Daylight savings time world (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This is the montra you used to use when you were invited to a cocktail party and didn’t know anyone except the hostess. This is what your mother told you should begin polite conversation with the opposite sex. Talking about the weather is what you do when you go into the Post Office or the hardware store. Talking about the weather is what comes up between strangers on a bus or train. Often, when you walk into any store, the owner/clerk/salesperson opens up a conversation with you about what – THE WEATHER!
We didn’t have any snow or ice storms all winter! Without the inches/feet of snow in our yards, what reason did we have to call our cousins in Florida or relatives in California? Winter on the East Coast is a treasure trove of gossip, factoids and is in the news every day, often as the lead story. I mean weathermen in New England have risen to stardom when we had a couple of severe (as they like to say) winters. Just think of the lost career opportunities this past season!
Alright so we did talk about the weather, or rather, we just sort of talked about the lack thereof. When conversation lagged or out of sheer boredom or better yet the desire to be the one who captures everyone’s attention with a new tidbit, well then you could always drag out September’s hurricane and October’s freak snow fall. I rode out the hurricane through the night as the wind howled and the rain poured but at the shore in October we only had a very light snowfall so not much to complain about.
Luckily we had a weird Spring or rather a warm extended Winter! Everybody was screwed up! The daffodils were blooming in March, the forsythia bushes which are planted along our property burst into a bright yellow line of sentries. Small talk was revived! Who had early tulips, whose hyacinths were already past, my oh my, chatter again. NOT to mention I for one am still not quite used to this early change date to Daylight Savings Time. Growing up it was always Spring Forward in April and Fall Back in October. Now we are leaping ahead before St. Patrick’s Day! Well and that gave a few people something to talk about anyway.
And NOW, we are in the midst of a blistering heat wave. 95++ degrees, God knows how high the humidity is but it feels like about 90%. Every day the newscasters and weather men are all about the heat!. Mayor Bloomberg has opened up over 400 cooling centers where you can cool down BUT there’s no smoking and you can’t get a 16oz soda!! This would probably be the time to stay in my apartment with the blinds down, the air conditioner on high and watch movies….but ah no! We are at the shore where we have been mowing, weeding and watering early in the morning so as not to expire in the heat and so our plants won’t wilt and die. The cottage is not centrally air-conditioned and our poor little room units are on most of the day – however not all rooms at once because of course this is an old house with old wiring!!! So it’s like turn off the living room a/c unit and run upstairs and turn on the bedroom a/c. I think that’s worthy of some casual remarks at the very least.
So as you see, it’s so easy to talk about the weather! I just did!!
Bill Ding and his band of clowns are the security patrol for this blog site. He is a favorite toy from the 50*s. By the way sometimes a blog is just an ego-maniacal stream of conscience.
Pbenjay's Blog 
What Happens When the Star of the Show is Tarnished?
Posted in BY THE WAY, From My Point of View - Personal commentary on Movies and Books, Ha-P 2 B in OG, tagged Arts, Concert, Labor Day, Martha and the Vandellas, Martha Reeves, New York City, Ocean Grove New Jersey, United States on September 4, 2011| 2 Comments »
Welllllllll, I’ll tell ya! People get up and leave! That is exactly what happened last night at the Doo Wop Extravaganza, the annual Labor Day concert at The Great Auditorium.
The first surprise of the evening was Kenny Vance and the Planotones; Kenny with his extraordinary voice and devoted Auditorium fans has for the past several years been the closing act of the concert. He brings the house down as his voice goes up and up and up! Why was he the opening act? Several people around me murmured the same thought; did he have another show to go to? We don’t know the answer to that question. What we do know is that he was NOT the headliner of this particular Doo Wop show. And why not? BECAUSE this year’s star was Martha Reeves, formerly of Martha & The Vandellas.
I’ve never seen Martha perform before so I don’t have a standard by which to measure her performance. What I saw was truly disgraceful. She wasn’t on stage more than 15 minutes when people began to get up and leave. She was erratic, her enunciation and projection left so much to be desired that it was impossible to understand the words to any song she was feebly attempting to sing! I’m not going to speculate on what was wrong with her last night that caused her to forget words to songs, stop in the middle and chastise the band because they weren’t on count or worse yet, to ask the audience to clap on command by the number. I swear there wasn’t one person in the audience who knew when to clap. Add that to the fact that she consistently referred to her venue as being in Ocean View! It was just too much. We left right after the clapping fiasco. I have never left a concert in Ocean Grove before. They haven’t all been great but never so bad that I wanted to just get out of there.
Not going to end this commentary on a sour note, NOT when I can extoll the virtues of Kenny Vance’s performance. He was fabulous as always, we are never disappointed with the Planotones and 3 standing ovations to prove it. How does he hold those falsetto notes so long? He is gifted with a clear and strong voice and over the years has perfected his falsetto voice and incorporated it into many more of their songs.
One of the great treasures of Ocean Grove and the United States is our Great Auditorium and as a venue for great performers, it stands alone. Every singer this year has mentioned the magnificence of the Great Auditorium, its marvelous acoustics enhance every performance; I look forward to next year’s roster of entertainers, knowing of course that Kenny Vance and The Planotones will be back to trill and thrill us.
Kenny Vance
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