Willie Nelson's Change of Pace

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Willie Nelson's "Stardust" album, which hit music stores in April 1978, seemed to catch a lot of people by surprise.

After all, he was practically unknown to noncountry music fans until three years earlier, when he released the wildly popular "Red Headed Stranger" album, which included the No. 1 hit "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain."

But he had been around for awhile, mostly writing songs but recording some, too.

He released another country album the following year, collaborating with Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser, but then he chose to do something different.

For "Stardust," he recorded covers of 10 pop standards — songs that many people already knew. And he proved that he was more than a country singer/songwriter. He was versatile enough to cover songs from other genres and make them his own, like "Georgia on My Mind."

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"Georgia on My Mind" was written nearly half a century earlier by Hoagy Carmichael and was most closely associated with Ray Charles — until Nelson recorded it. Nelson won a Grammy for his rendition of the song.

Carmichael had another composition on the album — the title track "Stardust," which was written more than half a century before.

The album also included songs written by Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington and the Gershwins, but Carmichael was the only songwriter who had more than one song on it.

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A recording of the song was used to wake up the crew of the Space Shuttle in 2000.

Nelson put his own distinctive spin on the songs but perhaps none as much as his version of "Moonlight in Vermont," which was probably one of the newer songs on the album, having been written in 1944 by John Blackburn and Karl Suessdorf.

As with all the other songs on the album, it has been covered many times by many artists, but Nelson's version was truly unique.

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Nelson asked his friend producer Booker T. Jones to arrange the song for him, which Jones did.

"Stardust" was certified quintuple platinum in 2002 and later inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

The Best Live Album of Its Era

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I have never been too keen on Little Feat's studio albums. Little Feat was a live band, and the two–record live album that was released this month in 1978, "Waiting for Columbus," proved that beyond the shadow of a doubt.

There is also no doubt that, as Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic.com observed, "the group had entered its decline" when the album was recorded — but "Little Feat in its decline was still pretty great."

Even if Little Feat was in its decline, as Erlewine wrote, "Waiting for Columbus" was still the best live album of its era.

Little Feat's studio albums never had the energy that their live performances had. Until I heard "Waiting for Columbus," I had never experienced Little Feat live completely, only in bits and pieces. "Waiting for Columbus," to put it bluntly, knocked my socks off.

It has been one of my favorite albums for a long time.

I was hooked from the first track, "Fat Man in the Bathtub."

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That was one of the band's early songs, and years of playing it live really came through on the recording. It had a polish that most of the other songs lacked.

I guess an enduring favorite from Little Feat's repertoire was always "Dixie Chicken," and the live recording of that song was truly filled with energy.

But I always favored "Spanish Moon" and the contributions of the Tower of Power horn section.

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I have never grown tired of "Waiting for Columbus," but the CD, which was expanded to include 10 previously unreleased tracks, was a new experience.

Those unreleased tracks were the initial attraction for me; the first time I heard them, I could understand why they were left off the original album, but the additional space afforded by the CD format meant there was no reason not to release them. They were good, just not up to the same standards as the ones included on the original album.

Of the 10, my preference was "Cold, Cold, Cold," which was one of the band's early songs. I didn't think it had the polish that "Fat Man in the Bathtub" had, but it could have been included on the original release of "Waiting for Columbus."

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It was a little late in the game for Little Feat to be releasing a live album, though. Leader and founding member Lowell George, the band's heart and soul, died a little over a year later of a heart attack brought on by an accidental cocaine overdose.

Better late than never.

Christmas With the Bunkers

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In the last season of the All in the Family series, Archie (Carroll O'Connor) and Edith (Jean Stapleton) visited Mike (Rob Reiner) and Gloria (Sally Struthers) in California for Christmas.

The result was one of the most honest and thought–provoking episodes of the entire run of the series. It aired 35 years ago tonight.

The Bunkers, along with their young charge, Edith's grandniece Stephanie (Danielle Brisebois), made the trip from New York to California for the holidays. They didn't know that Mike and Gloria were separated, and Mike and Gloria were determined to keep it that way. Well, Gloria was. Mike wanted to tell the Bunkers the truth, but Gloria wanted to keep up appearances through Christmas.

So Mike stayed overnight on Christmas Eve to keep up the charade. Apparently, the original plan called for Mike and Gloria to give Archie and Edith their bed and they would sleep on the sofa bed in the living room — presumably, when everyone was asleep, Mike would leave. But Edith double–crossed him, insisting that Mike and Gloria sleep in their own bed.

Gloria, however, did not feel comfortable sharing a bed with Mike, which led to an amusing bit of physical comedy in which Gloria tried unsuccessfully to go to sleep in a piece of bedroom furniture that clearly wasn't made for sleeping. Finally, at 5 a.m. on Christmas morning, Gloria had had enough, and she told Mike she wanted to trade. He refused, and they fought. Gloria fled the bedroom and went, sobbing, to the bathroom. Edith followed her in, and Gloria told her the whole story.

She and Mike had drifted apart since coming to California, Gloria told Edith. Mike had a whole new life with his career, one that kept him busy day and night, and Gloria stayed at home with the child — and ate.

And then she met a man, and she confessed to Edith that she had started a relationship with this man.

Edith returned to the living room, where Archie wanted to know what was going on — so Edith told him, and Archie stormed into the bedroom to confront Mike.

