Spitball Army

Card is untitled on the front.

Printed on back of the postcard:

HUSSONG BAR, Ensenada, B. Cfa., México Establecido en 1892.  Pintura al Oleo Por: S.H. Vilchez.

HUSSONG BAR, Ensenada, B. Cfa., México established in 1892.  Oil painting By: S.H. Vilchez..

Publishing information: Saul Villa H., Distribuidor de Articulos con Propaganda Impress, P.O. Box 1614, San Ysidro, Calif 92073.  135.779.

The very first song I thought of this week was The Spinners’ “They Just Can’t Stop It (The Games People Play)” so, naturally, I didn’t include it in the playlist.

Approximate playing time: 79 minutes.

1. Ryan Adams  “Games”  (2005)
2. Dave Berry  “The Crying Game”  (1964)
3. Cosmic Rough Riders  “The Game”  (2003)
4. The Moody Blues  “A Simple Game” (Justin Hayward version)  (1968)
5. Todd Rundgren  “The Waiting Game”  (1989)
6. Thievery Corporation with Chuck Brown  “The Numbers Game”  (2008)
7. Amy Winehouse  “Love is a Losing Game”  (2006)
8. Buddy Holly  “Learning the Game”  (1959)
9. Hall & Oates  “Guessing Games”  (1982)
10. The Marvelettes  “The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game”  (1966)
11. The Redwalls  “Game of Love”  (2007)
12. Crow  “Evil Woman Don’t Play Your Game with Me”  (1970)
13. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings  “The Game Gets Old”  (2010)
14. Ian & Sylvia  “The Circle Game”  (1966)
15. Charles Brown  “Baby Do You Know the Game”  (1949)
16. The Jerky Boys  “Ball Game Beating”  (1994)
17. Sister Wynonna Carr  “The Ball Game”  (1953)  with intro and outro by DJ Bob Dylan
18. Wayne Fontana  “The Game of Love”  (1965)
19. Daniel Tashian with Gabe Dixon  “Pawn in the Game”  (2007)
20. Bob Dylan  “Only a Pawn in Their Game”  (1964)
21. Bobby Womack  “Games”  (1981)
22. Barry White  “Playing Your Game, Baby”  (1977)
23. The Music Explosion  “Sunshine Games”  (1967)
24. Nick Lowe  “It’s All in the Game”  (2004)

[audio:Fred_FM_playlist_082910.mp3]
Fred FM playlist (29 August 2010)

• Utilize the term “games” 24 times at once, and you can’t avoid making a reference to sports.  Tracks 15 through 17 offer a baseball wafer sandwich with a creamy basketball filling.
• Dave Berry’s 1964 rendition of the Geoff Stephens-penned “The Crying Game” was the first version of the song released.  It features a rhythm guitar part played by one Jimmy Page, then a relative unknown.
• “A Simple Game” was the b-side to The Moody Blues’ single “Ride My See-Saw.”  I first heard it on the LP This Is The Moody Blues as a kid.  That version contained a lead vocal by Mike Pinder.  The version on this playlist was released as a bonus track on the CD of In Search of the Lost Chord, and has a lead vocal by Justin Hayward.
• Bob Dylan’s hour-long playlist radio program entitled “Theme Time Radio Hour” provided some great tunes plus a usually hilarious narration by Dylan himself.  From a broadcast that focused completely on baseball, Zimmie introduces Sister Wynonna Carr’s “The Ball Game,” and closes the number by giving a recitation of some of the song’s lyrics.  Classic.
• Daniel Tashian of The Silver Seas occasionally posts working demos and semi-finished tracks on his blog.  “Pawn in the Game” came from one such posting.
• iTunes lists 60 available versions of Joni Mitchell’s song “The Circle Game.”  How was I to choose one?  I closed my eyes and picked Ian & Sylvia’s.

[Written to Alice in Frankfort, Indiana.  “Frankfort” crossed out with ink pen and replaced with “Beaumont, Texas, Box 2721.”  Return addressed: Richard, Co. G, 2nd Bn., 1st Mar., c/o F.P.O., San Francisco, Calif.  Postmarked at U.S. Navy on 19 May 1945, and at Frankfort, Ind. on 28 May 1945, 1 P.M.  Envelope stamped on front, “Passed by Naval Censor,” and initialed by the Censor.]

