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Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Whatever Wednesday - The Rise and Fall of Badfinger

First things first, I wanted to take the opportunity to reflect on the events of September 11, 2001. If you are interested, I wrote a blog entry about that day on the tenth anniversary of the attacks, which you can read about by CLICKING HERE. I can't believe that it has been twelve years since that devastating day. So many people lost their lives, and thousands of families were never the same. But as the Freedom Tower at the new World Trade Center nears completion, it is a symbol that life does go on, and I think those who lived through that day are more stronger and resilient than ever before. We'll never be able to forget what happened, but we can become stronger people as a result of it.

And now, on with today's entry.

Wednesdays have always been a bane in the existence of this blog. I've changed the theme day for Wednesday a total of...oh...four times over the last two years. I don't know what it is about Wednesdays, but I can never keep the same topic up and running for long.

The most recent attempt at the Wednesday topic was All-Request Wednesdays, where I would ask you all to submit requests on topics that you would like to see. And for a few months, it went over very well. But as the request well dried up in recent weeks, I came to the conclusion that the feature was inevitably going to be short-lived.

So, I thought that I would use this space and leave it up to fate instead. Though, that's not to say that I won't accept any more requests. I will. I'll just incorporate it into one of the other theme days, is all.

What do I mean when I say that I'll leave it to fate? Well, I'm going to let the cards fall and decide what topic I choose.

It's a little something I like to call “Whatever Wednesday”. I've even designed a special logo for the event!



Colourful, no?

Okay, so what I'm going to do is simple. I'm going to grab six different coloured cards, and assign each one a different theme day. Every Tuesday night, I will select a coloured card from a bag, and whatever colour card I choose will represent the theme of the Whatever Wednesday entry that I work on this week.

Now, here's the kicker. Where am I going to find six different coloured cards on such short notice?



Oh, look...I happen to have a copy of the board game Clue by my side with six different coloured character cards! How's that for lucky?

Okay. Now that we have our six cards, let's assign a theme day to each of the characters.

MISS SCARLET – Sunday Jukebox
COLONEL MUSTARD – Monday Matinee
MRS. WHITE – Saturday Smorgasbord Wks. 3-5 (Cartoons, Comics, Books)
MR. GREEN – Saturday Smorgasbord Wks. 1-2 (Toys, Games, Video Games)
MRS. PEACOCK – Friday Night On Television
PROFESSOR PLUM – Thursday Diary

So, for instance, if I selected Professor Plum from the bag, I'd be doing a diary entry. If I choose Mr. Green, I would do a blog on cartoons or comic books, etc, etc.

Makes sense?

Okay, so let's kick off the inaugural edition of Whatever Wednesday by drawing a card at random out of the bag.



And, we have Miss Scarlet, meaning that we're going to be rummaging through our vinyl collections and music trivia books for today.

And, in some ways, I almost think that it was kismet because I really did want to do a music spotlight today after hearing a particular song playing on the radio just the other day. It was a song that I had heard time and time again, and one that I absolutely loved...but for whatever reason, I could not figure out who sang it. At first I thought that it was The Beatles during their “Let It Be” period, but I couldn't quite make out any of the Beatles' singing voices, so I suspected that I was incorrect.

And I was...partly.

Sure, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr had nothing to do with the composition of this song. George Harrison on the other hand? He produced the song...well, at least partially. See, he already had a prior engagement to produce the Concert for Bangladesh, so Todd Rundgren took over the unfinished product.

And this was the end result.



ARTIST: Badfinger
SONG: Day After Day
ALBUM: Straight Up
DATE RELEASED: November 10, 1971
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #4

I'll admit that this song always manages to make me smile. Granted, it's a song about a lonely man longing to see his true love again...but there's just a timeless quality about it that is sorely lacking in today's pop music. I would much rather listen to Badfinger non-stop than any Justin Bieber album. Of course, that's just my own personal preference.

Now here's the double edged sword. This Badfinger song was light, fluffy, and serene...which contrasted with the ultimate fate of the band. Truth of the matter is that the history of Badfinger is a tale filled with betrayal, hardships, and in the case of a couple of members, death at their own hands.



This is the story of the rise...and fall of Badfinger.

When the band first got together in 1961 in Swansea, Wales, they went through several band names (including “The Wild Ones” and “The Black Velvets” before settling on “The Iveys”. The group's original members were Peter William Ham, Ronald Llewellyn Griffiths, David Owen Jenkins, and Roy Anderson.

(Or, as they liked to be called, “Ham”, “Griffiths”, “Dai”, and...um...Roy.)

In 1965, the group added member Michael George Gibbins to the lineup, and soon after began to perform as the opening acts for several up and coming British groups which included “The Spencer Davis Group”, “The Yardbirds”, “The Moody Blues”, and “The Who”!

The group began touring around the London club circuits playing cover versions of a variety of musical genres. Top 40, psychadelic pop, R&B, Motown...nothing was off limits. I suppose that their versatility as a band worked to their advantage, as several record companies were interested in signing the band as a result. Ray Davies of The Kinks even helped the band produce some demo tracks to ship around to various record companies. Bill Collins signed on to be the band's manager in 1966, and throughout 1967, the band would perform occasional concerts. There was a minor shake-up in the band's line-up when Jenkins was asked to leave the group, but the split seemed amicable. Jenkins would be replaced by Thomas Evans Jr, completing the group line-up.

And then in 1968, the group received their big break, courtesy of Beatles' roadie and assistant Mal Young. Bill Collins invited him as well as Apple Records A&R rep Peter Asher to view one of their concerts, and almost immediately after the show, Young persistently asked all four members of the Beatles to listen to the band's demo tapes. It took some time, but all four Beatles eventually heard the demos and put their stamp of approval on signing the band.

