The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Film of the Week

Thought I'd continue the Halloween theme this week, since it's still the season for it...

As new forms of popular culture became more... well, popular during the early twentieth century, certain organizations started to fear that they were corrupting the youth of America by promoting depravity of all sorts.  Of course, those organizations felt it was their divine duty to try to protect us from these new forms of entertainment that were leading us astray.  Certainly, this is not new.  If you pay attention to the world today, we still see organizations that get offended by something, so they feel that they have to ban it to protect us all from the evil Judy Blume book... or whatever has gotten their panties in a wad this week.  (Can you tell that, as a son of a librarian, I don't think much of censorship?)  Two of the biggest targets at that time were films and comic books.

After some high-profile public scandals in the early 1920s--specifically the three manslaughter trials of silent film star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle--Hollywood found itself under pressure from lawmakers and "decency" organizations to censor their content.  In 1921 alone, thirty-seven states introduced nearly 100 film censorship bills, many of which varied from region to region.  Rather than try to comply with all the different censorship laws around the country, the film studios felt the best solution was to censor themselves.  A man named Will Hays was brought in to help clean up Hollywood.  Hays was a Presbyterian elder who had in the past served as head of the Republican National Committee as well as Postmaster General during Warren Harding's presidency.  Hays created a list or "code" of what the studios could and couldn't show in their movies, based on complaints from local censor boards.  By the late 1920s, the studios had agreed not to show certain things and to be careful with how they showed other things, but there was little enforcement until 1934 when an amendment was added to the code which created the Production Code of America (PCA) requiring all movies released after 1 July of that year to carry a certificate of approval before it could be released.  Joseph Breen was appointed head of the PCA, and under his authority, things became much stricter.  Even Betty Boop had to change her appearance.

Obviously, this didn't sit well with a lot of people, but they abided by it anyway just so their films would be distributed.  There were some protests over the years.  My favourite was a photograph taken by Whitey Schafer in 1940 called "Thou Shalt Not" which depicted in just one still picture ten things that violated the Code.

But if you watch a lot of old movies, you may notice that films of certain genres made after 1934 do tend to be a bit mild compared to "Pre-Code" films.  This is particularly true in two popular styles of films--gangster pictures and horror films.  With the gangster films, it became taboo to actually depict any kind of illicit activity, including gambling and drinking.  The "bad guys" could never win.  With horror films, many of the plot lines revolved around supernatural rituals that many religious organizations considered blasphemous and evil including the "scientific" concept of re-animating dead tissue in 1931's Frankenstein.  In fact, many of those films were censored for theatrical re-releases after 1934.

By the late 1960s, the Code had become all but unenforceable and was replaced by the ratings system that is in place to this day... and there are still arguments over that (even from me).  Fortunately, due to film preservation, many of those Pre-Code films that were censored later on have been restored to their former glory.  While I've not read specifically what might have been censored from this horror classic to make it "suitable" for re-release after 1934, I assume it was.  And even if it wasn't, when I do watch it, I'm taken by how creepy the film still is, 92 years after its initial release.  I find myself wondering how different the film--along with Dracula, Frankenstein, and the other Universal horror films of that era--might have turned out if it had been made just a few short years later.

Cinematographer Karl Freund (who pioneered the three-camera system used today in shooting many television programs) directed this horror classic starring Zita Johann, David Manners, Arthur Byron, Edward Van Sloan, and--fresh off his star-making role as Frankenstein's monster--Boris Karloff as Imhotep.  Originally released in 1932, this week, just for the holiday season, I recommend The Mummy.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!

When I first moved from southern Indiana to northern Indiana fifteen years ago (Good Lord!  Has it been that long?), I was still working in the music department for Barnes & Noble.  Because of the transfer, I no longer managed the department, but I found, much to my delight, that the music staff was populated by people who were bigger music geeks and snobs than I was which, frankly, is saying something.  We frequently had discussions about why this artist was overrated or why that album sucked.  If you've ever seen the John Cusack movie High Fidelity (or even--God forbid--read the book upon which it was based), you have a rough idea of what we were like, in spite of the overly corporate atmosphere in which we found ourselves working.  Like a lot of music geeks/snobs, we even had a tendency to speak in our own shorthand.  I remember one day, my friend Alex looked at me and just asked, "Hunky, Ziggy, Low, or Heroes?"  And while I did answer with Hunky [Dory], I still can't help but wonder why Aladdin [Sane] wasn't one of the choices? (If you didn't follow that, we were discussing David Bowie albums.)

