Updated: Jul 17
From the fine folks at The Dodo, this is really weird, but completely adorable. It’s pretty understandable when someone is a fan of Julie Andrews. But…but…when a dog is obsessed with her?? Man, that’s star power.
By the way, what makes this all the more remarkable -- and utterly adorable -- is that the dog's adoration of Julie Andrews crosses eras of her work and it's not necessarily even tied to the sound of her voice. The dog just loves Julie Andrews.
Updated: Jul 17
Over the weekend, that renowned American scholar Elon Musk posted the following on social media –
“Anyone who doesn’t love America is a traitor and beneath contempt.
“Those who don’t love America, those who are disloyal should be exiled immediately.”
Fun Fact: "Not loving America" is actually not a definition of treason. Nor a crime.
That aside, I’m not quite sure what Mr. Musk considers a citizen being “disloyal” to America. Putting up another country’s flag on its day of independence? Only speaking a foreign language? Ever speaking a foreign language? Acknowledging problems in the country's past. Hating fascism. Criticizing the government? Protesting anything? In any event, none of that is, of course, a crime, nor qualifies for “exile.”
More to the point, though, a person who thinks that a citizen who doesn't love America should be “exiled” shows that he or she don't even begin to understand what America means, let alone understand what loving it means. This is a country, after all, that was literally founded on rebellion against its home country, and fighting a war for the right to do so. Disagreeing with the country is the birthright of every American. And the freedom to speak that disagreement is not only enshrined in the Constitution, but so essential to America that it is the very first Amendment.
This is especially galling coming from Mr. Musk, of all people, given that his own brother has admitted that the two of them came in the country illegally.
What Musk -- and many on the far right who have long cried out "America, love it or leave it!" -- totally miss is that it’s one thing to love your country, but another entirely to hate actions by the government that is in charge at any particular moment. And what is so indefensible about them missing this massive difference – and yes, whatever flaws Democrats have, the whole “America, love it or leave it!” mantra is owned pretty much exclusively by the far right – is that they themselves have absolutely zero problem attacking the government when Democrats are in charge. It's impossible to imagine that the far-right has forgotten how much they viscerally hated the government with a passion when President Obama and President Biden were in charge. Impossible since, if any come close to forgetting, Trump and his cabinet won't let them.
Yet none of them “self-exiled” themselves.
To ignore this basic, easy concept is to ignore that while we may dearly love our family, we have visceral, sometimes even bitter arguments with them all the time. Yet continue to carry that almost-unbreakable love.
But in the end, what perhaps leaps out the most is that the person who cried out that “Anyone who doesn’t love America is a traitor and beneath contempt” and that “Those who don’t love America, those who are disloyal should be exiled immediately” -- lest we forget --
-- is this guy.
Updated: Jul 17
For the moment, unless I find any more, we come to the end of our year-long 12 monthly compilations of Broadway performances with the original casts that were on the 23 years of The Ed Sullivan Show, archived for the record, most of which would otherwise have been lost. And as always, to give full credit, these videos were compiled by Jim Berg,
We start with a continuation of Do Re Mi, which the Sullivan show remarkably presented the first 26 minutes of the show. The previous compilation had eight of those minutes, here are the final 18, filled with three full scenes and four songs. The show starred Phil Silvers and Nancy Walker, with music and lyrics by Jule Styne and Comden & Green, and ran for a year, 400 performances. It had the big hit, “Make Somewhat Happy,” which I posted in Compilation #2, sung by Nancy Dussault, as well as the comedy classic “Adventure,” and one of Broadway’s most famous “11 o’clock numbers”, the soul-bearing “All of My Life.” In this video, we have the second scene that takes place on the main couple's 10th anniversary, as Silvers' character talks about his dream of making a big score, just needing an angle – now focused on the new juke box industry -- which becomes the duet, “Get a Job.” And that leads into the following scene with one of my favorite numbers in the musical, the wonderful production number “It’s Legitimate.”
(By the way, as a sort of bonus intermission, here from the original cast album is Phil Silvers singing the aforementioned, legendary and un-Phil Silvers-like number, “All of My Life.” It’s not video, of course, but after the first 26 minutes of the show here, I think it’s only proper to complete the circle, with the last number and finale. You can find it here.)
And now, back to things at hand:
Which first is George Gobel, not in costume, but as himself introducing a song he persons in the little-known 1961 musical, Let It Ride, that only ran for 69 performances. It’s based on the huge hit stageplay, Three Men on a Horse, that ran for almost two years, 815 performances, and starred Sam Levene – who recreated his role in this musical, 26 years later. The score is by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, best known for their three Oscar-winning Best Songs, “Buttons and Bows,” “Mona Lisa” and “Que Sera, Sera.” Though Gobel was best known as a comedian, he did sing on occasion and has a very nice voice -- and gets to sing to lovely song here, which had some success outside the musical, “His Own Little Island.”
Diahann Carroll sings two songs from No Strings, though this is just a medley she sings as a guest, not in costume from the show. No Strings is the only musical for which Richard Rodgers wrote both the music and lyrics, which came after the death of Oscar Hammerstein. Also worth noting, that one of the conceits of No Strings is that in the show’s orchestrations there were, in fact, no strings. However, for this performance, you not only can hear the strings, but they eventually cut to a shot where you can see them.
And we end with a young Anthony Newley singing “What Kind of Fool Am I?" from Stop the World, I Want to Get Off. He is not in costume or clown mime make-up, but rather a tuxedo. However, we get to see his performance at the time of the show and with what is surely the same interpretation in character.
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Robert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting.
Elisberg is a two-time recipient of the Lucille Ball Award for comedy screenwriting. He's written for film, TV, the stage, has two sort-of best-selling novels, and was a regular columnist for the Writers Guild of America and Huffington Post. Among his other writing, he's had a long-time column on technology (which he sometimes understands), and co-wrote a book on world travel. As a lyricist, he is a member of ASCAP, and has contributed to numerous publications.
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