In American football an “Ave Maria” is a long, last-second, desperation-motivated, forward pass that hopes against hope to turn impending defeat into miraculous victory.
Probably Anthony Buono had something else in mind when he named his Catholic “dating” service Ave Maria Singles, although the masthead sort of reinforces the football analogy.
The home page features this half hearted endorsement from a guy who looks like he’d much rather burn than marry.
I think members are supposed to be looking for marriage partners as opposed to casual dating. I wonder how AMS screens its applicants.
There must be plenty of Lotharios out there with a particular taste for sincere Catholic females, who find that “There’s something special about a practicing Catholic…”
The welcoming letter concludes thusly:
... Grace and peace of Christ to you in your search.
Sincerely in the Holy Family of Nazareth, Anthony J. Buono, President
Mentioning the Holy Family kind of throws a wet towel on the passion aspect of marriage, considering the Catholic belief the Joseph and Mary never had sex. Great model!
As pointed out in the Jesuit Watch post A Marriage Act, a marriage is consummated only through sexual intercourse. For a couple that has never had intercourse to say that they are married is a lie.
In some weird way, these contradictions must contribute to erotic tension.
Amazing about the Aicardi/Dwyer story below is the surprise at the severity of the consequences, as if they thought it wasn’t too big a deal to go around beating people up.
You wonder about how they were socialized.
Sometimes it takes a scrape with the law to help us see the light.
Till There Was You - Meredith Wilson Some people think of this as a Beatles song.
During her last couple of days my mom wasn’t very responsive. She couldn’t talk but when the nurse shouted at her she’d maybe move her head slightly.
I visited her in the morning and in the evening both of her last days, but there wasn’t much I could do except hold her hand and say soothing things.
On the second day, out of frustration, I sang to her. I closed the door, and sang really loud, with full breath support, some of our favorite songs.
I think she could hear. I think a couple times the moved her lips along with the lyrics. Anyway, it was better than just sitting there, and if she could hear me, so much the better.
In our family, Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man was like a sacrament. This beautiful love song happens at the climax of the story. It’s the last song my mom heard before she died.
I remember seeing the movie of the same name. Wild stuff in those days. This was around the same time as I was acquiring my first watch. I saw it up the street from the jewelry store at the El Portal theater.
Post war prosperity, at least for many Americans, was blooming. The baby boom must have resulted from a post-war mating boom. Things were looking good. There was an exuberance not seen for the previous thirty years.
I was looking for a video of Ray Charles singing Busted, as a shout out to San Francisco Filipinos who are battling Catholic real estate developers.
There wasn’t a good one of the Ray, but I came across a band called Busted, and watched. These guys are just too pretty not to post a link.
These pretty boys frustrate teenage girls terribly, not from desire, but from envy. The girls spend hours in front of the mirror, zillions on makeup and how-to-look-good magazines. The Busted boys wake up in the morning, run casual hands through their hair, and they’re the prettiest creatures on earth.
It’s possible that if I were dating someone we’d go to some movies. It’s a way to get out of the house, to be together without having to talk, and to have something in common to talk about later.
But I just haven’t gone to the movies lately. Maybe I should do the math.
Anyway, Buck and his gang show impeccable musicianship and always deliver real value, in my objective view.
SFWILLIE’S BLOG presents the above Buck Owens link as an antidote to the Oscar presentation.
The song is well made, and Honesty must admit that the self-effacing wit of the lyrics is charmingly egalitarian. As I pointed out almost a year ago, before I knew about YouTube, in a little tribute to him, Buck was a Bakersfield guy, by choice.
I’m pretty dumb about Pergolesi. This piece is news to me. The music, the performance, the people and the setting are all very pretty. It’s almost like Lent ain’t that bad.
This being Ash Wednesday I had to come up with something to give up for Lent. Somehow I lit on sarcasm. I’d give up sarcasm for Lent. (Except for Jesuit Watch.)
I was doing pretty well until I tried to get into a check out line at the supermarket, around 3:30pm. As I wheeled my cart into place I got whacked in the ankle and thigh by the cart of a 50-something Asian woman who felt the space in line was hers.
I stopped and she continued and aced me out. There were at least ten people within earshot.
“Oh, you first, don’t mind me,” I said in a voice that commanded attention. The woman turned slightly toward me and I saw a smudge on her forehead.
“Oh, the ashes,” I said loudly. “So you’re a Catholic woman. Of course it’s ok for Christian’s to run you over with their carts.”
“Those Christians,” I said, “they always ask themselves ‘What would Jesus do?’”
Nobody had the guts to look at me. I stood there and glowered at her. I had moved to the next line and I eventually got out before the ash lady.
So my give-up-for-Lent lasted only eight or nine hours. I shouldn’t be too mad at the Catholic lady. I wasn’t going to be sarcasm free for forty whole days, so better to get it over with sooner rather than later.