One day, an interesting idea was brought up regarding artists we thought were overrated.  It wasn't that we didn't enjoy the music or thought that the artist really was overrated--we just tended to be put off by the fans who tended to idolize them to an annoying degree.  And I realize that I shouldn't judge here.  After all, I tend to be a bit effusive in my love of certain artists (specifically The Stones, Springsteen, and Florence + The Machine).  But in spite of that--at the risk of sounding hypocritical--I do find myself recoiling over the more rabid fan bases of artists like Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, and Beyoncé.  I'll be honest, even Parrotheads seem to bug me sometimes, and I consider myself to be a pretty big fan of Jimmy Buffett.

(SIDE NOTE:  How are Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce not collectively known as "Traylor"?  Think of the possibilities!  Their fans could be called the Traylor Park.  Haters would be Traylor Trash.  If they got married, it would be a Traylor Hitch.  If they break up, they can just say a tornado hit them.  These things practically write themselves.  All I ask for is a 5% cut of the merchandise profits.)

No fan base has been quite as revered (or reviled, depending on your perspective) as the fan base for the Grateful Dead, known as Deadheads.  Even just writing the word conjured up images in my head of a bunch of stoned hippies in a Volkswagen bus travelling across the country to catch the Dead's next concert.  Or some wannabe hippie who's younger than I am describing in pedantic detail the subtle nuances in Jerry Garcia's guitar solo on one live recording from 1972 versus another performance from 1987.  Those stereotypes are the kinds of things that make me not want to listen to the music.  But I find that by doing that, I tend to miss out on what can be some good stuff along the way.  (I'm sure I'll be addressing my aversion to Justin Bieber and his "Beliebers" in the near future.)

I'm a casual fan of the Dead.  I've only listened to a handful of their albums but, by and large, I like what I hear.  While they're considered a rock band who definitely have their roots in San Francisco during the Summer of Love (please refer to my "sermon" a couple of weeks ago regarding psychedelia and Jefferson Airplane), they were clearly influenced by folk, blues, country, bluegrass, and even jazz and world music as well.  If they were just starting out today, they would probably--and rightfully, in my opinion--be labeled with that catch-all term "Americana."

So, in honour of bassist Phil Lesh who passed away this week at the age of 84, please enjoy my favourite Dead album (of the few I've heard), 1970s Workingman's Dead.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents a Bonus Album of the Week! (One From the Vault!)

I posted what follows on Facebook on 21 October, 2023.  I've been thinking a lot about it lately, particularly this week.  I've always been kind of proud of it... even if no one got my subtle "Magnum, P.I." joke...

I know what you're thinking.  You thought this week's album would be the new release by The Rolling Stones.  Yes, I was at Barnes & Noble as soon as they opened Friday morning.  Yes, I bought it in both vinyl and CD.  Yes, the album kicks serious ass (or "arse"--after all, this is a British band).  But my little voice was telling me that I should go in a decidedly less arse-kicking direction this week...

I do apologize in advance.  This week's "sermon" will probably ramble on more than it should.  I'm sure there will be plenty of my trademark parenthetical asides along the way and you may not even finish reading it.  I guess I wouldn't blame you--and I haven't even finished writing it yet!  But I had a weird night Tuesday and I'm writing this as a way of processing it.  Unfortunately, I don't really feel that I can do that without going into a whole lot of literary terms like "backstory" and "exposition," some of which I alluded to a few weeks back in my tribute to David McCallum.

"Well, now... it's story time again."

--Tom Waits, introduction to "Big Joe And Phantom 309," 1975

In 2016, my father and I bought a house together.  I still live there today.  When he got the cable set up, I sat down and was checking out all the free programming.  A lot of older movies, a lot of older television shows.  One that caught my attention was "Magnum, P.I.," which had originally aired on CBS from 1980 to 1988.  I remember seeing it as a kid.  It was one of Mom's favourite shows--she had a crush on Tom Selleck who became a star with the show's success (she even put a poster of him on our attic door).  I have to admit, I enjoyed it as well.  As I said a couple weeks ago, I've always liked detective/mystery shows.

So, just for shits and giggles, I started watching the show from the beginning.  What initially caught my attention was that the first eleven episodes did not include the iconic Mike Post/Pete Carpenter composed theme music.  The opening titles for those episodes used a completely different theme composed by Ian Freebairn-Smith.  I thought it was okay--better-suited to a show from the mid-1970s and not as great as the Post/Carpenter theme which I've said is one of the three coolest television themes of all time (the other two being "Hawaii Five-O" and "Mission: Impossible").  I've included links to both themes in the comments section if you want to compare and contrast.  Anyway, I watched the first four or five episodes.  Then Dad got really sick and I got involved with helping take care of him and I kind of forgot about it shortly after he died.

