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Author: wrekehavoc

i love you suzanne

Posted on February 12, 2009 by wrekehavoc

so today, one of my best friends from college is having a heart procedure. this girl is so dear that words are hard to find when i think about what she means to me. she is a wildly-hardworking person. she is a loyal person. she is a very, very warm-hearted person. my kids love when she treks down to visit once or twice a year, especially because she always does a huge sweep at Target and brings them all the candy and crap i deny them. (of course, there’s the good humor she displays, too — like when she ended up picking blackberries with us in the middle of nowhere and jumping on a giant inflatable… i don’t know what it was called, but it sure was hella fun.)

i’m sure she’ll be okay, but i must admit, it has struck me right between the eyes. someone else my age is mortal, too. historically, i’ve sorted my college friends into tidy mental boxes, sort of like the Beatles were when they first hit America; i’m the sick one. another girlfriend is the one who has had epic and horrific love affairs. and this one? she’s the workaholic. no one is supposed to be working my side of the street; i’ve taken on all the awful illnesses so no one else has to.

but no one can stay in their own box forever, i suppose. the one who has had bad luck with men just got married to a real keeper. and i have had moments in my career when i suppose workaholic would have been an appropriate tag (i remember sleeping at my desk once or twice about 15 years ago when i was enmeshed in the world of the burgeoning internet.) so it stands to reason that someone else could have something seriously wrong with them. fixable, thank G-d, but serious nonetheless.

anyway, i’ll be waiting til later today, when i can pester her — or her mom — and find out how she’s doing. summer’s not far off, and she needs to plan her next trek down to the southland. my kids are down to their last 6 pounds of halloween candy. and SOMEONE’S got to supply them with more Pez.

get well soon, suz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRqKPfHyXUg

happy [birthday GPM] mondays!

Posted on February 9, 2009 by wrekehavoc

whodathunk?

a year ago, i was thinking blerg-y mondays could be happy mondays. i thought and i thought about how i could go about making this work. i wondered what people out in blogland would enjoy. i entertained the idea of posting a cute picture — you know, start my own i can has cheeseburger, only do it with amusing pictures of geckos, perhaps? how would i make readers happy they came to my site? it drove me nuts — WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE WANT, ANYWAY???

and then it came to me: this is MY blog. i’ll do what I want.

and once i thought about what made me smile, i thought who cares if anyone else likes what i like perhaps others might enjoy the music i like. conversely, they might enjoy a laugh at my expense. which has happened. a lot. like every week.

my first entry wasn’t exactly a barnstormer. but others have garnered either lots and lots of commentary OR tons of hits. (against all odds probably hit the latter because there are apparently a lot of people in this world who are still searching for rachel ward. who knew?) and unlike my blatantly bad 70s jag i underwent last november, my GPMs don’t garner hate mail. (you think i kid? check out people i don’t even know hating me because i knock songs like wildfire and playground in my mind.)

so on this first anniversary of guilty pleasure monday’s birth, i thought i’d round up my guiltiest of guilties from the past year. check them out and then vote. (or, if i didn’t include your fave, let me know in the comments.)

american tune (paul simon)

stephanie (the partridge family)

what’s he got (the producers)

venus and mars/rockshow (wings)

against all odds (phil collins)

[polldaddy poll=1353599]

happy birthday, GPMs! who knew a little fun frolic into weird music could turn into a scary, occasionally nauseating habit!

fire

Posted on February 4, 2009 by wrekehavoc

last week, my brother Middlebro (who you all learned to loathe during november’s blatantly bad 70s music fest), lost his home to a fire which started in a neighbor’s home and spread to his.

and no, not this kind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF25KEloF5g

he is in the throes of listing all his belongings for the insurance company and looking for a new place to live while they rebuild the condo. all the while, he has had a fantastic attitude about the whole thing. i mean, it has got to be a colossal pain in the ass to completely take all your worldy possessions and figure out plan B. all in a day.

if it were me, i’d probably still be half-way through some ben and jerry’s.

in short, i’m impressed. (even in spite of the fact that he’s politically to the right of attila the hun. )

[sorry i’m not funny today. i will discover my funny bone later this week. i hope.]

month of 70’s gpms: thank you for being a friend (andrew gold)

Posted on January 30, 2009September 6, 2014 by wrekehavoc

faked you out, huh? bet you thought my last day of guilty pleasure mondays month – the 1970’s hits edition – would be something by the fab four, right?

you’d be half right. in a manner of speaking, of course.

okay, okay. this is a lame homemade video by Dog Knows Who. but i wanted to share the song, which was eventually co-opted by the folks who brought you that uproarious sitcom about happy ladies of a certain age.

