Motown in Motown.

I was buying pine nuts at the Eastern Market Saturday, at one of the bricks-and-mortar stores. I was there relatively early, but by no means break-of-dawn hours, and something seemed to be missing. They’re rearranging the checkout area, but it wasn’t that. The crowds? The store wasn’t overrun, but was plenty busy. The sound system clicked to life with the opening hand claps in “Where Did Our Love Go?” and the woman behind me in line began to sing along with Diana Ross.

Of course. The Motown was missing.

It’s hard to overstate how pervasive Motown music is in Motown. Close to half a century since some of these songs were on the charts, and you still hear them, daily, in an average day’s errands. It’s the preferred Muzak in stores all over the Metro, presumably because in a vast, multiracial, frequently acrimonious place, it’s the one thing everyone can agree on. We all like the Supremes. Everyone knows “Mickey’s Monkey.” It doesn’t matter if you go stag, it doesn’t matter if you go drag, you’re sure to have some fun, I’m telling everyone, most every taxi that you flag is going to a go-go. And when you get there, they’ll be spinning some Stevie Wonder.

I hear Motown in the grocery store, Motown at the gas-station pumps, Motown at fancy-dress affairs, because it’s a way of honoring the city’s history and African American population and pre-riots glory, while still getting even suburban toes tapping. There’s a Motown store in the airport, where you enter the Northwest (now Delta) terminal, and of course it’s always playing Motown. I wonder if the clerks go insane with it after a while, or if it just becomes white noise.

You think about Motown the record label, and the way it has squatted over Motown the city, and it’s no wonder most people elsewhere know little about the depth and breadth of music the city has produced, before and after. I understand why you don’t hear Eminem or Kid Rock at the airport, but couldn’t they throw in some John Lee Hooker or White Stripes? The MC5 didn’t have “motherfucker” in all their lyrics. They play Bob Seger, you say, and yes, they do. But for every Bob Seger song, you’ll hear 25 spins of “Tears of a Clown.”

I love this music as much as anyone, but even I can get a little impatient with it. If you’re going to play it that much, give us some B-sides and deep cuts for variety, if nothing else. And stop playing “Tears of a Clown.” I mean it. That one’s about to join “Respect” and “Dark Side of the Moon” on my If I Never Hear It Again, I’ve Already Heard It Quite Enough, Thank You playlist.

So, it sounds like everyone had a nice holiday. We’re having a heat wave in my part of the world — maybe in yours, too. As during cold snaps, now is the time when general-assignment reporters at newspapers all over the affected area pick up their phones and pretend to be deeply engrossed in productive conversations when their bosses stand at the end of the bullpen with that eenie-meenie-minie-moe look in their eyes. No one wants to do this weather story. A good tornado? Sure, I’ll roll on that in a heartbeat. But the heat-wave story makes you stupider just thinking about it, let alone reporting it. You talk to an indulgent ER doctor at a local hospital, one who is perhaps being hazed by his colleagues. He gives you his expert medical opinion on how one might avoid heat exhaustion: Stay in air-conditioned buildings as much as possible. If you must go out, make sure to drink plenty of fluids, but not alcohol or caffeine. Really, water is best. Avoid standing in direct sun — seek shade. If you feel dizzy or otherwise impaired, by all means, stop what you’re doing and rehydrate.

On the metro desk of the Nance Times, we tell people that heat waves are an excellent time to exercise strenuously outdoors, right around 4 p.m. Don’t drink water; in fact, high heat is an excellent time to lose that pesky water weight. Have a beer if you’re thirsty. Have five! Then have a long nap on the front lawn, preferably in direct sunlight.

So, some bloggage for an indoors-in-the-AC day? Sure:

When I was growing up, Cracked magazine was the B-team version of Mad. When did they start running stories like this? It’s actually fairly smart.

What do we think of Floyd Landis’ latest spill on Saint Lance? I find it pretty convincing, but you? Maybe not.

If you’re not reading Coozledad when he gets cranky, you should.

Via Hank: One of the Stranger’s better writers goes to see Gallagher’s act in suburban Seattle. Yeah, he’s still alive. No, it ain’t pretty.

Welcome back to the week. Short one. Yay.

Posted at 1:16 am in Current events, Detroit life |
 

54 responses to “Motown in Motown.”

  1. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 6, 2010 at 7:16 am

    Re: Floyd’s story — actually, it does not sound convincing to me. Long story, but by the time I got to the end, I found myself trusting Floyd less and Armstrong more. My guess is that there was something done on the USPS team that pushed to and flirted with the beyond of the rule horizon, but when Landis wanted to be the big cheese, went out on his own, and pushed well beyond the horizon — and got busted — he worked very hard at reframing and adapting his narrative to self-justify. I’m not sure what Armstrong and his team did then, and I’m sure they’re hiding something, but I don’t find myself convinced this is a true and accurate account by an aggrieved party, but an attempt by a drowning man to pull someone else down with him.

    But I’m now curious enough to ask some local serious cyclists what they know or hear in the background of this story. Thanks for the link (and I’m glad you enjoyed TS3).

    918 chars

  2. coozledad said on July 6, 2010 at 9:04 am

    Cracked has become something entirely different in its web incarnation. Good stuff, about as good as SPY. If they start running sardonic investigative pieces, they’ll be every bit as good.
    I wish I’d been required to take industrial arts courses in both grammar and high school, and some basic sewing. I don’t even know if they offer those classes anymore. The whole core math/science curriculum is useless if we’re just churning out wage monkeys who are discouraged from accepting biological science, anyway.

    510 chars

  3. nancy said on July 6, 2010 at 9:11 am

    I dunno. Having changed his basic story so many times, Landis is of course working without the benefit of the doubt. But every credible story I’ve read about cycling says the sport is dirty top to bottom, has been for decades, and continues to turn up dopers year after year. (The earliest cycling doping scandals involved straight amphetamines, and the first casualty was a guy who dropped dead after a long mountain climb.) When someone dominates it as thoroughly as Saint Lance has, when people all around him are getting caught, when there’s smoke all over the room and Lance keeps saying, “Not me, I’m not on fire,” you naturally think one of two things:

    Either that guy really is the very very best, or else he has an extremely good fire-management system.

    I also look for the little lies. Armstrong gained the public’s love by presenting himself in a very specific way: Cancer survivor humbled by near-death experience, now grateful for second chance to have a life and family and career. And OK, but marriages are fragile things, so regretfully, he’s divorcing. And then he takes up with a rock star, and then he takes up with an actress, and now he has another girlfriend, who’s having his children, but they’re not married, and so on and so on.

    And I’m not supposed to believe he’s the guy who hangs out at strip clubs? Sorry, that rings true. I also notice the Trek people did a say-nothing confirmation on the fact the equipment they’re donating to the team is suddenly turning up for sale on the internet. Landis says that’s how they funded the doping program, and that, also, rings true.

    I’m still not entirely convinced. It’s true he’s never been caught, and this is a guy who’s probably peed in more cups and bled into more vials than anyone. And a conspiracy involving this many people has to fall apart at some point. But I also wonder if Armstrong isn’t the perfect candidate to be the invisible doping cyclist — wouldn’t a testicular cancer survivor already take supplemental testosterone? And isn’t red-blood-cell transfusion already devilishly hard to detect?

    I haven’t thought much of him since he started behaving like Tiger Woods (aided and abetted, as always, by Nike). But something in this very detail-rich story just got under my skin.

    2282 chars

  4. brian stouder said on July 6, 2010 at 9:17 am

    If it wasn’t for Nance, my image of Detroit would be some sad, technically unexplainable cloud of overgrown lots and broken windows and abandoned buildings. Just last night, C-SPAN pulled me in with a guy who wrote a book called Detroit Disassembled (Andrew Moore), which has many depressing pictures. Despite his optimistic talk about Detroit’s bright future, the images from his book were preaching an entirely different message.

    But I stayed with the show because, beside the author of the depressing picture book was a poet and a son of Detroit – Philip Levine, who was simply marvelous to listen to. His lively wit and discerning eye communicated something more – just as Nance did, with regard to the sounds that Detroiters expect to hear.

    I hear Motown in the gro­cery store, Motown at the gas-station pumps, Motown at fancy-dress affairs, because it’s a way of hon­or­ing the city’s his­tory and African Amer­i­can African Amer­i­can pop­u­la­tion and pre-riots glory, while still get­ting even sub­ur­ban toes tap­ping.

    Like a city’s heartbeat

    1089 chars

  5. LAMary said on July 6, 2010 at 10:05 am

    There’s a big discount supermarket in my neighborhood with a playlist on its sound system that challenges memory. I think they managed to get only the b sides of sixties and seventies songs. I only recognize songs if I owned the 45.

    232 chars

  6. Deborah said on July 6, 2010 at 10:08 am

    Not only is the Gallagher story not pretty it’s down right terrifying. The horrifying part is the fact that the audience loves it. Creepy. This sums it up “insignificant ramblings of a desperate has-been”.

    205 chars

  7. harrison said on July 6, 2010 at 10:15 am

    Nancy, Here’s my entry for the If I Never Hear It Again, I’ve Already Heard It Quite Enough list:

    Free Bird.

    114 chars

  8. baldheadeddork said on July 6, 2010 at 10:25 am

    Landis forever lost any credibility when he tried to blackmail Greg LeMond – by exposing that LeMond had been molested.

    Remember that?

    http://velonews.competitor.com/2007/05/news/lemond-drops-bombshell-at-landis-hearing_12271

    I used to ride in amateur races when I was a teenager. I’ve never believed that Armstrong was clean. There was such a massive jump in his performance after his comeback, it was like he was a different rider. Before his comeback he had won two stages in four or five TdF’s, at an age when he should have been at his physical peak. He won twenty after the age of 29. For comparison, Eddie Mercx had won the fourth of his five TdF’s at the age when Armstrong had won his first. Being a good rider in your twenties and then ripping off seven TdF’s in your thirties just doesn’t happen.

    818 chars

  9. brian stouder said on July 6, 2010 at 10:38 am

    and on the subject of conspiracy theories regarding races I don’t care about, there is the tempest in a teapot over “Little E”‘s dominating victory at Daytona on Saturday night. His car was a one-off deal with the team his dad (Saint Intimidator) drove for, back in the day, and in retro-livery. The win assures lots and lots of toy collectible car sales, and tee shirts, and hats – and plus, it was jes-downright lump-in-yer-throat storybook stuff. (Actually, the ‘storybook’ part might be literally true, but again, who cares?)

    Maybe they should simply eliminate the Tour De France dope rules; make it an “all’s fair” affair, and whichever dope wins the thing is the winner, period. And we’ll see who the real dope is, when that person’s heart explodes, and their yellow tee shirt turns orange

    798 chars

  10. Randy said on July 6, 2010 at 10:53 am

    There is a mall here in downtown Winnipeg that opened in 1979. The muzak has not been changed in 31 years. It is a time capsule of the very worst disco tunes from the era. I used to work for the maintenance staff in the summers, and they confirmed that someone hit “play” all those years ago, and never changed it, or turned it off.

    332 chars

  11. nancy said on July 6, 2010 at 11:09 am

    The *worst* disco tunes? And what would *those* be?

    Actually, I think disco gets a bad rap. It’s just dance music, and I enjoy quite a bit of it. Just the other day, the iPod tossed up Kool and the Gang’s “Funky Stuff,” and I thought, “You know, the coach’s whistle really was an unexploited musical instrument until the disco era. Glad to see it get its day.”

    363 chars

  12. Joe Kobiela said on July 6, 2010 at 11:37 am

    Brian,
    He won on Fri not Sat, in the old Bush series race,not cup. Regardless, looks alittle funny,but that is what makes nascar what it is,or was,it aint cheating less you get caught. I think it was Junior Donlevy who drove off from the inspection area after nascar removed the fuel tank,and who can forget D Waltrip Blowing his engine up as he crossed the finish line. I miss the old nascar, Davy Allison was our guy.
    Pilot Joe

    432 chars

  13. Carolyn said on July 6, 2010 at 11:45 am

    I hereby testify that the proprietess is a fan of Motown going way back.
    I recall a newspaper party circa 1984 at her Summit City apartment. It was set to an extended Hitsville USA soundtrack. When “Dancing in the Street” cued up, most of us headed out the front door to, yes, dance in the street.
    It was some party. Hoping you remember, Nance.

    346 chars

  14. brian stouder said on July 6, 2010 at 11:52 am

    Joe – I stand corrected!

    To me, nascar will turn my head more, when they make the cars look more like the “stock” cars they’re supposed to be. The lower series is said to be doing this…what a concept!

    206 chars

  15. vince said on July 6, 2010 at 11:59 am

    Just one minute after reading your take on that staple of local news, the dreaded hot weather story, I heard virtually the very same words spout out of my radio. It was as though they’d channeled your brain, the wording was so similar.
    The sad thing is, I was listening to NPR, stunned that this amounted to their lead story of the hour.

    “Yes, it’s hot. That’s why they call it summer. Back to you in the air conditioned studio, Nance….”

    447 chars

  16. vince said on July 6, 2010 at 11:59 am

    Just one minute after reading your take on that staple of local news, the dreaded hot weather story, I heard virtually the very same words spout out of my radio. It was as though they’d channeled your brain, the wording was so similar.
    The sad thing is, I was listening to NPR, stunned that this amounted to their lead story of the hour.

    “Yes, it’s hot. That’s why they call it summer. Back to you in the air conditioned studio, Nance….”

    447 chars

  17. basset said on July 6, 2010 at 12:14 pm

    the way I heard it, the drove away without a gas tank story involved Smokey Yunick, a legendary interpreter of the rules. I believe Waltrip’s team was once caught loading lead shot inside the metal tubing of the car’s frame, then dumping it on the track through a spring-loaded port once the race started, lightening the car considerably.

    stock car racing and mainstream country music were a lot more fun before they got corporate and you could tell the cars… and the cowboy hats… apart.

    we were big Lake Speed fans back in the 80s, then Sterling Marlin, then lost interest.

    587 chars

  18. MarkH said on July 6, 2010 at 12:16 pm

    I never, EVER thought Gallagher was funny.

    42 chars

  19. MichaelG said on July 6, 2010 at 12:33 pm

    I had a friend who raced go-karts. He would load shot into frame tubes to meet weight and also to balance the kart for the track he was going to run.

    Remember NASCAR driver Dick Trickle? The guy who used to smoke during cautions? My favorite name.

    253 chars

  20. moe99 said on July 6, 2010 at 12:40 pm

    Just to set the record straight, Bremerton is all the way across Puget Sound, to the west of Seattle, an hour by ferry or two hours around the Sound by car. It is perhaps something of a bedroom community (although the shipyards there employs many of its residents) but it is not a Seattle suburb.

    27 years ago, I was in private practice, doing asbestos defense (the irony, it buurns) and we had quite a bit of business in the Bremerton area because the shipyards were going full tilt during WW2 and no one wore masks. The deposition I most remember was outside of Bremerton in this worker’s house. Had to be because he was so sick and weak from mesothelioma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was on oxygen.

    The name of the game was to get the plaintiff to identify the types of asbestos insulation and blankets he worked with at the shipyards to assess liability. As a result there were always 12-15 attorneys at these things representing all the manufacturers. Well, the worker’s house was very small and it was incredibly dirty. Not only were the sink and counters piled high with old dishes, the worker had cats that had sprayed indiscriminately throughout the house for several years. So put this together with a court reporter and 15 attorneys, you get the picture. It was perhaps, one of the shortest depositions ever taken. I was quite glad to be on the ferry going back to Seattle that afternoon.

    1433 chars

  21. 4dbirds said on July 6, 2010 at 12:50 pm

    So Moe, I take it you won’t be watching Animal Planet’s Confessions: Animal Hoarders airing later this month?

    110 chars

  22. KLG said on July 6, 2010 at 12:51 pm

    Floyd Landis has no credibility, period. Is he telling the truth? This time? Does anyone really believe that such a conspiracy, necessarily involving scores of people, can be maintained in perpetuity. The CIA isn’t even that good. Maybe Lance is a doper. But the burden of proof is on his accusers. As for all the little things not adding up in Armstrong’s personal life, it is hard to imagine anyone enduring such wall-to-wall scrutiny and coming out on the other side looking particularly clean: You did what with that girl/boy you met at the club when you were a college sophomore? And you did it where? How many times? Without taking “precautions”? As for behaving like Tiger Woods, run that one by me again. Whatever Armstrong is doing now, it is after his divorce. Tiger’s skank marathon seems to have begun before his marriage and proceeded without interruption while he was married and using his perfect family to burnish his image as a super human being and benefactor to humankind. Sorry. Not the same.

    1027 chars

  23. Jason T. said on July 6, 2010 at 1:28 pm

    Nancy, I sent your spoof to several friends of mine in the newspaper business, and one responded: “I just assigned out heat wave story for tomorrow to the intern. He’s on the heat beat until further notice.”

    So we get insightful stories like this one in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where we learn the shocking news that ice cream is selling well.

    And from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

    Senior citizens and infants should stay in air-conditioned buildings, if possible, and everyone should avoid heavy exertion outdoors, particularly during midday and early afternoon, said Guillermo Cole, spokesman for the Allegheny County Health Department.

    Seriously, that’s beyond parody. The Internet isn’t killing newspapers. Newspapers are committing suicide.

    990 chars

  24. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 6, 2010 at 1:34 pm

    For the record, I have no trouble believing the strip club accusation, which even in Landis’ telling was fairly tame. And the fact that after surviving testicular cancer he came back eerily good — staring at death when you’re young & healthy can take even laser focus and sharpen it up. It’s not that any of us thinks Armstrong is as squeaky clean as he wants to claim, it’s that I’m betting the unvarnished truth is nowhere near what this latest account from Floyd claims; Lance is now in a corner where he can’t admit to taking an unauthorized throat lozenge without it potentially tarring his entire career. I’m not a fan, don’t have a yellow bracelet, but BHD summed it up well — this clown should be well past his story sell-by date. Running with his latest emission isn’t too far different from printing a front page “Hey, it’s hot in July, so don’t wear dark clothes” story.

    891 chars

  25. Bob (Not Greene) said on July 6, 2010 at 2:01 pm

    I always hated Gallagher, too. Now I know why I hated him so, so much. God damn, that is absolutely pathetic.

    Nance, I am Motown-ed out as well. I mean, I was Motown-ed out by about 1990 and it’s ALWAYS on. Oldies radio is the worst, because if they’re not playing “Splish Splash” they’re playing Motown over and over. I like it, I’m just done with it. Give me some Otis Redding or Sam Cooke, please. Or, better yet, Big Joe Turner.

    435 chars

  26. Catherine said on July 6, 2010 at 2:29 pm

    At the top of my IINHIAIAHIQETY playlist: U2, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Love the band but how about looking a little farther down the hits list?

    164 chars

  27. MarkH said on July 6, 2010 at 2:47 pm

    Bob (NG) – check out Time-Life’s infomercial for their rhythm & blues cd collection, running on cable/satellite. Lots of film of Redding, Cooke (early stuff), Turner and more. Great selections.

    197 chars

  28. Linda said on July 6, 2010 at 2:47 pm

    I’m a Detroit native, and the reason I think they play Motown to death (though I love it) is because it’s baby boom era music that white people love, too. I’ve often thought about my favorite songs ABOUT Detroit, as opposed to made in Detroit, and it’s weird that except for one novelty song about Detroit by the Miracles, and a shout-out in Dancing in the Streets, no Motown songs are about Detroit.

    What would be on that list? “Detroit City” by Bobby Bare, “One Piece at a Time” by Johnny Cash (about Detroit’s favorite urban legend), and John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen,” about the night life in Paradise Valley.

    And Nance, I’m with you about disco. It was fun dance music. I think it got a lot of disrespect because it was put out and embraced by so many marginalized people, like gays and women, and didn’t take itself seriously, while rock was dominated by artists who took themselves as seriously as a heart attack.

    936 chars

  29. nancy said on July 6, 2010 at 3:00 pm

    Just got back, and have a ton of work to do and comments to reply to, but Linda, I found a lot of Detroit (by and about) music via iTunes. They had a compilation a few years back — can’t find it anymore, probably gone — that was my introduction to the Dirtbombs, the Gories and several other tight little garage bands, and was well-peppered with the classics — “Panic in Detroit,” “Detroit Breakdown,” etc.

    Of course, of my private D-town mix, I treasure the Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ version of “Detroit Rock City,” gifted to me by our own Ashley Morris on the occasion of our relocation.

    595 chars

  30. Jolene said on July 6, 2010 at 3:29 pm

    A little while ago, an MSNBC reporter (I use the term loosely.) did a live shot w/ a pedicab operator who was peddling tourists around Central Park. Seems like you’d have to be pretty unimaginative not to be able to think of something to do in NYC that didn’t involve having another person pull you around in 100 degree heat.

    326 chars

  31. Dexter said on July 6, 2010 at 3:41 pm

    Since I have no way to dis-prove Landis’s wild stories ( the hotel story is straight out of ‘Barton Fink’) , I put the whole mess on the back burner and get on with enjoying the 2010 TDF. Today was wild, as the bone-rattling cobblestones shook the riders and threw some of them to the ground, the worst wreck almost knocking out Frank Schleck , and breaking his collarbone and sending him home.
    http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/4781/Tour-de-France-Frank-Schleck-crashes-hard-on-the-cobblestones-abandons-race.aspx
    Armstrong lost a lot of time but a burst of speed near the end got him to a faster group and a better overall time. I felt bad for Sylvain Chavenel, who kept having flats on the cobblestones and had to change bikes twice, maybe three times…he had about 2:52 for a cushion but lost his maille jaune by about 1:01, the way I figured it.
    So now, the man they call ‘Spartacus’,Fabian Cancellara, wears yellow.
    I am just totally “into” the Versus coverage of these tours. They crew always takes a minute to show us castles and cathedrals, and now the film crews are preparing short film clips of the interiors of the famous buildings along the way.
    And…I was always a fan of Motown, and still listened even when I was nearly consumed by the British Invasion of 1964. I guess my first favorite saxophone player was Junior Walker, and now I don’t seek out Motown much, as I prefer searching for old cool tenor tunes I never concentrated on before, like songs by Lester Young.

    1498 chars

  32. brian stouder said on July 6, 2010 at 3:50 pm

    Jolene – good to hear from you! I like msnbc in the evening, but their programming most of the rest of the time is dreck. I cannot watch Andrea Mitchell at mid-day (at lunch time), as she has the uncanny habit of never clearly finishing a remark or question, so that her guests are always getting talked-over, or else there is an annoying amount of dead air between comments. Fox News – whatever else their faults – actually moves their mid-day show along.

    Aside from that, and in all sincerity, the song I can live without, forever, is Lee Greenwood’s nonsensical God Bless the USA (where at least he knows he’s free)

    621 chars

  33. Jeff Borden said on July 6, 2010 at 4:44 pm

    When I was a kid I loved NASCAR and bought a copy of Stock Car magazine whenever I was lucky enough to come across one. One edition had a story about the lone black driver Wendell Scott, who piloted a single 1965 Ford that looked exactly like all the other 1965 Fords with the exception of the numbers on the doors and roof. (In those days, NASCAR forbid decals to be placed anywhere except on the front quarter panels. You’d look at those race photos and immediately know you were looking at Chevys, Plymouths, Dodges, Pontiacs, Mercurys. Now, they all look like stylized jelly beans and I cannot tell what kind of vehicle they are without looking for the name painted on the front bumper.

    I guess any song or type of music will become tiresome when heard too many times, though I’m not sure I’ll ever hear “Harlem Nocturne” too frequently. I love my Motown, but also my Atlantic, Stax/Volt, Chess, etc.

    For any music hounds in Chicago this coming weekend, the Folk and Roots Festival presented by the Old Town school will go from noon to 10 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. I’ve seen amazing acts there –Patti Smith and Richard Thompson and Fela Kuti among them– and the price is a mere $5 donation. It’s in Welles Park, bordered by Western, Sunnyside, Lincoln and Montrose. The headlines Saturday night are Shemekia Copeland (daughter of blues legend Johnny Copeland) and the Budos Band, which is an 11-member ensemble of white guys who play Afro-centric music. Sunday the stars are Les Saltibanks, a French-Algerian group, and Etran Finatawa, which features the music of the nomads who drift through the Sahara.

    You can’t get more interesting or eclectic entertainment for this kind of price.

    1703 chars

  34. coozledad said on July 6, 2010 at 5:02 pm

    I’m surprised none of you have mentioned Detroit’s own Electric Six: the guys behind the best cheap promo video ever made.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a4gyJsY0mc&feature=related

    186 chars

  35. nancy said on July 6, 2010 at 5:12 pm

    Called and raised, Cooze.

    97 chars

  36. MichaelG said on July 6, 2010 at 5:36 pm

    Agreed. The Versus TDF coverage is superlative. I’ll watch it when I get home but I peeked in on the written updates on VS’ web site so I am generally up on what happened. I never saw so many wrecks before. I hope today’s crashes are pretty much the end of the pile ups.

    I was very impressed by Cancellara yesterday. He restrained the wild men after the chaos, organized the peloton, got things running properly, organized the protest, registered it with the authorities and led the protest to the finish line while still keeping order in the peloton. All at the expense of his yellow jersey for the day. Yeah, he helped the Schlecks, his teamates, but his actions were far above and beyond. Good show, Fabe.

    There you go, Mary. The Dutch are in the finals.

    778 chars

  37. Beth said on July 6, 2010 at 6:39 pm

    The Kroger here in Fort Wayne plays songs like “White Wedding.” I’d love to hear a little Motown. Even “Tears of a Clown.”

    122 chars

  38. Brendan said on July 6, 2010 at 9:41 pm

    Re: Landis’ story, I’ve issued the same argument Nancy has. In what was/is the Golden Age of Cheating in cycling, Armstrong dominated the sport like no one else every has – almost impossible to conceive.

    Sucks for him that the shadow exists, but didn’t we go through this with McGwire and Sosa? I still remember sports reporters saying, “Steroids can’t help you hit a baseball.” And now we’re hearing whispers of a potential Tiger PED spectacle (and Elin settlement “hush money”)? The sports fan being honest with himself is conditioned to be skeptical of such absolute dominance of a sport and related records.

    But as that same sports fan, I can’t get enough of the TdF, or of NCAA or NFL football, believing that all these sports are absolutely rampant with performance enhancing drug use. In the heat of the moment, I couldn’t care less about it – but I don’t have too many idols among athletes today.

    And I NEVER get tired of Tears of a Clown 😉

    967 chars

  39. Joe Kobiela said on July 6, 2010 at 11:13 pm

    Don’t know if it counts as motown but crusin over Detroit tonight at 7,000ft I heard, color this man father, on the xm, havn’t heard that one for awhile.
    Pilot Joe

    164 chars

  40. Linda said on July 6, 2010 at 11:20 pm

    Joe, it wasn’t Motown, but it brought back a lot of memories–that’s a forgotten oldie (1969) that I haven’t heard in years. A wikipedia entry says there was country cover of it that got in the country top 25!

    update: Speaking of Motown, the death of Harvey Fuqua, who formed the Moonglows, discovered Marvin Gaye and worked for years for Motown:
    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/07/06/arts/AP-US-Obit-Fuqua.html?_r=1&hp

    429 chars

  41. KLG said on July 6, 2010 at 11:30 pm

    @Jeff: I too loved NASCAR in junior high (late 60s) and I am ashamed to admit that I didn’t know “Harlem Nocturne” until this great TV show:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh8q4lDgjDI&feature=related
    Better late than never. Too bad Stacy Keach had to get caught with the cocaine in the shaving cream can and destroy his own show…

    338 chars

  42. Denice B. said on July 7, 2010 at 12:03 am

    I remember going down to the record store and buying 45’s of Smokey Robinson and the Temptations. And hiding my radio under my pillow at night listening to Keener 13 play mostly Motown. It’s a part of my very soul. As inseparable from who I am as where I grew up.

    263 chars

  43. MichaelG said on July 7, 2010 at 12:33 am

    My first 45 had Bill Haley and his Comets doing “Rock Around the Clock” on one side and “Rock’n (that doesn’t look right) Through the Rye” on the other. Bought it new in 19__ and paid __cents.

    193 chars

  44. Rana said on July 7, 2010 at 12:49 am

    I’ve already seen several articles using the heat wave boilerplate you describe, Nancy. Amusing, now that you’ve pointed it out.

    A poetic alternative, from my friend Dave Bonta: http://www.vianegativa.us/2010/07/forecast/

    226 chars

  45. Dexter said on July 7, 2010 at 12:54 am

    All the song-reminiscing reminds me of when I’d go to Smokey Montgomery’s
    “Smokey’s Record Shop” on Wells in The Fort, many years ago. There were other record shoppes, but none like Smokey’s.
    Here’s something for brianstouder and julierobinson and anybody else who knows a lot about Fort Wayne history,
    http://fortwayneindiana.blogspot.com/2008/05/you-know-youre-from-ft-wayne-when.html

    The last record store I ever hung around and sometimes ordered hard-to-find records, in the last days of popular vinyl, was Schoolkids Records, downtown Ann Arbor. I wish I had a nickel for every dollar I spent in that joint.

    623 chars

  46. moe99 said on July 7, 2010 at 1:38 am

    Ok, here’s a question for you Hoosiers. I remember that Indiana banned sales of the Kingsmen Louie Louie album because the song was judged to be indecent. My friend, Connie Zimmerman, swore she had to prove she was an Ohio resident when she purchase the album back in ’66 in Fort Wayne.

    295 chars

  47. Deborah said on July 7, 2010 at 3:30 am

    Speaking of fava beans (insert Hannibal Lecter joke here) I read in Wikipedia that they can be a natural alternative to Viagra.

    I can’t sleep, it’s too hot. We can’t keep our air on in our bedroom at night because it makes a racket. so I either can’t sleep from the noise or the heat. The heating and air-conditioning in this building built in the 50s comes from what they call Marlo units (I have no idea how that is spelled). They are low and linear and sit in front of the floor to ceiling windows. Ours need fixing.

    523 chars

  48. brian stouder said on July 7, 2010 at 8:33 am

    Dexter – an interesting list. Ol’ Smokey may only be a memory anymore, but that whole area on Wells Street north of downtown has an interesting vibe going, nowadays. There are kids over there who will look back twenty years from now, and fondly remember the Tex-Mex ice cream shoppe (a great place, by the way) and the skateboard park, etc

    339 chars

  49. LAMary said on July 7, 2010 at 9:23 am

    I could have had 11-1 odds on the Dutch back in April. Sister of the in house Brit was going to place a bet for me back in England.
    Go Orange.

    143 chars

  50. Dorothy said on July 7, 2010 at 9:35 am

    Thanks to my older brothers I have a fondness for The Dells (Oh What a Night, Stay in My Corner, and my fave, There Is), Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, The Four Tops among others. It sounds blasphemous but I never really cared for Aretha Franklin.

    I am astonished that Gallagher is able to say that kind of stuff and people actually pay to listen to him. Still shaking my head about it even though I read the recap yesterday.

    450 chars

  51. brian stouder said on July 7, 2010 at 9:44 am

    Mary – did you see the interesting response you drew, at the end of the “G&B = good” thread, from Katherine Weber? The subject of choco­latiers in Paris* had arisen, and she addressed that in some detail

    *altogether more alluring than werewolves in London, I think.

    edit: Dorothy – agreed! It was such a random surprise, to read that Gallagher has become such a spiteful goon.

    It is as if we learned that the ‘Unknown Comic’ has lately come under suspicion of being a war criminal (the bag with eye-holes always was a little creepy, come to think of it)

    568 chars

  52. Deborah said on July 7, 2010 at 9:53 am

    Katherine Weber has an apartment in Paris! Wow.

    47 chars

  53. Hattie said on July 7, 2010 at 2:54 pm

    Nobody doesn’t love Motown!

    27 chars

  54. cosmo panzini said on July 8, 2010 at 5:12 pm

    Not a fan of Nascar currently, but I love the stories about cheatin’. One involved a front-line team in the 80’s (Bill Elliott’s, I believe) using Lockheed’s wind tunnel in Marietta, Georgia to prep their car for the upcoming season, and being very careful to set the proper ride height. (Too low would be cheatin’) After finishing their testing, the Elliott brothers asked the staff at Lockheed how their car compared to the four or five other teams’ cars that had already been through. Answer was “Damn if we know, ain’t had a car in here yet settin so high”.

    566 chars