Call it superstitious, but I feared this would happen.
The minute that people started saying that the Lions were picked to win the Superbowl, I cringed. Is that what I hoped for? Absolutely, but when you start hearing stuff like that it makes you a bit scared.
Before the game yesterday, there was something that said 95 percent of (whatever the NFL group was) picked the Lions to Dominate the Commanders. Again, I cringed.
And here we are.
I couldn’t be more proud of my team. They gave us the best season we’ve ever witnessed in our lifetime!
Thank you, Dan Campbell. Thank you Jared Goff. Thank you to the entire team for a truly amazing year.
There are currently 275 books on my “Want to read” list on Goodreads. Because I do most of my “reading” in the car, I look for audio books. Not all of them are available in that format. There are quite a few that I may just have to go to the library and get the physical copy.
As I get close to finishing a book, I begin to scroll my list and look for the next read. As I do this, I try to remember my friends who have read it and rated it. I also try to remember if a book was highly praised in a Facebook reading group.
Miss Benson’s Beetle really is something that I don’t think I would have picked up for myself. However, I kept hearing what a great story it was. The reviews I read were mostly good and so I gave it a shot. Even though the book take place after World War II, it came on a lot of Historical Fiction lists.
Before I offer my thoughts, let’s look at the Goodreads Synopsis:
It is 1950. London is still reeling from World War II. Margery Benson, a schoolteacher and spinster, is trying to get through life, surviving on scraps. One day, she reaches her breaking point. She decides to abandon her job and small existence to set out on an expedition. The expedition is to the other side of the world in search of her childhood obsession. That obsession is an insect that may or may not exist–the golden beetle of New Caledonia.
When she advertises for an assistant to accompany her. The woman she ends up with is the last person she had in mind. Fun-loving Enid Pretty in her tight-fitting pink suit and pom-pom sandals seems to attract trouble wherever she goes. Together, however, these two British women find themselves drawn into a cross-ocean adventure that exceeds all expectations. It also delivers something neither of them expected to find: the transformative power of friendship.
All in all, I truly enjoyed the book. The adventure is full of surprises, shady characters and secrets. There are moments of suspense and moments that make your eyes well up. It was better than I had expected. I mean, it’s a woman looking for a beetle. I didn’t expect much.
My only issue with the book was that I hoped for more at the end. Without giving away anything, I will just say that I wanted to know a bit more of what happened after their trip. It wasn’t a bad ending, I just felt there may have been a loose end or two to tie up. Do they find what they are looking for? Do they find the elusive beetle? You’ll have to read it to find out.
I can still remember feeling humbled and honored when she asked me. My friend Margaret was expecting her first child. She asked me if I would be the baby’s Godfather.
This would have been right around the time I was dating my ex, not yet married. I had no idea what a wedge my ex would put between Margaret and me. I also had no idea how my ex would keep me away from my Goddaughter, too.
Marissa was a beautiful baby. As crazy as it sounds, there was a lot of pressure on us Godparents the day of her baptism. I was well versed in America’s Funniest Home Videos where the baby slips out of a Godparent’s arm into the baptismal or the Godparent gets peed on.
Thankfully, it all went off without a hitch. This photo is of Margaret, her ex-husband, me and Marissa outside the church. I don’t know that I have a photo of me holding her on that day, which is sad.
I lost many years with Margaret and Marissa because of my ex. It was obvious that she did not care for Margaret. So because of that, she made it impossible for us to ever get together.
After my divorce and remarriage, I was so glad that Margaret and I picked right up where we left off. This also led to a reconnection with my Goddaughter.
I love this photo, but it reminds me that there should have been years worth of pictures of the two of us …
Technically, I could have posted this yesterday as it was National Hat Day. Instead, I am posting today because of the anniversary you will read about in the upcoming paragraphs….
High society owes “a hat tip” (pun intended) to haberdasher John Hetherington. Are you familiar with him? He is responsible for an item that became a formal necessity for men. From weddings to proms to presidential inaugurations, the top hat was a must have! Believe it or not, the hat got Mr. Hetherington in a spot of trouble!
