Has there ever been a time when we weren’t fascinated by the EVIL that men do?

What is this apparent infatuation people have with seeing the sick twisted lives of serial killers, mass murderers, and deranged fans reenacted on television and the big screen?

Such was the question that came to mind in a column I wrote 12 years ago after seeing an independent 90-minute bio/movie on Showtime about John Wayne Gacy, aptly titled “Gacy” (2003). For those who don’t know, Gacy was the notorious Chicago serial killer who from 1972 to 1978 murdered 33 young boys; 25 of whom he buried in the crawlspace of his home in the suburb of Norwood Park, Ill.

Now the question I got twelve years after writing that column is was there ever time viewers found the lives of serial killers so disturbing they could never see themselves watching a murderer’s life story play out on the small screen in either a made-for-cable movie of the week, crime drama mini-series or tabloid documentary?

I pondered that after seeing the trailer for latest crime drama, "Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story" about the life of the notorious cannibalistic serial killer from Milwaukee who murdered and dismembered 17 gay men between 1978 and 1991. Not surprisingly the limited series made the top ten most watched programs offered by Netflix the week it debuted on the streaming service Sept. 18.

I won’t lie to you and say I avoided watching the series the way people avoided catching COVID-19. As the saying goes, “Controversy sells.” Although the backlash surrounding the crime drama didn’t come until hours after the first episode’s debut – all of it coming from the family members of the men Dahmer murdered saying the show glorified the serial killer more than it did the victims.

I get no joy out of watching movies about serial killers, whether they are true or not. I am the only one who didn’t like the Hannibal Lecter films (“Silence of the Lambs” – 1991, “Hannibal” - 2006, “Red Dragon” – 2007) with Anthony Hopkins. After watching the murder mystery, “Seven” (1995), in which a serial killer, played by Kevin Spacey, tortures his victims according to the seven deadly sins, I felt like I needed a shower. I had the same feelings sitting through the first episode of Dahmer.

Up until recently before seeing “Gacy”, I knew almost nothing about him. In fact, unless I hear stuff about these individuals on the news or in the tabloids, I am extremely ignorant and, in a way, I am glad.

If I had a vast library of true crime books about serial killers and mass murderers, I am certain family members, friends, coworkers, and especially girlfriends would ask me one question.

“Are you planning a career in criminology,” they’d ask.

God help me if I say no because upon saying no, I just know they will all assume I got this huge library because I have plans to make a career change going off the deep end and am using the life stories of the criminally insane as guidance.

Thankfully, the most I knew about John Wayne Gacy, a building contractor who entertained young kids at parties dressed up as Pogo the Clown, was strictly from a supernatural standpoint because of my interest in the paranormal. Chicago is a city rich with tales of ghostly folklore. One story involving Gacy as documented on the site, www.prarieghosts.com, involved an incident where the serial murderer asked a friend to check on his dog while he was away on business. The friend barely made it inside the house when he started hearing moans coming from below Gacy’s crawlspace, which at the time was impossible since all his victims were long since dead.

The only interest I had in watching the “Gacy” film was two-fold. One, I didn’t know much about the guy, and I never had a chance to see the 1992 made-for-tv mini-series, “To Catch a Killer”, which starred Brian Dennehy in the same role, which scored him an Emmy nomination for lead actor in a miniseries or a special that year.



Two, I lived in Chicago from 1970 to 1984, and I was in the third grade when Gacy was arrested. That’s the most I remember about this infamous crime story. As a kid, I had other enjoyable interests than to listen to the daily horror stories on the news of what detectives were carrying out from some guy’s crawlspace in body bags at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue from December 1978 and into the first few months of 1979.

Gacy was found guilty and sentenced to death in February 1980 and was executed in May 1994.

From a critical standpoint, I found the film “Gacy” a surprisingly effective 90-minute independent horror film than a truthful biography about a serial murderer, which was no doubt embellished for creativity. That’s where my acclaim for this movie stops. You won’t find the title sitting in my DVD/Blu-ray library and is only worth viewing once.

You would think Dahmer's and Gacy's story, along with the huge growing list of serial killers and mass murderers, would end after justice is carried out whether by someone who took the law into their own hands in prison (in Dahmer's case) or by execution (Gacy) but that’s just not how Hollywood, much less, the news media see it.

To them, the bad guys are the ones who steal the show in movies and television. Who wants to see a film about the ones whose lives were taken? Viewers would much rather be fascinated, if not entertained watching the acts of evil committed by the villain. 

Apparently, I am the only one in America who has a problem with this.

©9/28/22

My top ten best movie soundtracks (IN MY OPINION – NOT YOURS)!

Should I one day go through my music library to see how many rock albums (I don’t count an artist’s or rock band’s greatest hits as an album) and movie soundtracks I own and/or have on iTunes, I will not be surprised if the number of original motion picture scores, whether inspired by Broadway productions or music heard in the film/and or stage plays outnumbers the albums from rock bands. I am afraid if time allows in the coming years I might have to write a second or third follow-up to this blog listing another twenty soundtracks I never get tired of listening to.

The following below are my top ten soundtracks for now. Like my top ten rock albums, they are listed in the order based on the year they came out from the latest to oldest. Should you get bored reading my long-winded blog (being the lone editor of my blog gives me freedom to write whatever the Hell I want to blog about and how long), I took the liberty of posting the youtube links showing movie clips that incorporated those scores that made them emotionally memorable enough to make me go out and buy those soundtracks.

1) "La La Land" (2016) – Various Artists: The 2016 musical didn’t win the best picture Oscar it deserved (the film DID win at first) that just about everyone expected to see win. The award instead went to a movie barely anyone saw, much less remember. The best picture for that other movie I honestly don’t recall (WHO THE HELL DOES???) was nothing more than a shallow attempt to show how “Hollyweird” and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is diversified when recognizing black actors and actresses and other minorities. All that move did was prove how hypocritical they still are in their supposed embracing of other nationalities.

