Category: Uncategorized

1. What does patriotism mean to you?

It means to me, to lift it up when it’s right, to help it when it’s in trouble, to point out when it’s off track. It means to register and vote, to encourage others to do the same, to bug our elected officials, to be an aware citizen.

Oh, and It’s Summer. I have some old Nat Cole song on my mind, maybe because it WON’T make it onto Kelly Brown’s School’s Out for Summer CD Mix, only because I don’t own it.

So my other question, in the words of Marshall Crenshaw:

2. What is your favorite waste of time? For me, it Free Cell on the computer, usually when I can’t sleep.

This got me thinking about famous Canadians. When I grew up I knew about Lorne Greene, Pa Cartwright on “Bonanza”, and Joni Mitchell, and Neil Young. But there are lots more: Sandra Oh, Rachel McAdams, Mars Bonfire (writer of that American classic, “Born to Be Wild”)

So, in honor of Canada Day, check out:

Well Known People Who Happen to be Canadian

Famous Canadians

Dear Mr. Green,

Anyway God Bless the man I knew as McKinley Green.

So I wrote back, clarifying that Pop was my grandfather, but that, yes, those stores were three blocks from my house, on the street of my elementary school.

I wrote my note before I actually read your blog that described your relationship to McKinley. Do you have anymore recollections of your Pop? It’s been so many years since those days that it is hard to remember some things. I printed out the portion of the June 24th note to let my sisters read your memories of McKinley. I’m sorry that this grand man passed away so long ago and we didn’t realize it. Was it in Binghamton?

So, I sent him a link to this story, which he evidently had not seen.

Since he asked: My grandfather loved tinkering with vehicles. He did some work in the driveway, but mostly, he’d be at some Texaco station downtown near the former post office.

He also read the National Geographic. This is actually something I remember only because he used to give me the maps every month. I used to study those maps all the time, so I developed a pretty good sense of where countries were, world capitals, and the like, at least circa 1971, when I went off to college.

So, I was much encouraged reading about the project both in last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal (page A-2), and in the May-June issue of Beatlefan magazine, issue 160. The show, currently in previews, opens tomorrow in a “$130 million, 2,013-seat theater at the Mirage featuring 360-degree-in-the-round seating and advanced high definition video projections with 100-foot digital moving images.”

The Beatles’ legendary producer Sir George Martin and his son Giles, who helped create the “authorized mash-up”, were on hand when the press, stripped of their cellphones and tape recorders, heard 15 minutes of the 90-minute presentation, which included:

Strawberry Fields (Anthology demo) morphing into an outtake, then the official version at its original speed, with riffs from at least a dozen other Beatles songs: Sgt. Pepper brass section, In My Life keyboards, the Hawaiian chant from Hello, Goodbye, plus Piggies and Penny Lane.

Within You Without You vocal to backing track, and monks, from Tomorrow Never Knows, with snippets of Got To Get You Into My Life.

Lucy In The Sky extended intro before the song.

Orchestration from Good Night with vocal from Octopus’s Garden, plus bits of Sun King, Mean Mr. Mustard, Lady Madonna, and While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

According to the WSJ, there will be “30 recognizable songs with snippets from 150 more.” There will be a soundtrack by the end of the year, which I most certainly will want to get (somebody tell my wife, please). Giles Martin said he won’t know what it’ll sound like until “his bosses”, Ringo, Paul, Olivia Harrison and Yoko Ono give the final word.

So, as I said, I’m encouraged.

Not so incidentally, my subscription to Beatlefan has a strange genesis:

Friend Fred had spent months trying to nag me to order a subscription. Then one day, about a month before my birthday, a copy arrives in the mail. I mentioned it to Fred, and, well…
ME: I thought to subscribe, and I’m in SUCH a fog, that I figured that
I MUST have, but I don’t think I probably got around to it. (There
are LOTS of things I do I don’t remember doing.) So, THANK YOU very much!
FRED: That’s pretty funny! I tried imagining your shock and surprise when that first, unexpected issue showed up, you wondering HOW could this be, and then maybe figuring out yours truly was the one responsible, and gratitude would instantly overwhelm you!
Instead, it comes in, and you figure, “Gee, guess I did subscribe after all!…”
Honestly, that just cracks me up!
But you’re gonna love it! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!