Saturday 9

 

Gloria

Welcome to Saturday: 9. What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love to answer questions, however, and here are today's questions!

Saturday 9: Gloria (1982)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

 

1) In this song, Laura Branigan is advising her friend to take it a bit slower in her pursuit of a particular man. Did you more recently give or receive advice?

 

I get paid to give advice.

2) Gloria seems determined to rush ahead, regardless of the consequences. Do you consider yourself a big risk taker?

No.

 

3) Laura herself seemed to be impulsive in love. She met a lawyer at a party in 1978 and they married months later. It worked out, though. They were married for almost 20 years, until his death. Thinking of your circle of friends, has someone more recently been married, divorced, or widowed?

No.

4) "Gloria" was originally recorded in 1979 by Italian singer Umberto Tozzi. His version was a Top Ten hit in Switzerland, Belgium and Germany. Have you ever visited any of those countries?

No, but I’d like to.

5) In 2018, decades after its initial release, this recording of "Gloria" enjoyed a surge in popularity. The St. Louis Blues used it as their victory song whenever they won a hockey game at home. What's the most recent sporting event you attended? 

Drew and I are baseball fans.  We follow the New York Mets and the Long  Island Ducks.  A visit to Citi Field is very expensive, so we make the trip only once or twice a year.  

But the Ducks play in an independent league, in a ballpark that holds maybe 6,000 fans.  We see 8 or 9 Ducks games every summer.  This year the Ducks made the playoffs, and we went to a playoff game on September 22.

6) After Laura Branigan died of a cerebral aneurysm at the age of 52, her high school established a scholarship in her honor. When did you most recently return to your old high school, and what was the reason?

I raised my children in the same community where I grew up.  So I spent a lot of time revisiting my old schools.  One of the best moments I had as a parent was “Back to School Night” when my daughter Jen was an 8th grader.  It seems her English teacher was …well, I had a crush on him  when I was in 7th grade. 

The last time I was in the high school must have been about 10 years ago, when I took a yoga class.

 
7) In 1982, when this song was popular, the Sears catalog sold an at-home blood pressure monitor that ran on four C-batteries and sold for $190 (that's $600 in today's dollars). Amazon's current best-selling monitor is cheaper ($40) and smaller, running on AAA batteries. Is high blood pressure a concern of yours?

Yes, I take medication for high blood pressure.  It seems to be working, my pressure is fairly normal these days.

 

8) Also in 1982, The Compleat Beatles, a two-hour documentary about The Fab Four was released to good reviews. Do you enjoy documentaries?

Yes.  One of my favorite documentaries is The Last Play at Shea, which is the story behind Billy Joel’s Shea Stadium concerts.  My favorite moment from the documentary?  There were many guest artists at the concerts, but the best was Sir Paul McCartney.  He was invited to close the show because of the Beatles’ history with Shea.  He flew in from London, landed at JFK and made it to Shea Stadium in record time.  Here’s how Sir Paul tells it:

I wish I could have been there that night, but I couldn’t afford to pay scalper’s prices for a ticket, but at least there’s the documentary and the accompanying concert video.  Let’s listen to Sir Paul from that last night at Shea.

(The following year I was lucky enough to score tickets to Sir Paul’s concert at Citi Field. I was there when he recorded Good Evening NYC)

9) Random question: Which of these chores to you enjoy the least: doing the dishes or the laundry?

I am fortunate to have appliances — washer, dryer, dishwasher — but I still don’t enjoy either task.  I’d say dishes were my least favorite task because they get done every day, but laundry gets done once or twice a week.