Raised on Country Sunshine: Friends in Low Places

Friends in low places

The fun in country music is the whole idea of letting loose and raisin' some hell, even if that means you are preparing your V-8 juice and elbow macaroni hangover cure the next morning and paying a $100 fine for having a nuisance party. 

True story. 

Lots of these are also just fun to sing along to with friends, preferably at a loud volume. I currently miss hearing these at the river: 

Dolly Parton, 9 to 5

Johnny Bush, Whiskey River

Oak Ridge Boys, Elvira

Linda Ronstadt, When Will I Be Loved 

The Eagles, Already Gone

Chris Stapleton, Tennessee Whiskey

Pistol Annies, Got My Name Changed Back

Bellamy Brothers, Let Your Love Flow

Charlie Daniels Band, The Devil Went Down to Georgia

Garth Brooks, Friends in Low Places

That's It, Just One Line: Atlantic City

 

"We're going out where the sands are turning to gold."

Such a sad song with some vivid imagery. 

The Fifth Beatle: Billy Preston

Frofabulous

Billy Preston is one of the very few musicians to be given credit on a Beatles recording, which was done at the band's request on the 1969 single Get Back.

He was a child prodigy, playing by ear without having ever taken a lesson. The people he has performed with are a who's who of music: playing piano for Mahalia Jackson at 10; performing with Fats Domino at the age of 11; and starring in a movie as a young W.C. Handy at 12. 

And that's just the 50s. 

In the 60s, he performed with Andre Crouch, went on tour with Little Richard, and is on Sam Cooke's Night Beat album. Later in the decade, he played with Jimi Hendrix and Ray Charles. 

Whew. 

After the Get Back sessions in 1969, Billy joined the Beatles once more, playing organ on Abbey Road's I Want You (She's So Heavy). 

Billy spent the 70s recording with his A-list friends and for himself, including the massive hit Nothing from Nothing, and finding time to write You Are So Beautiful with Joe Cocker. 

Dude was everywhere: he was even the first musical guest on Saturday Night Live in 1975. 

I entered the Preston fandom circle in 1979, the duet he did with Syreeta, With You I'm Born Again.

The 80s weren't kind; he got into some trouble with drugs and booze, but recovered to become one of Ringo's early All Starr Band members in the 90s. He was an in-demand session musician in the 00s for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Norah Jones, Johnny Cash, and the Funk Brothers. He even made an appearance on American Idol!

Billy battled personal demons throughout his life, and... can't we just let people be who they are? He remained firmly in the closet his whole life and died of kidney disease in 2006. 

Lipstick on the Mic: Madonna

Chilling with Madge 

With someone larger than life, how do you gain a new perspective? Take one slice and look at that.  

I often joked in the past that Madonna was the patron saint of repressed Catholic school girls everywhere. And like her, I'm a Michigan-born Catholic who had to deal with a stern father. I reacted to her self-confessional songs on True Blue and Like a Prayer exactly because of that. While she rebelled against the patriarchal rigidity of Catholicism and questioned its teachings, she still longed to embrace what the Church had to offer. 

And yet, by following the teachings of the Catholic church and marrying Sean Penn, she did not get that love and protection in return, as she confessed in Til Death Do Us Part. Family conflict in the song Oh Father. At the time Like a Prayer was released, I was with someone who wanted to wait until marriage to consummate our relationship. I was surprised to realize I didn't, ready to express myself with someone whom I trusted with my body, heart, and soul, feeling it was not a sin. 

Sexual freedom came late, but it still came for me in 1989. 

Madonna went on to explore other avenues in the 90s, playing a 40s-era baseball player, a dominatrix, Evita, and embracing new age electronica. She's recently released Confessions II, her most celebrated album in nearly 30 years. But it's still her self-confessional period of the late 80s and early 90s that I loved her best. 

Happy birthday.

YA Book Club: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

 

Another girl-bonding novel turned major motion picture. 

The bonds in the story are so strong that the actresses portraying Lena, Bridget, Tibby, and Carmen have their own group chat that has been going strong for nearly 20 years. (I'm still trying to figure out what Blake Lively did that cancel culture zeroed in on her. Maybe I'm not reading enough Entertainment Weekly. I do know that she wasn't invited to Taylor's wedding.)

In the story, the four girls have been friends for life, having been born within days of each other, their mothers meeting at a birthing class. Before going their separate ways for the summer, they went shopping and found The Pants, a pair of jeans that somehow fit all four of them perfectly, even though they are all different sizes and shapes. The novel tells the tale of their summer and how the pants tie it all together. 

