Ross
Bagdasarian, Sr. (January 27, 1919 – January 16, 1972), aka David
Seville, creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks, was the cousin of writer William
Saroyan. Bagdasarian and Saroyan wrote the song "Come
on-a My House" in 1939, which became a hit when it was recorded
by Rosemary
Clooney in 1951.
(YouTube video: Elvis Presley sings "In The Ghetto". Written by Mac
Davis and included in his 1969 album "From Elvis in Memphis," it was The
King's first non-gospel top-ten hit in six years and perhaps the last of
the great "message" songs. The album also contained "Suspicious Minds,"
"Don't Cry Daddy," and "Kentucky Rain.")
Alexander (Sandy) Courage, who wrote the enduring, eight-note Fanfare
for the Starship Enterprise and the theme to the television series Star
Trek, was born on December 10, 1919 in Philadelphia. He died May 15,
2008 in Pacific Palisades, California. He was 88.
Fanfare, written in 1965 for the first of two Star Trek
pilots, was heard throughout the three original seasons of the show, has
been reprised in all of the Trek feature films and several of the
TV series, and may be the single best-known fanfare in the world. When
told by writer Jon Burlingame that more people knew his Trek
flourish than Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man,
"Courage- in his typically self-deprecating fashion- said that must
surely be an exaggeration," Burlingame reported.
Courage was not the first choice to write the Star Trek theme. Trek
creator Gene Roddenberry initially approached Jerry Goldsmith with the
assignment. Goldsmith declined because of other commitments, and
recommended Courage. Much later, Courage did the orchestrations for
Goldsmith's scores for Star Trek- First Contact and Star Trek-
Insurrection.
In addition to the fanfare, the series theme and the scores for the two
pilot episodes ("The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before"), Courage
composed the music for four episodes: "The Man Trap" and "The Naked
Time" in the series' first season, and "The Enterprise Incident" and
"Plato's Stepchildren" in the third. However, themes from first season
score were frequently "tracked" in other episodes.
Jeff Bond of TrekMovie.com ended his comprehensive
article on Courage with a quote by Michael Giacchino, who scored
J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot:
"... Alexander Courage is responsible for the musical heart to the world
of Star Trek. I feel that if you were to strip away everything,
bit by bit, in order of importance, the last thing you would be holding
in your hands would be the sheet music for the opening fanfare to the Star
Trek main theme. To me, that small piece of music is and always
shall be Star Trek."
Paul Shaffer (b.
November 28, 1949) is perhaps best known as late night talk
show host David Letterman's band leader, a position he's held
since the show's original premiere on NBC in 1982.
That year, a song Shaffer co-wrote in 1979 with Grammy
and Academy Award winning composer
Paul Jabara was
recorded by a duo of plus-sized black women originally called Two Tons o' Fun. To
tie in to the theme of the song, the group renamed themselves The Weather Girls.
The recording, a disco tune with a driving beat and unusual minor chord progression, was
It's Raining Men.
The rest, as they say, is history.
In 1982, I was working as the second-shift supervisor of
a financial printing company on the fringes of downtown
Pittsburgh, and I always tried to make it home in time
to catch Letterman's show.
I vividly remember the night Men made its appearance.
Letterman had repeatedly razzed Shaffer about his new disco tune, and when
the two huge black women in glittering evening gowns appeared as the
now-iconic intro began, I expected a clever disco parody sketch.
Instead, Shaffer's band and the vocalists gave a raw, spontaneous performance that
had the audience clapping along and cheering wildly.
Letterman admitted they'd "ripped the roof off the
joint."
The original performance is here,
and it's definitely worth watching. (The video's owner prohibits embedding it here.) It's a
rare opportunity to watch the birth of a pop culture phenomenon.
Shaffer gives the history of the song in this interview,
and introduces it at the 2011 Tony Awards, where it's the opening number in the Broadway
music adaptation of the film
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The Phantom of the Opera officially
premiered October 9, 1986 at Her Majesty's Theatre in London's West End.
It opened in New York in January, 1986, and it's still playing- making
it the longest-running musical in Broadway history.
The 25th anniversary performance at Prince Albert Hall was filmed- which
means a complete recording of the show will finally be available on DVD
and Blu-Ray. Here's hoping they collect and destroy the remaining copies
of the 2004 film, which was nothing short of an abomination.
(YouTube video: Weird Al Yankovic's "Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me")
Oh the sand keeps falling through the hourglass
And there's no way you're going to slow it down
You say we gotta treasure each moment
Who knows how long we're gonna be around
Yeah you keep on telling me life is short
And its hard to disagree with what you say
But if time is so precious why ya wasting mine
'Cause I'm always reading, always deleting
Every useless piece of garbage that you send my way
Every stupid hoax
All those corny jokes
Stop forwarding that crap to me
Well I don't need tons of cringe-inducing puns
Stop forwarding that crap to me
No it isn't okay if you brighten my day
With some cut-and-pasted hackneyed Hallmark poetry
And I didn't request a personality test
Stop forwarding that crap to me
Ahhhh...
