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Tuesday, June 10, 2014

June 10, 1922

I hope you're all ready for another edition of the Tuesday Timeline!  Today is the tenth of June, and it happens to be a day in which a lot went on.  Lots of celebrity birthdays and lots of events took place today, and I really had a hard time selecting a topic.

In the end, I decided to go with a classic.  A rare talent...whose light dimmed way too soon.  But we'll get to that a little bit later in this entry.

So, what sorts of interesting things happened on June 10?  Have a look!

1692 - Bridget Bishop is hanged at Gallows Hill outside of Salem, Massachusetts after being charged with performing witchcraft and sorcery during the Salem Witch Trials

1854 - The date of the first graduating class of the United States Naval Academy

1861 - The Battle of Big Bethel takes place during the American Civil War

1886 - The eruption of New Zealand's Mount Tarawera kills 153 and destroys the country's Pink and White Terraces

1928 - American author Maurice Sendak (d. 2012), is born in Brooklyn, New York

1935 - The organization "Alcoholics Anonymous" is founded by Dr. Robert Smith and Bill Weston in Akron, Ohio

1940 - Italy declares war on France and the United Kingdom on the same day that Norway surrenders to Germany during World War II

1944 - Joe Nuxhall, aged 15, becomes the youngest person ever to play in a Major League Baseball game, playing for the Cincinnati Reds

1947 - Saab produces its first automobile

1963 - John F. Kennedy signs the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which abolished the practice of wage disparity based on gender

1967 - Actor Spencer Tracy dies of a heart attack at age 67, just seventeen days after filming his last film, "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner"

1977 - The Apple II personal computer is sold in stores for the first time

1990 - British Airways Flight 5390 has a miraculous landing after a blowout in the cockpit of the plane nearly sucks the captain out of the aircraft - the flight touched down safely with zero casualties

1999 - NATO suspends air strikes after Slobodan Milosevic agrees to withdraw Serbian forces from Kosovo during the Kosovo War

2002 - American mobster John Gotti dies of throat cancer at age 61

2003 - The Spirit Rover is launched, which kicks off NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission

2004 - Singer-songwriter Ray Charles passes away at the age of 73

And, I want to wish the following famous faces a very happy birthday;  F. Lee Bailey, Alexandra Stewart, Mickey Jones, Shirley Owens, Ken Singleton, Kevin Corcoran, Rich Hall, Timothy Van Patten, Maxi Priest, Gina Gershon, Carolyn Hennesy, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Jimmy Chamberlin, Ben Daniels, Kate Flannery, Elizabeth Hurley, Bill Burr, Joel "JoJo" Hailey, Faith Evans, Pokey Reese, DJ Qualls, Tara Lipinski, Elyse Sewell, Leelee Sobieski, Kate Upton, and Sasha Obama.

So, what year will we be steering our time machine to this week?



How about June 10, 1922?  Yes, that sounds like a great date to look back on!

Today's date marks the beginning of the life of one of Hollywood's most successful actresses during what one might call the golden age of motion pictures.  Certainly during her career, she starred in several productions - many of which are beloved classics today.  But while her professional life was one in which most actresses and singers dream of having, her personal life was filled with pain, low self-esteem, and financial hardships.  



This is the story of Judy Garland, born ninety-two years ago today.  I know, it seems so hard to believe that had Judy Garland lived, she'd be 92 years old. 

Of course, she didn't start life off as Judy Garland, silver screen icon.  No, when she was born on June 10, 1922 in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, she was given the name Frances Ethel Gumm.  Certainly not a name that screams superstar, is it?  But there was a reason behind Judy's original name.  She was named after her parents - dad Francis and mom Ethel.  She was their youngest child.  Because her parents were vaudevillians, I suppose it was destined for the future Judy Garland to pursue a career in entertainment.  And sure enough, little Frances Gumm began performing for people at the tender age of two and a half along with her older sisters, Mary Jane and Dorothy.  They sang "Jingle Bells" on the stage of their father's movie house, and that performance would be the first of many by the Gumm Sisters.

But in 1934, the Gumm Sisters were advised to change their name by George Jessel, and it was rumoured that they opted to make the change after a marquee at a Chicago theatre erroneously referred to them as the "Glum Sisters"!  Whether that story is true or not, who can say?  Most people who were around at that time are now deceased and can't really confirm it.  But of any of you are old enough, please let me know if this was true!  It'd be an interesting story.



The name the trio settled on was the Garland Sisters, and while there are many different theories over how they ended up choosing that name, the reason why Frances changed her name to Judy was reportedly due to inspiration from a Hoagy Carmichael song.  So, I guess you could say that Judy Garland was really born in 1934 if you wanted to. 

