The strike must continue

The Writers Guild of America began its current strike on Tuesday, 5-2-2023...after a three-year contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers ended. Weeks of negotiations fell through because the AMPTP failed to come up with a pact that would satisfy the 11,500 WGA members. WGA leaders sought to gain increased compensation for TV-and-movie writers, guaranteed duration of employment for writers who get gigs in the industry, better residuals, and (of course!) the assurance that human writers wouldn't get replaced by artificial intelligence. Streaming has become a major factor since the previous WGA strike. Because of streaming, residuals for writers have become less frequent...and smaller, too. We've now got minirooms (with only a few writers instead of the usual seven or more), shorter seasons for TV series, and no rerun residuals for countless series. The money's there to give WGA writers what they want. Writers would've gained an extra $429 million per year had AMPTP leaders come through for the folks who cook up scripts. Instead, AMPTP bigwigs offered an annual increase of $86 million. Some people have questioned the WGA's decision to shut it down. One of them's even on the creatives' platform I joined in January 2019. If you've questioned the first writers' shutdown since 2007-08, think about this: Shows like "This Is Us" and "Abbott Elementary" wouldn't have come on the air if somebody hadn't thought them up...and movies such as "Avatar" and "Tar" came about because someone wrote a script. And why shouldn't writers be compensated decently for what they come up with? They've got bills to pay, too.

They kept writing 'em like that anymore

My childhood fell between the middle 1950s and early 1970s...and for television fans here in the United States, that meant that variety shows were all over the dial. If you watched, for example, The Ed Sullivan Show, you'd more often than not get to see your favorite rock/R&B act...about a half hour after Ed introduced one of those smooth pop crooners on the show.

In fact, my first eight years of life (1955-1963) were a period when America's music industry was trying to figure itself out. In early April 1957, for instance, Perry Como's "'Round and 'Round" was Billboard's Number One pop hit...only to be displaced a week later by "All Shook Up," by Elvis Presley.

And "All Shook Up" rode high for nine weeks...until knocked off the top spot by "Love Letters in the Sand," by Pat Boone, a man whose records, by then, had one foot in the Presley ethos and the other in the Como system.

Industry leaders, as a group, loved the old Tin Pan Alley styles...but knew the newer styles were where the money was.

Even so, some of the biggest hits of the late 1950s through, really, the middle 1970s, owed something to the way pop music sounded in the 1890s-1920s period...when ragtime, followed by jazz, caught America's attention.

With that in mind, here's a list of ragtime/honky tonk-influenced rock/R&B/pop songs recorded from 1956 to 1974:

1. "The Green Door," Jim Lowe (Dot 14586; r*5, *1, 1956)/2. "When I See You," Fats Domino (Imperial 5454; r*14, *29, 1957)/3. "Sugartime," McGuire Sisters (Coral 61924; *1, 1958)/4. "The Stripper," David Rose (MGM 13064; r*12, *1, 1962)/5. "Alley Cat," Bent Fabric (Atco 6226; *7, 1962)/6. "Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer," Nat King Cole (Capitol 4965; r*11, *6, 1963)/7. "Washington Square," Village Stompers (Epic 9617; r*22, *2, 1963)/8. "(Down at) Papa Joe's," Dixiebelles (Sound Stage 7 2507; *9, 1963)/9. "Southtown, USA," Dixiebelles (Sound Stage 7 2517; *15, 1964)/10. "Java," Al Hirt (RCA Victor 8280; *4, 1964)/11. "Daydream," Lovin' Spoonful (Kama Sutra 208; *2, 1966)/12. "Spanish Flea," Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass (A&M 792; *27, 1966)/13. "I Love Onions," Susan Christie (Columbia 43595; *63, 1966).

14. "Winchester Cathedral," New Vaudeville Band (Fontana 1562; *1, 1966)/15. "Lady Godiva," Peter and Gordon (Capitol 5740; *6, 1966)/16. "Words of Love," Mamas and the Papas (Dunhill 4057; *5, 1967)/17. "Hello Hello," Sopwith "Camel" (Kama Sutra 217; *26, 1967)/18. "I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman," Whistling Jack Smith (Deram 85005; *20, 1967)/19. "Like an Old-Time Movie," Scott McKenzie (Ode 105; *24, 1967)/20. "Cab Driver," Mills Brothers (Dot 17041; *23, 1968)/21. "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde," Georgie Fame (Epic 10283; *7, 1968)/22. "Cinderella Rockefella," Esther and Abi Ofarim (Philips 40526; *68, 1968)/23. "Indian Lake," Cowsills (MGM 13944; *10, 1968)/24. "Those Were the Days," Mary Hopkin (Apple 1801; *2, 1968)/25. "Goodbye," Mary Hopkin (Apple 1806; *13, 1969)/26. "Abergavenny," Shannon (AKA Marty Wilde) (Heritage 814; *47, 1969).