You know what I do when I fail to live up to a resolution like this? I tell myself that when Lent comes around next year I’ll try to do better. So much for this year, though.
One benefit of growing old is that the possibility of a life sentence gets less and less threatening.
Pity the subjest of the best first line ever written in a country and western song : I turned twenty-one in prison doing life without parole. Does that scan, or what?
This was recorded live at Folsom Prison. You can tell from the audience’s cheers and applause for the line: I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die. That’s harsh.
Gleegaters: you may be tough, but you don’t want to go there.
Harry Houdini was a man’s man. He died of peritonitis, possibly caused by a stupid demonstration of his own butchness.
As wikipedia explains, the causal connection is not that clear, but the stupid demonstration actually took place:
Houdini was reclining on his couch after his performance, having an art student sketch him. When Whitehead came in and asked if it was true that Houdini could take any blow to the stomach, Houdini replied in the affirmative. In this instance, he was struck several times, before Houdini protested. Whitehead reportedly continued hitting Houdini several times afterwards, and Houdini acted as though he were in some pain.
I guess most people would call that a “manly” interaction. It’s true that many women are attracted to dominant, physically powerful men.
Teenage boys worry that they aren’t or won’t be big enough or strong enough to attract the girls. There’s good news, you don’t have to be Hercules to attract women, not if you have a voice like Jaoa Gilberto.
I had a boyfriend once who would sometimes since softly right into my ear. There was something very intimate about it.
SFWILLIE’S BLOG sort of passed an anniversary the other day. Pud says don’t look back. “Don’t even think about a Best-of,” he said.
We don’t care. To mark the milestone we are reprising a visitors’ favorite. Of all the YouTube videos we linked to this year, Dazo and Cammy received overwhelming response.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Even if your main squeeze ain’t around to squeeze, still, it’s good to know you have a friend.
I was twenty-one and seeing a shrink for heart repair. Bussing home along Union Street after a rare early morning session, my feelings were pretty close to the surface.
It was grey and cold, and the streets, with their shee-shee shops and straight yuppie pickup bars, had not yet been swept. There was plenty of trash still in the gutters from the previous night’s ruttings.
When the bus stopped at a light, I saw a little sign in the window of one of the pick-up bars, probably a neighborhood merchant promo thing:
If you left your heart in San Francisco, You’ll probably find it on Union Street.
Here the camera direction was: TILT DOWN TO SEE TRASH AND FILTH IN THE GUTTER.
I remember that when I hear the Tony Bennett song.
I couldn’t find a clip of the Jeanette MacDonald song from the movie San Francisco, but, what a great city-anthem!
There were two Summer-of-Love songs, one stupid, the other deplorable.
“If you come to San Francisco, wear some flowers in your hair” is the stupid song. [If you have a felt need and a strong stomach you can listen here.]
First of all, in San Francisco, you don’t have to wear flowers or anything else in your hair. Wear whatever the hell you like.
This song is part of the hippie-as-fashion co-option. Hippie was sex, drugs, rock and roll. Notwithstanding the title of that ripoff musical, hippie was never about hair.
Like,
“Were you ever a hippie?” “No, but I saw Hair three times.”
Hippie was about turn on tune in drop out, not “How to Dress in San Francisco.”
And, regarding the song’s assertion, “You’re going to meet some gentle people there…,” well, sure, some, but, hey, talk to the Yale singers who recently got their asses kicked here.
Pud says I’m ranting, which task is supposed to be his.
The despicable one was the song about “Warm San Francisco Nights.” The singer, I guess he was British, didn’t even pronounce the city’s name correctly. The last syllable of San Francisco rhymes with snow. This guy turns the O into a schwa.
It’s despicable false advertising with possible health ramifications. [Total masochists can listen here.]
There’s almost no such thing as “warm San Francisco nights.” There aren’t that many warm San Francisco DAYS.
Hint: virtually no private homes in San Francisco, including the swankiest, have air conditioning. It’s not necessary. We don’t have screens on our windows, because it’s never warm enough to generate significant bug activity.
So these misguided kids arrived in shirtsleeves for a summer of unrelenting overcast and damp winds, with no particular place to stay. That song should have had a disclaimer.
One of my dad’s favorite stories:
There was little private street in the financial district (the old warehouse district) called Hotaling Place. (The middle syllable of Hotaling gets the accent and it’s pronounced like the Al in Albert.)
Hotaling was a major liquor distributor in 1906, and apparently came through the earthquake and fire unscathed, inspiring this little jingle, (which I knew by heart at an early age):
If, as some say, God spanked the town For being over-frisky. Then why did He burn the churches down, And save Hotaling’s whiskey?
Just the nickname, Frisco, which by tradition is verboten within city limits, sounds like a place worth visiting.
