  One of the "older" lady (she was probably 30 which would have seemed ancient to my 17 year old self), full-time cashiers, I think her name was Pam, would chastise me and tell me that I just didn't understand the depth of the song and when I was older, I'd appreciate it more.  Almost 30 year later, I still don't think that there was much substance to the song but my appreciation for well-aged cheese has grown over time.  I'm still not a fan of the original but some cover versions of the song just make me smile.  Including this one, enjoy!