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

Because I'm taking the next two weeks off from writing these, I thought I'd give you all a bonus film "sermon" this week.  This film is so incredibly wrong on so many levels--to be fair, it is a dark comedy, so it's kind of supposed to be.  It's raunchy and heavily R-rated, but I think it taps into our desire for payback for slights committed against us during our youths, real or merely perceived.  It seemed especially fitting this particular week to revisit this particular movie.

This week, as you've no doubt heard, Faizan Zaki won the Scripps National Spelling Bee (he was the runner-up in last year's Bee).  His winning word was éclaircissement, a fancy word that most of us--myself included--had never heard of that simply means, according to The New York Times, "a clearing up of something obscure."

(FUN FACT:  100 years ago, 11-year-old Frank Neuhauser of Louisville, Kentucky, was crowned the first National Spelling Bee winner.  His winning word was "gladiolus."  Clearly, the words have gotten harder over the last century.)

When I was in junior high school, my goal was to compete in the National Spelling Bee.  After some rather disappointing turns in the sixth and seventh grades, I finally came in first in my school in the eighth grade.  One afternoon, my principal drove me to the school in our county seat to compete against the winners from the other schools in Orange County, Indiana.  Whoever won that competition would go on to the regional competition.

I ended up pulling what I call a "Reverse Dan Quayle."  Many of you may be old enough to remember when, as Vice President of the United States, Quayle visited a classroom in Trenton, New Jersey, and observed an elementary school spelling bee in 1992.  When William Figueroa correctly wrote the word "potato" on the blackboard, V.P. Quayle gently "corrected" him by picking up the chalk and adding an "e" to the end of it.  Sadly, for Quayle, he was still trying to live down the infamous "Murphy Brown" incident (you can look that one up) and this latest gaffe certainly didn't help.

Similarly, in my situation, I was given the word "potatoes," and I spelled it without the "e," which I could have sworn was an acceptable variation in my spelling text book the year before.  However, the Spelling Bee officials didn't agree and I had to hear the dreaded bell of elimination.  Actually, now that I think about it, I committed my error in 1988.  Therefore, I didn't pull a "Reverse Dan Quayle."  He pulled a "Reverse William Allen."  I suppose either way, there's a joke in there about the Indiana public school system, but I'm not going to make it.

Anyway, when I returned to seventh period Study Hall and my fellow students heard that I had lost, I was given a lot of grief for losing to a girl (it was the 1980s when that kind of behaviour was still mildly acceptable).  The truth is, I wasn't upset about losing to a girl at all.  Aside from the fact that my seventh grade spelling text book had apparently lied to me, what really pissed me off was the fact that I lost to a fifth grader.  It was my understanding that fifth graders weren't allowed to compete.  At least in my school it was only open to sixth, seventh, and eighth graders.  I was denied another year of competition for no apparent reason, certainly not a good one, as far as I could tell.  As you may have guessed, I never made it to the national level.  Eh... life goes on.

It's with that bit of personal history and this week's momentous events in our nation's capital that I recommend this week's bonus movie.

In this film, Jason Bateman stars as Guy Trilby, a 40-year-old proofreader who has discovered a loophole in the rules that would allow him to compete in the Quill National Spelling Bee in Los Angeles.  While he comes across as... well, frankly an asshole, especially to his juvenile competitors, he does have his reasons for sabotaging the Bee which, coincidentally, is being nationally televised for the first time.  Even though he goes out of his way to win at all costs, his real target for public humiliation are the adults running the show.  In spite of the fact that this movie is, to quote my late father, "crude, rude, lewd, and socially unacceptable," it does have some rather sweet moments, particularly at the end.

Written by Andrew Dodge, and directed by Bateman (his first theatrical feature as director), the movie debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in September of 2013 and was released in America the following March, a week after being shown at the South By Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin, Texas.  Co-starring Kathryn Hahn, Allison Janney, Ben Falcone, Rohan Chand, and the great Philip Baker Hall, please enjoy Bad Words.

Until I return, 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!

"Ooh, there's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning."

--Jimmy Buffett, "Fruitcakes," 1994

As I said in my album "sermon,"  I went to see this week's movie.  While most people probably went because it looked like a good, suspenseful horror film (and admittedly, I did partly go for that), I went because I enjoy twentieth century period pieces.  I like seeing contemporary actors in period clothes, driving period cars, and looking like they would have looked 90 years ago, or whatever period the film is set in.  Having seen the trailer, I also figured I would be treated to some badass blues music.  I was more than happy not to be wrong about that.

"There are legends of people with the gift of making music so true it can conjure spirits from the past... and the future.  This gift can bring fame and fortune.  But it also can pierce the veil between life and death."

--Wunmi Mosaku as Annie in Sinners, 2025

Set in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1932, Michael B. Jordan plays twins Smoke and Stack (named after Howlin' Wolf's classic song "Smokestack Lightnin'") who have returned to their hometown after spending several years in Chicago to open their own juke joint... in the Jim Crow south... during Prohibition.  In the process, all hell breaks loose.

As I said, it's a horror film and I won't spoil anything on that front in case you haven't seen it.  But I was not prepared to be as moved as I was from a spiritual/musical perspective.  I've loved blues music (as well as Irish folk music) since I was a teenager, but this movie reminded me why film and music are the closest things I get to religion.  I was so moved, it's been a struggle to find the right words to describe just how moved I was. I can't even begin to write more about it other than to say go see it--preferably in a theater.

Co-starring Miles Caton (in his film debut), Jack O'Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller, Li Jun Li, Yao, Hailee Steinfeld, and Delroy Lindo and written and directed by Ryan Coogler, this week I can't help but recommend Sinners.