The band signed to Apple Records on July 23, 1968 – making them the only non-Beatles act to be signed to the record label. But while their first few releases (under the name of The Iveys) did quite well in Japan and several European countries, the singles stalled in the United States and did even worse in their native UK. This was a common occurrence for the band, and soon the band began to get frustrated with executives at Apple Records, who kept rejecting the new songs that the band wrote. They gave interviews to the press explaining their disappointment, which Paul McCartney happened to read! But instead of getting angry about it, he offered the band a song. The song was called “Come and Get It”, meant for the soundtrack of “The Magic Christian”. The only stipulation was that the band had to perform the song exactly as McCartney had intended for it to be performed.

But shortly after the band recorded that song, as well as a couple of others, Griffiths would depart the band ten months after the birth of his first child, and reportedly his departure caused tension within the band as Griffiths later revealed in an interview that his decision to leave the band to spend more time with his family was met with hostility by Evans, who he claimed made Griffiths feel as if he was no longer a member of the band.



With the release of “Come and Get It”, there were two final changes. The band changed its name to “Badfinger”, which stemmed from an early working title (Bad-Finger Boogie) of the Beatles single “With A Little Help From My Friends”. And with the departure of Griffiths, the band hired Joseph Charles Molland to replace him.

Long story short, “Come and Get It” was released in late 1969, and it instantly reached #7 in the United States and #4 in the United Kingdom, and the single sold one million copies. Over the next few years, Badfinger would enjoy three more chart successes; “No Matter What”, “Baby Blue”, and the song which you heard earlier in the blog entry, “Day After Day”.

And in the case of Ham and Evans, they were even awarded a prestigious songwriting award in 1972 following the success of this song that Harry Nilsson (and later Mariah Carey) had on the charts.



So, how did the band unravel so quickly, with many of its members suffering tragic fates?



Well, many people have pointed the finger of blame at the gentleman up above...one Stan Polley. In 1970, Polley – then a New York City based businessman – signed Badfinger to a business management contract. Each member of the band signed a contract which dictated that all receipts of touring, recording, publishing, and songwriter performance royalties that automatically went into holding companies controlled by Polley himself.

I know what you're thinking. Giving control of everything you earn to one man and his business skills? Instant red flag. But the members of Badfinger trusted him, as Badfinger wasn't the only musical act he was dealing with at the time (Polley also managed Al Kooper of Blood, Sweat & Tears, and Lou Christie).

By 1972, the band's opinion of Stan Polley began to change, and they were getting somewhat suspicious of how he really was handling their money that was earned from album and single sales and concert tours (which given that the band's heyday was in 1972, should have amounted to a small fortune). Badfinger was doing very well, but Apple Records were sustaining hard times (brought upon by the fact that their biggest moneymaker, The Beatles, had broken up two years earlier), and Apple Records flat out told the band that when it came to signing a new contract, they wouldn't be as generous as they would be the first time around.



Nevertheless, the band's final album with Apple Records, 1972's “Ass” (yes, that was the name of the album) was released, despite the fact that there were problems in the production of the album (original producer Todd Rundgren quit the project after just one week due to a financial dispute). Unfortunately, the album did not do as well on the charts as their previous work.

Still, according to Polley, that didn't matter. While Badfinger was putting the finishing touches on their final album, Polley was working out a contract with Warner Brothers Records, which wanted the band to release a new album every six months over the next three years. Once the band's commitment to Apple Records ended, Polley presented the band with a new contract with Warner Brothers Records, detailing the two-album a year condition. The band was however warned by then vice president of Badfinger Enterprises Inc., (a company started by Polley) not to sign the contract. But the contract seemed too good to pass up. It was worth three million dollars, and the deal would provide the band with twelve per cent of all retail sales in the United States, and 8.5% of sales everywhere else in the world. In addition, the band would be presented with an advance of $225,000 for each album they delivered under the new contract. It was too irresistible to pass up.

But, like the iconic image of the jackass chasing after the dangling carrot on the cover of their 1972 “Ass” album, this contract would have the band chasing after a golden opportunity that never presented itself.



After touring the United States throughout late 1973 and early 1974, Badfinger returned to the studios to record the album “Wish You Were Here”, and it was released in October of 1974, which Rolling Stone magazine gave glowing reviews. The album could very well have been Badfinger's best effort yet.

But then it all fell apart.

It all began with tensions erupting within the band, as Molland's wife, Kathie, was becoming increasingly frustrated with the politics within the band, and her assertiveness rubbed Ham the wrong way. In fact, Ham became so annoyed with Kathie Molland that he up and quit the band during an executive meeting! He stayed away for three weeks before being convinced by Warner Brothers to return to the band, as they would have no further interest in promoting Badfinger without him. Ham returned to the band three weeks after he quit, but Molland himself would be out of the band by the end of the year.

But if the tensions within the band weren't bad enough, the behind the scenes action that went on between Polley and Warner Brothers Records.

In 1973, Warner Brothers began to get suspicious of Stan Polley due to the fact that Polley was not communicating with them at all in regards to an escrow account of advance funds. As it was written in the contract, Polley was to deposit a quarter of a million dollars into a mutually accessible account for safekeeping, which Polley did. But Polley neglected to let Warner Brothers know where the account could be accessed. The company sent him letters asking him to divulge the location of the account, but Polley refused to acknowledge them.

This was all done WITHOUT Badfinger's knowledge, by the way.

With Molland's departure from the band in December 1974, Polley pressed the band to give up touring the United States in support of the “Wish You Were Here” album to record the band's follow-up album, “Head First” at the Apple Recording Studios – while under contract with Warner Brothers! But when the band recorded tracks for the album and submitted them to Warner Brothers American offices, they were denied. Their publishing arm had already filed a lawsuit against Polley and Badfinger in the Los Angeles Superior Court in December 1974.