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Archie was under the mistaken impression that Mike had been cheating on Gloria and that was what had led to their breakup. But he soon learned that Mike hadn't been unfaithful.

And that led to the dialogue that made this Christmas episode unique among Christmas episodes.

The four adults had a conversation about love and marriage and commitment and infidelity. It's the kind of conversation that could happen — and almost certainly has happened — under different circumstances in different families the world over. It's probably not much of a stretch to say that it probably happens somewhere every day.

The critical moment came when Archie implied that Gloria and her male friend had been sleeping together, and Gloria said she wouldn't say anything because it was none of Archie's business. And Edith sided with her daughter.

"No matter what she's done, it's none of your business," she told Archie.

"What are you talking about?" Archie asked. "It's the world's business."

"No," Edith replied, "it ain't the world's business, neither."

"Well, it's certainly God's business," Archie insisted.

"Then you let God tend to it," Edith said.

It was so often the case that Edith was the wisest, most insightful member of the family.

Edith wanted to know if Mike and Gloria loved each other. When they admitted they did, she asked if they loved each other enough to save their marriage. Mike said yes; Gloria said she wasn't going to talk about it in front of her father. But Archie and Gloria reconciled, sharing a heartfelt father–daughter embrace and joining the rest of the family in the living room to celebrate Christmas.

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That's what Christmas is about — love, forgiveness, acceptance.

As far as I am concerned, the folks who write the Christmas specials and Christmas movies these days forget that and emphasize more of the commercial aspects of the season. But the folks who wrote this hour–long episode — Milt Josefsberg, Phil Sharp, Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf — were nominated for a Primetime Emmy for their work, as was director Paul Bogart and deservedly so.

The series was frequently nominated in both categories, and sometimes it won. But it won neither of the nominations it received for this episode.

That's a shame. As all truly good comedies do, All in the Family often balanced humor and poignance — rarely, if ever, better than it did 35 years ago tonight.

One Shot

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In the late 1970s, America's involvement in Vietnam had been over for only a few years, but Americans already were coming to terms with the experience the way they always seem to — by way of the cinema.

Vietnam movies were plentiful in the late '70s, and they were frequently well done, but each was different. The movie that was released 35 years ago today, "The Deer Hunter," had its own, unique angle. In this case, it explored the effect of the war on a bunch of working–class buddies from western Pennsylvania — guys who believed .

It was presented, essentially, in three acts — and would have been a great theatrical production if not for the fact that it would require some really extensive sets.

In the first act, the buddies were home, participating in two coming–of–age rituals — marriage and military service. After the wedding of one and before the start of military service for some, the buddies went deer hunting. Robert De Niro's character had a philosophy — a deer had to be taken down with one shot — and that "one shot" theme was at the heart of the story.

De Niro was probably the most bankable star in the movie at that time. Audiences had seen him in, among other movies, "The Godfather Part II" and "Taxi Driver." Other folks in the cast — chiefly, Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep — went on to greater things, but they were largely unknown in 1978, especially Streep.

But De Niro was the name.

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Anyway, in the second "act," the scene shifted to Vietnam, and movie audiences were introduced to "the game," in which North Vietnamese soldiers forced prisoners to play Russian roulette and gambled on the results among themselves. De Niro, Walken and John Savage were among those forced to play the game; De Niro and Walken even had to play each other.

It should have come as no surprise to anyone that the characters were emotionally scarred by the experience. They managed to turn their guns on their captors and escape, but their physical survival was only part of the story.

It may have been the most intense scene I have ever witnessed in a movie theater, the no–longer–naive Americans forced to play a deadly game for the amusement of their sadistic captors.

Associated Press reporter Peter Arnett, who won awards for his coverage of the Vietnam War, insisted that the Russian roulette angle was not true. Most likely, it was not representative of the experiences of most American POWs, but, in the minds of many Americans who lived through both Korea and Vietnam and had been hearing stories of Asian wartime atrocities all their lives (if they were old enough to remember World War II) — and found Vietnam to be the more confusing and the more bizarre conflict by far — it probably seemed entirely plausible.

In fact, until I saw "Saving Private Ryan," "The Deer Hunter" was my gold standard for gritty depiction of war. Even more than "Apocalypse Now," which came out the following year.

I feel the need to add a disclaimer here. "The Deer Hunter" didn't re–create horrific battle scenes as "Saving Private Ryan" did. It depicted a lawless state of mind that seems to permeate nearly all wars.

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The third and final act saw the Americans back home and dealing with their issues. De Niro's character found Savage veterans hospital and learned that someone in Saigon had been sending him large amounts of money.

De Niro returned to Vietnam and tried to bring Walken back to the United States, but Walken's mind had snapped and he had no memory of his previous life. He only existed to play the game in the gambling dens of Saigon.

Again, this was probably a little extreme, but, given the conditions that many vets were in when they returned to the United States, perhaps it wasn't as extreme as it may have seemed 35 years ago.

De Niro's character, in an act that I thought of when I watched Tommy Lee Jones dragging Robert Duvall's corpse back to Texas in the final installment of "Lonesome Dove" more than a decade later, brought Walken's character's body back to the United States for burial after he actually did kill himself playing the game. That, too, was an intense scene, symbolic of the waste of Vietnam and the wreckage it made of the lives of those who lived to tell the tale — even if it wasn't true.

And, in the final scene of the movie, Walken's survivors sang "God Bless America" and raised a glass in his memory.