Oscar night 2017 was not, however, a complete embarrassment. I celebrated less than zero-point zero percent of the telecast when La La Land’s soundtrack brought home two Oscars for Best Achievement in Music written for motion pictures for composer Justin Hurwitz and for original song, "City of Stars" (though the song, "The Fools Who Dream" is what should have won). What makes a movie musical flawlessly successful not only rests on whether every song on the soundtrack is worth hearing numerous times but also if the film gives the viewer characters they care about. "La La Land" delivered both. I will not be surprised if several years from now a stage play version of the film comes to Broadway let alone high school. The soundtrack certainly has “Broadway” written all over it. Here’s to the fools that dream.



2) "Tron: Legacy" (2010) - Daft Punk: I didn’t care who the composer was when I bought the "Tron: Legacy" soundtrack to Disney’s 1982 sequel in early 2011. I bought it because I was hooked on the score watching it. I had no idea who the French music group, Daft Punk, was when I had the soundtrack playing at work one night. A former co-worker in the cubicle next to me though couldn’t contain her excitement upon hearing it as she immediately knew who the artists were.

Like John Williams’ score for "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980), the recordings I heard on "Tron: Legacy" reminded me of several scenes throughout the film. The slow-moving majestic score for "Adagio for Tron" reminded me of the moment when the older Flynn (Jeff Bridges) disappeared into the digital world. While the piece, "Outlands", brought back memories of the younger Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) being rescued by a computer warrior (Olivia Wilde) as she raced to the older Flynn’s hideout.

The fact the soundtrack failed to get an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score in 2011 is yet another one of many examples of how the powers-that-be who run the Oscars don’t give a rat's ass what audiences want to see nominated and win. Could the declining ratings the telecasts get every year be because audiences have had it with the "Hollyweird" elite pushing their personal politics into most every movie made and no longer know how to make a film viewers might actually like?

3) "Give My Regards to Broadstreet" (1984) - Paul McCartney: – There I said it! The soundtrack for what most everyone thinks is the worst movie musical ever made (like as though this is the ONLY one????) is on my best list because it was not only a joy to hear Paul McCartney deliver re-interpretations of such Beatles classics as "Yesterday", "Here, There and Everywhere" and "The Long and Winding Road" among them but also original hits from his band, Wings. One thing worth noticing on the 1984 album. Whereas all The Beatles songs said “Lennon-McCartney” on the Fab Four's albums, the ones played on this release say “McCartney-Lennon.” I guess even after John Lennon’s assassination in December 1980 McCartney still wasn’t over the disintegration of The Beatles' breakup in 1970.

4) "Purple Rain" (1984) - Prince and the Revolution: – I have not seen "Purple Rain", the movie, since it premiered on the pay-tv movie stations in the mid-80s. Nor did I see it on the big screen like I had planned after Prince died in April 2016. I will likely not see it again until Warner Bros. releases it one day on the 4K Ultra Blu-ray disc format. I bought the "Purple Rain" soundtrack, which won the Oscar in 1985 for Best Original Song Score a week after the artist’s death on a whim when I happened to see it displayed on the front checkout counter at a local Barnes and Noble. I suppose my hearing the sexually suggestive lyrics of "Darlin Nikki" playing throughout the bookstore helped.

5) "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (Newly Expanded Edition (2022) – Original Release (1982) – James Horner: In order to rise to the top of their A game one has to start from the bottom first. Prior to 1982 when Oscar winning composer James Horner released his score to "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" much of what he contributed to movies in the years prior like "Krull" (1982) were not as memorable as the ones he’d compose later in the mid-80s and 90s for notable blockbusters ("Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" (1984), "Apollo 13" and "Braveheart" (1995), "Field of Dreams" (1989), "Titanic" - 1997) before dying in a plane crash at 61 in 2015 (Horner was also a pilot). Like any notable motion picture score, "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" evoked memorable moments from the Enterprise battling the starship Reliant to the ending climax of seeing Spock’s coffin on Genesis. The newly released 2022 expanded edition by La-La Land Records now includes that one piece missing from the 1982 vinyl release - Scotty (James Doohan) playing "Amazing Grace" on his bagpipes.

6) "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) – John Williams: - The double vinyl LP of "The Empire Strikes Back" was the first album I bought almost a week after the long-awaited sequel’s theatrical release on May 21, 1980. Having heard "The Story of Star Wars" on vinyl three years before upon its 1977 release which featured dialogue and sound effects heard in the theatrical film, I expected to hear the same listening to "The Empire Strikes Back." I admit it. I was naïve back then and had no idea what it meant when the word “soundtrack” was on the front cover of a movie album.

At the time I bought the soundtrack, I hadn’t seen "The Empire Strikes Back" in theaters and didn't see it until early June that summer. My disappointment at having to only hear Oscar winning composer John Williams' musical score didn’t last long, however. "The Imperial March" was the first segment I listened to on side 2 which clearly evoked ominous emotions that this was the theme song for Darth Vader’s Empire forever changed my attitude. Within a week I had the double album playing while building with LEGOs.

Despite a longer “composer’s cut”, so to speak, of Star Wars, Empire and "Return of the Jedi" (1983) being released in 1997 on compact disc in honor of the original’s 20th anniversary that featured unreleased music, I find the original 1980 double-vinyl album (Yes, I own the 2018 remastered version on CD) more nostalgic. Especially the back cover which was the planned unaltered “Gone with the Wind” style theatrical movie poster by artist Roger Kastel that showed characters Lando Calrissian, Boba Fett and Cloud City. The powers-that-be at 20th Century Fox called the poster “too busy” according to Cinemasterpieces and went with the version seen today featuring the main cast. Less than ten copies of Kastel’s unused poster supposedly exist. Cinemasterpieces is among the businesses selling the print at a going price of $35000. Anyone got over 35k they can loan me? You’ll get your money back three times over at the time of my death! Trust me! I’m good for it!