Polley's plan was to submit the tapes in hopes that they would secure one final cash advance before the litigation, but Warner Brothers refusal to accept the tapes meant no cash bonus. On top of all that, the lawsuit that was filed forced the record company to stop production on the “Wish You Were Here” album after just seven weeks, which ultimately became the final nail in Badfinger's coffin.

By 1975, times became tough for the band, as all of the income they were receiving had suddenly stopped. Every band member left in Badfinger was worried and panicked, but none more so than Peter Ham, who had just bought a house and whose girlfriend was pregnant with their child. Out of desperation, Ham tried contacting Polley on numerous occasions, but he was unable to reach him. The band tried to go on without Polley, but the search for new booking agents lead to dead ends, based on the restrictive contract that Polley had the band sign.

Seems like they should have taken that man's advice in not signing the contract.

It all came to a tragic head on the morning of April 24, 1975. The night before, Ham received a call from the United States, and in that phone call, it was revealed that all of his savings were now gone. He and Tom Evans met up at a pub later on where Ham reportedly drowned his sorrows in whiskey.

Hours later, Peter Ham hung himself in his studio garage. In his suicide note, he openly blamed Stan Polley for pushing him into the suicide, proclaiming that he would find a way to bring him down with him.

With Ham's death, Badfinger had no choice but to go their separate ways. Gibbins would join “The Flying Aces” while Evans and Bob Jackson (who was hired with the band after Peter Ham temporarily left Badfinger) joined “The Dodgers”.

The band attempted a reunion of sorts in 1977 (which reunited Evans and Molland after three years), and had a bit of a comeback with their 1979 album “Airwaves”. But tragedy would strike again in November 1983 when following an argument with Molland over past events, Evans would commit suicide in his own garden – using the same method that Ham had used eight years earlier. It was widely reported that Evans – who had seen Ham's dead body – never got over his death, and that months before his death, Evans was heard to make comments about wanting to be where Peter was.

It was a very sad ending to a band who ended up becoming the innocent victims of a lawsuit filed without their knowledge, as well as the victims of a man whose poor choices lead to the band's ruination in the mid-1970s.

So, what has happened to the people since?

Tragically we know the stories of Ham and Evans. May they both finally rest in peace.

Since the 1990s, Molland still tours under the Badfinger name. Come to think of it, I think that he's supposed to be playing at a nearby fair later this month. I did see an advertisement for it on television recently. It is good to see that at least one of the members is trying to keep the name alive.

Bob Jackson also performs some Badfinger staples along with his band, The Fortunes, which Jackson rejoined in 1995.

Sadly, Gibbins would die in his sleep on October 4, 2005 at the age of 56 from a brain aneurysm.

As for the man who caused the Badfinger bad blood? Well, Stan Polley pleaded no contest in 1991 to charges of misappropriating funds and money laundering in California. In an unrelated case to the Badfinger story, aeronautics engineer Peter Brock accused Polley of swindling him for a quarter of a million dollars after the two set up a corporation to manufacture airplane engines. Polley's sentence for that case was a five year probationary period, as well as being ordered by the court to return all missing funds to Brock. But according to Brock, he never did honour that restitution.

Stan Polley passed away in July 2009 at the age of 87, never really paying the price for everything that he did to the members of Badfinger.


A real shame.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

September 10, 2001

It's the tenth of September, and it's a Tuesday. Are you ready for another Tuesday Timeline? I'll just bet you are! For this edition, we're actually going to be going outside of North America to talk about an event that took place in Jolly Old England. Now, given the timing of the event, it's easy to see how many of us in North America may not have been aware of this event...but in the United Kingdom, it was quite the delicious little scandal. To keep you hanging on, let's just say this about today's Tuesday Timeline feature. If you're a firm believer in karma...this is a prime example as to why.

Before we go ahead with the chosen subject for today, I thought that we'd talk about the other happenings of September 10 throughout history. Let's start with...

1509 – An earthquake known as “The Lesser Judgment Day” hits Constantinople

1776 – Nathan Hale volunteers to spy for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War

1813 – The United States defeats the British Fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812

1846 – Elias Howe obtains a patent for the sewing machine

1858 – George Mary Searle discovers the asteroid 55 Pandora

1898 – Luigi Lucheni assassinates Empress Elizabeth of Austria

1934 – Legendary American journalist Charles Kuralt is born in Wilmington, North Carolina – on the same date that baseball legend Roger Maris is born in Hibbing, Minnesota

1936 – First World Individual Motor Speedway Championship is held at London's Wembley Stadium

1939 – Canada declares war on Nazi Germany – joining the Allied forces of World War II

1943 – German forces begin their occupation of Rome, Italy, during the Second World War

1960 – Abebe Bikila becomes the first sub-Saharan African to win a gold medal in the marathon event – running the whole thing barefoot!

1961 – Tragedy at the Italian Grand Prix as German Formula One racer Wolfgang von Trips is killed in a crash, taking out thirteen spectators who are hit by his Ferrari as well

1963 – Segregation of public schools in Alabama becomes a reality as twenty African-American students are allowed into white only schools for the first time

1974 – Guinea-Bissau gains independence from Portugal

1977 – Hamida Djandoubi becomes the last person to be guillotined in France

2002 – Switzerland joins the United Nations

2003 – Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh is stabbed while shopping, and dies the following day, on September 11

2008 – The Large Hadron Collider at CERN is powered up in Geneva, Switzerland

September 10 happens to be a day in which a few famous faces were born. Blowing out candles today are Arnold Palmer, Karl Lagerfeld, Jim Oberstar, Jared Diamond, David Stratton, Roy Ayers, Margaret Trudeau, Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Harry Groener, Amy Irving, Clark Johnson, Johnnie Fingers (The Boomtown Rats), Carol Decker (T'Pau), Chris Columbus, Siobhan Fahey (Bananarama/Shakespear's Sister), Peter Nelson, Colin Firth, Tim Hunter, Big Daddy Kane, Guy Ritchie, Johnathon Schaech, Ryan Philippe, Jacob Young, Peter Goldschmidt, Coco Rocha, and Chandler Massey.