You're sending virus-laden bandwidth-hogging attachments
To every single person you know
You're passing around a link to some dumb thing on YouTube
That everybody else already saw three years ago
And wacky badly Photoshopped billboards
Were never that amusing to me
And I just can't believe you believe those urban legends
But I have high hopes
Someone will point you toward Snopes
And debunk that crazy junk you're spewing constantly
No I don't want a bowl of Chicken Soup for the Soul
Stop forwarding that crap to me
Send more top 10 lists and I'll slash my wrists
Please stop forwarding that crap to me
Well I'm sorry i can't accept your paranoid rant
And I don't want the Neiman Marcus cookie recipe
Won't you kindly refrain 'cause it's hurting my brain
Stop forwarding... that crap to me
Like glittery hearts and unicorns
And pictures of somebody's cat
Now tell me, in what alternate reality
Would I care about something like that?
And by the way, your quotes from George Carlin
Aren't really George Carlin
Mr. Rogers never fought the Viet Cong
And Bill Gates is never gonna give me somethin' for nothin'
And I really doubt some dead girl is gonna kill me
If I don't pass her letter along
Well now I know you're wishin'
I'll sign your petition
But stop forwarding that crap to me
And I don't want to read your series
Of conspiracy theories
Just stop forwarding that crap to me
And your two million loser friends
All have my address now,
'Cause you never figured out the way to BCC
Now I gotta insist
Take me off of your list
Stop forwarding that crap to me
(Stop forwarding that crap to me)
(Stop forwarding that crap to me)
(Stop forwarding that crap to me)
(Stop forwarding that crap to me)
Just stop it now
(Stop forwarding that crap to me)
Oh, no
(Stop forwarding that crap to me)
Ohhh...
(Stop forwarding that crap to me)
I can't take it
(Stop forwarding that crap to me)
Aw, please
(Stop forwarding that crap to me)
(Stop forwarding that crap to me)
You gotta stop
(Stop forwarding that crap to me)
Right now
(Stop forwarding that crap to me)
(Stop forwarding that crap to me)
I'm not kidding!
(Stop forwarding that crap to me)
At the risk of being slightly repetitious
Gonna ask you now to stop! (Stop!)
Sending me that... (Crap!)
I don't want it!
Don't send it to me
Now don't send it to me!
(Stop forwarding that crap to me)
Just stop!
(Stop forwarding that crap to me)
Ohh...
Stop forwarding that crap to me
To me
You can't think of Bob Fosse (June
23, 1927 – September 23, 1987) and not remember "Bye Bye Life," the spectacular ending of
his semi-autobiographical All That Jazz (1979).
(YouTube video of the "Bye Bye Life" finale. Warning: contains brief nudity.)
When it's time to shuffle off this mortal coil, most just limp into an ill-defined tunnel with a
light at its end. Fosse's Joe Gideon character does it with a Palme d'Or-winning Broadway finale.
The ending is abrupt and unsettling. Only Fosse could blend body bags and Ethel Merman and make it
work.
You may not know his name, but you've heard his music.
Hoyt
Curtin (9/9/1922-12/3/2000) wrote most of the now-iconic music for
all of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series from Ruff and Ready in
the 50s through The Smurfs in the 70s- 145 themes in all.
Curtin is perhaps most remembered for his themes to The Flintstones
and The Jetsons, but his music for Jonny Quest is perhaps
the best example of great 60s jazz:
Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign Sitting there by the left turn line Flag
on the wheelchair flapping in the breeze One leg missing, both hands
free No one's paying much mind to him The V.A. budget's stretched
so thin And there's more comin' home from the Mideast war We can't
make it here anymore
That big ol' building was the textile mill It fed our kids and it
paid our bills But they turned us out and they closed the doors We
can't make it here anymore
See all those pallets piled up on the loading dock? They're just
gonna sit there till they rot 'Cause there's nothing to ship, nothing
to pack Just busted concrete and rusted tracks Empty storefronts
around the square There's a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere You
don't come down here 'less you're looking to score We can't make it
here anymore
The bar's still open but man it's slow The tip jar's light and the
register's low The bartender don't have much to say The regular
crowd gets thinner each day
Some have maxed out all their credit cards Some are working two jobs
and living in cars Minimum wage won't pay for a roof, won't pay for a
drink If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO See how
far five fifteen an hour will go Take a part time job at one of your
stores Bet you can't make it here anymore
High school girl with a bourgeois dream Just like the pictures in the
magazine She found on the floor of the laundromat A woman with
kids can forget all that If she comes up pregnant what'll she do? Forget
the career, forget about school Can she live on faith? live on hope? High
on Jesus or hooked on dope When it's way too late to just say no You
can't make it here anymore
Now I'm stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store Just like the ones we
made before 'Cept this one came from Singapore I guess we can't
make it here anymore
Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin Or the shape of
their eyes or the shape I'm in? Should I hate 'em for having our jobs
today? No I hate the men sent the jobs away I can see them all
now, they haunt my dreams All lily white and squeaky clean They've
never known want, they'll never know need Their shit don't stink and
their kids won't bleed Their kids won't bleed in the damn little war And
we can't make it here anymore
Will work for food Will die for oil Will kill for power and to us
the spoils The billionaires get to pay less tax The working poor
get to fall through the cracks Let 'em eat jellybeans let 'em eat cake Let
'em eat shit, whatever it takes They can join the Air Force, or join
the Corps If they can't make it here anymore
And that's how it is That's what we got If the president wants to
admit it or not You can read it in the paper Read it on the wall Hear
it on the wind If you're listening at all Get out of that limo Look
us in the eye Call us on the cell phone Tell us all why
In Dayton, Ohio Or Portland, Maine Or a cotton gin out on the
great high plains That's done closed down along with the school And
the hospital and the swimming pool Dust devils dance in the noonday
heat There's rats in the alley And trash in the street Gang
graffiti on a boxcar door We can't make it here anymore
[Texas] students will learn about the contributions of Jerry Falwell's
Moral Majority. Maybe the students will read Falwell's claim that
feminists and homosexuals were partially responsible for the 9/11
attacks. Phyllis Schlafly, the Heritage Foundation and the NRA are all
included. Students will also be required to "discuss the meaning of 'In
God We Trust.'"
