Tag Archives: Donna Loren

The Best Thing Since…

During the pandemic, we have not baked bread. Well, we did bake some banana bread one weekend, on account of a miscommunication where both Bob and I came home on different days from the supermarket with a bunch of overripe bananas. But we have not engaged in the more traditional loaf baking that everyone seems to have been doing. We also did very little yoga (Bob was more diligent with it than I was), and the only thing I planted in the garden was a hydrangea while friends tended to start veggie or herb patches. Gee, do we even pandemic?! Guess we are doing it wrong.

Indeed, it seems that Bob and I are in the minority, with bread makers a popular purchase in Australia during 2020. Picturing all the loaves cooling on kitchen tables around my country got me wondering as to whether the true bread makers, the French, were similarly busy at home. It turns out in France there has been a surge in sales of bread. After all, why would the French make their own when they are so renowned for delicious baguettes, pain de campagne, ficelle, and other variants baked by true artisans? Accurate or not, don’t we all imagine the Frenchman on his bike leaving a boulangerie with a baguette sticking out of his satchel? As an aside, my grandfather has had a bread maker for many years and will still often make bread. I am usually the one who mangles his beautiful work when attempting to use the manual slicer.

At first thought, the community’s rise in bread making seems largely practical. That is, so long as one can get one’s hands on the requisite ingredients (challenging during various times over the past few months), it is a source of sustenance that does not depend on the vagaries of the supply chain we depend so much on; and the ability of one’s ravioli vendor to keep up with (mostly my) demand. Same with the veggie garden. But it seems there is something very ingrained in all of us that has seen bread making become much more important during the pandemic. As Emily VanDerWerf wrote in a fascinating Vox article a few months back, bread is “one of the very foundations of human civilization”, although it is also intimately linked with factors such as romanticism, nostalgia, and gender roles.

In the article, Emily highlights the physical action of making the bread and watching it rise as a fundamental aspect to what we get from the process, with its rolling, kneading and, I might add, hiding it under the bed – at least, that is what my mother always did when making pizza dough and she needed a dark place for the yeast to do its work. The yeast itself is fascinating, a “sort of sufficiently advanced technology that is indistinguishable from magic”. As Emily suggests, baking can “reorient you in time and connect you to the past, even if it’s just your own past”. From my work in psychology, the importance of the physical action and being in the moment makes a lot of sense.

Over the past few months, within the confines of our homes (we have been very fortunate in Adelaide, I should add), I think we have all needed to get out of our heads a bit and do something with our hands, our feet, and our hearts. Hence, perhaps, the yoga craze or the surge in gardening, the latter which cannot be accounted for solely as a fear of running low on coriander…and who really has that fear? Do you even pandemic, coriander lovers?

Perhaps the need to be out in the world, when paradoxically the world seems so closed off, is also why I did not write anything on this blog in 2020.

Maybe homemade bread is a manifestation of many of us wanting to be creative when so many have been locked in their houses, faced with uncertainty, or just plain bored. I am aware what a luxury it is to be bored, rather than having very acute fears for the health of loved ones or loss of jobs in countries where the pandemic seems out of control. But creativity and providing a contribution, particularly through my psychology work, are important to me, and so I wondered about what I could do in even a small way to help others.

I research empathy and, as part of that, compassion is an important aspect to consider in my work. I have become particularly interested in self-compassion in the last couple of years. Self-compassion is receiving increasing attention in psychology. According to Dr Kirstin Neff, who is at the forefront of the area, self-compassion involves three components:

  • being kind to ourselves
  • recognising our common humanity – that is, seeing that we all suffer, we all fall short sometimes, and that we are not alone
  • being aware of our thoughts and feelings in the present moment without becoming overidentified with them.

COVID-19 is a shared world experience, and so I began to wonder whether seeing our experiences as being shared (that common humanity) would make us less hard on ourselves and kinder to ourselves and others. To me, COVID-19 has shown us so many rich examples of people extending empathy and compassion towards their fellow citizens. However, in talking with friends and colleagues, many of us have not extended that same compassion towards ourselves.

As humans, whether by nature or nurture, we can be very unkind and critical of ourselves when we do not meet self-imposed standards, all the while being so nurturing to those around us in similar predicaments. Have you found this tendency to be exacerbated during the pandemic? Perhaps you have experienced self-recrimination because you feel you are not getting as much work done since transitioning to working for home, or perhaps you feel you are not giving the children (also home from school) the attention which we would like to give them.

We can feel like we are the only ones struggling or failing. This may especially be the case when we see others supposedly doing so well making tasty bread or mastering intricate yoga poses. They say a lotus grows in the mud…well, at least something is; it’s not my coriander! At the same time, our thoughts and threat system are likely running rampant as we deal with a situation we cannot really control, trying to put on a brave face or denying what we are feeling because we believe we have got it pretty lucky.

Drawing on my work in empathy and compassion and the work of others, I thought I could provide some tips for how during all this uncertainty, we can build the soothing emotion of self-compassion. I contacted some ABC radio stations around the country and was pleased to be able to speak about self-compassion on some programs. I also did some presentations and write-ups on the concept for my workplace.

What else has fuelled my want for creative pursuits during this time? Well, my friend Donna Loren and I started a podcast. Donna is a singer and actress who, as a teenager and young adult, appeared in the Beach Party films, starred on pioneering rock ‘n’ roll TV series Shindig!, and guest starred on the original Batman TV show and The Monkees. Donna lives in Palm Springs, California, and so we are physically at a distance. So how did this Swinging ’60s Beach Chick come together with this South Australian, once-brooding ’80s kid who doesn’t like to get his hair wet. As the title of Donna’s old column in Movie Life Magazine advised: Let’s talk it over.

Back in the early 2000s, I was a contributor to TV Tome, an online database that was almost a television-only version of the Internet Movie Database. It was more much focused than IMDB was at that time on features such as building full episode guides. You could also nominate to shepherd particular TV series or performers. I cannot remember all the pages I was responsible for, but I know they included the Australian TV series A Country Practice. I started an episode guide for that show, but with 1057 episodes and the series only available when it was rerun on TV, which required me to tape as many episodes as possible, I bowed out early in the piece. Interestingly, as more of us have stayed at home in 2020 and ACP’s original network, Seven, has put all 13 seasons onto their streaming service, there has been much renewed interest in the show (and I am sure others to write the episode guide).

On the creative side, I took care of more than a dozen of the pages of some of my favourites including Jonathan Daly, whom I interviewed on this blog in 2015, Lorrae Desmond from ACP, Kasey Rogers from Bewitched, Evelyn Scott from Peyton Place, Gregory Calpakis from the Canadian TV show Cold Squad, and Donna.

