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Welcome back, my friends, to the "Battle" that never ends.
We're so glad you could attend. Come inside! Come inside!
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This is 'BATTLE OF THE BANDS' ('BOTB') where you listen to different recordings and vote for the one you like best. A new Battle gets posted on the 1st of each month and on the 7th, I place my own vote, tally 'em all up and announce the winner.
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Friend? Foe? Stranger? No matter, ALL are welcome. So pull up a chair, pour yourself 24 oz. of DOG BITE High Gravity Lager (or the poison of your choice) and turn it up to Eleven!
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[NOTE: Links to the first year of 'BOTB' (#1 - #24) can be found at the very bottom of this page.]

Friday, March 8, 2019

BOTB RESULTS: 2019 MARCH 1 (Or, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN VERSUS MARK "TWINKIE" JOHNSON)

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STMcC’s Vote On '2019, March 1st: Battle Of The Bands' (BOTB) - Or, Bruce Springsteen Versus Mark "Twinkie" Johnson - And The Final Tally:
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"BOMP!"
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UHP! "What with the drinkin' an' all...", I is a day late on my Battle Of The Bands Results post. Well, it wasn't much of a "Battle", but it took place HERE. I haven't even counted up the vote tally, and there's really not much point in it. The bottom line is that Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen got fired by Mark "Twinkie" Johnson. Bruce got "BOMPED!" on the noggin. He got two votes and Twinkie got... a whole slew of 'em. I expected Twinkie to win easily but I didn't anticipate a blowout of *that* magnitude!
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As always, I thank each of you who contributed your two-cents to the BOTB kitty. Please know that I appreciate you - your time and involvement in BOTB. The comment section was fun for me, and I even told a few 'League Of Soul Crusaders' stories from yesteryear (i.e., 1980-1985)
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*Muchos Gracias to mi amigo, JULIO SEIS-ABEJA, for creating 'The League Of Soul Crusaders' video.
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That picture above (circa 1982) shows me and two of the small number of females who had the courage to party with 'The League'. The blonde on the right was one of Twinkie's many girlfriends. (Yeah, despite the nickname, Twinkie was a [link> "confident heterosexual". How we wound up giving him that nickname is a story for another day. But it's pretty funny.)
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SAMOHI (Santa Monica High School), the high school that 3 of the 6 Soul Crusaders attended (Twinkie, Nappy & myself), routinely had graduating classes of about 750 students. That's not the entire school population, but just the senior class! It was huge, because Malibu did not yet have its own high school.
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A few voters commented on the fact that Twinkie had a really good singing voice. Indeed, he did. At SAMOHI, Twinkie was a member of 'The Madrigals':
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So, think of the competition to be selected as a 'Madrigal' in a school the size of SAMOHI, and then consider that Twinkie made the cut. Sometime in the future, I plan to use Twinkie in a couple more BOTB contests and, in my opinion, the songs I'll use show off Twinkie's voice even better'n the song 'The League Of Soul Crusaders' did!
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While Twinkie did learn to appreciate Springsteen's stuffs (Twinkie's life probably depended upon it), his natural taste in Rock music ran more towards Journey because... singing. And I recall that some of Twinkie's favorite albums were 'Look Sharp!' by Joe Jackson, 'Candy-O' by The Cars, and 'Union Jacks' by The Babys.
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One of my very favorite things about Twinkie's song is the guitar solo, which was performed by a friend of Twinkie's. (I wish I could remember his name.) Quite honestly, that guitar solo is one of my very favorites of all-time. It is simultaneously quirky and lyrical, and the guitarist displays a notably innate sense for how to build and release tension within a solo. And as if that weren't enough, the number of different tones he squeezes out of his guitar really impresses me!
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I can even pick one solitary favorite note out of that entire guitar solo: Right at the 3:50 mark, he hits a single note - "BOMP!" I just love it! It seems to come out of nowhere and just stands out by itself, as if it's saying, "Listen to me!... BOMP!" And now I know who put the Bomp in the 'Bomp-Bah-Bomp-Bah-Bomp'!
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And then at 4:09, his guitar sounds like a wounded wildcat! I LOVE it!
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So, if you've got an extra 5 minutes, I'll ask you to listen to the song one more time. But this time, crank it "up to eleven", close your eyes, so as not to be distracted by the video images, and concentrate solely on every sound you hear coming from that guy's guitar. See if his playing impresses you the way it does me:
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THE LEAGUE OF SOUL CRUSADERS - Mark "Twinkie" Johnson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6jFtB7plN8