Okay, so let's take a trip back to our time machine to see what day in history we'll be visiting.



Okay, looks like we're going back in time a dozen years to September 10, 2001.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. It's a date that is dangerously close to what is known to be one of the saddest and most tragic events in recent history. And, yes, I am well aware of the fact that the Tuesday Timeline date happens to be one day before the 9/11 attacks, which killed over three thousand people in New York, Washington D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Believe me, when I chose the topic to talk about for today, I had no idea that it actually happened in 2001 until I did a little more research on it.

Because prior to the day in which everything would change, on September 10, 2001, one of the biggest scandals in British game show history would unfold. And when the dust settled, the people in the center of it all would never be quite the same again.

Now, quiz show scandals are nothing new. As long as people have been watching television, there have been several examples of game shows being rigged in order to help people win. It happened in the 1950s with the quiz show “Twenty-One”, in which that scandal almost killed the quiz show industry. It happened on the television game show “Press Your Luck”, where Michael Larson memorized the light pattern of the board and walked away with a humongous pay day (which I wrote about in my May 18, 2012 entry, if you're interested)...



...and it happened on the British version of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”

Now I'm sure that most of you know that the show was brought over to the United States in 1999 with Regis Philbin as host (a daytime version was also created and was hosted by Meredith Vieira and most recently by Cedric the Entertainer). But the show originated in England on September 4, 1998. It was created by David Briggs, Mike Whitehill, and Steven Knight, and is currently owned and licensed by Sony Pictures Television. The British version has been hosted by Chris Tarrant since its inception in September 1998, and the show itself has aired in over one hundred countries.

MINI-CONFESSION: When “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” started airing in the United States, I had a bit of an obsession with it. I never missed an episode of it, and even tried unsuccessfully to be a contestant on the Canadian version (I had just turned nineteen when they did the contestant search, so I was just of age to apply). Never did get the opportunity to be a contestant which was a shame because I think I could have done really well on the show.

Of course you know how the show works. In most incarnations, the players who are lucky enough to reach the hot seat get the opportunity to earn a million dollars by answering a series of fifteen questions. The value for each question increases from one hundred dollars at question number one all the way to the final question being worth one million dollars.

(Or, one million pounds if you're watching the British version.)



Of course, it's not easy to make it to the million dollar question. Most contestants never see it. Granted, there are two plateaus (at the $1,000 and $32,000 levels) where players have a safety net, and in the earliest days, players had three lifelines that they could use to help them answer a question (50:50, Ask The Audience, Phone-A-Friend). But if you give just one wrong answer, you stand to lose a lot of money!

I guess the best strategy to have when playing the Millionaire game is to keep a cool head, take calculated risks, and if you're not sure of an answer, ask for help and know which lifeline to use.

Or, you could always...cheat.



Such is the case of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” 'winner', former British Army major Charles Ingram.

The show was taped at Elstree Studios over a two day period, beginning on September 9, 2001 and concluding on September 10 with the show set to air eight days later, on September 18, 2001. But his entire appearance on the show raised a lot of red flags.



Perhaps one of those red flags could have come from the fact that Ingram's wife, Diana, was a previous contestant. She tried to win the million pounds, but choked on the 64,000 pound question. To make things even more interesting, Ingram's brother-in-law, Adrian Pollock also got knocked out of the game on the very same level!

And to think that when Ingram began playing his own game in September 2001, that it started off innocently enough. Ingram had answered seven questions correctly, and had earned a total of four thousand pounds. Unfortunately, the questions proved to be harder than he initially thought, and he blew threw two of his three lifelines. Still, it was enough for him to come back to try for the million. The odds were against him, but he appeared to be optimistic about things.

It was on the second tape day on September 10, 2001 which brought concern.

Prior to the events of September 10, the Ingrams became friendly with one of the “Fastest Finger” contestants who would be competing in that day's episode, a man by the name of Tecwen Whittock. According to the Ingrams, they simply interacted with him to wish him luck.



But what ended up happening was that Whittock would be linked to the Ingrams in what would come to be known as one of the biggest quiz show scandals in British history.

As the September 10 taping went underway, host Chris Tarrant began reading off the questions beginning with the eight thousand pound question. And almost immediately, people started to notice that something was up. Unlike the first day of taping, Ingram would read out every answer, attaching a funny anecdote to each one (which was fine, as the questions had no time limit). But what was interesting was that contestant Tecwen Whittock suddenly came down with a really bad case of the coughs. Throughout every question, Whittock would cough rather loudly – which I imagine might have annoyed members of the studio audience as well as the other contestants who were waiting to play the Fastest Finger Round following the conclusion of Ingram's time in the hot seat.

But it wasn't because they were annoyed by the noise. It was because they noticed that Tecwen Whittock was coughing at the point in which Ingram was reading the correct answer. How strange.

Apparently the crew of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (except for Tarrant who claimed he was too focused on the game to hear any coughing) got wise to the coughing as well, and even considered stopping tape. But the director opted to keep rolling.

By the time Ingram made it to the 32,000 pound mark, he had used up all three lifelines. And even his last lifeline use was mired in controversy as it appeared that his wife who was in the audience helped him choose the right answer by coughing herself!

