Sweet as the punch: The Association

THE ASSOCIATION LYRICS

"Along Comes Mary"

Every time I think that I'm the only one who's lonely
Someone calls on me
And every now and then I spend my time in rhyme and verse
And curse those faults in me

And then along comes Mary
And does she want to give me kicks, and be my steady chick
And give me pick of memories
Or maybe rather gather tales of all the fails and tribulations
No one ever sees

When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch

When vague desire is the fire in the eyes of chicks
Whose sickness is the games they play
And when the masquerade is played and neighbor folks make jokes
As who is most to blame today

And then along comes Mary
And does she want to set them free, and let them see reality
From where she got her name
And will they struggle much when told that such a tender touch as hers
Will make them not the same

When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch

And when the morning of the warning's passed, the gassed
And flaccid kids are flung across the stars
The psychodramas and the traumas gone
The songs are left unsung and hung upon the scars

And then along comes Mary
And does she want to see the stains, the dead remains of all the pains
She left the night before
Or will their waking eyes reflect the lies, and make them
Realize their urgent cry for sight no more

When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch

This isn't where all this started. As usual, I was doing something else: trying to track down something obscure, something that wouldn't leave my head, something decidedly dumb. It was a song along the lines of Cherish, with breathy male voices telling a highly unlikely story, only it turned out NOT to be a song by The Association (who did Cherish, Windy and a few other good ones, though Along Comes Mary is by far their best). There was a certain genre of pop then, with young men singing in that callow way, and vibraphones hitting plangent notes (I must look up plangent, I don't know what it means) while a chorus of guys sang, "BOM. . . bom. . .BOM. . .bom. . ."

I sort of had the feel of the song, like you have the feel of a dream that has almost slipped away, one that you were sure you would remember forever. The main thing I couldn't get rid of was an inane chorus that went "and you knew, that I knew, that you knew, that I knew" (ad nauseam). A line or two jumped out at me: "I regained my self-control and -" (blank). "Suddenly I wished I'd changed my shirt." Going nowhere, I decided to search using fragments of the lyrics.  Don't ask me how I did it, but I tracked it down, and it was just as awful as I remembered, if not worse:

It was written on my mind
Like the back of an envelope
Rehearsed and very carefully in reach
My cool cucumber non-committal speech
That I wrote while hanging out down at the beach
And I shivered from the cold of the ice in my granite heart
Knowing that you didn't have a prayer
And then I rang the bell and you were there and darling
Then your face was full of me
And then your eyes were too
And I knew, that you knew that I knew that
You knew that I knew that you knew that
I knew that you knew that I knew

I regained my self-control and I tried to close my big fat mouth
Before 'I love you' fell out on the floor
I didn't feel like Batman anymore
I hit my bloody elbow on the door
And then your brother asked if I had money for a haircut
And the pimple on my neck began to hurt
Suddenly I wished I'd changed my shirt and darling
Then your face was full of me
And then your eyes were too
And I knew that you knew that I knew that
You knew that I knew that you knew that
I knew that you knew that I knew

Once I pried it all apart, I discovered that the group was called The Love Generation, a great if hackneyed '60s name.  I found the song on YouTube and listened to it (this lyric transcript was full of mondegreens, by the way - misheard words which had to be corrected - Batman was "that man" - bloody elbow was "funny elbow" -  etc.) I think they were a watery copy of The Association, which actually turned out some decent tunes. The Love Generation was worth my while for that line about changing your shirt, however - it stayed in my mind, encrypted, for some 50 years.

As for Along Comes Mary. I always liked how the words tumbled over themselves, all on the same note, which somehow had a jazzy sound to it. But what I REALLY like is the fact that their live performances were better than their studio recordings. This one is slower, more mellow, and as a matter of fact all of them are probably stoned, but it helps the piece, brings out that crazy lyric which for some reason reminds me of Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye (my all-time-fave teen novel, right next to Lord of the Flies).

I'm trying to remember how old I was when this thing came out. I used to slavishly watch Leonard Bernstein's Young People's concerts back then - not just because my parents made me - and on one memorable show he demonstrated different musical modes like madrigals and fugues by playing and singing (horribly - he sang like a bull moose) various pop tunes. The kids were delighted, you could see it on their faces. One of those tunes was Along Comes Mary. How do I know this?  I was there, I saw it on TV. It was only on once, but like certain odd inexplicable things it riveted itself into my brain.  But I had never corroborated it until just a few minutes ago, when I found a YouTube snippet with Leonard Bernstein singing. . .

So it really happened, but could it have been in 1962 as the video claimed? I was eight years old then, my grandson Ryan's age. I must have been a sponge then, which makes me I wonder how much he is soaking up right now that he will remember when he's 60. If there's still a world left to live in.

