History's Dumpster = GLORIOUS trash! Kitsch, music, fashion, food, history, ephemera, and other memorable and forgotten, famous and infamous pop culture junk and oddities of yesterday and today. Saved from the landfill of time...
This is a BIZARRE country Christmas tearjerker. By way of Motown.
That's right, Motown.
In the 1970s, Motown. The legendary home of snazzy R&B pop diversified a bit, starting Melodyland (which changed to Hitsville Records) for country music.
This wouldn't be Motown's last foray into country. In fact, Motown saw it's biggest country hits with Lionel Richie a decade later in the 1980s ("Stuck On You" and "Deep River Woman" w/ Alabama)
Pat Boone (yes, THAT Pat Boone) recorded some country albums for Melodyland/Hitsville. TG Sheppard recorded his first albums for them. And they signed Ronnie Dove. Who has been around as a Baltimore area country/pop artist since the '60s.
You can tell by the year this was released (1976) he was cashing in on the popularity of Red Sovine, who released another country tearjerker involving a little boy called "Teddy Bear" earlier that year that was a huge hit, cracking the pop Top 40 that year.
I heard a Holiday radio classic early this morning, "Same Old Lang Syne" by the late Dan Fogelberg and it got me thinking....
Very pretty song
for it's time, albeit a few of the lyrics are highly socially incorrect
today.
Met my old lover in the grocery store The snow was falling Christmas Eve I stole behind her in the frozen foods And I touched her on the sleeve....
First, that's a very dangerous way and place to approach women. Standing behind her in the frozen food aisle and touching her on her sleeve is just enough distance for her to turn around and upside you with a family size box of Banquet Salisbury Steak that'll leave a massive bruise on the side of your head well into the new year if she doesn't recognize your face at first.
She went to hug me and she spilled her purse And we laughed until we cried....
Pay attention to the store intercom. If you hear Jessica Simpson's rendition of Jingle Bells being cut off and a grouchy cashier grumbling "Brandon...Clean up on Aisle 4.....Brandon, clean up on Aisle 4....", it's a good idea for both of you to stop laughing and pick up all the stuff she dropped.
We went to have ourselves a drink or two But couldn't find an open bar We bought a six-pack at the liquor store And we drank it in her car....
Maybe this is the only place on Earth where the grocery and liquor stores stay open longer than the bars on Christmas Eve. Butin some states
(In Washington State namely - especially on Christmas and New Year's Eve), the state patrol is
out in full force with extra patrols looking for any mere sign of
impaired driving. With a .08 legal breathalizer limit, one 12oz. can of
Budweiser (if your old lover just drank it very recently) is enough to
do her in.
A six pack could get her up to a year in the slammer. Or at least two years of probation misery and a suspended license.
Any open container
found in her car - even if she's perfectly sober and it's been under
her seat and emptied long ago is enough to get her a healthy fine in WA.
Even if she's parked out of the way and a cop finds her and asks to do a vehicle search (like what's your old lover gonna say to them? No?), she will get her vehicle searched anyway, like it or not. And if they find an empty, she's still gonna get hit with a big fine. And a mandatory field sobriety test.
Which means the only car you
and your old lover will have to drink your beer in is a rusted
out old piece of vehicular homicide on blocks surrounded by weeds in her
backyard. And since the man she married was an architect. Who are not only wealthy, but very finicky about appearances. I don't think he'd be down with that kind of landscaping
anyway. To say nothing of his wife messing around with an old boyfriend like that on Christmas Eve.
How's that for romantic reunions?
So your cheap
choices on where to drink a six pack with your old lover when all the open
bars have been closed on Christmas Eve (usually by 6:00 PM) are limited. This can actually be a blessing in disguise.
Because most
cheap motels here are usually open 24/7. Some motel units offer kitchenettes with refrigerators for your old lover to keep the frozen food she just bought at a safe temperature. And last I checked, you and
your old lover can STILL drink beer in those. At least.
SUPER cheese points if the unit hasn't been redecorated since 1973 and includes a Magic Fingers king size bed.
