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SCOTT, YOUR CORDIAL MOVIE REVIEWER

Wednesday, March 27th, 2024

    Here I am back again which will probably amount to a part two of my last blahg HAVE YOU WATCHED ANY GOOD MOVIES LATELY?
New Photo of Scott HendersonI thought of actually titling this blahg “Have You Watched Any Good Movies Lately 2” but that wouldn’t be very creative.  I’m working my way through all of the Warner Archive and Fox Manufacture On Demand DVDs that I purchased over my holidays or others I’ve purchased this year.  I don’t think I’ll get to all of them but I’ll make a stab it at least. 

   Since my previous blahg, I have watched only a few more from the pile.  I’ll start with the two Warner Archives I watched, “The Oklahoman” from 1957 and “Broadway Serenade” from 1939.  The Oklahoman DVDFirst up is “The Oklahoman” with Joel McCrea.  I extolled the virtues of Joel McCrea in my last blahg, when I reviewed   “Primrose Path” and “Stars In My Crown.”  I really liked “The Oklahoman.”  It plays more like an episode of the television show “Gunsmoke” but it’s a good  movie.  McCrea plays a Doctor in a small town raising his little girl on his own and running up against the bad rancher who wants to steal oil from a Native American.  Great acting by McCrea in this one. Broadway Serenade DVD “Broadway Serenade” was also a surprise hit with me.  This is another nice one from Jeanette MacDonald with Lew Ayres and Frank Morgan.  Morgan is funny in all his scenes but MacDonald and Ayres are brilliant.  They’re a vaudeville couple who go their separate ways when her career becomes big and his fails.  I know, sounds like the plot of “A Star Is Born” but the ending in this one is better.  Talk about the end, the finale produced by Busby Berkley for the song “None But The Lonely Heart” is so over the top that they can do nothing but end the film with it.  Great singing and great acting in this one.  If you’ve never heard the song “None But The Lonely Heart” then check out Sinatra’s 1959 version in the video below.  Sinatra had also recorded it in 1946 and 1947.  Thirty years after the 1939 version of that song in “Broadway Serenade” Sinatra released a stellar version:

   The only Fox Archive DVD I watched since my last blahg, was the 1949 film “The Fan” with Jeanne Crain, Madeleine Carroll, and George Sanders.  It is based on the Oscar Wilde Play  “Lady Windermere’s Fan.” I have never seen the play but the most appealing things about this film are the beginning and the end.  I snoozed somewhere between.  An elderly woman played by a makeup aged Madeleine Carroll tries to retrieve a fan from a London auction house at the end of World War 2.  She says the fan belongs to her but the auction house won’t give it to her unless she can supply a corroborating witness.  She digs up the makeup aged George Sanders and then there’s a flashback for the rest of the movie about Lady Windermere and her Fan and how Madeleine Carroll came to acquire Lady Windermere’s fan.  The end is set again in post war London.  Maybe fans of Wilde will like it better but it was just okay to me.

   Talking about disappointing films, I really wanted more from the movie “The Moonlighter” from 1953.  The Moonlighter DVDIt’s another pairing of Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck.  They were excellent together in “Remember the Night” from 1939 and “Double Indemnity” from 1944.  They even starred together in 1956’s “There’s Always Tomorrow” which I have on a Universal Vault DVD but I haven’t watched that one yet.  “The Moonlighter” has Fred as a cattle rustler who escapes being hanged then sets out to exact vengeance against the men who hanged an innocent person instead of MacMurray.  Barbara plays an old girlfriend who tries to bring MacMurray to justice.  It sounds interesting but there just wasn’t enough for me in this movie.  Maybe “There’s Always Tomorrow” will be a better pairing

   Another disappointing film was 1937’s “Ready, Willing and Able.”  Ready, Willing, and Able DVDThe songs were not memorable but Ruby Keeler was decent enough in it.  Her character has the same name of a British star and Ruby and gets mistakenly drafted in the lead of a new Broadway production.  The only problem is that she can dance but she can’t sing…at least not well.  Even the final production number of dancing on a giant typewriter doesn’t bolster the film.

Killer McCoy DVD    Okay, back to what I did enjoy.  “Killer McCoy” from 1947 with Mickey Rooney was fun.  Rooney’s a fighter who gets mixed up with gamblers.  The fight scenes are realistic and James Dunn as Mickey’s father is great to watch.  Rooney doesn’t overact and it makes for a good solid film.  The Master Race DVDThe 1944 film “The Master Race” was stunning.  The story is about the fall of Nazis and how one Nazi in disguise is sewing the seeds of hatred and fear in a town in Belgium.  You get to see how people came to hate all Germans although all Germans were not Nazis.  Watch for a young “Lloyd Bridges.”  And finally, “Roughly Speaking” from 1945 with Rosalind Russell and Jack Carson.  What a great pairing.  She’s a single mother raising four children after her husband leaves her and then she marries Jack Carson who’s a dreamer with lots of ideas and ambition but not much luck.  The early story of Rosalind Russell’s character from teenager to wife to motherhood to wife a second time is very intriguing and just one of those films where you can’t wait to see what comes next.  I like Jack Carson.  He’s done some great films and Rosalind Russell holds this movie together.  I can’t recommend it enough.

   I’m going to end this one with one more disappointment and one more film that I really liked but might seem controversial.  Disappointing:  “Duchess of Idaho” from 1950.  Two great stars, Esther Williams and Van Johnson in a not so great film.  It’s a romantic musical of a love triangle between Willams, Johnson, and John Lund.  I can’t even remember the songs.  I like Esther Williams and most of her films and I really enjoyed her autobiography “The Million Dollar Mermaid: An Autobiography.”  Fascinating reading.  The movie…not so much.  “A Majority of One” from 1961 was one I liked.  Rosalind Russell is back again but this time with Alec Guinness.  A Majority of One DVDShe’s a jewish widow who is invited to live with her daughter and son-in-law while the son-in-law is posted in Japan.  This is post World War 2 so there’s still some bitterness regarding the Japanese.  The controversy is the relationship that Rosalind Russell’s character builds with a Japanese character played by Guinness.  The heavy makeup to make Guinness look Japanese wouldn’t fly today because there are Japanese actors who should be cast in these types of roles.  The film still is well worth watching but I don’t condone the casting.  The best part of it is Rosalind Russell’s character and Mae Questel, the voice of Olive Oyl in early Popeye cartoons as well as the voice of Betty Boop.  Questel’s character in this film is a bit of a bigot but she learns and it’s all tongue in cheek.  Despite all of the controversial issues, I still can recommend the film.

   So where does that leave me?  I think I still have to review “Bachelor Mother”, “Colleen”, “British Agent”, “Fallen Sparrow”, “Private Lives”, “The Scarlet Coat”, “So Goes My Love”, “Confidential Agent” as well as the other MacDonald/Eddy films, the solo Jeanette MacDonald films, and all those Sonja Henie films.  Oh yeah, the two Boston Blackies and the other MacMurray/Stanwyck film.  Is that “Have You Watched Any Good Movies Lately Part 3” or is there a Part 4 after that?  Stay tuned.

 

HAVE YOU WATCHED ANY GOOD MOVIES LATELY?

Friday, March 22nd, 2024

    This is not the blahg I was going to write but I hope it will be interesting nonetheless. New Photo of Scott HendersonI have some new records I’ve purchased and some Canadian music content I want to revisit but couldn’t get started on it.  I recently came off of holidays and some of the shopping I did inspired me to do a little write up on my purchases and one of my favourite pastimes, of watching classic movies. I know, I’m a lazy sort of cuss.  I can’t get inspired to write the music themed blahg and I’m substituting it with a lazy man’s hobby of vegging out to an old film.  Give this blahg a read before you judge me. 

   I once wrote a blahg titled HAVE YOU READ ANY GOOD BOOKS LATELY? and I talked about some books I had read prior to writing that blahg.  This time it’s about movies.  I think I have posted in the past about the large DVD collection my friend Bryan and I share.  We both do the buying and the movies are eventually stored at my house.  We are both fans of classic movies so most of the official releases of classic films are somewhere in my home.  We have many boxed sets and single releases.  The problem is that most of what people deem as classics are the popular films from the 30s and 40s and 50s and there are lots of older films that never get to be seen.  Some have even had no DVD releases at all.  That’s where the Manufacture On Demand (MOD) programs through Warner Archives, Universal, Sony, and 20th Century Fox have released a number of films that I think fall in the “classic” genre simply because they’re from the golden age of Hollywood; even though some aren’t consider classic and the stories are a little weaker or less well known. 

   In the past, I have set out to collect the films of certain artists like Glenn Ford and Bette Davis and many of their early films have only had MOD releases.  There are at least a dozen or more films by both those artists, in my collection, that I’ve purchased through the MOD program.  The thing about these discs is that they are not readily available in stores and there was a time you couldn’t purchase them at all in Canada.  I recall with fondness the big Sunrise Records store in downtown Toronto.  In the back, they had several walls of Manufacture On Demand DVDS from the big four studios I mentioned earlier.  Unfortunately that store closed in 2014 and finding them new means ordering from Amazon or Ebay.  Some are even out of print and hard to find.  Used copies, up to now, have been difficult to come across.  I think my local used DVD store has only had a handful in the past ten years and I think there was only one I didn’t have.  I said “up to now.”  That’s where this blahg really begins. 

   My local used DVD store is called “Chumleighs” and there are branch locations in Kingston and Peterborough as the well as the one here in Belleville.  I should note that I have had success at a couple of BMV stores in Toronto (Books Music Video) but I don’t always get to Toronto.  As I said, the Belleville store hasn’t had any in a while. On some recent trips to the Kingston Chumleighs I started to see some MODs I wasn’t aware of.  Here are some photos of some of my purchased over the last little while:

Selection Number 1 of Mods

Mod Selection #2

To be fair, “So Goes My Love” and “Confidential Agent” were purchased from Amazon and of course I posted a picture of “The Scarlet Coat” twice.  Last week I got back to Chumleighs in Kingston and purchased a few more and found a couple at the Chumleighs on my visit to Peterborough and some others at two different BMVs in Toronto.  Here’s part of my score:

And yet more MODS

I mentioned a couple of DVDs I purchased on Amazon and then realized there were a few others I had purchased from Amazon over the past few months: 

A Majority of One

Most of the MOD DVDs I posted above are from the Warner Archive Collection but I did pick up two Sony MODs: 

 

One from the Universal Vault Series: 

A handful from the Fox Cinema Archives: 

 

Hold That Co-Ed

I also purchased the following four Sonja Henie films from the Fox Archives:

Sonja Henie films

   So what about the title about watching good movies and the part about sitting on my butt?  I thought I’d post my reviews of the films I have watched from my pile but because I haven’t watched them all and I keep adding to them, the pile isn’t getting much shorter. 

