The first time I read anything about TikTok was someone saying they were mystified by the sudden re-popularity on that platform of Patience and Prudence’s “Tonight You Belong to Me,” a song from 1956.
Now, anybody who has been around me for more than 15 seconds knows that I waste no time on the ’50s, the decade when I was growing up – a fearful, repressive time of war-escapist deadness. I looked on much of its vaunted music as crap even as I listened to it while washing the family dishes, my house duty.
But there were certain songs that reverberate – or should reverberate – through the decades. I mean, did none of these puzzled musers about Patience and Prudence have a sense of romance in their teen years?
Checking out its history, I was puzzled to find that “Tonight You Belong to Me” was first recorded in 1926 and became a big hit the following year in a version by Gene Austin. I haven’t heard Austin’s version and so have no idea how he presented it, but as done by Patience and Prudence, it may be the most perfect teen-romance song ever – “I know, by the dawn, that you will be gone, but tonight you belong to me” – yes, presented as a dream, but holy shit!
They were real sisters, P&P (using their real names), daughters of a pianist and songwriter who worked with Sinatra. They were aged 11 and 14 when they recorded, promoted by their father, which now might be considered a subtle form of child abuse. But what a delightful piece of work, championing the sensually emancipated teens that we all wanted to be – but that none of us (that I knew) were.
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“Average sperm counts worldwide have declined by half over the past 50 years, and more steeply still in the past 20.”
Whooppee! So there’s some slim chance for human survival through sustained population collapse? But, assuming this account is statistically true, can anyone tell me why the sub-Saharan Africa population is predicted to explode over the next few decades, with Nigeria alone said to reach 750 million? Maybe they count their sperm differently there?
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Yet another celebrity I never heard of has died. Let us all mourn this otherwise inconsequential individual for having lasted as long as they did.
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Two Russianswere walking down the road. One had feelthy pictures, the other did not. The one who had feelthy pictures asked the one who did not: “Would you like to see my feelthy pictures?” The other replied sternly, “No!” The first, taken aback, exclaimed, “But you must want to see my feelthy pictures.” The other repeated, “No I am a pure-minded soul and would not let such things pass my sight.” The first reiterated: “When I say must, I mean must” and sat on the pure-minded one’s head, forcing him to look at the feelthy pictures. The pure-minded one, immediately enflamed with feelthy thoughts, assaulted the holder of the pictures, then rampaged through the town and countryside, ravishing farmyard animals, hired hands, and innocent barflies. He laid low 4 hunters, 13 farmers’ daughters, 32 cows, 47 sheep, and a shock of wheat that he mistook for Steve McQueen. At last he found himself at the junction where the borders of Russia, Poland, and the Czech Republic met. One foot was held in Czech, while the other was impaled upon a Pole. The owner of the feelthy pictures, having recovered from his defilement, wrenched the feelthy pictures from the other’s hand, bellowing: “Vile criminal, if there is one thing I cannot stand, it is a thief.” No longer enthralled by the feelthy pictures, the other Russian reverted to his pure-mined state and retired to a nearby border town, lending free legal advice to villagers who had been bilked by a fraudulent Fuller Brush salesman. The first Russian left his pea-sorting job to establish Podgorny’s Porn Parlor, where he makes great quantities of feelthy lucre.
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I’m delighted to see Kim Jung Un firing more missiles into the ocean. I guess it’s supposed to scare the bejesus out of us, but I look at it as a win for our side – he’s going to run out of missiles soon at this rate. (Actually, I think the real reason is that the damned things just don’t work, so he’s firing them into the middle of nowhere to get rid of the trash.)
lickhaven 