It comes around too soon..!
As we embark on another fun-filled, action-packed week in work, so we also take a collective gulp with the news that former teen heartthrob Leif Garrett turned 65 years old yesterday.
What better way to welcome in a new week on a Tacky Music Monday than with his one-and-only hit?
They knew how to wear trousers in those days...
Have a good week, dear reader.
As we gird our loins for another week of endless fun in work, so we also pay due homage to the dear old BBC, whose television service launched at Alexandra Palace (Ally Pally) 90 years ago today! Among the events on offer is an unveiling of a "World Origin" plaque at the palace this evening [we won't be going, despite the fact it's "around the corner" (just a couple of short bus journeys away), as it would be a bit much for a Monday].
Speaking of which - on this Tacky Music Monday, I have discovered a real gem! Someone, way back in the early 1970s, thought that assembling a motley crew of stars from assorted European countries to sing together on a tribute song to "Auntie Beeb" [on what was then the 50th anniversary of its first ever (radio) broadcast] was a great idea. The results are - ahem - interesting...
Have a good week, dear reader.
Aaaargh! Reality kicks in...
...as we gird our loins for the return to the madness, so it falls to a British icon of days gone by to give us a much-needed wake-up call.
Sixty years ago, the lovely Miss Alma Cogan departed for Fabulon, far too soon (aged just 34!). Had she not been taken so soon, who knows in what musical direction she could have gone [heaven knows, she left us quite a legacy!] - but, needless to say this alone will suffice for a Tacky Music Monday:
Have a good week, dear reader.
Sigh. Here we go again...
The skies may have cleared this morning, but everything in the garden's looking rather sodden after last night's downpours.
Hey ho - it is a Tacky Music Monday, after all. And, sharing a birthday today (as she does) with another odd assortment including Divine, John le Carré, George McCrae, Sir Michael Gambon, Auguste Lumière, Jennifer Holliday, Simon Ward, Philip Pullman, Gloria Jones, John Lithgow, Peter Tosh, Mavis Nicholson, Bernard Hepton and Sinitta, is one of our fave camp divas to bring some much-needed cheer into our lives!
"Ella vive de amores prohibidos
Porque dice son más divertidos"
Which translates as:
"She lives on forbidden loves
Because she says they are more fun"
Indeed!
Have a good week, dear reader.
After a tumultous time, health-wise, last week, and a busy weekend retrieving ancient relics stuff from our childhoods from the old family home in Wales, it's time to "face the music" and re-open that bloody laptop to discover what kind of a shit-show faces me on my return to work.
Fuck.
Meanwhile, however, it is the utterly gorgeous Mr Hugh Jackman's birthday today, so after blowing his candle out [wouldn't I just?], on this Tacky Music Monday let us wallow in his superb showbiz talents...
Have a good week, dear reader. I won't.
Did you miss me, dear reader?
Apologies for my uncustomary absence for the last couple of days. A "slight medical emergency" of the most annoying kind...
We were having a fun time at our friends Jim & Jude's home on Saturday night (they're lovely people, and perfect hosts), when it was time for the BBQ main course, steak with all the trimmings. Smelt delicious, looked delicious, I took my first bite, swallowed, and it got stuck. Fast. Not going up [I tried all that], and definitely not going down [nothing would pass it, no liquids - even saliva immediately came back up]. Dammit.
I spent the rest of the evening on their patio, spluttering and hoping it might eventually shift. It didn't. Nor did it shift overnight after we got home. Finally, yesterday morning at around 10.30am I decided - it's off to A&E after all...
Knowing those places are tantamount to one of Dante's Gates of Hell, I'm glad we didn't head there on a Saturday night. Sundays, it seems, are relatively quieter. Of course, even with a "fast-track" ticket, everything takes forever, and it wasn't until 4pm that we were transferred with great fanfare [literally: blue-light flashing, traffic parting, the lot! How exciting!] to another hospital further out that specialises in ear, nose and throat. It's at this point that we should all say "gawd bless the NHS" [it's all free], but FFS! Why different hospital trusts are completely incapable of corresponding with each other is a pain in the arse. Thus (apart from bloods), I had to go through a load of procedures (x-ray etc) I had already had done at the other place. Waiting around to get all that sorted wasted another few long hours [hospitals are not the sort of place anyone in their right mind wants to be longer than they need to], before I finally got to the point where an operation was possible - and went in for anaesthesia at 10pm! Ironically, the whole op only took the team half-an-hour to complete, before they bedded me down in the recovery room overnight and poor Madam Arcati - who had also not eaten all day - went home.
Suffice to say, now I'm finally out and back home again, I'm feeling a lot better. I shan't be eating steak ever again in my life..!