It was on this day in 1797 that Mr. Hetherington appeared in court. After he had stepped out onto the streets of London wearing the distinctive headgear, it caused quite a stir.
When he appeared in public wearing the hat, people noticed. So much so that a crowd formed. Hetherington was eventually arrested and given a summons for disturbing the public peace! In court, he was found guilty of wearing a hat “calculated to frighten timid people.” He was bound over to keep the peace in consideration of a sum of 50 pounds.
The arresting officer told the court that nobody had seen anything like it before. He said,
“He had such a tall and shiny construction on his head that it must have terrified nervous people. The sight of this construction was so overstated that various women fainted, children began to cry and dogs started to bark. One child broke his arm among all the jostling.”
Mr. Hetherington had someone on his side. The next day, The Times newspaper reported: “Hetherington’s hat points to a significant advance in the transformation of dress. Sooner or later, everyone will accept this headwear. We believe that both the court and the police made a mistake here.”
The newspaper was right. The top hat, which went by several names including Toppers, Chimney Pots, and Stove Pipes, grew in popularity. It finally achieved the ultimate stamp of respectability in 1850 when Prince Albert, began to wear one. Thus giving the headgear the royal seal of approval. There was no going back after that . . .
For my Senior Prom, a top hat was a MUST HAVE. I wish more people would wear them more often.
Welcome back to The Music of My Life, where I feature ten songs from each year of my life. In most cases, the ten songs I choose will be ones I like personally (unless I explain otherwise). The songs will be selected from Billboard’s Year-end Hot 100 Chart, Acclaimed Music, and will all be released in the featured year.
I turned 35 in 2005. There was plenty going on in my personal life at this time. We were doing various therapies for my son, who had been diagnosed as being on the Autism spectrum. I had settled into my position at 94-5 The Moose in Saginaw as their afternoon guy and music director. I was certainly loving that. And at some point during the year, my mother’s cancer returned.
At the time, My Space was pretty popular. I was blogging a lot on there. Somewhere, I have a Word document with every one of those blogs. I had to contact them to get them. I had stopped posting there after joining Facebook, and at some point they moved content. I was thankful to get those blogs as they covered the time leading up to my wedding, the birth of my sons and the death of my mom.
I posted a lot about new songs we were playing on the radio, too. A few of them make this list. Let’s head into 2005:
The legendary Ray Charles passed away in 2004, but before he did, he recorded an amazing duets album. Genius Loves Company was the best selling recording of Charles’ more than 50-year career. It was a collection of duets with Norah Jones, Natalie Cole, Elton John, B.B. King, Gladys Knight, Diana Krall, Michael McDonald, Johnny Mathis, Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt and James Taylor.
The album entered the Top 10 on the US album chart more than 40 years after Charles’ previous appearance on that same chart. This broke the record held by another act who also made his comeback with a duets album. In 1993 Frank Sinatra’s Duets reached the Top Ten 25 years after his previous Top 10 album.
Here We Go Again was a song that Ray had recorded in 1967. Then in 2004 he re-recorded this as a duet with Norah Jones for Genius Loves Company. She recalled collaborating with Charles on this song in a 2010 interview with Billboard magazine:
“I got a call from Ray asking if I’d be interested in singing on this duets record. I got on the next plane and I brought my mom. We went to his studio and did it live with the band. I sang it right next to Ray, watching his mouth for the phrasing. He was very sweet and put me at ease, which was great because I was petrified walking in there.”
This song won Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Best Pop Collaboration in 2005 eight months after Charles passed away. In addition Genius Loves Company was awarded Album of the Year among six other awards, as the American music industry paid lavish tribute to him.
Unlike Frank Sinatra and Willie Nelson, Ray Charles’ voice is as strong as ever on this recording. I felt Sinatra’s voice was weak on his duets albums. Willie is still putting out albums and at times he sounds like he’s just speaking the lyrics. Ray, however, sounds fantastic. I love the blending of these two voices.
