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Tuesday, August 27, 2013

August 27, 1990

Before I go ahead with today's Tuesday Timeline, I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to finally talk about long-buried issues that I have had all this time, and for offering support in the current situation that I am in.

It was really hard for me to come to terms with everything...and it makes me sad to conclude that at this time, there is nothing more that I can do except pick myself up, dust myself off, and continue living my life with people who actually want to be a part of it. I will not allow myself to be treated like an afterthought any longer.

I guess the hardest part about this is admitting everything and putting it out in the open. As I explained yesterday, this was the most candid that I have ever been in this blog. It wasn't my intention to purposely hurt anybody with my comments – more like a way to try and process everything that happened, and trying to understand why I'm suddenly public enemy number one to those who are supposed to be closest to me. I don't understand the reasoning behind it, and as long as I live, I honestly don't think that I will ever understand it.

The only thing that has been made crystal clear is that maybe this is the time in which I need to start giving myself a little bit of TLC...and I don't mean that group who had several top 10 singles between 1992 and 2000 either.

I'm tired of having relationships with people who only stick around when they want something and then once I give it to them they disappear into the night until the next time they need something. I'm at the point right now where I will not put up with it any longer. I need people in my life who will be there as friends in any type of weather...not just fair weather. And maybe that means that I have to make some serious decisions over who I spend my time with. Time is so precious. Why waste it on those who don't matter?

In fact, I'm just going to leave you with one thought, courtesy of a long-time reader and friend of the blog. “Family doesn't have to just include those who are blood-related.”

I think that's something that I really need to hold on to as I proceed with the rest of my life. And while there is always the possibility that things will eventually blow over...I can't guarantee it. So, that's why I need to do the only thing I can do and just start focusing on what I want out of life, and to stop living for other people.

And now, the events of August 27.

410 – The sacking of Rome by the Visigoths ends after three days

1776 – British forces under the command of General William Howe defeats Americans under General George Washington in the Battle of Long Island

1813 – Emperor Napoleon I defeats a larger force of Austrians, Prussians, and Russians at the Battle of Dresden

1832 – Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk tribe, surrenders to U.S. Authorities, which ends the Black Hawk War

1859 – Petroleum is discovered in the community of Titusville, Pennsylvania which leads to the discovery of the world's first commercially successful oil well

1916 – Romania declares war against Austria-Hungary

1927 – Five women from Canada file a petition to the Supreme Court of Canada asking
“Does the word persons in Section 24 of the British North American Act, 1867, include female persons?”

1928 – The Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war is signed by the first fifteen nations to do so

1962 – The Mariner 2 unmanned space mission is launched into Venus by NASA

1964 – Hollywood film and television legend Gracie Allen dies of a heart attack at the age of 69

1967 – Brian Epstein, discoverer of The Beatles dies of a drug overdose at just 32 years of age

1971 – African nation Chad severs its diplomatic ties with Egypt following the failure of an attempted coup in the nation

1993 – Japan's Rainbow Bridge (connecting Tokyo's Shibaura to the island of Odaiba) is completed

2000 – Moscow's Ostankino Tower catches on fire, killing three people

2003 – Mars makes its closest approach to the planet Earth in nearly sixty thousand years

2008 – Australian actor Mark Priestley dies at the age of 32 after leaping from the window of his hotel room

And, celebrating a birthday this twenty-seventh day of August are Tommy Sands, Harrison Page, Daryl Dragon, Tuesday Weld, G.W. Bailey, Barbara Bach, Charles Fleischer, Paul “Pee-Wee” Reubens, Alex Lifeson, Downtown Julie Brown, Yolanda Adams, Robert Bogue, Cesar Millan, Chandra Wilson, Tony Kanal (No Doubt), Jimmy Pop, Jonny Moseley, Sarah Chalke, Aaron Paul, Kyle Lowder, Demetria McKinney, and Alexa Vega.

So, the date is August 27. But what year will we be visiting this time around?



How about we go back in time twenty-three years to August 27, 1990?

I actually somewhat remember August 27, 1990. I was nine years old and was about to enter the fourth grade in school. In all likelihood, I was probably at the mall with my mom shopping for back to school supplies which included a neon coloured pencil case, a pair of UHU Glue Sticks, and Laurentian brand pencil crayons (which sadly are now a defunct brand). And it was also the day before my parents celebrated their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, which was kind of cool. The plaque that they received from the mayor of our city at the time celebrating the milestone still hangs on their wall today. Hard to believe that in a couple of years, they will be celebrating anniversary number fifty! That makes me (and them) feel real old now!

Sadly, August 27, 1990 was a day that was very tragic in the world of music history. That was the day that the world lost a talented blues guitarist and singer in a devastating helicopter accident.

Hours before the crash occurred, this performer and his band had just finished performing at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, Wisconsin, and their next destination was Chicago, Illinois.  The helicopters - four of them - were waiting for him and his band members and the helicopters took off as scheduled despite the fact that the visibility wasn't exactly the greatest.  According to witnesses who were there at the time, the conditions were foggy and hazy.  Certainly not the most ideal conditions to go up in the air with a helicopter.

And yet the helicopters took off as planned, and the pilots were instructed to fly over a hill that was over a thousand feet in altitude (during the winter months, it was used for skiing).

The helicopters departed just before one in the morning on August 27, 1990 from an elevation of approximately 850 feet.  The pilot, Jeff Brown, was instructed to pilot the helicopter to Meigs Field.