So when Ingram answered the 32,000 question correctly, he was guaranteed that money. He could have left at that point. But for some reason, Ingram decided to stay on the show and play on. By the time he had reached the half million pound question, the production staff were incredibly suspicious, as were some of the Fastest Finger contestants, who by then had believed that the Ingrams were using Whittock to cheat for them so that they could win the whole shebang!

Don't believe me? Have a look at the final million dollar question.



And, now have a look at the video clip of Charles Ingram attempting to answer the question. Pay close attention to the clip whenever the word “googol” is mentioned.



Now, here's the thing. Googol, as you know, was the correct answer, and that correct answer made Ingram Britain's newest millionaire. But not everyone in the audience was happy for him. At least three of the Fastest Finger contestants were onto the whole thing, knowing full well that Tecwen Whittock had at least coughed at exactly the right moment whenever the right answer was read.

Even more bizarrely was what had happened after the show finished taping. The fact that the Ingrams had just won a life-changing amount of money minutes earlier should have made both of them jump for joy. Instead, it was reported that both of them got into a huge fight backstage. According to the production crew, they speculated that Diana Ingram was the mastermind behind the scheme and that the original plan was for Charles to stop after the 64,000 pound question so that they would not look suspicious. But when Charles found himself at the 125,000 pound level, they suspected that he got greedy, and pressed ahead, even though they had both agreed that they would stop.



In an ironic twist of fate, Tecwen Whittock ended up becoming the next contestant in the hot seat, and was eliminated at the 8,000 pound question, leaving with just 1,000 pounds!

But just days after the taping, the jig was up. The Millionaire crew watched all the tapes and heard Whittock's consistent coughs at every single right answer. They also recalled watching Whittock very closely during the million pound question and caught him coughing right around the time that the word “googol” was said. Confronted with the show's claims that the trio cheated their way to a million pounds, the trio immediately went on the defensive, and claimed that they did not cheat. Diana made the claim that she and Tecwen never even met each other, even though several cameras caught Diana consistently looking in Tecwen's direction the whole time. Charles even made the claim that he had never even so much as heard coughing from Tecwen.

However, their claims were not enough for a jury to believe their story. The evidence was right there in front of them, and the Ingrams were originally sentenced to eighteen months in prison. Tecwen Whittock was no innocent bystander either, sentenced to a year behind bars. However, in a stunning move, the sentences were later suspended, and the trio instead were left paying the sum of the court fees to the tune of 115,000 pounds. Shortly after that, the Ingrams went around to several talk shows, proclaiming their innocence and claiming that their reputations were forever tarnished.

The aftermath of the “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” scandal of September 10, 2001 has not been kind to Charles Ingram – perhaps suggesting that karmic retribution is in play. In 2003, he was forced to resign his commission as a major, with a state-earned pension of seventeen years! He and his wife filed for bankruptcy in October 2004. He was accused of assaulting a thirteen-year-old boy in 2006 after he reportedly goaded Ingram with taunts about his Millionaire scandal. And to top it all off, he had a serious accident in 2010 in which he accidentally chopped off three of his toes with the blades of a lawnmower!
As I said...karmic retribution.



But in some ways, karma can work in good favour too. One of the Fastest Finger contestants who cried foul against Tecwen Whittock was a man by the name of Robert Brydges. As luck would have it, later that month, Brydges would find himself in the hot seat, and he himself would win the million pound prize just twelve days after Ingram! And the best part about it? He did it the legitimate way. Hard work, a little bit of luck, clever usage of his lifelines...and NO CHEATING! Good on you, sir.

Oh, yeah. Before I conclude this Tuesday Timeline entry...I have a confession.




I've known what a googol was since I was in the second grade. I learned what it was by watching Square One Television. I wouldn't have needed to cheat for that question at all. Funny how a googol could turn a millionaire into a zero, huh?

Monday, September 09, 2013

The Truman Show

Everybody seems to have an opinion on reality television. Some people (like myself) are absolutely fascinated by it, while others curse the day that programs like “Survivor”, “Celebrity Apprentice”, and “American Idol” ever graced our screens.

I'll be the first one to admit that I am somewhat easily entertained. If something looks promising enough, I'll watch it. It's undoubtedly how I ended up getting addicted to so many reality television programs in the first place. My love of food got me glued to “Masterchef” and “Hell's Kitchen”. My dreams of touring around the world could be somewhat achieved by watching a season of “The Amazing Race”. And, heck...I suppose that in some aspects watching an episode of “Jersey Shore” can make almost anyone feel like a more intelligent and well-rounded person compared to the likes of people named Snooki, J-Wow, and The Situation.

(I mean, seriously...what the hell kind of name is “The Situation” anyways?)

Of course one of the biggest arguments that I have heard over the whole premise of reality television is that it's not real. Well, of course it's not real. I don't think that people who end up stranded on a deserted island will have a team of cameramen following them around as they play schoolyard games and vote each other off of the tribe. In reality, you'd likely see something more of a “Lord of the Flies” scenario where once civilized men and women turn into savages and kill off each other until the last person is left standing.

(Or, so I've heard, anyway.)

After the shows stop taping, and after the winner receives their prize money, and the confetti and balloons are swept up, life goes on as normal. For the contestants of “The Biggest Loser”, they have to go back home with their newer, leaner, muscular bodies and face the very temptations that they had to endure their whole lives which lead to them being on the show in the first place. In “Survivor”, the winners invest their million dollar prizes or spend it (or in the case of Richard Hatch, they don't pay the taxes and spent several years behind bars), and when the money runs out, they go on “Survivor” again to repeat their success. And, I'm really interested in being a fly on the wall when “Big Brother 15” contestants Spencer Clawson, Aaryn Gries, GinaMarie Zimmerman, and Amanda Zuckerman leave the house and face the fact that their professional lives will never quite be the same again following their racist commentary while on the show.