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Director Michael Cimino won an Oscar for his work on "The Deer Hunter," and Walken won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

"The Deer Hunter" also won Oscars for Best Picture, film editing and sound.

De Niro and Streep were both nominated but lost — De Niro to Jon Voight, star of another Vietnam movie, "Coming Home."

A Once-a-Year Rendezvous

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Doris (Ellen Burstyn): You know, I can really talk to you. It's just amazing. I find myself saying things to you that I didn't even know I thought. I noticed that yesterday right after we met in the restaurant.

George (Alan Alda): We had instant rapport. Did you notice that, too?

Doris: No. But I know we really hit it off.

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Ever since I first saw "Same Time Next Year" at the theater, I have marveled at it.

Part of that is due to the quality of the stars, Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn. They pulled off what I think must be one of the greatest challenges for an actor — to portray a character through different stages of his/her life over an extended period of time. In this case, the story followed the lives of two people who lived apart nearly all the time — except for one weekend a month, which they spent in each other's arms.

"Did you know," Alda's character asked near the end of the movie, "we've made love 113 times?" He said he figured that out on his calculator and observed that there probably wasn't anything about Burstyn he didn't know. "I think it's wonderful when two people know each other so well."

It is a very personal movie.

It is also a testimonial, I think, to how talented Alda and Burstyn are that, through their characters' descriptions of their spouses and children, the audience knew all about their lives, so much so that, as Burstyn's character said when told that Alda's character's unseen spouse had died, "I never even met Helen, and I feel as if I just lost my best friend."

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The characters met by chance in the early 1950s when they were both in their 20s, and their story was told in vignettes separated by about five or six years until the late 1970s. The illusion of the passage of time was aided by superb makeup but also (as it was with Dustin Hoffman in "Little Big Man" and Cicely Tyson in the made–for–TV flick, "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman") by the actors' skill. Subtle changes that betray the influence of the aging process were expertly used to complete the effect.

Each vignette was connected by a kind of movie collage of images from the intervening years. I'm a history buff so that is the kind of thing that appeals to me. It helped to put things into historical context — although, being the nitpicker I am, I couldn't help noticing an inconsistency.

In the vignette for 1966, Alda was a right–winger (a reaction, as it turned out, to the death of his son in Vietnam) while Burstyn was a left–wing flower child who had gone back to school to find herself. They argued when Alda acknowledged that he had supported Barry Goldwater for president.

Goldwater did run for president. That wasn't the problem. The problem was twofold — Goldwater ran for president in 1964, and the premise of the story was that Alda and Burstyn got together once a year. With the vignette set in 1966, what happened in 1965? Did Burstyn not notice the change in Alda? Did Alda not notice the change in Burstyn? That was never mentioned.

For that matter, if the 1964 rendezvous was before the election, wouldn't the characters have argued about it then, not two years later? Lyndon Johnson won the 1964 election in a landslide, but, by 1966, his popularity tanked with approval ratings in the 40s by August. I would think that, instead of being as morose as he was initially, Alda's character of 1966 would have had a "told you so" attitude.

But it wasn't like that at all. Alda's character at that point in the story was a man overwhelmed by a rapidly changing world, which is certainly something to which everyone can relate on some level. When he said he was a "very old–fashioned" kind of guy, I think anyone could sympathize with that feeling on some level, too, regardless of personal politics.

I always thought the best scene in the movie came about halfway through when Alda's character was struggling with impotence ("I'm seeing someone out here who's an expert") and Burstyn's character was very pregnant.

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George: We'd been to a party and we had a few drinks. So we went to bed and we started making love. And nothing happened. I mean for me. I mean, I ... I couldn't ... well, you get the picture.

George: I mean it was no big deal. I mean we laughed about it. And then about a half hour later, just as I was going to sleep, Helen turned to me and said, 'It's funny. When I married a CPA, I always thought that it would be his eyes that would go first.' "

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It was such an honest scene, with Alda helping Burstyn deliver the baby, who was born prematurely.

Reminded of that near the end of the movie, Burstyn said she considered it "our finest hour."

It was certainly one of them. But it was too hard to narrow down a finest minute in this movie, let alone a finest hour.

Taking the Midnight Express

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My memory is that there were a lot of gritty movies coming out in 1978.

"The Deer Hunter" came out that year; so did "Coming Home," each in its own way an indictment of the Vietnam experience.

And "Midnight Express" was released in 1978. It had to be one of the grittiest of them all.

"Midnight Express" wasn't about Vietnam. It was about a young American (Brad Davis) who was caught trying to smuggle hashish out of Turkey on this day in 1970 and ended up doing hard time in a Turkish prison.

The movie got its name from the prison slang expression for an escape attempt.

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And there was plenty from which an inmate might want to escape — disease, sadistic prison guards, a justice system that was biased against Americans and allowed prosecutors to appeal acquittals or what they saw as insufficient sentences.

It was a nightmare, and director Alan Parker did a great job of painting a grim picture for the audience.

There were moments in "Midnight Express" that would make anyone cringe. It was a brilliant examination of human frailties and shortcomings and how they were exploited and abused by those in power.

Those on the receiving end often snapped, and Davis' character did snap a couple of times.

On one such occasion, his girlfriend (Irene Miracle) — with whom he was traveling when he was busted in the movie — came to see him a few years after his incarceration, and she was shocked by what she saw.