Two years later, I suddenly had to call an ambulance for Mom.  After going through what was the most emotionally draining day of my life (not only did I have the extreme concern for my mother's health and well being, but I also had the extreme joy of officiating my best friends' wedding, and switching back and forth between the two was exhausting in every way), she spent a week in the ICU and another week in a rehab facility.  I made it a point to be with her every evening and most afternoons.  We'd watch "Jeopardy!" together and then I would leave when visiting hours ended, at which point I would go home and, just for shits and giggles, started watching "Magnum" again from where I had left off.

I was almost to the point in the show where the theme music changed when suddenly it disappeared from my cable.  As it turned out, CBS was rebooting the series with a new cast and was on the verge of airing it in just a few weeks, so the original went bye-bye.  When Mom came back home, I was bemoaning this loss to her (we had been known to watch it together over the years, both in its original run and in syndication).  I had done some research and found that the DVD box set was relatively cheap for a series that ran that long and I proposed that we buy it together.  I also suggested we look at getting "The Rockford Files" which I remember her enjoying when I was really young.  "Rockford" was in many ways a predecessor to "Magnum."  (In fact, Tom Selleck had twice made a guest appearance on "Rockford" as a platitude-spewing Boy Scout of a P.I. named Lance White.)  Unfortunately, five years ago tomorrow, Mom died before we got the chance to do that.

In 2019, I ordered the "Magnum" box set, mostly to remember Mom.  Weirdly, some time later, I found "Rockford" pretty cheaply in, of all places, Menard's hardware store, so I bought it as well.  I began watching both shows, kind of alternating between the two over time.  It was a pleasant enough way to spend an evening and fostered a deep admiration for television theme songs composed by Mike Post and/or Pete Carpenter (who also did "Rockford" together... among many others).  I described it a couple of weeks ago as "TV comfort food."  In many ways, I feel like I'm bonding with Mom even though she's no longer with us.

I finally finished "Rockford" a couple weeks ago and have been making a conscious effort to finish "Magnum."  I sat down this past Tuesday to watch the last five episodes of the seventh season.  (And let me just say that Frank Sinatra should have gotten an Emmy nomination for his heartbreaking performance as a retired New York cop whose granddaughter had been murdered.)

The last episode of the season, titled "Limbo," begins with our hero getting shot in a warehouse before the opening credits.  Magnum tries to communicate with his inner circle of friends (Rick, T.C., Higgins, Carol Baldwin, and Agatha Chumley) and the woman he married in Vietnam (Michelle).  Even his mother (played by the legendary Gwen Verdon) comes to his side.  Unfortunately only the Doberman guards, Zeus and Apollo, seem to be able to see him.  It becomes obvious that he's lying in a coma and is having an out-of-body experience, witnessing his loved ones worry about whether or not he'll pull through  (I won't spoil it for you--you'll have to watch Season 8 for yourself to see if he surives) .  He's led on this journey by his old friend, Navy Lieutenant "Mac" McReynolds, who had been killed at the beginning of the third season.

Throughout the episode, one song song keeps popping up.  It plays after the opening credits where we see Magnum walking through a lush, isolated area overlooking the ocean.  Later in the episode, TC seems to be listening to it in his chopper, lost in contemplation over potentially losing his best friend.  Agatha plays it in Higgins's office at one point.  It even plays over the end credits.  The song was "Looking for Space" by John Denver, who happened to be Mom's favourite singer.  Not only did she have a poster of Tom Selleck on the attic door, but she had a framed picture of John Denver in her library.  The seemingly random combination of her favourite singer and one of her favourite actors hit me on a gut level.  I actually started crying... in the middle of an episode of "Magnum Freaking P.I."!  The lyrics to the song actually moved me--not something I'm used to feeling from a John Denver song, I assure you.  I actually couldn't get the song out of my head for a day and a half.

I've had numerous moments in my life (and maybe you have too) where I got the distinct impression when hearing certain pieces of music that a long-lost relative was hanging out... haunting me in the nicest of ways.  I felt my late uncle was in my moving truck as I was preparing to move into his former office in 2009.  I'm pretty sure Dad was hanging out in that club in Chicago the night of the Mr. T Experience show in 2016.  My grandmother has always seemed to have a habit of showing up when I least expect her.  I don't get that sensation if I intentionally play those songs--they have to play without my planning, such as on the radio or randomly on my phone... or even on TV.  But I definitely got the impression Mom was hanging out watching "Magnum" with me like we used to do when I was a kid.  And with the fifth anniversary of her passing coming up, perhaps I really needed it at that moment.  Moms are supposed to be good at knowing those sorts of things.

So, much to my own dismay, I present this week the album featuring the song that spent more time rattling around my consciousness this week than any John Denver song should, 1975's Windsong, which also features his hits "Calypso," "I'll Fly Away," and "I'm Sorry."