But ultimately, as is the case with every reality television show, they all wrap up, and most everyone who appears on one will inevitably return to their old lives and are never heard from again.

Well, unless your name happens to be Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Bethenny Frankel, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, or Ryan Seacrest, that is.

But here's an interesting thing about today's Monday Matinee feature. The movie that we're going to be featuring in this space for today happens to be centered around a fictional reality television series. And, what is interesting about the film is that it was released just before the reality television explosion of the early 2000s took place.

Remember when I said that in the case of all reality shows, they last a total of around thirteen weeks, and then production wraps up? Well, what happens if you happen to be the subject of a reality television program that has aired your entire life and you've never known it?



That's the premise behind “The Truman Show”, which was released on June 5, 1998. The movie boasted a who's who of Hollywood A-list stars including Jim Carrey, Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Natascha McElhone, and Noah Emmerich, and it made a total of over $264 million at the box office. It remains one of the best movies of 1998, and I actually have a personal story in regards to this movie.



When I was in the twelfth grade, one of our assignments was to write a film review for our English class. The film had to be a fairly recent film that had just been released on video (DVD's were kind of a luxury item back in those days), and I had heard some good reviews on “The Truman Show”, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and decided to choose that film to do my review on.

Looking back on it, there's a part of me that still wishes that I had that essay that I wrote fifteen years ago. I could have referenced it throughout this whole blog entry. But one thing that I pride myself on is the ability to recall things that happened to me years (or decades ago), so I'm hoping that I can remember what I wrote about the movie.

As I explained before, “The Truman Show” is all about a fictional reality series that has followed the life of one man as he grows into adulthood. The only catch is that the star of the show has absolutely no idea that he is even in a show in the first place.



The television show was created by a man named Christof (Harris), and for thirty years, he has documented the life of a young man named Truman Burbank (Carrey), who by many aspects has been living the perfect life. He has a loving, caring wife whom he adores in Meryl (Linney), he has neighbours who are friendly, and every day seems to be perfect in every single way.

With good reason too. You see, Truman's entire hometown of Seahaven is an elaborate soundstage where every building is a set and where every single person (including Truman's friends and family members) is an actor, paid to keep up the charade for the show.

The whole world of Seahaven is completely controlled by Christof and his production team. They control the weather. They control the situations that Truman faces. Truman's whole life story was a complete fabrication. Although he was always brought up to believe that he was raised in a loving home with people who adored him, in reality he was given up for adoption thirty years earlier, and Christof adopted him as the star of the show.

And certainly for the world outside of Seahaven, “The Truman Show” quickly became one of the most watched television shows all over the world. At the time that this movie was set in, the show was celebrating its thirtieth season on the air (which is longer than every sitcom and some daytime dramas), and millions of people tuned in loyally for thirty years to watch Truman live his life.

Only...he wasn't exactly living his life. He was actually kind of similar to being a hamster on one of those spinning wheels in a cage, where he was only there for other people to watch his amusement. In Truman's eyes, his life was quite idyllic, but the reality was that he was a prisoner of a production company and his life only solely existed for other people's pleasure. It's not exactly the greatest way to live, and poor Truman was kept in the dark for thirty years.

And naturally, the producers would do everything in their power to keep Truman enclosed inside their little bubble. They even went so far as to killing off his father (which they didn't really do, they staged it with an actor) in a shipwreck which fueled Truman's fear of water, as well as purposely infusing Truman's television set with commercials and television shows that convinced Truman that venturing out into the world was dangerous and that he should stay in Seahaven where he could be safe.

Wow...there's a special place in hell for people like Christof...

But as the program airs episode number 10,909, Truman starts to discover that things are not as they seem. He notices theatrical lights mixed in with the stars from the constellations in the sky. He notices that the rain only falls on him and not anywhere else. His car radio happens to pick up conversations that the crew members were having behind the scenes. And, he is ever so confused by the fact that his wife seems to be the living embodiment of the home shopping network, with the way she talks about all of her purchases ad nauseum.



(Yes, even Truman's wife is part of the payroll, earning a hefty sum of money every time she hosts a built in commercial for one of the show's sponsors. She even gets a bonus every time she sleeps with Truman – which kind of makes her somewhat of a Hollywood hooker. Just saying.)



Of course, one extra who grew disgusted with her role on the show is Sylvia (McElhone), who plays the part of Lauren Garland, a friend of Truman's from college. She grows concerned about Truman, and the feelings between her and Truman seem to be genuine. She falls in love with Truman, and knowing that his whole life has been a lie, she feels she owes it to him to reveal the whole truth. So naturally, when she poses a threat to the show, Christof fires her from the show, and she is removed from the set so as not to pose a threat towards the perfect union between Meryl (the woman chosen by producers to be Truman's wife) and Truman. But don't think for a minute that Sylvia is going to back down without a fight. Still caring deeply for Truman, she launches a protest group aiming to shut down “The Truman Show” once and for all so that Truman can finally have a shot at life on his own terms.

Truman starts to question everything in his entire life, wondering if there's more out there for him to see. His “family” and his best friend Louis Coltrane (Emmerich) – all of whom are actors – try to convince Truman that everything is fine just the way it is. But Truman's constant worrying about how the world seems to revolve around him cause him to seek answers wherever he can.

The stress of Truman finally discovering the truth about himself proved to be too much for Meryl, and when Truman starts treating her horribly and questions everything she ever told him, Meryl quits the show. To fill in the void left by Meryl's departure, the producers make the decision to bring back Truman's father from the dead, which causes Truman to question everything even more. He isolates himself from the community, and begins to live the next few days hiding in the basement, depressed about how his life has turned out, unable to trust anyone.

