Today would have been my Godfather’s birthday. I really miss him a lot. I found some pictures on a hard drive which brought a smile to my face today and I wanted to share.
When I first started blogging I devoted an entire blog to him … for new followers, you can read it here:
This is one of those quickie blogs I wanted to share so I would always remember it. While at work one night last week, I received the following text message from Sam:
It’s silly little things like this that I will forever look back on and laugh out loud!
Oh well, I picked up a new coloring book for her ….
June will mark 34 years since I graduated from high school. My class has never had an “official” reunion. I’m not really sure why that is. It doesn’t really matter. The only time our class had some sort of get together was a combined event with the class after us. They held it at a local bar and I remember it being very loud. It was great to see some of the faces from the past, but I felt like it was hard to catch up because you were screaming at each other.
I’ve DJ’s many high school reunions, and they are difficult to do. Not many people want to dance, because they are busy catching up with their old classmates. One reunion organizer told me to play 70’s songs (they graduated in 76) and to keep the volume down “so we can talk.” That really is what reunions are about – catching up with old friends.
This coming weekend, there is another Alumni Get Together being held. It will again be at a bar, and this one is open to pretty much anyone who went to our school. There was a Facebook invite sent out and the event is in my calendar. I can look at who is attending, but can only see those people who are my friends on Facebook.
Just yesterday, Facebook reminded me of the event again. I glanced over the friends who are going and believe me, I would love to get to hang out with them for the night. However, I decided early on that I am going to stay home. There will no doubt be many pictures taken and posted from the event and I will anxiously await seeing them.
A high school friend and I chatted on my way to work this week. She asked if I was planning on going this weekend. I told her I was not, and it isn’t because of where it is going to be or anything like that.
What it all boils down to is that there are too many possible people who could show up that I would rather not see. I have many former friends who have bought into the lies and stories that have been told about me and quite frankly, I don’t want to give anyone anything to talk about. Many former relatives went to my high school. They have their opinions of me and that’s fine. They have written enough “bad press” about me and continue to do so. Yeah, no thanks. I certainly don’t want to see any of those people, or the ones who took what they said as “truth.”
As I look back over the list of those going to the event, I know that I can message or call them at any time. Many, I do. Thanks to Facebook, I can keep in contact with them. I am sure there will be some friends not on Facebook who will be there, and I’ll miss reconnecting with them, but I keep hoping that one day my class will have an actual reunion.
On Friday, my son told me that he wasn’t coming over for the weekend. Sam and I decided that we’d take Ella somewhere to burn off some energy (Andrew came along for the ride). When I got home from work Saturday morning, I stayed up and we all went to the Mid-Michigan Children’s Museum in Saginaw.
I’d never been there before, but I was impressed with it. There was plenty of stuff for Ella to do. We thought she would spend more time at the “water area,” but she was only there for a short time. She was running from station to station and I probably lost a few pounds chasing her around.
We got there right when it opened, so there wasn’t a lot of people there. The longer we were there, the more crowded it got. Both Sam and I felt our anxiety levels rising, so we wrapped things up with a trip to the gift shop. Ella found a stuffed kitty cat that she hasn’t really let go of since our trip.
On our way home, we stopped at Halo Burger. Halo Burger is a Flint area restaurant that is known for their Olive Burgers. They are SO good!! They are also known for serving Boston Coolers (It’s like a shake with Vernor’s ginger ale and vanilla ice cream). We don’t go there often, but when I do, I always get a Boston Cooler. I brought it home and Sam had Ella try it. She called it “Ice Cream Pop.” Needless to say, she finished it off for me.
Later than night, we took the kids to see Sam’s grandma. She loves her great grandbabies. She is in her 90’s and sharp as a tack! I am so glad that the kids have had the opportunity to know her and love her.
Andrew has been scooting all over the floor now. I’m sure he is trying to keep up with his sister. I know that it won’t be long before his is crawling and walking all over the place. This week, he actually got himself sitting up. It’s not consistent yet, but he seems pretty dang happy when he is sitting up and able to look around.
