Saturday 9

 Saturday 9: Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (1973)

Unfamiliar with this song? Hear it here.

1) Bette Midler sings that the bugle boy wakes up Company B every morning by playing reveille. What awakened you this morning (phone, alarm clock, sunrise, etc.)? Or did you wake up on your own? My cat Reynaldo was hungry and/or bored.

2) This single was produced by Bette's arranger/piano player, who went on to have a successful singing career of his own. Do you have a favorite Barry Manilow song? I basically loathe him. Except for the song "Even Now." I thought I was completely over someone and then his name came up in conversation and I realized I wasn't over him at all and knew I was acting like Barry Manilow in this song. That's the downside to romance: it can make you behave like a Barry Manilow song. (Great. Now I'm remembering him again. "I swear I think of you and God, I wish you knew ..." Damn you, Barry Manilow!)

 
 

 

3) Bette was named after Bette Davis. Her sisters, Susan and Judy, were named for Susan Hayward and Judy Garland. So now we know who Mother Midler's favorite actresses were. Who are yours? Katharine Hepburn, Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Aniston.

4) Bette has been married since 1984 to artist Martin von Haselberg. She was 39 years old, already a star, and had never married before. Yet within six weeks of meeting him, she was so sure Martin was "the one" that they tied the knot. Have you found that love takes time, or, like Bette, have you fallen in love quickly? It creeps up on me. Yes, I'm thinking of the guy from #2 again. Sigh.

5) When their daughter Sophie was growing up, it was Martin who taught her to cook. What was the last thing you prepared in your kitchen? Did you use the microwave, stovetop, convection oven, blender, coffee maker ...? I nuked a cup of tea in the microwave.

 

6) Bette says that listening and compromise have been the key to their happy marriage but adds, "Compromise is hardest of all." On what have you compromised recently? Ha! I was working with a new creative director on a project and he asked me to revise my work. I thought he was making it worse, but these things are subjective and I wanted to be a good sport and a team player, so I complied. Guess what. Our client immediately asked me to take out everything he added. I'll be intentionally obtuse and pretend I don't know the moral of the story.

 

7) Bette and Martin have a farmhouse in upstate New York. She enjoys feeding the chickens (whom she has jokingly named The Kardashians) and puttering in her garden. Do you have a green thumb? Yes. I had to bring my office plants home and they have, literally, taken over my den. They'd do even better if I could bring myself to cut them back more often. 

I'd love to drape them around the room like Hepburn did in Desk Set

8) In 1973, the year this song was popular, actor Neil Patrick-Harris was born. He's best known as Barney on How I Met Your Mother, which ran from 2005-2014. Were you a fan? I like it when I stumble on it, but I don't go out of my way to watch it. Mostly because I dislike one of the characters whom we're obviously supposed to adore. (Robin.) This is why I enjoy Friends so much. I like all six of those characters.

9) Random question -- How often do you put crackers in your soup: Always, often, seldom or never? Always.