The rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated…

Hello, dear reader, remember me?  That’s right, I promise I haven’t completely forgotten about the blogosphere.  Instead, I’ve been doing some moonlighting on a couple of other blogs.  It’s on some topics that I don’t normally talk about on this one, so it’s been a nice change-up.  However, I will always have a deep ceded love for pop culture, and so, I always think about this blog. (Don’t let the calendar fool you, I really do think about it.)

A lot of stuff has gone on out there in the world, and I’m working on gathering my thoughts.  Surprisingly, that’s taking me longer than I would have imagined.  There are some great albums I want to write-up reviews, talk about some movies, and all of that good random stuff.  I promise that I haven’t forgotten about the requests that I got earlier.  I’m going to follow through with them.

On a strange twist, I’m about to start a “professional” blog.  No, I don’t mean that I’m going to be paid for it, but I suppose in a round about way I am.  Instead, I’m getting to start a blog for my department at work.  A couple of months back, we were looking at what we could do to extend beyond the walls of the hospital, and the idea hit me for the blog.

I work for a department that is really a joy to be a part of, and it seems like an easy thing to be able to share all of that with the blogosphere.  The only thing that is odd is that I won’t be using good ol WordPress.  (The following is not a commercial, I promise.)  I’ve gotten so accustom to this format, that it is strange to think about what I will be working with.  However, I am thankful because I now have around 20 other writers (i.e. staff in my department) that will have to… I mean can, write posts.  I’ll let you know when it launches.

Well, dear reader, until next time…

The rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated…

A children’s hospital needs your help…

So, I’ve never really talked a lot about my life on this blog, but today I’m going to break that rule.  I work for Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center in Memphis, Tennessee.  Which if you’ve been seeing my tweets (conveniently located just to the side of this post), you probably shouldn’t be surprised.  It is a fantastic place that helps lots of patients and families.  If you want to know more about it, I really recommend clicking on the link for it.  I’m am breaking my silence to ask for help.

The Children’s Miracle Network and Microsoft Xbox are hosting a contest to give away three gameroom makeovers for Children’s Miracle Network hospitals, which Le Bonheur Children’s is one.  The winning organizations get a completely redone gameroom, complete with $10,000 of new equipment.  The contest is fairly simple, people register and can vote for the hospital of their choice.  Each voter has 10 votes they can cast daily, and can vote everyday between now and October 16.

When I started looking at this, Le Bonheur Children’s was in 58th place, but has moved up to 17th (and will probably end today at 16th).  To be competitive, we need to recruit 3,000 new voters, which would translate into 30,000 daily votes.  So, this is where I turn to you, dear reader, to ask for help.  If you are willing to help, follow this link to http://xbox.childrensmiraclenetwork.org/ and register to vote.  The zip code (which is the easiest way to find the hospital) for Le Bonheur is 38103.  Vote daily for the contest, and tell your friends, family, or however about it.

I don’t want to sound cliche, but this will make a major difference in the experience of patients and families receiving care.  The hospital needs places like this to give families somewhere to go and unwind.  Children need place to go, play, and just be kids (and not “sick” kids).  It takes about five minutes to register and vote, and then 2 minutes a day after that.  Thanks for helping us out!

Her Majesty’s a Pretty Nice Girl

So it looks like I’m not quite done talking about the Beatles, but at least this time, I’m going to talk about them (and not someone else trying to ruin their music)…

Needless to say, there has been a lot of Beatles everything right now with Rock Band, the re-released CDs, etc.  And the pop culture follower that I am, I’ve been listening to some of my old Beatles albums.  More specifically, I’ve been listening to Abbey Road, which has inspired me to address something that might not be too popular:  Her Majesty.  Not the Queen of England, herself, but the final song on the album.

Let me start by saying that many people consider Abbey Road to be the greatest of all the Beatles albums.  Trust me when I say that this is no small feat, because they’ve got a ton of great albums.  I know that people will argue it’s greatness, but the bottom line is that it is one of the tops.

Want an example of who great it is?  Just take a look at Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End, and you’ll understand completely.  The tracks are listed individually, but they might as well be one complete song.  It is during this three song interchange, that is almost like a Suite, that we musically see the entire album come together into one seemless work.   The listener realizes all that Lenon and McCartney meant to do, and who they weaved certain musical ideas through the album.  Those three songs serve as the bow on the package, pulling them all together.