By this point, Donna and her husband Jered were running their fashion design and retail business, ADASA Hawaii. Donna had not performed in many years, but Jered had taken a keen interest in locating as much as Donna’s 1960s work as he could. He emailed me to ask if I had a copy of Donna’s guest appearance on Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C., where she played Anna Kovach, one-half of a pair of star-crossed lovers from feuding Hungarian families (the episode was called “Love and Goulash”) requiring Gomer’s gentle counsel to bring them together. I did not have  a copy of this or another appearance (I cannot remember which) Jered asked for. But I had been a fan of Donna since I had seen her Beach Blanket Bingo performing “It Only Hurts When I Cry“. I was also studying TV and film at university, and so I decided to ask if I could interview Donna.

I had never interviewed anyone before, nor did I have a place to publish the interview. But lo and behold, Donna agreed to it, and we emailed back and forth on a series of questions. I found a free web hosting service, the now defunct GeoCities, and called my resulting article Somewhere Down the Road, the name of one of her songs from the ’80s.

Without realising it, I put a decidedly rosy spin on her 1960s career and life, which was somewhat at odds with the more nuanced story. But sometimes you make a heart connection with people that traverses distance and this was the case for Donna and me. We kept in touch in the ensuing years on email and I even sent Donna and Jered a copy of my PhD thesis when I completed it in 2009. Mercifully, I sent it to them on CD rather than in printed and bound format. At over 300 pages, another friend, Mark, has had to lug that thing around during multiple house moves over the past decade. Around this time, Donna and Jered were winding up their business and Donna had decided to renter the the public eye with new music. Donna had also started to put her life story to paper. I guess Jered and Donna thought enough of my writing to ask if I would collaborate with Donna.

What ensured over around two years was a true collaboration. I would arise early in the morning, which was afternoon in the U.S., and we would Skype and work on Donna’s life story. Donna had her old appointment books from the 1960s and so we used them to start a timeline and to formulate the chapters. I would ask questions and Donna would tell me stories that I would transcribe, or she would do some writing between our ‘sessions’ and so we would review that. I would have questions, and this would help us to refine her narrative. In the meantime, I would research appearances or pieces of work that I thought important for us to cover.

Donna took a leap of faith to trust me with her story, which her public had never really heard. At the heart of it was a family secret and Donna’s attempts to make sense of that when it hadn’t made sense at the height of her success after she was signed as the Dr Pepper Girl in 1963.

When some friends and I decided to take a trip to the U.S. in 2011, I added an extra week at the end of our group trip to my itinerary. The plan was to stay with Donna and Jered at their home, and so when my friends returned to Australia, I met up with my hosts. In the months preceding the trip, Donna and I had developed at least ten or so chapters. We decided to read them out loud over a series of days and nights to our audience of Jered, which would be the first time someone had read/heard them and would also allow us to edit the manuscript in real time.

Our work was interspersed with tourist trips for me, such as to The Getty Villa or the Farmers Market, or a dinner out with Donna’s children Katie and Joey, the latter whom I have been able to take out to lunch when he visited Adelaide as part of the Rogers Waters Us + Them Tour in 2017. In fact, that, I met up with my future hosts one night in Hollywood at the start of my group trip. Jered and Donna had bought tickets for us to attend a 50th anniversary celebration of The Dick Van Dyke Show being held at the Egyptian Theatre. Dick and Carl Reiner were interviewed on stage by Garry Marshall and there was a screening of some classic episodes. I sat with Jered’s best friend Phil Sloan – that’s P.F. Sloan of “Eve of Destruction” fame. All very cool.

Towards the end of my stay, the airline contacted me to let me know that my flights would delayed for a day or two, and so Donna, Jered, and I decided to take a trip down the Pacific Coast Highway on one of the extra days and stop at some of the beautiful beaches. Incidentally, these included the locations of Donna’s Beach Party movies, including the iconic Leo Carrillo State Beach with those distinctive rocks that formed such an important aesthetic for Beach Blanket Bingo. Donna and I took in some shopping (I bought a pair of James Perse pants that I just loved), and the three of us also took in lunch at Nate ’n Al’s historic deli.

Donna and I in 2011 at Leo Carrillo State Beach, Malibu.

When I finally could get a flight home, we bid a fond farewell. We continued to work online on the manuscript over the next year. We finished it and began to look at publishing options, but something did not quite feel right. Some time passed and Donna suggested that we may want to revisit our structure and to delve more deeply in parts. And so, we took another several few months to rearrange and reconsider our approach. I think we have a high-quality manuscript, but for whatever reasons, it has not seen the light of day. Until now.

As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world, Donna wondered if we might do something creative. Something for us, but for others as well. At the forefront of Donna’s approach has been a want to help people. While she is happy to share all the stories of her music and television/movie work, her story is one about seeking to find and live in truth and to really understand herself and those around her. So, we hatched the idea of reading excerpts from the manuscript, and then discussing them with my expertise from psychology and Donna’s learnt lessons given it is her story. We have kept the structure loose, and so sometimes there will be chat about appearances, sometimes included is a song, perhaps an interview with a collaborator. But all the time we use Donna’s stories to delve into issues that many of us may have faced. Compassion and connection in action, I hope.

It has been a creative, enjoyable ride that we will continue in 2021. I even got to have some fun being interviewed on Plastic EP Live TV, an internet series out of Melbourne, Australia.

So, no bread for us. As I said, I am terrible at slicing it anyway. This is something, perhaps, the French do not need to worry about when they buy a whole loaf or baguette. My friend Mark tells a story about when he was out with his French friend Maxime, and someone uttered the well-worn, “Best thing since sliced bread”.  Maxime thought carefully for a moment about it and then replied, “I remember when my town got sliced bread”. I’m taking a little liberty with his response for comic effect. But I think this demonstrates that while our experiences of the slices of life my differ, what we value and need is pretty similar. Comfort food and comfort with others. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Love’s A Secret Podcast
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Buckets of Rain

Adam Gerace in Tokyo

It’s pouring down. I wonder if a good litmus test for whether someone has crossed the threshold into adulthood is what they think when looking out of a window during a storm. If it’s along the lines of, Oh wow, I can turn the sprinklers off and save on the water bill, you’ve not just crossed the threshold, but performed a little pirouette on it. I’m certainly at that point. Maybe not a pirouette; I’ve never been that physical.

I’ve wanted to write a little update for a few weeks, but needed some down time. Turns out that I developed shingles. When I told my friend, Karl, he was incredulous. “Shingles?” he asked. “What are you, Victorian?” Well, it’s true that sometimes I wear my shirts done up right to the top button, but alas it’s a virus. It’s not really contagious (a point I’ve bellowed as friends ran screaming out the door), but lies dormant in anyone who has had chickenpox, waiting for the right time (in my case, probably stress) to come up and make itself comfortable. You might say that I “manifested” it. Isn’t that what Oprah encourages? Well, I have a pretty powerful mind and all I got were these lousy spots on the right side of my torso…yes, you get them on only one side. Symmetry is no longer á la mode, it seems.