I once actually plunked $5 in quarters into one of these.
If you don't mind very basic cable TV, the crackheads next door and the potential of a nasty bedbug infestation these days, cheap motels really aren't so bad.
Just pay cash or
make sure your old lover doesn't have a hitched credit card with the
architect husband who kept her warm and safe and dry.
But if she said she saw you at the
record store and that you must be doing well (probably meaning
you weren't trying to fop off your Clay Aiken CDs for the beer money),
that too shouldn't be a problem.
Dan really should
have written an updated Washington State version of this song. Yeah, it
probably would have had at least ten or more extra verses (depending on
the strength of the beer.)
You probably don't recognize the name Stanley Arnold. That's a shame. Because he was the mastermind behind the best selling yearly Christmas music compilation album series in history; The Great Songs Of Christmas
You know it was best selling because your parents, grandparents or great-grandparents probably owned a few copies, if not the entire set. And to this very day, you can't thumb through any vinyl LP bin of your local thrift shop without finding at least one of the 1961-1970 Vol.1-10 run.
"Simply put, Stanley Arnold was an idea man. He originally worked for
the ad agency Young & Rubicam, then struck out on his own. He
didn’t want to start an ad agency, he started an idea agency, coming up
with marketing ideas for companies but letting them (or their ad
agencies) handle the details themselves. One of those ideas was
getting Goodyear to put out an album of Christmas songs. His logic was
simple: “Santa Claus never used a tire, but it occurred to me that
Christmas had two deep connections with Goodyear. First, everyone is
interested in Christmas; second, Goodyear sells many, many tires during
the pre-Christmas season. That would be the million dollar idea for
Goodyear, I decided: an album of Christmas music.” He was adamant that
the album not be one of “cutie” songs like “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa
Claus” or “Rudolph”, but rather of classic tunes done by quality artists
– a collection worthy to be called “The GREAT Songs of Christmas.”
Arnold
was savvy business-wise, not just in the idea department. He had
Goodyear act as the outlet for the album, but did not require them to
actually invest anything in it; that way, Goodyear couldn’t lose a penny
on the deal even if no one actually bought the record. But he did have
to convince Goodyear to think big: they initially thought 30,000 copies
nationwide would be sufficient for Columbia to make; Arnold was
thinking 3 million. They eventually compromised at 900,000. The
success was proven by a simple act: by December 1, Goodyear ordered its
advertising agency to stop all advertising for the record –because there
weren’t any left! The print order for the 1962 album was 1.5 million,
and almost 2 million for the 1963 album. History repeated itself, and
those albums sold out well before Christmas also." - The Great Songs of Christmas from Goodyear
Beginning in 1961 and well into the '70s, for one dollar and a trip to your Goodyear guy, you could pick up this record and one every year. No need to stick around and kick a tire or two (unless the smell of brand new vulcanized rubber is your thing.) Nothing else to buy.
It was a loss-leader gimmick that worked out so amazingly well, it spawned some imitators (Goodyear rival Firestone had it's own custom line of yearly holiday albums custom made by Columbia's rival RCA Records for "FTP Productions" beginning in 1962.)
The Firestone album series, while a worthy nod had one problem. They initially offered a couple stars across the records and that strategy backfired against Columbia/Goodyear's wider selection. (Firestone's 1966 album was ALL Julie Andrews!)
The Goodyear records also, like K-Tel & Ronco's a decade later, had smaller grooves and selections were edited to fit. (Coincidentally, Columbia would go on to press K-Tel's early '70s albums.)
Look familiar?
Some Goodyear albums also contained exclusive recordings that to this day cannot be found anywhere else.
The Goodyear Series
(1961)
(1962)
(1963)
(1964)
(1965)
(1966)
(1967)
(1968)
(1969)
(1970) Vol. 10 was a "Best of" compilation of the most popular tracks of the
previous nine albums, leading most collectors to believe Goodyear was
discontinuing the series (they weren't just yet.)
In 1971, the series did continue...but under different names.