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She brought a photo album with her. Money was inside the photo album, and, for the benefit of anyone who might be listening to their conversation, she told him there were pictures inside of his old friend "Mr. Franklin from the bank," and she encouraged him to escape as soon as possible, whenever he saw an opportunity.

And he did.

The story seemed entirely plausible — and parts of it were legitimate — but it exaggerated some things to achieve a desired effect.

Big–screen audiences may have had their first real look at Davis in "Midnight Express," but I knew him from a couple of earlier TV productions — the TV movie "Sybil" and the smash hit mini–series "Roots."

I have always felt that Davis' life was a tragic one, more tragic even than many of the roles he played, and the role of Billy Hayes in "Midnight Express" was a tragic one in many ways.

He was diagnosed with AIDS in the mid–1980s and died of assisted suicide in 1991.

DNA and the Boys From Brazil

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On this day in 1978, DNA and cloning were still futuristic concepts, little more than theories, really. I remember hearing my teachers speak of such things when I was in school and dismissing them as some sort of Jetsons things — totally unlikely to happen in my lifetime.

I was wrong, of course.

But director Franklin J. Schaffner had the vision and the courage to accept the challenge of explaining the theories in ways that were entertaining — and, consequently, unsettling when their relevance to the story was revealed.

The theme of Schaffner's "The Boys From Brazil," which premiered on this day in 1978, was that Josef Mengele (played by Gregory Peck) had taken some of Adolf Hitler's DNA with him when he fled Germany after World War II and had produced dozens of Hitler clones who had been distributed around the world. These baby Hitlers were adopted by couples who closely resembled Hitler's own parents in an attempt to duplicate as closely as possible the conditions that shaped the original Hitler.

At some point, it was necessary for Mengele to arrange for an adoptive father to be killed because Hitler's own father, who was more than 20 years older than Hitler's mother, died suddenly when Hitler was 13. Mengele left no stone unturned in his quest to re–create the circumstances of Hitler's life. No detail was too small.

I don't mean to suggest, of course, that the loss of a parent is a small detail. Far from it. That is a huge event in the lives of most people whatever their ages — but especially so for one so young. And I think Schaffner (and, for that matter, Ira Levin, who wrote the novel upon which the movie was based) was correct to believe that his father's death had a powerful influence on Hitler.

The movie took viewers around the globe as Laurence Olivier, a Nazi hunter, followed up on a tip from Steven Guttenberg, who stumbled on to the plot to resurrect the Third Reich and paid for it with his life.

In the movie, Mengele clearly wasn't wedded to the idea of a German fuehrer and placed Hitler clones all around the world. Olivier met four of the clones, each played unsettlingly by Jeremy Black, a teenager who, as nearly as I can tell, never appeared in a movie again.

His performance was spooky, though, to say the least. I was convinced that any of the clones he played could have grown up to be a modern–day Hitler, fulfilling an almost Nostradamus–like prophecy.

But it was ambiguous. Each had personality traits that, if seen only on the surface by those unfamiliar with the futuristic plot, would appear to be typical teenage narcissism — not necessarily a clue of what to expect.

On closer inspection, they revealed truths that went to the core of the Hitler personality, but that brings us back to the old debate over nature vs. nurture. Because these clones possessed Hitler's DNA — and, remember, much of what was known about DNA in 1978 was theoretical — did that mean they would duplicate his life experiences?

In the movie, Mengele tried to manipulate events to guarantee that the Hitler clones would have the same experiences the original Hitler had, including losing his father at a young age. But other things were not so easily manipulated, like Hitler's rejection in art school or his experiences as a soldier in World War I.

At the end of the movie, Olivier's character destroyed the list of children around the world who had been part of Mengele's experiment rather than surrender it to American Nazi hunters who were determined to eliminate the clones.

They were only children, Olivier said. They weren't responsible for the experiment that had conceived them. It wouldn't be fair for them to pay with their lives for things others had done.

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It was an uplifting, Hollywoodesque feel–good wrapup. Frankly, though, I thought the movie would have been more powerful if it had concluded the way the book did — by revealing that one of the surviving Hitler clones was developing delusions of grandeur.

Movie veterans Peck and Olivier gave brilliant performances as the story's nemeses — as did James Mason as Peck's benefactor.

To misquote Shakespeare, though, the story's the thing in "The Boys From Brazil." The acting was superb, but the story, like Black's performance, was spooky. I felt that way even at the time, when, as I say, DNA was known to exist but the applications of that knowledge were mostly theoretical.

I think it holds up just as well today although I am sure that, as commonplace as DNA application has become in modern society, the story may not have quite the impact with some viewers as it does with others.

Perhaps it was that considerable element of the unknown that made it so frightening.

'The Stand' Against Evil

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Thirty–five years ago this month, Stephen King published his lengthy novel, "The Stand," which was almost immediately proclaimed, by just about everyone I knew, to be his best.

I'll grant you, the list of his published works wasn't too long in 1978. "The Stand" was his fifth novel — the last count I heard indicated he has now published 50. Obviously, there is a lot more competition now than there was.

But, even 35 years later, I still hear people say it is his best. I haven't read all of his books, but I've read quite a few, and I, too, say — as I have been saying for 35 years — that it is his best.

Of course, what I read 35 years ago was the abridged version. In 1990, he published the original, uncut edition. I read that one, too.

