Damn can’t help myself.



I believe the most representative song of the Motown sound.

That's a great song, Da_Nit. I try not to look ahead on the Top 500 albums list, but I wouldn't be surprised if that song was on an upcoming album.

Yesterday I had lunch with 2+2er and intrepid world traveler golddog. You can find his excellent blog in the travel forum.

We met at the MGM, had a drink and swapped stories, and we had a few laughs as well. We were going to play $1/$2 but the list was massively long. I will be returning to the game tomorrow. Meanwhile, I am grateful to have met some very cool and interesting people through this blog.

You folks are awesome.

There’s other Motown albums that are considered more critically acclaimed so I doubt it.

I’m thinking I might follow your lead and go through the top 500 but going the opposite direction.

To be fair, I didn't know about it either until YouTube suggested it.



Nice! Exploration of and education in the arts is always a valid expenditure of time.

Thanks for the pleasant lunchtime, SJ. Nice conversation in a nice bar & grill.

Too bad the list was long. Maybe someday you'll be out my way & we'll head up the hill.

Rolling Stone's 494th Greatest Album of All Time: Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes Featuring Veronica by The Ronettes (1964)

A number of us Gen-X geezers got our proper introduction to The Ronettes from Eddie Money's 1986 smash hit: Take Me Home Tonight



In which Ronnie Spector reprises a small portion of her hit single: Be My Baby, from the album we're discussing here, in a clever and catchy 80's mashup, courtesy of Mr. Money.

Here is where I'll admit to being baffled for a full 30 seconds by the album subtitle: Featuring Veronica. Who the hell was this Veronica, and did she do anything of note after this album? I had believed this album to be Ronnie Spector's gig.

Then it hit me: Ronnie; Veronica. I'm not terribly bright, sometimes.

Now that I had Ronnie's first name sussed out, it was on to her surname, which was—at least for a few years—Spector. Ronnie had picked up that moniker from being married to legendary producer Phil Spector from 1968-1974, and it was he who had produced Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes Featuring Veronica in 1964.

Ronnie and Phil's breakup, ten years later, must not have been amicable; in 1994 Phil lobbied to keep the Ronettes out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, arguing firstly that the Ronettes (outside of Ronnie herself) were not a true band, but instead were composed of hundreds of hired studio guns; and secondly that the "band" had only put out one studio album, and that that was not a large enough body of work for the Hall of Fame's consideration.

Ronnie responded at the time with “[Phil Spector is] an angry and unhappy man, and he hasn’t been successful since I left.” In spite of his efforts, The Ronettes would eventually go on to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 2007.

We'll be running into Mr. Spector several more times during this top 500 list, as he produced a fair number of huge hit albums and songs which will be showing up here. Spector was by all reports a musical genius; unfortunately, he was also a very troubled one. He died in 2021 while serving a lengthy prison sentence for murdering actress Lana Clarkson in 2003.

Aside from being a convicted murderer, Spector was most famous for his Wall of Sound production technique. This involved having a large ensemble of musicians creating a dense musical environment by adding guitar, bass, horns, maracas, bells, violins, keyboards, pianos, backup singers and drums into the same mix, and often doubling and tripling up on each other (i.e. having a piano, a guitar and an electric keyboard all playing the same riff at the same time and sounding like one very full-toned instrument). We can hear some of this in the album's representative track, Chapel of Love.



Here I use the qualifier "some" regarding the Wall of Sound because; at first, I did not find the instrumentals behind the Ronettes's album to be particularly dense, but after I'd thought about the other music that had come out before this album, back in the late 50's and the early 60's, about how sparse and tinny a lot of it sounds in comparison, I could begin to hear some of Phil Spector's vision taking off.

Compare Chapel of Love to something from Buddy Holly, for example.



It's possible that I didn't notice the Wall of Sound technique on this album because it then became and has remained the standard for many Rock and Roll songs. It reminds me of the sketch where the first fish says to the second fish: "The water is pretty nice today," and the second fish replies, "What is water?"

Let's take, for example, Nirvana, who made a wonderful big racket for just three guys, even when they were playing live and without any of the studio add-ons. Kurt's feedback here takes the place of additional instruments in their wall of sound.



The Ronettes' sound was a new development for the early 60's, but their style was still based upon those oldies Rock and Roll tropes from the Silent Generation: wholesome tales of teenage puppy love and heartbreak, with only the most cryptic hints of anyone ever getting past second base—shy of getting married, of course.

Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes Featuring Veronica seemed like one of the last albums to arrive just before the British Invasion and the psychedelic era kicked off the Go-Go portion of the mid and late 60's, finding the Silent Generation quietly (of course) passing the baton of youth over to the Boomers.