History in Texas classrooms will be decidedly different from when we
were students. I never learned "both the positive and negative impacts
of... country and western music" in my high school history class. Where
would you rate Estée Lauder in terms of historical importance to our
country? If you think she is one of the 68 most important historical
figures, you agree with the board. Yes, the board included her in the
state curriculum, but not George Washington.
I also never learned that the findings of the House Committee on
Un-American Activities were confirmed, perhaps because it is not true.
It puts teachers in an awkward position by asking them to teach
something that is historically inaccurate. I will not have to deal with
that issue in some of my classes because my Advanced Placement U.S.
History classes are not required to follow the state curriculum. I am
guessing that the Texas Education Agency realizes that students could
never pass national exams while learning the state-mandated curriculum.
I was born in Homestead and lived there until I was 18, first in a
third-floor apartment on the corner of Eighth and McClure, then in a
second-floor apartment above Jones & McClure Realty on Ninth and Ann.
Even then, I recall how people said Homestead was past its prime, but
Eighth Avenue was still at nearly 100% occupancy, with two
Isaly's, two supermarkets, a McCrory's, Grants, Penney's, and enough
foot traffic that you avoided Amity Street at shift changes.
I remember the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach the first time I
drove through the town after the mills had been torn down. It's hard to
describe- imagine how the residents of New York felt the day after 9/11.
And the destruction of Homestead was something America did to itself.
"In its 105-year history," the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
recalled in a 2006
story on the 20th anniversary of the mill's closing, "the Homestead
Works produced more than 200 million tons of steel: Rails and railroad
cars, armor plate that covered battleships and tanks from the
Spanish-American War through the Korean War, and beams and girders that
went into the Empire State Building, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the
U.S. Steel Building in Pittsburgh and the Sears Tower in Chicago."
Its replacement, the Waterfront complex? I've been there a handful of
times since it's opened, and it makes me angry. The world's largest
steel plant, replaced by big box stores selling Chinese crap.
Some people see a shopping center. I see a white flag.
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years
after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Second
Continental Congress,
On July 4, 1997, Charles Kuralt died. A journalist for CBS, he had a
passion for America and American history. During the Bicentennial in
1976, he prepared a segment for The CBS Evening News with Walter
Cronkite that remains the best "news report" of what happened in
Philadelphia 200 years earlier:
Another wonderful interpretation of the tensions before the vote is the
song Is Anybody There? from the award-winning Broadway musical 1776,
which airs at 2 pm today on Turner Classic Movies:
Is Anybody There?"
From the musical "1776" Music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards
John Adams:
Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody see what I see?
They want to me to quit. They say, "John, give up the fight." Still
to England I say: Good night, forever, good night!
For I have crossed the Rubicon, Let the bridge be burned behind me, Come
what may, come what may.
Commitment!
The croakers all say we'll rue the day, There'll be hell to pay in
fiery purgatory. Through all the gloom, through all the gloom, I
can see the rays of ravishing light and glory!
Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody see what I see?
I see fireworks! I see the pageant and pomp and parade! I hear the
bells ringing out! I hear the cannons' roar! I see Americans - all
Americans. Free forevermore!
How quiet, how quiet the chamber is. How silent, how silent the
chamber is.
Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody see what I see?
Before Hugh
Laurie (June 11, 1959) achieved fame and fortune as House,
MD, he was well-known in Britain as a comic actor of Pythonesque
stature and not a half-bad musician. His parody of 60s protest songs,
"All We Gotta Do Is..." is a brilliant take on self-righteous
folksingers whose true insight leaves a bit to be desired.
(Video: The Times They Are A Changin', Bob Dylan, 1963.
Robert Allen Zimmerman (Bob Dylan) is 70 today. The protest
songs written early in his career set the tone for much of the civil rights and anti-war movements
in the 60s.