I'll be taking the next two weeks off from writing these.  Until I return, 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 saw a wonderful movie this past week.  I'll get to that in my film rant.  But one aspect of the movie--and probably not the one that drove it to the top of the box office charts some weeks back--kind of grabbed me even more tightly than it usually does and hasn't loosened up yet.  Truth be told, it grabbed me about 35 years ago and never really let go.  Sometimes, like now, the grip tightens, sometimes it loosens, but it's always there.  Consequently I'm going to pontificate and philosophize about it.  I may even rhapsodize and some may think I'm bloviating.  And I know I've talked about it in past "sermons," but it never hurts to come back to it.

I think it's kind of sad that you don't see a lot of blues music topping the charts these days.  You don't hear it on the radio too much outside of the occasional NPR program or on an independent station.  I realize this is true of most styles of music that don't fit neatly into the "pop," "rock," or "country" genres.  But blues music is special.  Without it, we wouldn't have soul music or R&B (what did you think the "B" stands for, after all?), we wouldn't have rap or hip hop, and we certainly wouldn't have rock and roll.  And I'll be the first person to acknowledge that public tastes change over time, music evolves, new artists come along with their own styles, older artists retire or die (sadly), but we often tend to forget our roots... musically and otherwise.

I discovered the blues in high school.  After geeking out over The Rolling Stones when I was twelve, I started doing geeky things like reading liner notes and finding out what influenced them.  This introduced me to the likes of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.  Throughout high school and college I found myself falling in love with the music of B.B. King, John Lee Hooker (especially John Lee), and anyone who recorded an album for Chicago based Alligator Records.

Like other genres of music, blues has different styles within it--mostly regional.  There's Mississippi Delta blues, which is much more rural and acoustic.  Many people consider that to be more authentic blues since that's essentially where it all started.  During the Great Migration, a lot of artists traveled north and started playing in clubs and juke joints in places like Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit--even Memphis,  although it was in the south--and the sound evolved.  The musicians even started using electric instruments.  (I heard somewhere once that much of what we consider "Chicago blues" is actually "St. Louis blues."  Apparently St. Louis blues musicians would travel to Chicago to make their records because Chicago had better recording studios.  Again, I heard this once when I was in college on a radio program, but I've never heard or read about this anywhere else, so take it with a grain of salt.)

I picked up this week's album shortly after it was released.  I think--and this memory is kind of hazy--I was browsing the music section at Borders (remember Borders?) and I think I saw it on a featured display.  In hindsight, as a blues lover, I'm kind of surprised I wasn't as familar with the artist as I should have been.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I bought it for his backing band more than anything else as I was a huge fan of them.  At any rate, when I played it, I was kind of blown away by it.  It's one of those "transportative" albums (once again, my word, trademark pending).  When I hear it, I find myself on the streets of Bloomington, Indiana, and I feel 22 years old again.  Recorded live at his Chicago club, Buddy Guy's Legends, please enjoy the man himself, Buddy Guy, with G.E. Smith & The Saturday Night Live Band with his/their 1996 release, Live! The Real Deal.

Due to family commitments, I'll be taking the next two weeks off from writing these "sermons."  Until I return, 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!

An interesting phenomenon occurred a couple of weeks ago that I'm still trying to wrap my brain around.  I found myself recalling fond memories that were sparked by an album I had never actually heard, let alone listened to.  Allow me to explain...

As I said last week, I constructed my own soundtrack for the first season of "NCIS: Origins."  The bulk of the songs used in the series (so far) were songs I already had in my CD collection.  There were a few songs that I didn't own--there were a few I didn't even know.  And while the playlist is still technically incomplete (the most egregious absence is Bryan Adams's love theme from the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves), I wanted enough music to fill a CD.  This required buying two more CDs on my part, one of which I actually had on vinyl and the other I should have already had, the latter of which is the beginning of the eventual focus of this week's "sermon."

The season finale of "NCIS: Origins" featured a song that sounded vaguely familiar to me--that is to say the singer's voice sounded familiar although I did not recognize the tune.  I Googled the lyrics whilst watching the program to discover the song was by U2 and titled "All I Want Is You."  It was the closing track to their 1988 album Rattle and Hum, which is an odd album in that roughly a third of the songs are live performances from the tour behind their landmark album The Joshua Tree.

U2 is one of those bands that I've only come to appreciate as an adult.  I first heard The Joshua Tree in the winter of 2001 on a car ride from Cleveland to southern Indiana and thought it was excellent.  In the intervening 24 years, I've bought a few albums here and there and have grown to really like them.  Even if I didn't like their music, I deeply admire Bono for his charity work and his sometimes annoyingly self-righteous insistence on making the world a better place.  (In fact, one of my favourite internet memes--and I hope and pray that this actually happened and wasn't just made up for the internet--says that during a concert in Edinburgh, Bono quieted the crowd and began slowly clapping his hands every few seconds.  He said, "Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies."  From near the front row, a voice in a thick, Scottish accent bellowed, "Then fuckin' stop doin' it, you evil bastard!")  Since I'm a fan of the group and owned a few of their albums, I felt compelled to order Rattle and Hum, figuring that I should have already had it in the first place.  This allowed me to "complete" my soundtrack, which delighted me no end (the only other time I successfully did this was for the 1978 film Coming Home).  I thoroughly enjoyed the album and have listened to it a few times now and "All I Want Is You," has been haunting me--I've awakened most mornings this past week to have it stuck in my head.  It's a beautiful song, but even beautiful songs can wear thin after four consecutive days.  I think I've finally been able to exorcise it from my subconscious, but as Arlo Guthrie once said, "That's not what I came to tell ya' about."

Henrietta (played by Anna Chancellor):  You were even sweet to me, although you thought I was an idiot.

Charles (played by Hugh Grant):  I did not.

Henrietta:  You did!  I thought U2 was a type of submarine.

Charles:  Well in a way you were right.  They're music has a very naval quality.