7) "Xanadu" (1980) - Olivia Newton-John and Electric Light Orchestra (ELO): Back when I worked at the Blockbuster Video stores as a lowly underpaid customer service representative from 1988 to 1996 who made less than $5 bucks an hour (as opposed to the $15 bucks an hour today’s spoiled brats demand to be paid working at McDonalds) one of the things I did as a means to pass the irritable boredom on Sunday mornings and early afternoons being forced to stand behind the register for eight hours was having the 1980 musical flop playing on the televisions along with the beloved animated musical, "The Yellow Submarine" (1968), that featured The Beatles.

My reasoning for playing "Xanadu" had nothing to do with my liking the box office dud which earned six Razzie Awards winning one for Best Director in 1981. To date, I still haven’t seen the musical in its entirety which has gained cult status in the 40 years plus since its theatrical release. I just liked hearing the soundtrack that featured Olivia Newton-John and the Electric Light Orchestra. Despite my still not having seen it, "Xanadu" still has the distinction of being like so many other movies I’ve seen countless times I have playing in the background just to have something to listen to while doing something else. Hence the reason I had it playing on those Sunday mornings at Blockbuster.

The soundtrack which made Double Platinum in 1980 featured five top 20 singles that included Olivia Newton-John’s "Magic", "Xanadu" and "Suddenly." The album was what I had playing in the car on my way to work August 9, 2022, after hearing that the actress/singer passed away the day before at age 73 following a 30-year battle with breast cancer.

8) "Saturday Night Fever" (1977) – Bees Gees and Various Artists: That 1977 movie about what happened “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” was not the only blockbuster to capture audience’s attention. The difference is while "Star Wars" brought home six of the ten Oscars it was nominated for in 1978 which included Best Music – Original Score, the most recognition the Bee Gees got with the release of the double vinyl album soundtrack to the John Travolta starred disco drama, "Saturday Night Fever", were Golden Globe nominations for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for “How Deep Is Your Love?”

The soundtrack sold over 45 million copies in its day and was reportedly the top selling record until Michael Jackson’s "Thriller" in 1984. I have no doubt when the Oscar nominations were announced in early 1978 that moviegoers bitched about the Bee Gees and "Saturday Night Fever" being snubbed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for best song and soundtrack. Was The Bee Gees failure to win at the Golden Globes for Best Original Score and Best Original Song of "How Deep Is Your Love?" the reason it didn’t make the Oscar list? Or was the reason that in order to be nominated for best original soundtrack the album has to feature one group and not multiple artists? The Bee Gees and the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack didn’t get the Oscar recognition they and the album so deserved. There is, however, no mistaking the recording winning a Grammy for Album of the Year, making the list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and being added to the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress in 2013 for long-term preservation.

9) "Rocky" (1976) - Bill Conti: Released in fall 1976, I was surprised to learn not only was Bill Conti’s soundtrack not up for best original score at the 1977 Oscars, but it only received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song, “Gonna Fly Now,” and lost. Bill Conti’s Oscar due wouldn’t come until 1984 when his score for "The Right Stuff" (1983) won best original soundtrack at the academy awards, a score that is sadly missing several music segments heard in the '83 film. Conti's 1983 soundtrack album along with the compact disc is the only version devoted listeners can hear. Like Vangelis’ Oscar winning 1981 musical score, "Chariots of Fire", where the opening showing British athletes running on the beach – a sequence parodied in several films since, the same has been done with “Gonna Fly Now” on the "Rocky" soundtrack. I wonder given how “Hollyweird” these days doesn’t embrace movies with religious themes if maybe the reason Conti’s score for "Rocky" was snubbed is because it featured such music like "Marine’s Hymn" and "Yankee Doodle Dandy" that evoked patriotism. No way is “Hollyweird” going to nominate a soundtrack that makes the USA look good – a “Hollyweird hates America” belief that was as prevalent in 1976 as it is today, if not worse.

10) "Jesus Christ Superstar" (1970) - Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice: The 1970 rock opera composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice completed 800 performances before heading to the big screen in 1973 directed by Norman Jewison. I’ve always believed in order for a Broadway stage musical to be a complete success there should not be a single bad song heard. When a Broadway musical is brought to the big screen the movie should feel like you are watching an actual film, not something carried over from the stage. I didn’t get that feeling watching the '73 adaptation. Something about seeing a group of actors getting off a bus in the middle of the Grand Canyon, I assume, and start bursting out in song and shabby garb singing and reenacting Jesus Christ’s last days before his crucifixion just did not work. The movie version cries for a remake but no one is going to touch a “religious” project in “Hollyweird” with a production cost that will exceed over 100 million if they really want to make it believable. Then again, controversy sells. The Broadway version painted Judas as a more sympathetic figure and ironically, listening to the double album, the character is clearly the one who steals the show. By the way, if you don’t know who Murray Head is listening to the one song he does on this album as King Herod, perhaps you might know or have heard the one-hit wonder he performed back in the mid-1980s called “One Night in Bangkok.”

©8/10/22

My top ten best albums (in my opinion – NOT YOURS!)

The past couple years I’ve seen posts from friends on social media where they were asked to name their top ten albums over the course of ten days. Instead of wasting my time posting my favorite albums on my own social media account for others to read I’ve taken the liberty to turn mine into a blog for the whole world to access should they choose until “Cancel Culture” shuts me down.

All the albums I list here vie for the number one spot – meaning I never get tired of hearing them multiple times on occasion so I’m listing all ten in alphabetical order by the band/and or artist’s name.



"Voyage" (2021) – ABBA: True, Sweeden’s “Fab Four” - Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson are in their early to mid-70s now since they disbanded in 1983. What hasn’t changed listening to "Voyage" is the vocals and lyrics. Lead singers Agnetha and Anni-Frid still sound like they did back in their younger days. Voyage’s nine new songs along with the now finished, “Just A Notion”, from 1978, is a combination of the fast-moving songs (“Dancing Queen”, “Mamma Mia”, “Waterloo”) to haunting lyrics about deteriorating relationships (“Angel Eyes”, “Knowing Me Knowing You”, “SOS”). If the group’s decision to return to the studio in 2018 after four decades to cut a new album for ONLY the money, I wasn’t left with that impression here, and neither were the fans who’ve wondered and waited forty years if ABBA would ever reunite.

