Undertones – "Teenage Kicks" (1978)

I'm gonna call her on the telephone

Have her over ’cause I’m all alone

I need excitement – oh, I need it bad!

In the last 2 or 3 lines, I told you about a controversial Italian Supreme Court decision in a sexual assault case.

The defendant had admitted having sex with the alleged victim but denied having forced himself on her.  The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn his conviction was based in part on the fact that the woman who claimed she had been assaulted had been wearing tight blue jeans at the time.  

Why did that matter?  “It is a fact of common experience that it is nearly impossible to slip off tight jeans even partly without the active collaboration of the person who is wearing them,” the court said, concluding that the man might have been telling the truth when he said the sex was consensual.

Alessandra Mussolini and her grandfather

Female members of the Italian Parliament demonstrated against the decision clad in blue jeans.  The leader of that protest was Alessandra Mussolini, a member of the Chamber of Deputies who also happened to be the granddaughter of the infamous fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

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Il Duce is not Signora Mussolini’s only well-known relative.  She is also the niece of the legendary Italian actress, Sophia Loren, who helped her get a start in the movies when she was just a teenager.  

When she was 19, Mussolini recorded an album of romantic songs titled Amore.  For some reason, that album was only released in Japan. 

The following year, she graced the pages of the Italian and German editions of Playboy:

“Every actress does topless and stuff like this,” she later told an interviewer.  “You have to.”

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Neither Mussolini’s ancestry nor her Playboy appearances hampered her when she decided to go into politics.  (We’re talking Italy, after all, so being in Playboy probably helped her.) 

When she was just 29 years old, Mussolini was elected to the Chamber of Deputies – which is the Italian equivalent of the U.S. House of Representatives. 

After serving several terms as a deputy, Mussolini successfully ran for a seat in the Italian Senate.  Later she was elected to the European Parliament.

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Mussolini broke with tradition by proposing to her future husband – police official Mauro Floriani – rather than waiting for him to get down on bended knee and pop the question.

Mussolini and Floriani on their wedding day

In 2013, Floriani was one of some 50 men – including celebrities, priests, journalists and politicians – who were accused of paying two teenaged girls for sexual services. 

The two girls were recruited by a pimp via an internet chatroom and set up in a basement flat where they earned up to 600 euros per day.  One of the teenagers told police that she had turned to prostitution because she wanted to be able to afford cigarettes, designer handbags, and “lots of clothes.”

Wiretaps revealed that Floriani was one of the men who contacted the girls most often.  He confessed that he had visited them, but said he had no idea that they were underage.

Floriani eventually pled guilty to soliciting the services of an underage prostitute, and received a one-year suspended sentence.

That might sound like a slap on the wrist, but remember that he had to face the wrath of his wife – who had called for chemical castration of pedophiles when she was a member of the Italian Parliament.  

I wonder if she thought about administering the more traditional form of that treatment to her errant hubby.

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“Teenage Kicks” – which was released in 1978 by the Northern Irish punk band, the Undertones – was supposedly the all-time favorite record of legendary BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel.  (The opening line of that song is carved on Peel’s tombstone.)

“Teenage Kicks” is yet another record I had heard on Steve Lorber’s “Mystic Eyes” radio show and nowhere else – until I recently heard a cover of it by Ash, another Northern Irish band.

Click here to listen to the original Undertones recording of “Teenage Kicks.”

Click here to buy it from Amazon.

Swinging Blue Jeans – "Hippy Hippy Shake" (1963)

Well, you shake it to the left

You shake it to the right

There are more goofy photos of politicians out there than you can shake a stick at.

One of the most famous shows Calvin Coolidge wearing an Indian headdress:

You would have thought that Barack Obama would have learned from “Silent Cal” Coolidge’s misjudgment, but good ol’ 44 was caught posing in a colorful Native American blanket and a traditional cedar-bark hat:

Here’s Joe Biden wearing a different kind of Indian-themed headgear:

And last but not least, here’s a photo of 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis wearing an Army helmet and riding in a tank:

Some people think that photo – which was featured in a Republican campaign ad that attacked Dukakis for being soft on national defense – cost him the election.  

