End of an era

One of my favorite bloggers, Doug TenNapel, is tossing it down the chute. Today he's on Part 5 of his auf wiedersehen (hmmmm, and Barbra Streisand's on her 5th farewell tour--coincidence? You decide) and I'm feeling downright bummed. I'll miss the lift from his slap-'em-silly approach to life and all its weirdness. I'll miss the unhinged comments from his detractors. I'll miss the little fishy swimming back and forth. Yes, he could be abrasive. Yes, the scatological references sometimes made my eyes roll. No, I didn't always agree with everything he said. However, he sure showed that conservatives don't all wear black suits on Fox News. And he was downright fun to read. (If there were a liberal blogger half as entertaining, I'd add him to my list, too. Trouble is, most liberals have no sense of humor, except for Stephen King.)

God be w'ye, Doug. At least I still have your archives and your three wackadoodle paintings at Rollick's. (The toaster one is my fave.) Have fun storming the castle and replenishing the Earth.

Campaign pledge

I hereby pledge to withhold my vote from anyone who calls my house and leaves an automated campaign message on my answering machine. I don't care what party you represent or what your message is--you invade my home like that and you're out, Buster (Bustress?). Did you really think I'd stand there and listen just because you paid some 15 year-old kid running a server to call me and 59,000 of my closest friends? Pfui! I snort in your general direction!

I'll say one thing for this system--it sure narrows the field when I go to the polls.

Spindlings

M & I played a set at that fantastic pickin' party we attended last weekend at the home of our friends Kelly & Jac. While pondering the setlist, M noticed that she sings all the melancholy, poignant, and love-gone-wrong songs (Annabelle, I'll Be All Smiles, Poor Wayfaring Stranger etc.); while I get the chirpy stuff (Spread a Little Love Around, Listen to the Radio and such).

That's when she suggested we might change our name to The Bipolar Sisters.

"The Land of Sandra Dee"

Ah, if only I'd written it! If anyone knows whom to credit, kindly buzz me so I can give them their proper due.

Long ago and far away,
In a land that time forgot,
Before the days of Dylan
Or the dawn of Camelot,

There lived a race of innocents,
And they were you and me,
Long ago and far away
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

Oh, there was truth and goodness
In that land where we were born,
Where navels were for oranges,
And Peyton Place was porn.

For Ike was in the White House,
And Hoss was on TV,
And God was in his heaven
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

We learned to gut a muffler,
We washed our hair at dawn,
We spread our crinolines to dry
In circles on the lawn.

And they could hear us coming
All the way to Tennessee,
All starched and sprayed and rumbling
in the Land of Sandra Dee.

We longed for love and romance,
And waited for the prince,
And Eddie Fisher married Liz,
And no one's seen him since.

We danced to "Little Darlin'",
And Sang to "Stagger Lee"
And cried for Buddy Holly
In the Land of Sandra Lee.

Only girls wore earrings then,
And three was one too many,
And only boys wore flat-top cuts,
Except for Jean McKinney.

And only in our wildest dreams
Did we expect to see
A boy named George with Lipstick
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

We fell for Frankie Avalon,
Annette as oh, so nice,
And when they made a movie,
They never made it twice.

We didn't have a Star Trek Five,
Or Psycho Two and Three,
Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

Miss Kitty had a heart of gold,
And Chester had a limp,
And Reagan was a Democrat
Whose co-star was a chimp.

We had a Mr Wizard,
But not a Mr T,
And Oprah couldn't talk yet
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

We had our share of heroes,
We never thought they'd go,
At least not Bobby Darin,
Or Marilyn Monroe.

For youth was still eternal,
And life was yet to be,
And Elvis was forever,
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

We'd never seen the rock band
That was Grateful to be Dead,
And Airplanes weren't named Jefferson,
And Zeppelins weren't Led.

And Beatles lived in gardens then,
And Monkees in a tree,
Madonna was a virgin
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

We'd never heard of Microwaves,
Or telephones in cars,
And babies might be bottle-fed,
But they weren't grown in jars.

And pumping iron got wrinkles out,
And "gay" meant fancy-free,
And dorms were never coed
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

We hadn't seen enough of jets
To talk about the lag,
And microchips were what was left at
The bottom of the bag.

And Hardware was a box of nails,
And bytes came from a flea,
And rocket ships were fiction
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

Buicks came with portholes,
And side show came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big enough
To cover both your cheeks.

And Coke came just in bottles,
And skirts came to the knee,
And Castro came to power
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

We had no Crest with Fluoride,
We had no Hill Street Blues,
We all wore superstructure bras
Designed by Howard Hughes.

We had no patterned pantyhose
Or Lipton herbal tea
Or prime-time ads for condoms
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

There were no golden arches,
No Perriers to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda,
And cats were not called Bill.

And middle-aged was thirty-five
And old was forty-three,
And ancient were our parents
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

But all things have a season,
Or so we've heard them say,
And now instead of Maybelline
We swear by Retin-A.

And they send us invitations
To join AARP,
We've come a long way, baby,
From the Land of Sandra Dee.

So now we face a brave new world
In slightly larger jeans,
And wonder why they're using
Smaller print in magazines.

And we tell our children's children
of the way it used to be,
Long ago and far away
In the Land of Sandra Dee.