When I went to the doctor, I didn’t expect to find out it was shingles. I thought that my spots and feeling like I was sunburnt (that’s how I would describe the initial feeling) were the result of working out too hard at the gym and not wearing a suitable t-shirt. It turned out that my bursts of running on the treadmill while watching The Chaser or reruns of M*A*S*H weren’t the cause. Friends and strangers told me that they were surprised someone my age would get it. The first few times I heard this, I thought they were trying to flatter me, and I would playfully throw back my head á la Blanche Devereaux. Turns out they weren’t flirting because, well, who wants to flirt with the shingled patient.

The worst of it has now passed. But this episode has made me evaluate the ways I handle stress and anxiety. It also gave me some time to slow down. I’m rarely bored, but days and nights on the couch with itchy spots and a pricking sensation in my spine started to wear thin. I did start watching Nashville after planning on doing so since it started in 2012! We also watched the really lovely Boy Meets Girl starring Michelle Hendley and Michael Welch. In these days of fearmongering regarding trans issues, I thought it was a sincere and charming film. I hope Michelle makes another movie soon; and I was pleased to reacquaint with Michael Welch, whom I loved watching in Joan of Arcadia but hadn’t kept up with. I’m glad to reacquaint with him.

I also started researching three new interviews (the interviewees are really being patient with me), as well as continuing work on a long-term project. When I haven’t been able to work, I’ve been inspired by creative friends who have completed exciting projects. Bob is doing a great job hosting his Sunday Sleep In on Three D Radio. Another Bob, Bob Evans, has a new album, Car Boot Sale, and podcast, Good Evans, It’s a Bobcast! Simon Williams’ jewellery label, USE, is making its way to international fashion festivals. Nat Luurtsema, who wrote the delightful memoir Cuckoo in the Nest, has a new book coming out very soon: a young adult novel called Girl Out of WaterIn the U.S. I believe it will be called Goldfish, and who knows what the translations will be in other countries (well, I saw on Amazon that the French title will be Moi et les Aquaboys, which is really so fabulous). She has also completed a short film called Three Women Wait for Death (replace “women” with “men”, and you’ve got my social activities covered), which I was happy to be able to help along in the final stage with a little Kickstarter money. Karl Geary has inked a deal with publisher Harvill Secker for his first novel, Montpelier Parade. Like Nat, Karl’s a beautiful writer and filmmaker, and I’m so pleased for him. Patrick Harvey is co-starring in a new horror film named Scare Campaign with Ian Meadows and Meegan Warner. I love a horror film. Speaking of horror, Matthew Currie Holmes, who is well-known for his horror movies (remember him as the director, M, in Wrong Turn 2?), is in post-production for his writer-directorial debut, Traces, starring Pablo Schreiber, Rick Springfield, Sharon Leal, and Sosie Bacon. Matthew is a music aficionado (making music, himself), and music will play a big part in this story of a record-store flunky and former one-hit wonder given another chance at the big time. And Donna Loren has a new pictorial biography coming out, Donna Loren: Mover and Shaker in the Center of a Mid-Sixties Pop Maelstrom. Do you like candids of people like The Supremes, James Brown, and Jerry Lee Lewis, as well as the sets of Batman, The Monkees, and the Beach Party films? Well, it’ll be quite the coffee-table book in beautiful black and white and far-out colour. I have so many people around me who inspire.

Well, that’s all for now. Back to research, writing and, with any hope, sharing some new projects with you. The picture above is a rainy day in Tokyo. I loved the design of the umbrella. I tried to bring it back, but it wouldn’t fit in my suitcase, and I didn’t think the Japanese would have been fond of my Emma Peel impression if I carried it as hand luggage. Right now, I’m reading up on reflexes in infants for a developmental psychology presentation I’ve been asked to give. I’ve come across one I’d never heard of: the asymmetrical tonic neck reflex. It’s also known as the “fencing reflex” because the infant’s head, arms, and legs resemble the position taken by a fencer. Maybe that’s the sign you’ve crossed the threshold from childhood to adulthood: when the tonic neck reflex is replaced by the tonic and gin reflex – the sudden urge when confronted by limes and ice to fix oneself a highball. Bottoms up, I say!

If I Needed You

Bobby Vee takes a walk in the city (Photo: Adam Gerace private collection).
Bobby Vee takes a walk in the city (Photo: Adam Gerace private collection).

I’ve loved Bobby Vee’s music for as long as I can remember. If I had written that opening sentence without the word “music”, and maybe referred to his dreamy hazel eyes, it could just as likely have appeared in an article from 16 or Teen Screen in 1961 when Bobby was firmly in teen idol territory. What started for me as an affinity with his early ‘60’s songs like “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” and “Rubber Ball”, both mainstays on Saturday Night Jukebox-type radio shows when I was a kid in the ‘80s-‘90s, grew over the years and he is probably my favourite male singer who started a career at that time. I emphasise started because while he may be best known for the almost 40 Billboard Hot 100 chart hits that he had from 1959-1970, he never really stopped recording and performing. Along the way, Bobby became a legend.

Another Bob was actually the impetus for my writing about Bobby Vee. Well, not technically a Bob. Bob Evans is the name singer-songwriter Kevin Mitchell uses for his solo work. But I’m sure Mr. Vee will forgive me. After all, he was born Robert Velline, just as Italian-Americans Frankie Avalon and Bobby Rydell weren’t born with those names; and Fabian and Dion did once have surnames! In Bobby Vee’s case his lineage is Scandinavian (Norwegian on dad’s side, Finnish on mom’s). I heard the song “Sitting in the Waiting Room” performed live at Kevin/Bob’s April 2013 Adelaide show, and again shortly after on the beautiful and lush album from which it came, Familiar Stranger. In “Sitting in the Waiting Room”, Kevin sets the scene of a doctor’s office where a man and woman, most probably a couple, are passing time waiting to be seen. He is watching TV and she is reading magazines that, while he doesn’t say it, I imagine being out-of-date and well worn. The female protagonist is likely picturing all the sick people who have read those magazines and just knows that she’s going to catch something. Maybe that’s just me. It is a scene we are all familiar with, one where those nursing colds, sporting injuries or just needing general check-ups sit quietly alongside those awaiting potentially life-changing news. The problem of this pair doesn’t seem to fit the first category, and it may or may not fit the second. They are scared and apprehensive; as he puts it, “And I don’t have the words to make it right”.

Eventually they are with the doctor, and while she talks, he is silent, all “helplessness and fear”. The couple eventually emerge from the office and exit back through the waiting room. He comes to realise it is not words she needs, but someone to be there in times like this when you have no choice but to “let the unknown forces take control”. We don’t know the outcome of their visit: “Walking out the waiting room/My eyes are white, the skies still blue/Now there’s other stuff to do”. Life goes on; even it has seemingly changed in an instant. Besides the big things to think about, there are still the little things.

I thought a lot about this song as I prepared to listen to an album by Bobby Vee, The Adobe Sessions, released in February 2014. Yes, it’s September 2015 and this is long overdue. I had heard about the album, but for some reason I had missed a post on Bobby’s blog from April 2012. In the letter from Bobby and his family, he began, “As my buddy Fabian says, getting old is not for the meek. I think he may be right. A little over a year ago I was diagnosed with the mild stages of Alzheimer’s disease”.