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Shrine to W.C. Fields @ the Bay Street house, headquarters of 'The League Of Soul Crusaders'.
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A huge Bruce Springsteen banner hanging in the Bay Street house.
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STMcC, hungover, after waiting in line all night for Bruce Springsteen concert tickets
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Coconut Heads hanging in the Bay Street house.
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Chess Pieces knocked over, indicative of a wild gathering the night before.
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Pooh and STMcC, the morning after camping out all night on the front lawn of the Bay Street house.
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Outside looking in: Mickie Darlin', official (crazy) dog of the Bay Street house.
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A rough day for Cranium. If you passed out, the other guys would "Give You The Business".
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Twinkie and Nappy: "You want I should hit ya in the whiskers?!" (One of our many often used expressions.)
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This is Filly Waggit.
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Every Summer, Filly Waggit lived in the chimney of the Bay Street house.
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Twinkie may have written and sung the 'League Of Soul Crusaders' song, but I wrote "the book" and the "poem":
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ODE TO 824 BAY
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[6/28/1982; revised in ‘84]
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THERE IS A MYSTICAL LEGEND KNOWN THROUGHOUT THIS LAND
IT IS A SIMPLE STORY BUT, OH, SO GRAND
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FILLED WITH EXCITEMENT, ADVENTURE AND LOVE
BUT THAT ISN’T ALL THIS STORY IS FULL OF

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IF YOU WILL COME HERE AND SIT ON MY KNEE
I’LL TELL IT TO YOU LIKE MY FATHER TOLD ME:

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Once upon a time . . .
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A Feefod, A Finnin’ and a Fiddle-Dee-Dee
Went to Antonio’s with W.C.
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Alcohol consumption and Mescal worm-eating
Hangover Trips at the B.C. Meeting
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Nantucket, Nantucket, we drink like a dude
A fifth of gin and some dry dog food
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Down go the chess pieces, knocked over once more
Poor Doug is passed out on the living room floor
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It’s not right, Howard – Mumbly-Peg is a sin
Oh, goodnight sweet prince, Mark’s sick again
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Wha’ be hadnin’? Whad ja do?
Take your chicken baby to the zoo
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She’s got the rear end of a fifty-nine Caddy
Hick-a-boo, Hick-a-boo, yeah daddy!
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One fag-warmer sitting on a bus stop bench
Doing something nasty with a monkey wrench
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Ah said, “Eeebee – Deebee – Leebee
Filly Waggit’s in the chimney”
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Uhp! Yer an idiot! A D.W. too
The Hangover Waltz is a dance you can do
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Fatty’s gotta starve but continues to eat
Good Lord, have you seen the size of his seat?
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And you best stay clear of Tom’s Number Five
Only a “B” or an “H” can survive
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Idgie-Bah-Bah and Nimrod Salesmen hang out at Bay
Along with Mickie Darlin’ and the great Robert J.
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Let’s pick up some Road Soda for to quench our thirst
And hit the “Oscar Party”, although they’re the worst
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Drive fast, take chances, see ya at The Music Machine
One Bee-Bop, a Ree-Bop, and an Angustine
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Throwing firecrackers at pimps is an art
Mark, Doug, and Dean laugh when they fart
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We took our noise out to sea
To salute Catalina with a boisterous “Beee!”
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He told another Lynth, why he wanna do that for?
You want I should hit him in the whiskers some more?
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Yeah, tell a few jokes, slap your thigh
Join a parade on the Fourth of July
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And you know Five-Six is pretty damn tall
What with the drinkin’ an’ all
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So cut the poetry and hand me a brew
I’ll guzzle the beverage and scream, “Woo!-Woo!-Woo!”
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WELL, THAT’S THE END OF THE SAGA, THE STORY IS TOLD
IT’S WORTH MORE THAN SILVER, IT’S WORTH MORE THAN GOLD

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GENERATIONS HAVE HEARD IT AND PONDERED ITS WORDS
OTHERS, LIKE ME, SAY IT’S FOR THE BIRDS

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I THINK IT’S A HOAX, I THINK IT’S A LIE
AND WHOEVER WROTE IT MUST HAVE BEEN HIGH!

