“I Don’t Want To Make Money, Folks…I Just Love To Sell Guns”*

Recently, Paloma and I caught a late-night showing of a movie called Equinox, a sci-fi flick from the early ’70s which has a cult following due to the fact that it began as a student film by Dennis Muren

(Muren would earn acclaim for his special effects work on numerous films, including the Star Wars series)

Equinox was a familiar feature from my childhood as it seemed to be shown every other week on WTTV’s Science Fiction Theater. Seeing it again also brought back vivid memories of a personal bogeyman spawned by consumerism run rampant…

…Don, erstwhile proprietor and namesake of Don’s Guns.

Don was a regional phenomenon, his advertising reach relegated to central Indiana where his lone storefront/armory was located. His budget allotment for marketing apparently only great enough to purchase face-time in the wee hours on an independent television station, but his leering mug made quite an impression as I have learned from fellow Hoosiers, few of whom seemed to have escaped seeing Don hawking his wares.

His commercials were like an ambush. One minute, I’d be sitting there, a nine-year old in pajamas, huddled under a blanket, watching Channel 4 only to have Don practically burst from the screen and into the living room. If Equinox or Night Of The Lepus wasn’t frightening enough, there was Don.

Don epitomized snake-oil salesman, approaching a level of smarm that would be the envy of any elected official and doing it so effortlessly.

Perhaps it was his resemblance to an extremely dodgy Kenny Rogers.

Possibly, it was the sheer, unadulterated glee with which he made his pitch.

Most likely it was the manner in which he closed every commercial – Don gazing maniacally from the screen, toothy grin flashing as he delivered his mantra, “I don’t want to make money, folks. I just love to sell guns.”

(this clip is of more recent vintage)

And then he’d be gone.

DeForest Kelly would return – battling the bunnies in Night Of The Lepus – but somehow it lacked the punch to follow-up the spectacle of Don.

And where is Don now?

Googling him, my computer screen was filled with results, most of which sullied my fond memories of Don as many alluded to numerous alleged improprieties involving his business. One item feted him as “the nation’s sixth-worst dealer” based on the number of firearms sold that were used in criminal activity.

And all the daffy bastard wanted to do was sell guns.

Thirty-five years ago, I was a third-grader and far more interested in late-night horror flicks than music. And I was certainly already well acquainted with Don and steeling myself for him popping up onscreen.

(I’m not sure if Don listened to music or not)

Here are four songs that were on Billboard magazine’s Hot 100 this week in 1977…

ABBA – Dancing Queen
from Thank You For The Music (1994)

I stumbled upon an unopened copy of ABBA’s four-disc box set for six dollars and couldn’t pass it up. Not that I really need that much ABBA.

(few people do other than a buddy who was fanatical about the band long before revisionism and a hit Broadway show made such adoration socially acceptable)

I enjoy the hits from the bell-bottomed, sequined Swedes more dispassionately, but I’d have to offer up S.O.S., The Winner Takes It All, and Dancing Queen as transcendent.

Eagles – New Kid In Town
from Eagles Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 (1982)

My relationship with the Eagles is complicated, but even with little interest in music in 1977, I was familiar with the group. The radio station in our small town was light rock with a bit of pop-leaning country thrown in and the wistful New Kid In Town was a perfect fit.

10cc- The Things We Do For Love
from Super Hits Of The ’70s: Have A Nice Day, Volume 19 (1993)

I know little more of 10cc’s catalog other than a handful or so of songs, but those I do know have impressed me with their musicianship, craftsmanship and quirkiness.

The Things We Do For Love is a breezy and flawless pop song.

Steve Miller Band – Fly Like An Eagle
from Greatest Hits 1974–78 (1978)

I seem to recall hearing Fly Like An Eagle constantly blaring from radios at the pool during the summer of ’77. It struck me as a bit strange and unsettling.

The song still has a trippy vibe though it’s no longer strange and/or unsettling, but I’d have to think the stoners of 1977 were digging the song’s groove.

Suicide Hill

Like a good portion of the States, our region was smacked with the first snowstorm of the season.

The cover of white that we awoke to this morning, though, had largely disappeared by the time I faced the evening’s rush hour hell. Nothing makes the trip as potentially as treacherous as when a wintery mix is added to the commute.

