The Beatles

My thoughts on The Beatles in honor of the 50 year anniversary of their first U.S. appearance on the Ed Sullivan show.

Growing up in a small town in Iowa, music had always been a part of my life.   Sometimes it was my mother humming songs always puttering around the house, sometimes along with the radio, sometimes just with a melody running though her head. Other times, she would play songs on this old chord organ we used to have.  My mother and father also had a lot of vinyl records, lots of Elvis (my dad's favorite) and other artists from the 50's and 60's.    One of these albums was called, "Sing a Song With The Beatles".   You weren't REALLY singing along with The Beatles.   Instead, what you got were instrumental versions of early Beatles songs with an organ playing over the parts where you were supposed to sing.

My brother, Dan and I used to listen to this record growing up and around the time we started our own musical career, we actually recorded a version of this album with some friends of ours.  I believe it was during allergy season and we called ourselves,  The Religious Underground Basement Dwellers With Allergies.  It featured Dan, myself and our friends John Lingle and Chris Wysong.   I have no recollection of why or how we came up with that band name, I can kind of piece all of it together but I don't remember why the word  "Religious" was in there.   It wasn't good by any means, but I remember it being a lot of fun.   I remember singing in a horribly overdone,  British accent, way more prominent than The Beatles themselves, ever used.   I remember us all taking turns on vocals and I remember lots and lots of laughing....along with unnecessary profanity (usually by, yours truly).  "I'm in love with you and I feel fucking fine"   I do remember "All My Loving" was my "shining" moment.

The Beatles became a big influence in Dan and I's music career, not so much in songwriting, but i think the fact that they were having fun, creating their own music, and also coming up with creative ways to make music.   From the beginning, Dan and I always wanted to write our own music and lyrics.  Looking back I don't know if that was rare or not, we were the only people we knew in our town, along with our friend John and Eric, who were in an actual band.   The fact that none of us played our respective instruments when we started and the fact that all 4 of us to this day still create music, is testimony how serious we all were about making music. 

I know some of us had different books about The Beatles.   Biographies, recording session notes, chord books.  I loved the movies, all the records, anything Beatle related I took a HUGE interest in.   John was my favorite, he was the funniest to me.   But honestly those 4 guys together, especially in the beginning were something special and the world knew that right away.

 I envied the way they decided to just stop touring (because they couldn't hear themselves over the crowd) and focus on recording and creating music the rest of their time together.   A feat that is just MINDBLOWING to me.   I can't imagine ANYONE doing that today and being successful, since touring seems to be the main money makers for bands anymore.   In the book I had of the Beatles recording sessions, which were notes taken in the studio of dates and what songs were worked on what days, I was amazed to see that even though they did not tour anymore, they were in the Abbey Road studios almost every day working on something when they were together.  Aside from holidays usually,  and time when they would take a few weeks off for vacation.

I remember in an interview, John Lennon saying he saw Elvis on TV and say, "That's a pretty good job" and knew he wanted to be a musician.  Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley from Kiss, both have said they saw The Beatles on TV and knew instantly they wanted to be musicians.   And I'm positive someone saw Kiss and said the same thing and then so on and so forth.

I was 10 years old when John Lennon was shot, I remember it only vaguely.   I mainly remember my cousin having a shirt with John Lennon 1940-1980 on it.     Years later watching the footage of the people so shaken up and brought to tears by his death; I'm glad I didn't know much about him yet because it probably would have really disturbed me at that age.     (interesting(?) side note: I did come up with an outline of a screenplay once in my early 20's about two losers who died without doing anything substantial and being selfish in their lives were told they were going to Hell unless they did one good deed.   My idea for the good deed was them going back and trying to save John Lennon from getting shot.   It was going to be animated, and John Goodman was going to be the voice of God.   Anyway, that will never come to fruition, but I would still like to write it).

I've also always had the dream project in my mind to cover the entire "White Album".  My brother and I have talked about it since we were teenagers.    I also have great memories of my ex wife and I, when we were dating, driving on road trips listening to our Beatles CDs and singing along to all the songs. I, insisting to be John, and she would be Paul. and we'd not fight over George and Ringo's songs so much.  I think we probably both sang each others parts constantly.  The specifics of the memories now gradually fading like the ink on an old t-shirt.  

The Beatles have always been a part of my life since my teens, and while there may be times I don't hear them for some time, once you hear that "one" song again, you just want to fire up that whole catalog and sing along with all of them.   They are just that infectious and melodic and wonderful.

I've read something about it somewhere once about this and I think it does bear some merit, that the U.S. was in so much shock about JFK's assassination still that we, as a nation, needed something to heal us. And I do think seeing The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show those 2 and 1/2 months later did help do that.  Maybe that's part of the reason they connected with so many people and made them happy when they needed to be happy again.   

Whatever the reason, I truly believe the landscape of music would not be the same without The Beatles.  I know my landscape would not be as full and rich without them in my youth.

Birdman of Alcatraz, my ass!!!

So I watched "Birdman Of Alcatraz" last night with my father.  A few things....Burt Lancaster: great.  Directed by John Frankenheimer: cool. Telly Savalas: sweet.   

My issue? The movie is 143 minutes long, no problem there.  However, in that 2hrs 23min. I think Lancaster spends 20-30 min total on Alcatraz at the end of the movie and when he's there, he's not allowed to keep any birds!!!  He has all his birds at Leavenworth which is where the rest of the running time is spent.  Blatant false advertising.  I really don't understand why it was called that. Even though the movie was really good, this fact bothers me like an itch inside a cast on a broken arm. 

Fetal Pig - In Your Head- live last November

Live performance of "In Your Head" from our Autopia album available on ITunes, Amazon, Bandcamp, and others I'm sure I'm forgetting.  This song has always been my favorite to play.
For followers who don't know me personally, I'm on the drums.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/autopia/id500717397

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_srch_drd_B0076ZG09C?ie=UTF8&field-keywords=Fetal%20Pig&index=digital-music&search-type=ss

http://fetalpig.bandcamp.com/

Finally Lucifer's work can be done.....in blog form.

I want this for my turntable.

NCIS: The CBS procedural crime drama equivalent of a Three Stooges episode or a Burt Reynolds/Dom DeLuise movie.

My Picks for the top 30 movies 2000-2012 day 6. THE END.

Well this is it, the last of my picks for the 30 best movies spanning from 2000-2012. Picks # 5-1.   I hope you've enjoyed it, and you want to check some out you may not have seen. 

5. The Harry Potter Series-(2001-2011) J.K. Rowling's fantasy novels brought to life in 8 great films.  The fact that all 8 movies were all outstanding with no dip in quality, is no small feat.  One of the most popular children's/young adult book series ever, brought to life by Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson as Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, respectfully.  This was also the first movie that any of them had been in.  It's funny going back and watching the early movies after the later movies and seeing how young they all were. 

Other actors involved are Robbie Coltrane, Richard Harris (as Professor Dumbledore in the first two movies, until he passed away), Dame Maggie Smith, Gary Oldman, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, wonderful as Professor Snape, and Ralph Fiennes as the main antagonist, Voldemort.

I'm not going to summarize each and every film.  I enjoyed every one of them but I will say that the third film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, is my personal favorite, followed closely by the second, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.   I also believe that these movies are every bit as classic as the Lord of The Rings films are.  It has a great epic story as well, and the achievement in film that the quality of the 8 films never diminished, and that is to be commended. 

Of all the great actors in this movie, Emma Watson's performance of Hermione Granger was always one of my favorites, and of course, Alan Rickman, who will always hold a place dear in my heart after his performance in Die Hard, was brilliant.



4. Shutter Island-(2010) Martin Scorsese's noir-ish psychological thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio.  Taking place in 1954, DiCaprio stars as U.S. Marshall Edward "Teddy" Daniels,  investigating the disappearance of a woman from a psychiatric facility for the criminally insane located on Shutter Island, located in Boston Harbor.  This is a movie that has a very intricate plot, it messes with your head, which I always enjoy.  lol .  Once you've seen it and put all the pieces together, I suggest going back and watching it again and you will catch little looks that meant one thing the first time you saw it and something else the second time.   I loved this movie, it had a great look, a great story and great performances.  It may be my favorite Scorsese/DiCaprio matchup out of the five pictures they've done together to date.


3. Inception-(2010) Christopher Nolan's science fiction thriller about a group of thieves able to interact in other people's dreams and steal corporate secrets from a subject, for a price.  Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Dominick Cobb, a man who has been on the run from a murder charge in the United States of his wife.  While Cobb is working in other people's dreams, his subconscious places his dead wife in many of them, which usually endangers the job he is on.   He takes a job from a Japanese businessman who says he can get Cobb's murder charge to disappear so he can return to the states and see his children again.  The job is for them to place an idea in a subject's dream and make him think it is his OWN idea.  This is called Inception, which is said to be impossible by the other members of Cobb's team.  Desperately wanting to return home, Cobb agrees to the job.  

This movie was one I absolutely loved, it had a complicated, yet interesting plot. It makes you really pay attention to the story, you have to keep track of dreams within dreams within dreams.  Ground breaking special effects.  Two highlights are a city landscape that rolls up like a carpet, and a zero-gravity fight sequence with Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  A movie that encourages multiple viewings so you can catch little things you didn't the first time.   Very, very, cool movie.   With this and Shutter Island, DiCaprio starred in both of my favorite picks of 2010.  Both of these films, really made me take notice of him as a great actor.


2.The Dark Knight-(2008) Christopher Nolan's 3rd movie on this list.  This is the sequel to Batman Begins, which was another great movie by Nolan.  This movie, however, is miles above it, for one simple reason: Heath Ledger's absofreakinglutely BRILLIANT, portrayal of The Joker.  I will be the first to admit, the second I heard Heath Ledger was going to play The Joker, one of the greatest villains of ALL-TIME, I thought everyone was nuts.  The guy from a Knight's Tale??  You've got to be shitting me, this movie is going to suck.  

I've never been more wrong in my life.   This was one of the best acting performances I'd seen in years.  He knocked it out of the park, and unfortunately as everyone knows, he died before the movie ever came out, which was just horrible.   He ended up winning the Academy Award posthumously that year, which was definitely deserved.   I would have liked to seen what else his career would have brought after this.

This is Christian Bale's 2nd portrayal as Batman, and this was by far the best Batman movie out of any of the previously filmed Batman movies.   It's flat out one of the best action movies ever. Great action sequences, set pieces and even story are all at the top of their form in this movie.  I just watched this again last night, (yes it was already on the list before that), and it still held my attention just as much as it did 5 and a half years ago.   Unfortunately, I did not enjoy the following sequel, The Dark Knight Rises, near as much.   There were things that were really good in that one, but things that also bothered me, and in the end it just wasn't as good as Batman Begins or The Dark Knight.



1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-(2004) So here it is, finally, my favorite movie of the last 13 years.  Michael Gondry's science fiction love story, starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet as a couple who have had a horrible break up after a 2 year relationship.   The movie starts out on a train, with what looks like their first meeting, they strike up a conversation and you think you've seen how they first got together.   It turns out, they've already met before and neither of them remember one another.  

Carrey's character, Joel, finds out Winslet's character, Clementine, has had a procedure done at a company called Lacuna, Inc.  that has erased Joel from her memory, after a horrible fight because it was too painful to keep remembering.   Joel finds this out and is devastated and pissed and decides to have it done too.   The doctors tell them they will come to his home after he has taken a sedative that night and erase every trace of Clementine from his mind. His home, already having any reminder of her or their relationship removed previously, per their instructions.

The majority of the movie takes place in Joel's mind.  The technicians from Lacuna, Inc. show up at Joel's house, connect a computer up to his brain, and begin erasing his memories of Clementine in reverse.   So it starts with the end of their relationship where they were yelling and fighting constantly, which Joel doesn't mind losing those memories.  However, when he gets to a nice memory of the relationship when they were happy, he realizes how much he did love her, he immediately regrets his decision and tries to figure out a way to keep the memories and remember the girl he did love.   He tries putting memories of her in other memories of his life that she was never a part of, like in his childhood before he had ever met her.   Which does initially confuse the technicians doing the memory wipe, however, they are able to find the moved memories and continue. 

Joel ends up having conversations in his mind with Clementine, letting her know what is happening and telling her things he always wanted to, desperately trying to keep her in his memory. 
There are other parts of the plot I'm not going to ruin, but you should really see for yourself.

The special effects are very original, such as, watching things erase and disappear, buildings crumble in the background of scenes as Carrey's character is reliving them and they are being wiped as he's in them.   This is an awesome piece of acting by Jim Carrey and I wish he would do some more dramatic parts once in awhile.   I know he is grating as hell to some people, but his character is subdued and nothing like any of his other characters.   Kate Winslet's portrayal is great too, she earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination and the film won the Best Original Screenplay that year.

I love the cinematography. The story is clever, and I can connect with the characters. I love the fact that the two main characters seemed like real people; damaged and sad, looking for something they each lacked in their life...each other.  Also it has a GREAT haunting soundtrack by Jon Brion.  Sometimes a movie connects with you on every level, and for me it was this film..   I sometimes saw parts of myself in Jim Carrey's character in this film, sad and sometimes withdrawn, not knowing how to relate, which is probably why this hits me as hard as it does.



Well, there's the list.  I hope you enjoyed it, those who stuck around for the full list, and maybe will seek out some of these films you haven't seen.   Feel free to comment on any of the lists if you are so inclined with thoughts, arguments or the like.  =).

See you at the movies,
Jeff.