Tag: Beatles

November Untranslatable Rambling

gobsmacked AND flabbergasted

I lead with some heavy stuff; it gets lighter after the pic.

Read the sad tale of Bill Mantlo, former comic book writer and attorney, until a hit-and-run accident wrecked his life. Mark Evanier, linking to the article, writes: “Those who still fear government ‘death panels’ should take note of the portions of Mantlo’s story where his private insurer keeps trying to cut off all payments to him because, after all, their primary duty is to their stockholders.” Here’s the direct link to the article, and here’s Evanier’s correction to the article about the comic book process, which does not negate the insane way Mantlo has been warehoused.

But for sheer devastation, few things I’ve read actually made me weep like Jaquandor’s recollection of a particular day.

Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky’s Next Coaching Gig

The Beatles album artwork worth £70,000: Top 10 most valuable record sleeves revealed

How music changes our brains

The Beach Boys An Introduction to “SMiLE Sessions”, released this month. It’s great seeing Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston and Brian Wilson on the same page.

Michelle Shocked – Quality of Mercy (version)

Evanier also found The Lambeth Walk as performed by Adolf Hitler and a batch of Nazi soldiers, which reportedly had Joseph Goebbels running, screaming from the room in anger. In fact, there are about a dozen versions of this song on his blog this month.

A song about Roman Emperor Constantine…sung to the tune of “Come On Eileen”. Of COURSE, it is.

SamuraiFrog linked to Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me) by Reunion. What caught my eye, though, were the initial visuals, which I recognized INSTANTLY from a commercial for Country Corn Flakes; I knew that ad by heart, I’m afraid.

American expat linguist Lynneguist, now in the UK, lists the untranslatables, those British and American English terms that don’t travel well across the pond. I made a comment, and a word I used as a jumping-off point for even more discussion.

Saucy Shakespearean Slings

Sid Melton, R.I.P. – if you watched a lot of TV in in the 1950s and later, you might say, “Oh, THAT guy.”

Maine Man’s Car Logs One Million Miles, Equivalent to Driving Around Earth 40 Times. Imagine how far he would have gotten if he’d only taken care of the vehicle.

Dustbury’s Today’s brain-cloud generator. Say What?

Mike Sterling was gobsmacked AND flabbergasted. Which is how I felt when I saw the middle item, about a new font, on Jaquandor’s page.

The Harvey Pekar Library Statue at the Comics as Art & Literature Desk — A Comics project in Cleveland Heights, OH. And Steve Bissette’s support for the same. Plus, in support of this memorial, Joyce Brabner has “coaxed Alan Moore out of the darkness wherein he dwells to video record a special message to comics folk in which he’s offering several hours– by invitation only– video conference from his home in the UK. Viewers may ask impertinent questions. Alan tells great stories.”

Bill Cosby – The Playground

Hawkeye Pierce as a serial killer

GOOGLE ALERT

Pols’ promise to themselves by Roger Green, Scottsbluff

George Harrison: 10 Years Gone

George was executive producer of Monty Python’s Life of Brian, a film I just picked up on DVD.

 

Unless I am misremembering, the first TIME magazine cover after September 11, 2001, that was not about 9/11 or the subsequent war in Afghanistan was the one announcing the death of George Harrison. I was sad that George died, of course, but I knew he was sick and not likely to get better. The top cover was the US version; the bottom one, the UK take.

This is obvious, I imagine, but one deals differently when someone dies expectedly or unexpectedly, by disease or by murder. John Lennon’s death a couple of decades earlier was a jolt; George’s was just sad.

In fact, George’s passing made me melancholy the more I thought about his contribution to the world, especially around the time of what would have been his 59th birthday the following February. He was a Beatle, of course. But he also organized the first of those superstar extravaganzas, the Concert for Bangladesh. He put out some great music as a solo artist. And he was executive producer of a couple dozen movies, including Monty Python’s Life of Brian, a film I just picked up on DVD, I liked it so much.

There was a Martin Scorsese documentary about George this year, which I haven’t seen. Here are some photos from it, and a piece from the New York Times. Also, there was an article Living in the Material World – 5 Things I Learned About George Harrison from the Scorsese Documentary, four of which I actually knew.

Other recent articles about George:
Rolling Stone magazine AGAIN did one of those 100 greatest Beatles songs. George had two in the top 10.

George had an Indian soul, according to his wife

The unseen GH photo album

George Harrison exhibit at the GRAMMY Museum

Borders liquidators sell off George Harrison guitar

And, of course, some music:

A couple of songs where George namechecks the Beatles:
Living in the Material World – GH
When We Was Fab – GH

Two versions of the Wilbury Twist by the Traveling Wilburys
1990 version, with lots of then-current stars
2007 version, which dumps most of them

A cover version of one of George’s best songs as a Beatle:
While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney, both of whom played on the original.

M is for Martha

Mary sat and listened to Jesus as he talked, but Martha objected to the fact that she was left with all the work.

 

I always liked the name Martha. Partly, it’s because my first girlfriend was named Martha. I used to serenade her with the song Martha My Dear by the Beatles [LISTEN], from the white album. It was only later I discovered that Martha was Paul McCartney’s English sheepdog.

Martha Dandridge Custis Washington (pictured), of course, was the first First Lady of the United States, though she wasn’t so dubbed at the time. Martha is one of those classic girls’ names that, while extremely popular in the US in the 1880s (#14 in 1882), never lost at least a core of support; it didn’t leave the top 100 until 1966 and was still at #709 in 2010.

I’ve heard the slightly derisive term “being a Martha.” This referred to Luke 10:38-42 when Martha of Bethany and her sister Mary “offered hospitality to their friend Jesus…Mary sat and listened to him as he talked, but Martha objected to the fact that she was left with all the work. Jesus told Martha not to worry about small things, but to concentrate on what was important.” This proved to be a key concept in Christian hospitality; don’t NOT invite someone over, just because your home is not immaculate.

My daughter is fond of a PBS TV program called Martha Speaks, which “is an animated children’s television sitcom based on the 1992 children’s book of the same name by Susan Meddaugh about a talking dog named Martha…who is owned by ten-year-old Helen… When Helen feeds Martha some alphabet soup, the soup travels to her brain instead of her stomach, resulting in her ability to speak. The show focuses on synonyms and vocabulary, with each episode featuring an underlying theme illustrated with keywords.” LISTEN to the opening title theme song, which features these lyrics: “Martha Speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and…Communicates, enumerates, elucidates, exaggerates, indicates, and explicates, bloviates, and overstates and (pant, pant, pant) hyperventilates!” And here is a video guide to the episodes.


ABC Wednesday – Round 9

Sean Lennon’s birthday; and it would have been his father’s

We were JUST THERE, yet we missed seeing John & Yoko in person.

One of those signs that you are getting older is when you start saying things such as “I remember [him or her] when [he or she] was X years old [some age the person hasn’t been for a VERY long time].” And that’s how it was with Sean Lennon. I didn’t know him personally, but, to me, he was frozen in time at five years old, his age when his father was killed.

Here’s an audio of John and Sean talking about birthdays.

Of course, Sean continued to grow up, in spite of my myopia. I think that’s why, when he performed in Albany in the spring of 2007, when he was 31, I just had to go see him. That and, I suppose, that second-hand connection to his late father who I could never see live.

There was an antiwar rally I attended in New York City – must have been 1972, give or take a year – and on our way back to New Paltz on the bus, but still within the city limits, we could hear on the live radio (I’m thinking WBAI) that John and Yoko had shown up at the event! It was thrilling, but also frustrating; we were JUST THERE, yet we missed seeing them in person.

Anyway, here’s a link to bios of the Beatles kids. You’ll note that many of them became musicians as well.

Sean Lennon turns 36 today; John would have been 71.

Put Billy Preston in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!

on what would have been Billy Preston’s 65th birthday, I’m making a pitch for him to make it into the rock hall as a session musician.

Billy Preston, George Harrison, President Gerald Ford, all deceased.

While I’m less and less caring about who gets selected for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Performer category, I’ve become more and more interested in categories such as early influences and non-performers. I’m especially intrigued by the sideman category since Leon Russell was inducted in 2011. After all, he was a performer of some commercial success, but not enough to make it as a performer. But he played on a lot of albums for other artists and was inducted based on that.

The late Billy Preston is similarly situated. He had greater singles success than Russell, with songs such as Outa-Space, Will It Go Round in Circles, Space Race, and Nothing from Nothing, though less so with his albums. But he was well known as a session musician. “Preston collaborated with some of the greatest names in the music industry, including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Band, Nat King Cole, Little Richard, Eric Burdon, Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, George Harrison, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Sam Cooke, King Curtis, Sammy Davis Jr., Aretha Franklin, the Jackson 5, Quincy Jones, Mick Jagger, Peter Frampton, Phyllis Hyman, Richie Sambora, Sly Stone, Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Norah Jones, and Ringo Starr.” Not to mention gospel great Mahalia Jackson. Both Russell and Preston played on the legendary Concert for Bangladesh.

The label on the “Get Back” single credits “The Beatles with Billy Preston”. Here’s the famed Beatles doing Get Back, live on the rooftop.

More Preston appearances:

Ray Charles & Norah Jones-Here We Go Again. Billy on organ.

John Lennon-God. Billy on piano.

Johnny Cash-Personal Jesus. Billy on piano.

Ringo Starr-I’m the Greatest. Billy on organ.

But probably my favorite piece is Billy at the organ on The Rolling Stones-I Got The Blues from the album Sticky Fingers.

So, on what would have been Billy Preston’s 65th birthday, I’m making a pitch for him to make it into the rock hall as a session musician.

Oh, and here’s the first song from Billy’s first Apple album, That’s The Way God Planned It, a song called Do What You Want To.

 

Ramblin' with Roger
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