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that time has little to do with infinity and jelly doughnuts.

Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

To compare and contrast, here is the original "Magnum, P.I." theme composed by Ian Freebairn-Smith that was used for the first eleven episodes:

Versus the more recognized theme composed by Mike Post and Pete Carpenter that was used for the rest of the series as well as the 2018 reboot:

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Film of the Week!

Like many Americans, this is the time of year when I find myself watching a lot of horror movies.  Like so many things in life, certain concepts and terms--like "horror" or even "scary"--are largely subjective.  (Personally, I think the movie Idiocracy is one of the scariest films I've ever seen and it's a work of comedic satire.)  When most people my age think of horror films, they're usually drawn to more contemporary fare--Freddy, Jason, Chucky, Saw, Leatherface, Pennywise, etc.  I personally gravitate toward the classic monsters made famous by Universal Studios from the 1930s to the 1950s like Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, the Wolf-Man, the Creature From the Black Lagoon, and especially Dracula--even though I wouldn't put any of them in my list of Top 5 Scariest Films.*  But I've always liked the visual aesthetic of those old Universal movies--especially when it came to gothic castles.  But then I always did have something of an overactive imagination.

If you grew up in Indiana--particularly in and around the central and southern parts of the state--between 1962 and sometime in the late 1980s, you are probably familiar with a ghoul named Sammy Terry (a play on the word "cemetery") who was the host of "Nightmare Theater" which aired on Friday nights at 11:30 on WTTV, Channel 4, an independent television station based in Bloomington (today it's a CBS affiliate, although throughout its 75-year history, it's been affiliated at one time or another with just about every other major network including UPN, the WB, the CW, and even DuMont back in the 1950s).  "Nightmare Theater" would show usually B horror movies (although some good ones too).  Sammy Terry would arise from his coffin and introduce these films.  Before the movie would resume from a commercial break, we would usually be treated to Mr. Terry commenting on the movie or talking to his pet spider, George--the most animated piece of rubber ever to grace the small screen.

I consider it a gift--even, dare I say, a blessing--that, as a child, my dad wanted to share with me all the things that he loved.  Without question, his love of movies of all kinds is something that was passed on to me at a very young age.  If I had been a good boy that week, I would go to bed on Friday night at my normal time and shortly before 11:30, Mom or Dad would wake me up and I would join Dad in the living room--we had one of those sofas with a bed that could be pulled out... and it usually was on a Friday night--and we would watch Sammy Terry on our black and white TV.  It was my introduction to the horror genre.  I grew up in the country in what was a former parsonage next to a church--complete with cemetery--that, to this day, I'm convinced is haunted.  As a young child with an overactive imagination, watching horror films (cheesy or not) only made it worse.  And I was easily frightened as a child.

What's interesting to me is that even as adults, whether we admit it or not, we still love being scared.  Maybe it's the rush of adrenaline, maybe it's the memories of what frightened us as children.  Somehow we're still drawn to these things.  In the last ten to twenty years, I've found myself enjoying horror movies--even moreso than I did as a kid.  If I had to hazard a guess as to why, I guess it's because the more "supernatural" things that scared me when I was a kid seem tame compared to the very real things that scare me as an adult.  Like most people, I suppose I just miss those simpler times in life.

So this week, I feel compelled to recommend the very first horror film I ever saw, introduced by Sammy Terry late one Friday night, while lying on a hide-a-bed with my father when I was six years old.  Produced by the famed Hammer Film Studios and released initially in the UK in November of 1968 (in the US the following February), this film stars Sir Christopher Lee as the world's most well-known vampire, Count Dracula, perhaps my favourite film monster.  (FUN FACT:  Lee played Dracula ten times in his career--more than any other actor--seven of them for Hammer Studios.)  Co-starring Rupert Davies and Veronica Carlson, and directed by Freddie Francis, this week I can't help but recommend Dracula Has Risen From the Grave.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

 

* My Top 5 Scariest Films:

1.  The Exorcist (1973)

2.  Rosemary's Baby (1968)

3.  What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962)

4.  Alien (1979)

5.  Play Misty For Me (1971)

Runner-up:  Get Out (2017)

Honourable Mention:  Idiocracy (2006)

 

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!

If there is one thing I miss about working in retail (aside from the people I worked with--which I guess makes two things), it was the idea of "hand selling" or convincing a customer to buy something based on my personal recommendation.  I like to think I was pretty good at it, especially given my eclectic tastes.  I still remember the time a customer that I barely remembered once came back to tell me how much he appreciated my recommendation and that he was definitely going to check out more of the artist I thought he might like (I think it was Santana).