At any rate, the Garland Sisters became a short-lived act.  After Mary Jane got married in Reno, the group parted in 1935, and Judy was left to follow her own path to stardom, eventually getting a movie contract with MGM in 1935.  However, Judy's contract was signed during a rather awkward time in her life.  She had just turned thirteen when she started working at MGM.  She was sort of like the title of a Britney Spears song.  She wasn't a girl, but not yet a woman.  And, to add to that, she was just under five feet tall.  She was too old to be cast as a child star like Shirley Temple, but too young to film more adult roles.  She was often compared to the more glamourous actresses who were signed onto MGM at the time - actresses such as Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor, and Lana Turner.  I guess looking back on it, the constant comparisons would be enough to make anyone doubt their self-worth, and for Judy Garland, this would become a struggle that would last well over thirty years.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

MGM purposely wanted to present Judy Garland as having a girl-next-door image, and that required Garland to wear plain, juvenile looking dresses, and even was forced to wear teeth caps and rubberized disks to reshape her nose!  Yeesh, to know that this stuff was going on all the way back in the 1930s is very depressing to me.  But regardless, Judy followed along, thinking that it would help get her career started.  And certainly during the latter half of the 1930s, Judy starred in a few films (three of which were with her most frequent co-star, Mickey Rooney who passed away in April 2014), and had a couple of musical moments, including this classic from 1935 - performed after the sudden death of her father that same year.



And then in 1938, Garland won the role that made her a household name.



That role, of course, was of the teenaged farm girl from Kansas, Dorothy Gale in the 1939 classic "The Wizard of Oz".  I really don't need to go into the plot of the movie as I'm guessing that most of you born before 2012 have seen it at least once.  It was reported that Garland had beaten out Deanna Durbin and Shirley Temple for the role, and her role in this film and in the movie "Babes in Arms" earned her a Juvenile Academy Award the following year.  And, her work in "The Wizard of Oz" brought us this instant classic.



And, I could talk about how many people have covered "Over The Rainbow" since Judy Garland first sang it, but I would have to devote an entire blog entry to it.

Of course, that's not to say that "The Wizard of Oz" was Judy's only success in life.  She filmed "Little Nellie Kelly" in a dual role, and had her first on-screen kiss and only death scene in that movie.  She turned heads in 1943's "Presenting Lily Mars".  And, her part in 1944's "Meet Me In St. Louis" is probably best known for this song.



But while Judy Garland was enjoying a successful career in both music and film, her private life was falling apart.  It was reported that Garland, Mickey Rooney, and other young stars signed under MGM were given amphetamines and barbiturates every night so that the actors could keep up with demanding film schedules.  I don't know how that actually would work, but again it was the 1930s, and it was a different time.  Who am I to understand how Hollywood works.  The point is that if Judy Garland's substance abuse had to have a start date, I suppose that it was when she began working for MGM, where she had to face constant scrutiny from everyone around her.  Add drugs to the equation and you have a recipe for disaster.

It wasn't until 1947 that people would begin to understand just how serious things had gotten for Garland.  She suffered a nervous breakdown while filming a movie, and she attempted to kill herself by slitting her wrists with broken glass.  She was institutionalized and given treatment for two weeks.  At the same time, she was wrapping up her fifteen years at MGM by finishing her last three films for the company - "Easter Parade", "In The Summertime", and "Summer Stock".  Her drug use continued throughout 1948, and she was released from her contracts for several film projects because of the fact that her drug use caused her to miss several days of work and when she did work, she was clearly not giving her best performance.



By the 1950s, it seemed as though Judy had made a comeback on the stages of Broadway, earning a Special Tony Award for her efforts in bringing back vaudeville to Broadway.  And in 1954, she appeared in the musical remake of "A Star Is Born", which earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.  Which she lost to Grace Kelly.  Which caused outrage because many had expected Judy to win the award, with camera crews even perched inside her hospital room as she had just given birth to a child days earlier! 

And in the 1960s, Judy Garland was given her own variety show, "The Judy Garland Show", which earned four Emmy nominations.  However, the show only lasted one season due to it being broadcast at the same time as the wildly popular television series, "Bonanza", and the cancellation caused personal and financial hardships for Garland, who was spiraling out of control.

She had already been married and divorced four times by the time she was 46 years of age (her fifth and final husband she married in early 1969).  She had terrible experiences when she did concert tours around the world (citing Melbourne, Australia as being a particularly bad concert as she was booed off the stage after only 45 minutes of performing).  And because of Judy's drug use, she continued to get let go from any future film projects.

And on June 22, 1969 - just days after her 47th birthday, Judy Garland's life was cut short.  Her body was found by her fifth husband inside their rented home in Chelsea, London.  The cause of death was originally linked to an overdose of barbiturates, and many believed at the time that it was an intentional suicide attempt that went bad.  However, the autopsy ruled the death an accidental one.  Whatever the case, Judy's pain was finally over, and after a career filled with as much heartbreak as there was success, perhaps it was inevitable that Judy's life ended in that manner.

Though Judy Garland has been deceased for forty-five years, her legacy continues to live on.  She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  She was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997 for her work on Broadway and the musicals she filmed with MGM.  And, of course, her three children (Liza Minnelli, Lorna Luft, and Joseph Luft) have developed the performing gene from their mother.  Liza especially did very well for a time after being cast in 1972's "Cabaret".  Though, one could argue that Liza's path eerily followed the path of her late mother as Liza developed an addiction to drugs and alcohol and also had multiple marriages that ended in divorce.  The only difference is that Judy's life ended at 47, while Liza celebrated birthday number 68 in March 2014.