They never made it.

The helicopter smashed into the side of the mountain, killing everybody on board.  It wasn't until four-thirty in the morning until Civil Air Patrol was notified of the accident, and it took another three hours before they could reach the site of the crash.  The bodies of everybody on board were nearly impossible to identify.  Believe it or not, it took musician Eric Clapton, and Jimmie Vaughan to identify the body of Jimmie's brother...a man who he had just recorded an album with earlier that year.

In addition to Jeff Brown, the other victims of the crash were Bobby Brooks, Nigel Browne, Colin Smythe...



...and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

The death of Stevie Ray Vaughan was a tragic shock to his fans and family members.  He died at just thirty-five years old at a time in which his music was at its peak.  He was the founder of his band, "Double Trouble", and together, he made beautiful music that blended soulful blues with rock music, and his skill with a guitar was almost legendary.

It should not have ended this way.

Stevie Ray Vaughan was born on October 3, 1954 in Dallas, Texas.  He was the second son of "Big Jim" and Martha Vaughan, a younger brother for Jimmie, who was born three years earlier in 1951.  And, it became clear at an early age that Stevie Ray Vaughan was destined to become a musical genius.  After trying his hand playing the saxophone and drums, Stevie Ray Vaughan received his very first guitar on October 3, 1961 - his seventh birthday.

Mind you, it wasn't your typical guitar.  It was a toy guitar that came from Sears.  But still, it was good enough for Vaughan, who taught himself how to play the songs "Wine, Wine, Wine" and "Thunderbird" - two songs by The Nightbirds.  Ironically enough, Vaughan had absolutely no interest in doing any formal training.  Instead, he learned how to play guitar through a more kinesthetic/auditory approach.  Listening to his brother's records by Muddy Waters and B.B. King, he managed to learn and duplicate the guitar chords and solos that he heard from the album.  He would later purchase an album by Lonnie Mack, which also helped him perfect his craft, as did Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze".  Even though his childhood was not exactly the most pleasant (his father was a violent drunk, and he had very few friends), he found a way to get through it through music.

In 1965, when Vaughan was just ten, he founded his first band, "The Chantones", and his first public performance was held that June at a talent show.  But even though Vaughan liked performing, his parents didn't quite support his career aspirations, and he ended up taking on a job as a dishwasher where he made seventy cents an hour.  He would later quit that job following a near mishap with a barrel of hot grease, and would make the decision to focus on music full time.

After dropping out of high school when he was sixteen, Stevie Ray followed his older brother to Austin, Texas on the final day of 1971, and began engrossing himself with the music scene there.  During the 1970s, he was a party of several bands.  He was a member of Krackerjack (formerly known as Bluebird), Marc Benno and the Nightcrawlers, Paul Ray and the Cobras, and Triple Threat Revue.

And it was at the tail end of the 1970s that Vaughan would form the line-up of his most successful band - Double Trouble.  The group had a revolving door of musicians coming and going, but one could argue that the band line-up that most people would consider to be the most recognizable was that of Vaughan, drummer Chris Layton, bassist Tommy Shannon, and keyboardist Reese Wynans.

As the seventies morphed into the eighties, Double Trouble started off slowly.  They meticulously started building a fan base, and by 1983 they were starting to get the attention of various record producers and singers.

Including David Bowie.



I'm not sure if you all knew this or not, but Stevie Ray Vaughan was a huge part of David Bowie's 1983 album "Let's Dance".  He played lead guitar on several of the album's singles including the title track, which you can hear below.



This song reached the top of the charts in May 1983, might I add.  A huge achievement for Stevie Ray Vaughan, even though all he did on the single was play that awesome guitar solo midway through the song.  Vaughan was even asked to go on tour with David Bowie to promote the album, but on the urging of Vaughan's management team, he declined.



Instead, he decided to focus on releasing material himself.  In June of 1983, Vaughan released his debut album with Double Trouble, "Texas Flood", which spawned the singles "Pride and Joy", and "Love Struck Baby".  Soon after, the band opened up for The Moody Blues, and landed a guest appearance on the television show "Austin City Limits", where he performed along with his brother's band, "The Fabulous Thunderbirds".  It would just be the first of many appearances by Vaughan.  Just have a look at one of Stevie's performances.



Their follow-up album, "Couldn't Stand The Weather" was accompanied by music videos that soon received a lot of airplay on MTV.  The band had also received a couple of Grammy nominations in 1984 for "Texas Flood".

However, there were some barriers that Stevie Ray Vaughan had to overcome over the years.  One was a serious case of stage fright.  He was incredibly nervous playing in front of large crowds, and many people noted that he would always be sweating a lot during performances, and that he had absolutely zero self-confidence on stage.  However, by the mid-1980s, he had seemingly found his groove.

And then there was Stevie's addiction to drugs and alcohol, which seemed to spin out of control right around the time that the band released their 1985 album "Soul to Soul".  His contract for performances always called for two-fifths Crown Royal and one-fifth Scotch.

He also developed a cocaine habit while Double Trouble toured.  It started off being a casual routine, but quickly developed into absolutely dependency.  At one point, Stevie's cocaine use was so out of control that he once dissolved some cocaine into a glass of alcohol and cause serious damage to his stomach lining.  The event that seemed to shock Stevie back to reality took place in Ludwigshafen, Germany, when he tried to get up and threw up over himself, realizing that he was covered with blood at the same time.