I was recently perusing the shelves of the music section of Half Price Books--a place I should really learn to avoid when I'm trying to save money.  I found a special tenth anniversary edition of what was perhaps my greatest triumph at hand selling.  I was kind of taken aback because I didn't realize that it had been more than a decade since the album had been released.  Because this anniversary edition contained two CDs of live bonus material, I naturally bought it (along with a few other things--at least one of which I've been trying to work into one of these weekly sermons... hopefully soon).

I first heard about it when I saw the artist on "The Tonight Show," waaaayyy back in the day when Jay Leno was still hosting it.  The performance absolutely blew me away.  I bought the album immediately.  I was completely entranced by this 18-year-old kid from England who looked like a young Keith Richards and sounded (at least on this album) like he should have recorded it at Sun Studios in the 1950s.

That summer at Barnes & Noble, all of us were encouraged to pick one item to hand sell to as many customers as possible.  This was my choice.  Over the course of that summer I hand sold close to 100 copies of that album.  (Admittedly, I did have an unfair advantage--as the head cashier, I was primarily at the register, so I interacted with more customers.)  And while nobody came back after the fact to thank me for recommending it and to tell me how much they enjoyed it, nobody came back to tell me they hated it either.  I was also proud of myself because, aside from the appearance on "The Tonight Show," I wasn't seeing a lot of press on this kid--who is now 30, so I guess I can't really call him a kid anymore.  While the album topped the UK charts and did quite well in Europe, here in the U.S. it only reached #75 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart and #24 on the Top Rock Albums chart.  But I've never been one to believe that chart success or overall sales figures (aside from what I can personally sell, obviously) are any indication of how good something is.  And more than a decade later, it's still one of my favourite albums of the 2010s.

Released in the UK in October of 2012 and in the US in April of 2013, please enjoy Jake Bugg's eponymous debut album.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Film of the Week!

A few years back, I read on Facebook that, in 1969, while preparing for the Apollo 11 mission, astronaut Neil Armstrong was giving careful consideration as to what he would say after becoming the first person to set foot on the moon.  Command module pilot Michael Collins jokingly suggested, "If you had any balls, you'd say, 'Oh, my God, what is that thing?', then scream and cut your mic."  I also read that apparently Armstrong used to tell unfunny jokes about the moon and then add, "I guess you had to be there."  Now I don't know if either of those stories are true.  I'm guessing that the only person who can truly confirm or deny them is fellow astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, the third astronaut on that historic mission, but I've never seen an interview with him to know for sure.  The one thing I do know for certain is that I want those stories to be true.  With all my heart and soul and every fiber of my being, I want those stories to be true and not just be some random shit that I happened to read online.  Such is the case with the events depicted in this week's movie.

Michael O'Donoghue:  Let us begin.  Repeat after me:  I would like...

John Belushi (in vaguely Eastern European accent):  I would like...

O'Donoghue:  To feed your fingertips...

Belushi:  To feed your feengerteeps...

O'Donoghue:  To the wolverines.

Belushi:  To the wolverines.

--from the first sketch of the first episode of "Saturday Night Live," 11 October, 1975

It was forty-nine years ago this very week that Lorne Michaels changed the face of television comedy.  He took a cast of then unknown actors and comedians from across the country and broadcast a live television show on NBC at 11:30 pm on the night of 11 October, 1975.  It was the first television show produced by the first generation to be raised on television.  It was irreverent, satirical, anarchic, and even silly in a few places.  Over the next half century, the show influenced multiple generations of comedians and became a springboard for up-and-coming performers to hone their comedy chops and writing skills and introduced the world to the likes of Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, John Belushi's eyebrows, Colin Jost, Chevy Chase, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Bill Murray, Michael Che, Dana Carvey, Kate McKinnon, Billy Crystal, Seth Meyers, Kristen Wiig, Mike Myers, Jane Curtin, Martin Short, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Phil Hartman, Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, Gilda Radner, and future Senator Al Franken... just to name a few.  The show recently began its fiftieth season with no signs of stopping.  (The show we know today as "Saturday Night Live," or "SNL," was originally titled "NBC's Saturday Night" to avoid confusion with a variety show ABC debuted a month earlier called "Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell."  It was cancelled after eighteen episodes, after which NBC bought the rights to the name and in 1977 re-christened their show as "Saturday Night Live.")

I've been a fan of "SNL" since the mid- to late-1980s.  I often credit the show with fostering in me a deep love of comedy, specifically political satire.  I've always been fascinated by what makes us laugh and have read all sorts of books and studied the works of great comedians like the Marx Brothers, Monty Python, Abbott & Costello, George Carlin, Robin Williams, and The Firesign Theatre--just a few of my favourites.  I think that love was always there, but it really started to take hold when I was a teenager.  Along with Gary Larson's "Far Side" cartoon strip, "SNL" kind of cemented it for me, especially the "Weekend Update" segment which taught me that there's a lot of humour that can be mined from "serious" world events.  "Update" became the model for some of today's topical comedy hits like "The Daily Show," "Real Time with Bill Maher" and "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver."