At any rate, Judy Garland was a talent taken from us way too soon.  And, to close off this look back on Garland's life, one of her most...melancholic performances.


Monday, June 09, 2014

Lazy Monday Edition

Everybody has heard of the term "Lazy Sundays", right?  The term coining from the fact that Sundays used to be a day in which there was hardly anything on television, stores used to be closed, and the day used to be known as a real family day where everyone gathered together for a delicious family dinner and shared some quality time together.

Boy how the world has changed since then, huh?  And, as far as I'm concerned, it's not for the better.  But, that's another rant for another day.

Well, I've decided that I'm going to make today my "LAZY MONDAY".  Which is going to be a bit hard given that today is supposed to be MOTIVATION MONDAY - the day in which I post the weekly MOTIVE4CHANGE episode that I do with my three friends every week. 



And, well, today I will be posting a MOTIVE4CHANGE video...it'll just seem like a bit of a summer rerun of sorts.  I'll explain why that very shortly.  But for now, I'll just post the video right here.  This is one-fourth of our MOTIVE4CHANGE team, JOSHUA, reading a five minute piece on what his message to the world would be after his demise.  A rather morbid subject, I must admit.  But here it is in all of its glory.

EPISODE 9A - JOSHUA'S MESSAGE TO THE WORLD - 6/8/2014



So, for those of you who have been following along with MOTIVE4CHANGE over the last few weeks, you may notice that Joshua's video portion sounds strangely familiar.  That's because we originally aired Josh's message on our seventh episode of MOTIVE4CHANGE, which aired originally on May 18, 2014.  So, I suppose you're probably wondering why we reposted something that occurred three weeks ago.

Well, to be honest with you, it all had to do with a little bit of technical difficulties.  When we filmed the episode posted on May 18, 2014, we had everything down to a science.  We had all four of us (myself,
JOSHUA, JONATHON, and CARINE) reading off letters that we all wrote about the message we wanted to leave behind for future generations, and we had thought that they turned out fantastic.  And they did...

...until technology decided to turn against us and corrupt a good chunk of our recording.

Now, Joshua was able to recover some of the recordings...enough to edit together a show that made sense.  But there were some casualties.  Carine's quote of the day was forever silenced, we lost about a third of my letter, and a few bits and pieces from Jonathon's letter were unavoidably left on the cutting room floor.  We still had enough to work with, but the loss of footage certainly took away from the impact of the statements that we wanted.

So, the decision was made to re-record our letters into four different parts, just to ensure that our real thoughts came across.  So, that's the story behind the "summer reruns" of
MOTIVE4CHANGE, so to speak.

I do promise that we're going to be back with a brand new episode of MOTIVE4CHANGE next week.  That will be on June 15 - which will be the day after I indulge in a 12-hour-long walkathon for our community "RELAY FOR LIFE" event.  I could very well be still suffering from sleep deprivation that day.  We'll see.  But whatever the case, we will have something ready.  And for those of you with short attention spans, the episode will be a much shorter length!  How's that for exciting?



So, getting back to the beginning...why am I calling today the LAZY MONDAY edition?  Well, it's simple.  I've decided that today is going to be the day that I don't talk about anything substantial in this blog.  We all deserve a break today, and I'm making today that day.

(In all seriousness, I'll be busy most of tomorrow anyway working on a project for the
RELAY FOR LIFE event.  And if you're interested, I may offer up a sneak preview of that project on the WHO AM I WEDNESDAY blog this week.

But for today's motivation topic...I motivate all of you to kick back and take a break...even if it's only a half hour out of your day.  After all, those Kit Kat commercials almost demand that you take a break, right?

Hmmm...let's close out with a Kit Kat commercial, shall we?  I'll see you tomorrow with another
TUESDAY TIMELINE entry...and tomorrow, I promise to keep the yellow tinted font to a minimum. 



Sunday, June 08, 2014

Everybody Wants to Rule the World



I hope that all of you are in an eighties kind of mood this weekend, because today's Sunday Jukebox entry will feature a song that hit number one on the charts exactly twenty-nine years ago this week!

So, doing some quick mathematics here...that means we're going back to the year with Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, way before Nirvana, there was U2 and Blondie, and music still on MTV!  I wasn't in grade school, but who cares, that's still real cool, because this blog's preoccupied with 19, 19, 1985!

(NOTE:  Stop listening to Bowling for Soup while trying to write this Sunday Jukebox which unfortunately doesn't have anything to do with Bowling for Soup.)

Though, the song that I have to present that hit #1 in June 1985 could be a song that best describes the general attitude that a lot of people seemed to possess during that time period.

Mind you, I wasn't old enough to understand what that was.  After all, in June 1985, I had just turned four years old, and my only concern was having enough blue crayons to finish colouring the sky in my colouring books.



