Rant #2,271: My Dad and Hanukkah Rocks

This is going to be a two-part Rant, and today, it is all good.

That is because today is my father's 87th birthday.

My father proved to me, once again, that he is a truly remarkable character, a person that perseveres and has lots more living to do before he is done.

Several weeks ago, this old Marine took a real plop on the ground, hitting his head and his back on the pavement. He had to be rushed to the hospital, and honestly, I did not know what to think when I finally go there.

He was sprawled out, but was fully conscious of his surroundings and what was going on.

A nurse came over to my mother, and asked for some personal information, which my father had in his wallet.

My mother asked for the wallet, my father took it out of his pocket, and, since he is a lefty, cocked his left hand and threw it to my mother with the force of a Major League Baseball pitcher zeroing in on the strike zone.

From that point on I knew that my father was OK, and over the past several weeks of recovery, he proved me to be right, but not just right, but spot on.

Within a few weeks, he was walking around without the use, or with minimal use, of a cane, he later was able to drive again, and he pretty much went back to his normal retirement living.

Oh yes, did I mention that he also had pneumonia? Well, he also kicked that once again in this whole process.

With my mother's help, things are pretty much back to normal with him.

Does he hurt? Yes, but he says he can handle it.

And he has proven to me that he is a real-life Superman; maybe he isn't 25 anymore, but he can do anything he wants to do.

He is truly my hero--a veteran, a real warrior, and believe me, I know how lucky I am to have him as one of the bedrocks of our small family.

And that leads me to Hanukkah, which begins at sunset this Sunday evening.

This has been a horrid year for myself and my family, with one hurdle after another having to be scaled before more hurdles are put in front of us.

But I think that this is going to be a happy Hanukkah, because my father appears to be fine, and another close family member in my extended family, who just had a major operation, is coming home this weekend, so our small family appears to be whole once again.

Hanukkah and health go together--whether it is the health and well-being of the old synagogue, which had oil in its candelabra to light for just one day, but somehow managed to be lit for eight days--or for family members, who have had their ups and downs this year.

My family seems to be looking up--we were so far down, we have to be moving up--so this Hanukkah will be a happy one.

It is also a time for reflection, and puts us on course for the coming year.

The gifts are a nice way to celebrate the ones we love, but being with family really is the most important gift that we can give each other.

And the one thing that I have that I really cherish is a small, but very strong and supportive family, We watch out for each other as neighborhoods used to watch over their inhabitants, and when one is down, there are others there to pick us up and make sure we are OK.

This year proved that point, and during the eight days of Hanukkah, we will certainly celebrate that, celebrate family, and celebrate life.

So, in closing, happy birthday to my father, and to all those who celebrate, happy Hanukkah to one and all.

I will speak to you again on Monday. Have a great weekend.

Classic Rant #921 (March 15, 2013): A Boone To Humanity

What some people won't do to stay in the public eye ...

Pat Boone--the whitebread singer who helped popularize the emerging rock and roll scene with his versions of "Ain't That a Shame" and "Long Tall Sally," allowing white kids to hear black tunes for the first time and opening up radio to black audiences--has slammed President Obama.

The aging singer went on Fox Business News the other night and called the President a Marxist, a socialist, and, get this, a progressive.

"He is following his playbook, which is Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals," Boone said. "This is the guy that trained him to be a community organizer, a Marxist, a socialist, a progressive, who wrote the rules for doing what Mr. Obama is doing."

The "Speedy Gonzales" singer went on to say that the President has turned America into "a virtually socialist nation" and is against the rich, which, based on Boone's successes, he probably is.

This "Kenyan Muslim,"--a term which Boone has called the President in the past--has forced the singer to claim that he is on Obama's "enemies list."

The last time I looked, Boone was pitching walk-in bathtubs for the elderly, and his daughter must be in a similar situation, because she was pushing face lifts.

Gotta keep up the house payments, I guess.

I don't know these days what the President is pushing, but I will bet he won't be spinning any Pat Boone records in his off time.

I remember the last time Boone got into the public eye.

It must have been 10 or 15 years ago already, and the singer recorded a heavy metal album, "No More Mr. Nice Guy," and was parading around in leather and chains.

Well, the critical response to that was such that Boone went back to his sweaters and white bucks pretty quickly.

And again, this guy is an entertainer, so like so many of his peers on the other side of the fence who mouth off about things they know little or nothing about, I guess you have to have other guys on the other side of the ledger who do this too, and Boone is the poster boy right now.

Pat, just give us "April Love" and be quiet. Or just push those walk-in tubs, they do look comfortable, don't they?

Rant #2,270: Bubblegum Is the Naked Truth

My mind has already gone off to daydream land, and it has wandered into the part of my brain where millions of songs are stored, millions of records, millions of tunes that come to the fore every once in a while ...

Before I meander any further, a little more than four months ago, in Rant #2,178 (July 11, 2018), I spoke about a podcast that I had started to listen to with some regularity, called "Echo Valley 2-6809," named after the nearly forgotten Partridge Family tune warbled by the late David Cassidy.

It is an hour-long show filled with music and memories that is geared to bubblegum music, that very basic rock and roll genre that became popular in the later years of the 1960s starting in about 1966 or so. It takes in a whole lot of genres and a whole lot of artists, and one label in particular, Buddah Records, became well-known for its stable of bubblegum artists, some real, some imagined, including the 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Ohio Express.