Lena spends the summer in Greece with her grandparents and falls in love with Kostos, a neighbor boy who brings her out of her shell. 

Bridget goes to California for soccer camp, falls in love with, and aggressively pursues a coach. He rebuffs her, and Lena comes to her rescue. 

Carmen goes to North Carolina to stay with her divorced father and is shocked to see he is engaged, and she will have new step-siblings. Feeling like she's been replaced, she returns home, only to be encouraged to mend the rift and celebrate her family's expansion. 

Tibby, left behind in their hometown, befriends young Bailey, who frequents the drugstore where she works. Bailey has leukemia, and Tibby, an aspiring filmmaker, chronicles Bailey's spirit for life as her days are ebbing away. 

The jeans are the item drawing the stories together; each time they are worn, the girl discovers something new about themselves - be it love, courage, compassion, or healing. 

Raised on Country Sunshine: Kickin' It Old School

Ol' timey bluegrass

Another aspect of country music I appreciate is that it incorporates old traditionals that go further back into the 40s, 30s, 20s, and even back to the 1800s: 

Sons of the Pioneers, Cool Water

Jimmie Davis, You Are My Sunshine

Tony Joe White, Polk Salad Annie

Soggy Bottom Boys, Man of Constant Sorrow

Bill Monroe, Blue Moon of Kentucky

Hank Williams, Your Cheating Heart

Flatt and Scruggs, Foggy Mountain Breakdown

Patsy Montana, I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart

Jimmie Rogers, Blue Yodel No.1

The Carter Family, Can The Circle Be Unbroken

That's It, Just One Line: Rosalita

 "Rosalita, jump a little lighter, senorita, come sit by my fire." 

LHOTR 2.0: And the Walls Come Tumbling Down

 

D-day at the cottage

The cottage, as we know it, will cease to exist as of August 3. The insurance company has made an initial payout to us to cover personal property, which, instead of going toward buying new furniture, went to pay off the remediation company that tore the house up and made the decision that we had to tear it down. It's essentially $25K down the drain, or river. 

Fun memories part 1

When it's ok to watch TV at LHOTR

So what's a girl to do? Browse Facebook Marketplace for replacements at pennies on the dollar. All told, I've spent $50 on four bedside tables, four lamps, and the coffee table. 

Cool. Comes with a USB port to plug in your phone. 

The best things in life are free, and kind people even help you load them in your car. 

This, only in reverse. 

So what's it going to look like up there once the walls come down, other than a big hole?

We are going up in the air by about 4 feet. It may not feel significant, but there's peace of mind knowing we are protecting our asset. That means the crawl space will legit be a basement, although smaller than the typical basement. Dave the Builder is going to clean the space up, square it off with concrete, build up the foundation, and then apply a thick liner that will protect the space from future flooding. Our plan for the space is to have everything neatly stored in totes so that when it happens again, it's a matter of hauling the totes out and simply putting them on higher ground. That means snowmobile suits, the Christmas tree, even extra blankets, have their place. 

And, DtB is going to salvage what he can from the house, like the pine boards, so we can have an accent wall to remember the old place by. He's even going to try to salvage the windows, esp. the large picture window in the kitchen area. 

We are moving the entrance to the house to the east side, so we can build a wrap-around deck. The doors facing the river will be French or center swing. The great room will stay more or less the same in dimensions, but the kitchen is going on the east wall in an L shape, and the living room is going on the west wall. The bathroom will be in the center between the two bedrooms, where we will get closets that are easily accessible. And a laundry room! So little improvements all around, including a bathtub that isn't in the dark. 

Currently, 90% of the contents of the cottage are in the basement. Not knowing what the interior is going to look like, I'm going to say that honestly, only 60 - 75% of it will go back up north; some of it just won't have a home up there anymore. Due to mold and mildew, we already discarded some items like the plastic storage containers. Dave the Husband is already voicing his desire to restrict the amount of stuff that goes back into the cottage based on how much we had to haul out of there. I'm feeling defensive about some of it since he wanted me to discard my books, but I get his point. I was so adamant about tablecloths and napkins, but we didn't use them past the first year. I could cut back on my serving bowls and platters too. Maybe decide to go all new - or newish - on the pots and pans, get a nice set instead of the garage sale mishmash I currently have. 

I remember typing six years ago, "such a lovely problem to have." I'm not feeling those exact feelings this time. My old roommate Missy acknowledged the melancholy of the situation in saying, "You put a lot of love into that cottage," but acknowledged a new place wouldn't be so bad, maybe I won't have to work as hard this time. 

