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

I was actually inspired to expand my weekly pop culture "sermons" to include films back in February.  I posted the trailer to this film on Facebook on the night of the fiftieth anniversary of its initial release and said a few words about it.  I guess you could say that it was my first, although unofficial, film "sermon."  So this week, I want to make it official.

When the film was released on blu-ray disc to commemorate its fortieth anniversary, there was a sticker attached to the shrink wrap indicating that it was "the most offensive movie ever made."  I respond to that with a resounding, REALLY?  More offensive than Birth of a Nation?  Yes, I get it--the film is still controversial after fifty years.  There are words in the film (well... two words, anyway) that, by and large, you can't get away with saying at all these days.  It is flagrantly politically incorrect.  It is provocative.  It is, to quote my father (whom I'll get to in a bit), "crude, rude, lewd, and socially unacceptable."  It broke all sorts of taboos when it was released in 1974.  And most people--critics and fans alike--agree it is still one of the funniest damn films ever made.  Even the American Film Institute (AFI) placed it at #6 on their list of the Funniest American Movies.

Basic premise--it's 1874 and evil state attorney general Hedy Lamarr... I'm sorry, that's HEDLEY Lamarr (played by Harvey Korman) wants to take over the town of Rock Ridge because its value will skyrocket once the new railroad is completed.  Since he and his henchmen, led by Taggart (played by western legend Slim Pickens), can't seem to terrorize the locals into leaving, Lamarr convinces Governor William J. Lepetomane (played by Mel Brooks, who also co-wrote and directed) to become the first governor to appoint a Black sheriff, figuring the locals will kill him quickly and possibly even leave.  Much to the dismay of the denizens of Rock Ridge, Bart (played by Cleavon Little) arrives anyway and even though they might object to his race, he's at least keeping the bad guys at bay with the help of his newly appointed deputy Jim (played by the great Gene Wilder).

While this is Mel Brooks's send up of western movies, it tackles the subject of racism in such a way that it's hard not to see the inherent absurdity of racism as an institution.  The racist characters in the film are all depicted as fools and buffoons.  Or as Deputy Jim puts it, "You know... morons."

As I stated above, the film also broke a lot of taboos at the time.  A notorious campfire scene became the first time we ever heard anyone break wind in a major motion picture.  A horse gets punched in the face.  And there are words--and not just racial slurs--that had never been uttered in a western before.  Producer Michael Hertzberg told the story of meeting John Wayne in the Warner Brothers' commissary while they were shooting.  Wayne asked him if it was true he was making a western where someone says, "Blow it out your ass."  Hertzberg confirmed that it was true and asked Wayne if he would like to have a cameo in the movie.  Wayne said that he could never appear in a film like that... but he would be first in line to see it.

Content aside, this film is an important one to me personally.  Like so many of my favourite films, it was also a favourite of my father's, who introduced me to it.  He was a big fan of inappropriate humour in general and Mel Brooks specifically. This was another of my cinematic addictions during my last months of college.  I couldn't begin to recall how many times I watched it during the summer of 1996.

To mark the film's thirtieth anniversary in 2004, Warner Brothers released a special edition DVD.  My mother was trying to get me to come home to get some of my stuff out of the house.  She was even willing to come pick me up as I didn't have a car at that time.  I told her that I was going to be doing my sixth straight day at work and would be dealing with a visit/dog and pony show with upper management.  The only thing I wanted to do was go home and watch this DVD which was going to be released that day.  But she was persistent, so I relented, but I told her we couldn't leave until after the movie was over (it's only an hour and a half--not too long).  But I warned her that I knew all the dialogue and would recite it as I was watching it.  I think she thought I was exaggerating.  I get the impression that she was kind of frightened to discover that I even sang along with the musical numbers (all together now--"Throw out your hands, stick out your tush.  Hands on your hips, give 'em a push.  You'll be surprised, you're doing the French Mistake, Voilà!").

Around that same time, Dad was convinced to give a sermon in church about the apostle Paul.  He talked about reading letters that his uncle had written home during World War II as well as a number of other things that I don't remember.  At one point, he said, "What, you may ask, does all this have to do with Paul?  Give me one more paragraph and I promise I'll tie it all together."  Then, without warning, he added, "You'd do it for Randolph Scott."  While I was highly amused by that statement (as were a few members of the congregation--most of them men Dad's age), I really wish he had warned me.  I'm sure I could have gotten a group of us to sit in the back and give the proper response.