It was enough of a scare for Vaughan to quit drugs and alcohol altogether.  And after completing treatment in a rehabilitation centre, he would become one hundred per cent sober by 1987, and remained that way for the rest of his life.



In his last few years, Vaughan was determined to make up for all of the time he lost due to his addiction to drugs and alcohol.  Double Trouble returned to the recording studios to record the 1989 album, "In Step", which proved to be the band's best effort yet.  And this song was a huge part of that success.



ARTIST:  Stevie Ray Vaughan
SONG:  Crossfire
ALBUM:  In Step
DATE RELEASED:  June 1989
PEAK POSITION ON THE MAINSTREAM ROCK CHARTS:  #1

Stevie's personal life was also thriving.  After his marriage broke-up, he began dating Janna Lapidus, a Russian-born model whom Stevie had met back in 1986.  She visited him while he was recovering from his drug abuse, and at the time of Stevie's death, they were still together.  He had also recorded an album with his brother Jimmie Vaughan entitled "Family Style", which was released a month after Stevie's death, in September 1990.  But perhaps the one thing that Stevie was most proud of was his new found sobriety.  He attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in January 1990, which has since been transcribed and posted on the Internet (you can hear a portion of it if you click HERE).  He continued to make healthy living a priority in his life, and I imagine that had he lived, we would have seen him do so much more with his life.

At the very least though, if there's any sort of consolation regarding his death, it is that he spent his last few days doing what he loved.  The day before his death, August 26, 1990, Double Trouble was on tour with Eric Clapton as his opening act, and one of the final moments of the August 26 show involved both Vaughan brothers, Clapton, Robert Cray, and Buddy Guy performing a jam-session to "Sweet Home Chicago".  And perhaps this excerpt from Double Trouble band member Chris Layton would best describe how Stevie Ray Vaughan was feeling just hours before that fatal helicopter ride.

"The conversation was actually very light; there was nothing heavy in it. It was just like, 'this is a great coupla nights and wasn't it great to be here,' and talked about the record that he and Jimmie just made, how they had a lot of fun and that was exciting. He was looking forward to that coming out and looking forward to us making another record. He was in great spirits. I mean, we just had two great nights and we talked about all kinds of stuff, talked about the son that my wife and I were getting ready to have–we didn't know it was a boy–but just anything and everything. We talked for, I guess, almost 30 minutes.
Then he got up and said, 'I'm gonna go back down to the dressing room for a minute.' I don't know, maybe five minutes or so later, he came back up and he had his jacket on, he had his bags. He was making this turn, and I said, 'Hey, what are you doin'?' And he said, 'I'm gonna go back to Chicago.' I said 'Well, now?' And he said, 'Yeah, I gotta get back. I want to call Janna,' his girlfriend, in New York. I thought, 'Jeez, you could actually call her anywhere and then call her later,' but he turned around and said, 'Call me when you get back. I love you,' and kinda gave me that wink of the eye he would do. And then he was gone. He just disappeared into the night."



Stevie Ray Vaughan
1954-1990

Monday, August 26, 2013

No Monday Matinee...Just Me...

August 26, 2013



I have decided not to do a Monday Matinee for today. To be perfectly honest with you, I am a little bit too angry and hurt right now to even think straight when it comes to doing research for a movie from years ago that the majority of people have already seen.

Though before I continue, I just really want to stress one thing. My anger and hurt is NOT direct to any of you reading this blog right now. You guys have been absolutely lovely to me these past couple of years. Your consistent support by reading the blog each day, as well as the occasional comment offering up your thoughts and kudos...I gotta tell you, that means the world to me. I really am very appreciative towards all of you. I honestly don't know if I would have made this blog last over two years if it weren't for you.



Therefore, I hope all of you can understand why I'm giving up the Monday Matinee for this week. I'm sure that next week, I will have an appropriate topic for discussion which will cause you to grab a nice bowl of hot buttered popcorn and a Kit Kat bar the size of a plank of wood.

This week though, I just don't have it in me.

I do apologize for the tone that this blog will likely take. I've had a bit of an upset in my personal life and I really have no other way to get my feelings clear about it all than posting it here on this very blog...for several hundred people to read and make judgement.

I know it might seem a bit odd to some of you. I guess in some manner, I have been using this blog as part of a pop culture project, but also as part of my own self-therapy. As you might have gathered from my blogs, I've had to deal with quite a few barriers and obstacles in my past that not a lot of others have experienced. And while I've been mostly honest about what has happened to me and how I've overcome it, there's been one thing that I have been hesitant to really talk about.

Until an incident happened this past week that prompted me to actually be one hundred per cent truthful about how I feel.

Now, the specifics of what happened are not really important in the who, what, where, when, and why of the situation. All you need to know is this. You know that saying that goes something along the lines of “don't lend money to a family member”? Well, that is the crux in which our story begins. I loaned someone close to me some money (not the first time that this has happened, might I add), and well...things spun out of control some time after that.

I am currently on what I would consider to be on the “losing end” of a family feud, and for the life of me, I don't even understand how it got so ugly so fast. The only thing that I do know is that words were said, feelings were hurt, and the end result is that half of my family will not have anything to do with me.

And, damn it, I'm mad about that. So mad, I'm showing it in blazing red font. Oh, I'm so furious I could kick something!

The sad thing is that it was a misunderstanding between two of my family members regarding the money. One of them asked a simple question, and that got the snowball rolling. Soon after, another family member who really had no business getting involved in the conflict decided to put their two cents in, and sided with the family member who was in conflict with me over this business, and now I feel unfairly ganged up upon.