The plot was deceptively simple. At an Army base, a deadly strain of the flu that has been created to be used as a weapon gets loose. Most of the people who become infected will die — but a handful will prove to be immune to it.

The survivors migrate into two camps — one dedicated to evil, the other mostly dedicated to good — and an apocalyptic confrontation is inevitable.

I remember thinking when the book came out — as I always do when I read a Stephen King book — that it would make a splendid movie.

And, eventually, it did. It was a four–part TV movie in 1994.

But the problem always has been that King's narratives seem to spend a lot of time inside the characters' heads.

The plot of "The Stand" was easy enough to follow. The American military had developed a weaponized strain of the flu, which was informally known as Captain Trips. It was released accidentally, causing an epidemic that killed more than 99% of the world's population.

The few who survived — and usually showed no symptoms — gravitated to two camps in the Western United States, and the story evolved into a battle between good and evil.

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All of which set up a final confrontation between the two sides.

The first version I read ended on a suitably ambiguous note. A baby was born to two of the survivors who lived in the good camp. One asked if humanity had learned from its experience. The other replied, "I don't know."

The longer version had a different ending, much darker. The antagonist, who somehow survived the apocalyptic battle, awakened with a case of amnesia and began to recruit new followers among an illiterate race of people who treated him like a god.

The clear implication was that another stand would be necessary.

The TV movie was pretty faithful to the story, but there were a few differences. If you've only seen the TV movie, you owe it to yourself to read the book.

Answering the Musical Question, 'Who Are You?'

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The school year was about to begin when The Who released their album "Who Are You" in 1978, and that is what I think of first when I think of that album.

It was the musical backdrop for the new school year. Whenever one switched on the radio, it wouldn't be long before the title track came on.

For those who liked The Who, it was a decidedly mixed time. It was a transitional time, and perhaps that was necessary because the Who sound that energized listeners in the '60s and '70s was fading and being replaced by synthesizers and strings.

That was quite a different sound from the rebellious, trash–your–guitar–onstage sound The Who cultivated in the early years. It was a shift that simply could not be accomplished overnight.

And I've never been convinced that it was an improvement.

I think it was becoming obvious by 1978 that The Who was experiencing a kind of burnout. After all, it must be hard to maintain that level of energetic rage that seemed to permeate the group's early stuff.

They could still play their music very well; it was the quality of the material that wasn't what it had been. In that sense, I suppose, the title of the album was appropriate for a band that seemed to be losing its musical identity.

More significant, though, was drummer Keith Moon's death nearly three weeks after the album's release.

Moon had been taking a prescription sedative to help him with his alcohol withdrawal, and, although he had a history of prescription sedative abuse, he was instructed to take one whenever he felt a craving for alcohol — but he was to take no more than three pills a day.

That was simply impossible for Moon. On the day of his death, he consumed nearly three dozen of the sedatives and apparently died in his sleep.

The following year, tragedy struck the surviving Who members when, at a concert in Cincinnati in December, nearly a dozen concertgoers were killed and more than two dozen were injured after, mistaking the group's sound check for the start of the concert, thousands of people began pushing toward the still–locked gates leading into the stadium.

At the time, I remember hearing talk that The Who was jinxed, and the jinx began with the release of "Who Are You."

I guess all that was going on with The Who at that time gave a special poignancy to the song "Music Must Change," which, frankly, I regard as one of Pete Townshend's best, albeit unacknowledged, compositions.

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And I never bought that jinx talk, either. But there was no doubt that The Who's music would have to change after Moon's death. After all, Moon was the second–greatest drummer of all time, according to Rolling Stone.

To be honest, I wasn't particularly impressed with "Who Are You" apart from a few songs. The title track was good, and "Sister Disco" was OK, but otherwise I just wasn't enthusiastic about the album.

I preferred "Who's Next" or "The Who by Numbers," the latter being an example of Townshend's soaring songwriting. Ironic, I suppose, given that some diehard Who fans have called that album "Pete Townshend's suicide note."

Obviously, it was no such thing. "The Who by Numbers" came out nearly 40 years ago when Townshend was about 30. He is 68 now.

Even if that label is meant metaphorically, Townshend continued to compose for many years. His compositions may not have been as good as they were in the early years, but his creativity didn't die.

Writing about "Who Are You" for AllMusic, Richie Unterberger observed that "it was the last reasonably interesting Who record."

I'm inclined to agree.

Not Since the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor ...

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Bluto (John Belushi): Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

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There seemed to be a real nostalgia wave in the 1970s. It was in music, in books, on TV and in the movies. It was everywhere.

I guess it is that way in every decade, for every generation. And I guess it is often nostalgia for the previous generation — for the way things were about 20 years earlier.

Well, maybe not, but that is how it was in the 1970s. Most of the longing seemed to be for the late '50s and early '60s.

By 1978, the time was right for spoofs, and National Lampoon stepped forward with "Animal House." I remember thinking of it as the anti–"American Graffiti" (If you're too young to remember "American Graffiti," it was a nostalgic movie that came out earlier in the decade — and, perhaps not–so–coincidentally — was set in 1962, the same year in which "Animal House" supposedly was set.)

John Belushi was the primary attraction for moviegoers that summer. Karen Allen and Kevin Bacon were making their big–screen debuts. Tim Matheson had been around for awhile, but nearly all his previous work had been on TV. He was a virtual stranger to movie audiences.

Donald Sutherland was probably the only cast member with extensive big–screen experience, but he wasn't the draw that Belushi, a national phenomenon since his Saturday Night Live days, was.