27. "Is That All There Is," Peggy Lee (Capitol 2602; *11, 1969)/28. "Rag Mama Rag," Band (Capitol 2705; *57, 1970)/29. "Gimme Dat Ding," Pipkins (Capitol 2819; *9, 1970)/30. "Mississippi," John Phillips (ABC Dunhill 4236; *32, 1970)/31. "In the Summertime," Mungo Jerry (Janus 125; *3, 1970)/32. "Rubber Duckie," Jim Henson's Ernie (Columbia 45207; *16, 1970)/33. "Honky Cat," Elton John (Uni 55343; *8, 1972)/34. "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Ole Oak Tree," Tony Orlando and Dawn (Bell 45,318; *1, 1973)/35. "Say, Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose," Tony Orlando and Dawn (Bell 45,374; *3, 1973)/36. "Who's in the Strawberry Patch with Sally," Tony Orlando and Dawn (Bell 45,424; *27, 1973)/37. "Last Time I Saw Him," Diana Ross (Motown 1278; r*15, *14, 1974)/38. "Nothing from Nothing," Billy Preston (A&M 1544; r*8, *1, 1974)/39. "Steppin' Out (Gonna Boogie Tonight)," Tony Orlando and Dawn (Bell 45,601; *7, 1974).

The chart positions were taken from Joel Whitburn's "Record Research," compiled from Billboard's Pop chart, unless indicated otherwise; r*= the record's position on Billboard's R&B chart.

See you next time, and thanks for reading "Boston's Blog!"

Dear Jeffrey Toobin:

You recently told Larry Wilmore that you now find yourself regretful about your role in pushing a "false equivalence" between Hillary Clinton's actions and those of Donald Trump during Big Media's coverage of the 2016 US presidential race.

Fine.

There's just one thing:

You're too freakin' late!  

The whole problem is that you, your buddies at CNN, and counterparts at America's other newsgathering television networks pushed this "false equivalence" to begin with.

After all, Jeffrey, you work for Jeff Zucker...the same man who, when he headed up NBC Entertainment, helped Trump's The Apprentice get on the air in the first place.

You people were so smitten over the prospect of one of your medium's biggest stars landing the most talked-about job in politics that you failed to see the danger signs...such as his studying Adolf Hitler's speeches for ideas on how to handle things.

By telling your viewers that Clinton- one of the most politically-experienced major-party nominees in a long, long time- is just as wretched as Trump, you helped usher in a period where, when Trump, Pence, McConnell, Ryan, and Co. are through doing their damage to this country's government, we won't have a constitutional republic anymore...let alone a shot at a real democracy.

You helped usher in a time where America's now the laughingstock of Planet Earth.

ARE YOU SATISFIED?? 

Instead of going for truth, you folks in Big Media wasted the 6-15-2015/11-8-2016 period going strictly for ratings...and you consistently think the way to get those good-looking Nielsen numbers is to portray every US political campaign as a horse race.

The way I see it, we stopped having presidencies on 1-20-2017.

Instead, we've got an emperor/king/dictator/premier/generalissimo. 

I hope you're happy, Jeffrey.   




  

Just desserts?

I read this on the Internet yesterday:

"Matt Lauer fired from Today for sexual harassment" 

I couldn't believe it.

I'm still, to this very day, thinking about his role in helping to create the garbage going on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. (Do you remember the MSNBC special he hosted last year, where Lauer threw hardball questions at Hillary Rodham Clinton, then turned around and gave softball inquiries to Donald Trump...a man who spent eleven years on Matt's main network, NBC?)

Late this past Tuesday, NBC News Chief Andrew Lack told the 59-year-old New York City native to clean out his desk. And as soon as Today came on yesterday morning, coanchors Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb gave viewers the news about Lauer's firing.

Lauer threw two decades as show cohost down the drain.

One of Lauer's colleagues turned in a detailed complaint against his inappropriate sexual behavior, and it triggered a serious review by Lack and his colleagues. 

It all stemmed from an incident the colleague reported took place in 2014, when NBC and most of the other Comcast networks were showing the 2014 Winter Olympics (held in Sochi, Russia). 