MEANWHILE:
We need something to make us smile on this Tacky Music Monday - and really, only today's birthday girl Mrs Miller will do on an occasion like this!
An uncanny knack for landing squarely between the beat - read my post about her from back in 2017 for more [if you dare]!
Have a good week, dear reader.
...now you don't!
Yes, at last, that pair of bastard weed trees next door are gone - and we are thrilled!
Next job: get rid of the neighbours, their screaming "demon spawn", their stinky barbecues, and their fucking yappy dog.
Here's an appropriate song for a Tacky Music Monday, methinks - those outfits! the stoned stares! - now we have all that sky...
Have a good week, dear reader.
Grrrr... Back to the office. Back to reality.
After a very pleasant weekend - Saturday doing fuck all, and yesterday spent absorbing the joyful musings of an erudite panel on the meaning and influence of divas on the lives of generations of gay men (and lesbians and others in the "alphabet soup" of labels these days) at the Southbank Centre - it's time for a wake-up call!
Who better to provide it on a Tacky Music Monday than one of those very divas - Spain's finest, one of our cherished Patron Saints, "La Leyenda" Señorita Sara Montiel (and her safety gays)?!
Fab-u-lous!
Have a good week, dear reader...
[* "Lo que pidas muy barato lo doy" = "I sell it really cheap" in Spanish; a lyric from the song]
Having heard the very sad news that Mr Bob Mackie has sewn on his last sequin and departed for Fabulon - see my tribute over at the Dolores Delargo Museum of Camp - I just knew I would have to post at least one of the gazillion outrageously OTT outfits for which he was famous in action this Tacky Music Monday...
...so how about one of my absolute favourites?
Miss Mitzi Gaynor - whose 95th birthday it would have been on 4th September - never had a better frock to shimmy in!
RIP, Mr Mackie.
Have a good week, dear reader.
Oh, yuk. After a lovely weekend - the Schiaparelli exhibition and a day in the sunny garden - we're back to the old routine again. Sigh.
Among another raft of fellow celebrants including Queen Elizabeth I, Chrissie Hynde, Gloria Gaynor, Laura Ashley, Buddy Holly (who would have been 90 today), Dame Edith Sitwell, Diane Warren (70 today), Angela Gheorghiu, Elia Kazan, John Paul Getty Jr., Anthony Quayle, Julie Kavner, Toby Jones (who is 60), Jermaine Stewart, Sonny Rollins, Leonard Cheshire, Dario Argento, Peter Lawford and - erm - disgraced former MCU actor Jonathan Majors...
...the lovely
Michael Feinstein
blows out 70 men candles on his cake today!
Well-known as he is for preserving and promoting the archives of the "Great American Songbook" - as this is a Tacky Music Monday, I thought I'd share this rather fab and funny moment instead:
Have a good week, dear reader.
Noooooooo!
After a gorgeous sixteen days away, it's time for reality to kick in. It's time to get the bloody laptop out of the cupboard, and get back to work! I am in no way ready for this...
Our beloved Kessler Twins would have celebrated their 90th birthdays last Friday, so, on this Tacky Music Monday, only they can save us now!
Probably my favourite camp dance routine, ever. Madam Arcati and I have practised it many times and still can't get it right...
Have a good week, dear reader. I won't!
Yes, it's Monday. However, for a change, I don't care - because I'm on holiday...
...and it's my birthday!
Let's celebrate [and it is a Tacky Music Monday, after all] with a fantabulosa [and appropriate, given the weather] number from our Patron Saint Prime, and the sexiest ballet dancer after Nureyev:
Have a good week, dear reader.
STOP PRESS, 9.40pm:
In their continuing effort to completely piss the blogging community off, the bloody Google gnomes have still failed to fix the ongoing problems with their Reading List. I published a post yesterday at 7pm, and this one today at 9.30am - and neither has yet shown up in the feeds! Bastards.
On this day in history: "in fourteen hundred and ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue", setting off from Spain with three ships on his way to make his ground-breaking "discovery" of the Americas; in 1778 La Scala opera house opened in Milan; in 1858 the source of the Nile (Lake Victoria) was discovered; in 1914 Germany declared war on France; in 1936 Jesse Owens gave Hitler's "master-race" ideals a kicking by winning the first of four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics... and, in 1966, my sister was born!
When my father woke me on that fateful day (I was three years old), he said "We've got you an early birthday present. It's a baby sister.". I cried, and said "I wanted a tricycle!"
In tribute to my 60 years of resentment, here's an appropriate song - and the tackiest choice for a Tacky Music Monday in ages. I dedicate it to Hils...
My ears hurt.
Have a good week, dear reader.