And, damn it, I don't deserve that. In fact, I expect better from people who are supposedly blood-related to me.

And therein lies the problem.

Now, note that I haven't actually revealed what relation each of the feuding family members are to me. That's because in the grand scheme of things, it's a moot point. None of my family members even know that I even do this blog, or even have commented on the fact that I do write every day, so I highly doubt that they'll see this anyway. I'm purposely leaving it ambiguous on here because I don't set out to hurt people on purpose, nor do I want to make people feel like heels in a public venue. So, that is why I will be keeping their identities private here.

But in the slight chance that they end up stumbling upon it, at least they will actually get the opportunity to actually hear (or in this case, read) what I have to say instead of gossiping behind my back and purposely putting me on a guilt trip in a last ditch effort to elicit sympathy and continue to make me out to be the bad guy.

News flash. I'm not the bad guy. Not this time. Not ever.

And maybe once you actually cool down, start thinking rationally, and want to have a calm and civil conversation with me about it, then maybe I will be interested in hearing what you have to say. Until then, I'm perfectly content with keeping up this silent treatment because I am stressed out enough without adding unnecessary drama to the list. I need people who will build me up and make me feel good about myself. Both of you who have decided to turn against me know more than anyone how hard a time I have had with trying to find my self-worth. The last thing that I expected from either of you was that you would end up hurting me more than any childhood bully ever did.

And yet, that's exactly what have done. You have put me back in that cage of self-loathing all over again. All because of a misunderstanding that I wanted to clear up, but neither of you would take the time out to actually listen to me and hear me out.

But I guess that if there is even a shred of consolation here that can be found, you can at least take comfort in knowing that you're not the only ones who have made me feel this way.

And, this leads to the one thing that I really have to confess. I don't even care what people think of me after this. If people want to say I'm over-reacting, go ahead. If people want to call me a wimp, go ahead. But I need to do this for myself in order to try and stop the pain that I am feeling once and for all. The pain that I've held onto almost all my life.

As pathetic as this may sound...I don't have any truly close friends to depend on. At least not in my geographic area, that is.

It's like a really vicious cycle when it comes to making friends in most cases. Whenever I would get really close to someone, something would happen, and the friendship would end. I'll admit that sometimes the cause of the friendship ending was my fault...and sometimes, it was theirs...and sometimes there was no control over it at all (they'd move away, for instance).

But for me, it became a bit of a recurring theme. Whenever people got too close, something would happen and they would all just go away.  There have been exceptions to the rule, of course, but for the most part, this is all that I have ever really known.

A couple of kids in my third grade class and I were quite inseparable for a time, and we hung out every chance we got...but by seventh grade they became my worst enemies...and to this day, I honestly don't know why. I made a really good friend in my college years and for a few years after I left, we exchanged snail mail. But some time ago, the letters stopped coming, and again, I wondered what I had done to make her stop writing to me.

And then there was my friend Alex who I really respected and liked, who ended up leaving me too – only in this case, it was death that took him away, and there wasn't a whole lot that could be done.

But the point is that all my life, I've had to deal with people walking out of my life – sometimes without any notice whatsoever – and it makes me feel really bad about myself. In fact, I think a lot of the reason why my self-worth was in the negative numbers was because of the fact that so many people left me that I just simply started to stop trusting people.

Even now, years after all of this took place, I still live a rather lonely existence, and that is largely brought upon by the fact that I get so anxious when meeting new people. In fact, sometimes I admit that I come across as a bit cold when it comes to greeting new people because I worry that if I get too close, they'll eventually leave me behind like everyone else I know.  

That's the reason why I take friendship much more seriously than other people. To me, a true friendship and kinship with someone is worth more than all the gold, silver, and platinum in the whole entire world. To me, having a relationship like that is absolutely priceless.

I guess maybe in the long run, I've put such a high price on the value of friendship that I've made it so expensive that even I cannot afford it.

And I guess that's why I find the feud between myself and a couple of family members to be so difficult to take. You would think that of all people in the world, my family would understand the hardships and struggles with finding and maintaining friendships and relationships with people. Instead, they seem to have joined the rest of the crowd and have turned their backs on me too.

And, you know something? That's cold.

But again, maybe the writing was on the wall for a long time. In my family, I'm considered to be the odd duck. Most of my family had the opportunity to grow up together, whether it be my cousins, or my nephews and niece. I was born in one of the “dry spells” of the family. There is literally nobody in my entire family that was born in the early 1980s. I am the only one. And, therefore, I couldn't relate to anyone else in my family as well as they could relate with each other. Whenever there were family gatherings, I was always the one sitting off to the side by myself playing my handheld electronic games because nobody else would talk to me. They all did their own thing, leaving me to my own devices, completely ignoring me.

At the time, I didn't think it was intentional. I thought that the “grown-ups” were just too busy with their own things. But I couldn't help but feel as though I was the “black sheep” of the entire family. Because I couldn't make friends as easily as some of the other kids, or because I was super sensitive about my feelings than the average child, or because of the fact that I often skipped school in my elementary and high school years because I needed a day off from the bullying, I thought that family members were unfairly judging me.

I thought that they thought that I was the problem. I certainly remember instances in which I got into it with family members in the past regarding school drama, and once again, I was made to feel absolutely guilty over how I was feeling even though I was absolutely in the right to feel however I wanted to feel at that moment. It wasn't right.