May 16, 1945

Hello Sweetheart,

     Remember me?  I’m your husband and I’m still here – believe it or not.  I’m O.K. and feeling pretty good.  I had a great time this morning.  I took an ice cold shower and shaved.  More fun.  That business of shaving really took the time.  My whiskers were over a ½ inch long.  I let them grow for over a month and were they “purty.”  They were getting so they didn’t taste very good.  I always had some chow with me anyway.

     I love you Sweetheart.  In case you didn’t know it, you have been on my mind most of the time these last couple of weeks.  You’ve been with me all along, Sweetheart.  Stay with me, Sweetheart and I think I’ll see you one of these days.  It may be a short time or it may be a long time.  But there will be a time if you stay with me.

     I’ve had a little change in status since my last letter to you.  I’m no longer company clerk.  I am now an ammunition carrier in the 5th Machine Gun Squad attached to the 3rd Rifle Platoon.  Does that mean much to you?  Do you know what I’m talking about?  I’m having a lot of fun.  These are swell fellows and I’m glad of the change.  The only draw-back is that besides my regular load, I have to carry one and sometimes two 20-pound boxes of ammunition.  It gets rather heavy at times but I’m happier here than in Hdqs. Plt.

     I have no idea what the censor will pass so you’ll just have to follow the 3rd Amphibious Corps or the 1st Marines Division in the newspaper.  If the papers know what the outfit is doing, you can bet that I’m right there with them.  I get little things wrong with me, but nothing serious enough to go to Sick Bay.  My blisters are all healed up.  My feet are just tired and tender now.  Now my hands are scratched up a little.  I knock the hide off and then I keep hitting the spot.  I can’t get a good scab on the thing until I knock it around some more.  Some how I got infection in my thumb.  It runs about half way around the nail and partly under it.  The Corpsman cleaned it out this morning and bandaged it up.  The way he fixed it up, I can’t bend the joint.  It just sticks out like a sore thumb.

     I really have quite a few letters to answer.  I have to answer your letters from Mar. 17 to May 3.  That’s quite a few letters.  I’ll bet you I spend more time reading than I do answering.

     I just filled my stomach with “C” rations.  I really feel like going to sleep but I think I’ll start my reading and see what happens. ———- Well, I’m caught up to April 12 now.

     I received a letter from Uncle A–.  It was quite a letter – 2 full pages written on both sides.  I had a little trouble making out parts of it, but I finally struggled through it.  He’s quite a caracter (?that doesn’t look like it is spelled right to me – is it?  I’m all confused.  There is a fellow in the company by the name of Caraker and that’s all I can spell.  You’ll have to reeducate me when I get back.)  Uncle A– sent me about a dozen crossword puzzles.  I wonder when I be able to start working them.  I received some that you sent also – 6, I think.

     Have the clerks and the bonds been coming through O.K.?  You haven’t mentioned receiving any for quite a while.  How is the bank account?  Has it still got its head above water?

     Well Sweetheart, I want to get this letter off as soon as possible so I’ll close it here.  Don’t forget – I love you with all my heart.  I write and remind you of it every chance I get.  I’m all yours Sweetheart.  Keep waiting and take care of yourself for me.

     Stay with me Sweetheart.  I love you.
          Goodnight Sweetheart
               I love you with all my heart
                    Pleasant Dreams
                         ‘Nite Sweetheart

If Rolling Stone had said that along its masthead, would it have been more tasteful than pasting the three unclothed actors from True Blood, catsup-splattered and entwined, on the cover of the magazine that I pulled out of my mailbox yesterday?  Who can say…

(photo: Matthew Rolston)

Does this really sell copies?  Who gets turned on by this stuff?  Is it art?  Is True Blood really that good?  If it is, shouldn’t it deserve a magazine cover with a lower trash quotient?  Or is the trash quotient part of the show’s appeal?  (I don’t watch True Blood, obviously.)

This isn’t a new approach by Rolling Stone.  I have been an infrequent reader, but I recall the “hands on Janet Jackson” cover, and several other skin-baring shots featuring a number of celebrities whose names I couldn’t begin to recall for you.  Maybe it all started with that shocking Annie Leibovitz shot of a naked, fetal-positioned John Lennon nestled up to a clothed Yoko Ono, sprawled on the couple’s Dakota suite bed.

I had that magazine and saved it for a while.  The cover photograph seemed like a document of the times; Leibovitz had photographed it five hours before Lennon was assassinated, and it was a true historical artifact.  I placed it in a cheap frame briefly, and it shook me up slightly whenever I looked at it.