The Fifth Beatle: Klaus Voorman

Oh Klaus, you're so pretty

Imagine getting into a fight with your unrequited love and pissed off, you go out for a drink and discover the Beatles instead.  

Klaus with his Beatle art

Klaus Voorman was an art student who hung out with Astrid and their friend Jürgen Vollmer around the clubs in Hamburg and was into jazz and French existentialism, while sporting a distinct bohemian look. 

He was immediately entranced with the energy of the Beatles and, forgetting his fight with Astrid, insisted she come see the band herself. 

What Klaus lost in a girlfriend, he gained in artistic fellowship. Soon after the Beatles moved back to England, he followed and lived with George for a short time. 

He designed the album cover for Revolver - he won a Grammy for this - and the first run of the Anthology series. He even updated his Revolver style for George's hit single When We Was Fab in 1988. But why not Volume 4 in 2025, Apple Records!?

But he's about more than just art. Did you know he could play bass? 

He joined the band Manfred Mann and did session work individually for John, George, and Ringo. Not only that, he's played for Carly Simon, Lou Reed, and many others. 

He has semi-retired, putting away his bass, but continues to design and draw album covers, most recently for the band The Dirty Knobs. 

Lipstick on the Mic: Debora Iyall, Romeo Void

 

Native American punk poet. 

New wave lead singer and art teacher. 

Museum docent and animation voice actress.

Lifetime achievement award winner.

A girl in trouble may be a temporary thing, but an artist is forever. 

YA Book Club: The Pigman

 

The Misadventures of John and Lorraine

Two lonely kids - John and Lorraine - find a lonely man visiting the zoo while they are ditching school. They develop an unlikely friendship with Angelo Pignati, who is the title character, The Pigman. 

Lorraine is the product of a single-parent household, the daughter of a nurse who is perpetually angry and mean. She takes every opportunity to belittle her daughter, who, in John's point of view, is far more attractive than Lorraine realizes or her mom lets on. Her mother is also physically abusive, not above slapping her daughter to keep her in line. 

John's a mess too; he is also the product of abuse, a combination of verbal and neglect. His father is an alcoholic, and his mother has OCD,  more worried about a clean house than demonstrating kindness to her son. They prefer his older brother to him. 

The two find refuge with the Pigman, who indulges their whims, enjoys their company, and treats them with kindness and respect. They become increasingly protective of him after they discover that while he states his wife is away visiting her sister, she has, in fact, passed away. 

Of course, it goes haywire. 

There is an accident when the three spontaneously purchase roller skates, and the Pigman is hospitalized. Promising to take care of the house, John decides to throw a party instead, since he is never allowed to do this at home. Their friends take advantage, breaking, stealing, and destroying most of the contents of the house, including a raid on the deceased Mrs. Pignati's wardrobe. 

The Pigman comes home from the hospital early, and the kids are arrested. They go to apologize and make it up to him by taking him to the zoo. It is there that they discover his favorite animal, the gorilla, has passed away, and the Pigman dies of a broken heart. 

The story is told in alternating chapters from Lorraine's and John's points of view. The book, in their words, is their way of memorializing Mr. Pignati, and a way for them to sort their feelings about the incidents as they transpired, as well as a way for them to come to terms with the feelings they have for each other. While they do kiss and are inseparable, it is not determined if they are a couple by the end of the novel. 

Raised on Country Sunshine: Genre Bending

Play me some mountain music, Be-at-tle

Some songs on my list would make a redneck holler, "That's not country!" But when country music absorbs the spirit of gospel, soul, bluegrass, zydeco, folk, and rock, there's some bending of the rules. Did you know Elvis only played the Opry once, in 1954, and was told he was too rockabilly to return? 

Times have changed; even Ringo played the Opry in 2025. Onto our alternative list:

Indigo Girls, Closer to Fine

Little Feat, Dixie Chicken

The Beatles, I've Just Seen a Face

Everly Brothers, Close to You

Ray Charles, Georgia

Elvis Presley, That's All Right

Harry Choates, Jole Blon

Skeeter Davis, The End of the World

Bob Seger, Shame on the Moon

Lady Gaga, Joanne

Bruce Springsteen, Atlantic City

The Monkees, What Am I Doing Hanging 'Round?

That's It, Just One Line: Girls in Their Summer Clothes

 "Had a beautiful thing, maybe you just saved my life."

We are going to have a summer of Bruce!