The podcast, hosted by someone by the name of Bruce Frye, who is known as "Professor Bubblegum" on the show, basically puts all of that music into perspective, centered around a place called Echo Valley, a town which actually exists but in the show's framework, it is simply an imaginary village where the only music liked, played and spoken about is bubblegum music.

This takes in a lot of music and a lot of artists, from the above-named Buddah groups to acts like the Beatles, Royal Guardsmen, Tommy James and the Shondells, Tommy Roe, the Monkees and the Archies.

Anyway, with my mind going every which way as I tried to stay awake one past workday (no, I am not going to get into that situation right now), I decided, totally in my mind, to come up with the greatest bubblegum songs of all time, in order, from one to 25.

This is a daunting task, because as I said a few lines up, bubblegum music is not just the music created by the Buddah stable of artists, it takes in more serious stuff too, stuff that was created for mass consumption but was more "intellectual" bubblegum than anything else.

But there are some similarities in all the most successful bubblegum music: the melodies and the lyrics of these songs are both catchy and repetitive, and the lyrics, in particular, are bathed in sexuality that younger kids would never understand but grownups would get very easily if they listened intently.

So, as we get closer to the weekend (boy, how I wish it was here already), here is the list, or at least my list, of the 25 greatest bubblegum songs of all time.

They kind of define bubblegum, a music without a solid definition, but let's just say the melodies and lyrics range from the very basic to the obtuse, and it is music that was really preferred by kids from about the mid 1960s--starting with 1964, a few years before it really hit with the popularity of the Monkees, who just didn't do bubblegum music--through the early 1970s, maybe through 1974, when disco started to poke its head into the Top 40 and album rock solidified itself as a force to be reckoned with.

Yes, there have been bubblegum acts and songs after that period, but the heyday of this music was the early Beatles through really their breakup--even though they were not a bubblegum act per se, they got the ball rolling for that genre to actually coalesce and be vibrant for a time.

I guess you can say that 2018 is the 50th anniversary of the height of the bubblegum era, with 1968 being a touchpoint of this genre, so if I needed a reason to so such a list, I guess I could point to that as a reason.

So again, without further ado, here is my top 25 songs of the bubblegum genre for you to remember. I might get some arguments about some of these, but each one of these songs has been played on the aforementioned podcast, and I guess if they can listen to these songs in mythical Echo Valley, they can be listened to anywhere.

Here goes:

1) Archies - "Sugar Sugar": I mean, how could this No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts song not be the top bubblegum song of all time? Not only did it get to No. 1 on that chart, but it is one of the largest selling singles of all time. It personifies what bubblegum is, what with a non-existent cartoon group created for a TV show warbling a song from the stable of Don Kirshner, who created the Monkees. When he got sick of their bickering, and was actually fired from that project, he created a group that could not bicker or argue with him. And I mean, just the name conjures up bubblegum. Real-life singers Ron Dante and Toni Wine put their best voices on this tune, written and produced by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim, and it is a classic, bubblegum or not bubblegum.

2) Monkees - "I'm a Believer": This one is another no-brainer. A former No. 1 song and one of the biggest selling singles in pop history, this Neil Diamond tune again personifies what bubblegum music is, sung by what at first were a group of actors/musicians, or musicians/actors, who didn't really exist as an actual band but morphed into one of the most popular rock groups of all time, all through a fantasy TV show. Don Kirshner's stamp is all over it, and Micky Dolenz chews the vocal scenery like only he could and still can. Even if you didn't like Peter, Mike, Davy and Micky, you probably gave them a bye with this song, which was produced by Jeff Barry. Yes, it is that good, bublegum or no bubblegum.

OK, those two obvious choices are out of the way, and now the picks become a little more and even less obvious at the same time, and ascendency to the top of the charts is not a prerequisite for being on my list. However, all of these tunes are well-known and were popular in their day, so here goes nothing.

3) Ohio Express - "Yummy Yummy Yummy": Honestly, if the two previous songs on this chart never existed, this would be the one that people would say was bubblegum as its purest and best, but with those other two songs being the monsters that they were, this song is not the bride or bridesmaid, but, is at the adults' table anyway. Written by Arthur Resnick and Joey Levine and performed by a kind of fictional band--the act existed in another form, kind of morphing from the Rare Breed but with Levine only the lead singer in the studio--the song hits all the bullet points of bubblegum head on, with a catchy tune and repeated lyrics, and lots of sexual innuendo that the six year old loving this song could not yet understand.

4) 1910 Fruitgum Co. - "1, 2, 3 Red Light": No, it was not their first hit--we will go into that later--but this tune put the children's game into a different light, with the usual bubblegum virtues--earworm melody, repetitive lyrics, and of course, some mild sexuality that no six year old was going to pick up on. The song, written by Sal and Bobbi Trimachi, hits the bull's eye, and like the No. 3 song on this list, if the Archies and Monkees songs did not exist, this would be a candidate for the No. 1 song on this chart. As it is, it is a true Buddah bubblegum classic, one of the many that put kids' games into a very different light.

5) Beatles - "I Want To Hold Your Hand": I know, some of you are cringing right now. How dare I put a song by the Fab Four on a bubblegum chart!?!?! But the fact of the matter is that without this song, the genre would not have been established. Their first American hit has all the characteristics of classic bubblegum that it almost has to be on the list somewhere--a catchy tune, repetitive lyrics, and some mild sexuality. The song really is the template for all the other songs on this list and the entire bubblegum genre in general, with John Lennon and Paul McCartney's stamp on it to boot. And I know some of you are going to shake about this, but it is not the only Beatles' song on this chart--there's more to follow.

So there you have it, the top five bubblegum songs of the 1964 to 1974 time span. And again, I know that absolutely no one asked me to do this, but some things just come to me, and this topic just came to me out of the blue.

And if you want to find out more about bubblegum music, please visit the Echo Valley podcast site at http://echovalleymusic.blogspot.com. This is actually an excellent show for anybody interested in the evolution of pop music, and includes a multitude of music you probably never heard of before.

And as for this list, barring anything unforeseen, we will do five songs a week through the end of the year, culminating with a Top 25 Bubblegum Music list that will be something to behold.

Right now, I got love in my tummy, so I better take care of that. Speak to you again tomorrow.

Classic Rant #920 (March 14, 2013): All Hail Paul Bearer

William Moody died last week.

He was in his late 50s and had been in ill health for years.

To most of us, that name really doesn't mean much of anything, but to others, it means quite a bit.

William Moody was the character "Paul Bearer" in the WWE. He was the "manager" of the Undertaker, Kane and several other wrestlers, and his popularity, and the popularity of the wrestlers he managed, truly moved professional wrestling into the global phenomenon it is today.

Moody, who was, in fact, a funeral director in real life, became the manager of the Undertaker in the early 1990s, and the two men took their characters beyond even what the wildest imagination could have seen for them.

Dying his hair pitch black and wearing garish makeup, the roly poly Moody fit the Paul Bearer character perfectly, and the Undertaker's story--basically that he was a dead man walking, looking to remove any and all human vermin that stood in his way--was a perfect fit too, and lasts, to a certain degree, to this day.

Moody's prop was one of the great ones in all history. Chaplin had his cane, and Moody had his urn. He carried it around, held close to his chest, like a baby holds its bottle.

As long as Paul Bearer had that urn, his charges could not lose. Sure, the urn sometimes ended up in other hands, but Moody always got it back, and the "dead" always managed to triumph over evil.

Some two decades later, the Undertaker remains the star attraction of the WWE. Say what you want about professional wrestling, but it has its everlasting characters, and the Undertaker is certainly one of them.

Moody had been in ill health for years, and he simply could not keep up with his charges. They went their separate ways, but without Moody to build the foundation, they would have never been.

Fast forward to 2013. Wrestlemania, the WWE's biggest show, is about ready to happen in early April, and Moody passes away. Rather than just receive a fitting tribute from the WWE, his death actually gets worked into the storyline!

CM Punk will be facing the Undertaker during Wrestlemania. This is momentous, because the Undertaker has never lost a match at Wrestlemania. He is 20-0. He comes out about once a year now, a 50-something year old guy that dusts off the character for this one match each year.

CM Punk is now the major bad guy in the WWE, and for him to face the Undertaker during their biggest show really is big news, at least in this alternate universe that is the WWE.

And with Moody's death, if a passing ever came at the right time, this was it.

On Monday Night Raw, the Undertaker was saluting his fallen comrade in a fitting tribute that only the WWE can do, using video clips and featuring that famous urn.

All of a sudden, CM Punk comes on the scene, interrupting the proceedings, bringing the intensity of their future match to a fever pitch.

Summarizing the whole thing, by the end of the show, Kane also gets involved, and Punk steals the urn from the Undertaker and Kane, the symbol of their success.

This is a writer's dream--what will happen next in the weeks leading up to Wrestlemania that will not only perk up the battle between Punk and the Undertaker but will keep Paul Bearer's name alive beyond death?

Some have criticized using someone's actual death as part of a storyline, but I say, BRAVO!

The WWE has never backed away from incorporating real-life situations into its storylines, and why should this one be any different?

It makes so much sense, with their biggest show coming up, to do so.

And when it serves as a juggernaut for the biggest match during Wrestlemania, featuring two of the WWE's biggest stars, well, why not do it?

I think William Moody, the everlasting Paul Bearer, would truly love this.

And next year, come Hall of Fame time, his posthumous induction should be a no-brainer.

R.I.P. Paul Bearer. You did right in "life" and your name lives on in eternity.

Rant #2,269: Way Down

I didn't oversleep that badly this morning, maybe 20 minutes or so, so compared to the previous morning, that wasn't bad.

I woke up to find out that Stephen Hillenburg died at a really young age--57 years old--and that made me kind of sad.

If you have had any children born during the past 20 years or so--I have one, my son--you know exactly who Hillenburg was, and how he made your kids's lives just a little bit brighter with his creative spark.

Hillenburg was the creator of the world of SpongeBob SquarePants, the cartoon creature who lives under the sea and with his gaggle of aquatic characters, enthused millions of kids during the past two decades or so.

In fact, I would say that along with Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles, his cartoon creation was probably the most popular and influential over those decades.

Hillenburg, who had motor neurone disease, or ALS, better known as Lou Gehrig disease, had been diagnosed with the ailment about a year and a half ago, and he succumbed to it yesterday.

The Nickelodeon Network had shown "SpongeBob SquarePants" cartoons since the late 1990s, and the character--and his other mates of Bikini Bottom--became the animated standard bearers of the network during that time.

The cartoons featuring SpongeBob were witty, not necessarily written for kids but enjoyed by them, and featured a number of big-name and small-name stars who were part of the action, ranging from Oscar winner Ernest Borgnine to "Baywatch" denizen David Hasselhoff.

The show was so popular that not only has it spawned a whole universe of SpongeBob SquarePants products--everything from apparel to videos to CDs--but it also was developed into a few movies and a Tony Award-winning Broadway show, and it is certainly one of the most popular cartoons directly developed for TV in the past 50 years or so.

For the uninitiated, it is truly difficult to describe the world of Bikini Bottom that SpongeBob SquarePants inhabits, but to sum it up in a nutshell, the residents of the undersea world feel, experience and deal with the same problems we have on land--everything from anxiety, workplace disputes, good versus bad and romance, but they do it in a comedic style that both kids and adults can enjoy.

This is real G-rated entertainment, and it is handled in such an adult way that it goes beyond that rating, and is actually rated "F" for fun.

I can think of no better way to describe this world, and Hillenburg injects almost every episode with some type of cultural reference that might be above young kids' heads but certainly not the adults watching.

Where did Hillenburg's vision come from? Reports are that the basic ideas for the undersea world populated by SpongeBob actually came to the fore in an unpublished comic book that he created in 1989, an educational tome called "The Intertidal Zone" that he used in the classroom as an educator,

Hillenburg first worked on "The Rugrats" cartoon series, and also worked on "Rocko's Modern Life," and 10 years after his vision came to view, Nickelodeon gave the go ahead to "SpongeBob SquarePants," and 200 episodes later, the rest is pretty much history.

The series has won numerous awards, including four Emmy Awards, and its characters--not just SpongeBob but also Mr. Crabbs and Patrick Star, among many others--have endeared themselves to both kids and adults the world over.

Hillenburg will definitely be missed, but his creation will seemingly live on forever.

With Mickey Mouse recently celebrating his own 90th anniversary, there is no reason to think that SpongeBob himself can't reach that age, too, in the future.

Let's all go to the Krusty Krab and discuss this possibility over a nice lunch prepared by the main fry cook there ...

SpongeBob SquarePants, of course!

Classic Rant #919 (March 13, 2013): Bubble Ban Bursts

New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg's controversial ban on certain sized soft drinks burst in the air on Monday, when a judge tossed the regulation out like flat soda.

The ruling, made a day before the ban was to take effect, was made by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling because the law had too many loopholes and exceptions, and quite frankly, hit local mom and pop establishments more than it did national chains.

The ban was found to be "arbitrary and capricious," and agreed with numerous soda companies and business groups, which had taken the city to court and found the proposed ban unworkable.

Some praised Bloomberg, others knocked him, and the proposed ban made international headlines, but in the end, it was found to be unworkable, unfair, and ultimately, unenforceable.

Bloomberg said the city would appeal.

Ultimately, the ban was so circumspect that it is hard to believe it even got this far.

It served to ban greater than 16-oz. drinks from being available in certain locations throughout New York City, including stadiums and arenas, and certain neighborhood locations governed by the New York City Board of Health, such as bodegas and neighborhood shops.

But if the location didn't fall under the Board of Health's aegis, it wasn't impacted, and that is where the failing of the law hit the target.

For instance, one goes to a corner grocer for a soda. He is told that he can only get as large as a 16-oz. soda there, because the store falls under the city's regulations. He can buy two multiple sodas if he likes, but he can't get the single soda of more than 16-oz. And, of course, multiple sodas cost more than one single soda.

He walks out of the store, and on the same street is a 7-Eleven. He goes into that site and has no trouble buying a soda in any size that he wants.

What's going on here?

This is THE reason why the ban was struck down.

Mayor Bloomberg is a businessman at heart, a politician second. Since the major chains don't fall under the regulation, all the law did--even with all the "healthy" attributes it had--was helping to put the local store out of business, because when you go in for a soda, you just don't buy a soda, you buy some chips, maybe a sandwich, and maybe some other things.

If you can't get your soda there, you will go somewhere else.

This is a characteristic that Bloomberg's run as New York City's mayor has sustained, as he has done a similar thing with, for instance, under-performing schools.

The school doesn't work, well, don't fix it, close it, much like a factory that doesn't perform up to standards.

It is refreshing to see that a judge saw through all the rhetoric and saw the soda ban for what it was, a completely unenforceable law that served only to kill mom and pop enterprises.

And ultimately, the judge found that that wasn't a healthy move at all.

Rant #2,268: Something's Happening

Yes, something really is.

I don't know if it is all of those people trying to enter the country illegally, the dispersal of tear gas to thwart them, or even the incredible Mars landing that happened yesterday, but something is happening--

To me.

The reason that you are reading this particular Rant so late is that, quite frankly, I overslept this morning, and I overslept really badly.

How about an hour?

I mean, I have overslept before, and probably will oversleep again before I am done, but I rarely do it, and if I do it, it is not for an hour.

But today, I did just that.

That is why I kind of think that there is something in the air that made me do it.

Could it be the hard day I had at work on Monday?

Nope, I didn't have too hard a day at work yesterday.

In fact, there wasn't too much doing.

Could it have been the massive rainstorm that I came home in yesterday evening?

Perhaps. My allergies have been a bit out of whack the past few days, so maybe driving home in that rain burst made me tired enough to need the extra sleep.

How about what I ate last night?

Yes, my belly was really full after eating my wife's spaghetti and meatballs. We don't often have this for dinner, so this was a real treat, and while I wasn't stuffed beyond recognition, I was very satisfied after I finished that meal, so maybe I needed the sleep to kind of have it settle in my insides.

Whatever it was, I slept like a baby last night, which is really a silly saying, because most babies don't sleep that well.

Let's just say that I slept like a hibernating bear, that is a better description of the state I was in while sleeping.

And I had no nightmares, no dreams, or at least I don't remember them.

But whatever the case, here it is, way past 5 a.m., and I am still writing this Rant.

I barely have finished breakfast--I passed on the cereal today and simply had two pieces of bread with butter--and I haven't looked in the job listings yet, nor have I retrieved the newspaper from the driveway.

The more I think about it, the reason that I overslept was probably a simple one.

Heck, I am just tired, period.

So while world events probably didn't impact my sleep, my overall state of being did.

I am bushed, I am tired, and I guess my body simply gave into that this morning.

I hope to be on time tomorrow--

But who knows. I still feel tired, so I can't count out sleeping late again tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that.

I would like to put this thing to bed, but I think the only thing that is going to bed is me.

Classic Rant #918 (March 12, 2013): Glad All Over

Every once in a while, I like to go through my record collection, and see exactly what I have accumulated during the past nearly 50 years of collecting.

I have to say, I am especially enamored of my collection of vinyl 45s and LPs.

CDs and digital files are fine for what they are, but there is nothing like a vinyl record to get my temperature hopping.

Why do vinyl recordings do it for me?

I have thought about this point off and on during the past 25 years or so, or during the period that CDs entered the fray.

Now that digital files are wiping out the CD trade, it is even more obvious to me why I prefer vinyl over all the other musical formats.

And a lot of it has to do not with vinyl, but with cardboard.

Let's start with the vinyl itself.

Vinyl records are so easy to play on a record player, and there are plenty of record players out there, if anyone is truly interested in capturing the essence of their old records in the digital age.

And there is just something about the sound that you hear from a vinyl record versus the other formats that really shows, audibly, why vinyl is far superior to the other formats.

You get the full richness of the music. There is something about analog that makes aural splendor.

That is not to say that the other formats don't offer aural cornucopias of sound. But analog sound, to me, is so much purer than the digital sounds we hear today.

And then we come to the extras beyond the actual vinyl disk.

With a vinyl 45 or LP, you are not only holding a recording in your hand, you are holding, oftentimes, a work of art.

I am talking about the packaging, simple yet elegant.

Many 45s came with picture sleeves. These sleeves were one of a kind artifacts of their time. They often were used to promote the album from which the song came, but they also were unique works of art on their own, often featuring photos of the performer that you couldn't get anywhere else.

And they cannot be reproduced on CD or via the digital format. You can do it yourself with a turntable hooked up to your computer, but you lose the artwork, so for all intents and purposes, these 45s have been lost in the digital age.

Albums are another thing. Sure, they can be fully reproduced in the digital age, but because of their shrinking in size on CD--and their existence as files in the digital format--you don't get the full impact of the LP unless you own it on vinyl.

It is a complete package. Not only do you get the music, but you get the artwork, the liner notes, and everything else in a format that you don't need a magnifying glass to read.

Can you imagine if the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album had come out on CD rather than on LP? The cover would have been minimized, and it would not have had the impact that it still has today, 46 years after it came out.

Can you name one single CD album work that has had even a minimal impact on our thinking?

And don't get me on digital, which are nothing more than files. They are great for listening in the car or on your portable digital device, but what is their worth beyond that.

I told my wife just a little while back that I am so beyond CDs and digital files that it really isn't funny. I have gravitated back to collecting vinyl, and although I don't really have much time or money to pursue this area, if something comes along that I need for my collection, I at least give it a look.

It doesn't mean that I won't ever buy CD or get digital files again.

It just means that I feel I have moved past the mundane and went back to something that I really can embrace.

And that is why this entry is titled "Glad All Over," because I am really happy about my choice.

Rant #2,267: It's Now Winter's Day

Well no, not quite, but we are now heading into winter, and to me, once Thanksgiving is over, it is winter, even if it does not say it on the calendar.

Personally, my Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and holiday weekend were an up and down affair, but at least it gave me a few days off from a toxic work situation to recharge my batteries.

I did as I said I was going to do, which was to watch "March of the Wooden Soldiers," and this year, my local station, WPIX-TV in New York, showed the film in black and white, which was an extra treat.

And when the soldier goes through the door and his head is ripped off, I still laughed as I did when I was six years old, and I will probably still laugh at that scene when I am 66, 76, 86, 96 and 106 years old, if I am lucky to live that long.

But during my time watching the film, my wife told me that she did not feel well, and yes, she was sick on Thanksgiving Day.

She had a cold, or a touch of the flu, or something, because she was so under the weather that day that she could not accompany us to my sister for our festive meal.

Let me tell you, that was a real downer, and it cast a pall over the entire occasion.

She is much better now, but on that day--of all days--she was sick as could be.

Then we had Black Friday, and yes, I did as I said I would, I went to my local record store for Black Friday Record Store Day.

As I might have said, this year, I looked down the list at the specific releases for that day, and personally, I was not impressed, so there really wasn't that much that I really wanted to buy that day, and once I made my decisions, it was reflected in the fact that I didn't buy very much, but I did get two gems that were on my record bucket list--and they were not released for Record Store Day, they were just old releases there for the taking.

First off, I purchased the second and last LP by Buddah Records' psychedelic/bubblegum act, the Lemon Pipers.

This "Green Tambourine" band put out two albums during 1968 and 1969, then evidently called it a day, and I have had their first LP for decades.

The second LP, called "Jungle Marmalade" eluded me for some unknown reason until Friday, and once I saw it, I grabbed it.

It is a good record for the period it was released in, and features "Jelly Jungle (Of Orange Marmalade)" on it, so for me at least, it was a prize find.

The second bucket list release that I found was the single "Bye Bye Birdie" by Ann-Margret. Honestly, I did not know that such a record even existed until a few years back, but I have pursued this thing since then.

And I finally found out why although the movie was a big hit, the single was such a huge bomb,

This version of the song is not featured in the film, nor on the film's soundtrack, I do believe.

It is a slowed down version of the song, it makes Ann-Margret sound like a fawning 12-year-old yelping for her idol, and why they did not use the closing sequence version for this single is beyond me.

That version of the song is sung so confidently by Ann-Margret--without the fawning and yelping--that to me, watching it as an adult. it signified her character finally growing up into a woman, and almost moving beyond the idol of her youth.

And that closing sequence was so mesmerizing to every male in the audience--there has got to be a reason that they did not use that version for the single.

To me, this was simply a try at a cash-in from RCA, and it did not work--although the picture sleeve is now one of my all-time favorites, worth the price I paid for the entire package.

After food shopping later on Friday, on Saturday, my family and I saw "Creed II," another installment of the "Rocky" movie franchise, with all indications that this film will be it for Sylvester Stallone as Rocky.

I won't give anything way, but there are some segments at the end of the movie that will tell you this.

Anyway, although a little more soap-opera-y than "Creed," the film is really good, and I highly recommend it.

On Sunday, with my son going back to work--he did work on Black Friday too--it was simply a day to relax before going back to work today, something that I dread as I feel we are getting closer to dissolving.

And as an added extra, at 4:55 p.m. last night, my car speedometer went to 50,000 miles, so that was a nice accomplishment to round out the holiday weekend.

So that was my Thanksgiving break, up and down, all around--how was yours?

Classic Rant #917 (March 11, 2013): Today's Your Birthday

Today is my mother's birthday.

She is 82 years young today.

I have written about her in the past, and since today is her day, I will write about her again, so you get to know her even better than you do if you have read my posts over the past few years.

My mother is our family's Rock of Gibraltar. I really do not know where we would be if it wasn't for her.

As the matriarch of our little family--my family with two kids, and my sister's family, with three--she is the glue that holds us together, making her the strongest one of all of us.

You wouldn't think this way if you looked at her. She is probably the thinnest person I have ever seen, and my sister and I do not take after her, that's for sure.

She is slight looking, but not slight at all.

She is bright, effervescent, and seemingly hasn't lost a step over the past several decades. Of course, like all of us, she has, but she moves so fast that you don't see it.

She is the person that all of us go to when we have a problem. Sometimes she can solve the problem, sometimes not, but she is at least a sounding board for what we have to say.

And when she calls me by my real name, Lawrence, to this day I know I am in lots of trouble.

But she has always been there for my sister and myself, and for my kids and my sister's kids, and for my wife and my sister's husband.

My mother grew up in Brooklyn, and she has a tough veneer that she probably got from living there in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. 

But now, having settled down to life on Long Island, she is the typical suburban grandmother, but she has jets on her heels. I don't think too many people could keep up with her 40 years ago, and I know that not too many people can keep up with her now.

So here's to my mom. I am very lucky to have her.

Happy birthday, mom. Here's to another 82 years of forward motion.

And of everyone I know, you are the person who could actually do it.

Rant #2,266: The Turkey

Well, we are almost there.

It is nearly Thanksgiving Day, and for me, it will be a two-day pause in my life, a time when I give thanks for what I have--which is a lot--and perhaps reflect on what I don't have, too.

But the focus is on what I am thankful for, and I am thankful for quite a bit.

I am thankful for having a loving wife, my life partner who I have been married to for more than a quarter century, and who I will live out the rest of my life with.

I am thankful for my children, who give me plenty of tsuris, but who, at the same time, keep me young and have given me a direction in life.

I am thankful for loving parents, who are still around, as lively as people who are a quarter of their age, and who always provide an ear to at least listen to what I have to say.

I am thankful to have a solid extended family, including my sister and her husband and her family, my wife's brothers and their families, and my own aunt and uncle network, who don't see me very often but are always supportive.

I am thankful for having a job to go to five days a week, although it is a volatile position, and I simply do not know how long it will last.

I am thankful for some other things, like having a good car, having good friends, and having the ability to be able to voice whatever I want to through my ability to write the written word, which is an ability that is often overlooked, but I pride myself in the fact that it is something that I can do pretty well.

I am thankful for this column, which provides me a platform for whatever I want to talk about.

And, although I know I missed some things, let me conclude this part of today's Rant with the following:

I am thankful for having my health, because without at least decent health, you really have nothing.

Some people around me are not in good health right now, or at least could be in better health than they are. 

Until they are better than they are right now, my mind will not be at ease at all.

And I am not just talking about what you would call physical health; I am talking about mental health as well.

Your mind, your body and your soul must all be properly aligned, and when they aren't, things are not what they should be, and right now, there are people in my life who don't have that balance.

I am hoping over the next few days, the next few months and into the future, that, through various means, they will regain that balance, and move on with their lives in a normal pattern.

I think about those people, and I know that with some alterations--figuratively and literally--that they will make it.

But let's not get too down here. Let's get things lively again, because Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday on the calendar.

We are going to my sister's house tomorrow, and I am going to eat to my heart's content, and being with family, we are going to have a great time.

I am going to watch "March of the Wooden Soldiers" first, in black and white, of course.

And I am going to listen to "The Turkey," my favorite Thanksgiving song, even though it probably wasn't designed as such.

The song ended up as the B side of the Raiders (formerly Paul Revere and the Raiders) single "Birds of a Feather," and this "birdy" single is pretty much forgotten, even by oldies radio.

But when it comes Thanksgiving time, it is time to roll out "The Turkey," a nearly four-minute goof of a song that is even better, but far less mainstream, than its A side.

So "The Turkey" it will be. You can listen to this song yourself at https://youtu.be/WhuqtmvRlbs

So have a great holiday, don't forget to shop your local record stores on Black Friday Record Store Day, and I will speak to you again on Monday.

Gobble Gobble!

Classic Rant #916 (March 8, 2013): "The Birds and the Bees"

Back during 1965, when I was all of eight years old, you could not turn on the radio without hearing the song “The Birds and the Bees.” It crossed over from being a rhythm and blues hit into pop radio, and it made it up to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 during that year.

The singer of the song was Jewel Akens. If you couldn't get the song out of your head, you certainly wouldn't forget a name like that, either. The future looked bright for this young singer, but alas, he was never to have another real big hit. 

Defining a true one-hit wonder, Akens passed away on March 1 at age 79 after complications from back surgery.

Although he was best known for his hit "The Birds and the Bees," Akens had been recording since the late 1950s, usually as part of rhythm and blues groups such as the Medallions and the Four Dots. 

He had one other Hot 100 chart hit, "Georgie Porgie," which got up to No. 68, also in 1965.

But “The Birds and the Bees” cemented himself on pop radio, and due to the fame of his one hit, he had been touring on a regular basis since the mid-1960s to almost the present time.

He even received some type of push later in the 1960s when he recorded two singles for Colgems, the Monkees’ label. Although he never hit the Hot 100 with either of the two singles he recorded on the label--No. 1099, September 1967, "Born a Loser"/"Little Bitty Pretty One" and No. 1025, July 1968, "It's a Sin To Tell a Lie"/"You Better Move On”—he considered them to be among his finest recordings.

He also toured with the Monkees during his time on the label, then moved on to other things, including producing critically acclaimed rhythm and blues recordings by other artists.

Meanwhile, the song—written by the head of Era Records, Herb Newman--was covered by many artists, including Dean Martin and Johnny Kidd and the Pirates.

But he was best known to the public as a one-hit wonder, and that song still gets played today on a regular basis on oldies stations around the country, and around the world, where the song also was successful.

Although the tune gave him his two minutes of fame, Akens rode that fame into decades of recording and touring.

Here are the lyrics to this classic tune:

Let me tell you 'bout the birds and the bees

and the flowers and the trees,

the moon up above, and the thing called love.

Let me tell you 'bout the stars in the sky,

the girl and the guy

and the way they could kiss

on a night like this.

When I look into your big brown eyes,

it's very plain to see

that it's time you learn about the facts in life

startin' from A to Z.

Let me tell you 'bout the birds...

(Solo)

When I look into your big brown eyes...

Well, let me tell you 'bout the birds and the bees...

Let me tell you 'bout the birds and the bees,

the flowers and the trees,

the stars in the sky, a girl and a guy.

The birds and the bees,

the flowers and the trees,

the stars in the sky and a girl and a guy...

Rant #2,265: Thursday Morning At the Movies

Good morning, everybody!

We are one day closer to Thanksgiving, probably my personally favorite holiday during the year, because it is a family holiday, nothing more, nothing less.

No gifts are required during the holiday; the only gift required is you, and to be with your loved ones.

So, as we creep closer to the magic day, is there any movie that symbolizes the holiday to you?

If you ever lived in New York, there is only one film that tells you that the holiday is here, and that is the classic film "March of the Wooden Soldiers" starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.

Laurel and Hardy were the template for all of the comedy teams that followed them, from Bud Abbott and Lou Costello to Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis to, yes, Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong.

Stan and Babe--as he was affectionately called--were at the top rung of that ladder, and all the others reached for that top rung, and I believe only Abbott and Costello actually reached it--probably touched it--during their time together.

But in this particular film, Laurel (Stannie Dum) and Hardy (Ollie Dee) really solidified themselves as incredible screen comics, able to play off themselves as well as all the other characters around them without thoroughly eclipsing the other actors, which is a mean feat in itself.

I mean, I don't even know if at this point in time I have to go through the whole story of the movie, but it involves Little Bo Peep having to marry evil Barnaby because Old Mother Hubbard can't pay her rent.

Peep wants to marry Tom Tom, the Piper's Son, but Stan and Ollie devise a variety of plots to thwart this situation, and in one instance Stan marries Barnaby!

Anyway, Barnaby sicks the bogeymen--some netherworld characters--against the townspeople, including Old King Cole and the Three Little Pigs, but Stan and Ollie manage to thwart them using the life-size wooden soldiers that they unwittingly created when they got the specs for wooden soldier toys all wrong in the toyshop.

This film, which incredibly dates from 1934, is really and truly a special film, and people like me insist on watching it in black and white, the way it was meant to be shown.

Well, WPIX in New York is finally bowing to the whims of people like me, and on Thanksgiving morning, they will finally show the film in black and white. Showing it later in the day in color, WPIX will satisfy every whim related to this film by showing it both ways on this special day.

I don't believe they have shown the black and white film since the 1980s, so this will be a really special treat!

This 84-year-old movie will certainly be shown for many more generations, but as a side note, I have noted an extremely disturbing trend on social media, to knock the film as being both racist and anti-Semitic.

Some believe that the portrayal of the bogeyman is racist, because these netherworld characters appear to be portrayed by blacks, and are portrayed as savages.

I don't know about this. Yes, it appears that black actors are portraying many, if not all, of the bogeymen, but these are fantasy characters, nothing more.

By saying that the movie is racist, are you saying that "The Wizard of Oz" is anti-little people because most of those actors in the film are, well, midgets?

I have heard the hues of racism with this movie before--I believe that that is the main reason that the movie wasn't shown for awhile on television in the 1990s--but this thing about anti-Semitism is completely new to me.

Hal Roach, whose studio created this film, was thought to be an anti-Semite in real life. His "Our Gang" had only two Jewish members--Jackie Cooper was half Jewish and Jerry Schatz was the only full-blooded Jew in the group of kids--and Roach had ties to Benito Mussolini through the Italian tyrant's son.

"March of the Wooden Soldiers" is, say the naysayers, a fable about an obvious Jewish money lender, in the guise of Barnaby, who terrorizes a small town with his financial ways.

The wooden soldiers, say the naysayers, are actually Nazi storm troopers--I mean, look at the way they walk--and those storm troopers end up winning out, saving the village from the evil Jewishness of Barnaby.

Yes, people actually believe this tripe!

Whatever Hal Roach was--and nobody denies that he had anti-Semitic tendencies, in fact, his relationship with Jewish-led MGM soured when he entered into a film deal that never came to fruition with Mussolini's son--this film, based on a Victor Herbert operetta, does not get into that vile realm.

And more importantly, let's stop looking at things under a 2018 microscope. Things that would be seen today as being evil were the norm back then, had no evil messages on their underside, and you cannot change history--you learn from it.

So is "March of the Wooden Soldiers" actually a vile film, delivering messages of hate through its storytelling?

I think not, I really think not.

Social media tends to look for things, and you know what they say, you look for things, you are going to find them.

Enough.

Enjoy your turkey, and enjoy the movie.

I know that I will.

Classic Rant #915 (March 7, 2013): Twins

We have all known twins in our lives, people who were either born with an identical or fraternal buddy or people who just look like other people.

Growing up in Rochdale Village, Queens, New York, I was friendly with Eric and Larry. They looked alike, but were quite different people. They never saw eye to eye on much of anything, and were basically two ships at sea going in different directions. They were both good people, just so different from one another.

Then there was another person, Jay, who could have been my brother. We looked very much alike, but no, there was no hanky panky involved. We just resembled each other pretty strongly.

Later, my first wife was a twin, a fraternal twin. Her sister resembled Sandra Bullock, as I recall. My wife resembled her mother. 'Nuff said.

My wife, who I have been married to for nearly 20 years, early on told me that many people thought she looked like Adrienne Barbeau, top to bottom. She kind of does, kind of doesn't, head to toe, but to me, she is the best-looking woman on the planet.

I also believe that my maternal grandfather was a twin, but his twin died in childbirth, or something like that. I may have gotten that story wrong, maybe it wasn't him, but a close relative was a twin whose sibling died in childbirth.

I have known other twins during my lifetime, and even though they look alike, they are very, very different people.

You might remember that there was a movie called "Twins." Ahnold what's his name and Danny DeVito played fraternal twins. 'Nuff said about that one too.

And then you have people who just look like other people, like my ex-sister-in-law.

The latest example of this is that model Kate Upton, she of the famous Sports Illustrated cover, seems to have a twin somewhere in Russia.

And yes, she is pretty much a twin from top to bottom.

Evidently as a joke, young college student Ania (no last name) decided to put up on Twitter a duplicate photo of the one Kate Upton did on her famous S.I. cover.

Ania, like Upton, is blond, but the resemblance doesn't stop there.

She is tall, big and very busty like Upton, and since lots of skin was shown in that S.I. photo shoot, and lots of skin is shown in Ania's photo, it set the Internet world abuzz once again.

Yes, whether we like to admit it or not, it's what's up front that seems to count, and both Upton and Ania have proven that.

Upton even gave a thumb's up to Ania's photo, and that made the whole thing go viral and make Ania a star, at least for now.

She doesn't really think much of herself, saying something to the effect that she is a "mail-order bride" waiting to happen.

Yes, she would certainly be a "male order," she got that right.

What happens to Ania after everything dies down is anybody's guess.

I saw a picture of her other than the S.I. duplicate, and she is quite a pretty girl.

She kind of looks like Upton, kind of doesn't, but what difference does it make--is Hugh Hefner paying attention?

Anyway, it also proves another thing.

Models are looked at for their beauty, and many people hold them as the beauty ideal.

But there are beautiful women everywhere on this earth. You don't have to be a model to attest to the fact that beautiful women are everywhere, and some just go into a profession that exploits their looks.

Others become teachers, nurses, doctors, or stay home and watch the kids.

Yes, Kate Upton is beautiful, but I am sure that in your town, there are plenty of ladies that would be her rival for beauty.

Ania just happens to be one, in Russia of all places, but I am sure there are plenty of other Anias around the world, too.

And as they say, beauty is only skin deep ...

That's what they say, at least.