(photo: Annie Leibovitz)

So, holding the current True Blood issue in my hand, puzzling, I thought that there must be some redeeming content inside.  Surely.  Here are some of the headlines that I found inside:

“Avenged Sevenfold Thrash to the Top”

“Taylor Swift Rules Charts with New Single, Preps for Huge Fall”

“Kid Rock Guns for Greatness…”

“RS Launches ‘500 Greatest Songs’ iPad App”

Are you kidding me?  Surely this isn’t the music that is supposed to be engaging us.

It wasn’t all that bad, though.  There were several eye-catching ads.  And an interesting profile of Chuck Berry at 83 years old written by Neil Strauss.  And a few sidebars where I found out about a new film documentary about John Lennon (LENNONYC, debuting in November), a doc about the making Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town (plus news about a CD reissue of the album), an October release of the latest installment in the Bob Dylan Bootleg Series, a few other trivialities.

This is certainly not my parents’ Rolling Stone.  Oh, who am I trying to kid, my parents hated having Rolling Stone in the house when I was a kid.  This rag doesn’t even resemble the Rolling Stone of MY youth.

(20 August 2010)

pre-dawn gardening 76° / first beads of underarm perspiration, 8:00 a.m., 85° / lunchtime, no hunger, nap option victorious, 98.6°.

– Written by @Cryptich.

[Written to Alice in Frankfort, Indiana.  “Frankfort” crossed out with ink pen and replaced with “Beaumont, Texas, c/o B—- C——-.”  Return addressed: Richard, Co. G, 2nd Bn., 1st Mar., c/o F.P.O., San Francisco, Calif.  Postmarked at U.S. Navy on 18 Apr 1945, and at Frankfort, Ind. on 23 Apr 1945, 1 P.M.  Envelope stamped on front, “Passed by Naval Censor,” and initialed by the Censor.]

April 14, 1945

Dear Sweetheart,

     I don’t know how much I can write so I won’t write much.  Someday I should be able to tell you all about it.  All I can say is that I participated in the landing on Okinawa.  So far, there isn’t anything to worry about.  As far as I am concerned, The only trouble I’ve had so far was caused by the mosquitoes.  All they can do is bite.

     I received a couple of nice letters from you yesterday.  Now I think you know why I haven’t been getting you letters so regularly.  We just spent too much time outside the regular mail lanes.  It’s hard telling when my packages will ever catch up with me.

     I just noticed how poor this writing was.  The only trouble is that I’m lazy.  I could get to a decent table to write on but I’m too comfortable lying here.  I guess I’m just tired from not doing anything.

     Sweetheart, it looks like Winfield gave you the straight dope.  Even if my letters didn’t sound like it, he was right.

     I can’t seem to get very far at one time.  Today is Tuesday the 17th and I’m going to finish this now, I hope.  Give Louise and Harold my best wishes.  What happened to Lois and her baby.  You told me these babies were on the way but you didn’t give me any indication as to when to expect them.

     I just read over the meal you served to Louise and Harold.  For the last half hour I’ve been drooling.  It sure sounds good.  I’m getting plenty to eat and quite a variety, but there isn’t anything like that home-cooked meal.  Most of our food is rations – packed and compressed for easy carrying.  We manage to satisfy our hunger pretty easily though.  Ever so often we get some canned fruit and juice.  That really hits the spot.

     Did you notice the change in the color of the ink?  Right now I can hardly tell it.  Anyway, it is all I could get my hands on so I’m using it.

     Well, I feel much better now.  I just finished eating my dinner.  It doesn’t compare with the meal you served, but I think I’m just about as full.  Here is my menu: cheese, crackers, coffee, a chocolate bar, and a piece of chewing gum.  It doesn’t sound like much but you put 4 of those crackers in your stomach and add some liquid and they start swelling.  That’s what it feels like anyway, I don’t know just what does happen.  It’s filling, that’s the main thing.

     What’s this about falling downstairs?  You didn’t tell me anything about it.  I don’t suppose it was too bad or I would have heard more about it.  What has happened to those perfect feet of yours?  I hope you aren’t losing them.  God only knows I’m having enough foot trouble for both of us.  They say an army moves on its stomach.  Well, that may be true for the Army but the Marines use their feet.  I’ve a good pair of slightly used feet that I would like to trade in on some new ones.  I only have one heel; the other one is just one big blister.  The Corpsmen had trouble finding a patch big enough to cover it.  I’m sure it will be all right before we start moving again though.