Lauer's victim reported this to NBC's human resources department this past Monday; the next day, he got the pink slip.

Two years before the Sochi incident, Katie Couric (who cohosted Today from 1991 to 2006) was interviewed on Bravo's Watch What Happens. 

Host Andy Cohen asked Couric to describe Lauer's "most annoying trait."

Couric's reply: "He pinches me on the [posterior] a lot." 

'Nuff said. 

From what I've read, it's not so surprising that Lauer would help deliver a proven sexual predator to the very top of American politics. 

Compared to what just happened with Lauer, it's going to be very hard to remove Trump from the most talked-about political office there is...but we really need to be up to it. 

Some of this information came from Jen Hayden's 11-29-2017 Daily Kos article about Matt's removal from the job he's best known for. (Jen, many, many, many thanks!)  

America's greatest living composers...today

77 years ago this past Sunday, a special concert took place at the California Coliseum in San Francisco, CA. 

On Tuesday, 9-24-1940, America's top living composers and lyricists gathered together and entertained the audience in the City by the Bay.

*Albert Von Tilzer did his "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."

*L. Wolfe Gilbert performed his anthem, "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee."

*Jerome Kern played his own "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" before guiding Tony Martin for "All the Things You Are."

*Carrie Jacobs Bond went to the piano to accompany singer Alan Linquist as he warbled her "A Perfect Day."

*George M. Cohan offered his "Over There," among other tunes in a medley of his big ones.

*And Irving Berlin wrapped up the festivities with his "God Bless America."

The whole thing was actually a two-part event put on by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (that's right, good ol' ASCAP). The event's title: "Cavalcade of Music: Those Who Make America's Music." 

In what was billed as "the most notable assemblage of artists and composers ever gathered on one stage," thousands at the California Coliseum heard and saw over forty ASCAP members do their thing. 

During the first half of the event (the afternoon session), the crowd heard American classical music. The evening session- what turned out to be the payoff half- went to this country's contributions to popular music. 

That night, Berlin, Bond, Cohan, Gilbert, Kern, and Von Tilzer were joined by the likes of Harold Arlen, Harry Armstrong, Shelton Brooks, Hoagy Carmichael, Walter Donaldson, W.C. Handy, Billy Hill, Joe Howard, Ralph Rainiger, Sigmund Romberg, and Leo Robin...to say nothing of the team of Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby.  

Back on 7-9-2017, toward the end of the Ragtime to Riches Festival workshop about Bond, the 9-24-1940 festivities got a mention...and the question eventually came up:

"If they were going to put on a concert like this today, with America's greatest living composers, who would show up?" 

Well, first of all, HBO or MTV or Showtime would be most likely to televise the event. (The 1940 soiree wasn't on radio...and we're lucky to have a recording of the whole concert because ASCAP commissioned a San Fran firm, Photo and Sound, Inc., to put the entire shebang on twelve 16" two-sided discs, playable at 33-1/3 RPM at a time when consumers were eight years away from being able to buy records at that speed.) 

Second, the producers would probably have to rent out New York City's Radio City Music Hall, Los Angeles' Dolby Theater, or Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to hold the event. 

Third, you're darn right you'll be able to get on your computer or smartphone or device of some kind and stream the show live.

Of course, it'd be televised live and in prime time. (Bet you they'd need three hours.) 

They'd need three hours- at least that long- for the following tunesmiths:

*Burt Bacharach

*Neil Diamond

*Bob Dylan

*The twosome of Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers

*Sheldon Harnick

*Another duo- James "Jimmy Jam" Harris and Terry Lewis

*Jerry Herman

*The team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland

*Rupert Holmes

*Billy Joel

*John Kander

*Carole King

*Robert Lopez (of "Frozen" fame)

*The duo of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil

*Alan Menken

*Lin-Manuel Miranda

*Willie Nelson

*Dolly Parton

*William "Smokey" Robinson

*Steven Schwartz

*Neil Sedaka

*Marc Shaiman (he did the music to Broadway's "Hairspray")

*Paul Simon

*Valerie Simpson

*Stephen Sondheim

*Barrett Strong (Norman Whitfield's old songwriting partner)

*Diane Warren

*Jim Webb

*Frank Wildhorn (helped bring "Victor/Victoria" to Broadway)

*John Williams

*Stevie Wonder 

The bulk of this list was mined from the 2017 World Almanac and Book of Facts. 

With that in mind, who would you add to this list? Which of these songwriters would you like to remove from the list?

