This & That by Jack Coll
May 1, 2014Martin Luther King
May 9, 2014Relay For Life and Boy George
Now We’re Talking
Relay For Life and Boy George
By Jack Coll
5-6-14
So I was sitting at a the Washington Fire Company taking part in a Trivia Night to support Relay For Life, an organization that encourages community based fundraising events to support the American Cancer Society. My team should have won six or seven rounds, but we only managed a tie in one of the rounds, and then lost the tie-breaker, (damn college kids). So I’m debating what actor played some role in some movie I never saw, and I know I can get this right with my best guess, and Tammy Tarloski happens to mention that this year’s Relay for Life event being held at Sutcliffe Park on May 17, is “Theme for the Decades: A Walk Through Time” or something like that.
If you haven’t been to one of these “Relay” events ya really gotta check it out, there’s nothing sad about this cancer event. Sutcliffe Park is a sea of tents and entertainment, the tents are teams of people, (party people I might add) and they generally have a theme where they dress and act the part of that year’s theme, the entertainment is generally some of the best bands and music in the area.
So I’m thinking about this trivia question about some actor in some movie, (I know I can get this one, maybe Tom Cruise) and I start thinking about the theme for this year’s event, wow, if I had a team I would have to go with a 1960’s theme, the 60’s were the best. We had the best music in the 60’s, the Beatles, Four Seasons, Hermit’s Hermit’s, The Who, who? The Who, who? Yea, we get it. We had President Kennedy, Johnny Carson, Alfred Hitchcock was making movies like Psycho, (we have to whisper this one) the birth control pill, (Approved in 1960, go science).
And check this out, we had Andy Warhol Exhibits showing off his Campbell’s Soup Can. (Now that’s art!) The music stop’s, I’m back at trivia night (while we’re thinking about our answer they play music so no-one hears our answer, I wish they wouldn’t play that music because we need to hear the other teams answers) we couldn’t figure out the actor, damn another wrong answer. Next question: another one I knew nothing about, so my mind goes back to the Sixties, yea if I had a team at Relay For Life on May 17 at Sutcliffe Park the Sixties are definitely the way to go. It was our generation that came up with Sesame Street, we had the Rolling Stones, you know, “I Can’t Get No,” yea them guys. We also had the greatest achievement ever, I mean EVER, the mini skirt, (I just want to take a minute and visualize a park full of people, both men and women walking around in miniskirts, no let’s scrap that idea) and the 1960’s put a man on the moon, and let’s not forget, we had G I Joe first.
Then Tammy asked the next question at Trivia Night, I missed the last question all together, I got this, another movie question, if she doesn’t ask a question about the “Eddie and the Cruisers” movie I might not get any of these movie questions, c’mon “Eddie.” Wait a minute, Eddie died, so did John and Bobby, and Martin and three American Astronauts, Malcolm X, riots, Cuban Missile Crisis. The music stops, time to answer the question, I look around our table like I’ve been thinking about the answer, I jump out in front of this one and say to the table what-da-ya got? Someone blurts out the name of an actress and I yell that’s exactly what I was thinking, (I really wasn’t, I was thinking about the 1960’s) we go with the actresses name, I think we actually got that one right, but we gotta scrap the Sixties, with all the tragedies in the Sixties we can’t use that as a theme, the Sixties would be a big downer.
I missed the next question, again, but my mind immediately goes to the 1970’s, now the Seventies would be a great theme for the Relay event. Well, using the 1970’s as a theme would be a problem for me, I kinda missed the Seventies, I was busy raising kids, you know what they say about raising kids don’t ya, “you know you’ve became a good parent when you can change a diaper full of crap with one hand and eat dinner with the other hand, and, honestly tell your wife how good the meal is, “good job on the ham honey!” I remember we had some pretty good music and some really good television. “All In The Family,” “Sanford And Son,” “Bridget Loves Bernie,” “Mash,” “Chico And The Man,” “Good Times,” “Happy Days,” “Laverne & Shirley,” let’s not forget one of the best serious show’s on television at the time, “Charlie’s Angels,” yea, now that was some serious stuff. We also had “Alice,” “Mork & Mindy,’ and “Taxi.” The 70’s also had one of the best lines, in the best movie ever, “Well Punk, did I fire five shots or six, ya feelin’ lucky Punk” that would be “Dirty Harry.” Now why doesn’t Tammy ask a question about “Dirty Harry?” The music at trivia night stops, time to come up with the answer, everyone at the table knew this one, I jumped right in agreeing with everyone else, “Yea, that’s it!” Did I mention “Dukes of Hazard,” there’s still something about them “Daisy Duke’s.”