(Oh, sorry! It couldn't have been that long ago, the song came out in 1966 when I was, geez, TWELVE years old, practically an adult! So much for having a preternatural memory. Now I have to look up TWO words.)

POST-SCRIPT. You thought there wouldn't be a post-script? This could go on all night, but it won't. I could keep digging up scholarly analyses of Along Comes Mary, whether it's an anthem to Mary Jane or the Virgin Mary or Mary Magdalene or the coming apocalypse, etc. etc. And as a matter of fact, when you really look at it, it could be all of the above.

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me. Except that Paul was referring to his dead mother, Mary. Or something else, sitting on his nightstand, always within reach.

Anyway, before I ditch this and get some sleep, here is just one fragment of the lunatic responses I found to the timeworn and useless question, "What does the song mean?"

I can't help but dismiss all this talk about drugs when talking about this song. This writer was classically trained & did rock & roll out of necessity more than anything else. I'm going to give you what he had in mind for the REAL meaning of this song. Hear me out & research the subject matter before you come to a rash determination. Along comes Mary is most definately about the role of Mary the Mother of Jesus The Christ. Not only does it describe the life altering affect she has on mortals by way of numerous earth appearances & various apparition sites over hundreds of years, but you hear proof of this as the last verse refers to The Warning which has been predicted numerous times over the many years ("and when the morning of The Warning's passed the gassed & flacid kids are flung across the stars." and then..."& does she want to see the stains, the dead remains of all the pain she caused the night before." also..."Oh will their waking eyes reflect their lies & make them realize their urgent cry for sight no more?") The Warning comes a year before The Miracle In The Sky & is predicted to come on a Thursday night @ 8:30 on the anniversary of an unnamed martyr. During a 10 minute period everything will stop; literally while God our Father opens our eyes & shows us how we offend Him Who loves us so much. This will change life as we knew it up to that point. It will GRIEVE us inwardly & to some it will be such a shock that it will cause expiration. Then we'll understand life as He wants us to & submit our selfish wills for His Divine Will by surrending ourselves to Him & to the service of others who need our help. Search The Warning on your toolbar. Anyway, this is the meaning of the song. Now, listen to the words now that your lyrical eyes have been opened.

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Spread 'em, boys!

Everybody knows that men often need to air their testicles in public. They do this without regard to the female passengers wedged between their spreadeagled legs.

Most women who have taken public transit have experienced the prison of male knees locked on either side in front of them. They must sit thigh-to-thigh with complete strangers who slowly but surely edge farther and farther into their space. The fact these people take up a seat-and-a-half's worth of public space doesn't concern them. In fact, it does not even occur to them.

Men can hold their legs at right-angles, and in fact, often do, while women cringe into themselves, not wanting to sit squashed against a strange man's bottom.

With no pesky females sitting on either side, they can really go to town and be the guys they were always meant to be. Some of us like to call this the Jumping Frog of Calaveras County look.

This guy happened to escape from a Contortionists Anonymous rehab facility. Either that, or he is warming up to do squats at the gym. Were he sitting on a bench seat, the women on either side of him would have been asphyxiated.

Is there a reason their feet are touching? Is it sort of like a Freemason secret handshake or something?

I think you're starting to get the idea. Women must keep themselves small. This is the whole idea of dieting. It's a childlike thing, and children are relatively powerless. And they don't jut their beefy thighs out into another person's seat space because they KNOW it would be rude, presumptuous, arrogant, and just WRONG.

This is a "hey, take a look at my testicles" pose. As one comedian used to say, his pants are so tight you can tell what religion he is. But if you don't like it, hey, don't look! (This does NOT apply to women's breasts, however. If women insist on parading their tits around, they have to be willing to take the consequences.)

This is a really good look at the family jewels. If women sat that way, they'd be raped within 5 minutes - asking for it, weren't they? Just a "come and get it" thing.

Speaking of free pussy, it looks as if this guy's shorts have virtually emasculated him. They have sunk into his scrotum to an alarming degree. I've never seen a man with camel toe before.  But we still get to have a really good look, whether we want to or not. If his hygiene isn't good, and let me tell you, there are plenty of men with NO hygiene, you get a really bad smell, too. But hey - isn't it women who stink? They have a whole line of products to kill the smell, and men don't. Maybe airing your nuts in public isn't such a bad idea.

Order The Glass Character from:

Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

Barnes & Noble

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-glass-character-margaret-gunning/1117863913?ean=9781927068885

Thistledown Press

http://www.thistledownpress.com/html/search/genre/Fiction/the_glass_character_p580.cfm

Chapters/Indigo

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/the-glass-character/9781927068885-item.html?ikwid=the%

How not to do a search (or find anything)

Listen, I was just trying to find something on a site called, I think, SilentComedyMafia.com. So I thought I'd see what they had on Harold Lloyd. Their system seemed designed to help me NOT find ANYTHING EVER. I have no idea what a wildcard is. I will never look up this site again.