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And Belushi was perfect for taking jabs at the establishment, whether it was on campus or somewhere else.

But his hard–partying reputation was particularly suited for lead booze–swigging frat boy. A few years later, everyone learned how tragically accurate that reputation was, but, in 1978, everyone was laughing.

In hindsight, there is often a poignancy to his lines:

"Grab a brew. Don't cost nothin'."

"See if you can guess what I am now. I'm a zit. Get it?"

"They took the bar! The whole f***ing bar!"

"Toga! Toga!"

"Seven years of college down the drain."

Belushi was a funny man. Everyone thought so, and people expected to laugh whenever they saw him.

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Expectations may have been somewhat lower for the rest of the crew. Tim Matheson had been around for awhile, but he wasn't a household name until he played Otter.

Thomas Hulce had only been in one big–screen movie (which happened to be filmed in my hometown) when he played Pinto, but he went on to play Mozart in the Oscar–winning movie "Amadeus."

Kevin Bacon made his film debut as a smarmy Omega pledge in "Animal House," and he has gone on to appear in more than 50 movies since then, many of which have been hits.

Karen Allen made her debut in "Animal House" as well, and she, too, went on to appear in some very successful films. I thought she was very attractive when I saw her in "Animal House," and I continued to think so in her later movies.

(I've never seen the Indiana Jones movie in which she appeared a few years ago in her mid–50s, but I've seen pictures of her from that time, and I must say she still looks attractive. Older but attractive.)

You couldn't help empathizing with Allen's character. Her boyfriend was one of the officers in the Delta fraternity, and, on one occasion, she complained to him, "I'm in love with a retard!"

"Is he bigger than me?" her boyfriend asked.

The humor in "Animal House" was like that — it often needed a drummer to do the ba–boom after each gag line.

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When I watch "Animal House" today, I guess the character with whom I relate the most is the one played by Sutherland.

An English professor named Jennings, Sutherland liked to be his students' friend, and I, too, enjoy casual conversations with my students — which can make it difficult when it comes time to lay down the law and make homework assignments or schedule exams.

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Jennings: Don't write this down, but I find Milton probably as boring as you find Milton. Mrs. Milton found him boring, too. He's a little bit long–winded, he doesn't translate very well into our generation, and his jokes are terrible.

[Bell rings, students rise to leave]

Jennings: But that doesn't relieve you of your responsibility for this material. Now I'm waiting for reports from some of you. ... Listen, I'm not joking. This is my job!

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I just concluded my seventh year of teaching, and I know what he meant a lot better than I did the first time I saw the movie. Of course, I was on the other side of the academic fence then!

For me, "Animal House" is one of those movies that I can't pick my favorite line or scene. There were so many great lines and scenes that it is hard to limit myself to quoting or citing just one.

I simply enjoy it every time I watch it because it does what any great comedy should do every time. It entertains.

Several Adventure Stories in One

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"Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries."

James Michener
Chesapeake (1978)

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I think I have mentioned here before that my father was a religion and philosophy professor when I was growing up.

I don't know when he was first exposed to the works of James Michener, perhaps before I was born.

That isn't really important, I guess. The point is that Michener made quite an impression on my father, so much of an impression that he used one of Michener's novels ("The Source") as a text in his classes.

The book followed a pattern that surely is familiar to those who have read Michener's works before. It told the story of the generations of a family in the Holy Land, going back to the Stone Age, through artifacts that were uncovered by modern–day archaeologists.

I saw that book on a shelf in my father's study when I was a child, and, when I was in high school, I read it. And I discovered, when I read it (although I could tell just from looking at the copy on my father's shelf), just how wordy it was.

That's a characteristic of most of Michener's works. You have to make a real commitment to reading them. Most are more than 1,000 pages. That can be pretty daunting — but my experience is that it often makes for a rewarding read.

(Recently, I loaned my paperback copy of Michener's book "Space" to my father. I observed that, by Michener's standards, "Space" — at 805 pages — is practically a short story.)

After reading "The Source," I read Michener's book "Centennial," which followed a similar pattern. It told a more domestic tale about an area of Colorado, beginning with the dinosaurs who inhabited it millions of years ago, followed by the Indians who lived there and the settlers who replaced them. I was even more engrossed in it than I was in "The Source."

So it was with great excitement that I read "Chesapeake," which was published 35 years ago today.

"Chesapeake" was set on the East Coast and told the story of the people who lived there over a period of roughly four centuries. No dinosaurs in this one, but there were fascinating accounts of Indians, settlers, slavery, the tobacco trade, pirates, wars. It was like several adventure stories rolled into one, much like the other Michener works I had read.

There were some clear themes in "Chesapeake" that were mostly told in the stories of various families. Unlike "The Source" — more like "Centennial," actually — the book didn't really tell the stories of generations of the same family but of different families. Some were devoutly religious, some were poor, some were slaves, and Michener explored each theme as completely as he could.

People often look for something to read in the summer. Usually, they want something light and breezy, something they can read on the beach or in a park. I wouldn't classify anything Michener ever wrote as "light and breezy," but I would still heartily recommend "Chesapeake" to anyone.

Gilmour's Solo Debut

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If you were a teenager in the 1970s, the odds are pretty good that you heard Pink Floyd at least once — whether you were a casual listener or a devoted fan.