But then he discovers a hidden exit out of the basement, which takes him to places that he could only ever dream of going. And when the production team realizes that he has potentially found a way out, they go all out to try and stop him from venturing out into the world...even if they use his fear of water against him, and even if it means killing off their character!

So what happens? Does “The Truman Show” end with a burial at sea, or does it end with Truman finally getting a taste of the real world?

Well, I'm certainly not going to spoil it all. You'll just have to watch it for yourselves. My personal ending would have Truman escaping, marrying Sylvia, and launching a humongous lawsuit against the producers and network that aired “The Truman Show” for essentially controlling his first thirty years of life. I would think that Truman would have had quite a case, wouldn't you?

Anyway, I'm almost out of time here, so I'll conclude this blog entry off with some Truman trivia!



01 – In preparation for her role, Laura Linney studied old Sears catalogues from the 1950s to get into the “Stepford Wife” frame of mind. It worked. She was easily my least favourite character in the whole movie. Not as hated as Christof, mind you, but she wasn't someone I enjoyed watching.

02 – Dennis Hopper was initially cast as Christof – but when he quit the movie on the very first day, Ed Harris was drafted in instead.

03 – The actors on the set were absolutely forbidden to utter past lines from Carrey's past movies while on the set, as “The Truman Show” was really one of Jim Carrey's first forays into a dramatic film. So, no “Alright then”'s to be heard!

04 – The motto of Seahaven's town center is written in Latin, but translated, it means “one for all, all for one”. Kind of befits “The Truman Show”, doesn't it?

05 – David Cronenberg turned down the opportunity to direct the film. The honour instead went to Peter Weir.

06 – Screenwriter Andrew Niccol reportedly had the first draft for the movie typed up in 1991, and it was initially meant to be a science-fiction movie.



07 – Jim Carrey's “Trumania” scene where he draws on the mirror with soap was completely improvised.

08 – Apparently Truman could have figured out that his life was just a show, as the street signs were named after famous Hollywood stars and starlets.

09 – The town of Seaside, Florida served as the location shot for Seahaven.


10 – Annabella Sciorra was once considered for the part of Meryl Burbank.

Sunday, September 08, 2013

Scritti Politti's Perfect Way

How many of you love a classic one-hit-wonder song? I know I enjoy them. In fact, I enjoy them so much that I'm going to use the remaining blog entries in September to feature a group or a singer that could be loosely defined as a one-hit-wonder artist. Oh, sure, they may have released several singles over a period of ten years, and there may have been a couple of chart-toppers in Paraguay, Bolivia, or Botswana that nobody in North America has ever heard of. But for the sake of argument, let's just say that these one-hit-wonders will be artists who have only had one Top 40 hit on the Billboard Charts.

One-hit-wonders are often funny things. One day, you'll hear a song that propels itself all the way to number one on the charts, and it stays there for what appears to be weeks on end, but then after several years, you come to realize that it was their only hit, and you can't help but wonder whatever happened to them along the way.

Some of them became successful in other careers, while others just faded away. I think that could be one of the reasons why I am a fan of one-hit-wonders. Finding out whatever happened to the artists who sang the song and seeing how well they've done since.

One decade that seemed to have a slew of one-hit-wonders was the decade in which I was born. The 1980s seemed to bring us a lot of one-hit-wonders. Right off the top of my head, I can name off Michael Sembello, Nu Shooz, Information Society, Sly Fox, Baltimora, Kajagoogoo, and Mary Jane Girls as having some of the most memorable one-hit-wonders of that decade.

But for today's entry, I'll be featuring a group that came out of the UK which actually couldn't be considered a one-hit-wonder group in their native land. Several of their singles charted, and charted somewhat decently. In fact, it might even be considered a stretch to call them a one-hit-wonder band here in North America, as they had a Top 10 hit on the Dance Charts with a song that had a rather unusual name. Then again, I suppose you can't miss a song entitled “Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin)” on the charts, can you? And that's not even the song we're going to spotlight today!

Instead, we're going to feature the song below...the only song this band had to reach the Top 20 on the Billboard Charts in mid-1985.



ARTIST: Scritti Politti
SONG: Perfect Way
ALBUM: Cupid & Psyche 85
DATE RELEASED: June 10, 1985
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #11

And here's a funny bit of trivia in regards to this Scritti Politti hit. Believe it or not, it was one of the few releases they had which did better in the United States than the United Kingdom (it only peaked at #48 there).

So, Scritti Politti wasn't “truly” a one-hit-wonder...but shortly after releasing “Perfect Way” in 1985, the band seemed to do a vanishing act, never to be heard from again here in North America.



Whatever happened to Scritti Politti?

(And, for that matter, what does Scritti Politti even mean?)

For the answers to both, I do believe we should have a look at the band's history, as well as the number of releases they had as a band (which was surprisingly a lot more than I believed). We'll also take a look at what has happened to Scritti Politti since, as well as what they've been up to as of September 2013.

The band “Scritti Politti” was founded in the mid-1970s, and the only consistent member of the band to stay through all of its various incarnations is that of lead singer Paul Julian Strohmeyer. But you might recognize him better by his stage name of Green Gartside.



You might be wondering what inspired the colourful name change. Well, the Gartside part came from his mother remarrying a man who had the last name of Gartside, so naturally, Gartside kind of rolled off the tongue a little bit easier than Strohmeyer. But the Green part was inspired by a train trip that Gartside was on to the country of Wales. Whenever he looked out the windows of the train on the journey, all he could see was the green landscape of the open meadows and fields. And somehow he was inspired to name himself after the colour he saw so much of on his way to Wales.

Of course, naming yourself after a colour is nothing new. It did work for Simply Red, P!nk, and The Blue Man Group.