With "Voyage", ABBA does what they did best. Songs “I Can Be That Woman” and “Keep an Eye on Dan” echo troubled marriages ending in divorce while “I Still Have Faith in You” and “Don’t Shut Me Down” bring out hope. “When You Danced with Me” could easily bring back memories of a more innocent time with the possible love of your life. “Just a Notion “and “No Doubt About It” are the fun equivalent of “Dancing Queen” while “Little Things” brings back memories of Christmas traditions. Then there is “Bumblebee” which is a sad moving tribute to the endangered honeybees. The album ends with “Ode to Freedom” explaining how one would define it if asked to write about the subject. The final song serves as a haunting reminder of the time this country is in right now as radical Democratic leaders in Washington push to turn the USA into a socialist/communist state where it seems every day, more of our personal “freedoms” get taken away. "Voyage" may be their swan song but after four decades to quote one of the album’s hits, ABBA is “like a dream within a dream that’s been decoded.” This band is still fired up and hot. I wouldn’t shut them down just yet.



"A Hard Day’s Night" (1964) – The Beatles: Even if the music from the Fab Four’s third album was not the basis for their 1964 classic film, "A Hard Day’s Night", it would still be a standalone rock album regardless. The joy in listening to "A Hard Day’s Night" which includes the title song along with “Can’t Buy Me Love”, “If I Fell”, “Tell Me Why”, “She Loves You”, and “I’ll Cry Instead” are tunes one friend of mine, Greg Hehn, called “feel good hits.” Songs you can dance to, he said, but they are lyrics with not much meaning. Hehn said he thought the rock group’s later works he heard on "Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1967), "Abbey Road" (1969) and "Let It Be" (1970) were some of their best and showed how much the group matured.

Those hit albums though came a few years later when the four were no longer the handsome, innocent looking, young, clean cut mop tops from Liverpool seen in the 64’ film which was the humorous equivalent of a day in the life of a classic rock band. As John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr got older and their hair grew longer, the outfits changed, and so did their attitudes. The definition of what one thinks is a great album in my opinion is hearing not a single bad song on the latest release. The Beatles were just like every other band. Not every album they did was a gem. I still find the "White Album" (1968) to be overhyped in its day and find "Abbey Road" (1969) to be the band’s official swan song over Let It Be (1970). "A Hard Day’s Night" was one of three albums they released I don’t tire of listening to on occasion.



"Rubber Soul" (1965) – The Beatles: I would not be surprised if Greg Hehn embraced The Beatles’ sixth album more so than "A Hard Day’s Night." All the songs convey a different personal message songwriters Lennon and McCartney had in mind when they wrote them. Now that I’m older I’ve found listening to some of the songs on "Rubber Soul" define me.

The lyrics of “Nowhere Man” is one such example.

He's a real nowhere man

Sitting in his nowhere land

Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

Nowhere man please listen

You don't know what you're missing 

Nowhere man, The world is at your command

Working a job I’m burned out on where the only reason I’ve been doing it for 25 years with two companies is the same reason actor Michael Caine did "Jaws: The Revenge" (1987). Caine said in an interview years ago that he did the movie for the money.

Some days, I actually do feel like I am a “Nowhere Man”. I have been told throughout the years how much my writing talent is wasted in my current job. 2022 may be time to stop being a “nowhere man.”

Then there is George Harrison’s “Think for Yourself” Being a film critic whose written close to 200 reviews since the late 80s and 90s the one thing I couldn’t stand when I worked at Dallas based Blockbuster Video (1988-1996) was when a customer asked me for recommendations. What the hell do I know what he/she likes? Nine times out of ten if I recommended a movie to someone (I never, ever did) chances are the customer would come back telling me how much they hated the movie and ask for a refund (Yes – some BBV customers actually asked that!) Hence the reason I find the lyrics from “Think for Yourself” ring true when people ask for my opinions and not just on movies.

Do what you want to do
And go where you're going to
Think for yourself
Cos I won't be there with you

Finally there is “In My Life” whose lyrics I thought about upon my learning the St. Louise de Marillac in La Grange Park, Ill, a Catholic private school I attended from first and eight grade (1976-1984) closed its doors in 2020 due to years of low enrollment.

There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I’ve loved them all

"Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1967) – The Beatles: Released in May 1967 (the 50th anniversary was celebrated in 2017), the eighth studio album opens just like a concert would though the listener can’t see what’s going on. The waiting cheers of the audience can be heard seconds before the opening melody is heard introducing the band’s title song before smoothly flowing to the next tune, “With a Little Help from My Friends.” The first time I heard the album was in December 1980 following John Lennon’s assassination. Dad bought the original album when it was released in 1967 which I sadly don’t own anymore.

For decades I thought there actually was someone named Billy Shears who sang as a guest singer on “With a Little Help from My Friends.” I had no idea it was Ringo Starr. Everyone knows the supposed story that “Lucy in the Sky of Diamonds” (and still assumes) the song was an ode to the drug use the “Fab Four” engaged in the late 60s. John Lennon, however said in an interview the song was based on a drawing his son, Julian, did of a woman and when the elder Lennon asked him what the picture was, his son said it was “Lucy in the sky of diamonds.”

The album is a combination of rock and sad ballads (“She’s Leaving Home”) to more happier upbeat tunes (“Fixing a Hole,” “When I’m Sixty Four,” “Lovely Rita”) to tales of a circus (“Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite”). The final song on side 2 called “A Day in the Life” is both a hauntingly clever combination opening with Lennon’s slow moving ballad about someone who passed away unexpectedly, then building up to an instrumental mix before McCartney’s voice chimes in with a more upbeat side. Another instrumental mix builds up with horns as Lennon’s voice is heard howling before singing the original lyrics from the song’s beginning and ending with one note on a piano.

"Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band" is the concert the Fab Four wanted to see done when they toured when they arrived in the states, which was to have their music heard instead of vice versa where their singing was drowned out by the screaming crowds, hence the reason they stopped touring in the mid-60s.