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(Oh-but-there's-more. There's always more. Poking a little deeper into the site, I found just ONE page of about 15 pages of regulations you must follow before even looking at the site, let alone posting a message. Don't read this, please - I use it only as an example of how a web site can drive you into the woods before you even use it.)

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(Post-blahhhg thoughts: hmmmm, the word Mafia may apply here, in some obscure way. But I don't know how.)

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And he glittered when he walked

Richard Cory

BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.

I remember that we "took" this poem in school, way back in Grade 7 or thereabouts, and the chagrin, the consternation of the class: "But why did he DO that?" "He had everything." "Everyone envied him." "It's not fair." "It's a joke, isn't it?" " That would never happen."

My "favorite" was this lovely statement, which I have heard echoed many times and from many people - I mean adults who should know better, not kids:

"You kill yourself because you're crazy, and you're only crazy if you want to be."

I wonder now, if that kid is still alive, whether he thinks the same way.

I'm not supposed to think about any of this, of course. As one writer said, Robin Williams' death caused many people to suddenly come out of the closet and proclaim, "Yes, me too". But where are they now? No doubt they have retreated in terror, hoping against hope that no one remembers their foolishness.

I've written about this before. Halloween is coming, and in the past I've seen "mental patient" costumes, often with restraints and lurid "nurses" with syringes full of "sedatives". It's funny, isn't it? Come on. Come on, don't you have a sense of humour?

No. If that's what humour is, then no.

My brother was in these "loony bins", "nut wards", etc., on and off for years. I loved him dearly, and by his own admission he was not just crazy but "ca-RAZY". Eerily, I used to compare him to Robin Williams in his madcap ability to riff on outrageous themes, putting on characters and taking them off like masks, only to change at light speed to another subject entirely. One time he did a riff on the '60s TV show The Real McCoys, doing every voice from Grandpa to Luke to Little Luke to Hassie to  Kate to - his personal favorite - Pepino. Some of it was so x-rated that we fell out of our chairs.

He died in 1980, not of suicide as almost everyone assumes, but an accident. Two months later, John Lennon was shot and killed. It was a point of despair in my life.

So what is it about people who seem to have everything, who do themselves in anyway? I think of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, relapsing most awfully into a habit he thought he had beaten. I think of Amy Winehouse drinking a gallon of vodka and poisoning herself at age 27. I think we think they are immune. Not just that they are rich and famous, but loved - aren't they loved, too, I mean by friends and family?

Are they? Is there - is there balm in Gilead?

I have already published a couple of eerily similar photos of Robin Williams with dear friends who hold him so tenderly, he looks like a baby bird fallen from the nest. I once read that people who don't feel loved are like sawdust dolls with a tiny hole in the bottom. It keeps trickling out, almost imperceptibly, until the person is desperate for more supplies to keep from bleeding out.

What got all this started again? Well, it's close to Halloween which makes me think of all those awful mental patient costumes, totally dehumanizing but seen as ghoulishly funny, and CERTAINLY not anything to be offended about.  (You're too sensitive, you know? That's your whole problem.) We don't have Parkinson's or MS or ALS Halloween costumes, but then again, these illnesses are "physical", "real", no one's fault, with the sufferers seen as dignified and courageous, and therefore not frightening or subject to mockery. After all, it would be in very poor taste. 

 It's also from remembering Williams, who seems to have died a very long time ago (but at the same time, only yesterday), but most of all it's because yesterday I bought Billy Crystal's memoir, Still Foolin' 'Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys? It's typical self-deprecating Crystal humour, but not excoriating, with a sweetness, a gentleness that I have always loved about him. In fact, he is my favorite comedian.

He and Robin Williams were best friends. Closer than brothers, in many ways. This book was written and published before his suicide, but on the back is a quote from Williams that now seems poignant and unsettling: "This book is kick-ass funny and truly unique. A Hollywood autobiography with only one wife, no rehab, a loving family, and loyal friends."

I wonder if Williams secretly feared he had none of those things. It's a bit scary that he focused on that, as if to shame himself for having three wives and multiple trips to rehab.  To imply, almost, that Crystal was a superior version of himself - or, at least, not so scarred, not so vulnerable.

I don't want to go much farther into this because I don't fancy triggering off a lousy day of depression. It wouldn't do anything to change the situation. But oh how I wish people would wake up. I thought of a scenario that might have saved him - everyone has a theory, so here goes, here is mine:

He is pacing the floor, both despondent and frantic, knowing there is no way out of the crushing adversity that is coming at him from all sides. Soon he will be paralyzed from Parkinson's, his career will be over, and he won't be able to take part in the cycling that has kept him sane. Rehab did no good at all and made everything worse. He looks back with shame over the battlefield of his life, and for that moment he can't see anything good about it. At all. He has made a mess of things, and there is only one way out.