A new movie directed by Jason Reitman recreates the hectic drama and sheer uncertainty that occurred during the ninety minutes leading up to that first broadcast.  Those events have been fairly well-documented over the years in books and memoirs (I, for one, particularly enjoyed the book Live From New York:  The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales).  And while those stories and anecdotes are fun to read, especially when told by those who were actually there, it's sometimes hard to fully appreciate what happened in the moment until you see a visual representation of it like this new movie.

I've been looking forward to this film for a couple of months now, since I first heard about its impending release yesterday (which coincided with the anniversary of that first broadcast).  In anticipation of it, I re-watched that first episode again.  Because it was the first episode--and it was live--they hadn't quite figured out the format that we've come to appreciate today.  George Carlin was the host and there were actually two musical guests, Billy Preston and Janis Ian.  The cast had been dubbed by writer Herb Sargent as "The Not Ready For Prime-Time Players" and they were introduced that way in the opening titles (I particularly enjoyed hearing legendary announcer Don Pardo flub this, introducing them as "The Not For Ready Prime-Time Players"--ah, the joys of live television).  Even though I had seen it before, I was surprised, even taken aback, by the absurdist nature of it.  There was almost no political humour aside from a couple of jokes about then-President Gerald Ford during the "Weekend Update" segment, where Chevy Chase also delivered what many consider one of the show's greatest jokes (and certainly one of my all-time favourites)--"The Post Office announced today that it is going to issue a stamp commemorating prostitution in the United States.  It's a ten-cent stamp, but if you want to lick it, it's a quarter."

The truth is, like most of the best things in life, it looked considerably easier than it really was.  Reitman's movie depicts absolute chaos backstage--actors fighting with each other, writers fighting with and trying to slip jokes past the network censor, Michaels (played by Gabriel LaBelle) fighting with network bigwigs to let them broadcast, drug use, host George Carlin (played by Matthew Rhys) throwing temper tantrums, cast member Garrett Morris (played by Lamorne Morris--no relation as far as I know) wondering why he's even there.  At any moment you get the impression the whole thing could fall apart before it even begins.  And even though we know how it ends and where it goes from there, Reitman directed the film with such frenetic tension, we actually find ourselves worrying that the final outcome will be something wholly different.  Having grown up on the show, it was fun to see the depictions of what went into that first night and see where certain future sketches like "Hard Hats" and "Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute" came from.  I also particularly liked seeing the writers' room where Al Franken (played by Taylor Gray) kept eating handfuls of cereal from a box labeled "Colon Blow," which became one of their commercial parodies nearly a decade and a half later.

While I assume that, for dramatic and cinematic purposes, some liberties were taken with the depictions of some of these events, most of what occurs in the film actually happened that night.  I wasn't there, so I can't say for sure.  But, like those Neil Armstrong stories, I want it to have happened like that.  If nothing else, it's a great story--especially in hindsight.  Personally, I'm curious to hear what those who were there think of the film.  Did it happen that way, or do they remember it differently?  As both a fan of "SNL" as well as the films of Jason Reitman (who also co-wrote the film with Gil Kenan), this week I highly recommend Saturday Night, currently playing at a theater near you.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that the show doesn't go on because it's ready--it goes on because it's 11:30.

Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill  

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!

As I've written probably too frequently in these weekly rants, I've always had a fondness for, and even a fascination with, the music of my parents' generation.  Unlike most children of the 1980s, I didn't listen to the music that was popular at the time (except for Billy Joel and Huey Lewis & The News--those guys rocked).  While everyone else my age was listening to Michael Jackson and Madonna, I was listening to The Beatles and The Mamas and The Papas and the soundtrack to The Big Chill.  If I could find an "oldies" station on my radio dial, that was where it stayed tuned as long as it was in range.  Of course, back then, "oldies" were defined as music from the 1950s and 1960s--today, it's pretty much anything from about 1964 to the late 1980s and good luck hearing anything from the 1950s on the radio anymore.