And, well...I guess the end result was that I kind of just suppressed all emotion from anyone. Including my family. I stopped trusting them as well, and I always had this sense of doubt that none of them had my best interests at heart.



The way I see it, I have only ever had two family members in my life who have always had my back, regardless of how badly I felt, or how bad I treated them when I was feeling sorry for myself. And, when those two family members pass on eventually, I feel as though I'm going to be completely alone in the world.

And that thought scares me to death.

I guess that is why I have come to the conclusion that I need to be my own best friend. I need to find the comfort and warmth within myself so I don't have to rely on other people to find it.

I mean, maybe there's a way that time will heal all wounds, and that maybe things can go back to how they were.

I'm just not ready to make that move right now.


  

Sunday, August 25, 2013

The Beach Boys - My Personal Top 10

The month of August ends next week, and for some of you reading this, August will probably seem as though it flew by.

Not me though. For me, August can't go away fast enough. I'm ready for September!

But on account of it being the final Sunday Jukebox of August, I thought that I would take the opportunity to make this particular entry one that celebrates the goodness of summer.

In fact, I guarantee you that the songs of this particular band are (or were) a part of all of your perfect summer soundtracks. Whether you hear them on the car radio while cruising along the highway on a summer drive, or listening to them on a portable radio while you enjoy a picnic on the beach, or grooving along to their songs at a summer beach party, I know that many of you love these guys. I know that I certainly do.



I'm talking about the Beach Boys, the subject of today's blog.

Now, over the years, the line-up of the Beach Boys have changed, depending on the time period, but we can all agree on one thing. The Beach Boys were founded in the city of Hawthorne, California in 1961, and its original line-up consisted of five people. There were the Wilson brothers (Brian, Carl, Dennis), the Wilson brothers' cousin (Mike Love), and the Wilson brothers' family friend (Al Jardine).

Of the five original members of the Beach Boys, Brian Wilson, Mike Love, and Al Jardine still remain within the group. They are joined by Bruce Johnston (who joined the band in 1965), and David Marks (who was a member between 1962-1963 and rejoined the band in 2011).

Sadly, Dennis Wilson and Carl Wilson are no longer with us. Dennis drowned at Marina Del Rey, Los Angeles on December 28, 1983 at the age of 39, while Carl succumbed to cancer on February 6, 1998 at the age of 51. However, their musical talents were a real gift to the world of pop music, and although Dennis and Carl have both left this world, the legacy they left behind is nothing short of extraordinary.



So, which song would I feature in this blog? That was a REAL tough decision. The band themselves released over eighty singles, several of which were Top 10 singles. The band even managed to score four chart-toppers. Not a bad track record, eh?

In the end, I just simply decided that I couldn't focus on just one song. Instead, I'm going to do something I've never done before.

A Top 10 list.

Now, keep in mind that this list is only the personal view of this blogger. Some of you will appreciate my choices, and some may not agree. Some of you may feel I left a song off, while most others will think that I picked the wrong song. That's why I'm going to allow you to have the chance to have your say at the end of this blog.

So, when I present each song, I'll provide the album you can find the song on, who sang it, some bits of trivia about each song, and how well it did on the charts. And, I'll be doing this ten times! So, I hope you enjoy the Beach Boys because this post is a huge celebration of them!

Ready? Let's kick off this countdown!



10 – KOKOMO
ALBUM: Still Cruisin'
DATE RELEASED: July 18, 1988
PEAK POSITION ON THE CHARTS: #1

Okay, so this was the Beach Boys final chart-topper, and what a chart-topper it was. I was heading into the second grade when this song was released, and it kind of became an unofficial song of my childhood soundtrack as I heard it played a lot during 1988. The song was written by John Phillips, Scott McKenzie, Mike Love, and Terry Melcher.

(And yes, that is John Phillips of “The Mamas and The Papas” and Scott McKenzie who sang “San Francisco”. The song was a who's who of the music world for sure.)

And, hey, check out John Stamos on the drums! This video wouldn't be the first time Stamos would work with the band either. The band made appearances on three episodes of “Full House”. The song also has a connection with Tom Cruise, as the single appeared on the soundtrack of the 1988 film “Cocktail”.

It may very well be the ONLY time you see John Stamos and Tom Cruise appear in the same music video.



9 – HELP ME, RHONDA
ALBUM: Today!
DATE RELEASED: March 8, 1965
PEAK POSITION ON THE CHARTS: #1

This single is quite special as far as who sang lead vocals. Usually the lead vocals were reserved for Mike Love or Carl Wilson, or even Brian Wilson. In this case, it was Al Jardine who took the lead. It was a good move on the band's part, as this song rocketed up to the top of the charts in the spring of 1965.

The song's subject was quite simple. A man falls in love with another girl, only for the girl to fall in love with someone else instead. To ease the pain, he goes to someone named Rhonda and begs her to help him get the other girl out of his heart.

But don't you feel too angry at the guy or feeling sorry for Rhonda. According to Brian Wilson, who co-wrote the song with Mike Love, Rhonda is just a figment of our imagination. She does not exist. Whatever the case though, it still made a great song.