(1972)
(1973)
(1974)
(1975) Distribution switched from Columbia to RCA and featuring mostly RCA artists. And Goodyear's rival Firestone affiliated with Columbia.
(1976) An all Henry Mancini LP
(1977) Perry Como and Eugene Ormandy
However, other retailers were also interested in releasing their own tie-in
packaged compilation albums. JCPenney, Sears, A&P Grocery, Safeway
and several others also offered holiday music compilations of their own
through the major labels and now Goodyear and Firestone were two of many and sales slumped.
The labels also offered non tie-in compilation albums (sometimes with the same track listing and order as the Goodyear/Firestone albums) available through any
retailer through their "Special Product" or "Special Market" divisions.
The Christmas album loss leader remained popular through the 1980s. By the '90s, production had switched exclusively to cassettes and CDs.
One of the last attempts at a Christmas loss leader series, these cassettes were produced by RCA in 1991 and marketed by Winston cigarettes. They were given away free with the purchase of specially marked 2 pack boxes.
Religion can make people do funny things. Like join them.
And in the '80s, the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was one dubious character.
For me, It wasn't so much the fact he was this strange little Indian guru who came out of nowhere. I was open to new things even back then.
It was the fact he was simply just every bit of a flaming nutjob as Pat Robertson. And the scary fact there are people attracted to people like these is one I've never been able to live comfortably with.
The Bhagwan came to America in 1981 and shortly located to a remote area in Northeast Oregon. He bought a big 64 acre ranch and decided to convert it into a mini-village for his thousand-strong faithful called Rajneeshpuram.
Naturally, your neighbours up and down the road are going to have a problem with this if you set a thousand-strong strange people out loose wandering around in an area of less than 400 - often driving the Bhagwan around in Rolls-Royces. His teachings were a bizarre mixture of Eastern philosophy, sexuality and material obsession.
I'm automatically suspicious of any religious leader that needs to ride around in fancy new cars while everyone else has to walk.
The extra population boost from Rajneesh's followers (along with the import of several thousand homeless people) eventually was big enough to overwhelm the nearby city of Antelope, OR and by 1984, the City of Antelope became the City of Rajneesh.
City of Rajneesh, 1985
The original residents were angry at the newcomers whom they saw as invaders.
The Rajneeshees also made a series of New Age music albums under the name Basho's Pond.
This album perfectly defines New Age music if you've never heard it before. Note the "audiophile quality virgin Teldec vinyl" and DMM mastering. It was meant to be played on higher end stereo equipment. Which by the time you're finished buying the stereo amplifier, tuner, speakers, CD player, CDs, cassette deck, cassettes, turntable and records, New Age music was essentially an $8,000 wind chime.
You can hear some of it here: http://ghostcapital.blogspot.com/2012/12/chaitanya-hari-deuter-govindas-deva.htm
Now things were really getting weird. And so was the Bhagwan. First he encouraged free love....Then he backtracked when AIDS became a terrifying epidemic. There was no cure for HIV/AIDS (there still isn't.) And virtually nothing was known about it amongst the general population, only that it was only a "gay" disease (it isn't.) Gay people (especially gay men) were targets of persecution across the nation due to the AIDS scare. And there was no shelter to be found in the Rajneesh community for them. Rajneesh preached the same hateful rhetoric as the fundamentalist Christians. He also favoured euthanasia for children born with birth defects.
Things came to a nasty head however when it was revealed Rajneesh's followers were involved in a bio-terrorism plot. Their plan involved contaminating salad bars with salmonella at restaurants in The Dalles, OR in an attempt to thwart the local election in their candidate's favour by reducing local voter turnout. The plan backfired - more local people voted than ever and the FBI and INS quickly began to investigate. It was revealed they had salmonella in vials and a petri dish and Rajneesh and his aides quickly attempted to flee the country. Rajneesh was arrested on immigration charges. But not on the bio-terrorism charges. On a plea bargain, he eventually returned to India, where he changed his name to Osho. He died in 1990.
His ashram in India is still active..
Plaque in Antelope, OR which memorializes the Rajneesh "invasion".......
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