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I really must revisit the topic of Annette Funicello. Her newly acquired features (chest) were bound up tightly so that no one would see how grown-up she was. Walt Disney's orders. It truly was her face that held my attention.

I believe you, edgar. Listeners, if you believe edgar, clap your hands.

Oops, sorry. I got that mixed up with tinkerbell.

Didn't Annette develop some sort of chronic disease?

She is in bad shape today.

Annette Funicello Fund For Neurological Disorders

Annette Funicello stopped being just another teenager in 1955, when she and the rest of the Mousketeers were introduced to America in a national TV special that coincided with the opening of Disneyland. Since that day, she has lived her life in the spotlight.
She first noticed signs of what would be diagnosed as multiple sclerosis while working on the 1987 film Back to the Beach. In 1992, she made her diagnosis public, saying "I think you only have two choices in this kind of situation. Either you give in to it or you fight it. I intend to fight."

To battle Multiple Sclerosis, she established the Annette Funicello Fund for Neurological Disorders at the California Community Foundation in 1993.


Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, often disabling disease of the central nervous system. Symptoms range from mild ?- numbness in the arms or legs ?- to severe, where those affected experience paralysis or loss of vision.

Most people with MS are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 40 but the unpredictable physical and emotional effects can be lifelong. The progress, severity and specific symptoms of MS in any one person cannot yet be predicted, but advances in research and treatment are giving hope to those affected by the disease.









Annette Funicello includes details of her personal experiences with MS ?- as well as many backstage showbiz stories ?- in her autobiography, A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes.

ah, edgar. A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes.

A dream is a wish your heart makes
When you're fast asleep
In dreams you lose your heartaches
Whatever you wish for, you keep
Have faith in your dreams and someday
Your rainbow will come smiling thru
No matter how your heart is grieving
If you keep on believing
the dream that you wish will come true

Does anyone here remember the alternate fairy tale to Cinderella? There are many versions from every country I would assume.

I never watched many of Annette's movies.

Most of her movies were not worth the film they were printed on.

Absolutely! Beach, Blanket, Bingo stuff.

This for the Beatles/Spiderman fans out there.

Watch out Spiderman, here comes Ringo the new "Superhero"

Ringo Starr, yes the Ex-Beatles drummer and voice behind Thomas the Tank Engine, is set to become the latest Superhero!

Stan Lee, co-creator of Spiderman, is making a new cartoon series which is hoped to be released next year on TV and DVD.

Ringo will lend his voice to the "evil-battling, earth-saving" cartoon hero and provide some of the music.

Stan Lee is perhaps better known for some of his Marvel Comic heroes like Spiderman, the X-Men and the Hulk.

Apparently, Ringo Starr, now 62 (doesn't time fly!) is "excited" at becoming a superhero and both Starr and Lee are sure to have some fun in making this series.

Well, listeners. I wondered what had happened to Ringo.

Letty signing off until tomorrow: How strange the night has been. fbaezer has a Cerventes thread going, and I was looking for a powerful song from Man of LaMancha:

I shall impersonate ... a man.
Come, enter into my imagination, and see him:
Boney, hollow faced, eyes that burn with the fire of inner vision.
He conceives the strangest project ever imagined ...
To become a knight errant
And sally forth into the world, righting all wrongs!

Hear me now, oh thou bleak and unbearable world
Thou art base and debauched as can be!
And a knight with his valors all bravely unfurled
Now hurls down his gauntlet to thee!

I am I, Don Quixote,
The Lord of LaMancha,
My destiny calls, and I go!
And the wild winds of fortune
Shall carry me onward ... To wither so ever they blow ...
Wither so ever they blow ...
Onward to glory I go!


I'm Sancho, yes, I'm Sancho
I'll follow my master till the end ...
I'll tell all the world, proudly,
I'm his squire ... I'm his friend.
Hear me heathens, and wizards, and servants of sin:
All your dastardly doings are past!
For a holy endeavor is now to begin
And virtue shall triumph at last!

I am I, Don Quixote,
The Lord of LaMancha,
My destiny calls, and I go!
And the wild winds of fortune
Shall carry me onward ... To wither so ever they blow ...
Wither so ever they blow ...
Onward to glory I go!