Yeah, the cast of Ice Road Truckers might brave the elements, but they don’t do it with thousands of other vehicles driven by oh-so attentive folks who – aside from a couple days a year – have little experience with such conditions.

I exited the interstate and headed home along a frontage road, From the road, I could see several kids were making use of the conditions and gravity, hurtling down a good-sized hill on various crafts.

Though it’s fortunate for me that we get little snow and it’s rarely on the ground for more than a few days, it’s the children who suffer. The snow on that hill already had wide swaths that was revealed the grass.

Those kids were sledding on borrowed time.

Growing up in the Midwest, me and my friends could usually expect ample oppotunities to hit the slopes each winter.

Several of us lived along a country road that bisected a subdivision and farmland. As soon as there was snow, we would jump the fence across the road and drag our sleds up a small hill.

If there was enough snow, we would eventually create rudimentry bobsled runs, piling the snow and creating a half pipe. If the weather held, over the course of a week or so, the run would pack – smooth and slick – and become more delightfully lethal.

As we grew older, we would head for Suicide Hill with most of the other kids in our hometown. From the top, we’d stare down at the state road in the distance. The busy road posed no danger as it was unreachable, separated from us by a drop into a small creek.

To get to the bottom, you navigated a path that took you between the 11th and 18th holes on a golf course. And, if you managed to make the run cleanly – avoiding trees and such – you still had to contend with that water hazard.

We lived for the rare spectacle of someone plunging into the drink.

As Christmas approached in 1980, my friends and I were halfway through our middle year of junior high. It was beginning to dawn on us that it might be better to be inside on winter days – somewhere where there might be music and girls – then outside risking hypothermia.

But, in December of ’80, Suicide Hill was still a siren’s song to which we had to respond. Music was still mostly incidental to me, but, over the next six months or so, I’d be hooked.

Here are four songs that were on the chart in Billboard thirty years ago…

Bruce Springsteen – Hungry Heart
from The River

Hungry Heart most likely served as my introduction to The Boss. The River was his current release in late 1980 and, though I was just discovering radio, I was familiar with this song as well as Cadillac Ranch, Fade Away, and the title track.

It would take more time for my young ears to embrace the stark brilliance of the follow-up Nebraska , but I was on board for the long haul.

Blondie – The Tide Is High
from Autoamerican

Blondie was one band that had caught my attention in 1980. Songs like Heart Of Glass and Call Me were such mammoth hits that you would have had to have made an effort to not hear them at the time even if, like me, the radio was nothing more than an occasional companion.

(lead singer Debbie Harry also gave the band a visual component that did not go unnoticed)

I vividly remember hearing the breezy, island groove of The Tide Is High blasting from the radio when someone’s older sister gave us a ride home after one of those afternoons spent sledding. It was a wonderful antidote to the winter weather then and it still is.

The Korgis – Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime
from Dumb Waiters

I don’t know if I’ve ever heard the lone US hit by The Korgis on the radio. I certainly don’t recall hearing it thirty years ago when it was a hit.

The first time I do know I heard Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime was when The Dream Academy covered the song in the late ’80s. And, I also heard Beck perform a version of it on the soundtrack to the movie Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind before I heard the original.

There really was no need for the song to be covered, though. The Korgis’ version is lovely – wispy and fragile – and flawless.

ABBA – The Winner Takes It All
from Super Trooper

ABBA and T. Rex occupy a similar niche in my music world. I could probably distill both to a dozen songs (most of which I never tire of), but I own way more of both acts’ work than I truly need.

That said, The Winner Takes It All is a shimmering tower of melancholy and Agnetha really belts it to the back row.

Sam He Am (Somebody Give That Hobbit A Potato So He’ll Shut The @$%&# Up)

As an ESPN-watching male, I’m aware that I’m supposed to love the movie Rudy.

I don’t.

I’ve tried and, with dire viewing options the other night, I tried again. It’s nothing against Notre Dame or the story per se, it’s the title character. No matter what was going on, Rudy was blathering on and on about Notre Dame.

Half an hour into it, I was hoping that Ned Beatty, playing the father, would take the kid on a rafting trip down the Cahulawassee River and trade him to some mountain men for a jug of moonshine or some beef jerky.