But if you were an adult - particularly in the world of business or commerce, then the 1980s were considered a time period of huge excess.  The bigger the house, the better.  The bigger the car, the better.  The nicer the clothes, the better.  It was the decade in which people lived a life of luxury whether they could afford to or not, and it was the decade in which we measured people by how much money they made.  To me, that part was the one ugly blemish on an otherwise zit-free decade.  By 1987, when the stock market had a substantial crash, the greed is good mantra that Gordon Gekko chanted in "Wall Street" began to fade slightly, but on the pop charts, there were lots of references to the general mood of money being the most important thing in the world.

I mean, in the 1980s and early 1990s alone, we had the following songs released...

Material Girl/MADONNA
I Wanna Be Rich/CALLOWAY
Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)/PET SHOP BOYS
(How To Be A) Millionaire/ABC
Money Changes Everything/CYNDI LAUPER
Big Time/PETER GABRIEL
Dirty Cash (Money Talks)/THE ADVENTURES OF STEVIE V

But, all those things were all about money.  What about the other coveted thing that people wanted during the 1980s?  What about power?

I mean, certainly the 1980s introduced us to powerful business moguls such as Donald Trump, and Leona Helmsley.  We also saw the rise and fall of some political figures who lived lives of excess only to have their empire come crashing down.

(Just Google the words Imelda Marcos and shoes.  You'll get the picture.)

And, twenty-nine years ago this week, a group from Britain summed up the decade known as the 1980s all too well with this single.



ARTIST:  Tears for Fears
SONG:  Everybody Wants to Rule the World
ALBUM:  Songs from the Big Chair
DATE RELEASED:  March 22, 1985
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS:  #1 for 2 weeks

Ah, Tears for Fears!  A group that I've never done a spotlight for in the three years I've done this blog!  Oh, well.  Better late than never, right?

So, should I do a discussion on the band first, or the song?  Ah, let's start off with the band.



The band was founded by childhood friends Curt Smith and Roland Jaime Orzabal de la Quintana (though to save some space, let's just call him Roland Orzabal).  The two boys met each other when they were thirteen, and by the time they were in their late teens, they had already begun playing as session musicians for the band Neon.  It was here that the two men met drummer Manny Elias, who would become the drummer for the future Tears for Fears from 1981-1986.  Also a part of Neon were Rob Fisher and Pete Byrne, who would form their own New Wave band, Naked Eyes.

It wasn't until the year 1980 that Orzabal and Smith would start getting recognition, though it wasn't for their work with Tears for Fears - that group wouldn't get started until 1981.  It was for their contributions to a group known as "Graduate".  It's okay if you haven't heard of them.  They were only really big in Switzerland and Spain.  But still, it got their names out in the British music scene, and set the stage for the duo to break free from Graduate to start something new.

After all, the year was 1981.  New Wave was becoming the biggest thing on the music scene, and artists like Duran Duran, Peter Gabriel, Talking Heads, and Depeche Mode were already starting to dominate the British charts.  It was decided by Orzabal and Smith that they would attempt to do the same.

Now, here's a piece of
TRIVIA for you all.  Do you know how the band got its name?  Well, believe it or not, it was based from terminology found in primal therapy.  Primal therapy was developed by American psychologist Arthur Janov, and the treatment received a lot of publicity after it was reported that John Lennon had become a patient of Janov's in the early 1970s.  Janov argued that the reason why people had neuroses was because they had repressed pain caused by childhood trauma.  I suppose that taking that into consideration, someone looking into their deepest fears could bring someone to tears.  So, Tears for Fears.

(Though the band's original name - History of Headaches - would have also sounded cool!)

The original line-up of the band consisted of Orzabal, Smith, Elias, and Ian Stanley.



So, I don't really need to go into all of the success that the band had over the next thirty-three years and counting.  The band broke out onto the music scene in the early 1980s with their debut "The Hurting", which was a moderate success, but by 1984 with their album "Songs from the Big Chair", they became an international success story.  Some of the group's biggest hits include "Mad World", " Mothers Talk", "Shout", "Head Over Heels", "Sowing the Seeds of Love", and "Woman in Chains".

By the time the 1990s came around, the band was in a crisis.  Stanley and Elias had departed the band shortly before the band began working on their 1989 album "The Seeds of Love", and after that album was released, several issues caused a strain between the partnership and friendship between Roland and Curt.

For one, Roland's intricate, but frustrating approach to album production clashed directly with Curt's more laid-back manner.  Another reason was that Curt was stressed out with the collapse of his marriage in 1988 and wasn't in the right mood to continue performing.  And, I suppose it didn't help matters much that Tears for Fears manager Paul King was arrested for fraud following his declaration of bankruptcy in 1990.

Curt Smith would relocate to the United States in 1993 to start up a solo career while Roland Orzabal would continue using the Tears for Fears name to record music of his own (one hit being 1993's "Bring It Down Again", which was a minor hit in the United States).

It would take nine years apart before the Roland and Curt reunited with each other again.  In 2000, Orzabal had signed a business document on Curt's behalf, which lead to a dinner date between the two, which lead to discussions about recording a new album together. 

(That album, "Everybody Loves a Happy Ending" would be released in 2004.)