As such, the Ronettes come across as a bit of a PG-rated oldies girl band, albeit a talented and innovative one.

My favorite song on the album breaks this mold and serves up a rollicking, grownup-sounding live cover of Ray Charles's What'd I Say?



Rolling Stone Says:

More a Spanish Harlem street gang than a girl group, the Ronettes were pop goddesses dressed as Catholic schoolgirls gone to hell and back.

What the **** are they on about here?

Maybe it's a Disney World ride version of a Spanish Harlem street gang, where the hundreds of hired studio guns are all cute little singing animatronic animals?

I think if you saw pictures of early 60s NYC gang girls, it would be difficult to discern what you were looking at. The hair might be teased a little higher, and the skirts a little straighter, but unless you were there at the time it would be difficult to pick up the little signals. jmo

Thanks golddog! Looking forward to reading more about your adventures in the Maritime Provinces. I'd love to get up there some day, and they're not terribly far from me.

You're probably right. I've never even seen West Side Story, though I did read the original play that it was based on, but the old play involved Italian gangs instead of New Yorkers.

Yesterday I finally got my ass over to the casino. Unfortunately, the poker wait list was huge, even on a Wednesday afternoon after a holiday, thanks to a well-loved July high hand promotion that randomly pays between $300 and $10,000 every hour. Of course, the highest payouts have a much smaller chance of being picked, but a person can dream, and many, many Springfield regs share this dream.

So I didn't play poker. I'm going to have to show up earlier tomorrow.

I did, however, learn a new advantage slot: Buffalo Ascension. I had spotted Allen "Chainsaw" Kessler on Twitter playing it, and while I've never met Mr. Kessler, I know enough about him to know that he does not countenance making -EV plays. So I did my research.

Buffalo Ascension is known as a "Chances to Win" game, similar to Hexbr3aker 3 and Wheel of Fortune High Roller, which are games that I'd seen other grinders playing at MGM, but which had previously baffled me, so I'd stayed away from them.

Chances to Win games build their own slot reels from the ground up. You'll find them with 5 columns and a few rows on each column, like this



Here columns 2 and 3 are one away from the top, and columns 1, 4 and 5 are all 4 away from the top. Hitting an arrow symbol on one of the reels causes the column with the arrow to grow one block, so if the arrow hits on column 2 or column 3, the bonus jackpot will pay out (not the $5386, of course, but a small "stampede" bonus or a larger "super stampede" bonus), and the game will reset, with the columns knocked down somewhat and the game back in a -EV state. If the arrow hits on column 1, 4, or 5, that particular column will grow from its current height of 4 blocks high up to 5 blocks high, and the game will continue, with a few more chances to win on the reel play portion.

That is, the more blocks (i.e. columns and rows) in total appearing on the board, the more chances there are to win on the regular reel play. That's how the reels work, and it means that you'll lose less on average while you're waiting for the jackpot to hit; also, the more blocks on the board, the closer you are to said jackpot.

The games are very helpful. They tell you on screen how many chances you have to win at any time on a given denomination. And on Buffalo Ascension, if that number is higher than 3200, the game is +EV until one of the columns hits the top and triggers the jackpot, thus resetting the blocks and lowering the chances to win at that denomination. For Hexbr3aker 3, that number is 3500. I could not find the number for Wheel of Fortune High Roller, but I'll go with the 3500 for now and see what happens.

All of this finally clicked with me yesterday, and between the 3 new titles, I was able to add 20 new machines to my slot repertoire at MGM. Unfortunately, I made a rookie mistake and lost over $100 playing the wrong denomination on Buffalo Ascension. But that won't happen again.

MGM Springfield $1/$2 poker: 0 hours

MGM Springfield Slots: 3 hours
(-$134.78)

Running Poker Total: 389 hours, +$8617.00

Running Slot Total: 127 hours, +$3398.56

Grand Total: 516 hours, +$12015.56

My Jeep failed its annual state safety inspection due to the front windows being tinted too dark of a color; even though it had passed the inspection the last two years with the same tint, my brother recommended that I take it to a new place this year for inspection, as the wait times were supposed to be shorter, and the new place failed it.

There's nothing inherently unsafe about tinted windows; they merely get in the way of police being able to profile drivers and passengers.

Removing the tint involves scraping it off the inside of the window in the humid 90°F (32°C) sun, so I took it to a garage and left it to the experts.

I dropped the Jeep off yesterday, and they should hopefully be done with it today. All of our local garages are jam-packed with repair orders as well as lacking in mechanics and office staff, so wait times are at a premium.

We don't have inspections here. My sister ran into the same thing with her tint in Texas but I heard they ae discontinuing inspections there soon.

