A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
An evening pause: Performed live February 2020 in Tennessee. Note how normal everything is. No masks, no social distancing, and especially no fear. Just a bunch of people enjoying themselves.
Hat tip Tom Wilson.
A evening pause: Performed live in 2017. It is sad that too many now no longer honor someone who follows these words, but despises them instead:
For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels
The record shows
I took the blows
And did it my way
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
An evening pause: Bob & Ray, performing live in 1979 with the three very talented ladies from the original Saturday Night Live crew.
Hat tip Charlie Tutino.
An evening pause: Originally aired January 1, 1961. For those too young to know, Benny had two running gags that help explain some of the humor. First, he was ridiculously cheap, and second, he never admitted he was older than 39. Above all, you must recognize the intended silliness of everything said or done.
Note also that the telegram delivery man is Mel Blanc, who provided the voices for Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and almost all Warner Brothers cartoons from the 1940s to the 1960s.
An evening pause: A nice rendition, with appropriate visuals, of a 1930s song. It also happens to be John Batchelor’s theme song.
Hat tip Charlie Tutino.
An evening pause: A nice sequence from the British series that brutally but with great humor described the reality of what goes on in high political circles. This clip comes from the follow-up to the original series, Yes, Minister.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
Sorry for the late arrival of this evening’s pause. It didn’t post when it should, and I only just realized it.
An evening pause: I suppose some disco dance music might be a good way to start the weekend.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
An evening pause: Hat tip to Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas, who adds that David Buxkemper is an actual listener to Pratt’s podcast, and the song was written by Watson with that person in mind.
An evening pause: Here’s a bit of technology history that still affects us daily.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
An evening pause: Stay with it. The story Billy Gibbons tells in between the songs is fascinating about how he got started. And this sudden jam session music is fine indeed.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
An evening pause: Performed live 1983. It appears this became the band’s traditional closer at all of its concerts.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
An evening pause: This short was aired in 1958 on the Disney children’s television show, Disneyland. I emphasize children because this is the kind of material I was offered as a child.
Today it would be considered too sophisticated, and definitely unacceptable because it doesn’t indoctrinate the young on the importance of “racial justice.” My god, all the artists happen to be white!
Yet I know from experience that kids under six would love it just because it is fun to watch the artists work, while older children would find the narration by the artists themselves fascinating. I can say this with confidence because I am certain Disney showed this clip more than once, and I saw it multiple times as a child, watching it with pleasure at different times and ages.
And then there’s the main point. As Walt Disney himself says in the opening, “Don’t imitate anyone. … Go forward with what you have to say, expressing things as you see them. … Be yourself.”
A evening pause: Performed live 1999. The words are worth considering:
How ’bout no longer being masochistic
How ’bout remembering your divinity
How ’bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out
How ’bout not equating death with stopping
Hat tip Dan Morris.
An evening pause: This is so silly, which is why it is funny and worth watching. Silliness is good. The world needs more of it.
Hat tip Charlie Tutino.
An evening pause: From the movie The Sound of Music (1965), a song about teaching children to face fear, to push past it, and live boldly and with courage. And to do it with humor. As Ray Bradbury wrote in his book, Something Wicked This Way Comes, you defeat evil and fear by laughing at it. The world needs to recapture this idea, or else we are doomed.
Hat tip Tom Wilson.
An evening pause: A nice song to start the new year. Performed live 2017 in London.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
An evening pause: The first Annie sings live at the 1977 Tony Awards. Seems as appropriate a song to greet the New Year as Auld Lang Syne.