8 – CALIFORNIA GIRLS
ALBUM: Summer Days (and Summer Nights!)
DATE RELEASED: July 12, 1965
PEAK POSITION ON THE CHARTS: #3

I hate to admit this, but the first version I remember hearing of this song was the one done by David Lee Roth back in 1985. My sister was a huge Van Halen fan – so naturally, she was a David Lee Roth fan by association. And, don't get me wrong, as much as I was not a David Lee Roth fan, he did an okay job with it. Regardless though, I prefer the original version by the Beach Boys. It was a song that was written by Brian Wilson under the most unusual circumstances.

He was high on LSD when he came up with the general melody of the single. But then again, it was the sixties. Whatever the case, (not that I am justifying drug usage by any means), this experience helped the Beach Boys earn another Top 10 hit.

And, here's some trivia regarding the song. It was the first Beach Boys hit to feature the vocal stylings of Bruce Johnston, who joined the band earlier in the year.



7 – FOREVER
ALBUM: Sunflower
DATE RELEASED: February 1971
PEAK POSITION ON THE CHARTS: N/A

Okay, so you're probably wondering why I have chosen this song as my #7 favourite Beach Boys song when it didn't really do anything on the charts. Well, remember back in song #10 when I mentioned that the Beach Boys guest-starred on “Full House” three times? Well, one of those appearances took place in the fifth season finale of the show which aired in May 1992. That was the episode that John Stamos' character Jesse Katsopolis and his band “Jesse and the Rippers” released their first hit – a cover version of the song “Forever”. Fans of “Full House” will know that Jesse sang the song to Becky at their wedding, and fans of “Full House” will know that Jesse's version of the song reached #1 in Japan! Now, in the United States, it didn't chart at all, but John Stamos' recording with the Beach Boys apparently made the Top 100 in Australia! Go figure.

But if you can get over the “Full House” connection and really listen to the song's lyrics...I think you might understand why I ranked the song at #7.



6 – LITTLE SAINT NICK
ALBUM: The Beach Boys' Christmas Album
DATE RELEASED: December 9, 1963
PEAK POSITION ON THE CHARTS: N/A

I know it's a little early for Christmas music, but I'll readily admit that this is one Christmas song that I could listen to any day of the year. I don't know if it was the fact that the song was used in a really cute commercial for Coca-Cola, or whether it sounded so differently from any other Christmas song, but I love this song enough to make it my #6 favourite Beach Boys song! And despite the fact that the single was released just two weeks after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, it managed to gain a warm reception all over the United States.



5 – SURFIN' SAFARI
ALBUM: Surfin' Safari
DATE RELEASED: June 4, 1962
PEAK POSITION ON THE CHARTS: #14

One thing I noticed about the earliest Beach Boys material is the amount of songs that the band released about surfing. A bit of an irony, given that Dennis Wilson was the only member of the band who actually knew how to surf. But of all the songs that the band performed that had the word “surf” in the title, I think this one was my favourite. It was after all the band's first Top 20 hit! Backed with the single “409” (which peaked at #76), “Surfin' Safari” really was the first successful single that the Beach Boys had, and helped steer them in the direction of a career that for some of the members of the band would last five decades!



4 – WOULDN'T IT BE NICE
ALBUM: Pet Sounds
DATE RELEASED: July 18, 1966
PEAK POSITION ON THE CHARTS: #8

Really? This song only peaked at #8 on the charts? I thought that this song would have charted higher than that!

The song is best described by Brian Wilson as a tribute to “the frustrations of youth”. It's a song about what kids can't have, what they really want, and how they have no choice but to wait for it.

Ironically enough, the same held true when recording the song. Would you believe that it took a total of twenty-one takes before the Beach Boys got the song to sound the way that it was supposed to? That's got to take a lot of patience on everyone's part!

Funnily enough, this song was paired with a B-side, which happens to be my choice as my #3 favourite Beach Boys single.



3 – GOD ONLY KNOWS
ALBUM: Pet Sounds
DATE RELEASED: July 11, 1966
PEAK POSITION ON THE CHARTS: #39

You know, for a B-side to reach the Top 40 – that's not bad. And, for what it's worth, “God Only Knows” is a beautiful song, even if the Beach Boys were worried about the title. After all, it was the first instance in which the word “God” was used in the title of a pop record, and Brian Wilson believed that by making the title of the song “God Only Knows”, that the song would be blacklisted by religious groups and that disc jockeys would be pressured not to play it.

Good thing that Wilson's hypothesis proved wrong. The song, which I would consider to be a pop classic, was an instant favourite for fans of the band. And the song itself was sung by Carl Wilson, whom Brian Wilson had felt could do the song justice. I suppose in some fashion, the song became known as Carl Wilson's signature hit. He sang the song right up until his death in February 1998, and the song remained unsung until Bruce Johnston started to sing it at concerts three years later in 2001.



2 – GOOD VIBRATIONS
ALBUM: Smiley Smile
DATE RELEASED: October 10, 1966
PEAK POSITION ON THE CHARTS: #1

This song, which I have in the #2 position on my list, could very well be considered the Beach Boys signature song. It remains the band's biggest hit, topping the charts in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and reaching the #2 spot on the Canadian and Norwegian charts.

This particular song was produced and composed by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, and initially it wasn't released on any album until Smiley Smile was released almost a year after “Good Vibrations” was released. That's because the song was recorded around the same time that “Pet Sounds” was being recorded, but the decision was made to have the single released as a stand-alone single, thinking that it would garner more sales this way.

It worked. The single was listed at the #6 song on Rolling Stone's “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”, and sold millions of copies.