What if you wanted to internationalize the list...and bring in living legends like Benny Andersson (of ABBA fame), Paul Anka, Bjork, Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, Elton John, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Bernie Taupin, Keith Richards, Rod Temperton, and Bjorn Ulvaeus (also of ABBA), just to name a few? 

Could a special featuring America's greatest currently-living composers even hit today's TV screens? 

Let me know what you think. 

I'm Jim Boston...thanks for reading this blog!



 

Now, you KNOW I love me some "Storytime!"

Every Saturday morning at 9:00 AM (Central time), KPAO- Omaha's public-access TV station that's available on Cox Channel 22 and CenturyLink Channel 89- shows a half-hour program called Storytime with Lydia. 

I started watching it last year...after finding out about the show online. (Oh, the power of the Internet!)

Storytime with Lydia first came on the air a couple of years ago, occupying the 9:30 AM-10:00 AM slot on KPAO. And initially, it was a mother-daughter collaboration as far as hosting was concerned: A local teacher named Jill Bruckner and her then nine-year-old daughter, Lydia.

Also at first, the series' name was Story Time. 

As first conceived, the show featured Lydia talking about what she'd read and why she enjoyed what she'd read. It was really fun to watch Lydia and her mom banter away. (I'll never forget the time Lydia told the viewers about what it was like to read "Morgan and the Artist," a children's book James Cross Giblin and Donald Carrick came up with in 1985. It was about a troll- Morgan- who inspired a painter. Eventually, Jill playfully asked Lydia how people get snail mail...and Jill tried to tell the folks trolls deliver it. But Lydia playfully exclaimed: "No trolls!") 

That lively, unrehearsed mother-daughter banter sold me on the show. 

In time for the show's second campaign, a "BYOB" segment was added; in it, the Two Bruckners invited a guest to bring his or her own favorite book and discuss the publication. 

Now in its fourth season, it's no longer Story Time. Instead, it's Storytime with Lydia. (Jill went upstairs to become the show's executive producer.)

I loved the old format...and this new format (unveiled on 2-18-2017) rocks, too!

The new setup starts out with Lydia talking shop with SWL's newly-hired floor director, Gladys Schmadys. (It's basically the same playful banter that Lydia and Jill got into in the former setup.)

After the opening credits roll, the next segment is "Author's Corner," where Lydia interviews a local writer. [You'd be surprised how effective this eleven-year-old girl is as an interviewer. (Take THAT, Matt Lauer!)]

Some more Bruckner-Schmadys banter takes over, then it leads to the next segment, "Lydia on Location," in which the young host visits a local business or some other attraction (in the season opener, it was Don Carmelo's Pizzeria)

to show the viewers just how things tick over there.  

This whole season is dedicated to Jim Nelson, the KPAO station manager who died last month.

At KPAO, Jim mentored Jill, Lydia, and Lydia's big sister Madeline Lynch (who, at first, was the show's director).

And it was all because Jim thought it'd be cool to bring a show like this- where a youngster talks about how cool reading actually is- to the airwaves. 

If you think it's cool, too, get on Facebook and "like" Storytime with Lydia, check out the show's YouTube channel, and if you live here in the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area...just tune in every Saturday morning.

Don't be surprised to find out that Lydia Bruckner will blow you away.

The Powerhouse from Alabaster, Alabama (Part 3)

Wendy Holcombe's effort to become an all-around entertainer hit a couple of huge bumps in 1981-82.

First of all, in the summer of 1981, the pilot the Alabaster, AL native did for NBC, the sitcom Wendy Hooper, US Army, didn't get picked up (America's TV viewers hitched their wagons to another Army-based comedy, CBS' Private Benjamin, which presented Lorna Patterson in the role made famous by Goldie Hawn in the previous year's big-screen hit of that name). 

Had Wendy Hooper caught on, Holcombe (then 18 years old) would've been one of the youngest to ever get top billing on a prime-time sitcom on American television. (Jay North was just seven in 1959, the year he landed the show that gave him his fame: Dennis the Menace.)

Bill's and Helen's multiinstrumentalist-singer-comic daughter got a sitcom anyway when, on 10-29-1981, Lewis & Clark premiered on NBC.

The same viewers who kept WHUSA from joining the Peacock Network's 1981-82 schedule stayed with L&C's biggest Thursday-night competition, CBS' Magnum, P.I. (That crime drama- the one that made a household name out of Tom Selleck- survived its rookie campaign, the 1980-81 season.)