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In The Battle Within The Battle, The Amazing Sixwell (16-7) allowed The Magic 8-Ball (14-9) to close the gap a simdgeon. (I think he was starting to feel sorry for the 8-Ball.)
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I'll be back here on March 15th, and I hope you will be here, too!
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~ Stephen T. McCarthy
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25 comments:

  1. I'm not very surprised at the outcome of your Battle just like I was not real surprised about the outcome of mine.

    Nice to see the shrine to that great juggler WC Fields. I'll bet most of today's generation have no idea who the guy was.

    Arlee Bird
    Tossing It Out

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LEE ~
      W.C. was a big favorite of my Pa's - that's how Nappy and I first discovered him in our youth. And he fit right in as the idol of the Bay Street house... "what with the drinkin' an' all".

      I remember one time (circa 1990) going into a small mom 'n' pop video rental store owned by Koreans or Chinese folks, I forget which. I was looking to rent some Laurel & Hardy movies, and not only did they not have any, they didn't even know who they were. I was visibly and audibly annoyed!!

      No doubt things have gotten much worse since then. How many Millennials do you suppose have the slightest idea who W.C. and L&H were? Shockingly and disgustingly few, we can be sure of that!

      ~ D-FensDogG
      'Ferret-Faced Fascist Friends'

      Delete
    2. How many Millennials do you suppose have the slightest idea who W.C. and L&H were? Shockingly and disgustingly few, we can be sure of that!

      Sadly not only don't know who they were, but don't want to know and probably think they should be forgotten and expunged from history.

      Arlee Bird
      Tossing It Out

      Delete
    3. Yes, expunged from history because "White male privilege".

      Now, damn-it, where did I leave my Starbucks soy latte?!

      ~ D-FensDogG
      'Stephen T. McCarthy Reviews...'

      Delete
  2. I'm listening to the video again and yes, the guitar work is fantastic. Thought so the first time too - that and the vocals combined for a killer track! Loved the photos, poem and stories of your wild carousing days. More, please! ☺

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    Replies
    1. >>... Loved the photos, poem and stories of your wild carousing days.

      DEBBIE, you say that as if they've ended! Why, I have not yet begun to drink!

      No. Truthfully, I'll turn 60 this year, and I recognized that it was about time I turned the ship around. So, I quit drinking for a year, and it was the longest decade of my life!

      Everything in moderation ("...including moderation", as Doc Cherdo likes to say).

      As I mentioned previously, the "book" I wrote about The League was a Christmas gift to the boys. I wanted to record our exploits for posterity while it was still fresh in (what was left of) my mind.

      Well, a couple of Christmases earlier, I had given them handmade T-shirts as presents. Here's what they looked like:

      [Link> https://i.imgur.com/6z6I1Cd.jpg

      [Link> https://i.imgur.com/O9wUUKI.jpg

      What made that gift funny (and therefore worthy of The League) is that Zucky's was a 24-hour restaurant in Dogtown where The League would often go after the bars closed. But we were constantly getting kicked out of Zucky's for being too loud and rowdy. Sometimes we weren't even seated at a table yet before we were being told to leave.

      I remember one night, after the bars closed, someone suggested we go to Zucky's and everyone was in favor of that idea, except for Nappy. Nappy said, "No, I'm really hungry tonight. Let's go somewhere else and actually get something to eat."

      ~ D-FensDogG
      'Ferret-Faced Fascist Friends'

      Delete
    2. Cherdo is a wise woman; I agree with her. Moderation is the key to just about everything in life. The T-shirts and the book are wonderful keepsakes of your carefree, carousing youth, Stephen. Those types of memories are priceless to us older folks, aren't they? I just turned 64 and can't believe how quickly the years flew by! Looking forward to more battles featuring Twinkie. He rocks!

      Delete
    3. Thanks, DEBBIE! Twinkie's other stuffs has more of an '80s ballad pop vibe, I would say. But I believe that at slower tempos, his voice really shines, even more so.

      I'm very sentimental, and the physical things that mean the most to me in life, are things that no thief would care to steal.

      My TV is just a little portable thing, and the screen is actually smaller than the screen on my computer monitor. And most of the things I have of value (to me), are in cardboard boxes or in my bookcases. There's a sense of peace in knowing that fire is the only thief that could really hurt me. (So, I'm careful to clean out my dryer's lint trap after every load of laundry I do. [;-))

      ~ D-FensDogG
      'Stephen T. McCarthy Reviews...'