Now, that is no small intro to talk about the 23 seconds of music that follows all of this.  Her Majesty is a light, little pop song with the following lyrics:

Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl,
but she doesn’t have a lot to say
Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl
but she changes from day to day

I want to tell her that I love her a lot
But I gotta get a belly full of wine
Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl
Someday I’m going to make her mine, oh yeah,
Someday I’m going to make her mine.

Yep, that’s the entire song, right there.  All 69 words of it, and yes, I did have to count them.  So, these, not even 70, words got people really mad, but why?  There are many that feel like the song does not belong on the album or that it is a horrible ending to an otherwise perfect album.  (On a side note, I really disagree with that last statement.  I mean, really, have they never heard Octopus’s Garden?)

So, what has all of my listening to this album gotten me?  Well, it’s more of a realization.  This was the Beatles next to last album, and it is commonly understood that Let It Be (their last album) was a tough journey on the band.  So, with Abbey Road, we have the “grown up” Beatles, who are markedly different from the band who recorded Please Please Me, just six years earlier.

Abbey Road was an album that contained a lot of growth and introspection.  It helps to illustrate just how far the Beatles had come in their careers.  They had progressed on past those “silly little pop songs.”  But, perhaps that is the question?  Did the Beatles shrug off the light pop music from the beginning of their career?  The realization to me was that perhaps, Her Majesty is the coming full circle in their careers.  The musical way of saying that those pop songs that everyone loved were and are part of who we are as a band.

So, yes, there are still going to be lots of people who still hate the song.  There will be those that think it ruins that album, but personally, I think it’s dire to the story of the band.  So, until next time, dear reader, remember that I want to tell her that I love her a lot, but I gotta get a belly full of wine…

A crime against music and movies…

I’ll be honest, I had no intention of writing a post today.  There, I said it.  However, I tell you that, dear reader, to underscore the importance of the following topic (and there is a hint of sarcasm on the “importance”). 

Over the past few weeks, I have been watching Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  Now, I know what you’re thinking, “well, of course you are, there’s a ton of Beatles stuff everywhere right now.”  Left me tell you that the only thing the Beatles did to this was write the music.

No, this travesty of music, theatre, and musical theatre is just plain does not have a single Beatle in it (not even the 5th one).  Instead, it is a movie that is filled with lots of “stars” from 1978.  Who’s in this film you ask?

• Peter Frampton
• The Bee Gees
• Alice Cooper
• George Burns
• Aerosmith
• Earth, Wind, and Fire
• Steve Martin
• Billy Preston

I want you to stop for a second and think about the list above.  Read over it and digest the material.  That’s right, there are a ton of famous people from then and now.

I wish I could say it was great (or even good)…

Oh, who am I kidding, it’s horrible.  It is one of the worst films of all time!  It is so terrible that it made Jumper look like a Picture of the Year contender.  It was one horrible musician number after another, and it just didn’t stop.  It keep coming and coming, punishing both your ears and eyes.

If you like “bad” movies, this one is just about the worst.  Let’s face it, it was 1978, people liked the Beatles music and the Bee Gees were huge, but is this the best they could do?  I can hear the pitch for it now:  “We’ll take Peter Frampton, yeah the kids love him.  And we’ll mix in the Bee Gees, because those guys are man’s men.  Now, we need music…  What to use, what to use?  Hey, the Beatles broke up earlier this decade, people will really want to see their music in a new light.  Yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket…”

The problem is that someone should have stopped them, and expressed how bad of an idea this movie was.  Because of this film, I have lost respect for Alice Cooper and even more for Aerosmith, who plays the “villain’s” band.  (Think Steve Vai in Crossroad.)  Of course, this is where/why Aerosmith recorded Come Together, which is a great version.  The problem is when you see the big finale, it’s hard to forgive them.

Here’s a couple of interesting things, apparently this was Steve Martin’s first role in a feature film.  That’s right, this is before The Jerk or even The Muppets.  Talk about a blemish on a great career.

So, my warning is this:  Stay away, unless you just can’t help but see the train wreck which is Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  Watch it but be warned…

The death rattle will be coming any second now…

It’s official!  Go ahead and mark it down, September 13, 2009.  Social media is beginning it’s official descent into marketing madness…

Now, dear reader, I can hear you now saying that it’s always been a tool for marketing products, people, et cetera.  Well, I tell you that it has gotten beyond that, and it now no longer a tool for the masses.  That’s right, big companies have, as one would expect, been on the front end of marketing.  Don’t believe, just look to see what is sponsored by various companies, or how they seek to manage their image on social media.