Not even a pair of time-slot changes could save Lewis & Clark, where Holcombe played a server (okay, waitress) in the Luckenback, TX nightclub run by Gabe Kaplan and Guich Koock.

Even if many people couldn't get into Wendy Holcombe the actor, they still fell head over heels in love with Wendy Holcombe the musician. And some extra proof of that came in 1983, when Wendy, her hubby Tom Blosser, and their band traveled to Israel to play alongside bluegrass legends Bill Monroe and Mac Wiseman.

Not long after that, Tom and Wendy turned their 1983 travels into a world tour, focusing on Australia, New Zealand, and several Asian countries.

The closing act on that international tour: None other than Perry Como. 

Meanwhile, back in the United States, the banjo-playing wife and her bass-playing husband set up shop in Florida, only to move to North Carolina...to get closer to relatives. 

And a year or so before WLH and TYB set out for their overseas tour, Wendy Lou started performing alongside fellow banjoist Buck Trent.

Their performances set that twosome up for a 1982 Music City News Bluegrass Act of the Year award nomination. Later on, the Country Music Association nominated them for Instrumentalists of the Year.  

All this time, Wendy was performing despite a degenerative heart condition (first diagnosed at an early age). 

By the middle 1980s, that heart condition (technically known as cardiomyopathy; in lay terms, enlargement of the heart) wasn't improving. 

Several times, an ambulance would arrive at the Holcombe-Blosser house to pick Wendy up...but she'd beat the odds whenever they were stacked against her recovery. 

Then came that ill-fated Saturday...the seventh Saturday of 1987.

Country music's much the poorer because of Wendy's 2-14-1987 death. The Alabaster Kid strove for perfection in everything she did...including in her musical endeavors. And that pursuit of perfection showed whenever she appeared in front of any kind of live audience or whenever Wendy appeared in front of a set of TV cameras. 

Even if you and I can't go online and find Holcombe's acting performances (you'll strike out on www.youtube.com if you're looking for Lewis & Clark episodes), there's plenty of audio evidence (the posthumously-released CD "Memories of Wendy" is finally available...on www.cdbaby.com as well as www.amazon.com) and plenty of video evidence right here on the Internet that Cindy's and "Muley's" sister was a powerful musician.

And a powerful, energetic, enthusiastic influence.

Wendy, I'm glad you came along...and I'm glad you brought so many great things.

The Powerhouse from Alabaster, Alabama (Part 1)

For the last week and a half, I'd been thinking about a young performer who was a regular on a syndicated TV series called Nashville on the Road. She was a regular on this country music show from its debut in 1975 to 1981 (NOTR limped along for another two years afterwards). 

At first, the show's cohosts were singer Jim Ed Brown and comic Jerry Clower; every week, they'd introduce a guest or two (as well as the show's two regular acts).

That's right...I like almost all forms of music, and that includes country. 

One late Saturday night in 1976, I was flipping channels...and ran into Nashville on the Road, which, at that time, was locally (the Des Moines/Ames area) on WOI-TV, the Des Moines/Ames area's ABC station. 

I noticed this thirteen-year-old girl who was picking a mean, mean banjo and moving along to her own (and her bandmates') beat.

She hooked me...and things got to the point where, every Saturday night at 10:30 PM (Central time), I'd flip the station over to "ABC5" and check out Jim Ed, Jerry, the Cates Sisters (their successors, the Fairchilds, were replaced in 1977 by singer Helen Cornelius), and that young instrumentalist-singer-comic.

Instead of getting ready to blow out 53 candles this coming 4-19-2016, Wendy Lou Holcombe passed away on 2-14-1987.

At age 23.

Of a heart attack. 

At the time Wendy died, I was into my first stint of living here in Omaha...and working two jobs (I was an inventory specialist and a pizza-delivery driver at this time in 1987). I was coming back from my job at Domino's (that's right, THAT Domino's) when I turned on my TV, started flipping through channels, and I stopped at The Nashville Network...the forerunner of today's Spike.

When the news came on about the death of the most famous performer to ever come out of Alabaster, AL, I was completely flabbergasted.

Wendy Holcombe- that total bundle of energy- dead? At 23? Of heart failure? How'd that happen?  

Then I got to thinking about the fact that not one single sizable recording company offered her a contract. 

What stopped the record industry's Billy Sherrills, Owen Bradleys, and Chet Atkinses from having Holcombe sign her John Hancock to a recording contract? If not age, what? 