I don’t really know the Vellines, although we’ve had some interaction online and I’ve found them to always be friendly. I was even able to send Bobby a card. But it was the image Kevin Mitchell painted that came to mind when I read Mr. Vee’s letter to his friends and fans. Later Tommy Vee, Bobby’s son, said, “We were all in the room when they gave the diagnosis and it was a devastating thing to sit and hear that”. Bobby comes from a generation of musicians that are much more accessible to their fans, but it would have been understandable if the Vellines chose not to disclose the diagnosis. Son Jeff wrote in an article for the magazine Care ADvantage in spring 2014, “For 50+ years, Dad had bared his heart on a stage night after night: ‘Here I am; this is what you get’. He ultimately reminded us of this when he chose to go public with his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in 2012: ‘Look, here I am, this is still me… I am here!’” Jeff continued that his father “was resolved about going public—he knew what was best. It was an act of grace and courage”. And, in his father’s words, “You work with what you got”.

I have had very little direct experience of dementia. I think those of us who haven’t cannot really understand, although we can of course empathise at some very general level. Most important, though, we can listen to those who are experts by experience: the families of those with dementia and, perhaps more importantly, the people with dementia themselves. Since being diagnosed, Bobby himself said in his letter, “This past year has truly been life taking its own course without words that can describe the mystery and conflict that none of us can know. So without a song or a script I am stepping onto a stage that we all share: The mystery of life”.

When Bobby received his diagnosis, the family set out on a road trip from their home in Minnesota to Tucson where Bobby and his wife Karen had built a hacienda. It was father, mother, sons and daughter, as well as the grandchildren. As Bobby wrote, “Together we explored the depths of our reality… the depths of my reality. With very few words, no solutions and a lot of heart, we did what we do. We shared time.  We shared laughter, tears, stories, meals and music. We shared thousands of miles of hi-way as familiar to us as the pillows on our beds. As if nothing had changed, as if everything had changed… simultaneously”. From the garage, Bobby described in the album liner notes, “mud adobe walls still radiating warmth from the days’ desert sun”, the Vellines did what they had always done: they made music. As Bobby wrote “We made music every day for a week… just for us. For the joy of making music. For the joy of being together. For all of the reasons I ever picked up a guitar or sang a tune in a Fargo, ND garage back in ’59. I have truly come full circle!”

Me and my guitar: Bobby at 14; brother Bill is far-right (Photo: Bobby Vee official website).
Me and my guitar: Bobby at 14; brother Bill is far-right (Photo: Bobby Vee official website).

Besides making new memories, I am sure that Bobby’s mind wandered to his more than five decades in music. He was a 15-year old in Fargo, North Dakota desperate to join his brother Bill and Bill’s pals, Jim Stillman and Bob Korum, during their jam sessions: “I played saxophone in the high school band … but I wanted to rock out.” Bill eventually relented and Bobby could tag along with his brother, “if I would promise to keep quiet”. I had a good laugh recently when I was looking through some old newspaper articles detailing Bobby’s early years in music. One paper recounted a version of this story, with the more colourful description that Bobby was allowed “to sit in during practice sessions with the proviso that he would ‘shut up’”. Underneath a beaming photo of Bobby is the caption, “Bobby Vee … He didn’t ‘Shut Up’ …” (Cedar Rapids Gazette, August 7, 1966). I’m glad he didn’t. Besides enthusiasm and $30 Harmony guitar, Bobby had an ace up his sleeve: he knew the lyrics to the songs the guys played.

In an often-told story, and one Bobby has been asked to recount many, many times, it was the deaths of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, The Big Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson en route to Moorhead, Minnesota via Fargo that led to Bobby’s debut. The young men on that flight weren’t much older than Bobby, Bill, Bob, and Dick Dunkirk (replacing Jim Stillman). There was a call for local talent to fill in at the Moorhead Armory show that the three musicians would never attend. As recounted at The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll website, “The boys [Bobby and the band] had three hours to come up with an act. They knew six songs maybe. After the quick rehearsal, on the way to the armory, they stopped at J.C. Penney’s and bought black peg pants with tight cuffs and sleeveless sweaters accented with angora ties”. It was at the event, Bobby recalled a few years later in the liner notes to his 1963 LP I Remember Buddy Holly, “We hadn’t even named the group up to that time, so we gave ourselves a name on the spot, calling ourselves ‘The Shadows’”. Until then, in Bobby’s words, “I was the lead singer … of Fargo’s first nameless garage band”. While the show that night started Bobby’s career, had he not performed that night, I can’t imagine that Bobby Vee wouldn’t have been ‘discovered’ elsewhere. No matter what, he would have become a star.

Shows around the traps, their first paying gig on a makeshift stage, which half-way through the show came apart, were a prelude to the worldwide travel Bobby would be doing within a couple of years. In the liner notes to The Essential and Collectable Bobby Vee (1998), Bobby begins his story with, “The date was June 1, 1959 and I was barely 16 when I recorded my first record, ‘Suzie Baby’, at the Kaybank Studio in Minneapolis, MN. By September it was #1 in the upper Midwest and I signed my first recording contract with Liberty Records”. Maury Dean, in his book Rock ‘n’ Roll Gold Rush, described “Suzie Baby” as “not just a good record – it is a great record”. When I listen to that record some 55 years after it was recorded, Bobby and his band absolutely kill me.

After “Suzie Baby”, a hit with B-side “Devil or Angel” in 1960, after a couple of misses, led to Bobby’s initial five-year contract with Liberty. God bless the B-sides! At Liberty, it was with company founder Si Waronker’s “love of music and steadfast desire to create quality product he placed 21 year old Snuff Garrett in charge of A&R production and with Snuff’s seemingly endless string of hit records Si’s dream became a reality. Liberty Records became one of the most successful record companies of the sixties and very happily, it became my musical home for over fifteen years” (The Essential and Collectable Bobby Vee liner notes). I am familiar with Si Waronker’s work through my friend, Donna Loren, who was married to Si’s son, Warner Bros. Records president Lenny Waronker. In fact, Donna and Lenny’s son Joey played drums on Bob Evans’ Familiar Stranger.

In his songs, Bobby often dealt with lost love, two timing girls, and even best pals who end up with his girl. In one song, Bobby gets “A Letter from Betty”. Sounds innocuous? He opens that letter: “She said, dear, Bobby/Just a line to say hello/We’ve been such good friends/You should be the first to know/I fell in love/My dreams have all come true/And, Bobby, he’s so much like you”. Like what?! The listener often wonders how someone so good can put up with all of this. When Bobby sings the first few lines to “Punish Her” and comes to “Punish her, kill her”, you’re likely to spit out your soda from the Malt shop. Until, of course, he finishes this advice to punish and kill her “with kindness”. That’s our Bobby!