      Delete
  3. Al Bondigas here. Man, I think I'm gonna be hung over just re-visiting those photos and that poem. The girl in the right was my girlfriend, not Twinkies. Another relationship ruined after about 3 months because of the drinkin and all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. NAPPY ~

      That was an awful lot of energy expended on frivolous activity. I think we chose wisely! So we had to pay for it by enduring an occasional hangover. No pain, no... "Christmas morning" the following day.

      >>... The girl on the right was my girlfriend, not Twinkies.

      UHP!... I misremembered whose girlfriend she was. But, heck, we all had her.

      Well, I've said too much... ;-)

      (Kiddin', kiddin'.)

      ~ D-FensDogG
      'Stephen T. McCarthy Reviews...'

      Delete
  4. I actually AM surprised at the amount of votes for Twinkie only because The Boss has some diehard fans that would vote for him if he was recording his snore.

    Nice job, brudder!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, DOC CHERDO!

      Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin... they all had their day in the sun, but then their time was up.

      And I'll add Springsteen to that list.

      ~ D-FensDogG
      'Stephen T. McCarthy Reviews...'

      Delete
  5. This post is like an Sutters Mill; so much to pan out but where to begin? I guess I'll just go this far: who or what the hell was Filly Waggit?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SIXGUN ~
      Filly Waggit was (my best *guess* here) really a cryptic way of saying Silly Faggot. We had a way of morphing words into new things. I call it "League lingo" but it was nearly a League language unto itself.

      The origin of a lot of stuffs we said has been lost to history, and it would be interesting to me to be able to go back in time and discover how some of these expressions got started.

      For example, maybe 3 or 4 weeks ago, Nappy and I were discussing the old League expression "What about my elbow?!" That was something you'd say when attempting to divert some attention to yourself. Nappy and I had two completely different versions of how that expression was born, and I don't know which of us is right.

      One year, we didn't put Filly Waggit in the chimney until a bit later than usual. (What with the drinkin' an' all... I guess we just hadn't found the time.) So, finally, we're up in the roof installing Filly Waggit, and some old lady - perhaps 70-ish - whom NONE of us recognized in the slightest, was walking down the sidewalk in front of our Bay Street house. She stopped, watched us working on Filly Waggit for several moments, and then called to us on the roof: "I've been wondering when you were going to put him back up there!"

      One more Filly Waggit story:

      One night we saw a cop car pull up in front of the house, and as was often the case, I was the one elected to go out and talk to them. So, I met them out on the lawn, and one of the two cops starts telling me that there'd been a 'Disturbing the Peace' complaint - loud music, party noise, etc. (Situation normal.)

      While the first cop is talking to me, the other one plays his flashlight across the roof, and then he starts to chuckle. The cop nudges his partner and nods toward the roof. The first cop starts chuckling, too. And then he says to me: "Tell ya what. Just turn the bass down a bit on your stereo and you'll probably be alright."

      Filly Waggit (Silly Faggot??) was hard to miss and easy to appreciate.

      ~ D-FensDogG
      'Ferret-Faced Fascist Friends'

      Delete
  6. Stephen,

    WOW, that's an amazing victory for Twinkie. Some of those pix are funny. Oh the things we do when we're young, except me...I never did anything wild and crazy. I played it safe. I don't regret living like that but I don't have any such memories as yours to keep me laughing. Maybe I need to invent some tall yarns to entertain myself in my golden years. By that time, my memory will be so far gone that I'll think the lies were real and by that time those who knew me probably won't be around to debuke my stories. :D Thanks for the giggles and battle results. I'll see ya on 15th or soon after for another showdown! Have a good week, my friend! BTW, I enjoyed listening to Twinkie's cover again. How can I get own his cover? Is available for download?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CATHY, it's that you!!

      Glad you enjoyed the blog bit, my friend.

      You were probably mature beyond your years.
      And The League members were immature and never washed behind their ears.

      I guess it all balances out OK.

      Your Tall Tales idea just might work. It's worth a try.

      I'm afraid I've actually lost contact with Twinkie, and as far as I know, his songs existed only on tapes. A friend burned them on compact discs for me. And currently the only one that otherwise exists is the video I used in this Battle, which is at YouTube.

      However, as time goes on, I hope my buddy Bryan will also create videos for some of Twinkie's other songs, which I can then add to my YouTube channel. And my guess is that you'd probably like those other Twinkie songs better'n 'The League Of Soul Crusaders'. I hope to use two or three of them in future BOTB contests.