This is one of the reasons that two-thirds of Americans- including 58%
of Republicans- don't want Congress to defund the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting. Thanks, PBS!
Puppy love is no laughing matter when you're a puppy. -Gamerman,
Amy
"All you need is love?" Yeah? Try payin' the effin' rent with it. -Richards,
Keith
A husband is what is left of the lover after the nerve has been
extracted. -Rowland, Helen
A man in love is incomplete until he is married. Then he is finished. -Gabor,
Zsa Zsa
A man in love is like a clipped coupon-it's time to cash in. -West,
Mae
All great lovers are articulate, and verbal seduction is the surest road
to actual seduction. -Mannes, Marya
All I know of love is that Love is all there is. -Dickinson, Emily
All that matters is love and work. -Freud, Sigmund
All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt. -Schulz,
Charles M.
And when I say you sucked my brains out, the English translation is that
I am in love with you. -DiFranco, Ani
Before I met my husband I'd never fallen in love, though I'd stepped in
it a few times. -Rudner, Rita
Between lovers a little confession is a dangerous thing. -Rowland,
Helen
Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion,
enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. -Wilde, Oscar
But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love, and he who cannot love is
the most unhappy man of all. -Kierkegaard, Soren
Did you ever notice that "love" spelled backwards is "evil"? Well, not
exactly, but it's still pretty scary. -Unattributed
Don't cook. Don't clean. No man will ever make love to a woman because
she waxed the linoleum- "My God, the floor's immaculate. Lie down, you
hot bitch." -Rivers, Joan
Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain. -Holiday,
Billie
Drink and dance and laugh and lie, Love, the reeling midnight through, For
tomorrow we shall die! (But, alas, we never do.) -Parker,
Dorothy
Every love is the love before In a duller dress. -Parker,
Dorothy
Every man loves two women; the one is the creation of his imagination
and the other is not yet born. -Gibran, Kahlil
Everything we do in life is based on fear, especially love. -Brooks,
Mel
Falling out of love is chiefly a matter of forgetting how charming
someone is. -Murdoch, Jean Iris
For you to ask advice on the rules of love is no better than to ask
advice on the rules of madness. -Terence
Four be the things I'd have been better without: love, curiosity,
freckles and doubt. -Parker, Dorothy
Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship- never. -Colton,
Charles Caleb
Getting divorced just because you don't love a man is almost as silly as
getting married just because you do. -Gabor, Zsa Zsa
Greater love hath no man than to attend the Episcopal Church with his
wife. -Johnson, Lyndon B.
Grief is the price we pay for love. -Meyer, Sir Christopher
Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a
woman scorned. -Congreve, William
Hold fast to whatever fragments of love are left, for sometimes a mosaic
is more beautiful than an unbroken pattern. -Powell, Dawn
I love you more today than yesterday. Yesterday, you really got on my
nerves.
-(Greeting card)
I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry. That must
be why my wife treats me like toxic waste. -Bissonette, David
I suppose that when a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for
her, except continue to love her. -Wilde, Oscar
I think most folks that are hooked up are like me, and suspect they hit
the love lottery, but they haven't finished scratching off the ticket
yet. -Andy, Mark
I will show you a love potion without drug or herb, or any witch's
spell; if you wish to be loved, love. -Hecato
I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another and I know there
are people in the world that do not love their fellow human beings and I hate
people like that! -Lehrer, Tom
If grass can grow through cement, love can find you anywhere. -Cher
If it is your time, love will track you down like a cruise missile. -Barry,
Lynda
If love is blind, why is Victoria's Secret so successful? -Unattributed
If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question? -Tomlin,
Lily
If love means never having to say you're sorry, then marriage means
always having to say everything twice. -Getty, Estelle
If men were as great lovers as they think they are, we women wouldn't
have time to do our hair. -Dietrich, Marlene
If only one could tell true love from false love as one can tell
mushrooms from toadstools. -Mansfield, Katherine
If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it. -Hemingway,
Ernest
If you love a man, set him free. If he comes back, it means he's
forgotten his sandwiches. -Birtles, Jasmine
If you really love someone it shouldn't matter what's been in their
orifices. -Unattributed
If you want to read about love and marriage, you've got to buy two
separate books. -King, Alan
In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus
one equals nothing. -McLaughlin, Mignon
It is useless to hold a person to anything he says while he's in love,
drunk, or running for office. -MacLaine, Shirley
Life is one fool thing after another where as love is two fool things
after each other. -Wilde, Oscar
Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together
in the same direction. -de Saint-Exupery, Antoine
Love doesn't drop on you unexpectedly; you have to give off signals,
sort of like an amateur radio operator. -Brown, Helen Gurley
Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like
bread, re-made all the time, made new. -LeGuin, Ursula K.
Love doesn't make people into fools. But it might expose them. -Bryon,
S.
Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride
worthwhile. -Jones, Franklin P.
Love flies out the door when money comes innuendo. -Marx, Groucho
Love is a decision, not an emotion. -Unattributed
Love is a perky elf dancing a merry little jig, and then suddenly he
turns on you with a miniature machine gun. -Groening, Matt
Love is a series Of darlings and dearies Of honeys and sweeties And
sugared entreaties Of moonings and spoonings And cooings and
billings All tempered, of course, By occasional killings. -Harburg,
E.Y.