I devoured not just the music of that era, but also any kind of literature I could find on those artists.  This turned me on to other artists from that same era.  Even then, you had musical categorizations that separated pop, rock, R&B, folk, etc., and, naturally, there were categories within categories (such as soul music), but for me, it was all just "'60s music."  I've never understood why, but for some reason, the one sub-genre of rock that I was particularly drawn to was of the psychedelic variety.  Maybe it was the funky band names like The Electric Prunes, The Strawberry Alarm Clock, Iron Butterfly, Vanilla Fudge, The Chocolate Watch Band, Moby Grape, The Thirteenth Floor Elevators, and Big Brother & The Holding Company--and yes, all of those are actual bands of that era, a couple of which, I have to confess, even I have never listened to.  It could be that I got a weird, illicit thrill out of it.  A lot of the artists were purported to have been under the influence of illegal substances (many of whom admitted it outright) and their songs were supposed to be a glorification of drug use.  For years, I actually thought that Richard Harris's recording of Jimmy Webb's "Mac Arthur Park" was a drug song with its cryptic lyrics about cakes melting in the rain and whatnot ("all the sweet green icing flowing doooooowwwwwnnn...")--imagine my disappointment when I discovered it was just about a relationship that went south.  But that didn't stop me from laying back with my eyes closed and feeling like I was getting high listening to it along with all sorts of other great psychedelic numbers like "Incense and Peppermints" and "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)."  (HELPFUL HINT: If you're looking to get high while listening to music, for "Mac Arthur Park" to achieve full potency, pair it with The Doors' "Riders on the Storm.")

The problem with psychedelic music is that it does seem dated.  Just the word "psychedelic" evokes images of hippies in San Francisco during the "Summer of Love" in 1967.  And even though it does have a late-1960s vibe, it had a long-lasting influence on artists like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.  There was a change in the music of that time--artists started getting experimental and dared to try new things on their recordings (the advent of multi-track recording technology certainly helped in this endeavour).  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.  Some fans liked it, some fans didn't--for example, as much as I do enjoy Pink Floyd, I thought their 1969 epic Ummagumma was so experimental and "out there," that I couldn't finish listening to it.  (Granted, it's been roughly thirty years--maybe I should give that one another try.)  Even established artists like The Beatles and The Stones tried their hand at the whole "flower-power" thing with arguably mixed results.

I've always been kind of fascinated by this week's album.  While very much a product of its time--it's not like you would have thought it was recorded in the 1990s--I find I've been listening to it quite a bit in recent months.  Like so many things in my life, I don't really know why--I'm not sure I want to know.  Sometimes I find it's best to not question it and just enjoy the ride while it lasts.  For me, it's the group's trippiest album--not as accessible as their other albums, before or after.  Drugs were definitely heavily involved--even the title was code among the band members for "After taking LSD."

Released in November of 1967, this was the group's third album, following their landmark Surrealistic Pillow which had catapulted them to stardom upon its release the previous February.  This album only climbed to #17 on the Billboard Album chart (it didn't chart at all in the U.K.), but most critics as well as other musicians gave it a lot of praise upon its initial release and still do today.  Please enjoy what I think is the quintessential psychedelic band, Jefferson Airplane, with their most psychedelic album, After Bathing at Baxter's.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Film of the Week!

This week's film contribution comes to you through a confluence of seemingly randomn events--a new documentary that I would like to see (no, that's not the film in question), another documentary airing on CNN this very evening (not it either), both of which are being released in an election year.

A new documentary called Super/Man about the late Christopher Reeve has just been released.  Having grown up on his Superman films, I was a fan.  I even really enjoyed his work in Somewhere in Time.  I kind of want to see it.  I have what, for a long time, I thought was the last film he made before his tragic accident--I have since discovered that I was incorrect in that information.  The film is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary this year and being the dork that I am, I thought it might be fun to watch it again.

The film was inspired by the relationship and subsequent marriage of James Carville (the subject of that second documentary which is airing as I write this) and Mary Matalin.  Carville is a well-known political consultant and strategist who worked prominently on Bill Clinton's 1992 Democratic presidential campaign.  Matalin was also a well-known political consultant and campaign director for President George H.W. Bush.  She continued to serve as an assistant and consultant for a number of high-ranking Republicans including President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

In the film, Michael Keaton and Geena Davis star as speechwriters for opposing Senatorial candidates.  Of course, this is a movie, so they don't realize until after a rather passionate meet-cute that they aren't supposed to be fraternizing with each other.

 

Directed by Ron Underwood, this movie features a tremendous cast of mostly underappreciated character actors including Ernie Hudson, Charles Martin Smith, Mitchell Ryan, Willie Garson, Steven Wright, and Harry Shearer.  The film also stars the great Bonnie Bedelia as Michael Keaton's ex-wife and Christopher Reeve as Geena Davis's boyfriend/fiancé Bob Freed--a.k.a. "Baghdad Bob," a Gulf War reporter who's never seen without a flak jacket and I assume was modeled on Arthur "the Scud Stud" Kent (if you're under 30, you can look him up).