The Fifth Beatle: Astrid Kirchherr

Beautiful and cool Astrid

Astrid was a photography student at Meisterschule für Mode, Textil, Grafik und Werbung in Hamburg when Klaus introduced her to the Beatles, who were playing at the Kaiserkeller. Kirchherr later said: "It was like a merry-go-round in my head, they looked absolutely astonishing... My whole life changed in a couple of minutes. All I wanted was to be with them and to know them."

It didn't take long for Astrid and Stuart Sutcliffe to become a couple and for Astrid's art school influence to impact the band. She asked to take publicity photos of them, and being dirt poor performers, they were happy to have professional shots to help them stand out in the crowd of bands on the scene. 

She gave them a look, style, and the Beatle haircuts. Her influence resulted in the look created on the album Meet the Beatles, handsome beatniks half-lit in black and white. 

Her style influenced great photographers of the next generation, including Annie Leibovitz and Richard Avedon. 

Astrid herself struggled after Stu's death in 1962, as people weren't as interested in her art as they were in her early photos of the Beatles. In an interesting twist of fate, she married drummer Gibson Kemp, who replaced Ringo Starr in Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. 

She went on to have shows and exhibitions throughout the world, including Liverpool, London, and here in the States at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She died in 2020 at the age of 82. Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn praised her involvement with the band as "immeasurable" and credited her as an "intelligent, inspirational, innovative, daring, artistic, awake, aware, beautiful, smart, loving, and uplifting friend to many."

Lipstick on the Mic: Connie Francis

My dad had a thing for curly, short-haired brunettes.

Connie Francis was an Italian-American from New Jersey. Her dad would have put the Dance Moms to shame, entering her in countless talent shows and beauty pageants when she was just a child. 

She was beautiful, talented, AND smart - salutatorian of the Newark Arts High School, class of 1955. 

She appeared on various variety shows back in the day, waiting for her big break, including Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts and NBC's Startime Kids. She was hired to voice Tuesday Weld's singing in the movie Rock Rock Rock, which led to her being a ghost performer for the movie Jamboree. 

Then she scored her first major hit with the song Who's Sorry Now? when it debuted on American Bandstand, New Year's Day, 1958. A flurry of hits followed, including Stupid Cupid, My Happiness, Frankie, and Lipstick on Your Collar. 

My soft spot for Connie comes from the first-ever spring break movie and hit song Where the Boys Are, released in 1961. She sang and starred in the picture as Angie, who falls for jazz musician Basil. 

Connie went through some personal traumas in the 70s and 80s, including being raped while on tour and her brother's murder by the mafia. She has written several books, appeared in revues in Vegas, and finally retired in 2018. 

Because social media is a bizarre and often wonderful thing, her song Pretty Little Baby from 1961 became a viral hit in 2025, an achievement she was able to enjoy before her passing in July 2025. In a memorial post, The Beatles' social media lauded her as the first female rock star and noted she rivaled them in popularity in the early '60s. A lovely swan song. 

YA Book Club: To Tell Your Love

1950, the evolution of the American Teenager

To Tell Your Love is probably the oldest book I'm going to review this year, published in 1950 when teenagers were barely a cultural phenomenon. It predates rock and roll by five years; even my own mother was too young to read this, eight years old when it was first published. The book is several tales woven into one, each featuring one of the children in the Armacost family: 

• Theo, 21, is a pragmatic nurse who stumbled into a relationship while caring for the cantankerous grandfather of a reserved young man; 
• Anne, 16, is mourning the end of a relationship with a boy who was frankly not that into her; and
• Johnny, 14, the youngest sibling, is coming to terms with the awkwardness of growing up and perhaps loving himself. 

There are additional storylines as well. Nora, Anne's best friend, who quit school to marry far too young, struggles with the thought "Is this it?" as her schoolgirl romance gives way to the reality of too many bills, too many diapers, and not enough money. There's also Johnny's best friend and his family, whose gruff exterior belies the grace exhibited with casual generosity, overstuffed picnic baskets, and a championship trophy for July the cat. 

Even the bit players are fully fleshed characters in this small New York town. 

Stolz attended Columbia University at age 16, married at 18, and began writing in 1949 when an illness kept her homebound. She received the 1953 Child Study Association of America's Children's Book Award for In a Mirror, the Newbery Honors in 1962 for Belling the Tiger, and 1966 for The Noonday Friends, and her entire body of work was awarded the George G. Stone Recognition of Merit in 1982. She passed in 2006.

Why Art Matters: Spy Camera!

Temptation courtesy of the Johnson Smith Co.  