--from the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral, 1994

While in the process of ordering Rattle and Hum, an offer appeared from the online seller to buy another U2 album for an extra two bucks.  When I saw the album in question, I figured I may as well add it to my cart.  It was not one I had ever heard before, but when I saw the cover art, I immediately thought of my time in Cleveland.  When I worked for Barnes & Noble in Richmond Heights, I became quite good friends with the assistant manager.  I won't lie--I even had a bit of a crush on her.  Not that she's likely to read this, but to protect her identity just in case, let's call her Marie.  Anyway, Marie was a huge U2 fan and was super excited when this album was released in October of 2000.  I have a vague recollection of her buying it as soon as we opened the store that morning.  Since I wasn't really a U2 fan at that time, ordinarily I wouldn't have given it much thought but, as I said, I did have a bit of a crush on her, so I paid it--and her--a little more attention.  Ordinarily, I would say that she didn't seem to be able to shut up about it but, as I said, I did have a bit of a crush on her, so I found this trait more endearing than annoying.  Besides, I can't really judge, given the fact that I have similar reactions to new albums by The Stones, Bruce Springsteen, and Florence + The Machine.  (Did I mention I had a bit of a crush on her?)

It was in remembrance of Marie that I spent the extra two dollars on my order--it didn't even change my shipping charge.  I quite enjoyed the album.  One or two songs really kind of hit me on a gut level.  "Kite," in particular, is one of those songs that wound up meaning something to me that I'm sure was quite different from what Bono and The Edge intended when they wrote those lyrics.  The fact that I can't even begin to describe coherently what it means to me and that it might mean something completely different to someone else--and who even knows what it means to Marie?--is a sign of great songwriting.

So this week, in honour of schoolboy crushes from long ago and new musical discoveries that should have been unearthed way back when, please enjoy U2 with their release from (GASP) 25 years ago, All That You Can't Leave Behind.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please, as always, 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!

Sometimes I spend a lot of time contemplating which albums and films I want to submit for these weekly "sermons."  I haven't even finished writing the rants for this week yet and I'm already plotting next week.  Even when the idea comes to me quickly (I actually knew last week what album I wanted to share with you all this week), it's usually a very time-consuming process to figure out what I want to say about it and how exactly to do so.  This is one of those rare occasions where my film choice was actually influenced by my album selection.  And it's not that the two are related in any way, shape, or form.  But my memories of the two are interconnected.

In my album "sermon," I mentioned a woman that I'm calling Marie.  She was the assistant manager at Barnes & Noble in the Cleveland suburb of Richmond Heights where I had recently been hired as the manager of the music department.  We bonded over a mutual love of... many things, actually, and became good friends.  Since I lived somewhat near the store and didn't have a car at the time, she even offered to pick me up for our Monday morning manager meetings so I wouldn't have to walk--particularly during what can be brutal Cleveland winters.  As I stated, I developed something of a crush on her which, believe it or not, is a fairly unusual occurrence for me.  I'm one of those odd people for whom finding someone attractive and being attracted to someone are two completely different situations.  I can honestly say that if I really sat down and thought about it, I can count the number of women I've been attracted to in my life on one hand.  (For the purposes of this rant, I won't even discuss the idea of "falling in love," which is an entirely different can of worms.)

I know you're all (however few of you are actually reading this) now wondering, what ever happened with Marie?  Honestly, nothing.  I never told her that I had a crush on her.  I have a hunch that she was smart enough to figure it out on her own, but I probably should have said something.  No matter how foolish that sounds in hindsight, I did have my reasons in the moment--most notably the fact that she was technically my supervisor and the company kind of frowned on romantic relationships in those situations.  I've often reassured myself that if either one of us worked elsewhere and/or I hadn't made plans to eventually move back to Indiana, I would have asked her out.  At least that's what I like to tell myself so that I feel less like a loser, but who knows if that's actually true?  In spite of how sad that might sound, I don't regret anything.  I have a lot of fond memories that make me smile when I think of her, and even though U2's music has been making me think of her even more over the last few weeks than I normally do, I don't think I would have done anything differently, for better or worse.

One of the things we bonded over was John Cusack movies.  A week or two before I moved back to southern Indiana, I did ask her if she wanted to go see his latest film with me, which she seemed happy to do.  I've often said it was the closest thing I had to a date in the entire year I lived in the 440 area code.  I know I had a good time and I hope she did as well.  I particularly enjoyed the fact that she laughed--out loud--at some of the dirtier jokes in the movie, which, like her love of U2, I found rather endearing.  She did have a great laugh (I assume she still does).  Looking back on it now, it's not a great movie.  It's not bad--I might even call it pretty good.  But, like so many pieces of music, the unrelated sentimental feelings that it evokes make up for any deficiencies in the film itself.  And every time I find myself watching this film, I think of that Friday summer afternoon with Marie and smile.

In the movie, Eddie Harris (Cusack) is an actor who's had a nervous breakdown after his breakup with frequent co-star Gwen Harrison (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who has since taken up with another actor named Hector (Hank Azaria speaking with a humourously bad Thpanish acthent).  Before they broke up, they did complete one final movie.  The studio is desperate for a hit and studio publicist extraordinaire Lee Phillips (Billy Crystal), with a tremendous amount of help from Gwen's sister Kiki (Julia Roberts), has to convince both of them to show up for the press junket.  Ultimately you come away from it liking the characters you're supposed to like and not liking the characters you're not supposed to like.  I tend to look at it as an indictment of Hollywood phoniness.  Gwen is incredibly vapid and self-centered (as is Hector come to think of it).  Kiki tries hard not to be, but has taken on the role of her sister's personal assistant, so she frequently finds herself having to fake a lot of things.  The person I liked the most, however, was the character of Lee.  As a publicist, he knows his job is completely phony.  He's a salesman.  His job is to sell people on this upcoming movie.  It's because of that knowledge, that he can play that phoniness with a certain level of depth, which makes him much more likeable.  As an actor, I would imagine that would be a difficult part to play, but Crystal did it beautifully.