I still, to this very day, feel it all came down to dirty rotten, filthy sexism.

I mean, at a time when Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, and Roni Stoneman (she of Hee Haw fame) were showing what they could do with five strings, the thinking in corporate boardrooms was (and, in too many cases, still is) that a banjo is a man's instrument. After all, Uncle Dave Macon, Grandpa Jones, and Earl Scruggs led the way. (Oops...I should've mentioned Earl first!)

A man's instrument.

That was the way it was supposed to work out in the house where Bill and Helen Holcombe were raising their three children when, sometime in 1974, Bill brought a used banjo home (it even came with an instruction booklet and an instruction record). 

Bill struggled for two months to be the next Roy Clark or, well, Earl Scruggs...but, in the end, he couldn't even get one tune down. Wendy begged for the chance to see what she could do with that banjo, only to get turned down by her father: "This banjo is too expensive for you to fool around with."

Wendy found an ally in her mother.

Helen let the then eleven-year-old pick around with Bill's pride-and-joy while Bill was off at his nine-to-five. By the time that afternoon session came to end, Wendy mastered "Mountain Dew" and other numbers her dad tried to learn.

And when Bill came home from his job, he was so impressed with Wendy's version of "Dew" that he let her keep the same banjo he'd struggled with.

Helen's and Bill's little daughter practiced on that banjo day and night; she'd take it out to the Holcombes' barn and try her music out on her cows, goats, and horses. 

It paid off, because Wendy went on to win $50 at a county fair talent show...and that led to her going to nearby Birmingham to appear on TV's The Country Boy Eddie Show. 

WLH's big break was just up the road...Interstate 65, that is.

After seven months of pickin', Wendy wanted to go to Nashville's Grand Ole Opry to celebrate her twelfth birthday.

Bill and Wendy couldn't get tickets (you needed- and still need- to get those ducats in advance), so father and daughter decided to hang around Music City for a few hours. At the first music shop they ran into, WLH saw a snazzy-looking banjo and asked for permission to test it out.

Holcombe's version of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" attracted the bass player in Stoneman's band. He then took the young picker and her dad to a nightclub, where she played a few songs onstage...while "Billy Jack" met a promoter who said he could get the Two Holcombes backstage at Opryland.

That's where Wendy Holcombe met Roy Acuff.

Next thing she knew, she ended up backstage playing alongside his Smoky Mountain Boys, Jones, and several other Opry regulars. And that led to an appearance the next night at the "Midnight Jamboree" at Ernest Tubb's Record Shop.

And that spawned appearances on two other TV shows: The Porter Wagoner Show and Pop! Goes the Country. 

And then...and then...in the fall of '75: NOTR, put out by the same production company that came up with Pop! Goes the Country. 

Because of Nashville on the Road, Wendy Lou closed out 1975 by fulfilling her lifelong wish.

She performed at the Grand Ole Opry. 

On the main stage this time.

And what's more, Wendy Lou worked alongside Jim Ed at the Opry that night.

With Nashville on the Road becoming a hit, things continued to look up for "Muley's" and Cindy's kid sister, who went on to master the fiddle, the guitar, the mandolin, and the dobro...and topped that off by playing trumpet in her school's band back in Alabaster. 

All of that from a teenager who, at first, took piano lessons.

And as the 1970s started to morph into the 1980s, Wendy wanted to become a total entertainer. (She wanted to try acting...and in the process, follow Johnny Cash.)

Non-NOTR TV appearances began to mount up for the Alabaster Kid; they included turns on shows like Big Blue Marble, The Mike Douglas Show, and The New Mickey Mouse Club. And in 1979, she appeared on a Christmas special on ABC; the show was hosted by none other than Loni Anderson, of WKRP in Cincinnati fame; and Robert Urich, who was knocking 'em dead on that network's (ABC's) Vega$.  

Well, a guest shot on Hee Haw took Wendy's life in another direction...and we're going to look at that direction when we come back.

SHOUT-OUT TIME: A lot of this information came from an excellent Website, www.wendyholcombe.com. (Check it out whenever you get a chance!) 

That's NOT Entertainment!

Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Howard K. Smith, and so many other pioneering television journalists would be turning over in their graves if these legends could find out just how their current legatees are handling this business of newsgathering.   

Sorry, folks, but I just don't see news as entertainment.

News is news...period.  

The way the TV arms of this country's six biggest media companies followed this month's recent national events- starting with the 2014 midterm elections- soured me on continuing to watch their offerings, be they on these companies' broadcast networks or on their cable divisions. 

