
DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS
My Fellow Americans, Life is actually just a microscopic, deluded moment in time, so let's cut to the freakin' chase. One look at our impending election debacle can solidify my case. It has been my contention since birth, that the answer to every difficulty we encounter on this sacred yet demented Stone, can be revealed with ultimate clarity through the ultra neurotic engagements of Music, Art, Literature, Film, Poetry and a good Pastrami sandwich. Why would any sane human spend so must time on a film set (Do you know how long you gotta wait until your 8 second deliverance of an edited beyond repair line gets a chance to become a professional embarrassment etched in time forever? ) or expend so much energy in a recording studio, piecing together another ode to a man or woman who could not care less how much love existed within your digestive tract? It's all about hymns and prayers and a quest for mercy and forgiveness and silence and faith. We were blessed with Charles Bukowski, Gene Chandler, Lenny Bruce, Mitch Ryder and a legion of creative explorers whose influences provided the air we breathe. So Let's Dance! This site shall explore the reaper, find a way to disarm the stench of injustice, discover some true loves and talk it all over before it's all over. So what's the worst that our desires could produce? Failure? So sue me. I'm going to require your assistance in making as much trouble for the grown-ups as possible. Let the record show that my childish heart yearns to disrupt the madness. Join me Ladies and Germs!
With Gratitude For Gena Rowlands, Nancy Sinatra, Jerry Quarry, Leo Gorcey, Arthur Alexander and Joey Heatherton, Your Splendid Bohemian, Rich Buckland.
DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS
BILL MESNIK'S SUNNY SIDE OF MY STREET PRESENTS: YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY BY JULIE LONDON (LIBERTY, 1969) EPISODE #90
This cut, from Julie London’s album of the same name, became a camp classic. It’s undeniably bawdy, with the torch songstress purring like a mod Mae West, with tongue solidly in cheek. The original, generated by neutered, pre-fab bobble heads, The Ohio Express, is a prepubescent rocker, lacking any lubriciousness whatsoever, but, emanating from Julie’s throat it’s an open invitation to bed, or a post-coital pillow declaration.
Julie is Her Name, her first album, was released in 1955, and YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY was her last, arriving in 1969, when she was 43 years old. Being an aging sex star is hard, but doing it in the 1960s during the youth movement must have been agonizing. Following this, she retired from recording altogether to concentrate on her acting career, which served her well. In ’72, her ex-husband, Jack Webb, cast her in the tv show Emergency! alongside her current spouse Bobby Troup,- (the composer of Route 66) - and that show lasted 6 years.
In 2000, throat cancer claimed the life of the sultry voiced siren, after a lifetime of dedicated smoking. She was 74, leaving behind a discography full of yearning and heartache. I discovered her decades after her Hey Day, on a collection of Lounge numbers, and was smitten.