Stray Observations
Aug. 3rd, 2021 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblog* Yesterday was my first time driving by the now-shuttered Swiss chalets on the 90. Their standard four-pane welcoming signs now read
NO FOOD NO RESTROOMS
GAS 
-or Mobil, or whatever weird concoctions they have downstate.
I also assume Roger Miller will inform people NO PHONE, NO POOL, NO PETS. But you can probably get cigarettes at the adjacent gas station. There's also a porta-potty outside at least one of those gas joints, so they're not completely cruel.
On the other hand, it must be distracting people. Between yesterday afternoon and this morning, there were two major crashes on that road between Rochester and here, one eastbound and one west. I barely avoided the westbound one as I drove home last night, when I was already tired, hot and grumpy from the day. My trip back there today, to get the tooth looked at, isn't until this afternoon. Hopefully by then the one will be cleared and the afternoon drivers won't be squirming in their seats as much.
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* On yesterday's drive home, something on the radio reminded me of something weird: the Blue Swede ooga-chokka version of "Hooked on a Feeling" that was used in the first Guardians of the Galaxy film. It got me wondering how those crazy Swedes ever came up with that from a nice, melodic B.J. Thomas rendition of it that had hit the charts a few years earlier. Turns out, they didn't do it: they covered, almost note for note and ooga for ooga, a much more minor British recording of the song, by a guy I didn't think I'd ever heard of: Jonathan King. Wikipedia says it was his attempt to inject something of a reggae vibe to the song. Judge for yourself:
Ah, but then Wikipedia told me so much more I never knew: Jonathan King discovered Genesis. Not the book, the band:
Calling themselves Anon, the band consisted at that point of Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Anthony Phillips, Chris Stewart and Mike Rutherford, then all aged 15 to 17. King liked several songs such as "She is Beautiful" (which became "The Serpent" on the band's first album) and, according to Philips, they got the deal with King on the basis of that song. King signed the band to JonJo Music and licensed the short-term rights to Decca Records. He paid them £40 for four songs, and came up with their name, Genesis, to mark the start of his own career as a serious record producer...King produced their first three singles, including "The Silent Sun" (1968) and an album, From Genesis to Revelation (1969).
Now THAT album, I knew of. Even owned, once. I also knew the story that Some Shifty Record Dude still owned the rights to it and periodically re-releases it whenever the current group or one of its former members hits some new round of popularity; my version was released as "In the Beginning." And his discovery was before Phil Collins joined the band, so you can't blame King for THAT. As I was learning all these magical things, I put on WCMF, which promptly played "Solsbury Hill" by their former frontman Peter Gabriel, who King did discover.
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* I needed some good ooga-chokkas and coincidental past memories after that day.
Most of it was in the Rochester office, finishing off one of those massively annoying projects you just can't do in a single sitting. It involved nobody but me, and a lot of paper shuffling and data entry/organization. It did not help that they've brought on a passive-aggressive new staff member over there who kept distracting me and getting in my way by "trying to help." I will have to apologize next time I'm in there, because I was less than appreciative. I was also less than appreciated myself at the last stop, by a client who I've been bailing out in everything but the literal sense for well into a second decade. He got a decent result from a bad set of circumstances, but he glommed onto the one thing the judge said that he could blame me for, and when I started to suggest that he might have contributed to that cause, he snapped at me over it. At least I'm done with both of those things for the time being. Worst he can do is fire me, and I've been thrown out of far better places than his:P
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* I had some reason from yesterday for putting Stephen Fry as the Dreamwidth icon of this post, but I've forgotten what it was. I do remember he was on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me as their celebrity guest over the weekend, and he and Peter had a lovely lovely chat about hosting quiz shows, international copyright law, and one-hit wonders that did not, somehow, include any ooga chokkas. The whole show's archived here, and his bit starts round 18:40 of it.
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* Speaking of Dreamwidth, if you know
oxymoron67 from here, or LJ days, find an entry or pop on over to messages or something and say hi. He has an account here but doesn't post or cross-post much to it, and his LJ had been quiet. He's been through some things that are in a locked post over there I won't get into, but I'm sure good vibes would be appreciated. No ooga chokkas, though.----
* And ending this post with the same AWWWWWWs I ended my day with last night: not to be outdone by their older sister marketing our new product, Box'o'Cat™, Da Boyz decided to come up with their own version, Bed'o'Cats™. Available in two varieties, regular, and All Toms (shown):*
Have as good a day as they're having:)
* And if you recognize what really minor SNL bit that is a riff on, you're more of a geek than I am. But it's got cute cats in it, too;)
LOL
Date: 2021-08-07 01:20 pm (UTC)Crap, how many entries have I missed reading? :O