For the casual listener, Pink Floyd probably meant songs like "Money" or "Time."

For people with more exposure to Pink Floyd, there was a lot more to listen to. But, in the late 1970s, there was a lot of movement going on within Pink Floyd. Roger Waters was promoting an idea that eventually became "The Wall," Pink Floyd's double album from 1979, and members of the band were working on individual projects.

David Gilmour, who had been with the band since 1967, was working on a solo project that was first released on this date in 1978. He wasn't leaving the band — he was just stretching his creative wings a bit.

My memory is that the main track from that album, "There's No Way Out Of Here," got a lot of radio air time that summer.

And Gilmour, in addition to being a well–established guitarist, had a voice that was perfect for songs like "There's No Way Out Of Here," which was similar to classic Pink Floyd tracks like "Wish You Were Here."

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Frankly, I never understood why his solo debut wasn't more highly regarded. I thought it was a pleasant enough album, easy to listen to, accessible even for non–Floyd fans.

Possibly at times, though, the songs on the album sounded a bit too Floyd–like. "There's No Way Out Of Here," for example, sounded like a Floyd demo that, for whatever reason, was left off a Pink Floyd album and never revived.

Casual Floyd listeners wouldn't have picked up on that, I suppose, but dedicated Floyd fans — and experienced music critics — may have. I certainly saw similarities in songs like "Raise My Rent" and "So Far Away" — but, to be totally honest, the whole album sounded like Pink Floyd outtakes to me.

Reasonably short outtakes, admittedly, but outtakes nonetheless.

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At that time in my life, that appealed to me. Pink Floyd's most recent album at that time was "Animals," an album I have grown to appreciate more as I have matured, but, at the time, I found the long tracks to be somewhat tedious. While I always appreciated the unconventional nature of Pink Floyd's music, I was drawn to the more traditional album arrangements of "Wish You Were Here" and "Dark Side of the Moon."

I guess I was more predisposed to like albums with a single track that took up an entire side of a record if that record was made by Yes, which was always more of a symphonic experience for me, anyway.

By the way, technically, "There's No Way Out Of Here" was a cover. It was originally recorded by another band a couple of years earlier.

But few people were aware of it at the time, and fewer still probably are aware of it today.

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And for Floyd fans, it is worth noting that "Short and Sweet," a song that was co–written by Gilmour, strongly resembled "Run Like Hell," which would be included on "The Wall" the very next year.

Talk about coming attractions.

Theodoric of York's Debut

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On this date in 1978, Steve Martin was hosting Saturday Night Live.

That wasn't a big deal, really. SNL was not quite three years old at that time, but Martin had already been the show's host on four different occasions.

On this night in 1978, however, he made his first appearance as Theodoric of York, a Medieval "barber" (read: doctor) whose preferred prescription for any ailment was a bleeding.

(Well, I think it was Theodoric's first appearance. I haven't seen any mention of that character in Martin's previous stints as host.)

Steve Martin was hysterically funny as Theodoric. In fact, I actually preferred his lampooning of the Middle Ages to his jabs at Eastern European people, as in his recurring Festrunk brothers skits with Dan Aykroyd.

The Czechoslovakian brothers may have been more popular (they were the "wild and crazy guys"), but Theodoric had a "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" feel to it that I really liked. Theodoric's logic always reminded me of the witch scene in "Holy Grail."

And, like the "Holy Grail," this is something I can watch endlessly and always be amused.

How could anyone not be entertained by Steve Martin and the original Not–Ready–for–Prime–Time–Players ensemble?

It Takes One to Know One

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There have been several characters in television series who were known to be either crazy or putting on a really good show at being crazy.

But none were ever any better at it than Jamie Farr, who spent 11 years portraying Corporal Klinger, a draftee in the Korean War who tried for a long time to persuade enough people that he was crazy to be discharged under the infamous "Section Eight" — also known as a psycho.

Corporal Klinger wasn't really crazy, but the episode of M*A*S*H that first aired on this night in 1978 ("Major Topper") was a pretty effective argument that, well, it takes one to know one.

Klinger had studied crazy people for awhile. That much was clear from all the earlier episodes, and he was still bucking for a discharge in 1978. It wasn't until later, I guess, that Gary Burghoff left the show, and Farr's character took over as company clerk, a position in which he tried to be more military in his appearance — but, on this day in 1978, he was still openly trying to be Nutsy Fagan.

In this episode, Klinger was put in charge of another corporal, Boots Miller (Hamilton Camp), who gave names to and spoke to his socks and shoes and treated ladles as if they were microphones, among other things. Most of his antics were relatively harmless, but one was not — his tendency to fire not–so–make–believe guns (armed with definitely not make–believe bullets) at imaginary enemy gliders.

When Boots tried to shoot down some gliders in Col. Potter's presence, it was enough to persuade Potter to fill out the paperwork to have Boots discharged.

Klinger, understandably, felt a bit miffed. After all, he had been bucking for a Section Eight all along but hadn't received one. Boots, meanwhile, sashayed into camp, took a few shots at imaginary gliders and got a ticket home.

But Klinger had the last laugh. Some time later, after Boots had returned to the States, he sent a letter to the 4077th explaining that he had been a success in the children's toys business but needed the help of his former colleagues on a new toy idea — Enemy Glider — but he had no photos of the gliders he shot down while in Korea or their pilots, and he wanted to know if the folks in the camp could help him with photos — or whatever else they might have.