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra. Suddenly it flips over,
pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come. -Groening,
Matt
Love is all fun and games until someone loses an eye or gets pregnant. -Cole,
Jim
Love is an emotion that is based on an opinion of women that is
impossible for those who have had any experience with them. -Mencken,
H.L.
Love is an extension of life, and lust is an extension. -Dangerfield,
Rodney
Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. -Frost,
Robert
Love is blind, but desire just doesn't give a good goddamn. -Thurber,
James
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies. -Aristotle
Love is grand; divorce is a hundred grand. -Unattributed
Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain
empties. -Renard, Jules
Love is like epidemic diseases. The more one fears it, the more likely
one is to contract it. -Chamfort, Nicolas
Love is moral even without legal marriage, but marriage is immoral
without love. -Key, Ellen
Love is only the dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the
species. -Maugham, W. Somerset
Love is the cheapest of religions. -Pavese, Cesare
Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is
real. -Murdoch, Jean Iris
Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law,
and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of
its duration. -Lawrence, D.H.
Love means having to say you're sorry every five damn minutes. -Maher,
Bill
Love, not time, heals all wounds. -Rooney, Andy
Many a man who falls in love with a dimple make the mistake of marrying
the whole girl. -Esar, Evan
Marrying a man is like buying something you've been admiring for a long
time in a shop window. You may love it when you get it home, but it
doesn't always go with everything else in the house. -Kerr, Jean
Money can't buy love, but it improves your bargaining position. -Marlowe,
Christopher
Ninety-nine percent of the world's lovers are not with their first
choice. That's what makes the jukebox play. -Nelson, Willie
No matter how much a woman loved a man, it would still give her a glow
to see him commit suicide for her. -Mencken, H.L.
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And
love is a thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of Romania. -Parker,
Dorothy
Oh, now there's only one kind of love that lasts. That's unrequited
love. It stays with you forever. -Allen, Woody
People ask if it's possible to find love after age 40. The answer is
yes; you just have to reach your hand down a little lower. -King,
John Alejandro (The Covert Comic)
People who are sensible about love are incapable of it. -Yates,
Douglas
Perfect love sometimes does not come until grandchildren are born. -Welsh
Proverb
Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk. -Unattributed
Remember that the best relationship is one where your love for each
other is greater than your need for each other. -Unattributed
The best proof of love is trust. -Brothers, Dr. Joyce
The definition of a beautiful woman is one who loves me. -Wilson,
Sloan
The first duty of love is to listen. -Tillich, Paul
The first sigh of love is the last of wisdom. -Bret, Antoine
The love we give away is the only love we keep. -Hubbard, Elbert
The lovely thing about being forty is that you can appreciate
twenty-five year old men more. -McCullough, Colleen
The way taxes are, you might as well marry for love. -Lewis, Joe E.
The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost. -Chesterton,
G.K.
The whole thing about matrimony is this: We fall in love with a
personality, but we must live with a character. -de Vries, Peter
There is no reciprocity. Men love women, women love children and
children love hamsters. -Ellis, Alice Thomas
There is nothing finer than the love of a good woman. But the love of
two bad women is nothing to sneeze at. -Spiro, Lev L.
There's a certain part of the contented majority who love anybody who is
worth a billion dollars. -Galbraith, John Kenneth
There's something like a line of gold thread running through a man's
words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it
gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a
cloth that feels like love itself. -Brown, John Gregory
To be loved, you have to be nice to everybody every day. To be hated,
you don't have to do squat. -(From the TV series The Simpsons)
To keep your marriage brimming With love in the loving cup, Whenever
you're wrong, admit it; Whenever you're right, shut up. -Nash,
Ogden
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be
wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact
you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round
with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up
safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that
casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless- it will change. It will not be
broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. -Lewis,
C.S.
True love comes gently, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear
bells, get your ears checked. -Segal, Erich
True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen. -de
la Rochefoucauld, Francois
Two things a man cannot hide: that he is drunk, and that he is in love. -Antiphanes
We don't believe in rheumatism and true love until after the first
attack. -von Eschenbach, Marie Ebner
We're here to ruin ourselves, and break our hearts and love the wrong
people and die. -Shanley, John Patrick (From the film Moonstruck)
What we can do for another is the test of powers; what we can suffer is
the test of love. -Westcott, Bruce F.
When the coin is tossed either Love or Lust will fall uppermost. But if
the metal is right, under the one will always be the other. -Brenan,
Gerald
When the satisfaction or the security of another person becomes as
significant to one as one's own satisfaction or security, then the state
of love exists. -Sullivan, Harry Stack
When wounded by those you love, try to keep in mind that there is a vast
gulf between malice and weakness. -Johnson, Lyle
Who, being loved, is poor? -Wilde, Oscar
Without love, intelligence is dangerous; without intelligence, love is
not enough. -Montagu, Ashley
You need someone to love while you're looking for someone to love. -Delaney,
Shelagh
You've decided to love me for eternity and I'm still deciding who I want
to be today. -DiFranco, Ani
Some late night television shows just have non-descript theme music. The
Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson has a philosophy.
