Category: pop culture

Today’s Theme Music

She blew onto the scene in my mind in 1975. Four years later, she was gone.

Minnie Ripperton hit us with her five-octave prowess via ‘Lovin’ You’ in 1975. In 1976, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a radical mastectomy . Cancer had already entered her lymphatic system and nothing could be done for her. It was a matter of waiting.

She didn’t shrink away from living or dying. Everything she experienced was shared with the press. We knew her progress as her health declined. Minnie Ripperton became an American Cancer Society spokesperson. More than all of that, she impressed everyone with courage that matched her prodigious talent.

She passed away in 1979, thirty-one years old. It was a short life, but, man, did she live. ‘Lovin’ You’ is easy to sing as you walk through a day, especially if spring is finally beginning to stir.

 

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Today’s Theme Music

Today’s song is from a movie. I saw the movie back in the mid-1960s when I was a child. For some reason, it popped into my head last night and stayed awhile.

So, here it is, from the 1965 production of ‘Cinderella’, Leslie Ann Warren singing ‘In My Own Little Corner’. 

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Kubo and the Two Strings

We watched ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ last night. Great tale. Great mythology. Sensational imagination on display. Wonderful artwork. Neat, different ideas – at least for me. Some, of course, predictable. That’s to happen if you’re a thinking reader or movie watching.

Themes develop. Characters are established and arcs developed. The story unfolds. It’s rarely totally new or fresh. The beauty and pleasure often arrive with the nuances of execution and the story’s internal truths. This reflects humanity, art and history. We build on what’s gone before, even when we can’t remember what’s gone before, even when it’s been distorted to portray another existence.

The song at the end was an unexpected pleasure. George Harrison could have been thinking about Kubo’s tale when he wrote ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’. Regina Spektor’s presentation chilled and moved me. ‘Rolling Stone’ called it haunting. I agree with that. I have a new regard for the shamisen.

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Today’s Theme Music

Today’s song is one that used to start up whenever I’d hit the road during my military and civilian career, or during holidays. For a while, it was a lot of traveling. It looks glamorous on paper between all those countries, states and cities, but it wasn’t.

It’s simple beat and lyrics make it a terrific song for singing while walking around, to. From 1980 and the movie, ‘Honeysuckle Rose’, here’s Willie Nelson with, ‘On the Road Again’.

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Hell Or High Water

This contains spoilers about the movie, ‘Hell Or High Water’. If you’re planning to see the movie, don’t read further, unless you’re okay knowing some important matters.

My wife and I watched the Academy Award nominated movie, ‘Hell Or High Water’. It stares Ben Foster, Chris Pine, Gil Birmingham and Jeff Bridges. There are women in this movie but this is about men, men and their relationships to one another, life, and women.

It’s a harsh movie, mournful and painful. Watching it, you think, “Jesus, people in Texas are really angry and (or) mean.” And you know, almost from the beginning, what will happen. If, after watching five minutes, you asked me to write down what events will take place, I would have written this down.

Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) will be alive. His partner, Alberto Parker (Birmingham) will be dead.

Tanner (Ben Foster) will be dead. Marcus will kill him. Tanner will nobly sacrifice himself for his brother, Toby (Chris Pine). Pine will be shot but he’ll live. Pine will get away with the robberies.

Toby will not reconcile with his wife. He’ll remain estranged with his boys. Hamilton will visit Toby after ‘it’s all over’ to try to confirm Toby was part of the robberies.

All this happened. Yet, expecting them to happen didn’t detract from the movie. This film was about relationships and the nuances their existences create, and how relationships continue to live and drive behavior even after some of those involved in the relationships are dead.

The movie, while about Texans Rangers and bank robbers, law and society, men and their women, and brothers and their family, is ultimately about love and betrayal. The largest betrayal is their belief in the land and the country, and how their expectations of what to believe betrayed them.

When the movie ended, after Toby and Hamilton have their conversation, and Toby invites Hamilton to come by and finish it, my wife commented, “That was an odd ending.”

“No, it wasn’t.” It was exactly about the title to me. Although the line, “Hell or High Water,” is used in reference to getting some money to a bank on Friday regardless of hell or high water, it’s clearer to me that the title is about relationships and life.

They are the hell or high water that’s endured.

 

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Today’s Theme Music

This album had the honor of being the last piece of vinyl that I bought. I was living on Okinawa in Japan, then, assigned to the 603rd MASS at Kadena AB. DVD players arrived during my tour’s final year, so I bought one for $400. That’s since been replaced by less expensive players with better quality many times over. Before CDs, I bought music on vinyl or cassettes.

This album, ‘Come On, Feel the Noize’, by Quiet Riot, was bought while we still lived off base on the economy in 1983. I had Bose 301 and 910 speakers with a Sansui amp. The combination filled the tiny apartment. Ah, to be young and stupid. We moved onto base housing the next year but rotated to the U.S. by the end of ’84.

I no longer have the album, selling it at a base yard sale.

The song was originally released by Slade in 1973. For fun, here is a video of them with that. It’s such a tamer version but their clothing was very interesting, very glam rock. I was surprised that people commented that they’d never seen or heard Slade in the states. I remember buying and listening to their album in 1973.

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Today’s Theme Music

An old favorite, Steve Winwood wrote this song. Blind Faith with Winwood on vocals, recorded and released the song in 1969. Others covered it multiple times. I like this live version from Guitar Crossroads, with Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, Derek Trucks and Doyle Bramhill.

It’s a good walking song, and easy to sing in your head. Enjoy.

 

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Romantic Movies

My wife was reading lists of romantic movies yesterday, and disparaging the lists. After reading them to me, she asked me what romantic movies I would recommend. We like these games.

Four movies came to mind after brief thought:

Harold and Maude

Benny and Joon

An Affair to Remember

The African Queen

After realizing I’d given four, I decided I needed a fifth. “And of course, one of my favorite movies, ‘Blade Runner’.”

Pausing, she looked up in thought, and then smiled and nodded.

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Today’s Theme Music

Pulling one out of the memory cloud, I came up with a classic. ‘Black Magic Woman’ was written by Peter Green and performed by Fleetwood Mac.

I did not much care for that song and rarely heard it.

Two years later, Carlos Santana put it on ‘Abraxas’. I think that’s the one most people know. Most people think Santana wrote ‘Black Magic Woman’, and are unaware of Fleetwood Mac’s version. I’m speaking of the people I know in America. Other peoples in other countries, or or other ages and persuasions, may know differently.

The differences, IMO, is that Green came up with the lyrics but he and his band couldn’t provide it with the musical structure needed. Carlos, on the other hand, with his powerful licks set against that soft, mysterious organ, a steady bass that sings the lyrics at times, a Latin beat, and Gregg Rolie’s vocals, seems like a much more fully realized vision.

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Today’s Theme Music

Did anyone else feel that last night? Felt like a giant rubber band had been stretched to its limit. Now, snap, it was released. A shift took place.

Perhaps it’s only a personal shift. I awoke this morning feeling fantastic, like I’m twenty years younger. I slept well and experienced deep and clear, OMG amazing dreams. Feels different for me today, though. I hope others encounter this feeling of change, too. It’s a fine elixir and an awesome way to start a day. Yes, even better than coffee.

In honor of the changes I feel, I searched the mental cloud for a song that felt right and pulled on out of the file marked ‘Feb, 1996’. One of the hot groups then was Smashing Pumpkins. This song of theirs, about Billy Corgan’s coming of age when he was twelve, feels about right. It was a different sound for the Pumpkins; I like it.

Here is ‘1979’.

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