He was recently evaluated by the doctor and he will need a helmet. We’re hoping that he will only have to wear it for a couple months. The helmet will basically help to make sure his head is shaped properly. We’re hoping that the helmet won’t slow down his progress by weighing him down. He should be getting it this week.
He is such a happy baby. He always seems to be wearing a smile. Sam has been playing a game with the kids where she makes Andrew “get” Ella. They both laugh out loud and I love watching them!
I just love the outfit Andrew has on …
All of my kids are pretty awesome, there is no doubt about that.
A friend of mine posted something on Facebook that was 100% true and really struck a chord with me this week. It said:
Your first kid teaches you how long the days are. Your last kid teaches you how short the years are.
Powerful stuff! That’s why I try to take advantage of all the time I can with them.
This blog is part of Turntable Talk, a feature created by Dave at A Sound Day.
Since I started this blog four years ago, I have wanted to write a blog about The Beatles. Outside of a few “mentions” and a couple guest blogs from my buddy Max, I have just never tackled a Beatle Blog. So let me tell you how I was finally “forced” to write about the boys from Liverpool.
Of the many blogs I follow, many of them are musically oriented. One of those is A Sound Day. Dave is the author, and you can follow Dave’s blog here: https://soundday.wordpress.com/
Dave reached out to a few of us and had an idea for a monthly blog topic. The topic would be music oriented and geared toward something that we’d all be familiar with. Each of us will write on that and it will be featured on his blog. The first topic suggested was “The Beatles – why are we talking about them 50 (+) years on?”
With that being a “base” to start with, we were given the option to write about (1) why they are still relevant (2) why they remain popular (3) is their popularity justified, etc… The Beatles themselves was the “prompt” and we can veer off how we want to. That being said, the questions that Dave presented are among many “sub” topics that I have in my notebook (Beatles Cover Songs, Songs covered by the Beatles, Favorite album, Top 10 favorites, etc…)
I have to admit, I had a difficult time trying to decide what angle I was going to go with. Then I began to think, “What if someone was unfamiliar with The Beatles? How would I introduce that person to their music? If I could only pick 10 of their songs to give an overall picture of the group, what would they be?” I made a list. This blog will reflect that list.
Before I go on, let me say that I hate my list! I cannot even begin to tell you how much I struggled to narrow it down to 10 songs that encompassed what I felt expressed why the Beatles were so fantastic. Oh, the songs that I cut from my list! There are SO many fantastic songs, and no doubt, you will question why certain ones did not make this list. I found myself questioning that, too.
After editing, re-editing, adding and removing songs, and editing again, I finally said “This is the list. No going back.” Like it or not, here are the 10 songs that I chose to introduce someone to the Fab Four:
I Saw Her Standing There
This has always been one of my favorite tracks. Paul’s “1-2-3-4” count off into the driving guitar grabs me every time. It was the first track of their first album – what a way to start an album! After all the years, I was still playing this at weddings and parties when I was DJing and it always filled the dance floor.
The story goes that Paul saw a teenage gal dancing the Twist at a dance and that event was the basis for this song. It is hard not to tap your foot as you listen to this one. (Side note: I feel the guitar solo in this song is kind of lame. The boys were still quite young at this time. Compare this solo with solos from songs just 3 years later and you can get a feel for just how far they came musically.)
If I Fell
When I think of the Beatles, I think of their harmonies. As I tried to pick songs, I tried to find one that showcased some of those harmonies. In a Playboy interview in 1984, Paul said If I Fell was recorded during “our close-harmony period.”
John called this his “first attempt at a ballad proper.” As a music guy, I love the chord changes in this song. Simple chords, diminished chords, and some ninth chords are all featured in the song. It is simple, yet complex.
