Eye, eye, that's yer lot!

Jim, EJ, Will, Glenn, Regina, Ian, Edgar, Bill, Lynne, Jeanette, Steve L, Ray and (sitting at separate table) Bobb, Barbara, and Edgar

Three walking wounded hobbled into Conrads last night. Glenn's right eye has suddenly and mysteriously hit problems, Lynne looked like a wife-beating victim after walking into a glass door at the Egyptian on Saturday, cutting her eye and bruising her knee in the process - just as Regina had done in her own confrontation with the fates. For poor Jeanette it must have felt as if she had taken a wrong turning and ended up in the Huntington's ER. That was where in reality Lynne had spent five hours getting patched and stitched, although since then her eye has turned a dramatic shade of red. So plenty of sympathy all round for those on the injury list from the rest of us, overshadowing the launch of Ian's latest audience-participation song.
Keen observers of the Whitcomb oeuvre claimed to see a CD being assembled complete with a pop-up book demonstrating all the hand movements. Maybe one of the growing collection could be picked up for inclusion in a movie. Ian has already experienced the heady feeling of such a windfall landing out of the clear blue sky, and Ray has just seen his Caterpillar selected for a new movie.
Ray took us onto considering songs of a different style, the old vaudeville songs that look so innocent on paper, but were sheer filth with a nod, a wink and the right emphasis from one of the old stars. Local watch committees and purity groups were always on the lookout for what they saw as public bawdiness - none more than in Pasadena - but the moment their backs were turned the singers started turning the meaning upside down.
As the election approaches and the stock market continues to stumble downwards, Jim and Bill thought about the contrast between the US and Europe. Not that Europe has either avoided the stock market contagion or produced perfect politicians, but it does offer a contrast in size compared with the US. Is 300 million too large a population to govern, on a continent that spans four time zones? Smaller countries appear to be more nimble, raising the question of what is the best size for a country - and are the American independence movements right to argue that the US should be broken up? OK if you're lucky enough to live in California or New York, but not if you are in Kansas, Oklahoma or the Dakotas.

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
A nice girl is one who makes breakfast
Every generation thinks it invented sex
Roof wouldn't leak if they had listened to me
Banks and drug companies suck
I could do a Veronica Lake, but then I couldn't see anything
Lillie Langtry is the sort of woman I admire - and it didn't do her any harm that she liked sex