Rolling Stone's 493rd Greatest Album of All Time: Here, My Dear by Marvin Gaye (1978)

My friend Will is a fan of giant summer and holiday blockbuster movies, but he expends an inordinate amount of energy trying to avoid the many trailers, previews, spoilers, reviews, hot takes and box office reports that accompany these studio juggernauts.

His goal is to sit down in the theater in possession of what he calls a "baby mind," i.e. no bias, expectations or preconceptions. He wants to experience the movie in a pure state, in the moment, as it happens. With all of his efforts, he seems to get a lot more enjoyment out of the blockbusters than the average moviegoer.

I usually go to the movies with Will and his wife, Sasha. Sasha goes with the opposite of a baby mind; she has taken in the hype machine, has read the snarky reviews, has found out the spoilers, and she loves to hate on the various genre-accompanying flaws within each movie.

For many reasons, I appreciate both of these viewpoints, and mine falls somewhere in the middle. I like the baby mind idea, but not enough to retire to the media equivalent of a Unabomber shack every time some new big thing is announced.

I can, however, attempt this baby mindset with old albums that I've never listened to before. And this is how I've been approaching my first listenings, here at the bottom portion of these top 500 albums: me with a baby mind; or as much as I can achieve, it's never perfect. Any research that I do—cursory as it is—always comes after the first listen.

I didn't know much about Marvin Gaye Jr., other than his untimely death at the hands of his father, Marvin Gaye Sr. But I couldn't help but notice that this album had no hits on it, at least none that I could recognize. So that gave me a preconception from the get-go, as I know that Marvin Gaye was a Motown legend, and that he put out a large library of big hits on other albums, albums that we'll be reviewing later on in this thread.

The first few songs on this album are not hit single material. They are lovelorn, aggrieved, bitter, biting and sarcastic missives to an ex lover. The third track: When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You, shows up no less than 3 times in different versions on the album.

The first song: Here, My Dear, is probably the most representative.



Although the lyrics seem to be wistful and conciliatory towards an ex-lover, my sarcasm detectors went off immediately, and they did not stop with their klaxon wailing until the abortive end of the song. See if you can detect a note or two of passive-aggressive scorn within this song.

The album is not all heartbroken vitriol. My favorite track, Time To Get it Together, with its funky 70's grooves, is—if not a complete diversion—at least a further step in the grief process—that of acceptance.



So that was my first listen. The next step was to find out what the hell was going on with this album. Mind you, I don't look at the Rolling Stone review until after I've finished my own, but any other articles become fair game after the first listen.

It turns out that a portion of the royalties from Here, My Dear were to be given to Marvin Gaye's ex-wife, Anna Gordy, sister of Motown founder Berry Gordy, as part of a court-ordered divorce settlement.

Here, my dear. Here's your ****ing alimony.

And thus we run into further songs like Is That Enough, with the following lyrics:

Somebody tell me please, tell me please
Why do I have to pay attorney fees, attorney fees?
This is a joke
I need a smoke

Marvin and Anna had had a tumultuous marriage to begin with, especially considering that Marvin had knocked up Anna's 16-year-old niece, Denise Gordy, who then gave the baby to the couple to adopt and claim as their own.

That's a lot to unpack, especially since one of the articles seemed to hint at the possibility of a prior surrogate parenthood agreement between the three parties, given that Anna was unable to conceive.

But even if that were the case (and I couldn't find any actual evidence for it), there is still the question of how much consent a 15 or 16 year old girl could give for this sort of thing.



Getting back to the album: It's not great. I expect that there will be more and much better Marvin Gaye albums forthcoming on this list, and my first listen to those will be, deliberately, without expectations.

Rolling Stone Says:

It’s one of the weirdest Motown records ever. Marvin Gaye’s divorce settlement required him to make two new albums and pay the royalties to his ex-wife – the sister of Motown boss Berry Gordy. So Gaye made this bitterly funny double LP of breakup songs, including “You Can Leave, But It’s Going to Cost You.”

And, like me, they quoted the attorney fees lyrics. The only thing I wonder is: why is this album on their top 500 list?

When we lived in DC it was well known that handing the inspector a $20 avoided this kind of BS. Not sure if that would work in Mass - definitely doesn't in Arizona.

I'll guess that the cops will still be able to use tint as a pretext to pull people over.

It's also a thing in Mass. The last two years, I timed my oil change and tune-up with the inspection, i.e. check/change fluids and do what needs to be done to pass the inspection, then slap a sticker on it. I didn't do that this year with the new place and failed.

Just to go on record, I hate window tint if it prevents me from making eye contact with the driver. If I am on a motorcycle, or even just walking, I won't enter a car's kill zone without making eye contact. There's really nothing to do about hidden drivers other than stay the f away from them.

bullseye, and i don't ride motorcycles

FWIW, the rig looks better without the front window tint.