Today, I kind of get emotional when discussing this movie.  In May of 2016, Dad was placed in home hospice.  We put his hospital bed in the living room so that it would be easier for people to visit with him.  One day, just because I thought he would enjoy it, I put this week's film in the DVD player.  I sat in the chair next to his bed and we watched it together like we did when I was in my early twenties.  As I sat watching it, lip syncing along, I would occasionally hear this low-pitched, hoarse noise coming from his bed.  Given the fact that he could barely speak above a whisper at that point, it took me a moment to realize that what I was hearing was Dad laughing.  Even though he was dying, he could still laugh at one of his favourite comedy films, which I found oddly comforting.  He died that Saturday.  It wound up being the last film we ever watched together.

A few months later, I was visiting Bloomington and thought I'd take in a movie.  It's clear someone was missing Gene Wilder who had just died a couple of weeks prior.  The theater was showing not only this week's film, but also Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  Since I had just seen that one a couple of months earlier, I skipped it, but I did go to the other movie because I had never seen it on the big screen.  I think it was also the first time I had watched it since Dad's passing and I have to say, I actually got choked up during the opening titles.

This Wednesday, to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, I will be seeing it in a theater again.  Actually, I've been looking forward to it all year.  I've already warned my friend who's seeing it with me that I will be reciting all the dialogue (including musical numbers), and there's even a possibility I might tear up early on.

So this week, I'm giving my seal of approval to one of Mel Brooks's twin 1974 masterpieces (the other being Young Frankenstein).  Co-starring Alex Karras, Burton Gilliam, David Huddelston, John Hillerman, Count Basie (in one of the greatest film cameos of all time), Dom DeLuise, and Madeline Kahn in her Oscar-nominated performance as Lili Von Shtüpp, I highly recommend one of the most outrageous films of all time, Blazing Saddles.

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.  (After all, you'd do it for Randolph Scott.)

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 get the impression that when most people appreciate a song, they only tend to notice the artist performing it.  They pay little attention to who actually wrote the song unless it's a "standard" from back in the day or a piece of classical/opera music where the composer always seems to get top billing.  I first got this impression in 1991 when Guns N' Roses released a cover version of "Live and Let Die" which had originally been a hit for Paul McCartney & Wings in 1973.  It was the title song to the James Bond film of the same name and the song became the first Bond theme to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.  Anyway, most of my friends didn't seem to understand that while this might be a new single by Guns 'N Roses, it was not a new song.  One friend of mine, who did the best impression of Axl Rose I've ever seen, was showing off this talent and singing the chorus of that song one day.  Not really being a fan of GN'R at that time, I snidely commented that Paul McCartney did it better.  My friend said, "Yeah, but he didn't write it."  I was very quick to point out that yes, in fact, he did write it, and it says so in the liner notes of Use Your Illusion 1.

Since then, I've noticed that unless the artist in question writes their own material, the art of songwriting--in fact the role of the songwriter--is often disregarded, as if somehow songs just magically appear, or every artist writes all their own songs.  Every time I buy a new CD, I rip the music to my computer and upload it to my iTunes library.  Invariably, I have to either fill in the songwriting credits myself or, more often than not, correct the information that pops up because it's either incomplete or incorrect.  This usually involves careful examination of the liner notes.  Since those often use first initials instead of complete names (for example, P. McCartney and L. McCartney instead of Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney), this sometimes also includes searches through Wikipedia and/or Genius Lyrics in order to get the complete information--and if it's a blues album released on Alligator Records, for some reason this is an incredibly difficult task.  Frankly, this bothers me.  It bothers me that I seem to be the only one who cares.  It bothers me because the fact that I do care causes words like "autistic" to get bandied about--as if, somehow, I'm weird or even at fault for noticing these things.  I mean, I realize that not everyone is as passionate as I am about music, but how hard is it to put out complete information and, God forbid, give credit where credit is due?