      ~ D-FensDogG
      'Ferret-Faced Fascist Friends'

      Delete
  7. And Stephen,

    About "What about my elbow"...I recall it happening on a Saturday and Twinkie's car was either in the driveway or on the lawn. Bright sunlight pierced my hangover filled green eyes. I think they were were wresting on the hood of a car and Mark hit his elbow. They were arguing about something before the bout. I think Twinkie ate Nappy's eggs,...I mean eths. Then it went something like this...Nappy" "What about my eths?" to which Twinkie replied, "What about my elbow?" And that's what I recall but then again it could be lost in the either like the St. Paddy's day night mystery of a cover and a band at O'Mahoney's Irish Whip
    JW,
    Pooh

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's some purdy fancy writin' there, POOH. You didn't fall down and hurt yerself while typing that, I hope. [;-)}

      Ha! I remember it having to do with a wrestling match in the living room, where Twinkie sustained a rug or carpet burn on his elbow and began saying that. But then again, this could have been a separate incident which occurred some time after the wrestling match on the hood of the car, and the line was being reused. I mean, it got used many times after it was initially born.

      I'll have to ask Nappy again what his version of the story is.

      ~ D-FensDogG
      'Ferret-Faced Fascist Friends'

      Delete
    2. Al Bondigas here. The pooh has the story correct for the most part, he just has the characters mixed up a little. It was on the hood of Twinkie's car in the driveway. Twinkie attacked me and shoved me down on the hood of his car and was berating me for eating his eths the night before. I was laughing so uncontrollably that I couldn't move. He had his weight on me and my elbow was digging into the hood. I told him it was killing my elbow, but he kept on about the egg pilferage the night before. I kept saying "what about my elbow, what about my elbow"? and he responded with "I don't care about your elbow, what about my eths"? I was laughing so hard I could barely get the words out, and of course this just made Twinkie keep it up even more.

      Delete
    3. BRUHTHUH NAPPY ~

      Yer explanation makes sense. I mean, seriously... someone stole someone else's eths, and Pooh would have us think Twinkie was the eths thief? ...Phuqin' Pooh!

      You protly stole Twinkie's eths the night before to make Mickie an 'Eths Sandwich'.

      (Mickie was always jubilant when you were drunk and bound & determined to make someone - *anyone* - an 'Eths Sandwich'. But when no one wanted one, it meant that... Mickie SCORES!!)

      But I DEFINITELY remember Twinkie re-using the line repeatedly in the living room of the Bay Street house, after suffering a carpet burn to his elbow during a general melee / wrestling match, because... just too-damned-much-energy. ...By no stretch of the imagination was it gay. (JW!-JW!)

      But like I mentioned to Pooh, that line was used countless times for years after it was first given birth, so I'm just remembering a significant later incarnation of it. Apparently Twinkie dug your line, because he went on-and-on-and-on with it during the latter night which I am remembering with great certainty (for a-slightly-past-his-prime League member).

      ~ D-FensDogG
      'Stephen T. McCarthy Reviews...'

      Delete
    4. But no, but no, but no...The names were changed to protect the innocent.

      WAIT, who am I foolin? No one, and I mean no one, at Bay St. was innocent. Nor did they been had needin any protection. I recall the elbow line being used frequently by Twinkie so that's probably where I got mixed up. Eths & Elbows....sounds like a perfect name for a country western song. Now talk amongst yourselves.
      JW!
      Pooh

      Delete
    5. ...AND, POOH, THAT'S NOT ALL!...

      >>... I recall the elbow line being used frequently by Twinkie so that's probably where I got mixed up.

      Yeah, there's no question that Twinkie re-used it a good number of times. (Including the incident I recall taking place in the living room. I even specifically recall Twinkie yelling it while standing right next to the W.C. Fields shrine!)

      I guess Twinkie stole the "elbow" line from Nappy the way Nappy stole the "eths" from Twinkie. Karma, baby, KARMA! And now Nappy gets no credit for the line. NO CREDIT!! (One good theft deserves another.)

      It took 37 years, but it looks like the egg-thief's chickens have come home to roost! ...Phuqin' Nappy!

      Well, as the old saying goes: "All is fair in love & war, and in eths & elbows".

      ~ Stephen
      DogGtor of Alcohology &
      King of Inebriation Nation

      Delete
  8. Replies
    1. Ha!-Ha! Yeah, MIKE, Twinkie is *DEFINITELY* The New Boss.

      To twist The Who: Meet the new boss - not the same as the old boss!

      ~ D-FensDogG
      'Stephen T. McCarthy Reviews...'

      Delete

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