You dig? Cover boy in November 1960 (Photo: Bobby Vee official website).
You dig? Cover boy in November 1960 (Photo: Bobby Vee official website).
Shy guy on the March 1962 cover of Teen Screen (Photo: Bobby Vee official website).
Shy guy on the March 1962 cover of Teen Screen (Photo: Bobby Vee official website).

While Bobby may seem a pushover in some of the songs – he even refers to himself as being like a “Rubber Ball” – I like to think he knows his worth. Through it all, Bobby can only wish these girls well and hope that if they only realise what fools they’ve been, they’ll return. “Run to Him”, a song in this vein by Gerry Goffin and Jack Keller, reached #2 on the Billboard chart. I think the public kind of liked it when Bobby misbehaved just a little to give some back to the Suzies, Barbaras, Bettys, and Robins. On his #1 “Take Good Care of My Baby” by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Bobby’s lost the girl because he was untrue; but he hopes he’ll win her back. And on his #3 “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” (Weisman-Wayne-Garrett), where he suspects his girl of being a “run-around lover” he mischievously eludes to the fact that two could play at that game. Of course, he wouldn’t, but you know…

Some of my other Bobby favourites are “More Than I Can Say” by Sonny Curtis and Jerry Allison, “It Might as Well Rain Until September” again by Goffin and King (where Bobby has the girl, but she is away), and the later beautiful “No Obligations” by K. Walker. I say later, but Bobby would have only been around 26!

What to make of this good guy persona? It seems to have been pretty close to reality. In articles from the ‘60s, Bobby was described as “handsome, shy, young” (The Emmetsburg Democrat, July 13, 1961, p. 3) and “soft-spoken” (The Lima News, August 8, 1963, p. 17). In an article in the Clearfield Progress (July 28, 1964, p. 9), he is described in this way: “Now he is the hottest name on Liberty Records, has made millions of fans among teenagers and adults, appeared on all the top television shows and is weighing a half-dozen more motion picture offers. Through it all, Bobby Vee retains the same shy, soft-spoken qualities that made him a favorite among friends in Fargo, N. D., where he was born on April 30, 1943”. More recent profiles describe him as “self-deprecating” and “a great guy”.

Bobby in 1963 (Photo: Adam Gerace private collection).
Bobby in 1963 (Photo: Adam Gerace private collection).

Wait for another Bob. Bob Dylan wrote in his autobiography Chronicles (2004) how, as a young Elston Gunnn, he met Bobby: “His band was called The Shadows and I had hitchhiked out there and talked my way into joining his group as a piano player on some of his local gigs, one in the basement of a church. I played a few shows with him, but he really didn’t need a piano player and, besides, it was hard finding a piano that was in tune in the halls that he played”. Dylan felt that “Bobby Vee and me had a lot in common, even though our paths would take such different directions”. For Bob – er, Elston – Bobby had “a metallic, edgy tone to his voice and it was as musical as a silver bell”. Dylan goes on to describe how at the time of “Take Good Care of My Baby” in 1961, he wanted to see Bobby again: “He was on the top of the heap now. It seemed like so much had happened to him in such a short time. Bobby came out to see me; was as down-to-earth as ever, was wearing a shiny silk suit and narrow tie, seemed genuinely glad to see me, didn’t even act surprised”.

Bob Dylan never forgot his “old friend and fellow performer”. At a 2013 show, Dylan introduced a song he was to perform with a tribute to Bobby. “I’ve been on the stage with most of those people” explained Dylan referencing the likes of Madonna and Mick Jagger, “But the most meaningful person I’ve ever been on the stage with, was a man who is here tonight, who used to sing a song called “Suzie Baby”. I want to say that Bobby Vee is actually here tonight. Maybe you can show your appreciation with just a round of applause. So, we’re gonna try to do this song, like I’ve done it with him before once or twice”. And with that, Suzie had another shot of life.

In real life, Bobby may have been the teen idol, but perhaps the girls were indeed hard to find. Listen to the song “The Idol” by Bobby’s regular songwriters, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and you get the idea. In an article for a section of the Van Nuys News called “Teen Talk” (September 30, 1960, p. 8-B), it was written that “Bobby has been so active this past year that he has had little time to relax and enjoy things other teenagers of his age usually do”. This included making new friends or meeting girls. What did Bobby look for in a friend or girl? The article explained: “‘The first thing I look for in a friend,’ says Bobby, ‘is a kind of sincerity that you can’t fake’. As for girls, Bobby admits to a wholesome and typical 17-year-old enthusiasm but also reveals he likes his dates ‘quiet types, not gigglers or gabbers. I also prefer a girl with a sense of humor’”. In the liner notes for The Adobe Sessions describing “Love Must Have Passed Me By”, originally written by Bobby in the ’50s and first recorded just after “Suzie Baby” (but not released at the time), it is described how Bobby was asked by singer-songwriter Rosie Flores “How does a 15 year old write such lyrics?” He replied, “I just wanted a girlfriend so damn bad!” Those 15-year old-feelings held up well enough for Rosie to want to sing that song on her own 2012 album with Bobby providing harmonies (and the collaboration made its way onto Bobby’s Adobe Sessions as well).

Bobby and Karen on their wedding (Photo: Bobby Vee official website).
Bobby and Karen on their wedding (Photo: Bobby Vee official website).

However, the guy who wanted that girlfriend “so darn bad” (actually Bobby said “damn”, but the slightly more wholesome “darn” just seems to fit better when imagining a 15-year-old Bobby) would meet the love of his life soon enough, Karen Bergen. The two were engaged July 1, 1963, and married December 28th of that year. Together they raised four children: Jeff, Tommy, Robby, and Jenny. Karen reflected on their marriage in 2014: “I think we’ve both led our own lives and led life together … We supported each other in what we were doing. We both had careers, and we both enjoyed the other’s career. He participated in mine sometimes, and I participated in his. Raising the kids together and having common goals and common values. And we had a lot of fun”. In recent years, Karen had significant health problems, including undergoing a lung transplant. True to the Vellines, they were open with fans, and the children turned outward continuing works started by their parents to benefit the arts and music programs. In looking at photos posted on Bobby’s website and elsewhere of Karen with her children and grandchildren, I am reminded of the phrase writer Margaret Talbot told her readers was one of her mother’s. Like Margaret’s mother, you can tell that Karen’s family “made her heart sing”. Bobby and Karen Velline remained together until Karen’s passing on August 3, 2015.

Bobby and Karen in 2011 (Photo: Bobby Vee official website).
Bobby and Karen in 2011 (Photo: Bobby Vee official website).

What the Vellines have left for us, besides of course a lifetime of music that continues with the next generation and beyond, is as Bobby and family wrote in the liner notes of The Adobe Sessions “our little family scrapbook”. After recording in Tucson and realising they had enough material, this album was born. Bobby provides the vocals and, of course, acoustic guitar, and the Vellines and friends perform the tracks, many of them written by the family.