Co-written by Crystal with Peter Tolan and directed by Joe Roth, the film co-stars Stanley Tucci, Alan Arkin, Seth Green, and Christopher Walken as the eccentric director of Eddie's and Gwen's as yet unreleased movie (this was the film where I learned that Walken can tap dance.  #WhoKnew?)  If you look carefully, you can even see Rainn Wilson in an early pre-"Office" role as well as small appearances by frequent Cusack collaborator Steve Pink as well as Cusack's sister Ann in an uncredited role (I assume Joan wasn't available for this one).  From 2001, please enjoy America's Sweethearts.

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!

I think--I hope--that if there's one thing you can deduce about me as a person from reading these weekly "sermons" is how important film and music are in my life.  I get my love and appreciation of both primarily from my late father.  Growing up, he exposed me to all sorts of different music.  He did the same with movies.  I've loved film since he took me to see Star Wars (or as it's known today, Episode IV: A New Hope) in 1977.  I was three years old and you can only imagine what an impact that film had on a kid that age.  It's fascinating to me that it still has that effect on kids nearly 50 years later.

Throughout my youth, he would take me to movies when Heather would have a sleepover.  If there was something that everybody wanted to see, we would all go as a family.  When we finally got a VCR, he would pick up tapes of some of his favourite movies of his youth and introduce those to me as well.  As I've said in past rants, my favourite movie of all time is a tie between Dr. Strangelove and Casablanca--both of which are older than me, both of which he showed me when I was in college.

When DVDs were introduced, we were both quite taken with the format--particularly with all the behind-the-scenes "bonus features."  We would actually exchange films and later compare notes.  "What did you think of the commentary on Casablanca?"  "I loved Ebert's commentary, but I thought Rudy Behlmer's was kind of dry.  In fact, I didn't even finish listening to it.  It was kind of disappointing, because he seemed so animated in the documentary features."  What can I say?  Yes, I'm a dork.  So was Dad, but he was a lot cooler about it than I am.

If I feel compelled to buy a blu-ray disc of a movie that I already have in DVD, by and large, I'll give away the DVD to a good home.  There are a few exceptions--if the blu-ray has fewer bonus features than the DVD (yes, I'm looking at you, Pretty in Pink!  What the hell?), or if the soundtrack might be different (such as Love Actually).  But I've also noticed that I tend to hold on to certain titles just because they were among my favourites growing up.  In all of these cases, I even still have them on VHS because, being the sentimentalist I am, seeing those tapes remind me of certain times in my life and how those films played into it.  In some cases, those tapes were given to me as gifts--in one particular case a gesture that moved me almost to tears.

This past week, for better or worse, I bought all of the James Bond movies in blu-ray--I justified it by convincing myself that it was actually a bargain because they were second-hand and, therefore, cheaper.  I have a lot of fond memories of the series, mostly because it was something I shared with Dad.  We saw quite a few of those films together in theaters when they were first issued.  Back in the day, ABC used to air them in prime time and we had taped many of them from those broadcasts (we even managed to edit out the commercials).  In the mid-1990s, after Pierce Brosnan took over the role, there was a sudden resurgence in popularity for the franchise.  During that time I managed to acquire widescreen VHS copies of all of the films--at least the ones that had been done up to that time.  I still have those tapes--in the case of the Connery films, once again, gift... unexpected... moved... near tears.  In 2006, when Daniel Craig started playing Bond, the films were re-issued again in four box sets, each containing five movies, digitally remastered in 2-disc special editions.  In a review I wrote for a local publication at the time, I said that it was worth it just to hear Auric Goldfinger say, "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!" in Dolby DTS 5.1 stereo surround sound.

When No Time To Die was released in 2021 (a year and a half late--thanks, Covid!), it was kind of hard to watch because it was the first Bond film that I couldn't talk to Dad about.  In fact, that's the one film in the series I've watched the least--although to be fair, it's not as old and does have a running time of 2 hours and 43 minutes.  And when I think of Bond, I tend to think of my Dad because we spent so much time together watching those movies.  In fact, after he died, it took me awhile to be able to bring myself to watch one again.

I suspect that on a subconscious level, I bought that blu-ray set this week because Wednesday was the anniversary of his passing.  After I realized that fact, I determined that the best way to remember him this week was to build some Lego insects (a long story--hopefully I'll have pictures up on Facebook soon) and watch what he once told me was his favourite 007 thriller.  I even indulged in a glass of really good Scotch.

Dad often told a story of going to see this film as a teenager.  He and a friend of his stayed in the theater, hiding behind their seats, staying for a couple more showings.  Granted, they were also horny teenage boys and Dad admits they primarily watched it repeatedly for the belly dancing scene in the gypsy camp.

Originally released in 1963, this was the second film in the franchise starring Sir Sean Connery as the world's least secret secret agent.  It was also the first film where everything that we love about Bond films started to come together.  It was the first to have a pre-credit sequence, the first to feature Desmond Llewelyn as MI6's quartermaster, Major Boothroyd, also known as "Q" (who would continue to play the role for the next 36 years until his death in 1999), and the first to feature Q's "gadgets," which would often save 007's life (I would love to have that briefcase).  It was also the first to feature a score by composer John Barry, who went on to write the scores for 10 more Bond films--more than any other composer.  I've often said that those scores frequently served as another character in those films, especially during the 1960s.

Written by Richard Maibaum and Johanna Harwood and based on the novel by Ian Fleming, the film stars Robert Shaw, Daniela Bianchi, Lotte Lenya, Pedro Armendáriz (in what would be his last film), and Walter Gotell (who would later go on to frequently play General Gogol during the Roger Moore era).  Produced by the team of Harry Saltzman and Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli and directed by Terence Young, this week, I highly recommend From Russia With Love.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that James Bond will return.

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 this originally on Facebook (back in the day before I posted all of these here) on 30 September, 2023.  Given the topic of the Album of the Week I just posted for 17 May, 2025, I thought it seemed apropos to revisit this one.  (By the way, I'm still looking for that second volume of the "Rockford" TV movies.)  Enjoy...

