If this bit of Timi Yuro/Hank Cochran deliciousness can't purge "Omaha Mall" from your brain, electroshock treatments are your only hope. Really.
That is all.
Hank Cochran, the esteemed country music songwriter revered for the poetic economy and power of such enduring hits as Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces" and Eddy Arnold's "Make the World Go Away," died Thursday at his home in Hendersonville, Tenn., after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 74.HERE ARE a couple more of Cochran's creations -- snatches of timeless bliss that likewise are entries in my book of damned fine songwriting:
Cochran was joined Wednesday night by musicians Jamey Johnson and Billy Ray Cyrus and fellow songwriter Buddy Cannon, who sang songs with him at his bedside.
In a career spanning more than half a century, Cochran wrote or co-wrote hundreds of songs recorded by Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Elvis Presley, Ray Price, George Strait and numerous others.
"He was a great friend, and a great mentor, and he was responsible for some of the music that inspired me to do what I do," Haggard, himself one of country's most prolific songwriters, said through a spokeswoman Thursday.
Cochran's name can also be found on the credits for Cline's "She's Got You," Strait's "The Chair" and "Ocean Front Property" and Ronnie Milsap's "Don't You Ever Get Tired of Hurting Me," the latter being the one he usually cited as his favorite of his own songs.
"People study songs and go over them and all that," Cochran once said, "and they tell me that's one of the most well-written songs, but that has nothing to do with why it's my favorite. It's my favorite because it can still cut me up just like the day I wrote it."
One verse looks at heartache from the viewpoint of a man who is unable to move on:
You must think I look bad with a smile
For you haven't let me wear one
In such a long, long while
Still I keep running back — why must this be?
Don't you ever get tired of hurtin' me?
"Of my top 20 favorite songs of all time, he wrote about half of 'em," country star Brad Paisley tweeted Thursday after hearing the news. "What a great guy and great life."
It appears that most scientists believe now that life is hardly possible on Mars, but some, particularly the late Dr. Lowell, have believed that life exists there. If true, the Martians are living on a dying world, where most of the oxygen has entered the rocks, oxidizing the iron present and rusting it, giving Mars its typical reddish color. Martians would be seeking a new world on which to live, and July 27 would be the obvious time for them to make an attempt at communications.OF COURSE, the little green men coming to Earth would be most impractical. Orson Welles' interplanetary invaders of the previous year were ultimately done in by something as simple as . . . Earth germs.
Nobody knows whether or not there is animal life on the planet Mars; nobody knows whether or not it is possible to reach Mars with a radio signal. In 1924 a group of radio engineers trying to tune in Mars heard signals which they claimed they could not identify with an Earthly source. Last week, with Mars closer to the Earth than at any time since 1924, another group of radio engineers tried a more daring experiment: sending a signal Marsward in the hope that it would be reflected back, picked up again on Earth. They thought they might succeed if: 1) the signal could penetrate the ionosphere, the ionized layer in the Earth's atmosphere whose influence on radio waves is not thoroughly understood; 2) it was not dissipated or destroyed on the way; 3) it hit Mars; 4) it was reflected toward Earth, and strong enough to be detected.
At the headquarters of Press Wireless, surrounded by the barren salt marshes off Baldwin, Long Island, gathered engineers of Newark's publicity-wise Station WOR, good-natured Curator Clyde Fisher of Manhattan's Hayden Planetarium, newshawks, photographers, announcers standing by to tell all. Before sending their signal, the engineers spent forty-five minutes twirling the knobs of 40 short-wave receivers, trying to catch a signal from Mars, where the highest form of life is generally believed to be some low form of vegetation, possibly resembling moss. Result: a potpourri of short-wave noises, most of them promptly identified.
For a few hours on Wednesday, the Iroquois national lacrosse team thought its passport brouhaha had been resolved, thanks to a one-time waiver from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton clearing the way for it to travel to the world championships in England using tribal documents instead of United States passports.AND ONCE AGAIN, the Iroquois are reminded that with friends like the English, who needs enemies?