This week, we lost an important songwriter.  Wilbur Herschel "Will" Jennings died on 6 September at the age of 80.  As I told my sister Heather, you may not recognize his name, but you know his work.  His obituaries all listed his big hits--he co-wrote songs like "Tears in Heaven" with Eric Clapton, "Higher Love" "Back in the High Life Again," and "Roll With It" all with Steve Winwood, "Somewhere in the Night" and "Looks Like We Made It" for Barry Manilow, "Didn't We Almost Have It All" for Whitney Houston... as Heather said, "Wow.  If you were to give me a big pile of songs I would never intentionally put on..." (although, I personally do like Steve Winwood).  He even won two Oscars for Best Original Song for "Up Where We Belong" (with Jack Nietzsche and Buffy Saint-Marie) from the movie An Officer and a Gentleman (performed by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes) and--speaking of songs I would never intentionally put on--"My Heart Will Go On" (with James Horner) from the movie Titanic (performed, as we all remember, by Celine Dion).

In a career that prolific, some stuff is going to get left out.  Sadly, that's the stuff I usually love the most.  In 1984 and 1985, Jennings co-wrote the bulk of two albums for Jimmy Buffett.  In fact, at one time, I actually thought he was just a member of the Coral Reefer Band.  This week's album is one of my personal favourites of Jimmy's for a number of reasons.  Jennings co-wrote eight of the ten songs on it including such favourites as "Jolly Mon Sing, "Gypsies in the Palace," "Please Bypass This Heart," and "If the Phone Doesn't Ring, It's Me."  I'm also fond of pointing out that the bullwhip cracking on "Desperation Samba (Halloween in Tijuana)" was provided by Harrison Ford himself.  And in the process of writing this, I just discovered that the great Roy Orbison sang background vocals on the closing track--one of my all-time favourite Buffett tunes--"Beyond the End."

So, to commemorate the life, work, and legacy of Will Jennings, please enjoy Jimmy Buffett with his 1985 album, Last Mango in Paris.

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!

"The popcorn you're eating has been pissed in.  Film at 11."

I put a lot of thought into this week's film "sermon."  Then I thought, "Well, who doesn't love to laugh?"  So I picked one of the most outrageous comedies I could think of--one that never ceases to make me laugh whenever I watch it.

It was written by a sketch comedy trio calling themselves The Kentucky Fried Theater, consisting of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker (collectively known as ZAZ--and, yes, David and Jerry are brothers).  The three grew up together in Wisconsin forming The Kentucky Fried Theater in 1971 while they were attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In 1977, they wrote this movie which was directed by a young filmmaker by the name of John Landis.  It became the springboard for massive success for all of them down the line.  ZAZ would go on to write and direct such legendary films as Airplane! and The Naked Gun series (based on the very short-lived series Police Squad! which they also created).  Landis went on to direct such landmark comedies as National Lampoon's Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, and Coming To America.  But they all trace their roots to this film.

"I'm not wearing any pants.  Film at 11."

The film is essentially an hour and a half of sketch comedy--a parody of what could be found on late night television in the mid- to late-1970s.  There are commercials for various products, a news segment, more news teasers, movie trailers for (sometimes raunchy) films produced by one Samuel L. Bronkowitz, an educational film about the importance of zinc oxide in our daily lives, and even a courtroom drama.  A full third of the film consists of an entire kung fu parody, A Fistful of Yen, also "produced" by Bronkowitz.  When my father introduced me to it this movie when I was in college, he described it as "'Saturday Night Live' on steroids."

Featuring cameos from the likes of George Lazenby, Donald Sutherland, Henry Gibson, Bill Bixby, and Tony Dow, this week, I wholeheartedly recommend, from 1977, Kentucky Fried Movie.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and remember to please give generously when death knocks at your door.

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've been indulging my inner 20-year-old the last couple of months, so please bear with me.

When I moved to Cleveland in the fall of 2000, I discovered much to my chagrin, that I was missing two boxes of books and one box of vinyl records.  I was heartbroken.  Personally, I think my ex-girlfriend took them--I was, after all, the one who instigated the breakup and I know she wasn't too happy about that.  To this day, I still don't know what use she has for a signed copy of a book about modern competetive debate that was co-written by my great uncle who died before I even knew her.  Again, this is purely conjecture on my part.  It's merely a theory.  I have no proof of anything, just a (disappointed and somewhat hurt and bitter) hunch.  Fortunately, there were two records that were packed separately that had belonged to my parents--Mom let me have them just before I left Indiana.  They were two of my favourites.  I've even written about both of them in these weekly "sermons" and I'm pleased to say I still have them today.