 

 

One of my "guilty pleasures," for lack of a better term (although, to be honest with you, I don't feel too guilty about it), are police procedural/mystery television programs. I have no doubt that this is my mother's influence on me. When I was a kid we used to watch shows like "Remington Steele" and "Murder, She Wrote" together. As an adult, it was "Grantchester" and "Blue Bloods." After she died, I bought the boxed sets of the original "Magnum, P.I." and "The Rockford Files"--two of her favourites--and have spent a number of evenings binge watching multiple episodes. They're highly enjoyable--what I call "TV comfort food." And you know what? I'm even comfortable enough in my heterosexuality to admit that I have a bit of a man crush on James Garner.

(NOTE: Between 1994 and 1999, James Garner reprised the role of Jim Rockford in eight made-for-TV movies. If anyone knows where I can find a DVD of the second volume of those programs, please let me know. I have Volume 1, but I'm having no luck finding Volume 2. Every website I check seems to be out of stock. Or if anyone has a copy lying around that they don't want anymore, I'm happy to take it off your hands.)

 

One of our favourites was (and, in my case, still is) the long-running CBS drama "NCIS." I was kind of saddened to learn of the death this past week of actor David McCallum who played my favourite character on the show, Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard, NCIS's lovably eccentric medical examiner. Whenever the actors' strike is finally resolved and the show can commence its 21st season, there will be a noticeable absence that even Dr. Jimmy Palmer himself would admit that he can't fill. (In researching this week's rant, I was surprised to discover McCallum actually attended medical examiner's conventions and became an expert in forensics to the point where show producer Donald P. Bellisario considered making him a technical adviser.)

 

In all the tributes and media stories about him over the last week, everyone has talked about his acting career going back to British television in the 1950s. After some notable performances in a few big films, particularly 1963's "The Great Escape" (which, oddly enough, also starred James Garner) and 1964's "The Greatest Story Every Told," in which he played Judas Iscariot, he was cast as Russian agent Illya Kuryakin who was partnered with American agent Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughan) in the series "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." which ran from 1964 to 1968. The show made him something of a sex symbol and garnered him two of the three Emmy nominations he would achieve in his career. In the 35 years between "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." and "NCIS" (and what are the odds that his two biggest roles would have abbreviated government agencies in their titles?), he had a fairly solid acting career, but never achieved the level of fame that he got either in the 1960s or in the last two decades. Perhaps his biggest role during that time was a British sci-fi series called "Sapphire & Steel" in which he starred with Joanna Lumley from 1979 to 1982.

 

But none of the stories I've read about McCallum this week have touched on his other career as a musician. McCallum actually came from a musical family. His mother, Dorothy Dorman, was a concert cellist for the London Philharmonic Orchestra. His father, David McCallum Sr., was the principal first violinist for the Royal Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, and the Scottish National Orchestras. David McCallum (the Younger) won a scholarship to University College School in Hampstead, London, where he studied music and played the oboe. It was there that he first became involved in acting. He left school when he was 18 and, after a National Service stint in the British Army, he began attending the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. The rest, as they say, is history.

 

But he never completely left his musical roots.  While starring in "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," he released four albums with producer David Axelrod for Capitol Records in 1966 and 1967. Unlike a lot of actors who ventured into music at that time, McCallum did not sing on any of them. The songs on the albums were mostly instrumental versions of popular songs of the day that McCallum conducted. He even wrote a couple of original pieces that were featured on the albums. Perhaps the most well-known piece is one Axelrod composed called "The Edge" which was sampled by Dr. Dre on his song "The Next Episode" and was also featured in the video game "Grand Theft Auto IV." I first heard the song on the soundtrack to Edgar Wright's 2017 film "Baby Driver." This was where I discovered, much to my surprise, that McCallum had also had a musical career. In fact, I had to do some research to make sure it wasn't a different David McCallum. I really loved the piece and found that like so many of my favourite pieces of music, it's probably best appreciated behind the wheel of a car with a manual transmission.

 

So it's with that in mind, since no one else is doing it, that I'm choosing to focus on the musical side of David McCallum's career this week. Featuring the aforementioned track "The Edge," please enjoy his second album from 1967, "Music: A Bit More of Me."

 

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!

In the past, I've alluded to the fact that I grew up on and still enjoy certain police procedural/mystery/detective programs--one of my mother's lasting influences on me.  When the fall TV season starts, I try to not watch too many new shows just because I already watch too much and don't want to get hooked on anything new.  Each season, however, there's usually one program that looks intriguing enough to warrant my attention.  This past year, it was a spinoff of a long-running, beloved franchise.  Actually, it was a prequel.

I was excited by the concept of "NCIS: Origins" for a number of reasons.  First of all, it features the return of one Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the legendary NCIS special agent who led a team of other agents for nearly 20 seasons of the flagship "NCIS" program.  However, here we see Gibbs at the start of his career as he joins what's then known as NIS.  He's just come back from Desert Storm after nearly getting blown up in Iraq after finding out his wife and daughter had been murdered by a Mexican drug cartel leader.  Longtime fans of "NCIS" know this part of Gibbs's story, but now we get to see it played out.  Because the show is set in 1991, obviously Gibbs is played by a younger actor (Austin Stowell), but we still get to hear Mark Harmon narrate his past in a voiceover.

Given the fact that it is not just a period piece, but a period in which I lived and remember vividly, it's kind of humourous to see pieces of that time that are now antiquated, especially from a technological perspective.  In the first episode, we get to see the man who would become Gibbs's boss receive a page (and yes, I'm referring to Mike Franks, played here by Kyle Schmid).  At which point he pulls over his car at the nearest pay phone and calls his office to respond.  (If you're under the age of 25, feel free to Google the term "pay phone.")

What's also fun for those of us who have been watching the original "NCIS" for more than two decades, is that we get to once again enjoy beloved characters (albeit much younger) who passed away during the course of the original series, specifically Gibbs's father, Jackson, and of course Franks.  At one point we even get to meet a much younger Tobias Fornell, who I hope we'll get to see more of next season.  At some point, I'm really hoping we'll get to see a younger "Ducky" Mallard.