Bobby Vee The Adobe Sessions

It is an album about new love, long-lasting love, memories. There are songs that have meant much to the Vee family. Some link with Bobby’s own past such as “I Like It Like That” by Smokey Robinson and Mary Taplin that Bobby first recorded in 1968. There is “In My Baby’s Eyes,” by – you guessed it – Goffin and King that Bobby released his original version of long, long ago (another B-side!).

Bobby on stage (Photographer: Tim Pearson. Bobby Vee official website).
Bobby on stage (Photographer: Tim Pearson. Bobby Vee official website).

Others Bobby has performed live for years, such as “Save the Last Dance for Me” or “The Man in Me” by Dylan. “The Man in Me” and two songs by Hank Williams that Bobby has known, loved, and performed for so long are fresh and different here. While the essential truths of these and other songs remain the same, in Bobby’s hands their meanings change and deepen with time. There are Velline family favourites, “I’m Just a Country Boy” by Fred Hellerman and Marshall Barer and “Walls” by Gordon Lightfoot, the latter of which was a family road trip favourite. There is Daniel Lanois’ “The Maker” with monks of Saint John’s Abbey Schola providing a Gregorian chant. As Bobby writes in the liner notes, “Unforgettable”. And with his vocals – you still kill me, Bobby.

Tommy, Robby, Jenny, Bobby, Karen, and Jeff in 1998 backstage at the London Palladium (Photo: Bobby Vee official website).
Tommy, Robby, Jenny, Bobby, Karen, and Jeff in 1998 backstage at the London Palladium (Photo: Bobby Vee official website).
The family in 2011 (Photo: Bobby Vee official website).
The family in 2011 (Photo: Bobby Vee official website).

It is probably a false dichotomy to separate songs on the album into those Bobby has performed/recorded before, and those that have been part of the Velline family’s life. After all, with the Vellines music has been a way of business and a way of life. Robby Vee and his mom, Karen, wrote one of my favourites on the album, “Father to a Son”. As they write and Bobby performs, “It’s who you love and how you love in all the special ways/That’s all you take with you and the rest fades away”.

In preparing to write this, I read album notes, watched old Scopitone films on YouTube (music videos of the ‘60s) that really are a trip, and looked at photos. Some of my favourites were of a young Bobby in Rome, the newlyweds, the family, and of course Bobby on stage over time. I thought about memory. Jeff Vee wrote in his Care Advantage article about the need to always make new memories, “The road ahead is indeed murky. We think about it, but it does not rule the day. Life is about right now—trite, perhaps, but true. And we are all better people for this. We have the scrapbooks to prove it!” Another writer, Kate Swaffer, came to mind. Kate Swaffer is a fantastic writer and scholar. I actually was one of her lecturers when I was a PhD student. She was diagnosed with younger onset dementia. She wrote, “When my mind is not bursting with memories, which it is more prone to these days, I try not to neglect it, or to ignore it, but to fill my being, my life, my belly, with laughter, love and tenderness, and friendships, and most of all with caring for others, so that it is possible to see I am not alone, and that there are others also experiencing their own grief and pain, and loss and sadness… none of us are really alone, even though we can feel that way some days”.

While Bobby Vee has retired, and we the public may see less of him, he is still here. Thank you, Bobby, and the family Vee. We love you more than we can say.

The Adobe Sessions is available at Amazon.com, CD Baby, iTunes, and your usual online or bricks-and-mortar stores. Likewise, Familiar Stranger by Bob Evans is available online or in-store, including through iTunes.

Bobby’s official website is here, and visiting the Bobby Vee Facebook Fan Club is a must.

With thanks to Jeff Vee and the entire Velline family.

2014 and Beyond

SydneyThe holidays can be a stressful time. I’m usually pretty on top of Christmas shopping, but this year I wasn’t – and it seemed a lot of people weren’t either – really in the festive spirit. We were also away in Sydney mid-December and some Christmas shopping was done more or less at the last minute.

Book shops at Christmastime are a useful starting point. I was in one of the large chain stores a few days before Christmas and watched intently as two police officers walked sternly toward a timid assistant. Fearing the worst, I was relieved to hear the taller officer raise his gruff voice to ask, “Do you have Hairy Maclary?” I had actually forgotten about the adventures of this little black terrier. As a child I had the first book, Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy, but had no idea that Lynley Dodd has continued the series to the present day from the first adventure in 1983.

I was speaking with my friend Mikaila a few months back about the series we loved as children. She was looking into books in preparation for the birth of her first child. Mikaila found that another favourite, The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch by Ronda Armitage, had continued into breakfast the next morning, a picnic, and even Christmas. With this in mind, I was curious to check out the children’s section in the book store and made my way to those aisles. A little way down one of them a young girl of no more than eight or nine explained to her friend the plot of a novel, “Her parents are divorced and her mother goes out a lot looking for men”. The solitary life of the Lighthouse Keeper hadn’t prepared me for that kind of story.

For my Christmas shopping I was also happy to make my way to Adelaide’s Pop-up Bookshop in Rundle Mall, where I found a mammoth book of Audobon’s paintings. Once I’d purchased it, I was curious to see how mammoth it actually was and did the usual trick you might try with a suitcase: you weigh yourself on a scale and then add the suitcase (in this case, the book) to the scale. This book clocked in at just over 4kgs (almost 9lbs). I also found a gift for myself (because what does Christmas shopping do other than let you know how well all the department stores have got your demographic cornered) of A History of Greece by J.B. Bury and Russell Meiggs.

As the year draws to a close, I want to sincerely thank all the people who have participated in interviews that have made their way on to my site in its first year (you can click on their name to revisit the articles): Kellie Flanagan, Adz Hunter, Kevin Mitchell, Mark Smith, Wendy Strehlow, Charles Tranberg, and Mikey Wax. The same goes for the talented individuals who participated in my All We Need is an Island posts (click here and here): Jesse Bradford, Mark Deklin, Fabian, Yvette Freeman, Dick Gautier, Eric Hutchinson, Sheila Kelley, Ben Lawson, Rick Lenz, Matt Long, Donna Loren, Chad Lowe, Matthew Jordan, Josephine Mitchell, Erin Murphy, Dylan Neal, Don Rickles, Holland Taylor, Mikey Wax, Shane Withington, Lana Wood, and Francine York. All of you have a place at my table if and when you’re in my neigbourhood.

I would also like to sincerely thank you for reading. My site stats for 2014 report that I’d need several NYC subway trains to transport all of my visitors (that’s a nice metric). I’d happily ride with you, and our travelers would come from 83 countries. I so look forward to sharing more with you in 2015. I haven’t read T.S. Eliot in a long time, but I came across his words when looking for something about New Year:

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.

See you in 2015.

Adam

All We Need is an Island

What three items would you want to have with you if you were stuck on a desert island?