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Marc Elrich, the lame-duck County Executive of Montgomery County, Maryland – the home of 2 or 3 lines – has posted a lot of goofy photos on social media over the years.

Here’s a recent photo of Elrich at a Hare Krishna festival:

(I know I’ve posted that photo previously, but I just can’t get enough of it.) 

Here’s one of the 77-year-old Elrich trying to look hip in blue jeans and a denim jacket:

I’m not sure if Marc ever attempts to do the “Hippy Hippy Shake.”  But if he does, I’m pretty sure he shakes it to the left and not to the right.  After all, he’s a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

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Why did Elrich post that photo of himself in an all-denim outfit?  He was observing “Denim Day,” of course.

If you’ve never heard of “Denim Day,” it’s the day when people wear jeans to demonstrate their solidarity with victims of sexual assault.  

“Denim Day” – which is observed on the last Wednesday of every April – was inspired by an Italian Supreme Court decision overturning a sexual assault conviction.  Here’s an excerpt from an article in the Columbia Journal of European Law that explains the connection between that case and blue jeans:

On July 12, 1992, an 18-year-old Italian student reported to the police that her 45-year-old driving instructor had raped her the previous day during a driving lesson.  She recounted that the man had driven her to a secluded pathway outside the inhabited center, where, after flinging her down on the ground and slipping off her blue jeans from one leg, he had brutally raped her.  

[The driving instructor] confirmed having engaged in sexual intercourse with his student at the time and place she had recounted, but claimed that it had been consensual.

The man was then initially charged with “carnal violence,” “private violence,” “sexual abduction,” “grievous bodily harm,” and “gross indecency in public.”  [The trial court] convicted the driving instructor only of gross indecency in public, acquitting him of the other charges.  [But the appeals court] held the man accountable for all of the offenses and sentenced him to two years and ten months of imprisonment. . . .

The Italian Supreme Court [ruled] that the appellate court had failed to conduct an adequate and rigorous scrutiny of the trustworthiness of the plaintiff’s accusations and of those circumstances that were inconsistent with the alleged rape.  

In particular, the Supreme Court rebutted the appellate court’s decision that had evaluated the partial removal of the blue jeans as evidence of the victim’s lack of consent . . . .  [T]he Supreme Court pointed out that “it is a fact of common experience that it is nearly impossible to slip off tight jeans even partly without the active collaboration of the person who is wearing them.”  

[NOTE: That reasoning was rejected in subsequent Italian Supreme Court decisions, so the so-called “jeans defense” is no longer available to those charged with sexual assault in Italy.]

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The day after that Supreme Court ruling was announced, female members of the Italian Parliament donned blue jeans and took to the streets to protest the court’s ruling.

The leader of the protesters was Alessandra Mussolini, a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies who was subsequently elected to the Italian Senate and the European Parliament:

I’ll have more to say about Signora Mussolini – who is not only the granddaughter of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini but also the niece of the legendary Italian actress Sophia Loren – in the next 2 or 3 lines.

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Marc Elrich wouldn’t have gotten where he is today without knowing a good photo op when he sees one.  So you can expect to see photos of him decked out in blue denim from head to toe on Facebook, X, and other social media every time “Denim Day” rolls around.

I’m putting a “Denim Day” reminder on my calendar app so I can join him next year.  Please join us!

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Chan Romero, a 17-year-old Montanan, wrote and recorded “Hippy Hippy Shake” in 1959.  His record was a big hit in Australia but didn’t do much in North America or the UK.

The Swinging Blue Jeans had better luck when they released a cover of the song in December 1963.  Their recording of “Hippy Hippy Shake” peaked at #24 on the Billboard “Hot 100,” but made it all the way to #2 on the UK and Canadian singles charts.

Click here to listen to the Swinging Blue Jeans covering “Hippy Hippy Shake.”  

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.