The one thing that makes this particular "NCIS" series special for me is its use of music.  And I'm not saying music hasn't had a place in the other series, but it was more of a special occasion type of thing--like the use of Warren Zevon's "Keep Me In Your Heart" during Jackson's funeral in 2014.  But in "Origins," it's practically another character.  I assume part of this is due to the "period piece" nature of the show--after all, we have to be reminded that it's 1991 somehow.  And while it would obviously be a mistake to use songs that were recorded later, the show's writers and producers can get away with using songs that were recorded before 1991.  Not only does the music provide background ambience, but it also becomes part of the story.  For example, in one episode we find out that not only was Officer Mary Jo Sullivan married (at least on paper), but her ex was a big fan of Ray Charles.  What a great excuse to feature "Georgia On My Mind" and "Hit the Road Jack" in your program!

I actually started putting together a playlist of some of these classic songs from the show--everything from Bob Dylan to Mötley Crüe, from Carly Simon to U2 (hey, that rhymes!).  By the end of the season, I actually had enough songs put together to fill an entire CD.  I don't know if they ever intend to release a soundtrack album--and they should--but I've already assembled my own just based on what I already had in my music collection.  It's been great hearing some of these songs again.  Some I hadn't heard in a long time.  Some I didn't really know, but I knew and liked the artist, so that gave me an excuse to track down the original album and fall in love with something new--or, at the very least, new to me (more on this next week).  I also have to say that (spoiler alert!) I never would have guessed Mike Franks was a Bangles fan.  He always seemed like more of a Johnny Cash kind of guy to me--not that I'm judging, since I'm a fan of both.

I even revisited this week's album which I hadn't listened to in its entirety in awhile.  It's featured (cover art and all) in an episode titled "Blue Bayou," in which Gibbs befriends his landlady.  They listen to the album on her portable turntable while assembling jigsaw puzzles.  And even though we only hear one song from the album during the episode, the album itself is treated almost as a pseudo-maguffin.

I'm often amazed by how frequently I have to remind myself what a great singer Linda Ronstadt was.  What has always fascinated me is how she interprets and performs a song.  Unlike so many of her contemporaries, as far as I know, she didn't write any of her own songs.  Instead she covered--and had some pretty big hits with--other people's material.  On this week's album, she covered the likes of Buddy Holly, Warren Zevon (twice), and Roy Orbison, whose song lent its title to that particular episode of "Origins." *  Originally released in 1977, the album climbed to the top of Billboard's Pop AND Country Album charts.  Featuring harmony vocals from Dolly Parton on "I Will Never Marry," please enjoy the great Linda Ronstadt with Simple Dreams.

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

* GEEK NOTE:  On this album, Ronstadt also covers "Tumbling Dice" by my beloved Rolling Stones, written (of course) by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.  The slide guitar solo was performed by the great Waddy Wachtel, who actually played on most of the album.  Wachtel would later go on to play in Richards's solo band, The X-Pensive Winos.  SUPER GEEK NOTE:  Wachtel also played guitar for Warren Zevon during the time this album was released.  As stated, Ronstadt covered two of his songs on this album.  Wachtel played not only on those covers, but on the original recordings of both songs as well.

 

 

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

The only word I can think of to describe this week's film is "beautiful."  Virtually every frame of the movie looks like it could hang in an art museum.  When I look at it, I just want to step into it and be in that space.  I realize this is a trait of all of the films made by this particular director (even the animated ones), but, for some reason, this is my favourite of his and the one I've watched the most.  In fact, I think I'll watch it again after I finish writing this.

When I first saw the trailer for the film, I could tell just by the camera movements that Wes Anderson directed it.  His films all seem to have a certain stylized look about them.  It's that look that always seems to draw me into his films.  He always seems to combine that look with a clever script--which he also writes or co-writes--and great actors.  I would love nothing more than to be an extra in one of his movies.

W.C. Fields allegedly said, "Never work with children or animals."  Anderson, however, seems to be quite good at working with both, particularly in this film.  Set in September of 1965, the story focuses on Sam Shakusky and Suzy Bishop (played by Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward respectively--both making their acting debuts at the age of 12).  Sam is an orphan who has difficulty relating to those around him and has escaped from his scout camp to run away with Suzy who also has difficulty relating to those around her, particularly her attorney parents (Frances McDormand and Bill Murray).  Using Sam's wilderness survival skills that he learned as a Khaki Scout, the two escape to a small cove on the far end of the island they inhabit, all the while pursued by the adults in their lives including the island's lone police officer (Bruce Willis) and Sam's Scoutmaster (Edward Norton).

Like a lot of Anderson's films, it's easy to forget that the locations aren't real--they're more of an alternate universe version of some place we know to be real--in this case an island just off the east coast of the United States (the film was actually shot in Rhode Island which helped contribute to the film's overall appearance).  There is no Island of New Penzance or St. Jack Wood.  There is no U.S. Department of Inclement Weather or Khaki Scouts of North America.  But watching this movie kind of makes me wish these things did exist.  The one thing that is real is the emotional connections between the characters.  Anderson's films often remind us of how good it can feel to be in love.  This week's film also reminds us of how good it can feel to be young and in love.

Released in 2012, co-written with Roman Coppola (the two got an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay), and co-starring Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, and Bob Balaban, this movie also has a great soundtrack which made me fall in love with the music of Françoise Hardy and Hank Williams.  This week, from the bottom of my heart, I recommend Moonrise Kingdom.

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!

As I write this, I'm kind of at a loss.  As I write this, I don't know what album to present this week.  I have lots of ideas--lots of albums out there that I'm very fond of for many different reasons, but I don't know what to say about them other than, "Here's an album I like.  Hope you like it too."  And I realize that that was the general idea behind these weekly recommendations, but--especially since I've started doing this as a blog post--I feel like it needs something more.  Maybe a few words about why I like it, how I stumbled upon it, what it means to me.  But nothing is coming to me.  I'm not really in the headspace for it, I guess.  I'm also at work which is a source of constant interruption.  And I realize that since I'm being paid to be here that that should be my priority--and it is--I just wish it would stop derailing my train of thought.