So to commemorate the film's anniversary, its inspiration, and our ongoing political elections, this week I'm recommending 1994's Speechless.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

 

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!

I have often heard country music described as "three chords and the truth."  And while my knowledge of the mechanics of music is a tad on the minimal side--I couldn't identify which three chords he played or even if he actually played more or less--I can say with certainty, that this week's artist is one of the most truthful songwriters of all time.  His music, while classified as country, was so truthful it actually transcended genre.

As you likely heard, the great Kris Kristofferson died this past week at the age of 88.  While he's primarily remembered as a country singer/songwriter who was at the forefront of the "Outlaw" country movement of the 1970s, as well as an actor who appeared in films directed by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Sam Peckinpah, Guillermo del Toro, and Tim Burton, he was so much more.  I would even dare call him a bit of a renaissance man.

In 1958, while a student at Pomona College, he was featured in the pages of Sports Illustrated for his athletic talents in track and field, rugby, and (American) football.  That same year, he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford in the U.K. where he received a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in English literature.  It was here that he began his long career as a songwriter and continued to distinguish himself in various sports, which now included boxing.

After returning to the States, he joined the U.S. Army, becoming a helicopter pilot and completing Ranger School.  While stationed in what was then West Germany, he formed a band and continued songwriting.  Ultimately he decided to pursue that as a career as opposed to teaching English literature at West Point.  And while his family might not have agreed with his decision, luckily for the rest of us he did.

I first heard Kristofferson as part of the 1980s country supergroup The Highwaymen in which he played alongside Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings--all of whom had covered his song "Sunday Morning Comin' Down" at some point in their careers--with Cash having the biggest hit with it in 1970.  My dad bought their record when it was released in 1985 and it was played frequently in our home.  I wasn't particularly a fan of country music, certainly not at that time in my life, but I liked his voice and I thought it worked well with the other three.  Today, it's one of my favourite country albums--even one of my favourite albums of the 1980s--because of the good feelings of nostalgia it evokes whenever I hear it.  I'm still not sure if Waylon was a "dam builder" or a "damn builder" in their hit title song.

Some time after that, I became familiar with another staple in our house, Janis Joplin.  In exploring her music--very much blues-based rock and roll--I was shocked to discover that her biggest hit was written by a country artist.  In 1971, Janis had a posthumous chart topper with "Me and Bobby McGee" which Kris, a close friend of hers, had co-written with Fred Foster.  She not only turned a country song into a rock classic, but her backing group, The Full Tilt Boogie Band, seriously lived up to their name.

In the 2016 documentary, Love, Janis, Kris talked about hearing a demo that Janis's producer, Paul Rothchild, had given him of the song.  "It was so exhilarating for me to hear her make that her song.  If you're a songwriter and somebody does that with what you got, it's the greatest feeling in the world."  Sadly, he didn't actually hear the finished recording until after her death in 1970--54 years ago this week.  He said, "It was very emotional for me.  I could just hear her saying, 'Wait 'til that son of a bitch hears this!'"

Songs like "Me and Bobby McGee," "Sunday Morning Comin' Down," "Help Me Make It Through the Night," "For the Good Times," and a handful of others I would have the audacity to describe as standards--songs that can stand alongside the works of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Hoagy Carmichael, and the Gershwins.  Sometimes you didn't even need a full song--just a title--to understand the basic human truth of the song... that you didn't even need.  I assume that this can be credited to his background in literature, but when you have a song like "The Bigger the Fool, the Harder the Fall," the title says it all--the rest of the song is just an incredible bonus and, frankly, something of a gift.  I can't think of any other songwriter off the top of my head who could write like that.

I was at work when I found out about his passing.  I had a collection of his greatest hits on my phone which I played during the last couple of hours of my shift.  When I got home, I pulled this week's album off the shelf.  I acquired it more than a decade ago when a friend of mine asked me to go through a massive collection of old vinyl in his garage.  I took the album because I was a fan, but for some reason I had never listened to it.  I put it on the turntable last Sunday night and the songs kind of spoke to me on an emotional level that I wasn't expecting.  I don't know why I waited as long as I did to listen to it, but perhaps I just needed to hear it then--one of those weird, mystical, magical qualities of music that keeps drawing me to it.  So this week, please enjoy the one and only Kris Kristofferson with his 1976 album Surreal Thing which features one of my favourites of his ("If You Don't Like Hank Williams") as well as two songs ("Golden Idol" and "Killing Time") that had been released as a single in 1967 and were re-recorded for this album.  (SIDE NOTE:  If anyone knows where I can get a CD of this for less than $20, please let me know.  What few copies I've been able to find online are considerably more expensive.)

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that you're the only one that you are screwin' when you put down what you don't understand.

Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill