Tag: Beatles

30-Day Challenge: Day 25-One Of Your Most Prized Possessions

The Ringo signature has all but disappeared. The John and Paul signatures are quite faint. They all were done in ballpoint pen, it seems. Only George’s signature is clearly visible.


I have developed, over the years, almost an antipathy for “prized possessions”, if by that one means something of great monetary value. This is not a function of getting all Mother Teresa, but rather of pragmatism. When you have STUFF, and especially if it’s expensive STUFF, it starts to own you as much as you own it. Someone once told me that the two happiest days of a boat owner’s life is the day he buys it and the day he sells it.

I remember being appalled at hearing about someone buying a painting for $100 million for his private collection. If you have something that goes for nine figures, you have to have security, insurance et al worthy of the piece in case it gets stolen or damaged.

Even, at a much smaller scale, I started tiring of working in the comic book store dealing with customers who were more concerned about an issue’s potential worth, rather than its written or artistic value.

So anyway, I have a copy of Abbey Road signed by all four of the Beatles. Perhaps. Certainly, the person who gave it to me back in the mid-1980s believed it to be so. Funny story about how he gave it to me, actually.

My LP records were and are organized in alphabetical order. The pop albums are alpha by artist, pop being anything not classical. And my classical albums were ordered by the composer. For Christmas one year, I got a cryptic card telling me that I should look in my classic albums for some Fab item, clearly a Beatles reference. Sure enough, between my Bach and Beethoven was the album with four signatures.

As you can see (or more correctly cannot see), the Ringo signature has all but disappeared. The John and Paul signatures are quite faint. They all were done in ballpoint pen, it seems. Only George’s signature is clearly visible, made with some sort of marker.

The other issue is that Beatles’ roadies were notorious for signing Beatles’ names and passing them off as their bosses’. The album is from the UK, was acquired in the UK by means I was not privy to. For all I know, it’s the real deal. Or maybe it’s not. I have an odd comfort not knowing for sure.

James Dean – d. 9/30/55

It’s clear, though, that Bob Dylan “got” it about James Dean, and that Don McLean understood that Dylan “got” it.


I’m not sure that most people can fully understand cultural phenomena that take place before they were born, or aware of the outside world. A person born after 1968 could appreciate the Beatles’ music, but could he or she understand Beatlemania?

Well, that’s how I am about the actor James Dean, who died 55 years ago today, not to be confused with Jimmy Dean, the sausage guy who died recently. I recognize him as a cultural icon, though he was in only three major movies, two of which were released posthumously. I understand it intellectually, but I didn’t “get” it.

CBS News has done at least two stories about Dean; here’s just a snippet of one, James Dean’s cousin Marcus Winslow takes Steve Kroft on a tour of Dean’s museum and his final resting place.

Here’s the song Message From James Dean by Bill Hayes.

It’s clear, though, that Bob Dylan “got” it, and that Don McLean understood that Dylan “got” it. In this FAQ about McLean’s American Pie, referring to the line, “In a coat he borrowed from James Dean”:

In the movie “Rebel Without a Cause”, James Dean has a red windbreaker that holds symbolic meaning throughout the film… In one particularly intense scene, Dean lends his coat to a guy who is shot and killed; Dean’s father arrives, sees the coat on the dead man, thinks it’s Dean, and loses it. On the cover of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”, Dylan is wearing just such as red windbreaker and is posed in a street scene similar to one shown in a well-known picture of James Dean. Bob Dylan played a command performance for the Queen and Prince Consort of England. He was not properly attired, so perhaps this is a reference to his apparel…
James Dean’s red windbreaker is important throughout the film, not just at the end. When he put it on, it meant that it was time to face the world, time to do what he thought had to be done, and other melodramatic but thoroughly enjoyable stuff like that. The week after the movie came out, virtually every clothing store in the U.S. was sold out of red windbreakers. Remember that Dean’s impact was similar to Dylan’s: both were a symbol for the youth of their time, a reminder that they had something to say and demanded to be listened to.

But maybe I began to understand better when I read what Wendy wrote about first seeing Rebel Without A Cause:
Here was a character who felt unloved and unseen by his parents just like me. He was also an outcast at his high-school which I completely understood. What I didn’t understand though was how could anyone not fall in love with a character like “Jim”. That was the first time that James Dean touched me with his magic.

As I watched the movie further, I realized that Jim represented all the loneliness, angst, and anger that teenagers either flaunt or hide. He was the antithesis of the shiny smile-y, white-bread teenager that was hailed in the 1950s. Jim didn’t care about how he appeared and couldn’t hide the pain that he wore like a cloak.

THAT, I GET.
***
Eddie Fisher died last week. I don’t remember his singing career at all – and I knew singers of his era – and all that leaving Debbie Reynolds for Liz Taylor stuff was before my recollecting, too. Mostly, for me, he was Carrie Fisher’s dad.

September Ramblin’


There was this woman named Dottie Rambo, an American gospel singer, musician, and writer of over 2500 songs, who died a couple of years ago in a motor vehicle accident. I mention this because in her obit in an Italian online news publication, the accompanying picture is NOT Dottie Rambo. Who is it? Dottie’s given name was Joyce. There is a librarian friend of mine named Joyce Rambo, still alive, BTW; it is HER picture that graces the Italian obit, not Dottie’s.

A record producer plays the entire Beatles catalog on the ukulele; this video is only a sample.

The Apostrophe Song. For those who know the difference between it’s and its or you’re and your, and grimace when they see her’s. And especially for those who dont. I mean, don’t.

Playing for Change, Episode 34: Raghuvamsa Sudha. What do the letters in music stand for?

Vanessa’s wedding reception surprise. I HAD to post this because this IS my second favorite musical, after West Side Story. More about the couple.

Librarians will survive budget cuts.

NCC-1701 Pizza Cutter for your favorite Star Trek fan. And the video.

Star Wars TV Intro (Hawaii Five-O Version)
Star Wars TV Intro (Dallas Version)

And speaking of Dallas: Only one of the reasons I hate the Dallas Cowboys.

America Is a Joke article about Jon Stewart. “The worst of times for politics and media has been the best of times for The Daily Show’s host—and unfortunately things are getting even funnier.”

How to quit your job. OK, so it was just acting.

Did Christine O’Donnell make this PSA?


Are You a Comic-Con Dork?

“1,002 theatrical cartoons were produced by the legendary Warner Brothers animation studio in its heyday. This video, which is about the length of one of those cartoons, purports to feature one frame from each of those 1,002 cartoons.” Plus several iterations of the song The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down; if you’ve watched Bugs Bunny or his pals, you KNOW this song.

Explaining Fair Use Using Disney Characters. Not every use of copyrighted material is disallowed.

Disney Epic Mickey Mouse. Love the visuals.

Katy Perry Spoofs Canceled ‘Sesame Street’ Appearance on ‘SNL’, with a link to the original duet with Elmo

You may be familiar with the fact that Hollywood’s making a film about Facebook. Now, the Twitter movie.

Ken Levine says: They must really be out of stars for the Hollywood Walk of Fame!

The FOR COLORED GIRLS trailer from Tyler Perry. Looks intense. My sister read the book, but I never did.

Finally, Actors and Artists United for the Freedom of the Cuban 5, who I must admit I never heard of. “Danny Glover and Edward Asner, co-chairs of ‘Actors and Artists United for the Freedom of the Cuban 5’ made a call to their colleagues in the United States inviting them to add their name to a letter to President Obama encouraging him to issue an Executive Clemency order on behalf of the Cuban 5.

“A significant number of well-known actors and artists who responded to the call” include Susan Sarandon, Oliver Stone, Martin Sheen, Pete Seeger, Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt, Chrissie Hynde, Haskell Wexler, Graham Nash, Jackson Browne, James Cromwell, Mike Farrell, Elliott Gould, and Esai Morales.

Ringo Starr is 70

Besides my Top 10 Ringo songs, versions of a couple of the same songs by John and George.


I decided that, for all four of the Beatles, I would list my Top 10 favorite songs on their 70th birthdays, or in the case of John and George, what would have been the big seven-oh.

Ringo is easy, because I have relatively few of his albums, as well as a live triple-CD anthology and a greatest hits collection. This will NOT include any live versions of his old Beatles tunes.

ten It’s All Down To Goodnight Vienna – a most peculiar song by John Lennon, who plays piano, with odd scansion to boot. jl-piano.

nine Liverpool 8 -. A history lesson.

ate Oh My My -featuring background vocals by Martha Reeves and Merry Clayton, those great Billy Preston keyboards, and Tom Scott on the sax.

seven Love Me Do. As obsessive Beatles fans know – guilty as charged – Ringo replaced Pete Best shortly before the Beatles went into the studio for the first time with producer George Martin. Martin, disliking Best’s drums, and unfamiliar with Starr’s, hired session musician Andy White to playing drums, relegating Ringo to playing tambourine. Ringo STILL seemed miffed by this while he, Paul, and George were making the Anthology albums and videos in the mid 1990s. This record is, I suspect, partially closure for the drummer.

six Step Lightly, mislabeled as Six O’Clock; indeed, most of this YouTube guy’s Ringo videos are given incorrect titles. This is from the Ringo album and features the dancing feet of Richard Starkey, MBE.

five Early 1970, a piece about the other Beatles at the time of the breakup. It is noteworthy that all of them play and write songs for Ringo, even as acrimony amongst the others festered.

for No No Song. This always reminded me of a variation on Randy Newman’s Mama Told Me Not To Come. Ringo’s old drinking buddy, Harry Nilsson, does the backing vocals.

three I’m the Greatest. A cheeky song that John Lennon wrote for his friend who was also born in 1940. Here’s John Lennon’s demo version.

too It Don’t Come Easy – with Badfinger on backing vocal; here’s George Harrison’s demo version.

won Photograph . A song co-written by George and Ringo, with George also on backing vocals and 12-string guitar. As Ringo mentioned at the Concert for George in November 2002, a year after George’s death, the song has taken on a whole new meaning:
Ev’ry time I see your face,
It reminds me of the places we used to go.
But all I’ve got is a photograph,
And I realise you’re not coming back anymore.

Ringo took a lot of heat in recent years for declaring that he would no longer sign autographs. In subsequent discussions, he indicated that he was tired of signing items only to see them on eBay or Craigslist the next week; I sympathize with that.

Ringo kicks off Live from the Artists Den on PBS this week.

Happy birthday, Richie.

30-Day Challenge: Day 6 – Favorite Song

I own the vast majority of the music released in the 20th Century on the Rolling Stone magazine list, but did only so-so on this past decade.

If you had access to the soundtrack of my mind – my, that’d be VERY scary, and you don’t know how lucky you are – you would know that picking a favorite song is nigh unto impossible. I did select 100 songs that moved me, with my #1 pick here a couple of years back, but such a list is highly fungible.

Besides, that doesn’t mean any of them are my favorites. I’m always thinking, “How could I forget THAT one?” Experienced that phenomenon just recently when I was watching an episode of Glee and hear the song “A House Is Not A Home” and thought, “I’m very fond of the Dionne Warwick version of that song; should have made the list.”

So, I decided to pick a list of three of my favorite songs that namecheck other songs by that same performer:

3. Creeque Alley by The Mamas and the Papas, with the final line, “And California Dreamin’ is becomin’ a reality…

2. Glass Onion by the Beatles with references to Strawberry Fields Forever, I Am The Walrus, Lady Madonna, Fool on the Hill, and Fixing a Hole

1. Sly and the Family Stone – Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) that mentions, almost in a row, Dance to the music, Everyday people and Sing a simple song


Rolling Stone has updated its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Since none of them are from before 1940, I assume we’re talking popular, recorded songs, not of the classical or jazz genre. Still, I note that I own the vast majority of the music released in the 20th Century on the list, but only so-so on this past decade. I own the first 50, indeed, the first 99; #100 is Crazy by Gnars Barkley.

The Tony Awards, celebrating Broadway’s finest, are on this Sunday, broadcast on CBS-TV. I always watch because it’s generally more entertaining than any other awards show. There’s a large number of actors more associated with TV and film who are nominated this year. Also nominated for Best Musical: American Idiot, based on the Green Day album.

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