47 years ago today, the top five songs on the Billboard Hot 100 were all by the same artist: The Beatles. In fact, the lads from Liverpool had a total of 12 songs in the list. For you younger folks, “singles” were like “tracks” except they came on a round piece of vinyl with grooves (and a big hole in the middle), and instead of downloading one song for a buck, you actually got two because there was a “B” side (unless you hung out by the local AM station – back then, AM stations actually played music, if you can believe that – and got the DJs to toss you their worn out radio station singles, which were single-sided – presumably because DJs weren’t smart enough to play the correct side).

Another difference was that singles – also known as 45s, because they played as 45 RPM – were “open source,” meaning that once you bought them, you could play them on any device you owned without any authorization or de-authorization nonsense, and you could freely trade or lend them with your friends. You could also create your own “playlists” by stacking them up on a big dildo-looking thing and playing them in whatever order you wanted (not a whole lot of them at once, though; the stack got pretty thick pretty quick). Ah, those were the days, spent listening to music back when it was music, and basking in the warm glow of the tubes of the Stereophonic.

Anyhow, never before or since has there been a group or artist with 12 in the top 100, or 5 in the top 5. And yes, despite being 3 at the time, I have these. Someplace. They probably don’t sound too good (frankly, stacking them up and playing them was probably not real good for ’em).

Coincidentally (or not), Julian Lennon was also born 47 years ago today. And Steve Howe (who is looking rather like a cross between Don Knotts and David Bowie’s Goblin King in Labyrinth these days) is 64 (definitely getting old and losing his hair – which happens to the best of us).

As if the women’s bowling thing wasn’t enough, the largest spring dairy festival in the entire continent of North America is right here this weekend. This is huge. Over 1,000 cows from 20 states and Canada will be here, vying for the title of prettiest heifer (if I was a cruel, sexist man, I’d say we may have trouble distinguishing the cattle from the bowlers meandering around town looking for a place to put on a feed bag – for one thing cows don’t eat from feed bags, At least, I don’t think they do – but of course I’m too enlightened for that – even though, being a white man, I’ll be considered cruel and sexist no matter what I do, having been single-handedly responsible for the repression women, the enslavement and discrimination of black people, and Native American genocide – so I might as well just go ahead and say it).

The cow show is even free, so maybe me and maw’ll hop in the pickup, head over to Sears, and get her a brand new gingham dress (and uh fancy-schmancy Easter bonnet, to boot).

So you can see that NY City isn’t the only place in New York where big, fancy, posh events take place. Take that, Ed Koch!

Oh well, Dish day, warm weather, sunshine, ladies bowling, dairy cows, and I don’t have to go back to work ’til Tuesday. Other than having a set of bucket forks, that’s about as good as it gets.