I’ve always had an internal rule of thumb, there’s nothing Christmas before Thanksgiving. No movies, music, decorations, any of it. It just seems like we’re short-changing Thanksgiving. Besides, of all of the major American holidays and with the exception of the Fourth of July, what could be a more American holiday. Think about it: you get for family together, eat lots of food, and generally have a good time. Aside for the cooking, it’s a pretty low stress holiday.

Now, secretly, I think that I might actually dread the coming of Christmas every year. It’s not the religious aspects of it; actually, that’s a pretty solid highlight of the time. Instead, I think it has more to do with the pressure and changes that occur during December. Now, I don’t want anyone to think that this is a Christmas is too commercial post (although it is). It’s something else instead.

During December… Well, actually November, people start to act crazy. There is magically a must have toy of the season. They start moving around furniture, hanging decorations, and using all together too much electricity. In fact, people just go nuts.

You would imagine that it this time of year would bring out the humanity in people, but instead, just look at folks acting a fool at Black Friday sales. (On a side note, the sheer fact that they have an official name for the day after Thanksgiving sales makes me sad.) It’s so bad that a terrible, terrible movie was made about it.

So, secretly, this all stresses me out. I think that I would rather take the whole Christmas thing one day at a time. Spending time with family and friends in a no pressure situation. Giving loved ones gifts that they want/need, and generally having a good time. I’m going to try my best this year to dodge all of the scary stuff, but then again, I think I make that promise every year…

So, I just caught a look at this and had to pass it on.  I’ll admit that I am both a fan of the Muppets and Queen, and it’s definitely two great tastes that taste great together.  Hope you enjoy it!

My alternate title was:  Why does no one blog on the weekends?

I know it seems weird to wax philosophic about blogs, blogging, or anything along that line, but I’ve had to spend some time thinking about this recently.  (That and apparently I have a lot of free time.)  I’ve been in the process of talking about the blog that I’ll help writing for my job, and I’ve had several conversations about the whole blogging process:

• How often?  3 time a week.
• What about?  Broad variety of topics related to the department.
• How long?  Between 200 – 300 words.
• What days will you post? …

Yep, the webmaster and I had a pretty in-depth conversation about what days to post on.  We went back and forth, and decided upon Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  Why those days?  Plain and simple, because people don’t read blogs on the weekends.

I’ve been writing this blog off and on for the a little over a year, and I’ve discovered that the post out on the weekend don’t get read as quickly or as often as those posted on Monday through Thursday.  Now, I completely understand that writing/reading blogs can be tough, and I try to keep up with the ones that are really important to me.

I do have a theory on all of this, and I believe most people would agree with me.  Blogs don’t great read/written on the weekends (Friday – Sunday) because of the work factor.  That’s right, people are reading and writing at (or after) work.  On the weekends, we don’t need the distraction.  Let’s face it, there’s plenty to do that in our down time.  Trust me, I have a full TiVo and a stack of movies to prove it, and who knows, I might even try to get outside every once and a while.

However, that’s my theory, dear reader, but I would love to know your thoughts/theories.  (That, and I’m over 300 words.)  Leave a comment below.

So, let me start by saying, this album has been out for a couple of weeks now, and this may not be anything new.  However, dear reader, I do want to share my thoughts on it.

For those of you not familiar with The Avett Brothers, they are the space where indie rock meets blue grass.  I imagine that if you’ve never heard them before, it would be easy to say that those two sounds would never go together.  The group is from Concord, North Carolina, and that’s some of my old stomping ground.  If you’re familiar with the area, it easy to see how rock and blue grass could mash-up.

I and Love and You, it the groups most recent studio release.  Many of the songs on the album, are wonderfully complex with harmonies and instrumentation.  There’s something appealing about three-part harmony and banjos (and no, that’s not sarcasm).  There are lots of meaningful and personal lyrics, which (with the exception of January Wedding), pull you into the moment and provide wonderful insight.  Now, depending on the song, some have more of the more of a blue grass feel than others. 

All in all, the Avett Brothers have made a wonderfully complete that can be listened to from start to finish.  I would recommend checking it out, I promise that you won’t be let down.  In a time when it feels like there’s not a lot of create music, I and Love and You feels different.  Not to mention a little bit of producing by Rick Rubins.

I have to confess that I and Love and You isn’t the Avett Brother’s first album.  As a matter of fact, it’s far from their first, but it’s the first that I started listening to them.  So, needless to say, there are several other albums you can check out.

That’s right, I said it, I hate it.  It just doesn’t seem right, and its way overhyped.  But, I’m getting ahead of myself…

So, the other day, I was reading an entrainment magazine.  Now, before you tell me, “what more should I expect from them?”, I would like to say that there are a lot of great reviews in there.  Now, I don’t mind an article on what movies are going to come out for a specific movie season.  Actually, I consider it a little like the pre-season for football.

What got under my skin was the fact that they were already talking about who was the most likely to win which Oscar.  I can’t believe that there are movies that haven’t even come out, that haven’t been measured and weighed by the general populus, that are considered front-runners.  Call me crazy, but I do think that public opinion does carry some weight in this conversation.

Let tell you a little about a movie from a couple of years ago.  It starred a major Hollywood star, that had just come off of a string of massive hits.  Not only was there one star, but I line up of many other Hollywood A-listers and legends in the genre of the film.  The writing included timely and classic pop culture references, and there we plenty of plot twist.  It had a huge budget, special effects, and was set to be a massive  hit.  That movie:  The Adventure of Pluto Nash. 

Yep, when that movie hit the main stream, it stunk so bad that I think it brought other movies down in its wake.  Oh, and if you haven’t heard, this is often listed in the top 10 worst movies of all time.  So, let’s see what the public thinks, we might just be surprised.  So until then, let’s keep the Oscar prognosticating to a minimum.

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…

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!

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…

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…

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.