By the way, were you curious about how the song got its name? You can thank Brian Wilson's mother for that one. When Brian was a kid, his mother used to tell him that dogs would often react to “bad vibrations” from people by barking at them loudly. So, I suppose that Brian chose to write a song about “good vibrations” to counteract the awful memory of being barked at by dogs.

(Well, that's my theory, anyway.)

And here's some more trivia about the song. A total of thirteen instruments were featured in this song including a harpsichord, a bass guitar, a Hammond organ, and cello!

Okay, so are you ready for my #1 pick? It's a good one!



1 – DON'T WORRY BABY
ALBUM: Shut Down, Volume 2
DATE RELEASED: May 11, 1964
PEAK POSITION ON THE CHARTS: #24

Have you ever seen the 1999 film “Never Been Kissed”? The one with Drew Barrymore and Michael Vartan? Well, this song is heavily featured at the end of that film, and it was absolutely fitting for the movie, given that the song is all about a teenager who decides to race against a rival to defend his honour after bragging about his ride, and his girlfriend's plea to take her love with him when he races.

Well, okay, Drew Barrymore's character doesn't race a car. She just changes her image and dresses up as a teenager to go undercover and accidentally falls for one of the teachers at the school. When the charade is exposed, she tries one last plea to get him to listen to her and accept her love...and...I can't reveal what happens. Sorry.

But what I can reveal is that I absolutely love this Beach Boys single. The lyrics are fantastic, and it could be considered one of the greatest love songs ever recorded. I love the melody of this single. I know that the song didn't do as well as some of the other songs that the Beach Boys did, but I don't care. To me, this is my all-time favourite Beach Boys classic, and hopefully, if the stars are aligned the right way, I hope that I'll be able to dance to this song at my own wedding. I just love it so much.

So, just to recap, my top 10 Beach Boys songs are...

10 – KOKOMO
09 – HELP ME, RHONDA
08 – CALIFORNIA GIRLS
07 – FOREVER
06 – LITTLE SAINT NICK
05 – SURFIN' SAFARI
04 – WOULDN'T IT BE NICE
03 – GOD ONLY KNOWS
02 – GOOD VIBRATIONS
01 – DON'T WORRY BABY


So, now that you know MY list...I want to hear yours! What are your favourite Beach Boys singles?

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Sweet Valley High

All right. So yesterday, I believe that I alienated about half of my audience by doing a feature on “The Babes of Baywatch”.

Well, today ladies...it's your turn. I'm going to use today's Saturday Smorgasbord to feature a topic that is solely for your eyes only.

But I'll admit...I'm a little apprehensive about today's blog topic because it's on a book series that I have never read. So, I'm hoping that I do this blog entry justice here.

So, this probably leads to the next question that you're likely asking yourselves as you begin today's blog. How then, did you get the inspiration behind this blog entry today if you've never even read one book in the series.

To this, I say, a childhood memory sparked this blog entry.

Everybody remembers their elementary school library periods (unless your school was one of those unlucky ones that never had a school library, that is). In my school's case, the library was kept in the basement of the school. I think I've already talked about the stone walls of the library, the huge, overstuffed sofas where we could read books, and the fact that our school library was one of the only ones that had a gigantic red bathtub in the center of the room where three kids could squeeze inside to flip through the pages of the two books we were allowed to check out.

(God, I miss that bathtub.)

Of course, one thing that I remember vividly about library period were the various types of books that the kids would read. And depending on what gender you were, you had your own distinct preferences.

In my case, I really liked looking at the Guinness Book of World Records, the Garfield collections and treasuries, and Choose Your Own Adventure books. And, I found myself competing with the other boys in the class for claim on those books, as all the other boys seemed to like those books too.

The only difference between me and the other guys in the class was that they were also fighting over sports almanacs and issues of Sports Illustrated magazines – neither of which I was interested in.

Now the girls in my class? Well, let's just say that the Garfield collections were always the toughest books to get in the whole library, as many of them loved the comic strip cat as well. But they also had their own distinct tastes. Many of them liked the series known as “The Baby-Sitters Club”. Many of them flocked towards the many copies of Seventeen Magazine to get beauty tips (even though most of their parents refused to let them wear make-up until they got to high school). And for some reason, I remember there being a book about the television series “Charles in Charge” floating around our school library, and seeing at least every girl in my fifth grade reading that book.

(Keeping in mind that “Charles in Charge” stopped airing new episodes some three years prior to my entering fifth grade.)

But the most popular book series that the girls all flocked towards? Well, that's the subject of today's blog.

The series was created by a woman named Francine Rubin (b. May 13, 1938). A graduate of New York University's Class of '58, Francine fell in love with journalist/author John Pascal, marrying him in 1965. Over the next sixteen years, Francine and John would collaborate together on a series of projects, even writing scripts for a short-lived daytime serial “The Young Marrieds” which ran from 1964-1966. Sadly, Francine would be left a widow following the death of her beloved John in 1981 from lung cancer at the age of 49.

Francine began writing young adult fiction in 1977, following the release of her first novel, “Hangin' Out With CiCi”. The novel achieved a lot of success, and the plot of the story was even made into an ABC Afterschool Special! Some of her other works have included the “Caitlin” trilogy, “The Ruling Class”, and “If Wishes Were Horses”. She and John even wrote a non-fiction book entitled “The Strange Case of Patty Hearst”.