On a personal note, after my divorce, I heard this song on the Beatles channel on Sirius XM just as my current wife and I were starting to date. I related to these lyrics. Who isn’t scared about starting a new relationship after being hurt by someone?
Got To Get You Into My Life
Brian Epstein wrote in his 1964 autobiography that the Beatles were turned down by Decca Records. He was told “guitar groups are on their way out.” I chose this song because it shows that they were more than just a guitar group. This was the first time the group ever used a horn section in one of their songs.
Paul admits that the song is an ode to marijuana. That is certainly not why it made my list. I’ll be honest, I never would have guessed that. I always heard it as a guy wanting a girl. I guess I’m just dumb. I chose it because, as a horn player, I loved the brass in it.
I’ll Follow The Sun
As you can see by the photo above, the song is credited to both Lennon and McCartney as writers, but the truth is that Paul wrote it. He remembered, “I wrote that in my front parlour in Forthlin Road. I was about 16. ‘I’ll Follow the Sun’ was one of those very early ones. I seem to remember writing it just after I’d had the flu and I had that cigarette. I remember standing in the parlour, with my guitar, looking out through the lace curtains of the window, and writing that one.”
He said that the group was always ready to sound different. They didn’t want to get into a place where all their songs sounded the same. This one certainly was a very different sound. I love the guitar work in this one. It is beautiful. This is another song that features some good Paul/John harmonies.
Eight Days A Week
This is a song that never left my list. It has always been one of my top Beatles songs. It’s a feel good song. I love the message of this song – There aren’t enough days in a week to show how much he cares about his love.
This was the group’s second #1 song in the US. It is just a solid Beatles pop song. It’s hard NOT to like it. There are varying stories as to how they came up with the title. Some sources say it was a “Ringoism,” something Ringo said that struck a chord with John and Paul. Another source says that Paul was in a car and he asked the chauffeur how he was. The driver supposedly replied, “working hard – working eight days a week.”
It is one of many Beatles songs that features “hand clapping.”
Something
While the bulk of the Beatles songs were penned by Lennon and McCartney, George Harrison was responsible for writing some fantastic songs. A perfect example is Something. It is what some call “the perfect love song.” Frank Sinatra (who never really had a lot of nice things to say about the Beatles) even called it “the greatest love song of the past 50 years.”
George says he wrote it “on the piano while we were making The White Album. I had a break while Paul was doing some overdubbing so I went into an empty studio and began to write. That’s really all there is to it, except the middle took some time to sort out.” George actually gave the song to Joe Cocker a year before they cut it.
The song was George’s first single and first number 1. It has been covered by many artists, and George has said that his favorite cover was done by James Brown!
A Hard Day’s Night
This song had to be on my list. Musicologist Alan Pollack says that this song “arguably holds a place within the upper echelon of the Beatles catalog.”
According to A Hard Day’s Write, Ringo is quoted as saying, “I came up with the phrase ‘a hard day’s night.’ It just came out. We went to do a job and we worked all day and we happened to work all night. I came out, still thinking it was day and said, ‘It’s been a hard day…’ looked around, saw that it was dark and added…’ ‘s night.”
There is a lesson in this song – If you work hard, romantic and domestic bliss will follow.
This song gets me from that opening chord! It’s also one of the great cowbell songs of our time!
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
This one is another George Harrison composition. Some have called this his greatest song. To me, this is a great example of just how mature the group had become in 4 years. The guitar work in this song is fantastic (Eric Clapton appears on the song). I love the interplay between the piano and high hat cymbal in the intro.
When I worked in Classic Rock, someone played me a clip of a comedian (can’t remember who) who goes off on classic rock radio. He says that there are more classic rock songs that “Stairway to Heaven,” “Layla,” and “While My Guitar gently Weeps.” This is funny, but it is a good example of just how popular this song is with music fans.
Yesterday
This song has the distinction of being covered by more artists than any other song in history. Paul calls it his “most successful song” and says that it is “amazing that it came to me in a dream.” Paul stated that he had the melody from the dream but didn’t have the words – so he “blocked it out with ‘Scrambled Eggs’.”