It's hard to stay up It's been a long, long day And you got the
sandman at the door But hang on, leave the TV on And let's do it
anyway It's okay! You can always sleep through work tomorrow, OK? Hey
hey! Tomorrow's just your future yesterday.
Tell the clock on the wall Forget the wakeup call Cause the
night's not nearly through Wipe the sleep from your eyes Give
yourself a surprise Let your worries wait another day And if you
stay too late at at the bar At least you made it out this far So
make up your mind and say Let's do it anyway! It's okay! You
can always sleep through work tomorrow, okay? Hey hey! Tomorrow's
just your future yesterday.
Life's too short to worry about The things that you can live without And
I regret to say The morning light is hours away The world can be
such a fright But it belongs to us tonight What's the point of
going to bed? You look so lovely when your eyes are red!
Tomorrow's just your future yesterday.
The world can be such a fright But it belongs to us tonight What's
the point of going to bed? You look so lovely when your eyes are red!
It's hard to stay up It's been a long, Long Day And you got the
sandman at the door But hang on, leave the TV on And let's do it
anyway It's okay! You can always sleep through work tomorrow, OK? Hey
hey! Tomorrow's just your future yesterday. Tomorrow's just your
future yesterday.
I'm not a sports fan by any stretch of the imagination and the incessant Steelermania is
grating, but I stumbled across this parody of Marc Cohn's hit song "Walking in Memphis"
by Pittsburgh-based singer-songwriter and CMU grad Tim Ruff and was instantly charmed.
Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol, a musical adaptation of the
Dickens story, was the first animated holiday special produced
specifically for American network television. Commissioned and sponsored
by Timex, it aired on NBC on December 18, 1962; two years before
Rankin-Bass' Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and three years
prior to the generally acknowledged masterpiece of the genre, the Emmy
and Peabody award-winning A Charlie Brown Christmas.
While Rudolph, Charlie Brown, Frosty the Snowman (1969), and How
The Grinch Stole Christmas (1966) have aired annually since their
debuts, Magoo exited network television in the 1980s, popped up
in syndication for the next decade or so, then shuffled off to home
video and the Internet.
While Magoo features the relatively cheap limited animation most
television cartoons employ, it had something the others didn't- a score
written by Broadway heavy hitters Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, whose next
effort would be the hit show Funny Girl.
A remastered Blue-Ray DVD of the show was released this year, and the
soundtrack and show itself are available on Amazon and iTunes (should
the Hulu link above become unavailable).
For a lot of mid-50s boomers, Magoo was our introduction to
Dickens' classic story. And, as the first real Christmas special, it
left a major impression.
What better way to start a snowy Monday morning than with a shaky Droid
music video of some guy's daughter singing in church?
Eric Stark did the arrangement a couple years ago. My good friend Peter
Stumpf is on piano, and the incredible Dave Haines is on guitar. That's
my daughter Sara singing. Unfortunately, I forget the name of the guy
whose bald spot dominates the shot.
Bonus video: Dave, Eric, Peter and the group do Carol of the Bells.
Listen to Dave get down about 2:20 into the song.
Scrambled eggs, oh my baby how I love your legs
But not as much as I love scrambled eggs
Oh we should eat some scrambled eggs.
Waffle fries, oh my darling how I love your thighs
Not as much as I love waffle fries
Oh have you tried the waffle fries?
They are so damned good
That they should be illegal
They're like regular fries
But they're shaped like a waffle.
Chicken (tofu) wings, oh my baby when I hear you sing
All I think about is chicken wings,
Oh did you bring the chicken wings?
There's a place I know where I go for kick-ass wings
We could even get a side of onion rings
Scrambled eggs, oh my baby how I love your legs
Not as much as I love scrambled eggs
Oh let's go get some scrambled eggs.
Well, sort of. While Cee Lo Green's "F*** You" video is about as politically incorrect as you can
possibly get, the cleaned-up radio version is wholesome enough for no less than than Gwyneth Paltrow
to perform on nothing less than Glee this coming week.
Take a basic Holland-Dozier-Holland-ish four chord circular progression hook, add a youthful
acrobatic melody that keys off the driving bass line, a strong R&B beat, and it sounds like
something from the summer of '67. As long as you don't, like, actually sing the real lyrics.
Think "You Can't Hurry Love" as performed by the Supremes while suffering from Tourettes.
Christians have their hymns and pages, Hava Nagila's for the Jews, Baptists
have the rock of ages, Atheists just sing the blues.
Romantics play Claire de Lune, Born agains sing "He is risen," But
no one ever wrote a tune, For godless existentialism.
For Atheists there's no good news. They'll never sing a song of faith. In
their songs they have a rule: The "he" is always lower case. The
"he" is always lower case.
Some folks sing a Bach cantata, Lutherans get Christmas trees, Atheist
songs add up to nada, But they do have Sundays free.