As of 2014, Tears for Fears is still touring around the globe and still making music together, proving that you can go back home again after years apart.

So, now that you know more about Tears for Fears, let's talk about today's selected song, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World".  And how if it was up to Roland Orzabal, the song may not have even been included in the album at all!  According to Orzabal, he didn't even want to record the song as he felt that it was too lightweight to earn a spot on the album which also contained the global smash "Shout" from late 1984.  But producer Chris Hughes had convinced Orzebal to give the song a go, if for no other reason than to continue the band's success of breaking into the tough American music market.



With Curt Smith on vocals, the song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" featured a whimsical music video featuring a road trip through Southern California, a pair of men doing dance moves in front of gasoline pumps, and shots of the band performing the song on a London soundstage.  The video was directed by legendary music video director Nigel Dick, and instantly became a classic on MTV during the late 1980s.

As for the concept of the song?  Well, it ties right into the discussion we had on the excess and wealth that the 1980s seemed to epitomize.  Curt Smith said it best.

"The concept is quite serious - It's about everybody wanting power, about warfare and the misery it causes." 

I guess this is a good time to mention that the song was released at the tail end of the Cold War, in which people were very concerned about the threat of nuclear warfare, and how the nations that declared themselves the most powerful could more often than not be considered the nations that were the most feared.  Certainly this was the case back in 1985, and some people are concerned that the recent happenings in Russia and Crimea are going to reawaken tensions between nations.  Here's hoping that it doesn't come down to that, but as I type this out, the world continues to watch.

But as a single, it performed extremely well.  Not only did it hit #1 in Canada and the United States, but in the UK, it was the highest charting single for the band, peaking at #2.  And it was enough of a success for the band to win a Brit Award in 1986 for "Best British Single".

And, just think...that was the moment in which they ruled the music scene.  Go figure.

Saturday, June 07, 2014

Bee Movie

With summer fast approaching (exactly two weeks from today), there's certainly a lot of sights that I am seeing right now that I didn't see six months ago.  You remember?  That time in which we were stuck in that seemingly endless winter with snowdrifts as tall as a three-story building?  I get chills just thinking about it.

No, wait.  That's the A/C inside that's making me chilly.  Hold on a minute while I adjust the temperature settings.

Ah.  That's better.  Now, where were we?  Oh, yes.  Summer sights.

Yes, this is the time of year in which people hock their old wares to make some money for new stuff at garage and yard sales.  This is the time of year in which you take in the smell of barbecues and freshly cut grass.  It's the time of year in which kids run through sprinklers or ride their bikes down the street to the corner store for ice cream cones.

And it's also the time of year in which a lot of creatures come out of hibernation and bask in the hot summer sun.

This is a story about one such creature that for years I despised.  A creature that I wanted to see eradicated from the planet once and for all.  A creature that just happens to be linked to today's "Saturday Night at the Movies" blog entry.



I'm talking about bees.

As a child, I hated bees with a passion.  To me, they were annoying black and yellow striped pests who did nothing but hurt people.  I think I can even pinpoint the exact moment in which I turned against bees.

I was seven years old, and one of my favourite things to do when I was a kid was walk around barefoot.  I was the boy who absolutely hated wearing shoes and socks around the house.  You'd think that I would have learned my lesson when I walked around our backyard in bare feet when our backyard had an infestation of prickly thistle bushes.  Take it from me, those things hurt!

Well, one thing I did when I was younger was I used to leave the door wide open whenever I went outside.  And this meant that the possibility of ants, caterpillars, and bees could get inside the house.

Sure enough, as I walked inside the house in my bare feet, I didn't realize that a bee was hiding underneath a magazine that was left on the floor, and well...it stung me in between the toes.  A spot that I definitely don't recommend getting stung in at all!



Needless to say, that painful experience taught me just how powerful a bee sting was.  And, well, it made me want to launch a campaign against the killer bees of the world.  I ran away from bees whenever I saw them when I was younger, and when I was older, I had the idea that a dead bee was the only good kind of bee.

Of course, this was when I was young and stupid.  Now that I'm old and wise, I feel guilty about my hatred of bees...especially now that I've learned some truths since that stinging incident some twenty-five years ago.

First, bees only sting when they feel threatened.  If you leave them alone, or lightly swat them away, they'll likely not even so much as bother you.  Second, bees do a lot for the environment.  Their pollen gathering abilities help supply the fertilization needed for fruits and vegetables to grow and mature for consumption.  Without bees, there would be no fresh food.  And without any fresh food, well...we'd quickly become an endangered species.



And thirdly, that bee that stung me was more than likely a wasp...the bee's bigger bully cousin which stings you no matter what you do or don't do.  So, let me reiterate.  Bees=good.  Wasps=need to die a slow, painful death.  The jury's still out on hornets, but if they're anything like wasps, they can disappear too.