The sheer beauty of this song is in the arrangement. It is Paul, a guitar and a string quartet – and it works. It is hard to imagine it any other way (despite the countless covers). When Paul played it for the group, Ringo said it didn’t need any drums and John and George said it didn’t need any more guitar, and from there, it became the first “solo” song.
Fun Fact: The four members of the string quartet had never played together as a group before they played on the session.
Hey Jude
Right up until the time I was ready to start writing, the final question I had was – “Let it Be” or “Hey Jude”? Which one do I include? In the end, Hey Jude won out because it is sort of an anthem. It is a stand alone Beatles song. It’s like none other.
At 7 minutes long, it is what radio people called a “bathroom song.” Before the days of automation, DJ’s had to start a new record when one ended. Today, computers do that for them and they can walk away from the computer or studio for 10 minutes at a time as long as they didn’t have to talk. Back in the day, though, that wasn’t the case.
If you really stop and think about it, the song itself is only 3 minutes long. The last 4 minutes is just a refrain and fade out. The end of the record is longer than the song itself!
The song was written by Paul for John Lennon’s son Julian, who was then 5 years old. He was upset about his father and mother getting a divorce. It was written to help console him. Julian said, “It’s hard to imagine that this man was thinking about me and my life so much that he wrote a song about me…If I’m in a bar and the song comes on the radio, I still get goose pimples.”
I was dead set on Let it Be being the final song, until I listened back to both. Hey Jude is more “Beatles” to me, in that we have great lyrics, great instrumentation, and great harmonies. Let It Be, almost falls into that “solo” status, as it is pretty much Paul.
In Conclusion
After writing on these 10 songs, I looked back over my initial list of like 50 songs. It makes me sad that I didn’t include some of them. Others, I had on the list just because I liked them. Should I have added a Ringo vocal song? There were some good ones, but … no.
So back to Dave’s question: “The Beatles – why are we talking about them 50 (+) years on?”
Their stuff from 1964 still sounds fresh and stands out. People still request their songs, sing along with their songs, and dance to their songs! Movies are being made about them (Yesterday, Get Back). Their albums still sell. They have their own Sirius XM channel. The only answer I can come up with is “Because they are THAT good.”
Thanks, Dave for allowing me to take part in this! I look forward to reading the other posts from you and my music blogger friends.
Back in 1964, something amazing happened on the Billboard chart!
The Beatles held the top 5 spots! This is something that has never happened before or since!
My friend Ken also pointed out: they also had seven other songs in the top 100 for a total of 12 tunes!
That same week, The Beatles also held the top two spots on Billboard’s albums chart with Meet The Beatles! and Introducing The Beatles. These U.S. chart records have never been broken, even after 58 years!
That is truly amazing!!!
Here’s a great little piece on this:
April 4, 1964: The Beatles Hold Top 5 Chart Spots
Watch for my Beatles blog in a few days .
In honor of April Fool’s Day, here are some “foolish” quotes:
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
― Soren Kierkegaard
“The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.”
― Winston S. Churchill
“A man who trusts everyone is a fool and a man who trusts no one is a fool. We are all fools if we live long enough.”
― Robert Jordan
“The young people think the old people are fools — but the old people know the young people are fools.”
― Agatha Christie
“Always remember… Rumors are carried by haters, spread by fools, and accepted by idiots.”
― Ziad K. Abdelnour
“A learned fool is more a fool than an ignorant fool.”
― Moliere
“Until you’re ready to look foolish, you’ll never have the possibility of being great.”
– Cher
“Who’s the more foolish: the fool, or the fool who follows him?”
– Alec Guiness, ‘As Obi Wan Kenobi From Star Wars’
“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
– Mark Twain
“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.”
– Plato
“The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart.”
– Benjamin Franklin
“There are more fools than wise men, and even in the wise man himself there is more folly than wisdom.”
– Nicolas Chamfort
“The greatest of all fools is the proud fool–who is at the mercy of every fool he meets.”
– Washington Allston
“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.”
– Bruce Lee
“The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his own way.”
– Josh Billings
“The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.”
– Charles Caleb Colton
“April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.”
– Mark Twain
“Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet.”
– African Proverb
“A fool despises good counsel, but a wise man takes it to heart.”
– Confucius
“A fool always finds something to complain about, and a wise person always finds something to appreciate.”
– Debasish Mridha
“You will rarely make wise decisions if you surround yourself with fools.”
– Rasheed Ogunlaru
“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,”
– Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, Romans 1:22
What a crazy weekend! As much as I hate not getting a lot of sleep, I have to admit that some of the funniest stories I write about are due to lack of sleep. Take Saturday for example:
We needed groceries and a few things, so Sam went to the store. On her way home, she texted me, “On my way. I have Easter things. Like bubbles and chocolate, so watch it unloading.” So when she got home, I go out to start unloading the van. She sent Ella outside because she has been cooped up inside. The first thing she sees is two books that Sam bought. She looks up and me as says, “Go inside and read books?”
So she walks in with the books. Sam looks at me like, “what the hell?” I told her she spotted them and wanted to come inside and read them. Sam told me that she was going to put them in her Easter basket. I had no idea.
A few days ago, Sam mentioned getting some rain boots for Ella so she could splash around outside. There was a pair in the back of the van and when I walked in I said, “Looks like mommy bought some rain boots” as I held them up. Sam shoots me another look and says, “Those were for Easter, too!” “Easter things” to me are chocolate, candies, etc… I had no idea the boots or books were Easter things.
Needless to say, she has worn her rain boots almost every day since!
The day became even more uncomfortable when I had to have a talk with my middle son. It was one of those “Dad/Teen” talks that made us both squirm as we talked. I remember my dad and I having a similar talk when I was about his age. It had to happen, I just wish I had been a little more prepared for it.
Andrew had his first taste of real food this weekend. Carrots to start. I was really surprised at how well he did. With each day, he gets better and better at eating. I loved seeing the “this stuff is so much better than the stuff in the bottle you keep giving me” smile!
Even though it hasn’t been that long since Ella was in the high chair, I had already forgotten just how messy feeding the baby can be!
At one point this weekend, Sam just happened to have both kids on her lap. I snapped this one and I just love it.
Monday morning, Ella walks over to me as I am sitting in the living room. “Daddy needs socks,” she says. Then she proceeds to put one of AJ’s socks on my foot and walks away. “You did it, Daddy!” I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at how it looked!
Andrew has been getting up earlier than Ella the past week or so. Him and I were already out in the living room playing on the floor when I saw that she was awake in the monitor. So I went to go get her. As I brought her out to the living room and she says, “Play with Bubby (that’s what she calls him)?” So I put her down and she went over to his toy box and dumped it out. She sat down and started playing with him. It was truly a heartwarming moment!
Looking ahead
You may recall a while back that my buddy, Max, wrote a couple “guest” blogs for me. His topic was the Beatles. I have said to him numerous times that I want to write a Beatles-themed blog, but just haven’t had the chance to really think about what to write. There are so many things I could do.
Well, Max and I are taking part in some musically themed blogs with our friend Dave. He will offer a topic and we (and a few other bloggers) will be writing on those things. For the first topic – he chose the Beatles. He has a specific angle he is shooting for, but he is also giving us a bit of freedom within that theme. So I am sitting her scratching my head on just how to tackle it. That should be posting within the next week, so hopefully I have something ready by then….
Thanks for reading!
Due to my lack of creativity this week, I have turned to a daily writing prompt to spark a blog idea. The prompt that struck me was this:
Find a picture that brings back a funny memory just by looking at it. Tell us about it.
I have no shortage of pictures I can chose from, but as I was searching through some older photos I found the one that made me laugh out loud. It is a professional photo of my first born son.
He is 3 months old in this picture. He is my first child and because he was a boy, we had many “sporty” type outfits that we bought or that were given to us. I love the fact that the Detroit Tigers hat matched this outfit. I believe the bat came from a game that I attended before he was born. As you can see, the props make the a cute picture, even cuter!
So what is so funny about this very cute picture? Well, it isn’t really what you can see in it, it is what happened at the shoot itself.
He is going to be 20 years old next month, so I cannot remember if the incident happened before the pictures were taken or after. I want to say afterward, because there is a picture of him in this same outfit on his belly, and I highly doubt we would have gotten that picture afterward.
We had the pictures taken at a professional studio. It may have been Sears, I don’t remember. At any rate, because he couldn’t sit up yet, they threw one of those things under the rug to help prop him up. If my memory serves me correctly, it was after this picture was taken that we heard him “explode.”
The day this picture was taken was the day of his first diaper blowout! I remember picking him up and there was poop all up his back. Wow, it was terrible. It was soaking through the back of this baseball uniform and I remember that it smelled awful. I don’t recall if we brought an outfit change that day. I remember being excited to have the pictures done in that outfit.
Every time I see this picture, as cute and as innocent as my son looks in it, all I can think of is that diaper blowout!
At some point, when I get an extra few bucks, I wanna order this shirt.
I am kind of over everything right now. Perhaps it is a lack of sleep, the need for a break/vacation, dealing with stupidity in many facets of life, an overwhelming amount of stress or a combination of all of these things. I am not really sure what the issue is. The past couple weeks, I feel like even the smallest things get under my skin. I feel like there is so much going in in my life right now. I feel like I lack the mental capacity to sort through it.
I can kind of fool most people. I usually can so this by just staying to myself – reading a book, listening to music or an old time radio show with headphones, or playing a dumb trivia game. The one person I cannot fool is my wife. She knows I am struggling, maybe she hasn’t said anything, but she knows. She can sense it. Even with an Oscar worthy performance, she knows.
She’s dealing with her own stresses right now. She’s doing SO much running around with the kids. Some days she has two different doctor appointments – one for each kid – each one in different cities. While doing that, she has to be sure she has bottles and diapers, and so on and so forth. It’s hell. It is days like this, that I wish I worked a normal schedule.
That’s a lot of crap to vent, and for that I am sorry. I hadn’t really wanted to write that much, but I was told by my therapist that sometimes you gotta just get it all out.
Despite having so much on my mind, I was not going to write a blog today. I just had nothing to write about. Then, while scrolling through Facebook memories, I found a post that probably hit me harder today than it did when I first posted it! It was a powerful reminder of how no matter what is going on in my life, I have an important role that I simply have to live up to every single day.
The Facebook Memory:
An amazing thought for the day: Parenting “is greater than any milestone you will ever hit in your career. It dwarfs any fame you may receive for your ideas or inventions. You’ve been handed a piece of history in advance – a gracious gift you send to a time you will not see – and you play the biggest role in how that history will ultimately be recorded” – T. Kimmel
This quote blows me away. Wow! This really shows how important a role I play in my children’s life. I’m not always going to be here for them, and when I am gone, I can only hope that they have learned something from me that they will take with them in the future. I hope that there is something that they learn from me that helps them in the future.
Another quote that is similar to the one above is :
I do not want to fail my children. I love them with all of my heart and soul. My role as their father is more important than any of the BS that is going on in my life. I have to make it a priority. I will love them, care for them, teach them, and guide them the best that I can, so that when they get out on their own, they will be ready to take their place in history.
There are days that I look through Facebook memories and I cringe as I delete things from the past. There are days that remind me of fun things the kids did, fun trips, or wonderful memories. Then there are days when one simple quote will knock me back a few steps to realize my focus is on the wrong things … and to adjust that focus to the right things!
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 