At one point, Rudy gets a job as a groundskeeper at Notre Dame and proceeds to re-enact touchdown runs as his co-workers stare slack-jawed (likely realizing that, yet again, they will have to pick up this jackass’ slack).

Seriously, if real-life Rudy is/was as single-minded as he was portrayed, wouldn’t someone have eventually resorted to violence, if necessary, to get him to stop talking about Notre Dame football for ten minutes?

This wasn’t the first time that Sean Astin, who played Rudy, has driven me to distraction in a movie. In fact, he frustrated me in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, too. All that bellyaching for boiled potatoes (or something) and his fussing over Frodo grated on my nerves.

Of course, Paloma and I did make the regretful decision to watch all three movies in (mostly) one sitting. I think I would have been irritable after watching The Big Lebowski for that long.

(actually, that’s unlikely, and I’d like to see a remake of the trilogy with The Dude as Frodo’s sidekick instead)

Tolkien seems to be an all-in or nothing proposition. I’d read one of the books and was entertained but not indoctrinated.

But, Paloma and I kept catching portions of the first movie on television. I can’t recall if she had read the books, but I know that she gets a bit googly-moogly over Viggo Mortensen.

(this is why I spend great amounts of time making sure that the two never cross paths)

So, so we rented all of them and set forth on our own journey. We started in late afternoon and made it through eight or so hours before fatigue bested us.

The next morning, after a lot of nervously dancing around the subject, we trudged onward toward Mt. Doom.

(it was Mt. Doom, right?)

How long were those three movies on DVD? Twelve, fifteen, twenty hours? By the time we were midway through the final film, there was no more joy, just a primal drive to keep moving, to reach the end.

Oh, they’re wonderful movies. There’s some amazing cinema to be had, but probably not in such a concentrated dose.

(though I briefly came back to life when the Ents appeared as I am a sucker for talking, ambulatory trees)

Nonetheless, much like Rudy, we showed grit, hung in there, and eventually reached the end credits.

Rudy finally suited up for Notre Dame in the final game of the 1975 season. It was November. I was a second grader and certainly more interested in dinosaurs than music, but, according to the Billboard charts from the time, there were songs that would be quite well known to me years later…

ABBA – S.O.S.
from Thank You For The Music

I snagged a used copy of ABBA’s four-disc box for a pittance and, though I like these Swedes, I’ve only ventured beyond a dozen or so tracks once or twice. I imagine I’ve heard most of the essential stuff.

I was a kid during ABBA’s heyday, but I still remember hearing most of their hits on the radio. S.O.S. has always been a favorite. It swoops – it soars – it’s ridiculously catchy.

Wouldn’t a bio-pic on ABBA be a license to print money?

Jefferson Starship- Miracles
from Red Octopus

I can’t say that I know much of Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship/Starship aside from essentially the radio hits and 1984′s Nuclear Furniture (which, for some reason, I felt the need to purchase). I’ve always loved White Rabbit and I didn’t hate We Built This City as much as the rest of the world seemed to despise it.

As for Miracles, it’s a gorgeous track that always seems to sound better on a rainy day.

The Eagles – Lyin’ Eyes
from One Of These Nights

There was a time when, like The Big Lebowski‘s Dude, I hated The Eagles. Perhaps it was their oversaturation on radio while I was growing up. Though they had called it a day, their songs seemed to be playing constantly.

And though Lyin’ Eyes got played as much as any of those songs aside from perhaps Hotel California, the harmonies and resigned tone of the song made it the one that made me pause on the station. Over the past decade or so, I’ve come to appreciate more of the group’s catalog.

Diana Ross – Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To)
from Diana Ross & The Supremes: The No. 1′s

There were a couple summers where I wore my hair in braids and my stylist was a clerk in a record store where I worked who spent nights as a popular drag queen whose specialty was Diana Ross.

(and none of that is made up)

Anyhow, Theme from Mahogany is a pretty song and filled with enough drama for a dozen drag queens. I can’t quite place it, but I seem to recall hearing the song playing in the mall with my parents during the Christmas season in ’75. The memory is there, but I can’t bring it into focus.