The truth is that for several years now, bees have been dying out in massive numbers, leading to higher costs for fruits, vegetables, and even honey!  And as someone who once listed Honey Comb cereal as one of his favourite cereals (which at 33 I still eat, thank you very much), I couldn't imagine a world without any of those things.  Nobody knows what the cause of the mass bee deaths are.  Some say it could be disease.  Some say it could be climate change.  Some blame Monsanto.  Whatever the case, I hope that the bee population can be protected and that somehow, bees can find a way to reproduce and continue to do the things that they do to make the world a better place.

So, in celebration of bees everywhere, why don't I feature a movie that features bees in a positive manner.  One that makes heroes out of those wonderful honey makers themselves!



Yep.  I'm talking about Bee Movie.  The DreamWorks Animation film which was directed by Simon J. Smith and Steve Heckner was released on November 2, 2007, and featured the voices of Jerry Seinfeld, Renee Zellweger, Matthew Broderick, John Goodman, and Chris Rock.  Seinfeld also served as a writer and producer of the film.  Though the film was given mixed reviews, it did make over $280 million at the box office, making Bee Movie another success for DreamWorks.

This movie was admittedly a lot of fun to watch, and if you ever wondered what it would be like if bees could talk and show you into their world, this movie does offer one possibility.  Of course, as we well know, the only sound you hear from a beehive is a lot of buzzing, and the only thing you might see inside of a beehive are intricately shaped honeycombs that are filled with sweet, delicious honey.



But in Bee Movie, we're quickly introduced to a teenage bee named Barry B. Benson (Seinfeld).  He's buzzing with excitement (pardon the pun) over his upcoming college graduation (class of 9:15), and he and his best friend Adam Flayman (Broderick) are really looking forward to life after school.  After all, the future for Barry is looking extremely bright.  With college underway, all Barry wants to do is spend the rest of his life doing what he wants to do.

Unfortunately, fate had a different plan for Barry.  You see, upon graduating college, it was expected for every single bee to choose a career - similar to anybody who graduates from a college or a university.  That was fine.  What wasn't fine was the rule that stated that once a bee chose a job, they were stuck with it until they died.  Certainly not a easy thing to accept - especially in a world where some people have two or more careers.

And Barry, as the eternal non-conformist, decides that choosing a career for life simply isn't enough for him.  He'd rather spend his time hanging around the group known as the "Pollen Jocks", a group of athletic bees that spend their days gathering pollen from the many flowers blooming around the world.  On one such day, he observes the Pollen Jocks collecting nectar and he is so fascinated by it that he decides that he wants to do it too...that is until he becomes an unwilling participant in a tennis game, and somehow finds himself invading the confines of a family car.  Barry's initial reaction?  Humans are nuts and should be avoided...which made perfect sense, since one of the rules of the bee world is never to talk to a human.

But something happens as Barry tries to make his way back home.  Somehow he gets trapped inside of a flower shop and when the patrons of the shop trying to kill Barry, the owner of the flower shop, Vanessa Bloome (Zellweger) rescues Barry and sends him outside to safety.  Barry, touched by Vanessa's kindness, flies back in to thank Vanessa for saving him, and the two of them form a friendship despite the cardinal rule that bees and humans must never communicate with each other.

Meanwhile, Barry discovers a sad truth when he and Vanessa go into a grocery store.  Barry is shocked to see humans buying huge jars of honey for consumption, and he hitches a ride to Honey Farms to discover the truth behind how the company got their hands on so much of their honey.  He meets up with a mosquito named Mooseblood (Rock) who fills him in on how humans have always swatted mosquitoes, and this sets the gears in motion for Barry to pursue his true calling - that calling is to launch a lawsuit against humans for stealing their honey!  Add in a sleazy lawyer (Goodman), and you have one honey of a trial.  And when it is all done and over with, the outcome could cause some irreversible damage to the world's food supply.

With help from Vanessa and Adam, Barry decides that he must right the wrong he caused, and works out a plan to restore the delicate balance of the world between bee and human.  And, here's a bit of a hint.  The Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California plays a huge part in that.

Now, I can't really reveal the ending of Bee Movie because I don't want to spoil it for you all.  But what I can tell you is that after watching this movie, I tend to look at bees a lot differently.  No longer do I see bees as these horrible flying beasts who only want to hurt us.  No, they're wonderful creatures who help make the world a better place, and I definitely salute them in the quest to continue making delicious foods.

Although my opinion on wasps has not changed.  They wouldn't be missed if they disappeared.

Friday, June 06, 2014

Casserole for a Crowd!

We are going to get to today's FOODIE FRIDAY post in just a few moments from now.  But before that happens, there's something that I really want to talk about.  Something that is quite serious that is happening just a couple of provinces away from where I am living right now.

As I type this blog out, there is a manhunt going on in the community of Moncton, New Brunswick - located Southwest of Prince Edward Island.  A shooter is on the loose after killing three RCMP officers and wounding two others on the evening of June 4, 2014, and as of right now, the shooter still has not been caught, leaving the city under complete lockdown.  I can't imagine how frightening a situation that must be, and my thoughts go out to the people of Moncton at this time.  Thoughts of condolences and prayer go out to those families of the RCMP officers slain on the evening of June 4, and I am hoping that the nightmare that the people of Moncton are experiencing ends as quickly as possible.