Here We Go Again
The next song is an example of a song that I first heard in a polka. You read that right – a polka. Weird Al Yankovic has done quite a few polka medleys on his albums. The medley usually contains a verse or chorus from a pop song done as a polka. When I first heard Beverly Hills by Weezer on the radio, I found I liked it.
Weezer lead singer (Rivers Cuomo) explained in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine that this song is about how he could live in Beverly Hills, but he wouldn’t fit in. “I could live in Beverly Hills, sure,” he says, meaning he could afford it easily. “But I couldn’t belong there.'”
Songfacts explains:
The song comes off as satire, but that wasn’t what Rivers Cuomo had in mind when he wrote it. “I was at the opening of the new Hollywood Bowl and I flipped through the program and I saw a picture of Wilson Phillips,” he said. “And for some reason I just thought how nice it would be to marry, like, an ‘established’ celebrity and live in Beverly Hills and be part of that world. And it was a totally sincere desire. And then I wrote that song, ‘Beverly Hills.’ For some reason, by the time it came out and the video came out, it got twisted around into something that seemed sarcastic. But originally it wasn’t meant to be sarcastic at all.”
The music video was shot at the Playboy mansion. It included appearances by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and some of the Playboy bunnies. Two of those bunnies were Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt.
Beverly Hills
When I was music director at the Moose, I spoke with a lot of record people. One of the industry folks knew I loved music from the Rat Pack. She asked me if I had heard of Michael Buble’. I hadn’t. She sent me some MP3’s of his music and I was hooked.
The song could have been sung by just about any artist who tours. The lyrics sound as if they could be autobiographical. It is sung by someone who spends a lot of time on the road with great success. With that success, there is sacrifice. He is missing his home, particularly the woman he loves.
Despite the fact that Home only reached #72 on the Hot 100 chart, it was a breakthrough song for him. The song hit #1 on the Adult Contemporary survey in July 2005. Three years later Blake Shelton reached #1 on the Country chart with his cover of Bublé’s hit.
Bublé and Blake Shelton teamed up in 2012 to record a holiday version of this song for Shelton’s, Cheers, It’s Christmas album. The collaboration happened after Shelton sent Bublé an email saying he hoped to record a yuletide-themed rendering of the tune. “I had the idea of doing a Christmas version of ‘Home,'” he said.
This was the song that proved to folks that Michael was more than a cover artist. His original songs are just as good as the standards he records. He is also more than just a Christmas artist. It bugs me that people pigeon hole him and label him like that. He’s one of my favorites.
Home
My on air name was “Keith Allen.” As a music director, I got to hear all the new music before it went on the air. I popped Play Something Country by Brooks and Dunn in the CD player and loved it. On my first listen, I thought they said my name – Keith Allen. I suppose, in a way, they did. But the lyrics refer to Toby Keith and Alan Jackson:
Said, I’m a whiskey drinking, cowboy chasing, hell of a time I like Kenny, Keith, Alan and Patsy Cline.
I have to tell you my favorite story about this song. When my program director and I first heard this, we said, “That’s a number one song!” We told our consultant that we wanted to add it. He said he didn’t feel like it was a hit. We were both shocked. We both told him that we felt it would be number one. He fought us.
He fought us for a few weeks on this one. He finally said that if we really felt it was a hit, we should add it. We wound up making a wager. I told him that if it didn’t go to number one, we’d buy him dinner. He said if it did hit number one, he would buy US dinner. The week it hit number one, he called us for our weekly music call. When we answered we started giving him restaurants we could go to!
His issue with the song? The “wolf-like” howl of the chorus.
Play Something Country
The next song is one that everyone jokes about on October 1st every year. “Someone needs to go wake up the guy from Green Day!”
This song reminds me of Fastball’s The Way. I say that because it starts with a simple acoustic guitar behind lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong. Then the song kicks in with drums and the rest of the instrumentation. I love the sound of that.
Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong wrote this song about his father, who died of cancer on September 1, 1982. At his father’s funeral, Billie cried, ran home and locked himself in his room. When his mother got home she knocked on the door to Billie’s room. Billie simply said, “Wake me up when September ends,” hence the title.