In the decades since, I've managed to replace the bulk of the vinyl and even a few of the books (I even have a copy of my great uncle's book--too bad it's not signed).  The one that I've never been able to find however--you guessed it!--is the subject of this week's rant.

I bought this album on CD the day it was released on 12 July, 1994 (it was released on 11 July in the UK, so my sister gets to claim it was released on her birthday).  The following spring, I found it in a record store on vinyl for $15.  Even though I didn't have a turntable at the time, I thought vinyl was pretty much a dead format--I mean, it was the mid-1990s--so I bought it just to decorate the shelf in my dorm room.  The album was never played, never even opened.  And to this day, I still have no definitive answer as to what happened to it.  I've looked at various websites, but could never find it for less than $150--ten times what I initially paid for it.

To commemorate the album's thirtieth anniversary (has it really been that long?), the band's website announced a re-release of the album in all formats.  Admittedly, it cost me quite a bit more than what I paid originally (although nowhere near what I had seen original copies go for online), but I couldn't help myself.  I did splurge and buy the edition that included a bonus 10" record of all the non-album B-sides from the singles that were released in 1994 and 1995--and I'm dorky enough to say that I'm pleased to have "The Storm" on vinyl.

This coming week, all the news outlets will be talking about the anniversary of 9/11 and I'm sure both presidential candidates will be mentioning it in their speeches and at the upcoming debate.  As I like to say, you remember 9/11 your way, I'll remember it my way.

On 11 September, 1994, the band behind this week's album played Soldier Field in Chicago as part of their--at that time--record-breaking world tour in support of that album.  It was a family event--my mother, my father, my aunt, my uncle, my sister, and me on roughly the 50-yard line cheering and screaming for--and singing along with--"The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World" (not my words... not that I'm disagreeing, either).  We were planning it from the moment they announced the tour.  I remember getting tickets with Mom as soon as they went on sale--as we walked to the Ticket Master outlet in the mall, she horrified me when, after walking past Victoria's Secret, she asked what colour underwear she should buy to throw at Mick Jagger.  Heather is still convinced Keith Richards winked at her.  I'm still pleased that I was able to use the experience as part of a project for my Humanities class my junior year of college.  Thirty years after the fact, I consider it one of the best nights of my life.

So to commemorate the thirtieth anniversaries of the album, the tour, and specifically that concert that I got to share with practically my whole family, please enjoy The Rolling Stones with their 1994 album Voodoo Lounge--the album that finally nabbed them their first two (competitive) Grammy Awards more than thirty years after their formation.  SPECIAL NOTE:  The YouTube link does include some bonus videos including a 101-minute documentary about their first 29 years.

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 is, without question, a classic.  One of the greatest thrillers ever made.  Starring one of the greatest actors of the twentieth century.  Directed by one of cinema's greatest auteurs.  It's got humour, intrigue, excitement, sex, music, paranoia, voyeurism, and murder (maybe?).

In the film, Jimmy Stewart plays L.B. Jefferies, a photographer who specializes in taking pictures of things like war zones, erupting volcanoes, and auto races.  The walls of his apartment are lined with pictures of his exploits.  Unfortunately, during his last big assignment, he broke his leg and is confined to his apartment in a wheelchair, in the middle of a New York City heat wave, with nothing to entertain him but watching his neighbours through a pair of binoculars.  There's a songwriter working on his latest masterpiece, a ballerina that he's dubbed "Miss Torso," a couple of newlyweds, a woman on the ground floor unsuccessfully looking for love ("Miss Lonelyhearts") and a travelling salesman and his wife.

At a certain point, L.B. realizes the salesman's wife is no longer there.  Based on what he sees the salesman (played by the incomparable Raymond Burr) doing in his apartment--as well as what he's witnessed between the two of them in the past--he jumps to the conclusion that she must have been murdered by her husband.  He does everything he can to convince his model/socialite girlfriend, Lisa Fremont (the always lovely Grace Kelly), his police detective friend Tom Doyle (Wendell Corey), and even his housekeeper Stella (the great Thelma Ritter) that something suspicious has happened and he's not just being paranoid.