   Let me start with the two Monty Woolley and Gracie Fields films, “Holy Matrimony” and “Molly And Me.”  I had seen “Holy Matrimony” years ago but could never remember the title of the film.  Of the two films, “Holy Matrimony” is mostly all Monty Woolley and “Molly And Me” is mostly all Gracie Fields.  They play off each other well.  In “Holy Matrimony” Woolley pretends to be his valet who died and gets buried with the public thinking that Woolley’s character is dead.  He then marries Gracie Fields who had been corresponding with Woolley’s valet for the purpose of marriage ever though she had never laid eyes on him.  Fun ensues because Woolley’s a renowned artist and some of his new paintings get out into the public…after he’s supposed to be dead.  With “Molly And Me”, Gracie Fields, an actress, needs work so she gets the job of managing the household of Monty Woolley’s character.  She soon has the entire household staff quit and she has to replace them with her actor friends.  A little weaker than “Holy Matrimony” but fun nonetheless. 

   Before writing about the Warner Archives I have watched, I’ll continue with the other Fox Cinema Archives that I have viewed.  Mother Didn't Tell Me DVDWorking backwards, I want to discuss the 1950 film “Mother Didn’t Tell Me” with Dorothy McGuire and William Lundigan.  The treat here is Dorothy McGuire.  I’ve always been a fan of her acting.  She was phenomenal in “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn” and the movies “Claudia” and “The Spiral Staircase.”  I don’t think you can go wrong with a Dorothy McGuire movie. Her last film before “Mother Didn’t Tell Me” was in 1947 with “Gentleman’s Agreement” for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.  “Mother Didn’t Tell Me” is a delight after a three year film absence from Dorothy.  She plays an innocent woman who finds out the hard way what it’s like to be married to a Doctor who’s always on-call.  The movie would have been a second rate movie I think if Dorothy’s role was played by someone else.  Every scene she is in is a delight and the film is worth it if only for seeing an innocent and naive Dorthy learn to hold her own against some other jaded people. 

   The other two films I’ve viewed from the Fox Archives that I’ll quickly mention are “Hold That Co-Ed” and “Thanks A Million. Hold That Co-Ed DVD Let’s start with “Hold That Co-Ed” from 1938.  The description for this film is “A sly Southern governor creates a winning state college football team in order to sway constituents to vote him into a higher office.”  It stars John Barrymore, George Murphy, Marjorie Weaver, and Joan Davis.  I don’t think I would have picked it up except the description was intriguing and I think John Barrymore is fun when he tries to play comedy.  Check out the screwball comedy film “True Confession” from 1937 with Barrymore.  He’s a hoot.  He’s also a hoot in “Hold That Co-Ed.”  I don’t remember any of the songs but Barrymore and Joan Davis have all the comic moments.  “Thanks A Million” from 1935 is the weaker of the two films.  Dick Powell is a vaudevillian who ends up giving a speech for an inebriated gubernatorial candidate and then gets backed for Governor himself by a crooked political machine.  The songs are not memorable in this one either and you’d think with talent like comics Fred Allen and Patsy Kelly that it would amount to something.  It doesn’t.  Raymond Walburn as the drunken candidate replaced by Powell steals every scene he’s in.  I think that’s the only saving grace about this film.  Even having Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra add nothing to this film.  The “Yacht Club Boys” are a musical quartet that add some other humour and their musical numbers are comedic and not so bad.  As for the other Fox Archives films, I have yet to watch any of the Sonja Henie films or “The Fan” with Jeanne Crain.  “Come To The Stable” I saw a long time ago so I won’t comment on it until I’ve seen it again.

   Where to being with the Warner Archives films?  I have not watched “There’s No Tomorrow” from the Universal Vault Series or either of the two Boston Blackie films from Sony.  Of the Warner Archive films shown earlier in this blahg, I have watched 24 of them.  This blahg would be extremely long if I chose to review all 24.  Let me pick and choose a few and then I’ll do a second blahg, maybe, highlighting some of the others. 

   I happen to like Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. Girl of the Golden West DVD A few years ago I found the two films “Girl of the Golden West” and “New Moon” starring both of MacDonald and Nelson Eddy.  It was on two separate occasions at the same thrift shop that I came across these films and only paid $2 each time.  New Moon DVDQuite the bargain each time.  I’d always wanted to see “New Moon” because the great comic Buster Keaton had a role in the film but most of his scenes had been cut.  Still, you can catch him in the background or crowd scenes.  Both “New Moon” and “The Girl of The Golden West” are charming films.  Eddy and MacDonald made eight films together including these two and “Naughty Marietta”, “Rose Marie”, “Maytime”, “I Married An Angel”, “Sweethearts”, and “Bitter Sweet.”  I always wanted to own all of their films and Chumleighs from Kingston supplied me with the other six films with the exception of “Naughty Marietta” which I ordered from Amazon.  I haven’t watched them all and I won’t discuss “New Moon” and “The Girl of The Golden West” but for the purposes of this blahg, I will write about “Rose Marie” and “Bitter Sweet”. 

   “Rose Marie” was probably the first Eddy and MacDonald film I ever saw from years ago.  Rose Marie DVDThe plot is simple.  In rural Canada, Jeanette is trying to get to her brother who is on the run from the RCMP for murder and Nelson is the RCMP officer tracking her brother.  It is noteworthy that this 1936 film was one of James Stewart’s first roles as Jeanette’s brother.  The chemistry between MacDonald and Eddy is what makes this film work.  It’s a great story with great characters and beautiful singing.  It still remains my favourite film of this pair.  The 1940 film “Bitter Sweet”, I’ll be honest was not as good as “Rose Marie”.  It is based on the operetta “Bitter Sweet” by Noël Coward.  It tells the story of the romantic relationship between a music teacher and his prize pupil.  The chemistry is still there between the two leads but the story set in the late 19th century Vienna drags and by the end, I found myself dozing off.  Even Noël Coward didn’t like the film adaptation.  Oh well, I have four more of their films to watch so I’ll look forward to those. 

   One of my other favourite actors is Joel McCrea.  In my recent purchases were the two films “Primrose Path” from 1940 and “Stars In My Crown” from a decade later in 1950.  These two films couldn’t have been more widely different.  “Primrose Path” also has Ginger Rogers and she is a young woman from the wrong side of the tracks who quickly marries McCrea’s character and then tries to keep him from finding out about her family.  There’s some great scenes between the two leads but other scenes are also stolen by other cast members like Henry Travers as Gramp, Queenie Vassar as the Grandmother, and a young Joan Carroll as Rogers’ baby sister Honeybell.  Just a very nice story with lots of humour. “Stars in My Crown” features McCrea again but this time as a preacher whose faith tames a rural town by inspiring the townspeople.  He also butts heads with the new Doctor in town who is also the son of the old Doctor who was well loved and respected but sadly passed on.  Watch for a young Dean Stockwell in this one.  McCrea’s style of quiet acting is powerful and this film reminded me of another Warner Archive McCrea film called “Wichita” where he plays Wyatt Earp as the new marshal of Wichita.  I can highly recommend other McCrea films “The More The Merrier”, “Foreign Correspondent” directed by Alfred Hitchock,  and “Sullivan’s Travels” directed by Preston Sturges. 

   There were also two Hedy Lamarr features in my recent haul.  These were “Crossroads” from 1942 and “Experiment Perilous” from 1944.  Hedy Lamar is very sultry in both films but I’ll give my credit in “Crossroads” to William Powell.  The description of this film from Wikipedia is “Powell plays a diplomat whose amnesia about his past subjects him to back-to-back blackmail schemes, which threaten his reputation, job, marriage, and future.  Basil Rathbone plays a sleazy blackmailer in this one and the story and acting are all good.  Hedy Lamarr plays Powell’s concerned wife.  “Experiment Perilous” is a gaslighting type film with Hedy Lamarr as the victim.  George Brent is a Doctor friend who is trying to unravel the relationship between Lamarr and her domineering husband played by Paul Lukas.  It was an interesting movie but I think there could have been more to it.  George Brent is an underrated actor but certainly does the best he can with the script. 

   I don’t want to keep going much further on this particular blahg and I’m certainly not at the point of writing up about all 24 of the Warner Archives I have seen.  I’ll pick out a couple more that I enjoyed and save the rest for next time.  “Hard To Get” from 1938 is a fun film with Olivia de Havilland and Dick Powell.  Dick Powell certainly fares better here than he did in “Thanks A Million.”  Powell’s the manager of a gas station who has to put up with the stuck up rich character played by de Havilland.  She sets out to get even with him but of course romance ensues.  I’d characterize it as a romantic comedy and  Charles Winninger, who plays de Havilland’s father, steals every scene he’s in.  The other film I really enjoyed was 1948’s “Night Song” with Merle Oberon and Dana Andrews.  She’s a wealthy woman who falls for a blind pianist but then she pretends to be blind so she can have a relationship with him.  Of course, he gets his sight back and she has to pretend to be someone else with a phony accent so she can interact with him.  The fun is, again, not the leads but the interaction between secondary characters Ethel Barrymore and Hoagy Carmichael.  Their interactions are worth the price of admission alone.  Without them, this might have been a heavy handed soap opera but they provide the comic relief to prevent the story from becoming too melodramatic.  Going back to Olivia de Havilland, I just want to mention a film of hers with Charles Boyer I watched recently called “Hold Back The Dawn” from 1941.  Fantastic movie.  Again, it comes down to the chemistry between the leads.  The only problem with the film is that it has not had a DVD or Blu-Ray release in North America.  There’s apparently a nice Blu-Ray release in the United Kingdom.  It needs to be released over here! 