Pentecostals sing to heaven, Coptics have the Book of Scrolls, Numerologists
can count to seven, Atheists have rock and roll.
For Atheists there's no good news. They'll never sing a song of faith. In
their songs they have a rule: the "he" is always lower case. The
"he" is always lower case.
Atheists don't have no songs.
Christians have their hymns and pages, Hava Nagila's for the Jews, Baptists
have the rock of ages, Atheists just sing the blues.
Catholics dress up for Mass, And listen to Gregorian chants. Atheists
just take a pass, Watch football in their underpants. Watch
football in their underpants.
It's time for musical theater patrons to tell producers the
relentless downsizing of show orchestras must end.
The Broadway production of "The Phantom of the Opera" has 27
musicians. During its 2006 pass through Pittsburgh, the
touring company had only 15 in the pit. The current
production has a mere 13; 10, if you exclude the three
synthesizer keyboards. There's something fundamentally wrong
when the ensemble of the most successful musical in Broadway
history is identical in size to The Tonight Show Band.
The show's score no longer soars majestically from the pit.
It's now a homogenized emission from the theater's sound
system. The diminutive acoustic levels of the emasculated
"orchestra" must be augmented with the synthesized output,
then processed, equalized, compressed and amplified. The end
result is devoid of vibrance and dynamic range. It's like
listening to an iPod on steroids.
Producers say they must reduce costs to keep a show going,
especially one heavy with physical effects and costumes such
as "Phantom." I can deal with a scaled-down chandelier, but
eliminating the music from a musical? That makes about as
much sense as cutting the overhead for "Romeo and Juliet" by
ditching the unstable emo girl for an animatronic
replacement with pre-recorded dialogue triggered by an
infrared transmitter in Romeo's codpiece.
Roughly $3 of my $70 ticket goes to funding the orchestra.
Once you reach those pricing levels, what's another five
bucks to maintain the integrity of the work as it was
originally performed?
The argument that the average theatergoer can't tell the
difference is irrelevant and disingenuous. The average
person also can't distinguish between fresh and
reconstituted orange juice, but when I go out of my way to
visit an orange grove, I don't want to be handed a can of
Minute Maid and be told "it's just as good as the real
thing."
It's a Broadway musical? I want to hear it the way it was
performed on Broadway. The next time a show with an anemic,
overly synthesized pit comes to town, I'll just stay at home
and listen to the cast album.
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years
after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Second
Continental Congress,
On July 4, 1997, Charles Kuralt died. A journalist for CBS, he had a
passion for America and American history. During the Bicentennial in
1976, he prepared a segment for The CBS Evening News with Walter
Cronkite that remains the best "news report" of what happened in
Philadelphia 200 years earlier:
Another wonderful interpretation of the tensions before the vote is the
song Is Anybody There? from the award-winning musical 1776:
The movie airs today at 2:30 pm on Turner Classic Movies. If you think
history is dry and uninteresting, make certain you watch this film.
Iconic composer Lalo Schifrin is 78 today. Most network television
series don't have themes anymore, the typical argument being today's
attention deficit inflicted numbskull viewers can't wait for the actual
program to begin. And, of course, you have to have additional time for all
the commercials. Bull. This version of the Mission theme, from
the opening titles of the show's 1966 season, is only 51 seconds.
Coupled with brilliantly edited montages (how many series have different
title openings every week?), the main title sequence set the mood
and dragged you into the show.
Interesting piece of musical trivia. The original tv theme is in 5/4
time. Before Mission, Schifrin worked on The Man From
U.N.C.L.E. Jerry Goldsmith wrote that show's theme, and in its first
season, it was also in 5/4 time. In later seasons, it was rescored to
4/4. I've always wondered if Schifrin wrote the Mission theme in
5/4 because of Goldsmith's influence.
Goldsmith had a penchant for themes with asymmetrical meters and odd
time signatures. Witness Room 222 which is, I believe, the only
theme written in 7/4 time.
Hope you were taking notes. There'll be a quiz at the end of the week.
Four years ago on Father's Day I did something I always wanted to do-
accompany my daughter Sara as she sang. During my exile in Chicago from
2000-2005, a friend of mine sent me a guitar to help me pass the time,
especially during those endlessly long and dark Chicago winter weekends.
So I taught myself to play. More accurately, I taught myself to play
four chords, which is pretty much all you need for most popular music
produced in the 60s.
When I returned to Pittsburgh, I convinced Sara to do a solo during
church, with just me on the guitar. Even though the song contained seven
of the four chords I knew, I managed to get through it without any
obvious mistakes. It was the first time I had played guitar in public-
and, to date, the only time I did it without any royal screw-ups.
If you want to hear some really superb guitar, listen to the full praise
band's version of Praise Adonai. The great bridge in the middle
is performed by Dave Haines on acoustic, and Eric Stark on rhythm guitar.
Happy Father's Day, guys. And give your kids a hug.
Hal David (b. May 25, 1921) teamed with
composer Burt Bacharach to write some of the most enduring standards in
American popular music.
