The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Film of the Week (One From the Vault!)
As I said in my album rant, I decided to take one more week off from writing these weekly missives. But if you look forward to reading them each week, I didn't want to just leave you empty-handed, so I decided to share a couple of things I wrote that were originally just posted to Facebook--before they regularly deleted them for no apparent reason. What follows was written on 9 March, 2024. Enjoy!
The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Film of the Week!
I have a confession to make--I don't like the sound of my own voice. I don't mind it if I'm just conversing with someone (or myself), but when I hear a recording of it, I think to myself, "Wow! That does not sound remotely good!" I'm convinced that when I'm actually speaking, I'm hearing it from within myself and there's an acoustic difference between my body and whatever audio system is allowing me to hear a playback of my voice. Regardless of the science behind it, people constantly tell me how much they like my voice. Lots of people have told me I should be in radio--someone even once told me I should be a minister! And while I may not like the sound of my voice, I've always seemed to like using it. I've never particularly had a problem with public speaking. In fact, a perverse part of me really enjoys doing it, even if I find the results highly questionable at best. My logic is that so many people have complimented me on my voice that they must know something I don't. And since I enjoy doing it anyway, why not just roll with it?
I started making periodic announcements over the PA system at Barnes & Noble some twenty-plus years ago to promote various things within the store--even though I'll never receive credit for it, I like to think I was the one who pioneered it within the company. I worked hard to make my announcements as entertaining as they were informative--sometimes there was even poetry. I especially had a lot of fun with the closing announcement(s). Eventually I wound up helping out periodically at a local volunteer radio station (WFHB at 93.1 on the FM dial, if you happen to be in Bloomington). When the station manager found out I worked for Barnes & Noble, he said, "Are you the person who does all the funny announcements?" Apparently I had developed a reputation within the community.
So I've just kept doing it where and when I can. A little over a decade ago, I offered my services as an announcer to the newly-formed roller derby team (GO, SOUTH BEND ROLLER GIRLS!). They were very accepting of me and seemed to enjoy the personalized introductions I wrote for each of them. One skater in particular once remarked to me that she really enjoyed hearing me announce when she was the lead jammer during the bouts. Sadly, I haven't done that since before the pandemic, and every time they've asked me since, it was always at the last minute and I was already scheduled to work my "real job" that day. Hopefully I can do that again soon.
A profound moment for me happened in 2008 when Wolfman Jack came to me in a dream and said he thought I did a good job with the overhead announcements at B&N. I was quite touched by that statement as he's always been one of my idols. I didn't even know he'd been in the store, let alone heard my blathering into the store's PA system. It was only after I woke up that I remembered he had died in 1995... and I still have no idea why we were in my high school gym. I've frequently said that my dream job is a radio DJ--I always thought it would be particularly fun to work late at night playing music for insomniacs and other people working the graveyard shift. And if I were ever fortunate enough to have that job, I would probably try to be a more subdued version of the Wolfman.
Some of my favourite characters in films have been radio disc jockeys and I've frequently imagined myself doing their job. From Robin Williams's Oscar-nominated portrayal of real-life Air Force DJ Adrian Cronauer in Good Morning, Vietnam to Clint Eastwood's performance as a local jazz DJ with a stalker problem in his directorial debut, Play Misty For Me--or even Howard Hesseman's Emmy-nominated performance as Dr. Johnny Fever in the beloved TV classic "WKRP in Cincinnati." Even Wolfman Jack made a wonderful appearance as himself in American Graffiti in one of my favourite individual scenes from a movie. I wanted to be those guys. I'd watch their "on air" performances and think to myself how cool it would be to sit behind a turntable and share music with anyone in the area who could pick up the radio signal. I got the impression that when I was behind a microphone, I could safely be my normal off-center, off-kilter self without fear of judgement. This week's film is a fictionalized account of actual events in British history and features a whole boat-load of these wacky characters with whom I've always felt a kind of kinship.
In the 1960s, the British Broadcasting Corporation, for one reason or another, did not play a lot of rock and roll music on its radio stations in spite of public demand for it. Certain entrepreneurial-minded individuals began to set up unlicensed ("pirate") radio stations on boats anchored off the coast. Since they were in international waters, they did not violate any laws and these pirate radio stations broadcasted pop and rock music to the denizens of the UK to fill the void created by the BBC.
In 2009, writer/director Richard Curtis--the man behind such beloved British films as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Love Actually, released a film about these stations. Like most Curtis films, it features a wonderful cast of great British and Irish actors including Nick Frost, Chris O'Dowd, Kenneth Brannagh, Rhys Darby (who's actually from New Zealand), Gemma Arterton, and Jack Davenport, as well as past Curtis collaborators, Rhys Ifans (whose character, Gavin Cavanaugh, makes one of the greatest entrances in cinema history), Emma Thompson, and Bill Nighy, along with a token American--in this case the great Philip Seymour Hoffman as "The Count." And even though some of the songs featured in the movie were recorded after the period depicted (a minor pet peeve of mine), it also features one of the greatest period soundtracks ever put together. (which is saying something since it's practically impossible, especially then, to license Beatles songs for this kind of thing). It's stuck with me over the years because it's primarily a love letter to rock and roll. The characters in the film are all non-conformist music lovers--something I have striven to be in my own life.
I saw it in a theater when it was first released (in America). I discovered later that the film was edited differently in America than it was originally in England. This is not uncommon, particularly with action films like 007 thrillers. The English like to cut a lot of the violence out of their movies. We Americans like to cut out the sex and nudity and leave the violence--what I refer to as a "make war, not love" mentality. I've never seen the British version of this movie and I've always wanted to. Since Curtis himself, as well as the bulk of the cast, is British, I presume that version hews closer to his original cinematic vision. But even the American version causes me to run the full gamut of emotions while watching it. I laugh, I cry, I sing along, I play air guitar. It genuinely moves me. Thank you, Richard Curtis.
So if you love boats and classic rock music, this week I recommend you check out The Boat That Rocked (or, as it was called in this country, Pirate Radio).
Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember to "Take care. Be good. Listen to the music. It's a good thing."
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