The true definition of temptation for a child of the 70s has to be back-page comic book adverts for such amazing products as Sea Monkeys, magic tricks, Charles Atlas workout routines, ant farms, and slot machine banks. 

What I wanted, more than anything, was the miniature spy camera. Like a pint-sized Margaret Bourke-White, I was going to document, in teeny-tiny pictures, life on the east side of Jackson, that 10-block radius that was my world back then. 

But to obtain the camera required a combination of candy wrappers (Bazooka or Dum-Dum), a self-addressed, stamped envelope, and/or a check or money order from mom and dad. Therein lay the problem - parents who attempted to put a rein on candy and junk coming into the house, there was no way they would say yes to giving me the $2.95 required to obtain the object of my desire. I didn't even bother to ask. 

Dream unfulfilled.

110 retro style

Flash-forward 50 years or so, and I have been hit with ads for retro camera keychains. They look like the 110 cameras of old, with bright packaging, cute designs, and cool filters. They were advertised by Facebook sellers for $14.95 and have become a viral hit with the kids, as there are five designs to collect, including a mystery package. 

But I have become wary of FB sellers after the seven-for-the-price-of-one sweater grifters from Christmas. And, I was looking for something more specific, an unresolved dream as remembered from my Casper the Friendly Ghost and Josie and the Pussycats comics. 

It's taken nearly 50 years, and here you are 

And then I found it - the spy camera of my youth for $9.99 on Amazon. Using the inflation calculator set to 1976, $2.95 is actually worth $17.27 today, so I got it cheaper than it would have been back then. On top of that, I had a $10 credit in my account from a virtual test session I did a while ago. Well, that's practically free. 

I hit that Buy Now button, fully expecting crap. 

It arrived in less than 24 hours. 

It looks just like a miniature Pentax K-1000. It also came with a built-in flash, a charging cord, a keychain, a wrist strap, a memory card, and instructions on how to use it. It holds 9999 images, so no film processing. It holds a charge very well. There are filters! The LCD display is tiny, but it works. There's a date and time stamp that I need to figure out how to update. It's freaking adorable. 

So far, I've taken pictures of Dave, a bird's nest, the backyard, my desk, and random selfies. I can't wait to take more. 

Raised on Country Sunshine: Heartbreak

Can I make the case for us as Honky Tonk Angels with our candy cigarettes? 

Kitty Wells, It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels

Kenny Rogers, The Gambler

Everly Brothers, Bye Bye Love

Loretta Lynn, Coal Miner's Daughter

Freddie Fender, Before the Next Teardrop Falls

Patsy Cline, Fall to Pieces

Cowboy Junkies, Misguided Angel

Hank Williams, So Lonesome I Could Cry

Bonnie Raitt, I Can't Make You Love Me 

And the granddaddy of them all: 

George Jones, He Stopped Loving Her Today

Typing Out Loud: Get Out

 

Sigh. Not the way for our community to make the national news.

Comstock Park is crushed to learn that a recent house explosion is the result of an attempted murder-suicide. The now-deceased husband blew up his family home with his wife in it, all because she was going through with divorce proceedings. 

What has emerged is the story of two heroes, one of whom is Will's friend Manny, who ran into the rubble to save the woman who brought him cookies when they first moved into the neighborhood. The other is a man who sustained burns and broken windows to help rescue the woman.  

She herself is known for being well-beloved, a Polish beauty queen who was known for her kindness and stewardship. Edited to update that she passed away from her injuries four days after the explosion. 

Stories of the man who committed this brutal act have not been as kind. From the beginning, neighbors were posting on social media that this was no accident. 

Has there been an increase in instances of domestic violence, or has it been resilience on the part of women who have now chosen to shout instead of whisper? Have men become more boorish, more violent, more drastic in their measures?  

Time and again, I hate that we are now often quoting my favorite author for her sad perception of domestic relationships: men are afraid we will embarrass them, and women are afraid they will kill us. 

I came home and checked in with Dave, and asked him, please, if he is unhappy, to let me know and get out. He said the same to me, and we hugged and kissed. 

Sometimes, I'm ok with being old and boring. I'm so sorry to my neighbor, I wish it had been easy for her. 

If you're not happy, get out. Prove 'em wrong some other way. Don't they say living well is the best revenge?  

Edited to add the connection is closer than I anticipated: the victim is a former skate mom; I am friends with her daughter, who I used to skate with and judge with at local basic skills competitions. She has asked for privacy at this time; I have resisted driving through the neighborhood and rubberneck this tragedy. 

That's It, Just One Line: Me and Bobby McGee

 "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."