And on that note, how can I resist this one:

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
And to run where
the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
And to love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far
To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march,
march into hell
For that heavenly cause
And I know
If I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart
Will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest
And the world will be
better for this
That one man, scorned
and covered with scars,
Still strove with his last
ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable,
the unreachable,
The unreachable star
And I'll always dream
The impossible dream
Yes, and I'll reach
The unreachable star


Goodnight all.

The Windmills Of Your Mind



Round like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On a never spinning wheel

Like a snowball down the mountain
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carrousel that's turning
Running rings around the moon

Like a clock whose hands are swinging
As the minutes on its face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of its own
Down the highway to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half forgotten dream
Of the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in the stream

Like a clock whose hands are swinging
As the minutes on its face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Keys that jingls in your pocket
Words that jungle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly
Was it something that you said
Lovers walk along the shore
And leave their foot-prints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drowning
Just the fingers of your hand

Pictures standing in the hallway
And the fragment of a song
Half remembered things and faces
But to whom do they belong
When you knew that it was over
In the autumn of goodbyes
For a moment you could not recall
The color of his eyes

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On a never spinning wheel
As the images so wide
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Here's an old song: anyone know it?

ABDUL ABULBUL AMIR



The sons of the Prophet are brave men and bold
And quite unaccustomed to fear,
But the bravest by far in the ranks of the Shah,
Was Abdul Abulbul Amir.

If you wanted a man to encourage the van,
Or harass the foe from the rear,
Storm fort or redoubt, you had only to shout
For Abdul Abulbul Amir.

Now the heroes were plenty and well known to fame
In the troops that were led by the Czar,
And the bravest of these was a man by the name
Of Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

One day this bold Russian, he shouldered his gun
And donned his most truculent sneer,
Downtown he did go where he trod on the toe
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir.

Young man, quote Abdul, has life grown so dull
That you wish to end your career?
Vile infidel know, you have trod on the toe
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir.

So take your last look at the sunshine and brook
And send your regrets to the Czar
For by this I imply, you are going to die,
Count Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

Then this bold Mameluke drew his trusty skibouk,
Singing, "Allah! Il Allah! Al-lah!"
And with murderous intent he ferociously went
For Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

They parried and thrust, they side-stepped and cussed,
Of blood they spilled a great part;
The philologist blokes, who seldom crack jokes,
Say that hash was first made on the spot.

They fought all that night ?'neath the pale yellow moon;
The din, it was heard from afar,
And huge multitudes came, so great was the fame,
Of Abdul and Ivan Skavar.

As Abdul's long knife was extracting the life,
In fact he was shouting, "Huzzah!"
He felt himself struck by that wily Calmuck,
Count Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

The Sultan drove by in his red-breasted fly,
Expecting the victor to cheer,
But he only drew nigh to hear the last sigh,
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir.

There's a tomb rises up where the Blue Danube rolls,
And ?'graved there in characters clear,
Is, "Stranger, when passing, oh pray for the soul
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir."

A splash in the Black Sea one dark moonless night
Caused ripples to spread wide and far,
It was made by a sack fitting close to the back,
Of Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

A Muscovite maiden her lone vigil keeps,
'Neath the light of the cold northern star,
And the name that she murmurs in vain as she weeps,
Is Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

I only heard that one once, McTag, and had totally forgotten.

I noticed later, because putting the title in the BBC search engine gave quite a few "hits", that other sites have the tune too.

Good morning, WA2K radio.

Wow! we're really returning to the archives.

edgar, that Windmills of Your Mind is a new one to me. Thanks.

McTag, I knew that one. My word! and here's one that our audience probably doesn't know, either:

Come, everybody, and I'll tell you a tale,
Of a big submarine that was built like a whale.
The number they gave her was the K-23,
And the crew that they carried was as tough as could be.
Torpedo Jim was the K-Boat commander,
Torpedo Jim, with a face like a file,
Torpedo Jim ate a horseshoe for breakfast,
And when danger was near him's the time he could smile.

There was Dynamite Casey and Gunpowder Lee,
Shoot-em-up Riley and Choke-'em MacGee.
They picked out a captain who was lanky and slim,
He was a bad man from 'Frisco called Torpedo Jim.