     Well, Sweetheart, in about 15 minutes I’m going to take a bath – in my helmet.  I’m dirty enough for 3 guys.  You should see me.  Last Thursday I got my first hair-cut in 2 months and my first shave in 2 weeks.  I could have gotten them sooner, but I got lazy and just let it grow.  Now I’m going to let it grow some more.  I’m not going to shave till I get a haircut.  it is much easier that way.

     This is it for a while Sweetheart.  It’s hard telling when I’ll get up enough ambition to write again.  Wait for me Sweetheart and always remember that I love you.  I’m coming back to you Sweetheart.  I don’t have any idea as to when, but I’ll be there.

     Good-night Sweetheart
          I love you with all my heart
               Pleasant Dreams
                    ‘Nite Sweetheart

The midday air fits like a topcoat; its weight slows me to a shuffle. I pause in piney shade and filter humidity through my teeth.

Card is titled: “D-35.  Various Species of Cactus as seen on the Desert.  6A-H2321.”

The picture of various cacti is labelled with the species names (from left to right): Spanish Bayonet, Nigger Head, Barrel, Prickly Pear, Joshua Tree, Cholla, Pin Cushion, Sotol, Samuaro [Saguaro?], Buckhorn, Rainbow, Mescal, Beaver Tail, Ocotillo, Hedge Hog, Fish Hook.

Printed on back of postcard:

Following the winter rainy season, which on the desert is of short duration and not plentiful but enough to moisten the dry as dust hillsides, changing the dullest browns to brilliant greens, giving promise of a gorgeous sight to be, when these small plants and shrubs bud and bloom, thus changing to a fairy garden scene this waste land called the desert.

Publishing information:  Distributed by Lollesgard Specialty Co., Tucson and Phoenix, Alabama.  Genuine Curteich-Chicago “C.T. Art-Colortone” Post Card (Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.)

It’s only fair to roll out the finished versions of the songs whose demos were the meat of last week’s playlist, so here they are.  Some of the songs were elusive to me, but most of them are here…and I’m sure you get the idea.

Approximate playing time: 65 minutes.

1. Paul Simon  “Take Me to the Mardi Gras”  (1973)
2. Cat Stevens  “Rubylove”  (1971)
3. Los Lobos  “Peace”  (1992)
4. The Beatles  “No Reply” mono version  (1964)
5. Bob Dylan  “Dignity”  (1989)
6. Josh Ritter  “In the Dark”  (2006)
7. Billy Joel  “Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)”  (1976)
8. Simon & Garfunkel  “Bridge Over Troubled Water”  (1970)
9. Peter Holsapple & Chris Stamey  “Angels”  (1990)
10. The Doors  “Moonlight Drive”  (1967)
11. Donovan  “Museum”  (1967)
12. Billy Bragg  “Cindy of a Thousand Lives”  (1989)
13. Son Volt  “Highways and Cigarettes”  (2007)
14. Lucinda Williams  “Everything Has Changed”  (2007)
15. Iron & Wine  “Free Until They Cut Me Down”  (2004)
16. Elton John  “The King Must Die”  (1970)

[audio:Fred_FM_playlist_082210.mp3]
Fred FM playlist (22 August 2010)

[Written to Alice in Frankfort, Indiana.  “Frankfort” crossed out with ink pen and replaced with “Beaumont, Texas, c/o B—- C——-.”  Return addressed: Richard, Co. G, 2nd Bn., 1st Mar., c/o F.P.O., San Francisco, Calif.  Postmarked at U.S. Navy, and at Frankfort, Ind. on 19 Apr 1945, 11 A.M.  Envelope stamped on front, “Passed by Naval Censor,” and initialed by the Censor.]

April 1, 1945

Dear Sweetheart,

     This will just be a short note to let you know that I’m O.K.  There isn’t any news that I know of.  The weather has been pretty good lately.  We’ve had very little rain but it has been fairly cool.  That coolness has been just the thing.  Most of my “odds and ends” are clearing up.  It doesn’t help the acne any though.  That darn stuff is still all over my back, and there isn’t anything i can do about it.  It doesn’t bother me so much though.  It’s just there.  Every now and then one spot will get sore and it isn’t very comfortable to lay on.  Thank goodness it isn’t all sore at once.

     I love you Sweetheart.  Don’t forget that.  You get that apartment fixed up and I’ll be back to you one of these days.  Don’t have any idea as to “when” but I’ll be there.  I’m all yours Sweetheart.  I love you.

     Good-night Sweetheart
          I love you with all my heart.
               Pleasant Dreams
                    ‘Nite Sweetheart