I keep hoping that as I continue writing, something will jump out at me.  I'm thinking back to my youth, when I first discovered and fell in love with rock music.  I started going through my parents' record collection looking for something new (or at least new to me) to listen to because I hadn't yet developed my own music collection.

Now I've got something...

This week's album is a bit on the obscure side.  In fact, it's the only album released by this particular group and, arguably, a relic of another time--which may be why I'm drawn to it in the first place.  I first found it in my parents' collection, strangely enough, not when I was in high school, but sometime after I graduated college.  Based on the record label (Elektra Records), producer (Paul A. Rothchild), the way the band's name was written on the front cover, as well as the band's wardrobe (the gentleman front and center appears to have been ejected from the set of a Robin Hood movie), I deduced that it was a psychedelic rock album from the mid to late 1960s.  Having a weakness for that sort of thing, I put it on the turntable and found, much to my delight, that my suspicions were correct.  Naturally, I was quite taken with it and listened to it quite a few times.  I was super excited some years later to find that, in spite of its relative obscurity, it had been released on CD, so of course I bought it immediately since, at that time, I no longer had access to a turntable.  It's interesting to me how it's not an album I play much, but when I do, I really enjoy it.  It always reminds me of that really weird but enjoyable time in my life when I first moved out of my parents' house and was officially "on my own."

Even though this was the group's only album, many members became known for other things later on.  Dallas Taylor would go on to become the drummer for Crosby, Stills & Nash, as well as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and many of Stephen Stills solo projects.  Doug Lubahn sat in as a session bassist on The Doors' second album.  (The Doors also recorded for Elektra Records and were produced by Rothchild.)  After declining an offer to become their full-time bassist, he did actually play on many tracks for their next two albums.  Lead singer Cliff De Young turned to acting where he amassed over 130 film and television credits including The Hunger (1983) and Glory (1989).

Originally released in 1967, the album set itself apart by featuring two drummers, Dallas Taylor and Michael Ney, playing together.  It only reached #126 on the album chart, but the group enjoyed some moderate national success touring alongside other acts of the day, including Moby Grape, Canned Heat, and The Doors.  After a couple of personnel shake-ups, the group disbanded by 1968.  While definitely a product of its time, I still find the music enjoyable.   Allegedly taking their name from The Tibetan Book of the Dead (as well as a rather potent form of LSD), this week please enjoy Clear Light with their self-titled debut (and only) album.

It should be noted that the YouTube link does include the bonus track "She's Ready To Be Free" at the end.  This song was the B-side to their single "Black Roses" and was not on the original album, however it was included in the CD release (although why they put it in the middle of the album, I'll never know).

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!

Not to brag, but I'm the guy who gets recruited for trivia teams as a ringer, especially if music and film are the main topics.  The trivia team for which I regularly play is more of a general knowledge kind of thing.  Every time one of the questions is categorized as "Sports," everyone at our table simultaneously and sarcastically utters, "Yay, sports."  It is our weak spot both collectively as a group, as well as for me personally.  I was always the kid chosen last for whatever we were doing in PE class because I have no discernible athletic ability or understanding of the rules of many of the games.  When I was a young boy, I genuinely thought the whole point of football was to run and fall down because that's what I saw football players do on television.  In spite of the fact that I do actually admire people with finely tuned athletic abilities, this developed into a genuine apathy toward sports that continues to this day, my fondness for baseball notwithstanding (for more on this, please see this week's Album of the Week "sermon").

The interesting thing to me is that while I'm not really a sports fan, I do love sports movies.  I don't know how this works exactly.  The only thing I can figure is that the event itself is usually reserved for the last third (maybe even the last quarter) of the film with the rest of the movie devoted to the trials and tribulations of how the protagonists of the film got to the championship game, match, or whatever.  As a result, we don't have to watch the whole sporting event which, let's be honest, can drag on an excessively long time--especially if it's aired on CBS on a Sunday evening.  (Seriously?  The football season finally ends and now "60 Minutes" has to be delayed because of friggin' GOLF?  Note to CBS--we have a TV format for this sort of thing that won't delay your prime time programming.  It's called ESPN!  Look into it!)  As I said a few months ago, I'm particularly fond of boxing movies--and I like boxing about as much as I like basketball (which isn't much).  I wrote, "I don't think you could pay me to watch an actual boxing match--yet I'll watch Rocky at the drop of a hat."

Last week was the NFL draft.  I didn't watch any of it.  Not because the NFL has no concept of time (it should not take 30 minutes to play the last 60 seconds of a game!), or that I dread each upcoming season because the NFL has no concept of time.  I didn't watch any of it because I honestly don't care.  They run, they fall down--I don't understand the hype.  In lieu of following the draft, when I heard that it was going on, I decided to watch this week's movie instead.  Because, unlike the real draft, a movie about it at least makes the subject interesting for a guy like me.

In the film, Kevin Costner stars as Sonny Weaver Jr., the General Manager of the Cleveland Browns.  Trying to get out of the shadow of his highly revered and recently deceased father, Sonny wants to build a championship team of his own.  Unfortunately, his methods of putting the team together and getting the players he wants don't always sit well with Browns fans or his crew, most notably his Head Coach (played by Denis Leary) and team owner (played by Frank Langella) who essentially threatens to fire him.  Adding to the tension is the fact that his secret girlfriend who works in his office (Jennifer Garner) just told him she's pregnant. *

Included in the cast are Chadwick Boseman as a hopeful draft pick, the great Ellen Burstyn as Sonny's mother, Sean Combs as a rather unctuous sports agent (don't worry--you won't like him in this film any more than you probably like him in real life), and small parts and cameos by Terry Crews, Sam Elliott, and a host of NFL players, coaches, and broadcast announcers as themselves.  Written by Scott Rothman and Rajiv Joseph and directed by the late, great Ivan Reitman (this was the last feature film he directed), this week, I highly recommend 2014's Draft Day.  I find it interesting that 1) this film could make the NFL draft seem exciting to me and 2) even though this film was not a major hit at the box office, as of last month, it apparently is one of the top trending movies on Netflix.