STOP PRESS, 12.23am:
My last few posts arrived in the Blogger Reading List practically as soon as I pressed the "publish" button. Thus, it remains a mystery why this particular one has completely failed to do so, ELEVEN HOURS later. Bastard Google Gnomes!
STOP PRESS #2, 9.20am:
It still hasn't shown up. Arseholes.
Shit! Another week is here, already. After a lovely weekend - HM The Queen's frocks with Mother, a day in the garden - I am not ready for this.
Never mind, eh? Let's cheer ourselves up with something from the "Nazis' favourite screen songbird" Marika Rökk, in all her weirdness, shall we? On this Tacky Music Monday - this clip (from 1958, long after her dodgy reputation had been redeemed) is an absolute joy!
Sit back and enjoy the madness of Mir ist so langweilig ("I'm so bored") - and I can guarantee that you won't be...
Ich liebe es!
Have a good week, dear reader.
The eternal conundrum continues to baffle us - why do weekends fly by so damned quickly, yet the working weeks drag so tortuously?
Yet again, we're in need of a bit of a wake-up call.
How fortuitous then, that yesterday happened to be the 86th birthday of one Florencia Bisenta de Casillas-Martinez Cardona, better known as one of our fave divas here at Dolores Delargo Towers, Señorita Vikki Carr!
On this Tacky Music Monday, I think it's appropriate to revisit an old fave of hers that I have featured several times before. Simply because I adore this uber-camp Scopitone clip..!
Many happy returns, Vikki Carr (born 19th July 1940)
Have a good week, dear reader.
Oh, no! Monday again.
Never mind, eh? A little trawl through the archives here at Dolores Delargo Towers has turned up the perfect wake-up choon for this Tacky Music Monday - from Czechoslovakia's finest export, the late, great Karel Gott (whose birthday it would have been tomorrow), and his safety gays and girls!
Inexplicable, but fun.
Have a good week, dear reader.
STOP PRESS:
Here we go again...
I posted this at 7.46am. It is now 21.40pm. Still no sign of it in the Reading List!
The Google gnomes are bastards.
Aaaaaaarrrrgh!
After one of the loveliest of Pride weekends, the reverie is over - and reality kicks in again. sigh...
Never mind, eh?
On this Tacky Music Monday, we have some outrageous puppets to comfort us, as only they know how:
Have a good week, dear reader.
Sigh. Here we are again.
The heatwave having subsided, this would be a perfect day to potter in the garden. Unfortunately, back to the office we go...
Never mind, eh? To save ourselves from screaming, let's fix our minds on the fact that there's only this week to go, then it's Gay Xmas!
Meanwhile, on this Tacky Music Monday let's join "France's premier electrician" and his cheesy dancers in a morning exercise routine:
I feel better already.
Have a good week, dear reader!
We are shaken out of our reverie by the realisation that the old familiar - and endlessly enjoyable - routine that is called work begins once more...
Hey ho.
To take our minds off it - it would have been the 105th birthday yesterday of one of our most revered of all Hollywood vamps, Miss Jane Russell, so on this Tacky Music Monday, let us indulge in some homoerotic fantasies alongside the great lady herself, shall we?
Have a good week, dear reader. Keep cool in the heatwave, if you can...
Fuck. Too soon, too soon - another week begins. We need a pick-me-up!
Among another "mixed bag" of names such as Neil Patrick Harris, Edvard Grieg, James Robertson Justice, Noddy Holder (who is 80 years old), Richard Baker, Johnny Hallyday, Simon Callow, Courteney Cox, Harry Nilsson, Lord John Redwood, Erroll Garner, David Rose, Waylon Jennings, Chris Morris, Yuri Andropov, Helen Hunt, Julie Hagerty and - erm - Xi Jinping...
...it would also have been the 80th birthday of the unlikeliest of sex symbols, Demis Roussos!
On this Tacky Music Monday, out of his lesser-known back-catalogue, I have discovered this! Lemon-and-brown flared outfits deserve a comeback.
However, we can never disassociate the man from the legendary summer of '76, fifty years ago, with its stand-pipes in the streets and months of sunshine.
Reflecting that magnificent heatwave, the great Greek mountain emerged from obscurity to hit Number 1 with one of the eternal summer anthems:
It always brings back thoughts of Abigail's Party to me...
"Laurence, Angela likes Demis Roussos, Tony likes Demis Roussos, I like Demis Roussos and Sue would like to hear Demis Roussos.So do you think we could have Demis Roussos on?"
"It's a pity he's so fat."
Yeah, but he doesn't sound it, though, when you hear him."
Demis Roussos (born Artemios Ventouris-Roussos, 15th June 1946 – 25th January 2015)