Back in the Chair



Today I woke up early, solved the Wordle, watched a poker video, memorized a tell, and hit the casino bright and early. I called at 9:08AM to reserve a seat for the poker room opening at 10AM, and I hit the list at #28. All day long, the list for $1/$2 never got shorter than 50 people, so I didn't get up and take a dinner break after 6 hours; instead, I leatherassed it for the full 8.

I've mentioned before that people love this Christmas in July promo, with its potential for a $10,000 hourly high hand giveaway; and in fact, one of the $10k prizes went off today.

I didn't make any high hands today, but I did put on something of a checkraising clinic. I've built a fair amount of history with the regs at the Springfield MGM, and it seems that more than a few of them have been betting me widely after I've checked to them from out of position...in short, I've been check/folding perhaps too much on turn and river spots, and some people have caught on.

I worked on that today with some timely checkraises, and hopefully I put The Fear into a few of the regs. It didn't hurt that I ran well.

Today was a good day.

MGM Springfield $1/$2 poker: 8 hours
+$410.00

MGM Springfield Slots: 2 hours
+$205.28

Running Poker Total: 397 hours, +$9027.00

Running Slot Total: 129 hours, +$3603.84

Grand Total: 526 hours, +$12630.84

Back on track, go-go-GOoooo!!!

Thanks guys!

This being poker, yesterday was not a good day. I was at a very soft table, which featured limped pots going 4-8 ways almost every hand. I was the only frequent raiser, and I missed almost every flop.

When I do that for long enough, even the most passive players start to throw in bets and raises and bluffs postflop, thanks to my image as a player who never has it. The adjustment is to tighten up, cut out the light c-betting, and to put in value bets and snap off bluff raises when I make a hand...but sometimes I don't make a hand.

On the slot front, I only made a few pennies; however, while on a break from the poker table, I found a Wheel of Fortune High Roller that appeared to be in a +EV state. The catch was that it was +EV at the very highest denomination: $40 a play. I'd brought $1600 with me, but $600 of that was tied up between chips on the poker table and chips already lost from playing poker.

That left me $1000, which at $40 a play left only 25 plays to try to make the bonus. Obviously, it would be more plays than that, as the reels would pay out something along the way, but if the reels went cold, then it wouldn't be many more than 25. Thoughts of dumping $1000 into a slot machine (which I was not even sure was +EV, given that I'd found no numbers for it online), having to get up to hit the ATM, then finding another slot grinder cashing out on the jackpot kept me away from the play.

I could, of course, have gone to the ATM for cushion funds, and then sat down at the slot, but I have an aversion to using the casino ATMs. It's not just the high fees, it's also that my bank has locked my account on around half of my few attempts to take a few hundo out at the casinos. That's annoying, but not enough for me to go through the trouble of switching banks.

MGM Springfield $1/$2 poker: 6.5 hours
(-$189.00)

MGM Springfield Slots: 2 hours
+$0.08

Running Poker Total: 403.5 hours, +$8838.00

Running Slot Total: 131 hours, +$3603.92

Grand Total: 534.50 hours, +$12441.92

Today, it is with great dismay that I confirm I've developed some sort of allergy to one of mankind's greatest inventions, as well as a sustaining comfort to me for the last four decades.

Beer.

The symptoms are a range of embarrassing IBS-like gastro-intestinal distresses. I had these issues throughout June, when I was drinking beer every day. When I stopped with the beer for a couple of days, the symptoms disappeared. The next day, I drank beer and they returned. I then went more than a week without beer, and I had no symptoms. Yesterday, I tried beer again, and today I had to cut short my poker session when the symptoms returned.

Ahhhhh....


Whiskey, wine, cider and cocktails are still okay, fortunately.

I played a four hour poker session, and nothing of note happened, poker-wise. On the slot front: the marginal $40 per spin play was still available on one of the Wheel of Fortune High Rollers. And I was still leery of it, given that none of the other grinders had touched it either.

I did, however, find a good $4 play on another Wheel, and that worked out well, with a prerecorded Vanna White serving as my consistent ally and sugar momma.

Tomorrow, my old bosses will be attending a funeral, and I'll be filling in for them at the office for the day.

MGM Springfield $1/$2 poker: 4 hours
+$78.00

MGM Springfield Slots: 2 hours
+$646.35

Running Poker Total: 407.5 hours, +$8916.00

Running Slot Total: 133 hours, +$4250.27

Grand Total: 540.5 hours, +$13166.27

Sorry about your beer malady. 🍺 That would absolutely suck for me.

Thanks CowboyCold! That was quite comforting, actually. And I liked the mini Law and Order episode.

It's not surprising that Willie can act, on top of his other talents. I bought into his mentor/profiler role.