Camp appeared on another episode of M*A*S*H as an entirely different (although every bit as unbalanced) character — but his performance as Boots Miller was the better one. Even Klinger had to admit that Boots was Looney Tunes — "and th–th–th–that's all, folks."

Do You Smell What I Smell?

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Hawkeye (Alan Alda): Jesus ate with the lepers.

Father Mulcahy (William Christopher): He was an exceptionally good sport.

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On this day in 1978, the M*A*S*H TV series was about halfway through its 11–year run.

It is often said of sitcoms that, when they have been on the air that long, the episodes tend to become stale.

And it is true that M*A*S*H had some misfires that year.

But the episode that aired 35 years ago tonight was pure entertainment from start to finish. I've always thought of it as one of the series' best.

It wasn't like many of the episodes in the latter years of the series — in which a somber angle was inserted into an otherwise upbeat story. It was strictly comedy, all the way through.

As it opened, the surgeons had just completed a particularly grueling session in the operating room. To unwind, Charles (David Ogden Stiers) took to playing his French horn, much to the dismay of Hawkeye and B.J. (Mike Farrell), who decided to abstain from bathing until Charles stopped playing his horn.

Charles refused to back down, of course, and so did Hawkeye and B.J. It was a case of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object.

And the rest of the camp was caught in the middle. Charles' French horn playing was, to put it mildly, annoying, and Hawkeye and B.J.'s stench was, well, irritating.

Something had to be done.

The odor became so bad that Hawkeye and B.J. were ordered by everyone else to eat their meals outside the mess hall. When Father Mulcahy strolled by and observed that it was a fine day to be eating outside, Hawkeye and B.J. invited him to sit and share the noontime meal. He refused, prompting them to inquire if it was because of their smell. Mulcahy admitted that it was.

"Jesus ate with the lepers," Hawkeye said.

And, in one of the best lines I have ever heard, Mulcahy replied, "He was an exceptionally good sport."

(An interesting side story involved Col. Potter and a suicidal patient. The patient's girlfriend or wife — I forget which — had been a beauty queen or something like that, and in high school they had been voted cutest couple. Now, disfigured by his injury, the patient could only think that they would be regarded as beauty and the beast.)

Inevitably, I suppose, there was a rebellion. The camp forcibly bathed Hawkeye and B.J. with teams assigned to wash, apply soap and dry the two miscreants.

As for Charles, his French horn was taken from him and placed in the path of an oncoming Jeep that left it flat as a pancake while the camp cheered.

But the cheering died away as Col. Potter strolled onto the scene. He appraised the situation and announced to the hushed crowd, clearly fearing severe punishment, that they were to be confined "to the Officer's Club for the duration of the whiskey. Pierce, Hunnicutt and Winchester are buying!"

Winchester had an issue to discuss. "My French horn ..." he began, looking at the flattened instrument.

"By all means, bring it along," Potter told him. "We'd love to hear it."

Memories of Baker Street

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If you were a teenager in the late 1970s, "Baker Street" almost certainly must bring back memories that are strong and vivid.

I know it does for me.

There are some songs that always remind me of the very first time I ever heard them. I am instantly reminded of how old I was, where I was at the time, what I was doing, etc.

"Baker Street" was not one of those songs for me.

I don't know how old I was when I first heard it. I don't know where I was at the time. I don't remember what I was doing.

I do remember that, when it was a hit in 1978, I was working at a self–service gas station. My shifts tended to be 4–6 hours long, and there was little to do, as I sat at my window, except listen to the radio so that's what I did.

Thus, my mind links that song to memories from my perch, where I could watch as traffic came and went through my hometown. A song called "Baker Street" seemed to be the ideal theme for the work I was doing, which was good because the radio stations played it as often as they could.

Seriously. If I pulled a six–hour shift, I probably heard that song played four or five times on the radio during that shift.

I couldn't tell you the first time I heard it. I only know that I gradually became aware of it; one day, it just seemed like it had always been around.

That song was recorded by a fellow named Gerry Rafferty, a Scottish singer/songwriter who died yesterday at the age of 63.

I heard his name often in 1978. I don't know if I heard it a few years earlier, when his other signature song, "Stuck in the Middle With You," was a hit for a group called Stealers Wheel.

I always preferred "Baker Street," I guess. Bruce Eder of AllMusic.com wrote that it was "a masterpiece of pop production."

And so it was, I suppose.

All I know is that, whenever I hear it — and I do still hear it, from time to time, when I'm driving and I have my radio on — I feel as if I am transported back to the late 1970s, and the things that were on my mind then are fresh on my mind now.

"Baker Street" is that kind of song. It has a strange kind of power, the ability to conjure up stray memories that have been trapped in my brain for years.

It's really weird, sometimes. I can be driving along and "Baker Street" will come on the radio, and a fleeting thought will cross my mind. I will think of the girl I was dating or a class I was taking, or I will remember that I need to change the oil in my vehicle.

That's a plausible thought — until my subconscious mind produces an image of the vehicle that needs the oil change — and it isn't the vehicle I drive today but rather the vehicle I was driving 30 years ago! I guess it goes without saying that the thought loses all credibility at that point.

I'm losing more and more of those links to my past as time goes by.

It's just as well, I suppose. That time is gone, and those memories that have been locked in my brain all these years are ghosts that need to be set free.

It's time to let them go — and to let Rafferty go as well.