Fleetwood Mac – "Child of Mine" (1972)

I miss you again

I let the sunlight through my eyes

I won’t cry

In the previous 2 or 3 lines, I introduced you to Marc Elrich, the County Executive of Montgomery County, Maryland – where I’ve lived for many years.

A day rarely goes by without Elrich issuing press releases and posting photos of himself on Facebook, X, and other social media – like this photo of Elrich at a Hare Krishna festival where celebrants throw colored powder at each other:

Elrich won the first time he ran for county executive despite winning only 29% of the votes cast in the Democratic primary.  (Montgomery County Democrats outnumber Republicans by a four-to-one margin, so winning the Democratic primary pretty much guarantees victory in the general election.)

In most jurisdictions, if no candidate gets a majority of the votes cast, there’s a runoff between the top two vote-getters.  

But that’s not the case in the People’s Republic of Montgomery County, where the candidate who gets the most votes wins even if – like Elrich – he didn’t come close to getting a majority.

So we ended up with a County Executive who had been rejected by 71% of the voters from his own party.

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Elrich was re-elected to his second term by an even narrower margin.  

Once again, Elrich fell far short of winning a majority of the votes cast in the Democratic primary – most of the members of his party preferred another candidate.  

But because we don’t believe in majority rule in Montgomery County, that didn’t matter.  All Elrich needed to win re-election was a tiny plurality – which is exactly what he got.

After the 140,000-odd ballots cast in the Democratic primary that year were tabulated, Elrich ended up with 32 more votes than the runner-up.  

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!  

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After winning two such fluky victories, a humbler man would have thanked his lucky stars and quit while he was ahead.  

But Marc “I Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Majority” Elrich is made of sterner stuff.  So after squeaking through the 2022 election, he immediately announced his intention to run for a third term in 2026.

“Not so fast!” said tens of thousands of horrified Montgomery County voters, who rushed to the polls at the next opportunity to approve a measure that prevented Elrich from running for a third term by a two-to-one margin.

“You’ve got Republicans who couldn’t beat me in a one-on-one election.”  Elrich whined to the Washington Post.  “The best strategy, as they knew, was to try to knock me out using term limits.”  

Which is utter nonsense.  As previously noted, Montgomery County Democrats outnumber Republicans by a four-to-one margin.  The term-limit ballot question that threw cold water on Marc Elrich’s dream of winning a third term was supported by about twice as many Democratic voters as Republicans.  

So even if zero Republicans had voted in that election, there would still have been a majority in favor of denying Elrich a third term.

It’s simple math, Marc.

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A few years ago, the Houston Astros used 151 different starting lineups – which is believed to be a record.

Fleetwood Mac fell far short of that mark, but did field nine different lineups between 1967 (when the group was founded) and 1975 (when they released their hugely successful tenth studio album, Fleetwood Mac, which probably outsold their first nine albums combined).  

Drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie were members of all nine of those lineups, but the band has had more guitarists and lead vocalists than you can shake a stick at.  

Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer were the group’s original guitarists and singers, but were eventually displaced by Danny Kirwan and Bob Welch, respectively.  Kirwan was booted in favor of Bob Weston, who bailed after two albums.  Then Welch was replaced by Lindsey Buckingham.

The late Danny Kirwan

The group had started out as an all-male aggregation but eventually added the late Christine McVie (John McVie’s wife) and then Stevie Nicks (Lindsey Buckingham’s girlfriend).

My favorite Fleetwood Mac member is probably Danny Kirwan, who made his debut on Then Play On (the group’s third studio album) and stayed around through Bare Trees (their sixth).

Today 2 or 3 lines is featuring “Child of Mine” from Bare Trees, which demonstrates Kirwan’s talents as both a songwriter and a guitarist.  

“Child of Mine” is a relatively simple composition, and Kirwan’s guitar work on the track is restrained rather than show-offy.  (Less can be more, you know.)

Click here to listen to “Child of Mine.”

Click here to buy “Child of Mine” from Amazon.