But perhaps her finest creation was a book series whose stars were a pair of identical twin girls. One of the twins was sweet, kind, gentle, and caring. The other twin was selfish, sarcastic, and stuck-up. But despite their different personalities, and despite the different ways that they handled their problems and high school life, they always found a way to stick up for one another when times got too tough.



The twins' names were Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield. And the high school that they attended was a little school called “Sweet Valley High”.

Sweet Valley High, of course, being the topic of discussion for today.



Now, “Sweet Valley High” was one popular book series back in the day. Debuting in 1983 with the book “Double Love”, the original run of the series ran for one hundred and forty-three books! I don't even know of too many titles that ran for 143 books!



And, that's not all. Did you know that there were an additional twelve “Sweet Valley High” Super Editions that were published between 1985 and 1998?



And, that there were nine Sweet Valley High Super Thriller books?



Not to mention the five adaptations of the Sweet Valley High Super Stars books.



Don't forget the Sweet Valley Twins series of books as well.



Oh yeah...there was also that television series that aired on UPN between 1994 and 1998, starring former Doublemint twins Brittany and Cynthia Daniel and Elizabeth and Jessica respectively.

My god...Francine Pascal must have been exhausted! Or...WAS she?

Okay, okay. Here's the confession. Francine didn't actually write all those books. Rather, she hired a team of ghostwriters to do the work for her. That's not to say that she just sat back and collected the money for work that other people did. She supervised every single manuscript, ensuring that all of her characters were written in character, and that the plot lines made sense. And to Francine's credit, she did write quite a few books herself.

As for what Sweet Valley High was all about? Well, I suppose that you could say that it was kind of like “Beverly Hills 90210”, only instead of fraternal Brandon and Brenda Walsh, you had the Wakefield twins. And the storylines within the pages of the Sweet Valley High series started off innocently enough. Jessica and Elizabeth fighting over the same boy, rumours being spread over school, taking on part-time jobs, etc. But as the series progressed, the stories became more soap-opera like. People were being kidnapped. People getting engaged while still in high school. Houses burning down. Families stabbing each other in the back. There are even a couple of deaths towards the end of the series!

This isn't your standard teenage fiction here, folks.

Anyway, I've already talked about Elizabeth and Jessica. Should we now have a discussion about some of their friends? I bet some of you are watching this blog closely, wondering if I am going to do a good job with the character descriptions. All I can say is that I'll try my best.

TODD WILKINS: Todd is more or less your “Archie”, while Elizabeth and Jessica are the “Betty and Veronica” of the equation. Elizabeth likes Todd. Jessica, seeing that Elizabeth likes Todd decides that she also likes Todd too. Todd, meanwhile, can't seem to make up his mind at first, but eventually chooses Elizabeth. But the course of true love never runs smoothly, and they have the ultimate on-again/off-again relationship, plagued by both of them cheating on each other. Todd then decides to go after Jessica. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. But Todd also is a very good athlete, has a slight speech impediment, and excels in creative writing.



ENID ROLLINS: The Barenaked Ladies song says it all. “Enid, we never really knew each other anyway”. And that certainly holds true for Enid, who seems to have a complete personality transplant towards the end of the series. But when we first are introduced to Enid, she's Elizabeth's best friend and biggest supporter. She just has one major flaw. She has an addiction to drugs and alcohol, which got her into a lot of trouble. After she gets into a car accident, she cleans up her act and stops abusing drugs for a little while. But after she joins a snobby sorority, she falls off the wagon, starts abusing drugs again, and actually embarks on an affair with Todd while he's seeing Elizabeth. This pretty much destroys the friendship between Elizabeth and Enid, and makes Todd look like an even bigger jerk than we all thought.



LILA FOWLER: While Elizabeth and Enid were bonding together, Jessica had a best friend of her own in Lila Fowler...though sometimes you'd never know it as Lila and Jessica would often try to one-up each other when it came to any sort of competition be it with boys, or getting higher grades, or landing a job. Lila's family is one of the wealthiest in Sweet Valley, and Lila's parents and the Wakefield parents were best friends. Although Jessica and Lila hung out together, Elizabeth did have some respect for her. And while Lila was seen as a largely unsympathetic character, some instances in her personal life (including almost being raped) helped her become more likeable.

WINSTON EGBERT: Winston's ultimate fate at the end of the Sweet Valley series is so tragic and terrible that I don't really want to talk about it. But at the very beginning of the series, he could easily be considered the nerdy class clown of the bunch. He was always playing jokes on people, and he always came up with some rather interesting schemes that often blew up in his face. He was friendly with Elizabeth and Enid, but had a huge crush on Jessica...a crush that never really amounted to anything.



BRUCE PATMAN: Bruce Patman's family is also a wealthy family in Sweet Valley, and the Patman family happens to have some history with the Wakefields. Jessica and Elizabeth's mother was once engaged to be married to the man who would become Bruce's father! Obviously, the wedding never happened. Bruce once dated Jessica, and even developed feelings for Elizabeth, making their connection even more unusual. In the book, Bruce had to deal with the death of his parents, as well as the accidental death of his girlfriend, Regina.

STEVEN WAKEFIELD: He's actually the older brother of Elizabeth and Jessica, and while he tends to favour Elizabeth over Jessica, he is also the one who probably understands Jessica more than anyone else in the Wakefield home. He does become an attorney and gets married sometime during the series...but he's holding a rather deep secret...and when it is revealed, everything blows apart in a way that he never expected.


So, that's our look back on “Sweet Valley High”. Ladies...did I do this blog justice?