Holiday kickoff: A march plus quick hits -- does a country NEED a finance minister?; Geraldo's darkest day; world's worst joke

by Ken

IT'S 4TH OF JULY WEEKEND, SO WHY NOT KICK
OFF WITH SOME SUITABLY 4TH OF JULY MUSIC?

This is, I think, the best military-band march written by someone not named John Philip Sousa. In fact, it's better than all but the best of the Sousa marches. And I've got two nifty performances to share.

Alert readers will recognize that we've heard them before. It was in a May 2010 Sunday Classics post, "What stirs the blood better than a military march? This week courtesy of Mozart and Sousa." Well, we're hearing it again. (And now, with that first page of score in front of us, we can see right away that Felix Slatkin takes that first repeat while Morton Gould doesn't!)

COMING UP: Tomorrow, "Salute to the Services"; and Monday, the only possible climax to our musical 4th.

E. E. BAGLEY: National Emblem

Morton Gould and His Symphonic Band. RCA/BMG, recorded Oct. 17, 19, and 26, 1956
Concert Arts Symphonic Band, Felix Slatkin, cond. Capitol/EMI, recorded 1958

NOW, HOW ABOUT SOME HOLIDAY QUICK HITS? NOT
EXACTLY NEWS STORIES, BUT NOT EXACTLY NOT

(1) You can't slip anything past that AP

President Sarkozy and now-former Finance Minister Lagarde,
who for a brief, magical moment appeared irreplaceable

Now, with the New York sexual-assault case against forrmer IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn apparently near collapse, we're all wondering what exactly is the deal? There was always speculation that he was set up, maybe by people who wanted him out of the IMF (where he may have been thought not entirely on board enough with the fund's "austerity" mandate), maybe by people who didn't want him running against French President Nikolas Sarkozy in the 2012 election. If there's any chance that it was the latter, the principals may be disappointed. On yesterday's BBC World Service news, the correspondent in France was speculating that if charges against Dominique don't stick, he may be welcomed home as a martyr, with the possibility of a political future after all.

Meanwhile, there's no question that he's out of a job with the IMF, having already been replaced by French Foreign Minister Christine Lagarde. Which partially explains this teaser Wednesday morning's Washington Post's "Today's Headlines" e-newsletter:

France to name new finance minister after Lagarde chosen to head IMF
PARIS — France is expected to name a new finance minister to replace Christine Lagarde, who is leaving to take up the top job at the International Monetary Fund next week.
( Associated Press Associated Press, AP)

Disappointingly, the actual head on the story (at least by the time I clicked through; I noted that by then the story had been updated) was "French president names Francois Baroin as new finance minister to replace Christine Lagarde." Personally, I like it better the other way, which suggested that President Sarkozy was really breaking the situation down into a step-by-step process, the first step being huddling with his people to thrash out the question of whether la République really needs to have a finance minister.

(2) Geraldo's darkest day: "Humiliated and deeply embarrassed" -- all the way to the bank

Reflecting recently on "the recent press frenzy over Sarah Palin’s less-than-riveting gubernatorial e-mails," our pal Al Kamen ventured in his WaPo "In the Loop" column a week or two ago: "It was a great discredit to the trade, we’re told -- presuming we have any credit to dis."

It’s as if no one remembers the spectacular Geraldo Rivera “special” 25 years ago when he blew open Al Capone’s safe on live television, only to find a stop sign and two empty gin bottles inside. . . .

Rivera, in an interview 20 years after the event, said he was “humiliated and deeply embarrassed.” But then, he said, he found out the next morning that the show “was the highest rated syndicated special in television history.”

He’s still laughing -- all the way to the bank.

The day after that darkest day, it seems, the sun shone brightly.

(3) World's worst joke? Gotta be a contender

I've mentioned that at some point in the hazy past I must have signed up for this daily joke from Arcamax, which I usually don't even bother reading. (Mostly it's a pretext for dumping in a bunch of paid promotions that are fairly obnoxious, but not enough so to justify the possible ordeal of unsubscribing -- you never know what they're going to put you through.) I don't know why I happened to read this one the other day, but even before I got to the, er, punch line, I was thinking that I've heard a lot of jokes in my time, and a lot of real clunkers, but if I've ever heard a worse one, it's mercifully forgotten.

Naturally I felt an immediate need to share it. I've refrained till now.

Job Interview

An employment interviewer for a big company in New York was talking to an attractive young woman applying for a job. Looking over the application form, the interviewer noticed that the girl had not answered one important question concerning transportation to and from work.

"What about your bus line?" the interviewer asked her.

"I don't believe I mentioned it," came the pleased reply, "but it's a 36C."

Is that a killer joke, or what? I assume, by the way, that the "in New York" was stuck in in an attempt to lend some plausibility to the notion that a job-application form might ask for "bus line," but even if you can stretch your mind around the basic idea, wouldn't a New York application ask for subway line? Gosh, that would spoil the, er, joke, though, wouldn't it?


HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY HOLIDAY!

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