Torpedo Jim, with an eye like an eagle,
Torpedo Jim, with a wart on his nose,
Torpedo Jim was a dog of the ocean,
With brine on his whiskers and salt on his clothes.

Early one morning his heart beat with hope
As he anchored his eye on the old periscope.
He turned to the gunner and he said with a grin,
"There's a cargo of sauerkraut that's bound for Berlin."

He shut off the motors, gave the signal to stop,
He let out the ballast and rose to the top,
He aimed the torpedo and they cried, "Let her go!"
Now the devil is going to have a feast down below.

Torpedo Jim hit her right in the middle,
Torpedo Jim had an aim that was true,
Torpedo Jim sent that cargo to Hades,
For he knew that the devil liked sauerkraut too.

They bobbed all around, up and down on the foam,
First they headed her east, then they headed for home,
Jim was excited as they sailed in the bay,
For his wife didn't know he was going away.

When he stepped off the boat and he stepped on the shore,
He knew right away she was peevish and sore,
He tried to explain and she flew in a rage,
So for safety he hid with a lion in its cage.

Torpedo Jim was as meek as a baby,
Torpedo Jim had to run for his life,
Torpedo Jim was a salt of the ocean,
But tough as he was, he's afraid of his wife.

Thanks to Raggedy for Her rendition of The Impossible Dream.

Time for another test here on WA2K radio:


Workers hoist and position a giant fiddle in Sydney, N.S.

Hmmm. Some savvy picture poster explain to me why a picture that works via e-mail doesn't work here on WA2K.

Will try again later.

Well, listeners, I coul not seem to capture the photo of the fiddle, but this news item is a break from the war zones:

Sorry for all the white space.



























































Wanted: one really tall fiddler
Last Updated Wed, 26 Jan 2005 14:37:03 EST
CBC Arts
SYDNEY, N.S. - Local officials have raised a 16-metre-high monument to Cape Breton's love of the fiddle on the waterfront of Sydney, N.S.

The Big Ceilidh Fiddle, complete with bow, was unveiled Tuesday.


Workers hoist and position the giant fiddle in Sydney, N.S.
"It's fully stringed," project manager Adrian Gatrill told CBC News. "In fact if we could find someone big enough to actually carry the bow, it could be played."

Though there are other large fiddles displayed in Atlantic Canada - including one in Don Messer's hometown of Harvey, N.B., and another in Cavendish, P.E.I. - organizers are calling Sydney's steel version the "world's largest illuminated fiddle" in hopes that it will become a major attraction for the city.

"It is a Cape Breton icon. It's going to be a major tourist attraction," said Cyril Hearn, who built the oversized instrument. "I hope that everybody in Cape Breton comes here to enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it."

The fiddle was devised as part of this week's opening ceremonies for the new Sydney Maritime Terminal.

Cape Breton's style of Celtic fiddle music originated with Scottish immigrants about two centuries ago, and it is widely held that the tradition has been better preserved in Cape Breton than in Scotland.

Letty, were you looking for this picture?

Ah, Francis, welcome to WA2K radio and that is definitely the one for which I was ineptly searching.

Listeners, we all know that Francis is a male, especially those in Florida who were so viciously attacked by the big wind bag female Frances. :wink:

Birthday celebrity time. On this date:

1822 Alexander MacKenzie, Canadian prime minister (Logierait, Perth, Scotland; died 1892)
1841 Henry Morton Stanley, explorer and leader of the expedition to find David Livingstone (Wales; died 1904)
1853 José Julian Marti, Cuban poet and patriot (Havana, Cuba; died 1895)
1887 Arthur Rubinstein, pianist (Poland; died 1982)
1912 Jackson Pollock, painter (Cody, WY; died 1956)
1929 Claes Oldenburg, artist/sculptor (Stockholm, Sweden)
1933 Susan Sontag, author (New York, NY)
1936 Alan Alda, actor (New York, NY)
1948 Mikhail Baryshnikov, ballet dancer (Riga, Latvia)
1968 Sarah McLachlan, singer (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
1981 Elijah Wood, actor (Cedar Rapids, IA)

Happy Birthday Mikhail and Alan and everybody else.