That's right...no more Hardball. No more 60 Minutes. Since the cable provider I've hooked up with dropped C-SPAN and C-SPAN 2 from the provider's basic lineup, the only meat I'm going to get when I turn on my TV set will come from PBS. 

Nobody else on the tube today is performing the role of watchdog.

TV reporters working for the commercial media firms aren't asking the tough questions...questions that help viewers get better informed.  

For instance, the TV reporters (and no telling how many other journalists in other media), while watching the Nuts (oops, I mean Republicans) retake the US Senate and solidify their hold on the US House, could've asked the new lawmakers- the ones vowing to get the Affordable Care Act repealed- to disclose their own replacement(s) for this law they hate so much. (Never mind that the components of the ACA were originally cooked up by GOP minds!)

These same journalists could've asked the Democrats seeking (and unable to gain) office to explain running away from their party's post-1933 accomplishments...let alone its post-2009 achievements.  

And the voters who just got through setting foot at their neighborhood polling places could've themselves used tougher questions...especially the voters in Florida, Kansas, Michigan, and Wisconsin. (People in those four states complained bitterly about their governors- Republicans all- misusing them. But that didn't stop those same voters from reelecting all four of them to second terms.)

Too much cowardice going on on the air...and I don't want to be in on it anymore.

In the meantime, I'll continue to read newspapers...and I'll continue to get right here on this Internet and go to the online versions of those papers, as well as sites like www.factcheck.org and www.dailykos.com.   

Online, you're not as likely to run into the cowardice that's prevented correspondents from Big Media from asking John Boehner to explain not taking Steve King or Mo Brooks to task for their racist comments...or asking this country's Speaker of the House to talk about that meeting he and Mitch McConnell attended hours after Barack Obama's first inauguration. (You know, the meeting where McConnell, Boehner, and other key Republicans got together and vowed: "We're not going to work with this 'N-word!'")

And then there's the grand jury's decision in Ferguson, MO, where twelve people decided to let Darren Wilson go free. 

These last three-going-on-four months, the only outlet in which I saw any mention of the role White privilege has played in Wilson's murder of Michael Brown (it wasn't enough to take Brown to the police station) was...www.dailykos.com. 

Would a reporter from CBS or CNN still have a job after addressing White privilege in America?  

Yes, Big Media, it's been quite a ride all these years of watching the news unfold on my (or my mom's or anybody else's) TV set. Lots of history being made.

But when your reporters aren't encouraged to ask tougher questions than the ones out there, and it's all because you're more concerned about profit and about glitz than about truth, it's time for me to get off the ship.

When I watch news on TV, I don't want to be entertained.

I want to be informed.

Watching "A.N.T. Farm"

You read it right. It's not a typo.

You're probably asking yourself: "What's a grown man- one in his fifties, at that- doing watching a show meant for two-to-fourteen year-olds?"

Well, I'll tell you: I find A.N.T. Farm to be a truly funny show.

What's more, I think it's got something to say to the adults in the lives of those two-to-fourteen year-olds the show's network, Disney Channel, aims its series at.

It comes on Friday nights (8:30 PM Eastern/Pacific, 7:30 PM Central/Mountain) and has been on since 5-6-2011, when Disney Channel aired the show's pilot. A.N.T. Farm became a weekly series a month ago (6-17-2011, to be exact).

The show revolves around three of the students in a gifted program (the "Advanced Natural Talents," or "A.N.T." program) at a San Francisco high school, Webster.

A.N.T. Farm's lead character is Chyna Parks (China Anne McClain, formerly of House of Payne, one of Tyler Perry's TBS shows), an eleven-year-old who's been admitted into the Webster program because of her immense musical talents. Chyna's ambitious, witty, sometimes helpful, sometimes vengeful, and- of course- talented. One of the things she likes to do is solve problems by writing songs about them (which happened in the show's third episode; Chyna had a crush on an older student, so she broke out her flute and came up with a ditty about her crush; last week, she used her guitar playing to get votes when she ran for the A.N.T. representative spot on the WHS student council).

By the way...Chyna's eleven other instruments are violin, piano, trumpet, saxophone, cello, harp, bagpipes, French horn, drums, harmonica, and spoons. (And to top it all off, she sings!)

Nope...you can't convince me that twelve-going-on-thirteen-year-old China Anne is faking the funk, not after she cowrote (with four other composers- two of them her sisters) and sang the series' theme song, "Exceptional."