"Time" (1981) – ELO (Electric Light Orchestra): – An ex-friend and fan of ELO and founder Jeff Lynne told me years ago before our falling out that the band’s ninth studio album released in July 1981 was the group’s best and after hearing it over ten years ago, I agreed. Then again, I have always liked a majority of ELO’s music, even if I didn’t like everything in their library. While I may have between 500 and 1000 songs on my iPod not all of them are an artist’s or a band’s complete album. ELO’s "Time", however, is one of the few.

Without doing any research as to how the album was produced and where the inspiration came from (I don’t have “time” for that) I will say the way one can tell what they are listening to is an ELO song or album is if the release features either one or several instrumental solos. Time begins like you are in a “galaxy far, far away” with the sound of some alien voice before the fast moving, maybe haunting piece called “Twilight” begins. I say “haunting” because of the way the word “twilight” smoothly moves following the lyrics, “It’s either real, in between it’s nothing that is in between…twilight…I only meant to stay a while.”

Following “Twilight” instead of a brief stop for the next song to begin, the album just moves into song 3 where what sounds like a female robot on “Yours Truly, 2095” (again…the band’s use of various instruments to create the piece doesn’t go unnoticed).

The opening lyrics to “Ticket to the Moon” echo why the 80s were so much better than the times we live in now. “Remember the good old 1980's..When things were so uncomplicated…I wish I could go back there again …And everything could be the same. Can’t tell you how many times I want a “Ticket to the Moon,” or my own island surrounded by nothing but water.

The song “Rain Is Falling” could well apply to whenever it rains in Texas which isn’t enough. While the song “Here is the News” not only reminded me of former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) calling the media “Fake News” during his years in office but found the lyrics similar to the version whose lyrics are similar to Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry.” Finally there is “21st Century Man”, a song Jeff Lynne did as a tribute to John Lennon. It’s a song I want played at my funeral service.

Things ain't how you thought they were

Nothing have you planned

So pick up your penny and your suitcase

You're not a 21st century man

"Cloud Nine" (1987) – George Harrison: When it comes to music, I don’t embrace an artist until they either have 1) passed away and didn’t start appreciating their works until they are gone or 2) if they are still around at the time of their latest album’s release chances are it’s only one song I heard and liked on the radio that makes me want to shell out the 15 bucks on their CD just to hear that one song. I’m not interested in the other songs.

Released in November 1987 following a five-year hiatus recording music and concentrating instead on his movie company, Handmade Films, and other interests, it wasn’t George Harrison’s hit at the time, “Got My Mind Set on You” I often heard on the radio that made me want to buy the release.

“When We Was Fab” was the one I heard and saw as a music video one day on MTV while channel surfing that got my attention. The video, which featured brief cameos from ELO founder and Cloud Nine producer, Jeff Lynne, and Elton John was about as close to a Beatles reunion a fan would get. Drummer Ringo Starr appeared throughout the video, and depending on who you believe, Paul McCartney dressed up as the walrus (though it could have been anyone). As the former Beatles played together for just a few seconds in front of a brick wall, a passerby walks in front of them carrying an album of John Lennon’s "Imagine" (1971). Harrison’s piece was a nostalgic tribute recalling the days when the “Fab Four” were together throughout the 60s.

Like Lennon, who returned to recording before 1980 after spending years as a house husband raising his son, along with wife, Yoko Ono, Harrison was too bitten by the “singing bug” again. Dubbed “the Quiet Beatle”, Harrison not only enjoyed successful recognition for his latest work but also joined Lynne and other music legends, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Bob Dylan forming the group, The Traveling Wilburys.

Harrison may have only churned out a handful of songs while with The Beatles, often taking a backseat while Lennon and McCartney were the “brains” you might say who wrote a majority of the band’s hits. “The Quiet Beatle”, like his other bandmates after their break-up in 1970, however, showed he was no longer the singer who took a back seat while with the “Fab Four.”



"Armchair Theater" (1990) – Jeff Lynne: Released in 1990, the ELO founder’s first solo album, much like George Harrison’s Cloud Nine, before it didn’t get my attention until I heard Lynne’s two hits, “Every Little Thing” and “Lift Me Up”, both of which were released as singles on the radio. As I said in the case of ELO’s Time where no ELO album would be complete without one or several instrumental solos throughout various songs, the same can be said for the music heard in Lynne’s Armchair Theater. One example is his “Now You’re Gone”, a ballad wrote the artist wrote as a tribute to his late mother.

“It all comes down to what you truly love doing, and what I love doing is overdubbing and making new sounds out of things that are sometimes quite ordinary on their own, but when you put them together, they make something new–or something that sounds new. Just discovering things like that musically is a pleasure,” Lynne once said.

Depending on how good your hearing is, you might be able to hear George Harrison and Tom Petty singing in the background on a few of the songs.

“At the end of the day I have to please myself. And I've made a record to please myself. To me, making records isn't work,” Lynne was quoted saying over the years. If one loves what they do, it’s never work.



"Mystery Girl" (1989) – Roy Orbison: Completed in November 1988, Orbison didn’t live to see his album’s release in 1989. The singer was making a comeback in 1988 with his first album in decades joining fellow musicians Jeff Lynne, George Harrison, Tom Petty and Bob Dylan as The Traveling Wilburys when he suffered a massive heart attack at 52. In the mid-1980s, Orbison not only provided the end music for the drug addiction film, "Less Than Zero" (1987), but director David Lynch used his oldies hit, “Candy Colored Clown”, for his dark twisted mystery thriller, "Blue Velvet" (1986). Other solo songs later released in a separate CD over the past thirty years since like “After the Love Has Gone”, a duet with K.D. Lang of his oldies hit, “Crying” provided a glimpse of what was to come had he lived to be 85 in 2021.