But later in the day, the British government was said to have refused to grant visas to the team, even with Mrs. Clinton’s waiver, a potentially decisive setback for the team.
“We are deeply disappointed, and urge our friends and supporters to reach out to the British government to seek reconsideration,” Chief Oren Lyons of the Onondaga Nation, one of the six nations that make up the Iroquois Confederacy, said in a statement.
The team’s travel plans were first thrown awry last week when the British consulate asked for a written assurance from the United States government that the team would be allowed to re-enter the country using its tribal documents — an assurance that federal officials would not provide.
They changed their stance on Wednesday when Mrs. Clinton authorized the special waiver. The State Department provided the Iroquois team with letters providing assurance of their re-entry, said P. J. Crowley, the department’s spokesman.
Mr. Crowley told reporters in Washington that it would be up to the British government to decide whether to issue visas to the players based on those letters. But the Iroquois team described that decision as more of a formality, with the biggest hurdle — coming to an agreement with the State Department — having been cleared.
That turned out not to be the case. The British Consulate decided that the letters from the State Department were not sufficient because ultimately they were not passports, according to a United States government official informed of the decision.
“At this point there’s not a lot we can do,” Percy Abrams, the team’s executive director, said in a telephone interview. “We were given a set of demands, and then we met those demands — and then they were switched. That’s the way we feel.”
The U.K. Border Agency said in a statement that the British government would welcome the Iroquois team, but only if their players “present a document that we recognize as valid to enable us to complete our immigration and other checks.” The statement did not discuss the letters issued by the State Department, and a spokeswoman declined to elaborate. Until Wednesday morning, when Mrs. Clinton authorized the waiver, State Department officials had noted that federal law does not allow a tribal document to be used in lieu of a United States passport for international travel. (Security is one reason: The Iroquois passports are partly handwritten and do not include any of the security features that make United States passports resistant to counterfeiting.)
To hear it from permanent residents of this tiny town at the southernmost edge of the bayou, the community is under siege. Not only did the massive oil spill in the Gulf force an abrupt halt to age-old routines dictated mainly by fishing, but the cleanup up effort has brought an army of workers from "outside."IT WOULD SEEM that Tony Hayward isn't the only one around with no public-relations sense. Then again, the BP chief isn't the one with his hand out here.
"It’s a drastic change for us, especially in our marinas. It’s all workers," said Sheriff Euris DuBois. "The biggest change is we don’t know them. They are a different nature."
Grand Isle has only about 1,500 permanent residents, most born here, said DuBois. They are accustomed to a large influx of families who own the cottages – or "camps" that line the beachfront. But this year, with the beaches off limits and fishing shut down, most of these perennial tourists have stayed away.
Instead there are an estimated 5,000 cleanup workers – from Texas, New Jersey, Alabama and elsewhere. The workers are all male, and the vast majority are black.
That alone is a shock here. The town has only one black permanent resident, said DuBois, and no black tourists that he can recall.
"And they congregate!" a waitress named Jane told diners from out of town as she described the situation, repeating rumors that there was also a rash of theft and violence. "It’s bad to where our pastor on Sunday warned the congregation to lock their doors."
Some black workers report they have had a cool reception.
"I don’t go out here. I am not welcome," said a worker from Houston who only gave his first name, John. Asked why he felt unwelcome, he said wryly, "uh, just a teeny bit of racism."
A co-worker chimed in: "They gouge us (on rent). They don’t want us here," he said. "But we just do the work cleaning up their environment."
"They don’t like any of us," said a captain from New Jersey who is running a boat in the cleanup.SMALL TOWNS can be something else. Small towns in the recesses of the Gret Stet of Loosiana can be something else even by "something else" standards.
"It's not just blacks. It’s Yankees, and everybody who is not from Grand Isle," he said, giving only his first name, Mike.
