Feb. 19, 1958

Popular music can be a fragile commodity. good tunes die at birth if
they don’t have popular appeal, whatever that is. Bad ones make the top
80 without a hitch if the right guy with a guitar sings them and the
disc jockeys play them every 20 minutes, in itself a suspicious
procedure.

Consider then the plight of Jerry Leshey of CBS-TV. He wrote a song,
"The Sands of Time." Teddy Wilson recorded a haunting, moody
interpretation of it. Johnny Desmond also made a record, as yet
unreleased. And tomorrow the tune will be heard as background music on
"Climax!"

But last Friday, Peter Potter served up Johnny Desmond’s platter of it
on "Juke Box Jury" and the panel sentenced it to be a "miss." The
consensus, voiced by panelist Steve Allen, was, "It’s too good to be a
hit."

NEXT DAY, Jerry was brooding around the house, wondering if the verdict would send his beloved brainchild to an inglorious death.

Fred Hancock, a painter who was knocking out a small wall in the dining
room, noticed Jerry’s dispirited manner and asked what was the trouble.

"Juke Box Jury" said my song was too good to be a hit," moaned Jerry. "What do you do about that?"

Fred puffed on his cigar, asked, "Why don’t you worsen it up a little bit?"

YOU’D BE surprised
how many people believe the big freeze, the excessive rains and other
phenomena are the results of atomic explosions upsetting the balance of
nature. As one gal in a beauty parlor put it, "We better stop monkeying
around with things we don’t know anything about."

Me, I’m going to consult my friendly witchdoctor.

ONLY IN L.A.–A
couple of weeks ago the city desk got a flash that a man was pinned
under a streetcar at 7th and Broadway. Photog Delmar Watson and
reporter Jack Tobin rushed there but found no streetcar, only a truck
with a flat tire.

They asked the driver, who was working on the tire, what about the man
supposed to be trapped. "Oh that’s the fellow over there," he said,
pointing. "The jack wouldn’t work so he got under and tried to lift the
truck with his feet. I made him stop after the first try. I was afraid
my insurance wouldn’t cover it if he got hurt."

The husky young man came over and said, "The reason I couldn’t lift it
was that I couldn’t get leverage. I usually lift elephants."

The newsmen gave him a disdainful look that said, "That’s all, brother!" and departed, pictureless and storyless.

And then Saturday night, on Art Linkletter’s "People Are Funny," there was the guy. Elephant lifter Mark Evans, performing.

I DON’T HAVE NO papers
left, said Alfonso Cardenas, an A-11 at Belmont High, as he finished a
pile he’d been folding for Frances Hov, journalism teacher.

"You’ll never get into college if you talk like that," she said.

Alfonso nodded, then said, "I’m in a spot. If I talk like you want me
to, the kids wouldn’t understand me. If I talk my way the teachers
glare at me."

Come to think of it, you don’t hear anyone say, "It is I," any more.

FROM A Hollywood paper: "Police said the men, Bart James Blackburn, 22, and Ronnie David Rhonemus,
20, who sawed their way out of the jail Tuesday with a third man, were
driving a white 1957 Thunderbird." To which Gil Krause murmurs, "A
sharp character, no doubt."


AT RANDOM — The news
story about the L.A. Dodgers opening spring training in Vero Beach,
Fla., Thursday reminded James K. Hyde of the old one about the
restaurant owner going out to lunch … Since being momentarily blinded
by the car ahead the other night, Herb Stinson has a new safety slogan,
"Please dim your taillights" … An obituary, in another paper, had an
ironic typo. Stated a deceased gentleman would "live" in state at a
certain funeral parlor … Death of Joe Frisco reminded Tom Mannix of
the time Joe stuttered to a friend, "I got a doctor who’s curing me of
betting on the horses." The friend said he never heard of such a thing
and asked where the doc was. "Oh, about six furlongs from here," said
Joe.