"The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1" (1988) – Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty: The project was only supposed to be for one song, “Handle with Care” which ex-Beatle George Harrison told fellow songwriting greats Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty he wanted recorded immediately as a single to his Cloud Nine album released in late 1987. The music legends apparently enjoyed doing that solo so much the group got together for nine days in May 1988 recording nine more songs that would become "The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1."

“We would arrive about twelve or one o'clock and have some coffee,” said ELO founder Jeff Lynne in the 1988 documentary, "The True History of The Traveling Wilburys." “Somebody would say, 'What about this?' and start on a riff. Then we'd all join in, and it'd turn into something. We'd finish around midnight and just sit for a bit while Roy (Orbison) would tell us fabulous stories about Sun Records or hanging out with Elvis. Then we'd come back the next day to work on another one. That's why the songs are so good and fresh—because they haven't been second-guessed and dissected and replaced. It's so tempting to add stuff to a song when you've got unlimited time.”

All five members not only had one or two songs each of them did, but Harrison had them go by aliases for the album with the former Beatle being known as Nelson, Lynne (Otis), Dylan (Lucky), Orbison (Lefty) and Petty as Charlie T. Jr Wilbury. While Orbison didn’t live to see his first solo album in decades, "Mystery Girl" in 1989 (Orbison died in December 1988), he did live to see the release of "The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1" and with that, a single he contributed called “Not Alone Any More.” The Wilburys returned with the release of Vol. 3 in 1990, but I could tell something was missing and it wasn’t just the fact Orbison was gone as some of the songs seemed to be preachy.



"Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin" (2010) – Brian Wilson: The "Purple Rain" (1984) and "La La Land" (2016) movie soundtracks along with Lana Del Rey’s 2012 album, "Born to Die", where my buying the CDs were all the result of my hearing them played while browsing the aisles of Barnes & Noble. The same can be said for why I bought "Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin" from the former Beach Boys co-founder when released in 2010.

I don’t know if Wilson’s renditions of composer George Gershwin’s “The Like in I Love You” or “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” that again made do another impulse buy. Upon listening to the entire album in the car I was thrilled my “impulse buy” was not a complete waste of money unlike Lana Del Rey’s "Born to Die" where the only song of hers I embraced from her second release which is also on my iPod is “Million Dollar Man.”

I suspect what got my attention with Wilson’s Gershwin release were how “The Like in I Love You” and “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” sounded more like The Beach Boys songs than they did from Gershwin. All the songs played are Gershwin’s yet somehow, Wilson makes them his own. Is it possible in another life George Gershwin was actually Brian Wilson before the music world heard of Brian Wilson?

©11/24/21

Would Gabby Petito’s disappearance and tragic end received the same media coverage if she had been black?

What do Gabby Petito, pregnant mothers Laci Peterson and Shannan Watts along with Watts’ two daughters, Bella and Celeste, have in common? I won’t stop there. I’ll add Natalie Holloway, Nicole Brown Simpson and JonBenet Ramsey to the mix.

You don’t need a degree in brain surgery to know the answer. If you even know how one of these women and/or children died violently at the hands of expectant fathers and supposed happily married husbands, significant others and complete strangers then you know the unfortunate answer as to what happened to all of them.

That is NOT the answer I am looking for, however. The answer I want to hear from anyone familiar with these heinous crimes is that all these women and children were white. The one and ONLY reason you know any if not all their names is the result of the excessive press coverage, they received that immediately got viewers' attention.

Now ask yourself if you can name any blacks, Latinos or Asian American men, women and children who have disappeared and perhaps met the same similar fates as the ones I mentioned above we have yet to know about. The only thing I hear right now are crickets. No! I don’t even hear that!

If you can name any missing men, women, or children of color you’re a born liar. The only reason you could name a missing person who isn’t white is because you googled that information in an attempt to make yourself look good. Like as though you care about the 543,018 persons reported missing in 2020 according to the Black & Missing Foundation (blackandmissinginc.com) as of this writing.

Almost a day after authorities found Gabby Petito’s body near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming Sept. 19, articles in newspapers and online appeared criticizing how “white” women like the missing 22-year-old get top media coverage yet the most national press a missing person who is a minority gets is if the case is reported locally and that’s if they are lucky.

“We would not know that Gabby Petito existed if she was Native American or black and not a pretty white blonde,’’ fumed Twitter user Hart-Van ‘n Leeu in a Sept 21 article in the New York Post.

In the same article Lynnette Grey Bull, a Native American advocate from Wyoming, told NPR, “It’s kind of heart wrenching, when we look at a white woman who goes missing and is able to get so much immediate attention.”

"Missing White Woman Syndrome” is what the Petito case is being referred to now – a term I never heard of until this week which according to the New York Post article is “used to describe the perceived disproportionate attention paid to white females who disappear, as opposed to people of color.”

Therein lies the trouble and I am just as guilty as anyone else who paid almost zero attention to the Petito case. If she were black and the drive-by media had given her the same preferential treatment as though she was the ONLY missing black woman in America right now, I still would have been more interested in what I was doing at the time (like writing this blog) than I would have been with my eyes glued to the flat screen praying she'd be found alive.

To be honest, the times when I did hear tidbits about the 22-year-old want-to-be travel blogger who was on a cross country trip in July with her fiancé (I will not name the sonofabitch here – sorry – in my mind guilty until proven innocent) was when I had the flat screen on in the background and had the station tuned in to Fox News. The one and only reason I had the television on in the first place was to have something to listen to while doing something else.

I agree with Fox News contributor, Raymond Arroyo, who called the Petito case a “huge distraction” from current events.

“With all that’s happening in the world, what’s happening in our southern border and abroad and at home, I think this entire story is a huge distraction, forgive me,” Arroyo said, according to the Daily Dot. “This is like a lifetime movie, an ongoing mini-series for America but I think it’s basically a local story, it’s a missing person. I hope they get to the bottom of it, but I do worry we’re (the press) spending way too much time on this case.”

The only thing I can say upon hearing of Petito’s disappearance when she was reported missing to law enforcement Sept. 11 before learning, like everyone else did about her untimely death over a week later, is I already knew days before that the outcome wasn’t going to end well.