Of course, by the time this entry is posted, it very well could be.  If that is the case, I'll add an edit to the end of this entry if need be.

Secondly, I wanted to pay homage to the 70th anniversary of D-Day.  On June 6, 1944, the Battle of Normandy took place on several beaches where 155,000 Allied troops pushed through the Atlantic Wall and pushed inland in what would become the largest amphibious military operation in global history.  It is estimated that a total of 12,000 casualties were recorded in the battle, with only one-third of those confirmed.  It was one of the most important battles of World War II, and I want to take this opportunity to remember those soldiers who gave their lives in an effort to bring peace back to the world exactly seventy years ago today.

Thanks for that.

You know, after typing all that out, I was wondering if it would still be a good idea to even go ahead with the FOODIE FRIDAY post.  But in the end, I thought about it and the more I thought, the more I wanted to do it.  If for no other reason to celebrate the freedom that those soldiers fought for seventy years ago.



So, for today's recipe, I thought that I would take a look through a cookbook filled with scraps cut out from newspapers and magazines.  Over the last twenty years, Mom managed to fill up an entire scrapbook with dozens of recipes.  Allow me to share one with you.  And, while I have no idea where the recipe came from, I would think that maybe Campbell's had a hand in the recipe design!  It's a dish known as...

CASSEROLE FOR A CROWD

2 cups raw macaroni
2 lbs. ground beef
1 large onion, chopped
1 10 oz. can tomato soup
1 10 oz. can cream of chicken soup
1 10 oz. can of cream of mushroom soup
1 can of water (use the empty can from one of the soups)
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/4 cup melted margarine
1 cup fine soft bread crumbs
1 pinch of seasoned salt or paprika
parsley flakes

PROCEDURE:

Cook macaroni.
Brown ground beef and onion and add to macaroni.
Add soups, water, seasonings, and macaroni blend and cover with bread crumbs and margarine.
Top with parsley flakes
Bake at 350 degrees for thirty minutes to one hour
Makes one large or two small casseroles that can feed a total of eight people (or can be used for eight separate meals if you're making it for yourself).

And, that last part is something that I wish to highlight for this recipe feature.  That is that you can use basic, simple ingredients to make enough food to feed an army.

I've never really been all that skilled in planning budgets.  90% of the time, I tend to overspend more than anything.  Granted, I only overspend by five, ten dollars tops.  I'm certainly not shopping at places like Whole Foods or anything - mainly because my small town doesn't have one.  But when you take into account that most people do their grocery shopping once or twice a week, that overspending can certainly add up.  In the list of ingredients that I provided for you, I've estimated that the total cost of all the ingredients will run you about fifteen dollars - possibly twenty if you decide that you want to buy the brand name soup instead of the generic store brand (which I honestly don't know why anyone would since the generic store brand tastes the same as the higher-priced brand name good ninety-eight per cent of the time). 

Not a bad price for ingredients.  Well, that is if my math is correct.  It probably isn't.  But it's still a heck of a lot cheaper than if you went out to a fancy restaurant and ordered the same dinner!

The fact is that in this economy, the future is very uncertain.  Nobody exactly knows when things will improve.  Remember, the Great Depression only ended when World War II began, and I think the last thing any of us wants is another global conflict to perk up the economy.  People are finding new and creative ways to try and stretch a dollar more than ever before, and this includes meal preparations.

I've just posted one example for all of you.  If you have any other cost-efficient recipes to share, please send them to my e-mail address at
matthewwturcotte518@gmail.com.  If your recipe is chosen, you will get full credit!

EDIT:  A suspect in the Moncton shootings has now been captured and is in police custody as of 5:58 am, June 6, 2014.

Thursday, June 05, 2014

Remembering Ann B. Davis

I'm a few days late with this post, but given that I was waiting until "Tube Talk Thursday" to write this entry, I figured that it was better late than never.

For those of you who were born too late, you might not recognize the name Ann B. Davis at all.  But for those of you who were around during the early 1970s, you probably remember her very well.  After all, she played the role of Alice Nelson on the television sitcom "The Brady Bunch" during the show's entire run.



On June 1, 2014, Ann B. Davis passed away in San Antonio, Texas at the age of 88.  The cause of death was from a subdural hematoma sustained in a fall in her home.  Ann B. Davis' death marks the second death of the main cast of "The Brady Bunch", following Robert Reed's death in 1992.



I will admit that when I was born, I had absolutely no idea what "The Brady Bunch" was.  I had kept hearing references to the show during my formative years, and my family did watch it when it originally aired, but it never aired in syndication during my early childhood years.  Or, if it did, it was on before my family started subscribing to cable television in the late 1980s.  Whatever the case, "The Brady Bunch" was always a bit of a mystery to me.

I suppose it made sense.  The show debuted in 1969 and ended in 1974 - a full seven years before I was born.  I think I even missed that Brady Bunch Christmas movie when it originally aired in 1988 because I was more interested in watching an episode of "Full House" or some "Punky Brewster" rerun, or whatever else was on television that year.  To me, Marcia, Jan, Cindy, Greg, Peter, and Bobby were the names of kids who played in our school playground at recess.