If I were putting together a theme for the Relay for Life event at the park I think the 1980’s would really be the decade to go with. Tammy said this year’s theme is “Decades of Hope, A Walk through Time,” that theme makes sense, we’ve been fighting crappy cancer for decades. Tammy noted that categories included music, movies, fashions, TV, hairstyles, shoes, etc. Well when I think of hairstyles of the 1980’s I immediately think of the girls at Archbishop Kennedy, WOOOO, has anybody else gone back and checked out some of those pictures in the yearbooks. These chicks got caught up in in one hell of a windstorm every morning of their life and boom, a beehive on every head, every time I had to stop and talk to a female Kennedy student all I could do was stare at their hair.
The 1980’s had the movies, if I was setting up a team for the Relay event I might think about going dressed to imitate one of the following movies: “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back,” “The Blues Brothers,” “Caddyshack,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Poltergeist,” “Vacation,” “Gremlins,” “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” “The Goonies,” “The Breakfast Club,” “Back to the Future,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Stand by Me,” “Crocodile Dundee,” “Lethal Weapon,” “Good Morning Vietnam,” “Batman,” and “Field of Dreams.” Did I miss any, yea I missed a lot of em’. But dressing up in one of the movie themes would be very cool!
The music of the 1980’s wasn’t bad, Madonna, (the girl can dance) Phil Collins, does anyone else remember the “ Fine Young Cannibals?” Ahhh, the pride of the 80’s, “Debbie Gibson,” I really don’t think anyone would come to the Relay event dressed as Debbie Gibson, but then again you never know.
Okay, here we go back to Trivia Night, new category, “Conshohocken,” MAN, I so got this one, bring it on Tammy, bring on them Conshy questions, I’m all about Conshy. First question, “We have a monument at Second Avenue and Fayette Street, (I go past that monument every day, hell I helped build that monument back in 1999, I was part of the committee, ask me anything!) What are the words on the front of the monument? What are the words? Are you kidding me, here’s what I can tell you about that monument, I can tell you how much that monument cost to build back in 1999, I can tell you how tall it is, how much it weighs, who built it, why we built it, I can tell you how many Conshohocken residents served and died in World War One, World War Two, I can tell you it was originally dedicated ten years after World War One on a rainy November 11, in 1928, and it was dedicated at 11:28 in the morning. I can tell you how many residents attended that dedication ceremony and I can tell you that John DeHaven’s sister did the grand unveiling of the monument, there’s nothing I don’t know about that monument, well there is one thing I can’t tell you about that monument.
Everyone at the table is staring at me, “Jack, what’s on the front of the monument?” (CRAP), So I started, “Well let me see, they started making arrangements to build that monument in 1926,” I rudely get interrupted, “Jack, what’s on the front of the monument?” I come back in my best historical voice, “Ya know when we were building that monument back in 1999, we debated what we should say on the front of the monument,” another interruption, “Jack, what’s on the front of the monument?” Ya know we were gonna put something about “To Serve and Protect” but I think we went with something about, well, let me think about it. So who’s idea was it to come up with a Conshohocken category anyway, I would have voted against it.