Variations of this question are often used as an icebreaker or team-building exercise. I remember completing one during the first tutorial of a second-year psychology class, which required the group to rank items most useful after an emergency lunar landing. If there’s one thing psychology students have an aversion to, it’s group work. However, psychologists have been known to throw their students or research participants in the deep end. In 1954, as part of the Intergroup Relations Project at the University of Oklahoma, Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues took two groups of boys to Robbers Cave in Oklahoma. The boys were split into two groups – the Rattlers and Eagles – and intergroup conflict was generated through competitive tasks like baseball and cabin inspections (that would bring out the competitive streak in anyone) by staff members. Prizes included four-bladed knives, and were highly coveted. As reported in the book Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment (1954/1961), “The trophy was so valued by the winners that they kissed it after they took possession and hid it for safety in a different cabin against a possible seizure by the losers”. The experiment was a success in generating conflict. Of course, the experimenters wanted to show that you may reduce conflict by introducing goals that are only obtainable if both groups worked together. But I digress. In short, while many of you would find these Moon/Island hypothetical group tasks only mildly discomforting, as a psychology student they were true practice runs for our survival if we had an errant lecturer needing research subjects.

"It's never a three-hour tour!" (Photo: Dawn Wells Facebook page)
“It’s never a three-hour tour!” (Photo: Dawn Wells Facebook page)

Another thing that comes to mind when I think “island” is Gilligan’s Island. I’ve always felt that the criticism of the show as being unrealistic because of how many outfits Ginger wore on the island was unfair. Surely, these armchair (or Panton chair if you grew up with the show during its original run) critics opine, the passengers on a three-hour tour would have never packed at least 98 changes of clothes (the number of episodes). I have a couple of remarks for this. Firstly, you don’t know how this is not only possible, but indeed probable, until you’ve travelled with my friends and I for a weekend away. Second, if you are looking for holes in the fabric a Sherwood Schwartz-created show, is this really the worst of them? I’m more concerned about where Alice the housekeeper slept in the Brady house.

With these two (flights of) ideas in my mind, I decided I’d ask some friends and/or generally nice people the question of what three items they would like to have with them if they went the way of the Swiss Family Robinson or, more recently, the characters of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Their answers didn’t have to strictly adhere to logic. For example, if they were to mention a favourite album, a record or CD player didn’t have to be one of the other items. Also, they could bring/be with their loved ones – the answers needn’t be only items as specified in the question. The answers were enlightening, entertaining, heart warming, and didn’t once mention a volleyball. Good for them.

Mikey Wax (Photo: Justin Steele)
Mikey Wax
(Photo: Justin Steele)
Matthew Jordan (Photo: Facebook page)
Matthew Jordan
(Photo: Facebook page)

Mikey Wax has a new single, “You Lift Me Up”, and an upcoming album in June. It’s understandable, then, that he might just want a whole orchestra with him. Failing that, Mikey explained his first choice: “An acoustic guitar – I can’t live without a musical instrument, and I would need something to write about how lonely I was on the island. I would ask for a keyboard but that would require a power outlet. A baby grand piano on a deserted island would be pretty cool but getting one there just doesn’t seem possible”. His second choice would be, “Chips and guacamole – I hope this doesn’t count as two separate things. I believe I could live entirely off this one dish and be satisfied. It will provide necessary energy to build a boat out of tree branches and escape off the island”. For number three, “Scotch or wine – you can’t be on a deserted island without some sort of alcohol. Having a good bottle of scotch like a Macallan or a nice bottle of red wine would be necessary”. Singer-songwriter Matthew Jordan has been busy lately releasing singles, including his cover of “I See Fire”. His requirements are also musical: “My Beatles records, a baby grand piano, and maybe my Kindle if I didn’t have to worry about charging it. I think as long as I had all my Beatles music to listen to and a baby grand to play, I’d be happy for a long time Actually, listening to Rubber Soul while relaxing on a desert island sounds pretty awesome to me. It’d be like a vacation!”

Mark Deklin (Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images North America)
Mark Deklin
(Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images North America)
Ben Lawson (Photo: IMDb)
Ben Lawson
(Photo: IMDb)

Mark Deklin plays the man with a past, Nicholas Deering, on Lifetime’s Devious Maids. Mark, himself, is a man of many pasts, with a background in English literature and history and having worked as a book dealer and jazz pianist. His choices reflect some of this. First there would be, “An iPod fully loaded with music – particularly classical (especially Baroque and Renaissance) and jazz (especially by the likes of Coltrane, Tatum, Davis, Mingus, etc.)”. Then he’d like “a Nook or Kindle fully loaded with books – an even distribution of fiction, science, history, philosophy, and humor, please”. Finally, it’s important to stay nourished with “a bottomless jar of peanut butter and/or box of pizza… No explanation needed”. Mark does concede, “And I guess water would be good, too”. Ben Lawson, Michael in the upcoming ABC pilot Damaged Goods and recently seen in 2 Broke Girls and Australia’s Love Child, found that the island would bring out some chords and a couple of clubs or spades, “I’d want goggles first of all. Then maybe a guitar. I don’t really play guitar but I’d presumably have a fair bit of time to get good at it. And then a deck of cards; I’d just hope that somewhere on the island there were some natives that I could teach to play 500”.

Holland Taylor (Photo: Linda Matlow)
Holland Taylor
(Photo: Linda Matlow)
Eric Hutchinson (Photo: Facebook page)
Eric Hutchinson
(Photo: Facebook page)

Comfort food, and comfort in other forms, is important. Holland Taylor’s character Evelyn Harper on Two and a Half Men would attest to that. For Holland, she would need on her island, “An encyclopedia, a mattress, and a chef who had his knives and pots and pans and olive oil and butter and a gun and a fishing pole. Young chef”. If Eric Hutchinson ever needed inspiration for a new album after his recent release, Pure Fiction, a lazy afternoon on the island would do it with, “A chair, an umbrella and a very large bottle of tequila”.

Sheila Kelley (Photo: Sheila Kelley S Factor)
Sheila Kelley
(Photo: Sheila Kelley S Factor)
Jesse Bradford (Photo: Brian To/WENN)
Jesse Bradford
(Photo: Brian To/WENN)

Sheila Kelley, actress and founder of lifestyle and fitness movement Sheila Kelley S Factor (seen on Oprah and The Ellen DeGeneres Show) may want to build a pole and ambient space for her pole dancing sequence of movements. She requires, “A solar powered iPod. A machete. A flint”. Jesse Bradford is used to playing characters in situations of high-stakes such as Rene Gagnon in Flags of Our Fathers, intern Ryan Pierce in The West Wing, and Dom in the recent The Power of Few. So it is understandable that an island stranding requires a low-key approach, “Two guitars and a ChapStick”. For Shane Withington, who has played characters in rural (A Country Practice) and seaside settings (currently on Home and Away), it’s also a “Guitar”, as well as “good red wine, and Cate Blanchett”.

Shane Withington (Photo: Home and Away official site)
Shane Withington
(Photo: Home and Away official site)
Fabian (Photo: Official site)
Fabian
(Photo: Official site)

No man or woman is an island, of course. Fabian’s Golden Boys tour with Frankie Avalon and Bobby Rydell would have to go on hiatus if he were stranded, but he said, “I would want to have my wife, my children and my grandchildren with me”.