In a perfect world, EVERY missing person’s case deserves the same attention as Petito, Peterson, Watts and her daughters, Holloway, Brown Simpson and Ramsey got. Race should never be considered as to whether the case leads national news.

The only way that can happen is if the drive-by media, be it local or national, devote equal coverage to every disappearance when such a case is reported to law enforcement agencies. Until that happens, the days of finding the whereabouts of thousands of minorities in this country will only be found on sites like the Black & Missing Foundation.

That’s assuming you even care.

©9/22/21

What I will do on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11

This Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of September 11th when terrorists hijacked four planes succeeding in plowing three of them into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers and the Pentagon. The United States Capitol would have been the fourth target had it not been for the brave passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 who died stopping the hijackers from reaching their supposed intended target when their jet crashed in Somerset County, Pennsylvania killing everyone aboard including the terrorists.

Being “The Mayor of Realville”, it would be easy for me to blog about how we are as unsafe now, if not more so, as we were twenty years ago in the wake of last month's disastrous withdrawal from what is now the Taliban controlled country of Afghanistan. The notion of saying there will never be another terrorist attack like 9/11 on American soil again is like saying there will never be another mass shooting in Anytown, USA at a church, school, workplace, movie theater, concert or college campus. It’s not a question of if. It’s when. I’ll save that subject, however, for another time, if at all.

I’m not afraid nor am I the least bit sorry for saying this. I get bored very quickly and cringe every time I hear someone regurgitate that same old predictable “Where were you when so-so happened” story.

In the words of Matthew Perry’s Chandler Bing, and no I don’t know if he ever said such a thing on the show, Friends (1994-2004), my response to anyone feeding me their where were you when diatribe, is “Can you be ANYMORE BORING???”, with a special emphasis on the ANYMORE BORING part. Or to quote James Gandolfini’s mobster, Tony Soprano, from "The Sopranos" (1999-2007) ’Remember when’ is the lowest form of conversation.”

Sept. 11 is no more different than the “Where were you when moments” of decades past that captured our attention. From Pearl Harbor and President Kennedy’s assassination to the space shuttle Challenger disaster and the Oklahoma City bombing, the list is endless.

You will get no argument from me that September 11 is a national tragedy - an event so horrible that those of us who witnessed the atrocities live on television and those who were there and lived to talk about it will never or should ever forget. For the families and friends of the close to 3,000 souls lost that day, however, the mourning and nightmare will never end and will continue to be repeated every year on that dreadful day during the reading of those who perished at an hours-long ceremony at One World Trade Center where the Twin Towers stood.

For the rest of us, though, or maybe it’s just me, who personally didn’t know anyone lost in the attacks, September 11 is a tragic event kept in the back of my mind. The truth is life still goes on.

Twenty years ago, September 11 fell on a Tuesday. The tragic events in the years since did not deter Americans from going on about their daily lives.

We went to work, school and attended church services. Nothing stopped people from flying, vacationing, shopping, dining at restaurants, going to movies, sports events and attending concerts. All this, despite us now living in a COVID-19 world, the last thing on anyone’s mind that perfect blue-sky early fall September morning when they woke up and walked out the front door was they would be victims of a terrorist attack.

I seriously doubt that was what the close to 3000 souls thought when they arrived to work at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and boarded those four planes that fateful morning.

They did exactly what we do every day. It is something we should do every year on this dark day, other than taking a moment to remember the fallen.

Although 9/11 falls on a Saturday in 2021 and while many will probably be off that day, for some of us it will still be a workday.

This Saturday I will be doing what everyone else across the country was doing in between watching the news or listening to the radio twenty years ago. Carrying on with their regular everyday lives but still keeping thoughts on those lost on our minds.

I’ll be working my usual three to midnight shift, but at home, and will have the television on in the background just to have something to listen to while taking calls and returning tickets. Instead of having the flat screen tuned in to the cable news stations who will run endless overage from Ground Zero, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania with interviews from those who were there on 9/11, or watching repeated documentaries on the History, National Geographic and Discovery channels, however, I’ll be doing what I did twenty years ago days after the attacks. As a means to take my mind temporarily off that day’s events, I watched 'Caddyshack' (1980) and "Star Trek: First Contact" (1996) almost a week later.

This Saturday will be no different. I might have the flat screen tuned to the weekly "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" (2001-2011) marathon on the Sundance channel. Maybe have "West Side Story" (1961) on in the background on Turner Classic Movies. Or given that Saturdays is a part of Super Sci-Fi Saturday on MeTV over the course of the remaining six hours of my evening shift I’ll have the TV turned to Dallas’ local Channel 55 starting with The Three Stooges at six and then "Svengoolie" (1995-Present) at seven where every week a cheesy B-grade horror and/or sci-fi movie airs followed by episodes of "Star Trek" (1966-1969), "Buck Rogers In the 25th Century" (1979-1981) and "The Night Stalker" (1974-1975).

Conservative political commentator and radio personality Rush Limbaugh (1951-2021) summarized it best when asked by Time back in 2003 how Americans should commemorate the September 11 attacks every year and whether that day should be a national holiday for the country.

"We should resolve to make Sept. 11 as robust a day as we can. It should feature Americans behaving in their unique, extraordinary ways. Those whose lives were lost should be remembered as they died, in busy activity, never dreaming that that day would be their last on Earth. We will not need to shut down to remember."

This Saturday’s horror movie on "Svengoolie" will be "Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1953). On this depressing day of all days, couldn’t me, if not all of us, use a good laugh?

©9/8/21

Appreciation: Rush Limbaugh (1951-2021)

Contrary to popular belief (the less than a handful who personally know me that is) I never considered myself a die-hard fan of ultra right-wing conservative shock-jock Rush Limbaugh during the thirty plus years he was on the air. I admit, however, over the course of those three decades, listening to “the Doctor of Democracy” grew on me.

Before Limbaugh’s radio show premiered in August 1988, I don’t recall there being such words as “drive-by” media and “info babe” as he called the press and any female news anchor wearing six or seven-inch-heels and over-the-knee skirts on CNN and Fox News.