(…and how better to complete a month of guilty pleasure mondays that could get me laughed at.)

i love this song, okay? andrew gold — son of marni nixon, whose voice is the one you hear coming out of natalie wood’s mouth in the screen version of west side story as well as audrey hepburn’s in my fair lady and deborah kerr’s in the king and i — has done it all in the music industry. he enjoyed a lot of success on his own as well as in his collaborations with people like linda rondstadt and another completely unsung but magnificent voice known as karla bonoff to name only two.

not sure which was a bigger hit — thank you for being a friend or lonely boy — but i loved them both. they both have solid hooks, though TYFBAF is not exactly a rockin’ song. still, the sentiment is sweet. i always thought andrew gold should have come out with his stuff about four years earlier; i suspect that mellow california sound he made that was so popular in the mid 1970s kind of got mauled by new wave and punk.

but i appreciate it nonetheless, with or without a septaganarian.

———————————————–

and so there you have it: a whole month of songs that might get me ridiculed in certain circles. thank you all for being tolerant of my little meander into self-indulgence. i suspect i will come back with my usual GPM feature — maybe not this monday since i’ve od’d a bit on them, but soon.

in the meantime, i miss writing about my kids. i’m their mom; it’s my sworn duty to embarrass them as much as humanly possible. i’ll get back to that soon, i’m sure.

but in the meantime, always remember: if you threw a party and invited everyone you knew, you would see the biggest gift would be from me and the card attached would say:

my birthday’s in march.

don’t you forget it 😉

xoxo,

wreke

month of 70’s gpms: mary had a little lamb (paul mccartney)

Posted on January 29, 2009September 18, 2014 by wrekehavoc

hello, and welcome to one of the biggest search terms that lead people to my blog. don’t know why, of course.

okay, okay, so this one was released only in the UK. but how many times do you need someone telling you how amazing jet is, or maybe i’m amazed, or even another seriously guilty pleasure of mine, helen wheels? i’ve already yammered on about venus and mars/rock show. so i figured i’d take a little meander, again, off the beaten 1970s paul mccartney output track.

the first time i ever heard mccartney’s musical ode to mary, girl with the crazy, clingy sheep, i was watching a TV special called james paul mccartney. i must have been about eight years old, but it made a HUGE impression on me. for years afterward, i would anxiously scan the TV Guide, hoping it would be rebroadcast. and occasionally, it was, at some bizarre hour. i would set my alarm clock, wake up at aforementioned odd hour, and watch it, all the while bemoaning the fact that i had no way of recording it. (this was before the days of VCRs, kiddies. yes, i’m that old.) sure, there was a bizarre number where paul was singing and dancing with a group of half-men/half women split down their middles that i didn’t care much for. but the rest of the music was great, and i especially looked forward to mary had a little lamb.

fast forward about twenty or thirty years.

meet wreke the mom. i would sing this song to my babies. and i would be thrilled listening to them attempt to sing along with me. little babies, you see, can muster the la la parts. the only problem: mom always got teary toward the end of the song, much to the babies’ confusion. the teacher always turns the lamb away, much to the children’s (and the lamb’s) dismay.

But the lamb loved Mary so,
the eager children cry,
And Mary loves the lamb, you know,
the teacher did reply.

mom always loves her little singing lambs.

month of 70’s gpms: instant karma (john lennon)

Posted on January 28, 2009December 11, 2014 by wrekehavoc

…just add water and stir. voila!

yes, the obvious john lennon choice would be imagine, one of the most beautiful songs i think i’ve ever heard in my life. blah blah blah. i just like to meander down the path least taken, do things slightly off-kilter. speaking of off-kilter, see yoko knit throughout this entire experience. knit, yoko, knit.

(oh, and to my beloved spouse, who probably would pick #9 dream… or maybe that’s revolution#9, only because he wishes to realize that dream of his: to pick #9 at a deli counter and then walk away, leaving the poor counter guy saying number 9? number 9? number 9? not picking it, hon.)

anyway, instant karma. what the hell was lennon thinking about here? he was thinking about creating a song and releasing it as instantly as possible. he wrote and recorded it the same day, and then he released the single 10 days later – a miracle for anyone who has ever known anything about the recording industry. there’s not much to the song, really; it’s a simple song that can turn into an endless loop of an earworm if you’re not careful.

crazy trivia point for you crazy trivia people out there: stephen king apparently used part of the chorus of this song to name his novel. how he went from we all shine on to that cheerful, upbeat, happy tome we all know and love as the shining is anyone’s guess.

phil spector produced the song, which is apparent to me as it sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom. he ended up doing a lot of production work for the beatles that year, 1970. i believe this was his first work with them. considering the beatles were not exactly pals at that point in time, i suspect lennon’s speedy work spoiled spector for the rest of the time, which dragged and dragged on immeasureably, i bet. spector’s karma couldn’t possibly have been too instant.

expectations management, people. it’s all about expectations management.

anyway, instant karma. instant guilty pleasure. of course you know who’ll be on the hook for tomorrow, don’t you?

month of 70’s GPMs: this song (george harrison)

Posted on January 27, 2009January 30, 2015 by wrekehavoc

could be “sugar pie, honey bunch!”

could be “rescue me!”

no, george. it apparently is he’s so fine.

people often beatify george harrison; he, saint george of the hare krishnas, world citizen of peace, love, and sitar music. and, in truth, there’s plenty good that harrison did in his lifetime (including perhaps the first major concert for a cause), so many musical treasures he created. (i’ll just ignore the entire traveling dingleberry period, which always made me want to barf.)

but then they forget that the man had a wicked sense of humor.

this is the same guy who befriended the monty python crew and ended up producing movies, including my beloved life of brian as well as making cameos and such.

and he definitely set his angst to music in this song, a humorous hit from 1976 which served as public therapy for harrison, who at this time was fighting a legal battle over whether his song my sweet lord copied the chiffons’ he’s so fine. this pre-MTV video is hilarious, and seeing ronnie wood dressed up as a frumpy housefrau is worth the trip alone. when this song came out, i was just thrilled to have output from george that had nothing to do with indian mysticism. (i skipped over within you without you so many times on my old Sgt Pepper record that it was a shock to me the first time i heard it on a CD.) it’s a bouncy tune that features eric idle shrieking could be “sugar pie honey bunch”… could be “rescue me,” a snarky aside showing that george was a bit tired of the US court system’s analysis of music. i love it; hellboy loves it, too.

anyway, george lost that trial, but george also had the last musical laugh: he ended up buying the rights to he’s so fine, making that song, as well as this song, his own.

month of 70’s GPMs: it don’t come easy (ringo starr)

Posted on January 26, 2009October 17, 2014 by wrekehavoc

you didn’t think i’d ignore my beloved beatles during a 1970s hits version of Guilty Pleasure Mondays, now, did you?

there’s definitely plenty of debate about the authorship of it don’t come easy. ringo is credited as co-writer along with his late, great pal george harrison. when you look at ringo’s earlier compositions (like this for example, his first credited), you cannot imagine he’d be capable of composing a song as musically complicated as this one. to be sure, it don’t come easy has a kick-ass sax section that screams a close kinship to savoy truffle, also a harrisong. (not to mention a vintage george guitar solo, all credited, of course.)

did george simply want to send his best pal off with a great start to a solo career? maybe. but whatever the case, ringo pulls this one off way better than george does in the demo, perhaps a guide vocal for his flat-toned pal. (not to mention that the hare krishna! yelled in the middle of the guitar solo of george’s version is rather weird — though if you listen carefully to ringo’s version, you can hear it there as well, albeit better hidden.)

ringo went on to have several other hits in the 1970s — photograph, you’re sixteen (which features macca on kazoo as well as a very young carrie fisher as the love interest in the video), and the no no song (the latter of which always made me laugh) to note. but none of them rock the way that it don’t come easy does.

i just love the fact that ringo conquered his alcoholism and went on to live a relatively happy life. ringo was always the most grounded and normal of the beatles. his son zak is actually a revolving member of my secret boyfriend list; he is far and away a better drummer than his dad. i’ve seen him hold up the who on more than one occasion, which has got to be a surreal gig for him. (how he goes from oasis to the who is surreal in itself, i suspect.)

but i digress. per usual.

anyhow, i hope i get to see ringo perform with one of his many all-star band outfits sometime before he stops playing. the only other beatle i ever saw live was macca, so i feel an obligation to support the only other living beatle. and i’m sure if i see him, he will probably close the show with this guilty pleasure song of mine. and i wish him continued success. musical success may not come easy, especially as a geezer gets older; but if you’re ringo starr and your best friend george writes you some great material (and credits you for it!), it certainly doesn’t come the hard way.

month of 70's GPMs: let's stay together (al green)

Posted on January 23, 2009 by wrekehavoc

who doesn’t love the reverend al? (no, not that one.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knw4wsp-NF8

al green has an amazingly scratchysmooth, soulful voice. i would probably listen to him sing the phone book and be glad. for years, he tried to sing like his hero jackie wilson (it’s what made his father kick him out of the family band.) he succeeded in secular soul for years…

until he had a sign from G-d in the form of a pan of scalding grits. one married woman who had befriended green threw the aforementioned pan at him while he was getting out of a shower or bath, burning him over a decent portion of his body. she then proceeded to find his gun and shot herself to death.

next thing you know, he’s the reverend al and he’s singing gospel and not walking on the devil’s sidewalk.

every now and again, he jumps back into secular music. his stuff is often covered — most notably the talking heads cover of take me to the river — but ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, baby.

month of 70's GPMs: evergreen (barbara streisand)

Posted on January 22, 2009 by wrekehavoc

this one will get me laughed out of the he-man woman haters club fer sure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv1SQFgfPR8

She Who Is Like Buttah did not put a lot of songs out in the 1970s that i particularly like. (i went off on one of them back in november, you might recall.) in fact, most of the time, i would prefer to focus on her movies of the 1970s — what’s up doc is one of the funniest films i have ever, ever seen (and which plagues hellboy to this day — whenever he mentions the name of one of his buddies from school, i immediately launch into dialogue from the film):

Howard: It gets kind of complicated now. First, there was this trouble between me and Hugh.
Judge Maxwell: You and me?
Howard: No, not you. Hugh.
Hugh: I am Hugh.
Judge Maxwell: You are me?
Hugh: No, I am Hugh.

yep. i’m sure little hugh can’t wait to come over for a playdate.

anyway, another extremely successful film of bahbra’s was the 1976 remake of a star is born. admittedly, i didn’t like it any of the times around. see, i have a big problem with a story about how a relationship disintegrates when the woman becomes successful and the man is in a period of decline. it grates on me nerves in the way only a wildly sexist plotline can. yeah, yeah, sure, sure, people loved this remake. and babs does turn in an outstanding performance, though i never was able to suspend my belief long enough that kris kristofferson could be a successful rock star. he has all the charisma of a tub of cookie dough.

but i cannot lie: this academy award-winning AND grammy award-winning monster hit is also an incredibly beautiful song. sure, i found it smarmy when it came out, but i was also 11 years old at the time and easily grossed out by mushy lovesongs. paul williams lyrics are often simply brilliant: love, soft as an easy chair. whodathunkit? and barbara wrote the music, so props to her highness for that.

i wish i could say positive things about more of her music. i mean, anyone has to admit that, regardless of where you stand on her politics, the chick has got pipes. but she has chosen such unadulterated shlock over the years — or at least in the 1970s — that it makes it hard to cheer her on.

but i’m doing it here. bravely, in public.

i know snark awaits me.

bring it.