Sierra McCormick plays Olive Doyle, a talkative, rather insecure girl who's got an eidetic memory. (When you've go an eidetic memory, that means you remember everything you've ever heard, read, or seen.) Olive not only is the show's science wiz...she's also its goof-off. (I liked the payoff scene in the 7-1-2011 episode; in it, Chyna and Olive wrestled with the remote control to the zeppelin Olive had built for Webster's Science Fair. And when the zep crashed into the power line of another science project, Olive quoted 1930s news reporter Herb Morrison, the man who was on the scene when the Hindenburg crashed in 1937: "Oh, the humanity!") 

I've got the feeling Olive's going to grow up to make a great, great voter.

Another thing about Olive: She's afraid of all kinds of things, from ghosts to disorganization all the way to...curly fries (so you'll never catch Olive eating at an Arby's).

Fletcher Quimby (Jake Short as an artistic genius) built the project that used those power lines. But the power lines he'd like to use are the verbal kind...and he'd like to use them on Chyna. (In the premiere episode, Fletcher told Chyna: "You're beautiful." But then, he ended up backing up and referring to her music as beautiful.)

When Fletcher isn't trying to paint portraits or erecting wax versions of himself and of his fellow ANTs, he's doing magic tricks.

Sometimes, you'll get to see Aedin Mincks on the show. On A.N.T. Farm, he's Angus Chestnut, the show's computer genius. Angus likes to run illegal programs, and, as a matter of fact, he's rigged the A.N.T. Room to drop a disco ball and switch the stereo to smooth jazz or soft rock whenever the would-be object of his affections- Olive- pays the least bit of attention to him.

Now to the older students:

Lexi Reed (Stefanie Scott) is a WHS cheerleader, the student body president, the perennial lead in the school's musicals, and...the school bully.

Lexi feels so threatened by Chyna's presence that, the night the show's viewers saw Chyna and Olive try out for the school's cheer squad, Lexi and Co. roughed Chyna up so badly that our multiinstrumentalist couldn't sing worth a hang when it came time to try out for this year's school musical. (But then, Lexi didn't get the lead this time, either!)

In other episodes, Lexi had bullied Angus (stuffing him into a cannon) and Cameron (forcing him to crawl into a trash barrel to find her sunglasses...that were in Lexi's purse all along).

If Ann Coulter ever gets a chance to watch this show, she'd truly like Lexi Reed.

Carlon Jeffery portrays Cameron Parks (that's right, Chyna's big brother). When the Parkses are in school, he tries to stay away from her and her A.N.T. buddies (they embarrass him, as was the case at the party Lexi threw the night we first met the A.N.T. Farm gang). He likes girls and money (but of course!), and that makes Cameron a successor to Hannah Montana's Jackson Stewart. (For that matter, Chyna and Olive are A.N.T. Farm's version of Miley Stewart and Lilly Truscott.)

Cameron's decision to start the school's "End Hunger Today Club" sounded Jacksonish in that it consists of its members stuffing their faces with buffalo wings...but Cameron sticking up for Chyna when it really counts lifts him above the character Jason Earles just got through playing.

I guess a show like this one has got to have someone who's clueless, and on this newest Disney Channel sitcom, that someone is Lexi's buddy Paisley Houndstooth (played by Allie DeBerry, who, I can assure you, is anything BUT clueless in Real Life).

I watch Paisley and wonder about today's American educational system...and I wonder about all those Real Life Paisleys out there (people who are going to end up voting for the first time later on in this decade of the 2010s!).

Geez...who else could refer to a violin as a "chin guitar?" And who else could, later, turn to that same "chin guitarist" and turn down a chance to elect that "chin guitarist" to the A.N.T. spot on the student council...on the grounds of being too young to vote? 

By the way...Cameron ended up winning the A.N.T. seat. (Okay...he isn't really an A.N.T. student. But he was tabbed to replace Angus in that seat because Cameron's in the same height range as the show's three leads. Matter of fact, Carlon stands 5-1...and I found that out by going to http://www.imdb.com/.)

The Parks parents are played by Finesse Mitchell (he's a cop in the SFPD) and Elise Neal (she's a children's party organizer).

Well, there you have it...a show that right now is averaging 3.9 million viewers a week (after grabbing 4.4 million of them for the premiere episode).

It makes me laugh out loud, and that's why I'm staying with this Farm. In fact, I'm putting every episode on DVD.

And I've tried to tape or DVD each first-run episode of just one other sitcom in my life.

And that series happened to be...Roseanne.