“My father died in September of ’82, and I purposely, up until that point, never went there,” Armstrong said in an interview. “I think really what I was doing was processing that loss that I had with this person that I never really knew. So I wrote that song for my father and about that loss and how 20 years had passed. I remember right after I wrote it, I felt this huge weight off my shoulders.”
Wake Me Up When September Ends
Another country newcomer makes my list this week. I have actually written about him, and the song. Here is that blog:
The next song is one of the slowest chart climbers in history. It was on the American Hot 100 chart for 23 weeks before it entered the Top 40. KT Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See” was inspired by another artist, Patti Smith. Tunstall said, “The inspiration for the song was Robert Mapplethorpe’s photograph of Patti Smith on the cover of her album Horses. I was staring at it one day thinking it was incredible. It’s everything I love about music – mysterious, inviting, frightening.”
Suddenly I see This is what I wanna be Suddenly I see Why the hell it means so much to me
“The chorus was me thinking, ‘that’s what I want to be,'” Tunstall told The Guardian. “Not a famous pop star with lots of money, but like this woman who’s living her life as an artist. I’d been trying for more than 10 years to be a professional musician. I was just exhausted from trying to persuade other people I was good enough.”
I remember hearing this song shortly after realizing that my first marriage was over. After all I learned and discovered through therapy, the title spoke to me. Suddenly, I saw just what was going on and I realized that I couldn’t do it anymore.
Suddenly I See
There were some really good country songs around this time. There were many new artists and some really distinct sounds that were on the radio. I was impressed with Josh Turner from the first time I heard him. I couldn’t believe the tone of his low voice.
Your Man is a song that I wish I could have written. Here is a guy who has been thinking about his woman all day long. He tells her to lock the door, turn the lights down low, and play some music.
I’ve been thinking about this all day long Never felt a feeling quite this strong I can’t believe how much it turns me on Just to be your man
That’s LOVE right there!!
I love the entire feel of this song. It’s the perfect song to “sway” to.
Your Man
As the “Nostalgic Italian,” I think it is safe to say that I believe in the power of a photograph. The memories that can come from looking at an old picture just amazes me. My Friday Photo Flashback is always fun to do. I think that is because of the stuff that comes to mind with those old pictures.
I know there are plenty of people who hate Nickelback. However, Photograph is a song that I can relate to in so many ways. (From songfacts): This song is about reviewing the memories (missed and forgotten) from the band’s childhood in Hanna, Alberta. The lyrics are a chronicle of real events and personal landmarks lead singer Chad Kroeger recalled as he wrote it.
“It’s just nostalgia, growing up in a small town, and you can’t go back to your childhood. Saying goodbye to friends that you’ve drifted away from, where you grew up, where you went to school, who you hung out with and the dumb stuff you used to do as a kid, the first love – all of those things. Everyone has one or two of those memories that they are fond of, so this song is really just the bridge for all that.”
Someone once said, “If you don’t think photos are important, wait until they are all you have left.” I couldn’t agree more.
The photograph Kroeger is holding in the video is the one that inspired the song: It’s a shot of him and their producer, Joey Moi, at a New Year’s Eve party.
Photograph
We wrap up 2005 with a One Hit Wonder. Defining a “one hit wonder” isn’t really easy. Most feel it is when the artist fails to have their follow up released crack the Top 25. There are certainly many songs that fit into that category.
Daniel Powter’s album was released in America in 2006. Bad Day was released in the UK in 2005. In the fifth season of Americal Idol, the song was played over a video montage of the contestant that was being sent home that week. This helped the song gain popularity.
Powter is from British Columbia who later moved to Los Angeles. “Bad Day” was his first single released on a major label (Warner Bros.), and his only hit. He later described it as “a blessing and a curse.” Powter said:
“I was touring the world and performing for thousands of people, but I felt like the song was starting to define me. I actually found myself getting almost angry about it.”
This was the top-selling digital download of 2006. This was the star of people prefer downloading songs to buying CDs. It was part of a shift toward digital distribution of individual songs. In America, the album sold 500,000, but the single was digitally downloaded over 3 million times!