I saw this film in a theater this past Wednesday night.  It was being presented by Fathom Events to commemorate the film's 70th anniversary.  I've seen the movie a few times.  I actually own it in blu-ray.  But there's something about seeing a movie on the big screen that just can't compare to watching it in your living room.  I find--at least for me--this is especially true of older films.  On a theater screen, I tend to notice little things that I don't notice even on a widescreen television in my living room that somehow makes the viewing experience that much more enjoyable for me.  What's interesting is that if I watch it again at home, I will notice those things again because I remembered it from the theatrical experience and it will amuse me even more.

The other thing that this movie impressed upon me is the concept of "movie magic."  Throughout the film, we watch Jimmy Stewart from his apartment gazing out on the courtyard below and the apartments across the way.  We see the people in their apartments and catch a glimpse of the lives they lead.  If you look carefully in certain scenes, you can even catch a glimpse through the alley and see into the little restaurant across the street--with traffic.  And that's all well and good until you discover that the whole thing was actually shot on a soundstage at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood.  But it looks so real, you would think it was shot on location in a New York City apartment complex.  That sort of thing--especially when it comes to little details (did I mention the restaurant across the street?)--never fails to impress me when it's done well.  Of the film's four Oscar nominations, I am kind of surprised that it wasn't nominated for Production Design and Set Decoration.  That's a real injustice in my opinion.  (In case you're curious, it was nominated for Best Sound Recording, Best Cinematography--Colour, Best Screenplay, and Best Director--and all rightfully so.)

As you've probably already guessed, this week, I'm recommending one of director Alfred Hitchcock's suspenseful masterpieces, 1954's Rear Window.  PEDANTIC GEEK NOTE:  The trailer is for a re-release of the film--you can tell because Psycho, which is referenced in the trailer, was originally released six years after Rear Window.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours (try not to spy on them), 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 think may be fairly obvious from previous posts, I love music.  I've devoted posts to specific musicians, I've referenced songs in other posts, I've even repurposed popular song titles as titles to some of my individual posts.  Even the name of this blog takes its name from a Pretenders song.

Popular culture--specifically music and movies--is probably the closest thing I get to any kind of religion.  I find it spiritually uplifting in ways that going to church never could do for me.  

Every week on Facebook for about five years now, I have posted a YouTube link to an album I really like and a few words about why I'm drawn to that particular album.  Since February, I have also been posting a film recommendation to accompany that with a link to the film's trailer.

On three occasions over the last few months, Facebook has made it very difficult to do this.  For two of my film recommendations (including the one for this week, which I will present in my next post), when I attempted to add the trailer, I was informed that it violated Facebook's community standards, which I find laughable.  One of those films is considered a classic by every measure and the other is just a supremely well-written 1990s rom-com.

The final straw occurred today when I found out that they had removed this week's album recommendation for similar reasons.  I'm trying to appeal it, but since I'm sure no actual, sensible human being is actually, sensibly reading it and they didn't give me any way of explaining why I thought their decision was wrong (I basically just answered a multiple-choice form), I doubt my appeal will be successful.  So, in response, I'm going to start posting my album and film recommendations here and then posting that link on my Facebook page.  Let's see what their algorithm makes of that!

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

This week's musical "sermon" can be blamed on a movie (weirdly, I won't be focusing on that movie in my film "sermon" this week--maybe another time).  I first heard the artist behind this week's album in that movie.  Nick Cave's 1997 song "Into My Arms" was used in the soundtrack of the 2013 Richard Curtis film About Time.  It was one of those perfect marriages of film and music.  Clearly Richard Curtis (who also wrote the film) didn't believe any other song would have worked in that particular scene.  In hindsight, I can honestly say that I firmly believe he was right.  If you've not seen the movie, I won't spoil it for you.  Just trust me when I say it was... well, perfect.