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

* SPECIAL NOTE:  You can tell this film is a work of fiction because it centers on the idea of the CLEVELAND BROWNS building a championship team.

 

 

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

This week's sermons are about a topic that really isn't that near and dear to my heart--at least not as near and dear as it is to many people, especially men.  But there are still elements of it that I appreciate, even love, and this is the time of year to do so.  As I've often said, I'm not really a sports fan, however, since my mid 20s, I have developed a love for the game of baseball.  I have a team in each league that I root for each year (I even got to see them play each other in the 2016 World Series), but I don't follow it obsessively.  In fact, I don't really follow it at all until after the All-Star break, which is why I think it's too early to get excited over the fact that the Chicago Cubs are currently leading in the National League Central Division.  But I still get excited when spring finally rolls around and the new season begins.

 

 

It's kind of a circuitous route to this week's album, so please bear with me...

When I was about 10 years old, my mother--the town librarian--brought home some cassette tapes of old radio broadcasts from the 1930s and 1940s, thinking that her son would enjoy them.  She was right.  I immediately fell in love with old programs like "The Lone Ranger" and his great-nephew "The Green Hornet"--and, no, I'm not making up that familial factoid.  These tapes were also responsible, at least in part, for fostering in me a love of comedy.  There were two tapes that Mom brought home that entertained me so much, I'm surprised I didn't wear them out.  The first was a broadcast of (Stan) Laurel and (Oliver) Hardy, specifically one in which Stan was getting married.  ("My name?  Laurel.  They call me Stanley for short.")  The other tape was a broadcast of (William "Bud") Abbott and (Lou) Costello that aired on 17 April, 1947, in which Costello was invited to play for the New York Yankees temporarily, filling in for Joe DiMaggio who was on the DL.  (You can hear the complete broadcast at: https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Abbott_Costello_Singles/AbbottAndCostello47-04-17CostelloIsInvitedToJoinTheYankees.mp3.)

The program featured a performance of their most well-known routine "Who's On First?"  I laughed myself senseless and listened to it so many times, I committed not just that routine, but the entire broadcast to memory--in fact, listening to it again, I still remembered many of the jokes, actress Marilyn Maxwell singing "Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?", and even the ads for Camel cigarettes ("Camels suit my T-Zone to a T.")

I was so taken with "Who's On First?" that my dad suggested that we perform it together during "talent night" at our upcoming church retreat.  So I typed up a script and we rehearsed it diligently.  We had it down.  At the last minute, Dad had to work and was not able to attend the retreat.  However, my sister Heather had been watching us rehearse and absorbed what we were doing.  Knowing my love of entertaining an audience, she offered to fill in for Dad.

Needless to say, we were a hit.  We were asked to do it at church retreats many times over the next few years.  We eventually retired it just because our specific audience had seen it so many times that they no longer laughed, even though they requested that we do it.  We didn't perform it again for at least 20 years until our aunt asked us to reprise it for a fundraising dinner at a minor league ballpark.  I was surprised at how easily it came back to us.  We were asked to do it one more time, after which we preemptively retired it again, just to keep it from getting stale, especially for us.

I've been thinking about this a lot because next month, the Paoli Mennonite Fellowship (PMF)--the church in which we grew up--is celebrating its 50th anniversary.  (I feel so old--it seems like just yesterday, they celebrated their 25th!)  Heather and I have been asked to perform "Who's On First?" again.  We've agreed to do it and even though we now live 2,000 miles away from each other, we've been working hard on re-memorizing it (right, Sis?).

If you're not familiar with the routine, I highly recommend doing so (preferrably by Abbott and Costello, not Allen and Freeling).  They performed it many times during their career going back as early as 1937.  While they seldom performed it exactly the same way more than once, many consider their finest performance to be in their 1945 film, The Naughty Nineties.  Decades after both Abbott and Costello passed away, "Who's On First?" still endures.  In 1999, Time magazine named it the greatest comedy sketch of the twentieth century.  It was adapted into a board game in the 1970s and a childrens book in 2013.  And in spite of the fact that neither Abbott nor Costello was professionally involved in Major League Baseball in any capacity, a gold record of "Who's On First?" was placed in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, and a video of the routine from The Naughty Nineties plays continuously.  It's this little tidbit that inspired my selection of this week's album.

Being selected for the Baseball Hall of Fame is an impressive feat.  But I truly believe it's an even more impressive feat to be honoured by the Hall of Fame if, like Abbott and Costello, you were not involved in the sport.  In fact, off the top of my head, I can only think of one other person who has done this--and please feel free to let me know if there are others I don't know about.  In 2010, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of perhaps his best known (solo) song, rock and roll legend John Fogerty was honoured by the Baseball Hall of Fame for the title track to his 1985 album Centerfield.  During the ceremony, Fogerty even performed the song with a guitar shaped like a baseball bat, which he said only plays one song.

The other historical significance of this album is that it opens with his late-1984 single "The Old Man Down the Road," for which he was sued by his former label which claimed that it sounded too much like the Creedence Clearwater Revival song "Run Through the Jungle," which he wrote and sang fifteen years earlier, but which the label owned the rights to.  To put it succinctly, Fogerty was accused of plagiarizing himself.  In 1988, a six-person jury said he didn't.

Like any album by a really talented artist that yields a massive hit song, there are quite a few other songs on the album as well--many of them as good as, possibly even better, than the big hit (including "The Old Man Down the Road").  So, in spite of where this rant started out, I proudly submit the album that feels like it can only be played in the spring, this year celebrating its 40th anniversary (my, how time flies!) John Fogerty's Centerfield.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbiours, 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 Reverned Will the Thrill