The word “liberal” didn’t sound like a cuss word as it does today, and there didn’t seem to be the “US versus Them” war that we now see out of control in the halls of congress, which I now refer to as “The House of Hypocrites” thanks to Republican Senator Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Years before I hesitantly enrolled in “The Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies” I despised the way, Tom Kelley, a friend of mine from high school, idolized “The Most Dangerous Man in America” back in 1993 as he bought two copies of Limbaugh’s book, "The Way Things Ought to Be."

I took immense joy mocking Tom as he browsed the tie section at a department store one time shopping for a “Rush Limbaugh” tie. Sitting next to those specially made ties were some clip-on ties so I told Tom he’d be much better off buying a couple clip-ons since "Cheers" (1982-1993) mailman Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger) swore by them.

When Limbaugh’s TV show aired during 1993-1994 seasons, another friend of mine and former newspaper editor, Glenn Fawcett, and I would die laughing at how everyone in the audience were impeccably dressed in suits and ties and the women were dressed in their Sunday church best during my 93' spring semester in college. Today, if I were to pull up any of those shows on youtube.com to see the camera pan in on the audience I just might see no minorities present, much the way liberals griped about that picture House Speaker Paul Ryan posed with a group of white interns in 2016 thus continuing the false narrative that conservative Republicans really are a bunch of rich white racists who don’t hire minority interns in “The House of Hypocrites.”

As the years went by, however, my political affiliations changed. Perhaps it was the fact being raised by my grandparents on my dad's side who were staunch Republicans that maybe their conservatism got the better of me.

Maybe it was the fact, like George Clooney’s Democratic manager Ryan Gosling played in the "Ides of March" (2011) who realized there was no such thing as honesty, integrity and morality in presidential politicians, I stopped believing in everything the Democratic Party claimed to represent when it came to them fighting for minorities and low-income wage earners.

The more I tuned into Limbaugh’s radio show the more it dawned on me that some of the things he said made sense. I often quoted him in a few columns I wrote since the early 2000s on subjects from September 11 and Disney’s refusal to release ABC’s "The Path to 9/11" on DVD to help protect former President Bill Clinton’s legacy that he did try his damnedest to take out terrorist mastermind, Osama Bin Laden, while in office to Rush's love of Apple products. That doesn’t mean I took everything he said was the word of God. Sure, I admit I defended him over the past two decades with what he said but it was with good reason.

When Limbaugh, for example in 2003, said the only reason for Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb’s success on the "Sunday NFL Countdown" in September 2003, was because he was African American, I saw nothing racist in that comment. Maybe I am just color blind. As someone, however, who hates football and most all sports, I would have watched "Sunday NFL Countdown" every week that year just to hear what Limbaugh had to say about the sport had he not been let go by ESPN executives within days of making that McNabb comment. I would have done the same had he been chosen to co-anchor "Monday Night Football." Not to watch the games, mind you. But so, I can hear what he had to say about the plays being called.

Nor did I agree with the comments Limbaugh made about Georgetown law school student, Sandra Fluke, in March 2012. There were plenty of ways “El Rushbo” could have used to describe Fluke and still get his point across without having to publicly degrade her. Nor did I agree with the way Limbaugh apologized to Fluke on his radio show as his advertisers bailed on him days after his Feb. 29, 2012 broadcast. Limbaugh back then should have taken a lesson from radio host Don Imus who met with the Rutgers University women’s basketball team personally apologizing to them for the derogatory comments he said on his radio show back in 2007. If Limbaugh was truly sincere in his apology to Fluke, he would have called her personally.

There is a difference though in my listening to Rush than the way others did. I listened to him because he was entertaining from those promotional radio phrases (“The man, a mission, a way of life”, “He didn’t start it, but he’ll be happy to finish it”) to those often times humorous song parodies from conservative political satirist Paul Shanklin that bashed President Obama and liberalism that often aired on his show.

Limbaugh wasn’t afraid to mock himself when "Family Guy" creator Seth McFarlane asked him to do an animated episode in 2014 where the conservative host arrives in town and temporarily converts liberal dog, Brian, into a Republican. I died laughing when Limbaugh poked fun at himself again for the 2010 episode of "Family Guy" called “Blue Harvest” in what was a parody of the Star Wars trilogy (1977-1983). What a joy it was to hear El Rushbo’s voice on the landspeeder radio from that “galaxy far, far away” talking up global warming and affirmative action on Tatooine.

“My good friends, the liberal galactic media is at it again, they never stop. Now they're trying to convince us that Hoth is melting. Well that's crazy, just trying to scare us. Well if that wasn't enough to get you mad, we now have news that Lando Calrissian has been made the chief administrator of the Bespin mining facility. Gee, I wonder how he got that job. Well let me tell you how he got that job, affirmative action strikes again. The time is 8:50.”

I don’t doubt the hypocritical left-wing elitists cheered with glee seeing Limbaugh meet the same fate as Jabba the Hutt’s pet creature, The Rancor, from "Return of the Jedi" in the 2011 "Family Guy" episode called, “It’s A Trap.” 

 

I didn’t listen to Limbaugh’s December 23, 2020 radio broadcast the day before Christmas. Had I done so I still wouldn’t have seen it as being a final goodbye to his long-time 15 million listeners despite his announcement in October last year that his stage IV lung cancer was terminal.

Instead of dwelling on the inevitable, I preferred to focus on the positive though I knew otherwise. The end came the morning of Feb. 17, 2021 with the announcement from Limbaugh’s wife, Kathryn, on his radio show that “America’s Real Anchorman” had passed away at age 70.

Even now hearing Limbaugh’s comments from that Dec. 23 broadcast being replayed on Fox News I’m still having a hard time processing it.

How strange it will be now whenever some daily political newsworthy event happens there will be no one at that golden EIB microphone to answer the question millions of devoted fans asked “The Mayor of Realville” five days a week for over the past three decades.

“What would Rush say?”

©2/24/21