Anyway. Our story begins sometime circa 1976. At that time, Green Gartside had just entered his twenties and was studying fine art at Leeds College of Art and Design when he caught a performance by the Sex Pistols on the night of December 6, 1976. The performance awakened something in Gartside, and he felt inspired to start up his own band with a couple of his childhood friends.

Teaming up with Nial Jinks, Matthew Kay, and Tom Morley, Gartside began the first incarnation of the band which would come to be known as Scritti Politti. The original name of the band was “The Against”, and originally they started off as a punk band. By 1977, the band had relocated to London's Camden Town after graduation and they also made the name change to Scritti Politti, which in actuality was a misspelling of an Italian phrase meaning “Political Writings”. The actual translation is supposed to be “Scritti Politici”, but Gartside elected to drop the “C” and add another “T” to make the name stand out more as a rock and roll name. The name was also chosen to pay homage to Italian Marxist writer Antonio Gramsci.

And to call Scritti Politti a band who did things by the book when it came to releasing a record, well, you'd be wrong. In London's punk scene circa the late 1970s, the trend of DIY records (or “do it yourself” records) were all the rage. Especially for punk musicians who were tired of getting turned down by big named record companies. So, in 1978, Scritti Politti's first single was released as a DIY record under the title “Skank Bloc Bologna”.

(Okay, seriously...where the heck did Scritti Politti get their song titles from?)



Skank Bloc Bologna” was never really considered a worldwide success. I couldn't even tell you if it even made it into North America because I've never even heard the song. But over in the UK, the song did receive some airplay on John Peel's BBC One Radio show, which actually helped Scritti Politti sign a record deal with Rough Trade Records. The band also secured a gig touring around with the bands Gang of Four and Joy Division (the latter would come to be renamed New Order following the May 18, 1980 suicide of founding member Ian Curtis).

However, it was during this tour in which Greer Gartside realized that he had a problem...a big problem that likely thwarted their success in North America. While he was on stage performing at a gig in 1979, Gartside experienced trouble breathing and had chest pains. He thought that he was having a heart attack, but what really happened was that he had a panic attack brought upon by stage fright. Gartside's stage fright prevented him from touring and promoting the band's records and in hindsight, it was a double edged sword. Because Gartside was extremely nervous on stage, it became increasingly difficult for the band to put themselves out there.

And yet at the same time, while Gartside was in recovery from the incident, he was inspired to change the sound of the band. While he was in recovery, he listened to a lot of music that was coming out of R&B sound in New York City circa the early 1980s, and as it so happened, the decision to incorporate some of those elements into Scritti Politti's new songs turned out to be a good one.

In January of 1981, Scritti Politti recorded a demo of the song “The Sweetest Girl”, and when it was officially released as a single later that year, the song earned rave reviews. Even “The New York Times” ranked the single as one of the ten best singles of the year. Funny thing is that for a song to be ranked as one of the best, it certainly didn't chart very well. It peaked at #64 on the UK charts, and didn't place on the Billboard Charts at all. But I suppose that not everything that is critically acclaimed is considered to be popular. Though, in defense of Scritti Politti, it took almost an entire year for the song to be released globally, in which case, the song never really had much of a chance to make a real imprint on the charts. Here, I'll post a link to the song below...let you have a chance to hear it.



Luckily in the United Kingdom, the band managed to have some success with their debut album, 1982's “Songs to Remember”. The album sold very well in the United Kingdom, and Scritti Politti soon found themselves in high demand in their native land. Greer Gartside even had the opportunity to record a duet with Annie Lennox, which would later appear on the Eurythmics' “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” album.

But in the United States...their claim to fame wouldn't come until the year 1985. The same year that “Perfect Way” was released.



And, you know what? I think if I were to compile a list of my favourite Top 25 songs of the 1980s, “Perfect Way” would easily make the Top 10...maybe even Top 5! From the very beginning of the song to the end, its use of synthesizers combined with a funky beat and Gartside's whimsical vocals made it stand out against all of the other similar sounding bands.

Certainly the music video got a lot of airtime on MTV. The song was played on many Top 40 stations straight through 1985 and 1986. It remains a top requested song on many 1980s themed radio stations, and for a brief moment in the sun, Scritti Politti had notoriety and fame in America.

Unfortunately, in America, fame could sometimes be fleeting for musical artists who aren't American born. And certainly that was the case for Scritti Politti.

But, darn it if they didn't try. If you've ever seen the Madonna movie “Who's That Girl” (which I'm guessing isn't many of you), Scritti Politti contributed the song “Best Thing Ever” on the soundtrack. It's hard to miss, given that Madonna occupies half the album, but give it a listen. It's not a bad little tune.

And, Scritti Politti still had some steam left inside of them circa 1988, when they released the album “Provision”. In the United Kingdom, the album did extremely well, peaking at #4 on the UK album charts. In the United States, it peaked at #113. Ouch. But after downloading a few of the songs from “Provision” onto my iPod, I have to say that the album should have done a lot better. And it's not as if the songs didn't chart in the United States. The one below did...even though it only peaked at #53.



Scritti Politti would continue to release albums well into the 1990s and 2000s, and although the albums themselves were creative and critically well-received, fans weren't as interested in the albums as they once had been, and seemingly, Scritti Politti faded into obscurity.



But as long as Green Gartside is alive, the Scritti Politti name will live on. And when he's not recording music for himself, he's helping other artists by writing songs and dueting with them on their own projects. He co-wrote a couple of songs for Kylie Minogue, produced songs for Chaka Khan, and has even worked with Elvis Costello.


And perhaps the best part about Green Gartside's contributions to music is that he is no longer interested in having a #1 hit, or making albums just because a record company tells him to. He would rather make music at his own leisure because he genuinely enjoys it.

Now isn't that a “Perfect Way” to live?