   That’s it for now.  Obviously there’s more here I can review or comment on but I’ll save some of that for future blahgs.  These old movies have some great stories and great performers in them.  Sometimes it’s the supporting cast though that make a movie.  Of course some of the stories also have things that don’t hold up well.  There’s a scene in “Hard To Get” where Dick Powell dons blackface and it made me cringe.  There were also some films where Asian or African American actors had subordinate roles.  I won’t condone any of that but if you go into a movie knowing these things are wrong, it’s okay to enjoy the movie if it makes you laugh or cry.  I’m glad that Warner Achives, Fox, Universal, and Sony issued these movies.  I’m hoping that some of the others I’ve yet to view will entertain me as much as some of these I’ve written about.  Time will tell…but that’s another blahg and another day.

 

“PIPPA’S PASSING” GOES LIVE

Friday, February 16th, 2024

    This will be a quick blahg with exciting news. New Photo of Scott HendersonMy novel, “Pippa’s Passing” is finally ready to order from Amazon.  I started writing the book in February 2022 and now, two years on, it’s been edited and fine tuned and ready for readers to take it on. 

   When I first started writing it, I published a blahg, PIPPA’S PASSING about two months into the writing process.   And in mid-June of 2022 in the blahg, SOME THINGS TO CELEBRATE…TEN YEARS ON I commented how I had finished writing my book.  Here’s what I said: 

I have been meaning to write this novel for ten years and finally started it in February of this year. It’s a hard process to describe. Once I had started, the characters began to speak to me and told me what to write. I had no conceived notions where the book was going at times but when I sat down each day, the words were there and formed the story. I’ve always had the beginning and ending over the last decade but I had not idea what direction it would take. I’m happy with it. Now I have to send it out to see if I can get it published.

I did send it out to a few publishers over the past couple of years but with no success.  The publishing market is probably flood every year with submissions and I guess I didn’t do a good enough job of promoting it to them.  So, I decided to go the Amazon route and have spent the last couple of months working on the format for both the Kindle electronic version and the paperback version. 

   The cover design for my book has always been based on my daughter Abbie’s artwork.  This is how the Kindle cover version will be displayed: 

Kindle cover for Pippa's Passing

When it came to the paperback version, Abbie and I consulted and thought a wrap around cover might look better.  We had to consider the spine and what text would be on the back.  The initial layout, as designed by Abbie, looked like this: 

possible wrap around cover

You can’t really read the back cover text but below are the front and back covers broken out and you can click on them to view a larger version. 

Pippa's Passing wraparound front

Pippa's Passing wraparound back

The proof copy of my book arrived last weekend.  Here’s what it looked like: 

Pippa's Passing proof copy

It took me all week to read through it at 385 pages.  I had to check every word and line.  Some of the software I used caused some formatting issues and of course I may have missed a quotation mark or odd comma or period.  I made no major changes but managed to tweak a little to make it even stronger.  Here’s a photo of me that Jeanette took when I first received the proof: 

Scott with Pippa's Passing Proof

I also made the bold decision to update my Facebook page with my real name and posted about my book being available through Amazon.  I’ve never had a public Facebook page before but if I want to promote my book then I have to get on with it. 

   What’s left to say?  Oh, I know, PLEASE BUY MY BOOK!  Here’s the link: 

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1738299120/ref=sr_1_1?crid=NJVIRMGSGUA0&keywords=pippa%27s+passing&qid=1708093965&s=books&sprefix=pippa%27s+passing%2Cstripbooks%2C111&sr=1-1 

 

Update:  Five author copies arrived on a snowy day in Canada:

I have also uploaded some videos of me promoting the book on YouTube and TikTok.  Here’s one of the YouTube videos:

 

 

LAUNCHING AND RELAUNCHING

Wednesday, February 7th, 2024

    Parts of this blahg may be wholly unbelievable but are nonetheless the truth.Scott in Red January 2024 It’s probably best to get into the current topics without too much preamble.  So here goes. 

   The easiest thing to start off with is this year’s Christmas Tree Launch.   In a blahg last year about the 2023 Christmas Tree Launch, HOW WAS YOUR CHRISTMAS? I recalled how I had written a blahg in 2019 called MEATS AND CHEESES AND BABY JESUS and described my tradition of launching my Christmas Tree in the creek at the bottom of my property:

   I should add that I also have a tradition of disposing of the Christmas tree.  At the bottom of our property is a creek that runs fast and deep in the spring after the snow melts.  Our annual live Christmas tree, after its stint in the house, rests out behind our garage until I can get to the creek in the spring and chuck it in.  It’s swept up in the current and disappears.  I tried following a tree one year and got about half a kilometre before the creek took a bend through a farmer’s field and was carried out of sight.  In my imagination there is a Valhalla for our Christmas trees down where the creek ends or maybe it manages to make its way to the sea.  More likely there’s a dam of trees somewhere along the creek route overflowing and flooding the farmer’s fields or perhaps the basement of his farmhouse.

So now it’s 2024 and time for me to post the video of this year’s Christmas Tree Launch.  To be clear, the tree was from Christmas of 2023 but it’s being launched in 2024.  Here’s a picture of what it looked like last week as it lay on my deck waiting to be rediscovered:

My 2023 Christmas Tree covered in snow

Well, the snow melted and I was able to get at the tree.  Here’s the 2024 Launch: 

  

   The next launch that I want to discuss is the launch of my book “Pippa’s Passing.”  I have posted before that I finished the book in the summer of 2022.  I had published a blahg, PIPPA’S PASSING when I was part way finished writing it.  It’s a good place to start when trying to find out what the book is about.  I’m currently looking to launch it on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback formats.  My daughter Abbie designed the book cover.  Here is her original version of that cover:

I am quite happy with the cover but a colleague pointed out that the child on the cover has no mouth.  Last night, Abbie and I were toying around with possible book cover designs and I mentioned possibly adding a mouth.  Here’s what she sent me:

Pippa's Passing with mouth

You’ll have to click on the image to see a larger version.  The truth is, I don’t think adding a mouth adds anything to the cover.  In fact, when I thought about it, I thought not having a mouth was better.  The novel is a fictional memoir of Jeff Carter who tells the story of the relationship he once had with the title character, Pippa.  At the beginning we learn that Pippa has died and so it’s up to Jeff to tell her story.  The cover represents a mural described later in the book that Jeff wonders if it is a representation of a young Pippa.  The fact that Abbie’s interpretation displays the girl without a mouth could mean that Pippa is no longer able to tell her own story.  Clever, right?  At least that’s my interpretation of Abbie’s interpretation.

   One of the layout versions for the book is a wraparound version and would look something like this:

possible wrap around cover

This is a screen capture from the Kindle/Amazon program.  Abbie likes the wraparound layout but she’s not keen on the text placement on front, spine, and back.  She’s going to play around with it in another program and come up with something a little better.  I’m still wordsmithing the text on the back but this is what I have so far: 

I thought I would never write this down. It wasn’t that I thought I might write this down but had no faith in myself that I would get the task accomplished. No, I believed I would never write this down because I had convinced myself that I shouldn’t write this down even though I had promised someone once that I would write her story.

“If you ever become I writer I want you to write my story. Write our story. Write about everything. Write about how I am now and how you and I got here. It’s important. Promise me you’ll write my story.”

It had been eleven years since that last night together. I never saw her again. There were no phone calls or letters or even cards. The last notice was the one I held in my hand in my mother’s kitchen telling me she was gone.

This was the end of a story I thought I would never tell. Pippa was gone. Her obituary had been very short on details. It was a sad culmination of a life that had once been entwined deeply with mine. Sitting there re-reading the summary of Pippa’s passing, I realized she deserved better. I knew then I had to fulfill my promise and write her story.

So begins “Pippa’s Passing”, the fictional memoir of 44 year old Jeff Carter who learns that an old love, Pippa Bailey, has died. He relates their story together from their first meeting in high-school up to eleven years before her death when he last saw her. The bulk of the story begins with their first meeting in the fall of 1977 and details their relationship up to their last encounter in 1993. In the telling, mysteries are revealed and Jeff‘s memories recall an intense relationship between the two. Although the novel starts with Jeff learning of Pippa’s passing, his subsequent recollections bring her to life. Secrets are revealed in the final chapter and it is almost impossible not to feel sad at the ending but also hopeful.

Actually, it’s much shorter than that.  My wife and daughter both thought I was giving to much away and suggest I shorten it to the following:

Pippa once said to me “If you ever become I writer I want you to write my story. Write our story. Write about everything. Write about how I am now and how you and I got here. It’s important. Promise me you’ll write my story.”

So begins “Pippa’s Passing”, the fictional memoir of 44 year old Jeff Carter who learns that an old love, Pippa Bailey, has died. He relates their story together from their first meeting in high-school up to eleven years before her death when he last saw her. The bulk of the story begins with their first meeting in the fall of 1977 and details their relationship up to their last encounter in 1993. In the telling, mysteries are revealed and Jeff‘s memories recall an intense relationship between the two. Although the novel starts with Jeff learning of Pippa’s passing, his subsequent recollections bring her to life. Secrets are revealed in the final chapter and it is almost impossible not to feel sad at the ending but also hopeful.

I’m still not entirely keen on it and that last paragraph needs some work.  Hopefully in the next week or so the book will be finished to the satisfaction of both Abbie and myself and will be available for purchase.  Keep reading my blahgs and I’ll announce it.

   Okay, now for the really bizarre and unbelievable bit.  This is the ‘relaunch’ part of this blahg.  I am 61 years old and I’ve written a few blahgs about who I am such as WHO I AM, WHAT IS 60?, and WHEN A GOOD MAN GOES MISSING.  I gave details of my life and what I’ve done over the past six decades.  The problem is that this was all based on a lie…or rather a mistake. 

   Let me explain.  I was born on September 23rd, 1962.  At least that’s what my mother has always told me and I’ve always celebrated it on the 23rd.  The problem has been that my Health Card and Birth Certificate have always recorded me as September 22nd.  I’ve just chosen to live with it.  Add to that the fact that my Driver’s License has my birthday as September 23rd and all my Revenue Canada information also has me down as the 23rd.  That’s crazy right?  Recently, on a hospital trip, detailed in the blahg UNPACKING THE 2024 FALSE DUCKS NEW YEAR’S DAY VIDEO RAMBLE., I was encouraged to try and sort out the discrepancy issue with my Health Card.  Here’s where things get strange. 

   I went into our local Service Ontario branch where you go to try and sort these things out.  Unfortunately the person I spoke to said she didn’t know how to handle this and gave me a phone number to call for more advice.  The telephone number was for the Service Ontario call centre.  After my quick explanation, and a considerable silence on the other end, I was told they would mail me a package of information to fill out to make the changes to my birth certificate and health card.  It took almost ten days to get the material and after reading through it, it said I had to provide proof I was actually born on September 23rd!  I guess my word or the word of my mother who was there, or so she tells me but hey it was the 60s and there were probably drugs, wasn’t good enough for the Ontario government.  Acceptable proof could be a baptismal certificate, which I don’t have, publication of the birth in the newspaper stating I was born on the 23rd, which never happened because by then I was the third child of my parents’ union and the excitement and need to proclaim my birth to the world had probably waned, or I could provide a letter from Belleville General Hospital stating I was born on the 23rd.  This last option seemed the best avenue. 

   I reached out to the hospital and, shorter story here, a nice woman went down and pulled the September log of births for 1962 and discovered that my birth was written down as occurring on September 22nd!  They had my mother’s name correct and the address where we were living at the time.  There was no mistake…wait, yes there was, there was the mistake that I had been erroneously celebrating my birthday wrong all this time!  I was flabbergasted to say the least and I even jokingly asked if the log book made any notation of me being adopted.  Nope.

   There is an old phrase, “a day late and a dollar short” which is another way to say too little too late.  Unfortunately, I’m not a day late, I’m a day earlier.  There’s no phrase for that.  Maybe there should be.  “A Day Earlier But Not A Day Wiser…Or Richer…Or What Have You.  This too, is something I’m wordsmithing.  How did this happen?  When I asked my mother about it she said the hospital is wrong and they can go rub salt.  This is my mother’s fallback slur but she’s never clear where or why people should rub salt or if the salt should be kosher, sea, table, or road.  If she did tell me, she’d probably get that wrong…LIKE MY BIRTHDAY!!! 

   So now I’m relaunching.  I’ve known for about a week that I’ve been celebrating the wrong day.  I think that makes me only a week old because I had to relaunch myself again and start the count over.  By the way, I tried to explain to my wife that our marriage is probably invalidated because I signed the marriage certificate using my 23rd birth date but she just said, “no, we’re married.”  I also tried to hit my children up for birthday gifts backdated to the year they were born.  Emily was born in 1990 so I thought she should give me 29 or 30 gifts back to that year because her gifts to me had been given on the wrong day.  My son weighed in, first saying no then highlighting that his birthday is next month and he’ll be 30 and all my focus should be on him.  Nice.  Can’t I get a moment of pity? 

   I’m going to sidetrack for a moment and give some positive news.  I finally finished all 30 Cool and Lam books. In my previous blahg, UNPACKING THE 2024 FALSE DUCKS NEW YEAR’S DAY VIDEO RAMBLE., I detailed how I had about four to read.  This is a detective series by Erle Stanley Gardner (creator of “Perry Mason”) using the pen name of A. A. Fair.  There were 30 books and I finally finished “All Grass Isn’t Green” this past weekend.  So that’s something off my to do list for 2024. 

   Getting back to my birthday.  I’ve decided after some soul-searching to continue to celebrate my birthday on September 23rd.  I’m used to it now.  It’s the same birthday as Bruce Springsteen and I’d prefer to say I share it with “The Boss” rather than the second-raters who were born on September 22nd…no offence to those born on September 22nd but Springsteen is pretty cool and who wouldn’t want to be somehow associated with him. 

   I wanted to close with something inspirational about having an incorrect birthday all these years but nothing sprang to mine.  I did, however find a short song called “It’s Not My Birthday” by the band “They Might Be Giants” that’s fun.  Here are the lyrics:

Well the rain falls down without my help I’m afraidAnd my lawn gets wet though I’ve withheld my consentWhen this grey world crumbles like a cakeI’ll be hanging from the hopeThat I’ll never see that recipe again

As I walk, I think about a new way to walkAs I think, I’m using up the time left to thinkAnd this train keeps rolling off the trackTrying to act like something elseTrying to go where it’s been uninvited

It’s not my birthdayIt’s not todayIt’s not my birthday, so why do you lunge out at me?When the word comes down “Never more will be around”Thought I’ll wish we were there, I was less than we could bearAnd I’m not the only dust my mother raised

So, I’m rattling the bars around this drink tankDiscreetly I should pour through the keyhole or evaporate completelyBut there’d be no percentage, and there’d be no proofAnd the sound upon the roof is only water

And the rain falls down without my help I’m afraidAnd my lawn gets wet though I’ve withheld my consentWhen this grey world crumbles like a cakeI’ll be hanging from the hopeThat I’ll never see that recipe again

It’s not my birthdayIt’s not todayIt’s not my birthday, so why do you lunge out at me?When the word comes down “Never more will be around”Thought I’ll wish we were there, I was less than we could bearAnd I’m not the only dust my mother raisedI am not the only dust my mother raised

Here’s the video:

   You know, I used to say to people I didn’t want any more friends because I had no vacancies but if anyone wanted to leave their name and number, I’d get back to them if something opened up.  Well, all my friendships were based on the 23rd and I have no friends for the 22nd.  I guess I’m taking applications!

 

 

UNPACKING THE 2024 FALSE DUCKS NEW YEAR’S DAY VIDEO RAMBLE.

Saturday, January 20th, 2024

    I’m finally getting around to unpacking my 2024 False Ducks Video Ramble. Scott in Red January 2024 I posted that video in my blahg from earlier this month, 2024 FALSE DUCKS NEW YEAR’S DAY VIDEO RAMBLE.  In that blahg, I rambled about a number of things that I wanted to talk about this year.  I try to always talk separately about the things I speak about in these rambles but time passes and I don’t always get on with it as quickly as I’d like.  You’ll soon find out why. 

   One of the hopes I had for this year was for good health.  Unfortunately I didn’t start out well with that.  I became sick again.  In another previous blahg, “THE CHRISTMAS MAYONNAISE” I mentioned how I got Covid at the beginning of December and then how I felt generally unwell going into the holidays with my Christmas Malaise or the Christmas Mayonnaise as I call it. During the first week of January I started to have a very sore back.  It was the area at the top of my buttocks and spread across from right to left.  On one particular day, I also experienced a very sore right testicle.  I know, too much information, but if it hadn’t been for that soreness in my testicle, I wouldn’t have known what was wrong.  You see, I had this about ten or more years ago.  It was the testicle thing that sent me to the Doctor at that time and I had to go on a ten day treatment of antibiotics.  So, on January 7th I went to the hospital in Picton and described my symptoms and the on-call Doctor diagnosed me with Epididymitis.  I believe this is what I had way back when but I didn’t remember the term.  Here’s a description of symptoms: 

It is most commonly caused by a bacterial infection but can also result from a virus. Symptoms typically include testicular swelling and pain on one side, which may start out as dull but can become more intense or sharp. In some cases, pain may also be felt in the abdomen, pelvis, or low back.

Yep, that was me.  I wasn’t sleeping well because the back pain was intense at night.  From December 24th and for the next two weeks I was up for at least an hour each night trying to deal with the pain.  I finished my course of antibiotics yesterday and you’ll be happy to know I feel better and won’t talk about my testicle again in this blahg. 

   So, now to unpacking the Ramble.  First, let me re-post the Video Ramble: 

I already addressed the health issue so let’s hope I don’t have to address that again.  The next thing I make reference to is the “Cool and Lam” books.  Wikipedia describes Cool and Lam this way: 

Cool and Lam is a fictional American private detective firm that is the center of a series of thirty detective novels written by Erle Stanley Gardner (creator of “Perry Mason”) using the pen name of A. A. Fair.

I started commenting on the Cool and Lam series in a blahg from 2021, called THIS IS 100, PART ONE.  Here’s what I said then when I talked about books I had recently read:

Instead, I’ll mention two that I recently read, “The Bigger They Come” and “The Knife Slipped” by Erle Stanley Gardner writing as A.A. Fair.  Gardner is famous for creating and writing about Perry Mason.  Cool and Lam is a fictional American private detective firm run by Bertha Cool with Donald Lam as her main operative.  Gardner published 29 books in the series from 1939 to 1970.  I first became interested in the Cool and Lam series due to my interest in Frank Sinatra.  The second book in the series “Turn On the Heat” was adapted for the June 23, 1946, broadcast of Hour of Mystery with Frank Sinatra as the first actor to portray Donald Lam.  Unfortunately that broadcast does not appear to circulate.  I always thought about reading the book from the series, “Turn On The Heat”, that the broadcast was based on.  That meant starting with the first book “The Bigger They Come.”  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It’s the late 1930s into the 1940s gritty detective novel.

   I was then going to turn my attention to “Turn On The Heat” which was the second published book in the series.  I discovered, however, that this wasn’t the second book written in the series because Gardner had written “The Knife Slipped” after “The Bigger They Come.”  Here’s what Wikipedia says about it:  “Originally written to be the second book in the Cool and Lam series but rejected by Gardner’s publisher, The Knife Slipped was found among Gardner’s papers and published for the first time in 2016.”  Hard Case Crime published “The Knife Slipped” and after reading it, and enjoying it even more than “The Bigger They Come”, I was drawn back in again to that gritty thirties Los Angeles noir.  Hard Case Crime also republished “Turn On The Heat” and that’s the copy I have to read next.

Well, my goal was to read all thirty in the series.  All Grass Isn't GreenWhen I recorded the Video Ramble I mentioned I had still to read four more:  “Cut Thin To Win (1965), Widows Wear Weeds (1966), Traps Need Fresh Bait (1967), and “All Grass Isn’t Green (1970).  Well, I’m happy to say that since the Video Ramble I have read three of those and now only have “All Grass Isn’t Green” to read.  I hope to read it this weekend.  I highly recommend the series. 

   The next two topics from the Ramble were the Polar Dip and the Christmas Malaise.  I’ve already linked above to the Christmas Mayonnaise blahg but I’ll re-post here the video of my Polar Dip on January 1st: 

There’s not much to say on that.  It was cold and it was wet and I survived.  Next stop, an ocean! 

   Next up was mention of the Christmas Tree launch.  I’ll just re-post (I’ve used that term three times now and it’s as good a word as any) what I have said before about my annual Christmas Tree launch:

   I should add that I also have a tradition of disposing of the Christmas tree.  At the bottom of our property is a creek that runs fast and deep in the spring after the snow melts.  Our annual live Christmas tree, after its stint in the house, rests out behind our garage until I can get to the creek in the spring and chuck it in.  It’s swept up in the current and disappears.  I tried following a tree one year and got about half a kilometer before the creek took a bend through a farmer’s field and was carried out of sight.  In my imagination there is a Valhalla for our Christmas trees down where the creek ends or maybe it manages to make its way to the sea.  More likely there’s a dam of trees somewhere along the creek route overflowing and flooding the farmer’s fields or perhaps the basement of his farmhouse.

Here is the video of the 2022 Christmas Tree launch attempt. 

This year’s tree is still sitting on my deck and is now covered in snow. 

My 2023 Christmas Tree covered in snow

   I gave mention in the Ramble to my Jerry Mathers autograph.  I can’t believe I didn’t post about that here.  In June last year, I went down to a convention in Niagara Falls, Canada and got Jerry Mathers’ autograph on a still I found of Bob Hope and Mathers from the movie “That Certain Feeling.” That’s one of my favourite Bob Hope movies.  Most people remember Jerry Mathers as ‘Beaver’ from “Leave It To Beaver.”  Jerry Mathers was very nice and had fond memories of Bob Hope.  Here’s that photo with Mathers’ autograph.

Jerry Mathers and Bob Hope

I found a nice video on YouTube of an interview Mathers did when he was in Niagara Falls last June:

 

   Today is the anniversary of my Dad’s death in 2019.  Wow, five years gone.  I don’t want to dwell on my Dad’s death.  Here’s the photo again of my Dad that I mentioned in the Ramble. I found it recently.  It’s from December of 1966.  My mother says it was taken at my Aunt Muriel’s house and she thinks it’s one of my older brothers in the picture

My Father, George Henderson, December 1966

I’ve published a few blahgs about my Dad, THE PASSING OF GEORGE ARTHUR HENDERSONME AND MY GRIEFMY FATHER’S VOICE, A SHOUT OUT TO MY DAD  and you can read about those to find out how I feel about my Father. 

   One last thing I want to pick out of the Ramble is that this year is a Leap Year.  There’s an extra day to enjoy and I suggest making the whole year one to enjoy and to discover new things.  The last Leap Year was in 2020 and I wrote a blahg about it, sort of, HOW I MET MY WIFE OR BEST LEAP DAY EVER!  The point is, take the year and treat it like it’s a gift or an extra and find things to do that make you happy.  Discover new things. In these Blahgs I am constantly talking about new things and people I’ve discovered.  I’ve written blahgs on Linda Keene, Dottie Reid, Marie Carroll and about different things associated with Frank Sinatra.  I’ve mentioned before that I send out daily posts about what Sinatra was doing on a particular day.  For example, here’s one of the entries for yesterday, January 18th:

Television

1958 Club Oasis
Saturday Evening
Network: NBC
Time: 9:00 – 9:30 P.M.
Sponsor: Club Oasis Cigarettes
Host: Frank Sinatra
Guests: Pat Suzuki, Stan Freberg, Hy Gardner
SONGS:
I’ve Got The World On A String
All The Way
Just One Of Those Things P. Suzuki
Don’t Get Around Much Anymore P. Suzuki
Tell Her You Love Her
Come Fly With Me

That television show is not in circulation but yesterday I discovered that someone had posted the audio on YouTube for all of Sinatra’s songs.  I had never heard these performances before: 

  

   Well, I’ve probably rambled enough about the False Ducks 2024 Video Ramble.  I’ll leave you with some words of wisdom, ala Sinatra’s songs from that 1958 Club Oasis appearance.  It’s a Leap Year and you get an extra day.  Say to yourself, “I’ve Got The World On A String” and try to seize every moment and don’t do it half-heartedly but try and do it “All The Way”.  If there’s someone special in your life “Tell Her You Love Her” or him or them every day.  I’ll catch you in the next blahg when I invite you to “Come Fly With Me” and we’ll make some new memories for the upcoming year.

2024 FALSE DUCKS NEW YEAR’S DAY VIDEO RAMBLE

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2024

Scott January 1, 2024      It’s January 1st, 2024 and time for my 2024 False Ducks New Year’s Day Video Ramble.  I recorded the ramble this afternoon after getting back from North Beach on Lake Ontario where I did the following Polar Dip: 

I ramble quite a bit in this year’s 2024 video ramble and I’ll unpack details on it in another blahg.  Right now, I want to get this posted so it looks like I accomplished something on this first day of 2024: 

   I reference a couple of things in this video that I will post now and talk about later.  Here’s the photo of my Father, George Henderson, that I found earlier today.  It says December 1966 on it and I was only four so I don’t think it’s me with him in the photo but rather my older brother Tim or Todd: 

My Father, George Henderson, December 1966

I also mention the song “Joy” by Scott Mulvahill.  Here’s the music video for it on YouTube: 

 

That’s it for me on this first day of 2024.  All the best to everyone and let’s find that peace in the world, peace among ourselves, and peace in our self we all desperately need.  Happy New Year!

  

A VERY QUIET CHRISTMAS PLAN.

Wednesday, December 27th, 2023

     I think I’m over my Christmas Malaise.  Santa ScottI decided to write this short blahg on Boxing Day to say that I’m okay.  I had a great Christmas with my wife and children and son-in-law and I wasn’t anxious or depressed once.  I managed to even write a short new Christmas story on Christmas day which I will debut here.  My wife and son both described it as “cute” and Noah even went on to say it was “sweet.”  I’ll accept that.  More about the story in a bit. 

   Here’s a wonderful photo taken today before Emily, Charlie and Noah had to head back to Toronto: 

Emily, Charlie, Noah and Abbie

From left to right are Abbie, Emily, Charlie and Noah.  You can tell it was around Christmas because the tree is partially visible on the right.  In 2022 it snowed so much that Emily, Charlie and Noah couldn’t get to our home until Boxing Day.  What a difference a day makes. 

   On Christmas Eve I lay in bed and the germ of a story was floating around in my head.  I hadn’t planned on writing anything and this was my first Christmas story since “The Stolen Christmas” which I penned over the first month and half in 2021 and I debuted in my blahg, A LATE CHRISTMAS STORY…OR AN EARLY ONE.  At least this one was written in time for Christmas of 2023.  I fell asleep thinking of the story and awoke in the middle of the night not remembering most of it.  Luckily, by mid-morning on Christmas Day it had come back to me.  A little polishing and by early evening I was happy with it.  The original title was “Carnival Barker” but I thought that was a giveaway and certainly didn’t suggest the story had anything to do with Christmas.  I gave it the new title of “A Very Quiet Christmas Plan”.  Here it is:

A Very Quiet Christmas Plan

by

Scott Henderson

 

            Philip decided he was going to have a very quiet Christmas.  That was his plan.  It hadn’t been planned if you went back several months but the current plan seemed suitable.

            Margo had left after Labor Day.  She hadn’t been happy for a while and she told Philip she was leaving to find herself.  Philip found himself…alone…after Margo left and took Carnival Barker with her.  Carnival Barker was their dog.  Really, Carnival Barker was Philip’s dog because it followed him home one day.  It barked after him the whole way from the park and it sat in the street and barked continuously until Philip came down from his second floor apartment in an effort to make peace with the dog and his neighbours for the continuous barking.

            “You should be a Carnival Barker the way you carry on,” Philip said to the dog.  The name stuck and, anyhow, Carnival Barker didn’t object.

            Margo objected.

            “You don’t know where the dog’s been or who he might have belonged to,” she explained to Philip.  “Either he goes or I go.”

            In the end both of them went but not before Carnival Barker stayed and Margo stayed but she always referred to him as ‘Barker” although Philip slipped in the full ‘Carnival Barker’ whenever he and the dog were alone; which was often because Margo had been trying to find herself for quite a while and that meant she was always out trying something different which didn’t always include Philip or even Carnival Barker.

            “Why did she have to take Carnival Barker if she was trying to find herself?”  Philip had said this aloud numerous times since Margo left when he wondered about her which was less often than when he wondered about Carnival Barker.  His little joke to himself was that maybe Carnival Barker was a guide dog and was helping her find her way.  He fantasized often that the dog came back and Margo stayed wherever it was she found herself.  He still held that fantasy as it got closer to Christmas and imagined that he’d wake Christmas morning to the sound of Carnival Barker extolling the virtues of his name down in the street until his neighbours pounded on his door and told him to “quiet that hound.”  After all, wasn’t that the exact phrase they’d shouted when Carnival Barker had first followed him home.

            Philip wondered what it had been about him that made anyone or anything want to follow him home.  There had been Carnival Barker but before that there had been Margo.

            Margo had followed him home from another walk in the park.  He hadn’t noticed her at first until she eventually piped up and said “if you hadn’t noticed, I’m following you.  I don’t usually do this but I’m in this whole seize the moment stage and I saw your face and thought I should just follow this guy home and see what develops.”

            What developed was a six month relationship where Margo moved in and Philip let her.  He liked Margo.  She was take charge or forward ho or a number of catch phrases that challenged her to do something different like following someone home and  building a relationship.

            There was no courtship with Margo.  Philip had been alone and then there was Margo.  She saw him every day.  She talked incessantly but she asked numerous questions about him and that seemed appealing.  No one had ever asked him so much about himself in so short a time and no one had ever followed him home from the park just to see what developed.  It was nice.

            Philip did not think he loved Margo.  In fact, he knew he did not love her or loved her less when she left and loved her even more less or lesser when she left and took Carnival Barker.

            No one ever claimed Carnival Barker; except Margo in the end.  Philip had put up posters and read the papers but there were no lost dog inquiries that matched the description of Carnival Barker.  His main feature was his bark which had been incessant when he wanted Philip to invite him into his home and ceased after he’d gained entry.
This was akin to how Margo stopped her incessant talking and personal questioning of Philip after she too had moved in.  No one claimed her either.  He never met her family, if she had one, and her only friends seemed to be Philip and Carnival Barker or anyone involved in her finding herself activities when she went out and left man and dog alone.

            Philip missed that dog.  He missed the padding of his feet or how Carnival Barker would stare at him when Margo was out and Philip could just imagine the dog saying it was another evening in for the boys and Philip would stare back and then tell Carnival Barker that an evening alone with him without Margo was more than worthwhile.  The dog hadn’t been large or small and not exactly somewhere in the middle.  He was the size he was which was right for him and besides his bark, his other distinguishable feature was his colouring.  Margo would use flowery descriptions of autumnal shadings of leaves or beach sands after receding tides when Philip clearly thought Carnival Barker reminded him of the colour of turkey gravy from a can.  It was little things like that widening the gap between Margo and Philip that eventually led to her leaving.  She’d left a note that was a panoramic description of the chasm developing between them as she sought to find meaning while Philip seemed to be rather happy in the status quo.

            Philip liked the status quo.  Margo was gone and so was Carnival Barker.  It was Christmas now and he moved through it as he liked and the current plan of a quiet Christmas was enough.  At least it should have been.

            It started with the turkey.  This had not factored into Philip’s plans.  A quiet Christmas meant to Philip no fuss or bother or commitment to any holiday plans other than a quiet Christmas.  The turkey changed everything.  He’d won it in a holiday raffle at work.  He wasn’t even sure what the proceeds of the raffle went to support.  He’d been cajoled into buying a ticket and just assumed the proceeds would go to pay for the cost of the turkey that would be won by some poor sucker.

            Philip was that poor sucker.  And it was a fresh turkey, and not frozen, and given out two days before Christmas so he’d have to plan something for it and upset his plan for no real plan for Christmas.

            Of course if you have a turkey and you have to cook it, which is a plan far better than throwing it away or trying to fawn it off on someone else who had even less plans than Philip, then you have to build on that and soon there’s potatoes and stuffing and cranberries and pie and gravy and of course that would remind Philip completely of Carnival Barker.  And if  you have all that and you’re suffering melancholia for a dog who followed you home from the park and not the woman who had tried that trick before the dog then you have to alter all plans and invite others in to share in your newly best laid plans that altered your regular plan in the first place.  And if you’re all in on the meal and inviting others then you have to plan for decorations and a tree and lifting your spirits without artificial spirits so no one knows the melancholia was about all you could stomach without the turkey and the decorations and the whole Christmas with trimmings.

            In the end, Philip was alone.  No one came.  No one was available and yet all the plans had been made and he had committed himself to those plans and when the plan of a quiet Christmas did materialize despite Philip’s best efforts to expand the raffle turkey into an extravaganza evening, he was a little disappointed to find himself alone on Christmas Eve with the thought that the next day was Christmas and he still had all that cooking to do with the raffle turkey and no one to share it with and slip turkey to under the festooned table.

            On Christmas Eve, Philip did nothing.  He stared at the tree he’d been obliged to include in his failed plans and the lights dancing on the tree lulled him to sleep.  He dreamed fitfully.

            In his dreams Philip was back at the park and there was Margo and Carnival Barker and they were chasing him and he was trying to avoid being caught by hiding behind various trees but secretly relishing in the notion that Carnival Barker could sniff him out but that Margo would have no such talent and might eventually give up and go on with her life.  Ultimately Carnival Barker’s bark would betray him and Margo would hone in and find him as if she’d had some talent after all and not give credit to the dog she simply referred to as Barker.

            Margo would pull Philip close and kiss his face and tell him he’d been found and he’d laugh and wonder how it easy it had been that she had found him, with Carnival Barker’s help, yet she had a difficult time finding herself.

            Philip woke up Christmas morning and could still feel Margo’s wet dream kisses upon his cheek.  It wasn’t though.  It was dog slobber.  It was Carnival Barker.

            “Carnival Barker, how can you be here?” he said aloud to the dog.

            Of course it wasn’t the dog who replied, it was Margo, standing in the doorway looking no more found than she had when he had last seen her in September.

            “Barker and I thought you might be a little lost without us and I know a thing or two about lost and found and we found ourselves alone and determined that you should not be and so here we are and I’m famished.”  She’d not even stopped to take a breath.  Typical Margo.  She was gone and then she was back. Philip recalled how she had never left her key behind after she left.  Philip didn’t care.  Carnival Barker was back.

            There was nothing for it after that and Philip had to cook the Christmas dinner and spend it with Margo talking about her travels over the past few months and her enlightenment and not once mentioning how Carnival Barker had factored into any of it and all the while Philip grinned and slipped the dog pieces of dark meat and marveled at how much his coat really did resemble tinned turkey gravy.

            Margo moved back in and then shortly after New Year moved out again after following someone else home from the park and calling up Philip and saying she’d found her soulmate, as if he’d been lost to her until then, and that she’d call for Barker but not sounding convincing at all…about retrieving the dog and not the bit about the soulmate.  The soulmate was just some poor sucker who probably deserved Margo as much as Philip had deserved a fresh not frozen turkey that upset his plans for a quiet Christmas.

            Philip didn’t care.  Carnival Barker was back and he was determined to change his locks and that nothing planned or unplanned would take Carnival Barker from him again.

            As it so often does, Philip’s plans did change, though.  He eventually met someone else and he married and there were children and there was still Carnival Barker.  And there were great Christmases and Philip would often think back on that one extraordinary Christmas.  Not the one where he had won the turkey and Margo had come back but the following year when he cooked a turkey again and it was just him and Carnival Barker and Philip set a place for the gravy coloured dog at the table.

 

The End

 

I hope you enjoyed that and I hope the remainder of your holiday season for 2023 and into 2024 is everything you hoped for.

“THE CHRISTMAS MAYONNAISE”

Saturday, December 23rd, 2023

     My friend Bryan used to talk about his Christmas Malaise.  Santa ScottIt seemed to be an all encompassing thing that he would trot out around this time of year.  I thought it was just him being impatient with everyone and having to stand in lines and not really having a family of his own with whom he could celebrate his Holiday season.  (See how I used “whom” in a sentence?  The English major in me comes out sometimes.)  I used to refer to Bryan’s malaise as his “Christmas Mayonnaise” as he would bring it out and spread it over everything joyful during the yuletide and sometimes I thought he was laying it on a little thick.  Once, I thought about writing a humorous story about his Christmas Mayonnaise but, in the end, I thought I was making too much of it…until it happened to me. 

   I looked up the word “malaise” today and was struck by the definition provided: 

A general feeling of discomfort, illness, or uneasiness whose exact cause is difficult to identify.

Yep, that was me yesterday.  If I’m being truthful, that’s been how I’ve felt for the past week or so.  Back up to the end of last month and it starts to fall into place.  At the end of last month, November 30th, I got sick.  My wife had been home for two days with a bad cold.  I tried to avoid it and even slept in another part of the house.  That didn’t help.  On Friday November 30th, I woke up with the head cold and aches and a headache.  I stayed home from work because the next day I was going to Toronto and nothing was going to stop me. 

   Jump back even further to my birthday on September 23rd of this year.  I was in Toronto that day as well.  I had gone up to Toronto to be taken out to lunch by my daughter Emily.  Her husband Charlie, my wife Jeanette, and my son Noah were there.  Abbie was still in Britain at the time.  We all had lunch at a nice deli that served Reuben sandwiches because that’s what I wanted.  Here’s a nice photo of Emily and Charlie from that lunch:

Here’s Noah from the same lunch: 

Noah from my birthday September 23, 2023

Sorry, I don’t have a picture of my sandwich.  I’m not one of those people who takes photos of their meals to try and impress everyone.  My story should be enough.  Emily and Charlie paid for the lunch so that was their gift to me.  Noah surprised me by announcing he had purchased tickets for both of us to go see Martin Short and Steve Martin on December 1st. 

 

So that brings you up to speed.  I was sick on November 30th but I had to make it to Toronto for Steve Martin and Martin Short on December 1st. 

   I wont detail the evening with those two great comedians.  It was awesome.  I was full of medication and felt okay.  I had taken the train from Belleville to Toronto on Saturday afternoon and stayed over at a hotel near downtown Toronto.  I didn’t sleep well after the concert because I found the city too noisy and the head cold was taking hold again.  The next day I did some shopping before taking a mid-afternoon train back to Belleville.  By the time I got home, I was extremely sick.  The head cold, the aches and pains, the headache, and tiredness had knocked me down.  I did a Covid test and I tested positive.  It was my first time getting Covid.  This was after me getting my most recent booster a week before.  My wife did a test and she tested positive as well.  I stayed home for the next three days.  I pushed myself to try and get back to work because there were some things happening that I felt I needed to be there for.  I didn’t do myself any favours.  I was weakened but I pushed through it.

   Last week I tried to be on top of everything but felt I wasn’t getting ahead.  I was planning for our own Christmas, trying to help my aging Mother with her diabetes, and trying to prepare for a Christmas lunch at work to feed around fifty people.  By this past Saturday afternoon, I was sick again.  I had felt better in the morning and late in the afternoon my wife and I went to do some shopping at the Belleville Walmart.  I started feeling dizzy and while browsing the bedding aisle I felt weak enough that I had to sit down on the floor.  Then I was lying on my side on the floor.  I’m not sure what my wife was thinking but she was concerned and asked if she should call an ambulance.  I said no and managed to get up and go outside to our car.  The fresh air helped but I wasn’t feeling well for the rest of the night or the next morning.  By Sunday afternoon I felt better but I had a twinge in my lower back that hurt and wouldn’t subside. 

   Skip to yesterday.  Another busy week with lots happening at work and me at another building yesterday for yet another big Christmas lunch.  Later, I had to go back to work and then find time to go out and look for a turkey for own Christmas dinner.  I had been to three other grocery stores and hadn’t found anything I liked.  I finally managed to find one at Walmart, where I managed to stay upright for the time I was there, and did some Christmas shopping for my wife.  Unfortunately I found out later that I had bought something in the wrong size and it would require another trip back to exchange the item.  On the way home I had to go out of my way and stop off at a fishing depot and pick something up for my son-in-law for Christmas.  Driving home, I started to feel worse with a neck pain, headache, and that lower back twinge was increasing.  Add to all of that, earlier in the afternoon my Doctor’s office called to say the result of my blood test from the previous day showed that my fasting sugars were too high. 

   When I got home I was tired and sick and pretty well angry with everything.  In short I had a general feeling of discomfort, illness, and uneasiness whose exact cause was difficult to identify.  I was suffering Bryan’s Christmas Malaise.  I didn’t realize it then but when I went back to Walmart to exchange the item I mentioned earlier, I began to remember that this was just how Bryan had felt and the Mayonnaise was spreading over me rather thickly.  It was time to start taking better care of myself.  I had to lay down on the bed and I just started crying, uttered a few profanities, and just grumbled to my wife.  She wanted me to stay home from work the next day but I couldn’t do that.  I was determined to push through it and try to get back on track.  When I finally realized it was the Malaise, I was able to step back and say to myself that I needed to slow down and just enjoy the rest of the holiday season. 

   My house has been festooned for Christmas for a few weeks so one thing I did was to take some photos of our decorations inside and my display outside.  It helped me to focus on why I love this time of year.  Here are some photos of our mantle display, our nutcrackers and our Christmas tree as well as a light-up angel we like to put out. 













The outdoor display has been a bit of struggle.  I had an inflatable snowman but the motor recently died and my inflatable moose had to be taken in because he wasn’t inflating fully.  I had put a new motor in the moose so I think it needs to be adjusted.  I also had a plastic caroller set of three children and their dog that finally had to be retired because it was cracked and broken.  Here’s what my outdoor display currently looks like: 








Of course it all looks nice with a little bit of snow on the ground but I’ve heard it will all be gone by December 24th.  Compare that to last year when we had so much snow on Christmas day that they closed the roads in my area and my children from Toronto couldn’t get home until the 26th.  You can read all about that in my blahg,  HOW WAS YOUR CHRISTMAS?  By the way, the pictures below show the snowman, the carollers and the moose from previous years.

 

   One other thing that bothered me this year was related to Sinatra and Ireland.  I have this app on my Ipod that plays Christmas classics.  For some reason, in the past two weeks, the announcers or disk jockeys have an Irish accent and the sponsors seem to be located in Ireland.  Last weekend they had a dedicated Sinatra weekend and they kept making announcements about the next song in the rotation and would give a big buildup to Sinatra.  Unfortunately, it was never Sinatra.  Sometimes it was Bing Crosby or Andy Williams or Nat King Cole.  It got to the point where I started to believe that people in Ireland didn’t really know who Sinatra was.   One of the songs they introduced was “The First Noel” and it turned out to be by Nat King Cole.  If you want to view a nice rendition of Sinatra singing this song from a 1980 special, “The Most Joyful Mystery”, check this out:

   A number of years ago I put together a collection of Sinatra Christmas Rarities.  These were rare version of Christmas songs from Sinatra radio and TV shows ranging from 1943 to 1985.  I thought about shipping it to Ireland but just sending a CD to the entire population of Ireland seemed a bit much.  Instead I’ll post some tracks here and hope that Ireland is listening.  The very first is a version of White Christmas that Sinatra sang on his Songs By Sinatra radio program from December 19, 1943:

In the middle of the compilation is a beautiful version of “Let It Snow” from another Songs By Sinatra program on December 25, 1946:

There’s also a very funny version of Sinatra singing “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” from the “Your Hit Parade” radio broadcast of January 1st, 1949:

There’s also a funny parody of “Jingle Bells” with Sinatra and Bob Hope from the radio broadcast of The Bob Hope Show, December 24th, 1953

I’ll close with another video of Sinatra singing but this time it’s “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” from a TV Special from 1985, “All-Star Party for ‘Dutch’ Reagan.  That’s former U.S. President Ronald Reagan in case you didn’t know.

 

If that doesn’t lift your Christmas Mayonnaise then nothing will.

MARIE CARROLL AND BOB STRONG REVISITED.

Sunday, November 19th, 2023

    This is going to be one of those short update blahgs.  In my last blahg, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MISS REGINA HASSOCK OF 1947?  I mentioned  some live remotes that Marie Carroll did with Bob Strong and his orchestra that were available on a CD released by Circle Records with the title “Bob Strong And His Orchestra, 1944-1945”:

In that previous blahg, I said that I thought these were live remotes.  I also said I didn’t believe that Marie Carroll went into the studio and recorded any vocals with Bob Strong or any other orchestra with whom she had been associated over the years.  This updated blahg will correct that information. 

   When I wrote the last blahg, I had the above CD on order and had not yet received it.  Now that it’s in my possession, I can correct some of my information with some of the information from the liner notes.  Here’s what was said in the liner notes about these songs: 

The Bob Strong bands on this disc, in exceptional repro quality, are from two dates:  The first is but two and a half months after their Glen Island debut; The Second, almost nine months later…The popular ballads of the day are also accounted for in fine style.  Five of them are handled by Marie Carroll, whose vocal versatility was exceeded only by her physical attributes.  (MGM was constantly reported to be waiting at her door, along with many others.)  She’s June Christy Kittenish on “This Is It” and “You Was Right, Baby”, plaintive on Johnny Mercer’s “Out Of This World”; moody on the ’45 Academy Award nominee, “Love Letters”; romantic on “I Wish I Knew”, which made the ‘Your Hit Parade’s’ top-ten for eleven weeks.

The other important information from this CD is that all tracks were recorded for Lang-Worth on October 25, 1944 at Columbia Studios in New York or on August 13th, 1945 at Columbia Studios in Chicago.  All of Marie Carroll’s tracks are attributed to the August 13th, 1945 recording sessions.    Here’s a description of the Lang-Worth Transcriptions from the website https://www.jazzology.com/item_detail.php?id=SCD-44/45:

Lang Worth transcription discs. Lang Worth transcriptions were sold in a subscription series to independent radio stations that sought access to top-tier artists, on a dime-store budget. That enabled small stations, for example to provide the same high-quality programming their larger competitors offered. In this way, transcription discs helped to somewhat level the playing field during radio’s early years.

In this case, the Lang-Worth transcriptions for Bob Strong and His Orchestra were on 16 inch 33/3 rpm records.  If you want to know more about 16 inch records, then check out my earlier blahg, 16 INCHES OF TROUBLE OR LIKE FATHER LIKE SON.  The following 16 inch Lang-Worth record contains eight songs with only one on one side featuring Bob Strong and His Orchestra with one vocal by Marie Carroll who is referenced as Marion Carroll:

So I was mistaken, a much better word than saying wrong, when I said I didn’t think Marie Carroll went into the studio and recorded any vocals with Bob Strong or any other orchestra.  Clearly the Lang-Worth sessions were recorded, as mentioned, in the Columbia Studios in Chicago on August 13, 1945.  I’m not aware of any other studio sessions with Marie Carroll but then I wasn’t aware of these.  If you want to listen to any of Marie/Marion Carroll’s tracks with Bob Strong then please check out my previous blahg, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MISS REGINA HASSOCK OF 1947?  There are links to YouTube where you can listen to the five songs that appear on the Circle Records CD.

   For  the remainder of this blahg, I thought I would link to some of the YouTube videos for the Bob Strong tracks from the Circle Records CD that did not feature Marie/Marion Carroll.  The CD liner provides some interesting notes about some of the tracks that make it worthwhile to post here. 

The music they put forth is a potpourri of unique arrangements of a broad  array of mostly familiar melodies.  You’ll here a pretty, easy listening adapatation from “Tannhauser”, Evening Star, featuring smooth reed work that may remind you of Glenn Miller; A swinging Coquette, whose booting sax and gutty trombone solos would have shaken one of its composers, Carmen Lombardo.

Here are “Evening Star” and “Coquette”:

After a mention of Marie Carroll’s tracks, the liner notes speak about some of the other vocals on the CD: 

The only other ballad, Always, also enjoyed nine weeks of acclaim on the Hit Parade some twenty years after Irving Berlin penned it in 1925.  Terry Ferris’ Ballad singing wanders a little, but is followed by a surprising up-tempo change-of-pace chorus where his second swing at the vocal fares much better.  Tony Feola gives a lust reading of Judy Garland’s hit train song On The Atcheson, Topeka and the Santa Fe. 

Here are those two tracks: 

There are two damaged tracks on the CD that receive a decent write-up: 

Tom Eldridge clearly has the best voice of the male creamers but these tracks unfortunately have some permanent groove damage from old man time…however, I would not have dropped these two tracks from the compact disc.  They certainly are not unbearable.

Those two tracks are “You Belong To My Heart” & “Waiting”: 

I’ll keep researching Marie Carroll but I’m happy at least I was able to correct some of my information.  Hey, I make mistakes…just don’t tell my wife that.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MISS REGINA HASSOCK OF 1947?

Saturday, November 11th, 2023

    I’m writing this blahg which will be incomplete.  I’ve been trying to find more information about the subject but my research has come up short.  Be forewarned, this is yet another blahg inspired by continued interest and research on Frank Sinatra.  This harkens back to 1939 and forward in time but I can’t find an end date.  Confused?  So am I.  

   Yes, the topic at hand today is Miss Regina Hassock of 1947 but her true name is Marie Carroll or Margie Carroll or Marion Carroll depending on what you read and when you read it. I’ll get into a bit of an explanation soon enough but after almost two months of research here are the bullet points I’ve managed to put together:

  • Marie Carroll (aka Marion Carroll and Margie Carroll)
  • from Charleston, WV
  • sang with Jan Savitt, Johnny Long, Bob Strong, Bob Chester
  • March 1939 torch singer
  • 1939 limited time with Harry James
  • December 3, 1943 married Jack Cancelmi – she was with Art Farrar Orchestra
  • March 1944 with Maurice Spitalny’s Orchestra & married to Jack Cancelmi (drummer in Brad Hunt’s band) but separated by June 1944
  • March 14, 1944 Marie Carroll no longer with Spitalny but article on March 21, 1944 said they had patched up differences and were together again
  • June 1944 no longer with Spitalny
  • October 1944 solo
  • December 1944 with Bob Strong
  • January 1945 with Bob Strong – Victory Spotlight of Bands
  • April 1946 still with Bob Strong
  • March 1947 voted Miss Regina Hassock

   So, how did I get onto Marie Carroll?  Part of it starts with a photo.  This photo: 

That photo is really just an illustrated version of this photo: 

Marie Carroll at Roseland

Both photos come from the website, https://swingandbeyond.com/2023/10/02/on-a-little-street-in-singapore-1939-harry-james-with-frank-sinatra/, and the description details for the photo is the following: 

(At right: Frank Sinatra sings on a James broadcast from Roseland Ballroom in New York – July 1939. The girl seated on the bandstand is vocalist Margie Carroll.) (2)

Note the (2) after the description.  Here’s what that references: 

(2) Identification of the girl singer, Margie Carroll, who is also in the picture with James and Sinatra from Roseland Ballroom comes from George T. Simon’s review of the James band at Roseland in Manhattan in the summer of 1939. That review appeared in the September 1939 issue of Metronome. Bernice Byers, sang with the James band before Ms. Carroll, and Connie Haines, who joined the James band in early May of 1939, performed in that role after that. Ms. Carroll was evidently subbing for Ms. Haines at the time this photo was taken.

George T. Simon had referred to her again as “Margie” Carroll.  The following excerpt is from the book “Simon Says The Sights And Sounds Of The Swing Era 1935-1955″ The Best Writing of George T. Simon”:

MONDAY— – Interesting visitors at the office today. Guy Smith and Jimmy Campbell of Jan Savitt’s band dropped in to say hello. Then came Terry Allen, who’s now singing with Clinton, with a very pretty Miss Parker. Romance Dept.? Wonderful guy, modest as they come, that Allen! Just before closing Bud Elliot and Dave Faulkner of the Modem Rhythm Corp. stepped in with some ideas anent a radio show. Sounds good. Discussions of records, etc., on small stations. . . . Then supper and to a preview of Columbia Record Corp. radio show. Harry James featured. Some good ideas. Johnny Hammond supposed to m. c., but he was on coast making Goodman records. Afterwards a whole bunch of us went to Roseland to catch more of Harry. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a gal got up on the stand and started to sing with the band. Sounded fine. Everybody impressed. Found out her name was Margie Carroll; she’d been singing with Paul Martel at the Arcadia. Wouldn’’t be surprised if Harry took her. That Harry Gomez name, by the way, is beginning to stick! . . . Before going to bed I dropped in at the New Yorker to see Seger Ellis and wife (Irene Taylor) and band, there on a one-nighter. That Choir of Brass idea is fine. Banifs rhythm section was weak, but Seger was already looking for a new drummer and pianist.

The fact that Simon referred to her as Margie Carroll doesn’t help us.  I wanted to learn more about Marie or Margie Carroll  but information is very sparse.  I tried turning to the BandChirps website, https://bandchirps.com/, but they have no entry for Marie Carroll.  The only mention of Marie Carroll on the BarndChips site is in the entry on Harry James, https://bandchirps.com/band/harry-james/:

James and his new orchestra debuted in February 1939 at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel in Philadelphia. Bernice Byres served as its first female vocalist.  Byres remained with the band until at least early April, with Connie Haines having taken over by June. James had heard Haines rehearsing at a music publishing office and hired her. He soon became dissatisfied with Haines, however, and she was gone by September, replaced by Marie Carroll, who herself was gone by the end of that month. James didn’t immediately hire anyone to replace Carroll, telling Down Beat magazine “we do not use a girl singer because everyone we’ve had yet has been unsatisfactory, and until we find one who stacks up as strong as the band, we won’t worry.”

So who was Marie Carroll?  Where did she come from?  What happened to her?  Those are questions that remain to be answered.  All of the bullet points I listed earlier come from newspaper and magazine articles. We know she was with Harry James in the summer of 1939 at the Roseland Ballroom in New York and for a short period of time with James at the New York World’s Fair in August of 1939.  The only listing I could find for her prior to being with Harry James in 1939 was an entry in The Miami Herald from February 15, 1939 where she was appearing at the Sweepstakes Club and being billed as a “Torch Singer”:

Marie Carroll Torch Singer

I’m assuming that the Torch Singer is the same Marie Carroll.  There was also an actress and a dancer around that time with the same name but are definitely not the same person.  I couldn’t find any other entry for Marie Carroll for 1939 or even before that year.

   Details such as her having sung with Jan Savitt, Johnny Long, Bob Strong came from later articles in 1943, 1944 and 1946.  The following article references an appearance of Marie Carroll with King Cole’s Orchestra in Shamokin, Pennsylvania in March of 1946.  It mentions some of the other bands she has been with before that :

Marie Carroll with King Cole

I had to work backwards from this article and try to pick up even earlier threads.    From March of 1944, I found a reference to Marie Carroll getting married:

Marie Carroll married

So she was married and was with the Maurice Spitalny Orchestra.  I worked back a little more and found reference to the marriage and a few more details: 

Marie is married

The above article was from December 2, 1943 and at that time she was with Art Farrar’s Orchestra and we learned that she’s from Charleston, West Virginia.  Obviously, Marie left Art Farrar after that to take the position of singer with the Maurice Spitalny Orchestra.  Here’s an article from January 31st, 1944 that explains how she ended up with Spitalny: 

Marie Carroll story

The marriage to Jack Conselmi and her association with Spitalny ended by summer of 1944.  By June 26th, 1944 it was being reported that Conselmi and Marie Carroll had separated and she was no longer with Spitalny’s band: 

Carroll and Conselmi are separated

Two articles ran a week apart in March of 1944, the first on the 14th and the second on the 21st, suggesting there was a problem in the Spitalny Orchestra with Marie Carroll.  The first detailed the split: 

Carroll and Spitalny Split

The second article, the following week, suggests they’ settled their differences: 

Carroll back with Spitalny

As we know, from the June 1944 article announcing her separation from Cancelmi, she was also gone from Spitalny’s orchestra. 

   We next pick up Marie Carroll’s information in December of 1944 with an advertisement for the Bob Strong Orchestra at Lakeside Park in Dayton, Ohio on December 9th of that year.  And guess who his female vocalist is?

Marie Carroll with Bob Strong

Her stint with Bob Strong can be tracked from this December 1944 advertisement to listings with Bob Strong into April of 1946.  It’s with the Bob Strong orchestra that we are able to now hear Marie Carroll sing.  A month after the December 9th appearance at Lakeside Park, the Bob Strong Orchestra, with Marie Carroll, appear on the The Victory Parade of Spotlight Bands broadcast of January 9, 1945.  This radio program survives and from it are three vocals of Marie Carroll with Bob Strong’s band, “Strange Music”, “Her Tears Flowed Like Wine”, and “Embraceable You”: 

Strange Music:

Her Tears Flowed Like Wine:

Embraceable You:

 

I do not believe that Marie Carroll went into the studio and recorded any vocals with Bob Strong or any other orchestra with which she had been associated over the years.  At least I couldn’t find any.  In addition to The Victory Parade of Spotlight Band broadcast there are some other remotes that have survived of Marie Carroll with Bob Strong.  These have been collected on the CD “Bob Strong & His Orchestra 1944-45” on the Circle Records label:

I have ordered a copy of this CD but it hasn’t arrived yet so I don’t have any liner notes to post here.  Someone has posted Marie Carroll’s tracks on YouTube but they are referenced to “Marion Carroll,” which is how she might have been listed on the CD.  Marie/Marion’s songs are “You Was Right, Baby!”, “This Is It”, “Love Letters”, “I Wish I Knew”, and “Out of This World”: 

The above five songs plus the three from The Victory Parade of Spotlight Bands are all of the available vocals I have discovered for Marie/Margie/Marion Carroll.  It’s really a shame because she has a nice voice and really sells her ballads and can really swing on songs like “This Is It.” 

   The only other highlight of her time with the Bob Strong Orchestra was that she married again in July of 1946.  DownBeat magazine noted her marriage: 

Marie Carroll married to Al Yost

I could find nothing else about Marie Caroll’s marriage to Al Yost. The only other significant item about Marie Carroll during her time with Bob Strong was a report in the February 15, 1945 DownBeat that Marie Carroll was being courted by Hollywood:

Marie Carroll in Hollywood

I tried to run this down but there’s no reference to any Hollywood activity our output by Marie Carroll. Maybe the screen test didn’t amount to anything.

   The next, and final piece of information, that I could find about Marie Caroll was a report that she had become Miss Regina Hassock of 1947. This article appeared in the Radio & Appliance Journal of April 1947.  You can click on it to view a larger article.

Miss Regina Hassock 1947

In March of 1947, the Radio Retailing magazine had also mentioned that Marie Carroll was Miss Regina Hassock for that year: 

That same edition of Radio Retailing also featured a full page spread with a photo of Marie Carroll as Miss Regina Hassock: 

Radio Retailing March 1947

The only other take away from this is that at some point she had been with the Bob Chester Orchestra. 

   That’s it!  Any other information I could find related to advertisements of appearances with the Bob Strong Orchestra but nothing to say what happened after being crowned Miss Regina Hassock!  I could find no obituary or anything else detailing her later life.  I even tried searching for Al Yost who we know was a tenor saxophone player.  There was an Al Yost who ran Yost Home Improvements in Pittsburgh after retiring as a tenor saxophone player.  Is this the same Al Yost?  You can learn about Al and his company, which continues on, even after his death, from the following website:  https://yosthomeimprovements.com/yost/our-story/?utm_source=al%20yost%20music%20page&utm_medium=our%20story%20link&utm_campaign=yosthomeimprovements.com.  Here’s a significant excerpt:

Our story first began in 1961 when Albert Yost Sr. retired from the Coast Guard Band after playing the tenor saxophone for 20 years.  Albert, originally from Pittsburgh, and his wife Catherine, from Brooklyn, decided to stay in the area and grow roots for themselves and their five children. With Albert’s knack for home repairs, opening a home improvement company was a natural choice.

The Yosts quickly turned their home into company headquarters. During the early days, Albert oversaw projects while Catherine fielded calls and stayed on top of paperwork. It also wasn’t unusual for Catherine to prepare full course meals for the crew. Soon the Yost’s two sons Albert Jr. and George joined the company, eventually taking it over in 1983.

I use the word “significant” because these notes say his wife’s name was Catherine and she was from Brooklyn.  If this is the same Al Yost then Marie Carroll had moved on from him at some point and Al Yost made a great life with Catherine. 

   So what happened to Marie Carroll?  I don’t know!!!  Maybe the CD I’ve ordered might have some details in the liner notes but beyond that, I’ve exhausted myself trying to find out what happened to her.  If anyone knows or if anyone wants to take up the search and continue where I left off, please let me know.  If I find out more, you know there’s going to be another blahg.