When booms did begin to arrive, it was too little and too late in many areas, so we proposed a 24-segment sand berm plan to protect our shoreline by using the natural framework of our barrier islands to help block and trap oil for collection before it gets into our marshes. Even after we demonstrated the effectiveness of sand berms, it took us weeks to convince the Coast Guard to approve even six segments from this plan, and then longer for us to force BP to fund the work.IN THE PHOTO above, you can see all the earth-moving equipment several feet deep in the Gulf of Mexico, atop one of the governor's "effective" sand berms.
In what has now become a pattern, the U.S. Corps of Engineers and U.S. Fish and Wildlife shut down our dredging operations on the northern Chandeleurs [sic] Islands recently where we had already created 4,000 feet of land to protect our interior wetlands from oil impact, and indeed it has already worked to stop oil. A U.S. Department of Interior official said they were worried that our dredging operations would hurt a bird habitat nearby. The only problem with that is we were dredging in a permitted area in open water and there isn't a place for a bird to land for a mile.
A dramatic series of of aerial images show that plans to build artificial islands to block oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill from reaching Louisiana's sensitive marshland appear to be crumbling. Literally.LET ME say again: I was wrong. And CNN and Anderson Cooper are just as wrong -- probably more so -- for giving mau-mauers like Jindal and Nungesser a nightly pass to swamp unsuspecting viewers with pure propaganda when they no more know their ass from a hole in the ground than do Obama's nincompoop bureaucrats.
Two months ago, against the advice of many coastal scientists, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal began furiously campaigning for the construction of six artificial islands to hold back the advancing oil. The federal government quickly granted Jindal his wish, and construction on the islands has been continuing apace.
But images taken of one construction site near the northern edge of the Chandeleur islands appear to show the sea washing away a giant sand berm over the course of about two weeks.
The first image . . . was taken on June 25. The second and third . . . were taken from roughly the same vantage point on July 2 and 7. All three images were first published yesterday by coastal scientist Leonard Bahr on his blog, LACoastPost.
Bahr, a former researcher at Louisiana State University, spent 18 years in the governor's office, advising five administrations on their coastal policy.
"There have been a number of plans over 20 years to save the coast," he said. "But after Katrina, it morphed into 'coastal protection,' which gives me pause."
The crucial difference is that within the Jindal administration, coastal policy has been cast as a war between man and the sea. Plans have been devised to build massive levees and other earthworks to defend the Mississippi River delta and its marshes from the Gulf of Mexico.
(snip)"Building what they call 'the Louisiana wall' makes sense at first, but the science doesn't support it," Bahr said. "The science should be leading this issue, but it isn't. It never has."
Unfortunately, the berms project has charged ahead in this vein, seeking to build (and spend hundreds of millions of dollars) first, and ask questions later.
The curfew, which is being put into effect amid an abundance of protest, makes it unlawful for street entertainment to be performed between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. from the entertainment district of Bourbon Street to Canal and St. Ann streets.PERSONALLY, I blame it on all the Corexit oil dispersant BP is spraying into the atmosphere and on the water all around the Louisiana coast.
Another ordinance brought to the musicians’ attention makes it unlawful for any person to play a musical instrument on any public right-of-way in the city between 8 p.m. and 9 a.m. unless granted a permit.
Now, in addition to their trumpets and saxophones, the members of To Be Continued and other musical staples of the French Quarter can often be seen holding signs reading “Please Don’t Stop the Music” and other marks of protest.
“[Bourbon Street] is the birthplace of what we do,” said Sean Roberts, a trumpet player in To Be Continued. “It’s the most famous street for people to come and see what you invented, and we are a representation of that. So why wouldn’t you want your representatives to represent you?”
Roberts is one of many musicians currently in discussion with New Orleans law enforcement to find a way to make the ordinance mutually beneficial for the residents of the city and the entertainers.
