Category: default || By jt3y

I was listening to Ben E. King's "Stand By Me," and thinking about all of the people who made that classic recording possible.

There's King, of course, who wrote the song, and whose magnificent vocal performance sent it straight to the top 10 charts in 1961.

But the recording itself is also a minor masterpiece. Credit Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller who produced it; Stan Applebaum, who arranged it; and all of the musicians (especially in the string section) who performed on it. Then there were the mixing engineers, the people who placed the mikes, even the mastering technicians who made the final copies for distribution.

They truly made magic happen during that Oct. 27, 1960 session at Bell Sound Studios in New York City.

And then, I was thinking about what they all would have said on Oct. 27, 1960, if I had told them that some day, I would be listening to their carefully crafted melody being fed by a lousy amplifier into a dry-rotted PA speaker in the ceiling of a crowded fast food restaurant in Pittsburgh during the lunch rush, with the employees screaming over the din of the customers.

My guess is they'd have said "to hell with this" and gone home.

...

How did a Comic Strip Aficionado such as myself miss the fact that a popular web cartoonist is based right up the Youghiogheny River in Dawson? (Especially considering that he was mentioned last year in Gene Weingarten's chat on the Washington Post website. I read Weingarten's weekly chat transcripts religiously. Meaning, presumably, I cross myself and genuflect first.)

Anyway, in addition to comic book illustration and commercial graphic work, D.J. Coffman also draws the five times a week comic, "Yirmumah." (Warning: Some language and situations are not suitable for the easily offended.)

And the setting? Fayette-Nam, natch.

...

Speaking of just up the river --- but this time, the Monongahela --- here's an item of note from the Magic City, Charleroi.

You know, I've been assigned a lot of stories based on flimsy topics, so I can sympathize with the author of this front page story in Saturday's Valley Independent. It involves Charleroi Mayor Frank Paterra:

According to the mayor, his vehicle broke down as he left the borough building Thursday afternoon. He had it towed to L&M Motors in Speers, where a 1985 Camry also owned by Paterra was parked. The second car was there because it needs a new alternator, Paterra said.

The mayor did not have a ride back to Charleroi, so he drove the Camry back to Charleroi, parking it along side the borough building.

Paterra admitted that the Camry has a license plate with a registration that expired in February.

That was a Front. Page. Story.

The space might have been better left blank. Perhaps a crayon could have been supplied with each paper so that readers could doodle.

...

And finally, you thought mine subsidence in Western Pennsylvania was bad:

A giant sinkhole that swallowed an Alta man in his living room Friday night was still growing Sunday, delaying rescuers from recovering the body until late in the day. ...

The Alta area was heavily mined for gold in the late 1800s. A mine collapse is one likely cause of the tragedy, but officials say they can't explain it yet. A team of 100 people was investigating the site Sunday, including numerous geologists brought in to determine if the hole was safe enough to resume a recovery effort. (Sacramento Bee)

On the other hand, sometimes I wish a sinkhole would open in my basement and swallow some of the junk down there.