My mom was doing chemotherapy and radiation for her breast cancer at this time. She found the song to be inspiring. It basically says that even if you have a bad day once in a while, things will get better. My mom always tried to have a positive outlook. She battled cancer for 10 years and by this point she was tired.
My mom had the gift of gab. She was always on the phone. She assigned Bad Day to be the ringtone for her cell phone. I believe it was on there until she passed away. When I hear this song, I am taken back to those final weeks of her life.
Bad Day
What song from 2005 did I miss that was your favorite? Drop it in the comments.
Next week, we’ll focus on 2006. On my list is a song about a steeplechase runner, a song that became a hit because of Grey’s Anatomy, and a song that was a hit on the Adult Contemporary Chart and the Country charts. It also has a great Drifter’s cover song, one that took on a whole new meaning for me when my daughter was born, and a creative way to insinuate profanity without actually using it.
Thanks for reading and for listening! See you next week.
The clarinet celebrates birthday 335 today, and in honor of that, it is Clarinet Day!
January 14th is the day the clarinet was invented in Nuremberg, Germany in 1690. The instrument was created by German instrument maker Johann Christoph Denner, or possibly his son Jacob.
It had developed from much earlier reed instruments, going right back to Ancient Greece and Egypt. The chalumeauwas a Baroque single reed woodwind instrument originating in France where its use spread to Germany.
Denner developed the instrument. He equipped a chalumeau in the alto register with two keys, one of which enabled access to a higher register. This second register did not begin an octave above the first, as with other woodwind instruments. Instead, it started an octave and a perfect fifth higher than the first. A second key, at the top, extended the range of the first register to A4 and, together with the register key, to B♭4. Later, Denner lengthened the bell and provided it with a third key to extend the pitch range down to E3.
In the days of the Big Bands, there were plenty of well known clarinetists. Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and Woody Herman all played clarinet and had their own big bands. They also had hits that featured clarinet solos (Let’s Dance, Begin the Beguine, Woodchopper’s Ball).
As far as pop hits, there are a couple that spring to mind that feature the clarinet. The first was from Mr. Acker Bilk.
Bilk wrote Stranger on the Shore for his young daughter and originally named the song “Jenny” after her. The tune was written on a single scrap of paper by Bilk and handed over to arranger Leon Young. Young crafted the string arrangement, including the characteristic harmonic shifts at the very end.
The song was a number one in the UK and the biggest selling English single of 1962. In May of 1962 it became the first British recording to reach number one on the U.S Billboard Hot 100 Chart.
The other pop clarinet hit comes from the Fab Four. Paul McCartney wrote the melody for When I’m 64 when he was just 14 years old. It was one of the first songs he ever wrote.
The song features a clarinet trio – 2 B flat clarinets and a bass clarinet. The song was scored by George Martin, who said the clarinets were added at McCartney’s request. The reason for this was to “get around the lurking schmaltz factor” by using the clarinets “in a classical way.”
Paul McCartney suggested speeding up the track to raise the key by what musicians call a semitone. A semitone is about a half step. So speeding up the track took it from C major to D flat major. George Martin remembers that McCartney suggested this change to make his voice sound younger.
Musicologist Michael Hannon had this to say about the completed track:
“The rich timbres of the clarinets give the mix a fuller, fatter sound than many of the other tracks on the album.”
Actress Penelope Ann Miller turns 61 today. She has been in so many great movies. She was in Kindergarten Cop, Carlito’s Way, Other People’s Money, The Shadow, Along Came a Spider, and so many more. I will always remember her as Brenda in Adventures in Babysitting.
Penelope plays Brenda, who runs away to a bus station. Elisabeth Shue’s character decides to go get her, and is talked into taking the kids she is babysitting. Thus begins the adventure…
The movie is set in Illinois – in Oak Park and Chicago. Chicago is known for some fantastic blues music, and some great songs appear on the soundtrack. One of my favorite cuts is from the legendary Muddy Waters.