Though it is agonizing to do, though he has to stand up to an immense shame that is nearly overwhelming, he goes over to the phone, picks up the receiver, dials 9-1-1.

"Hello. I'm going to kill myself. Come get me, please. NOW."

CODA. From Leonard Bernstein's Mass. I used to carry this around written on a little piece of paper. Once a counsellor took it from me and read it in a sing-songy, Betty Crocker voice, then handed it back to me saying, "Oh, that's nice."

I don't know where to start

There are scars I could show

If I opened my heart

But how far, Lord, how far can I go?

I don't know. 

What I say I don't feel

What I feel I don't show

What I show isn't real

What is real, Lord

I don't know 

No, no, no. . . I don't know.

More delicious moments from Why Worry

A great pratfall with obvious sexual connotations. Note that she doesn't get up for a long time. Though he tries to ignore it, she has a certain effect on him that has him reaching for his heart pills.

These two are such a great team, with a dynamic force between them that works perfectly. Jobyna Ralston combines sweetness with intelligence and fire.  Harold has met his match.

He berates her for neglecting her duties, running around in boy's clothes when he should be looking after his health! The argument will soon escalate into something more.

Things are reaching the boiling point. . .

She's had it - had enough of his selfishness, his ridiculous imaginary ills, and she lets him have it. And he likes it.

Some nice stunt work here, which I am sure was NOT done by a double.


The thing about Why Worry is that beneath all that absurdity and comedy and charm, there's a cleverly hidden Lloydian message. This movie is all about a selfish, self-absorbed boy becoming a man. And how does this happen? LOVE! Love is always the motivation in every Harold Lloyd movie, for everything. By the end of the story he actually has a man's job and responsibilities, but when he finds out his wife (Jobyna, of course) has just had a baby, he leaps over the desk and begins to run like crazy to the hospital. Harold is telling us, without laying it on too thick, that it's possible to grow up without losing any of your natural exuberance.

A lesson he must have learned through experience.

One, two, three. . . KISS!!

The hottest kiss in movie history!

YES: it's here in gif form, at long last, after seven years of waiting: my favorite scene from my absolute-favorite Harold Lloyd movie, Why Worry?

It's romantic and sexy enough that this is set on a tropical island where a revolution ferments. But it also has a kind of subconscious romance going on, with (ultimately) explosive results. Harold plays a hopeless hypochondriac, a self-absorbed fussbudget oblivious to the longing glances of his gorgeous nurse, Jobyna Ralston. That is. . . until the very end, when something erupts.

In typical wacky Lloydian fashion, he asks her indignantly, "Why didn't you tell me I love you?" But by this time, Jobyna knows he's in the bag. All she has to do is stand there and wait.

And here it is, one of the hottest, most impetuous kisses I've seen in silent film - or talkie film - or ANY film, for that matter. He doesn't just grab, he SEIZES her while she reacts with a kind of violent spasm, resists him (very weakly), then  melts into his arms, even doing a subtle leg-pop that might have been a first in motion pictures. Up to this point, movie kisses were coy, taking place behind screens or during the fadeout, or followed by big happy-happy grins of boyish glee. What makes it even more exciting is the fact that all through the movie there are not-so-subtle hints that Harold is attracted to her, but refuses to let himself know it. She plays him like a fish for an hour and two minutes, then lands him like a pro.

But it gets even better. The camera pans away for a few seconds, as if to let your eyeballs cool off a bit, then comes back to the lovers, who are STILL KISSING. As I researched Harold's life, I came across several references to his affair with Ralson. This was their first movie together, meaning that we have a sort of Bogart and Bacall thing going, with sparks flying that show up onscreen. Her utter confidence in her charms, her adorable boy's clothing, her swivelling hips - well. Harold never was much of one for marital fidelity .We all have our frailties, and in this case resistance was futile.

I had no idea up to now that my gif program could handle an hour-long movie (in fact, it probably couldn't, and must have been upgraded by the site at some point) or that I could set it up "blind" without using the slider, but voila et voici! Now I want to gif the entire movie, and I might just try it, doing it in 10-second installments. There are many great moments in this film, and I still maintain that with its upside-down dynamics and general wackiness, it's the first screwball comedy ever made, the prototype for everything that came after.

And just when I'm tired of Harold Lloyd, or at least tired of the heartbreak of a book that probably isn't going anywhere, something like this comes along.

SPECIAL BONUS PHOTO! Only a few still photos exist of this amazing scene, likely "captures" taken directly from the film. This one is new to me, with Jobyna's right arm registering surprise and her leg-pop at its maximum. The more I look at this, the more eyebrow-raising it is, because it really does look as if their lower bodies are touching. Was Hal Roach asleep that day? Why doesn't anyone say anything about this? I'm sure I don't know.

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