Chad Lowe (Photo: ABC Family)
Chad Lowe
(Photo: ABC Family)
Donna Loren (Photo: Mark Arbeit)
Donna Loren
(Photo: Mark Arbeit)

Chad Lowe grew up in the Midwest before moving closer to water in Malibu. For Chad, whose character Byron Montgomery on ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars is used to moving (to Iceland, no less) or trying to move others (to Vermont or New Orleans), the choice was clear, “My daughter Mabel, my daughter Fiona, and my wife Kim. I realize they’re not ‘items’, but they’re the only thing/people I care about. Plus I know that if we were all together everything would be fine”. Donna Loren is no stranger to the question or the island. She spent 15 years living on the Big Island and Oahu in the ‘90s and co-starred in the Beach Party films. Donna also recalled an episode of The Newlywed Game in the ‘60s where “a husband was asked, ‘If you were stranded on a desert island, who would you like to be with?’ And the answer was ‘Donna Loren’!” (I think that couple made their second TV appearance on Divorce Court.) But Donna’s choices are also three people. She explained it this way: “The heart of my husband, Jered; the dancing legs of his father, Harry; and the great compassion of my first husband’s father, Si”.

Matt Long (Photo: Twitter page)
Matt Long
(Photo: Twitter page)
Rick Lenz (Photo: Offical site)
Rick Lenz
(Photo: Offical site)

Matt Long played the empathic Dr. James Peterson on Private Practice, as well as a freelance artist who crossed swords with Joan in Mad Men, working on the Samsonite account amongst others. Now that would be a sturdy island suitcase. Matt would want “my wife, our six-month-old daughter, and a fishing pole”. Rick Lenz experienced life on the plains in The Shootist and more cramped quarters in Cactus Flower. Rick tells me, “1: My wife—for my soul. 2: My paints etc.—for my soul. And 3: books and paper—for my soul. The rest, God will provide”.

Francine York (Photo: Official site)
Francine York
(Photo: Official site)
Dick Gautier (Photo: Official site)
Dick Gautier
(Photo: Official site)

Francine York probably doesn’t need books on the island. She played the Bookworm’s moll on Batman. Francine would while away the hours with “Liam Neeson, Chris Hemsworth, and Tom Selleck”. And for Dick Gautier, Get Smart’s logical robot Hymie, some long-time island dwellers are the best option, “I’d like to take Tina Louise, Bob Denver and Jim Backus”.

Don Rickles (Photo: Twitter page)
Don Rickles
(Photo: Twitter page)
Lana Wood (Photo: Facebook page)
Lana Wood
(Photo: Facebook page)

Some felt in spite of the fish caught, painting, dancing and companionship, they’d want to perhaps get off the island. “Mr. Warmth” (or, as any child will gleefully exclaim, “Mr. Potato Head!”) Don Rickles was aware he may be there for a while. He guest starred on Gilligan’s Island, after all. In addition to “a satellite phone so I can call a rescue team” Don would need “a portable toilet” and “a great chef”. Lana Wood as Plenty O’Toole in Diamonds Are Forever met James Bond at a card table, but didn’t want to gamble and spend a moment longer than she needed to either: “To quote John Sebastian of The Lovin’ Spoonful…a plane, a runway a pilot!” I wonder if John were marooned with her, could he put down his baritone guitar for a while and work on that runway? Some would stay and try to make it work. Erin Murphy sometimes got things done with a twitch of her nose as Tabitha on Bewitched. She’d want, “My husband, for love and companionship; a large pan, to boil water and cook food; and a boat, so I can leave the island when I’m ready for my next adventure”. Josephine Mitchell, star of A Country Practice, is much more use to a drier setting of that show’s Wandin Valley. However, she has a plan to ensure there will always be leftover sustenance, “I would take a Kindle with unlimited downloads, lots of sunscreen and a grape vine so I can make my own red wine”.

Erin Murphy (Photo: Official site)
Erin Murphy
(Photo: Official site)
Josephine Mitchell (Photo: Sydney Morning Herald)
Josephine Mitchell
(Photo: Sydney Morning Herald)

So, not one of my castaways mentioned food concentrate or 50 feet of nylon rope. But why would you, really? I actually sent an email through to Buzz Aldrin’s team asking him the island question. Team Buzz (they sign their emails that way) very politely passed on the request but wished me the best of luck. I like a Team that gets back to you after a request, even if it’s not an affirmative. If I ever am stuck in one of those team-building exercises again and the Moon question comes up, you know who I’ll call.

Whose choices would make you want to join them on their island? What would you take with you? I’d love to read your choices in the Comments section.

Happy birthday!

The Are the Good Times

Today, March 7, is my friend Donna Loren’s birthday. Yes this post will be dated March 8, but stateside she will still (a late dinner by now) be blowing out the candles. Now Sounds also used the occasion to officially announce Donna’s new CD, These Are the Good Times: The Complete Capitol Recordings, which will be released April 14. The CD is a compilation of Donna’s time at Capitol. During her tenure there she recorded the classic Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) album. Donna also released five singles from 1964-66, including the Northern Soul classics “Blowing Out the Candles” (the reference in the second sentence was only semi-deliberate) b/w “Just a Little Girl” and “Ninety Day Guarantee” b/w “Ten Good Reasons”. The singles also included Steven Van Zandt’s favourite Donna song “So, Do the Zonk”, which he regularly plays on his radio show; one of Donna’s favourites, the Tony Hatch-penned “Call Me”; and one of my favourites, “I Believe”. Elvis released that last one in 1957 – one of the many connections Donna has with Elvis, but that’s for another day.

Making their debut for the first time are eight unreleased tracks that have sat in the Capitol vaults all these years. Donna and I have known each other for over a decade. It is a friendship that I treasure. When I was visiting L.A., I stayed with Donna and her husband, Jered. One afternoon, after a visit to the Getty Villas and a very slow trek back home in mid-afternoon traffic (and they told me the traffic was excessive, even by L.A. standards!), Donna set about making us all dinner and Jered played me the rediscovered gems. Boy are you in for a treat. While at Capitol, Donna was produced by David Axelrod, Steve Douglas, and Al De Lory, and arranged/conducted by H. B. Barnum, Billy Strange, Jack Nitzsche, and Gene Page. The new material will delight Douglas-Nitzsche fans. And, she was backed by the Wrecking Crew, musicians she knew from her early recording days. Donna reunited with one of those musicians, Carol Kaye, on her 2010 album Love It Away.

Donna’s fans who visit her website and Facebook pages (Official Facebook Page, Official Facebook Profile Page) are used to rare photos. Her adopted dad/manager was a professional photographer (in addition to once having been a cartoonist for Disney and Hanna-Barbera). The new CD package will feature never-before-seen photos.

So a happy birthday to Donna! These Are the Good Times will be available in the usual places, including at Donna’s website.