I've always felt- particularly today- that David's contribution has
never received its due, especially from the general public. Writing
lyrics isn't easy, especially when your musical partner's style is known
for its distinctive irregular phrasing, syncopation and wild rhythm
patterns- Promises, Promises changes meter 20 times, on
occasion after only a single bar.
David, insightful, reflective and sophisticated, wrote lyrics that could
stand on their own, even stripped of the melody. My favorite David lyric
is Alfie:
What's it all about, Alfie? Is it just for the moment we live? What's
it all about, when you sort it out, Alfie? Are we meant to take more
than we give? Or are we meant to be kind?
And if only fools are kind, Alfie, Then I guess it is wise to be
cruel. And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie What will you
lend on an old Golden Rule?
As sure as I believe there's a heaven above Alfie, I know there's
something much more- Something even non-believers can believe in.
I believe in love, Alfie- Without true love, we just exist, Alfie- Until
you find the love you've missed, you're nothing, Alfie. When you
walk, let your heart lead the way. And you'll find love any day- Alfie... Alfie... Alfie...
Bill Haley & His Comets release Rock Around The Clock on this date in 1954, which becomes the first
rock & roll record to reach number one on the Billboard chart.
Note the accordion; this was primitive rock, indeed.
The first version of this rap was pretty primitive It was like, "Yo,
yo, the origin of species Ain't no feces, dawg, believe me..." And
that's all I could think of So then I thought, this needs to be
re-written And sometimes people ask: "How does your show get written?" Like
this: performance, feedback, revision And how do I generally develop
my lyricism? Like this: performance, feedback, revision And how do
human beings ever learn to do anything? Like this: performance,
feedback, revision And evolution is really an algorithm that goes Like
this: performance, feedback, revision So the genetic code of every
living creature was written Like this: performance, feedback, revision See,
the genes are like a text with a thousand pages And revision occurs
in the random changes That come from mutations, and when they see the
light That's the performance, that's the phenotype And
natural selection is the feedback side That's about who survives and
whose genes catch rides In the next generation, yes, what I'm saying Is
that a rap performance like this is the best illustration Of the way descent
with modification works 'Cause the performance is necessary to
change the words To decide which have an impact and which to send back To
the drawing board, in fact I just did that When you failed to react,
'cause any line can change And mutations occur when I improvise on
stage 'Cause up until this moment, everything I said was off the page But…
(Freestyle improvised rhyme) And that's how my show gets written and
re-written Like this: performance, feedback, revision And anyone
can use this algorithm to learn anything Like this: performance,
feedback, revision But remember, you get the feedback, and you make
the decision Like this: performance, feedback, revision You wanna
know about evolution? This is the definition Like this: performance,
feedback, revision
Glen Campbell isn't just a country/pop star from the 60s and 70s- he was one of the most accomplished and in-demand studio musicians of the era. Campbell's work can be heard on hit recordings by Bobby Darin, Ricky Nelson, The Kingston Trio, Merle Haggard, The Monkees, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, The Troggs, Frankie Laine, The Association, Jan & Dean, and The Mamas & the Papas.
Campbell was a touring member of The Beach Boys, filling in for Brian Wilson in 1964 and 1965 playing bass guitar and singing falsetto harmonies. He played guitar on the group's Pet Sounds album, among other recordings. Other classics featuring his guitar playing include "Strangers in the Night" by Frank Sinatra, "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin" by The Righteous Brothers, and "I'm a Believer" by The Monkees. (via Wikipedia)
I remember watching his variety show in the 70s. As the clip above shows, he's still rolling along.
Edwin Starr's (1/21/1942 - 4/2/2003) #1 hit
"War" (Motown, 1970). Forty years later, it remains the most successful protest song ever recorded. Too bad those in authority don't listen to the lyrics.
While not a country western singer, the legendary
Frankie Laine (3/30/1913-2/6/2007) is probably best remembered for his memorable renditions of movie and tv western themes, including Gunfight at the OK Corral, 3:10 to Yuma, Bullwhip, Rawhide and, of course, Blazing Saddles, Mel Brooks' 1974 landmark absurdist comedy.
Brooks, who wrote the lyrics to John Morris' rousing main title theme, advertised in the trades for "a Frankie Laine-type" vocalist. Laine visited Brooks' office a few days later and offered his services.
Brooks didn't tell the singer that Blazing Saddles was an off-the-wall parody. "Frankie sang his heart out," Brooks said, "and we didn't have the heart to tell him it was a spoof. We just said 'oh, great! He never heard the whip cracks; we put those in later. We got so lucky with his serious interpretation of the song."
Lucky, indeed; Laine performed the song, which was nominated for an Academy Award, at the Oscars ceremony in April, 1975. (It lost to "We May Never Love Like This Again" from The Towering Inferno. Go figure.
Written by composer Charles Fox and lyricist Normal Gimbel, who also wrote the themes to Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, and- believe it or not- the classic "Killing Me Softly With His Song."
When choosing between two evils, be advised: if you use the “eeny-meeny-miny-mo” method, you'll always end up with the second one. -John Alejandro King (The Covert Comic)
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