In 1977, Muddy Waters released his Hard Again album. It was produced by Johnny Winter. The album was Waters’ first after leaving the famous Chess label. There were a couple re-recordings on the album, but new stuff, too. A great cut from that album appeared in Adventures in Babysitting. Give a listen to The Blues Had a Baby and They Named it Rock and Roll!
Muddy Waters – The Blues Had a Baby and They Named it Rock and Roll
So today you get a bonus cut. One of the greatest scenes in the movie is when Shue and her tag along kids enter a blues bar. The great Albert Collins is on stage. When the kids try to leave, Collins tells them that “nobody leaves” the bar “without singing the blues.” This leads to Shue’s character telling (“singing”) their story as a blues song. To me, it’s one of the best scenes in the movie.
Albert Collins and Elizabeth Shue – Babysitting Blues
I got a couple emails asking, so I thought I’d give you an update.
After taking down the Christmas decorations, I began to feel numbness in both hands and in my arms. I had a lot of swelling in my hands and feet. I also had joint pain. After a video visit with the doctor, I was given a muscle relaxer and steroids.
I was told if the numbness didn’t go away to make an appointment. After the meds were gone, the numbness remains. So she worked me in on Friday.
At the appointment, she had me raise my hands and arms and such. She moved them around, poked around and thinks it’s something in my neck. I don’t know how that fits into everything else, but ok. She told me that she wants me to go get an EMG. So now I am waiting to get a day for that. I need to call on Monday.
I’m not sure what happened with my Blood Pressure, either. On Thursday, when I was at the ADHD doctor it was 130/80. That’s good for me! But at the Primary doc on Friday, it was 140/100.
There was all kinds of confusion with my Upper GI test, too. For some reason they had me down as cancelled. I spent way too much time on the phone trying to figure out whether I was getting it done or not. Once it was sorted out, we figured out what happened. It is now rescheduled to this coming week.
So in a nutshell I have more questions than answers. When I wake up, that’s when it is the worst. Pain accompanies the numbness. Some swelling, too.
I will keep you posted. Thanks for checking up on me.
When I was in elementary school we did a play about Thomas Edison. It was a musical called The Electric Sunshine Man. I don’t remember too much about it except that I was a cowboy in one of Edison’s moving pictures. Big role! I was on stage for like 3.7 seconds.
I digress. Back to Edison.
In 2017, Benedict Cumberbatch starred as Thomas Edison in the film “The Current War.” That “war” was also the topic of “The Last Days of Night” by Graham Moore.
The current war revolves around the electric light bulb and the debate over AC and DC current. I do not believe that the Cumberbatch film was based on this book. The book is based in fact, however, it is historical fiction. The time lines are adjusted a bit for the book. Much of the book and dialogue came from journals, court transcripts, and other writings. At the close of the book, the author lays out for you the things that were fact and the things where he took some liberties.
The main characters in the book are George Westinghouse, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison and lawyer Paul Cravath.
Here is the Goodreads synopsis:
New York, 1888. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy. The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make history–and a vast fortune. A young untested lawyer named Paul Cravath, fresh out of Columbia Law School, takes a case that seems impossible to win. Paul’s client, George Westinghouse, has been sued by Thomas Edison over a billion-dollar question: Who invented the light bulb and holds the right to power the country?
The case affords Paul entry to the heady world of high society–the glittering parties in Gramercy Park mansions, and the more insidious dealings done behind closed doors. The task facing him is beyond daunting. Edison is a wily, dangerous opponent with vast resources at his disposal–private spies, newspapers in his pocket, and the backing of J. P. Morgan himself. Yet this unknown lawyer shares with his famous adversary a compulsion to win at all costs. How will he do it?
In obsessive pursuit of victory, Paul crosses paths with Nikola Tesla, an eccentric, brilliant inventor who may hold the key to defeating Edison, and with Agnes Huntington, a beautiful opera singer who proves to be a flawless performer on stage and off. As Paul takes greater and greater risks, he’ll find that everyone in his path is playing their own game, and no one is quite who they seem.
If you are a history buff like me, I think you will enjoy this book. It was certainly interesting to see a side of Edison that is not portrayed in the history books.
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 