A case in point is Warner Brothers and YouTube.  Of course, they want their piece of revenue sharing, but again, that’s to be expected.  I mean, big music companies can’t be expected to just sit there and take it as a company makes millions (he said with a touch of sarcasm).

No, no, my sign was something far simpler than that.  In fact, you could say that it was a sign from above…  or perhaps a billboard is a more fine tuned answer.  That’s right, a billboard is what led me to believe that the big changes to social media were coming.  I’m sure, dear reader, that you are asking yourselves, “what could be on a billboard to make him feel this way?”  Well, the answer is pretty typical and amazing, all at the same time.

The billboard had, in large letters,  the web address for a local furniture company.  Now that’s fairly typical, having a website on advertising.  It was a little odd that it was just the website, but I’ve gotten to the point that I come to expect that.  No, no, it was what was in the bottom, right corner of the billboard.

It was almost forgettable, just a blue “rounded” box with white lettering.  It read a single work:  Facebook…

Now, I know that’s not shocking, let’s face it Facebook is everywhere.  However, this ad was obviously geared towards net savvy people.  So, we’ve moved beyond the basics of big companies and are now moving towards smaller, mid-level companies.

All I have to say is that the moment the kids down the street start advertising their lemonade stand with ads on Twitter is the day that I cut off my internet service…

Until next time, dear reader, watch out for those signs from above.

Post Script:  When I went to edit/spell check this post, the program pointed out to me that I “misspell” YouTube.  Appearantly, it didn’t like it when I left the “t” lower case.  See, even spell check is in on it.

It seemed funnier in my head…

Because of the nature of my job, I get to do all kinds of fun things.  One of which is that I get to talk to a great number of different people.  Now, I know that most people would tell you that their top two fears are speaking in front of groups and death… In that order…

Personally, I don’t mind talking to groups, but then again, I guess that’s why I blog.  Let’s face it, it’s just talking in front of a group.  The big difference is that I get to lay on my couch and type stuff up on a laptop, but that’s neither here, nor there.

At any rate, dear reader, I get the chance to talk to large groups regularly.  Today was one of those days, and I got to talk to a group of around 250.  Now the interesting thing is that often times I don’t know what I’m going to talk about until a couple of minutes right before I speak.  This means that I need to have a couple of thoughts in mind at all times.  However, I should say that I work for a company with a great Marketing and PR department, and they do a great job of giving me talking points.  Today, however, I didn’t have talking points today.  Instead, I got to fly by the seat of my pants.

By nature, I like to tell jokes and stories, it’s how I relate to people.  When I went to speak today, I had a turn of phrase in mind, and it sounded funny in my head.  Guess what I found out, after I said it, it wasn’t funny…

Now, in my mind (and still, for that matter) I think it’s funny.  I don’t know if it was the wrong lines for the group or what, but it missed the mark.  It was like crickets chirping and tumble weeds blowing through the place.  Dear reader, let me promise you that it wasn’t in appropriate or anything of the such.  Actually it came across more stupid and silly.

When I started thinking about it, I probably had two or three good lines in the talk.  So, I ended with a 3 to 1 ratio of funny to not.  However, I realized, after thinking about some other talks that ratio is right.  And, I have to say, at 75 percent joke rate is pretty stinking good.

So, my question to you, dear reader, is has the same thing happened to you.  You’re at a party, you have that great zinger that pops in your mind, and then nothing, no laughs, titters, anything.  What are your stories on the lack of funny?

My faithful return…

I also thought about naming this “How I learned to love the bomb” because let’s face it, Dr. Strangelove doesn’t get enough shout outs.

Well, it’s been a while since I posted… anything…

The truth is that I started the blog when I couldn’t sleep.  Let’s say that it was way for me to pass the time when not sleeping.  Some people would paint angels on the head of a pin, but I would instead talk about who would win in an imaginary fight.  Whatever it takes I suppose.

Well, it got to the point that I was sleeping, and then I had a ton of work.  And (insert excuse here).  Still, I’m glad to be back and share a few things that are on my mind.  I would like to say thanks to Dan and Poietes1 for reminding me to come back to this.  Needless to say, it was a little bit of a surprise to see that I had comments (and hadn’t written anything for two months).

So, I’m looking for some inspiration.  What is that I should be talking about?  Are there things of pop culture that I have let slip through the cracks?  On a side note, I almost said that I took the time off to mourn the death of Michael Jackson…  What?  Too soon?