Lisa Palumbo, manager of To Be Continued and marketing professor at the University of New Orleans, said the band — which has performed in the French Quarter since 2002 — never had a problem with playing its music until a few weeks ago.
“We’re not trying to make the French Quarter unavailable for anybody, but the 100 block of Bourbon is there for entertainment and commercial purposes,” Palumbo said. “We’re not trying to play all day or all night in any area. We’re just looking for a curfew that is reasonable for all parties involved.”
"I wanted to leave several weeks ago, but my wife didn't want to leave, and we been married . . . well, our 30th anniversary was April 21, the day after the spill. So, I figure if she's gonna stay here and die, I'm gonna stay here and die with her."
Note to journalism students. When we celebrate investigative reporting, it's for issues like war crimes, nursing home scandals or police corruption. It's not to report that LeBron James has opened a Twitter account.
But that was a "major" headline Wednesday. And James' first Tweet was Hello World, the Real King James is in the Building "Finally."
Honestly, who calls himself "King"?
Which brings me back to the man himself, who, after a few years of relative humility, now seems, at 25, to be stepping onto some assumed throne atop the world, like that "Airbender" kid, as if the rest of the planet naturally should step aside.
Excuse me if I turn my back. I no longer care less where LeBron James plays. I'm sick of the whole story. The number of supposedly respectable people tripping over themselves to hand him $100 million should make all of them and many of us ashamed.
In a country where people are out of work or out in the streets, LeBron's basketball home was never important. But spilling money on his head is downright insulting.
(snip)
Still, the final cherry on this ego sundae is the televised event tonight, an hour-long ESPN special at 9 o'clock (an hour?) in which James will announce who wins the right to wrap its money around his arrogance.
Only in America could we keep inventing reality TV that fantastically outshames the previous low mark. A prime-time event? To announce a free-agent signing? And don't point out that some proceeds go to charity. You want to give to charity, quietly write a check. Don't get a network to do it for you so it gets to pump its shows and you get to shower yourself in international coverage -- while calling it philanthropy.
The NBA has embarrassed itself here. The media have embarrassed themselves. And a guy who calls himself "King" may be beyond embarrassment, which is truly embarrassing.
Lindsay Lohan may have come with a message for the Los Angeles Superior Court when she appeared for her probation revocation hearing on Tuesday, and it could spell more jail time on top of her three-month sentence.THAT'S THE RESPONSE of our terminally ill society. To debate whether or not Lohan's message was meant for the judge and, thus, constituted contempt of court.
Lohan, who was sentenced to 90 days in prison and 90 days in an in-patient rehabilitation facility for violating the terms of her probation, appeared in court with the words “f**k u” printed on her middle fingernail.
And according to one expert, this could spell serious trouble for her sentencing, which was already triple the amount that the prosecution requested.
FOX411.com reviewed photos from three separate photo agencies -- Thompson Reuters, Associated Press and Getty -- all of which appeared to display the words on her middle left-hand fingernail.
A Thompson Reuters rep told FOX411.com in a statement that “the images of Lindsay Lohan published yesterday by Reuters were not altered beyond the normal bit of toning to correct color balance and contrast.”
An Associated Press rep said that after discussion among their photo editors, they sent out an advisory to clients that read in part "EDS NOTE: OBSCENE LANGUAGE ON LEFT MIDDLE FINGERNAIL."
If indeed Lohan's message was aimed toward the courts, "it would be a separate charge for contempt,” says New York City Public Defender Stacy Schneider. “She could have an entire extra sentence heaped on top of her current one. If the judge were angry enough, it could run even consecutively.”
Los Angeles Public Defender Greg Apt echoed Schneider's sentiments, calling Lohan's fingernails a "creative" way to land in contempt of court.
"The judge could hold her in direct contempt, which could be between three to five days in jail for vulgarity," if the judge deemed the words were aimed at the court, Apt said.