It was only by chance that I happened to catch an episode of "The Brady Bunch".  You know how your cable provider will sometimes offer you a free preview of some of the superchannels that cost extra to activate?  They may last a weekend, or a full week, or a whole month?  These preview weekends are designed to get you to watch the stations, and get you hooked so that you could spend the extra money to activate them.  On one of these preview weekends some nineteen, twenty years ago, we got to preview TBS, UPN (remember THAT network?), The WB (remember THAT network?), and a couple of other movie channels.  It was a special four day event that lasted Thursday through Sunday.

Well, that was where I saw my very first episode of "The Brady Bunch".  It used to air in the afternoons on TBS just before reruns of "Good Morning, Miss Bliss" and "Saved By The Bell".  If memory serves me, it was the pilot episode where Mike and Carol get married, and the kids are really young, and the dog and the cat get into a fight and destroy the whole wedding feast. 

The episode itself was cute...I suppose.  It sort of reminded me a lot of the sitcoms that I used to watch in the 1980s when sitcoms were more family friendly. 

Now since then, I've seen more and more episodes of "The Brady Bunch", and I have to agree that some shows were better than others.  I don't find it as cheesy and saccharinely sweet as some people might (though admittedly I tended to favour the older characters over the younger ones).  I had my favourite Brady (I was always a Jan fan), and I had my least favourite Brady (sorry, Cousin Oliver - though admittedly Robbie Rist was better in his voice work).  But one constant in every episode was the woman in the sky blue dress who worked at the Brady housekeeper.  A woman who always had a kind word to say about everybody and who always had some decent advice to give.  And, she often used her dry humour to elicit laughs from the audience, which worked great on me.

Truth be told, I was always very partial to Alice.  There was just something about the way that Ann B. Davis played her that made me wish that she could come and live with my family.  That is to Ann's credit, of course.

But would you believe that another actress was lined up to play Alice instead?  Believe it or not, actress Monty Margetts was lined up to play the role when "The Brady Bunch" was being cast.  But just before the show's September 26, 1969 premiere, the role was recast with Davis in the role.  Why this was the case?  Well, perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the role of Carol Brady was also recast.  Originally, Carol was to be played by actress Joyce Buffant, but producers of the show were having second thoughts about casting her in the first place.  At the last moment, Buffant was let go, Florence Henderson was hired, and Ann B. Davis was hired as a sort of comedic foil to Henderson's soft-spoken, low key presence.

It worked.

Now, here's the thing.  Ann B. Davis didn't mind the fact that her role on "The Brady Bunch" seemed to typecast her for all future roles.  In fact, not only did she play the role of Alice Nelson during the five season run of "The Brady Bunch", but she reprised the role for "The Brady Bunch Hour", "The Brady Brides", and "The Bradys" (just how the heck many Brady spinoffs were there?)

And that's not all.  She reprised the role of Alice in other television projects including the sitcoms "Day by Day" and "Hi Honey, I'm Home".

TRIVIA:  On "Day by Day", one of the stars of the show was actor Christopher Daniel Barnes, who ended up playing Greg Brady in 1995's "The Brady Bunch Movie", in which Ann B. Davis did a cameo as a truck driver!  Funny how people are connected, isn't it?

Of course, one thing I want to stress was that the late Ann B. Davis did much more than portray a housekeeper on a 1970s era sitcom.

Interestingly enough, when Ann graduated from high school, she originally considered pursuing a career in medicine!  But she opted to change her major to acting after being wowed by her brother's performance in a production of "Oklahoma!" 

After graduating with a degree in drama and speech in 1948, one of the first jobs that she landed was as a judge in the television show "Jukebox Jury".  (Don't worry, I haven't heard of it either.)

But her first major role came just a few years later in 1955.  The boyfriend of one of Ann's friends personally recommended Ann for a role in the NBC situation comedy, "The Bob Cummings Show".  Long story short?  She won the role and stayed on the program for four more years playing the part of Charmaine "Schultzy" Schultz.  Not only did she win an Emmy for her role in the show, but she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960!  I do believe that makes her the first of all the Brady Bunch actors to earn that honour.  But, I honestly am not sure.  Whatever the case, I think it's an awesome piece of trivia.

Actually, come to think of it, the truck driver that Davis played in "The Brady Bunch Movie" was named Schultzy.  That's a really cool throwback to the past, isn't it?

And, of course, Ann also starred in a series of commercials for "Minute Rice", "Shake 'n' Bake", and the Ford Motor Company, and played a physical education teacher in "The John Forsythe Show".  Even as she grew older, she never gave up acting entirely.  In the 1990s, she starred in theatre productions of "Arsenic and Old Lace" and "Crazy For You", and her last credited appearance on television was at the 2007 TV Land Awards, in which she was given a standing ovation.

And, why not?  Ann B. Davis was a legend in her own right.  One that will never be forgotten in the history of television.



ANN B. DAVIS
1926-2014