I will give a sneak preview to what I am going to write about tomorrow:  The Beatles rock band.  Until then, dear reader, thanks for welcoming me back.

What’s the great song of all time?

Sorry for being so long between postings, it’s been crazy busy in my life.  This will be even a short one, at that…

So, I have had a couple of songs caught in my head.  You know the ones that just dig down in your head and won’t let go.  I’ve heard them called ear mites.  The worst part is, they’re usually songs that you don’t even like and probably something you don’t want your friends to know about.  I’ve had a couple of those stuck with me.

I’ve tried everything I could do to get rid of them.  I sang Old McDonald, Happy Birthday, all of those songs, but the ear mites would not yield.  Don’t really want to get into the specifics about the songs.  I mean, I do have a reputation to maintain.  I would hate to be considered “uncool” for the songs stuck in my head.

Still, this go me thinking about songs, and more specifically, the great songs.  Those fantastic tunes that seem to capture time and space.  They make the listener feel, understand, and empathize with the singer.

There have been lots of songs that people have said are the greatest song of all time.  There have been songs written about playing the greatest song (Tenacious D Tribute).  There have been many arguments about the song and even more about what’s not the greatest.

My question to you, dear reader, is what, in your humble opinion, is the greatest song of all time?  I would love to hear who, what, and why.  Leave your answer in the comment section.  I’ll throw mine in over the next day or so.

Summer Movie insanity…

If Spring is the time when a young man’s heart turns to fancy, Summer must be when his mind turns to movies.  Every summer, in recent memory, there have been huge blockbusters.  Some have measured up, and some haven’t lived up to the hype.

The thing that I love about summer blockbusters are the equation is sumple:  explosions = plot.  Don’t believe that to be true?  Just ask Michael Bay, he’s made a career out of that exact plan.  Summer is great, people quit thinking and movies do too.  There are car chases, explosions,  and attractive people.  All of that, and then there is no original thought.

Last year we had Iron Man, Kung Fu Panda, and others to name a few.  This year we have Transformers, Public Enemy, and Harry Potter 6 (you know the one that everyone is all makey outey).  There have been tons of others through out history.  I imagine that there will be others that will come, and chances are, I’ll go see them.

Of course, for me, summer and movies don’t stop there.  The summer is the time that I catch up on movies on DVD.  The television companies help me by putting terrible stuff and/or re-runs.  I imagine Netflix and Blockbuster Online must have lots of people who are watching movies.  Personally, it’s great to chance to escape the heat and turn off the old think tank for a while.

When my wife and kids went out of town for about 10 days, I watch movies.  Not just a couple, like 22.  Except for the Hangover (which is great), they were all on DVD (or TiVo).  Some where better than others, but I watched them all.  As a matter of fact, I’m watching a movie right now (Eagle Eye).  There’s nothing like it.

So, take some time this summer and switch off your brain.  Films longtemps de phase.  Now, a question for you, dear reader.  In your humble opinion, what is the greatest summer blockbuster of all time?

My own personal torture: Long, silent car trips…

My wife and kids were out of town for about 10 days, which might explain my radio silence.  The time away ended with me having to drive to pick them up, which is a pretty fair trade off.  The truth is that by the time that rolled around, I was excited to pick them up because I’m pretty sure the dog was judging me for not doing anything (all day).

It was this trip that sent me on one of my own personal torture sessions:  a long, silent car trip.  Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with long car trips, especially if I have company.  There’s lot of things to do with a co-pilot and crew, but when I have to drive by myself, in silence (and the radio doesn’t count), I start to go a little crazy.

It’s something about not liking whatever type of music that I’ve brought, not liking the local radio stations, and the overwhelming quiet.  There is nothing that makes quiet louder than all of those.  I should say, that all of the time that I spent by myself probably didn’t help either, but this is more than just that.

The silence seems to make the trip longer, and just leave you with your own thoughts.  That seems to be the time that you have to mill over everything, and it’s easy to turn into a moment of darkness.  Those are the times that  you think of all of the stupid things that you’ve said and done, and start to question how big of a dork, idiot, etc. that you really are.

Since I broke the trip up into two days, I did find a way to combat it by the second day:  I got an audio book.  It’s like having another person in the car that’s telling a great story.  I didn’t even realize how long the trip was until I got there and looked at the clock.

The good news is, I have picked up my family and have a fun filled family ride on the way home!