This event was so much more fun when I was thinking about music from the 1980’s, I think everyone should embrace a 1980’s theme that would be cool. Anybody remember “Mike and The Mechanics,” how about “U2” what? “U2,” oh. Dude, we had “Poison,” “Starship,” and we were digging the chick’s like “The Bangles,” Cyndi Lauper, Whitney Houston, Tiffany, Bonnie Tyler, Joan Jett, Kim Carnes, Olivia Newton-John, Blondie, and someone all of us would like to see every female dress up like, Toni Basil. “Oh Mickey he’s so fine.” If we’re gonna dress the part I would love to see more than a few people on May 17, down at Sutcliffe Park dress up like Bon Jovi, Michael Jackson, or George Michael.
This also brings me to the “Boy George” thing. Culture Club hit America in the early 1980’s, they were a band out of London and were led by a guy named George “Boy George” O’Dowd. Like many young acts of the early 1980’s these guy’s hit MTV and all of a sudden it was like they were in our dreams at night. The question in my mind was this! A lot of the young kids started dressing like their favorite music stars, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Flock of Seagulls, Joan Jett and so-on. I had to face the possibility of my twelve year old son coming home dressed like Boy George singing “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me.” Somehow, I never visualized myself smiling and singing back “I’ll Tumble 4 ya,” I was thinking more like Calvary Cemetery, or St. Matthew’s Cemetery. He never came home dressed like Boy George, but I still had to face the possibility of this situation.
But then I had to grab hold of myself, and one day while watching a “Simple Minds” video on MTV or something like that, I flashed back to the Beatles. What fear and panic were our parents going through when the mop-heads appeared on American television? This was an all-out panic attack on the adults of our nation, “our kids could grow long hair, pick up a guitar, and become zillionaires, like these guys with the long hair, and we gotta stop this. When I was a kid I remember sitting on my front steps in front of a row house, when we lived in in Philadelphia. The neighbors were gabbing and all flustered. It seemed a girl who live up the street, (she was 16 years old and smokin’ hot, I was twelve) was going to the Beatles concert back in 1964, the gossip wasn’t about her going, it was about the fact that her parents had spent five dollars for the ticket, that was FIVE DOLLARS, these had to be some very poor parents to allow that girl to spend five dollars on a ticket to go to see some foreigners with long hair play music.
A nation full of parents back in 1964 were scared to death their kids might grow long hair, the only people more concerned than the parents were the nations barbers. As we know it all turned out to be crap, we all grew long hair and much to our parents surprise we all turned out fine, thank the good lord none of us ever picked up a guitar and made that zillion dollars like the Beatles did.
So while sitting there watching “Simple Minds” on MTV I’m thinking, is this a panic situation, if my kid comes home in a dress and make-up, is it just a phase? Will he in fact make a zillion dollars? Will we all laugh about it someday or do I just slaughter him right there at the front door and accept the fact that I’m going to spend the rest of my life in prison.
We’re down to the final trivia question in the Conshohocken category, something like, “Who lived in the John Ellwood Lee Mansion located at Eighth Avenue and Fayette Street?” I jumped right up and screamed “I got this one,” than I said, “give me a second,” no, just kidding, I knew this one, I know everything about Conshohocken, I think I got six out of the 10 questions on Conshohocken correct!
So we’re a week away from the “Relay For Life,” maybe some team will do the 1990’s theme, na, the 90’s sucked, I turned 40 years old sometime during the 90’s, I liked the 1980’s, I was in my 30’s, life was good, we had MTV and Culture Club, and the Rubik’s Cube to play with, what more could we ask for.
I’m heading to Sutcliffe Park on May 17, to check out the scene, I called Tammy to see if I could come dressed as Boy George, or Michael Jackson, she said great, c’mon down, everyone is welcome, I’m definitely showing up with a camera, the event starts at 10:00 a.m., at Sutcliffe Park, you can look for me, I’ll be the one with the camera singing “Come ‘a, come ‘a, come’ a, Karma Chameleon,” just like Boy George sings it!
By the way, our team lost at Trivia Night, I know, no surprise there, but our team will be at the next trivia night, we’ll kick some trivia ass at that one!
One more thing, “The Family,” that’s what is written on the front of the monument at Second Avenue, “The Family,” in war and peace, it’s always about the family.
See ya at the park!