I fell in love with that song.  I don't know if it was the kind of heaviness of the piano, the lyrics, or the deep world-weariness of the vocal--knowing me, it was probably a combination of those things.  As the musician (and my cousin) Daryl Shawn pointed out once, you don't hear a lot of songs with the word "interventionist" in the lyrics.  I knew I wanted to add the song to my collection, but I didn't just want the soundtrack to the movie--I wanted to hear more of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.  About a year or so after watching the DVD a few times, my friend Mark Sniadecki was in the process of moving to Bloomington--something I've done twice myself.  He decided to divest himself of his "physical media" and put a couple of boxes of CDs and DVDs on the breakroom table at Barnes & Noble and told his colleagues to take what they wanted.  There were a number of things that looked interesting to me.  I wound up with an underrated Coen Brothers movie, I doubled my collection of The White Stripes, tripled my collection of They Might Be Giants, and even picked up the Carpenters' 1978 Christmas album.  But what I considered to be the true gem in the box was a CD titled The Boatman's Call by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.  I looked on the back of the CD and was extraordinarily delighted to discover that it actually opened with "Into My Arms."  To be honest, I probably would have taken the CD even if it didn't have that song, just because I already knew I wanted to hear more than just that one song.  I even told Mark how excited I was to check it out.  It's still one of my favourite "late night" albums.  As I've discovered, it's also really good to play on a Suinday morning/early afternoon while driving around Lancaster County in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania... don't ask.

In 2016, I made a trip down to Bloomington to catch up with some old friends (something I really need to do again).  I informed Mark I would be in town and wondered if he'd like to get together for dinner.  He told me that there was going to be a special screening of a movie about the making of Nick Cave's new album which was to be released the following day and wondered if I wanted to go.  The film, One More Time With Feeling, was one of the more moving documentaries I've ever seen (and it's not going to be my "Film of the Week" either).  It was all about how he dealt with the loss of his 15-year-old son, Arthur, and how he channeled that grief into his album Skeleton Tree.  It was also shot in 3D, which I thought was an odd choice for a documentary, but it made it a much more immersive experience.  The only thing I wish I had done was buy the album at the theater that night just to say that I had gotten it before it was officially available.

Since then, I have to say I have unfortunately not explored his music further.  I really need to.  It's truly beautiful music, but it is kind of heavy and sometimes dark.  One or two albums can go a long way sometimes.

A couple of weeks ago, Cave was a guest on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert."  I was excited to hear he had a new album coming out.  As big a fan of Colbert as I am, I particularly love it when he discusses music with musicians.  He has a deep reverence for music and understands how it can touch us in inexplicable ways, and I always enjoy it when other musicians seem to have that same reverence.  There was a deep spirituality to their conversation which I found rather comforting as I also have that same reverence for music.  They also discussed the process of grief, the death of Cave's son, and how one progresses from such profound loss.  I posted the interview a day or two after it aired, but I will post it again in the comments section if you want to check it out further.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds released their new album yesterday.  I felt it was one of those that I had to buy the day of its release.  In his interview with Colbert, Cave said, "I think it's essentially a joyful, uplifting kind of record, which is quite different than the records I normally make."  This automatically intrigued me because what I had heard in the past tended to be rather somber.  Listening to this new album brought up a lot of thoughts and emotions.  I'll be the first to admit that I'm a cynic--I like to think of myself as a hopeful cynic, but a cynic, nonetheless.  I don't know if this is something that occurs within me naturally, or if it's something that's come about from my own experiences, but it kind of makes sense that I would be drawn to Nick Cave's music.  But this is quite different for him.  It is--certainly compared to Skeleton Tree--quite joyful and uplifting.  In listening to it, I find it consoling, which was not what I was expecting.  To be honest, I don't know what I was expecting, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't consolation.  For a self-professed cynic, I have to say, it seems to be giving me a lot of hope.  Frankly, I haven't had this kind of experience listening to an album since Bruce Springsteen's The Rising 22 years ago.

Also, I don't know why, and perhaps it's just me and my eccentricities, but something about it reminds me of Khalil Gibran's The Prophet.  You can listen to it for yourself and--if you're familiar with that book--maybe you can understand what I'm talking about.  But I still think R.E.M.'s song "Losing My Religion" is a reworking of The Beatles' "I Am the Walrus," so... really, what do I know?

Either way, this week, I am more than pleased to submit Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds with their latest release, Wild God.

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

If We Weren't All Crazy, We Would Go Insane

Earlier this month, singer/songwriter/author/entertainer/entrepreneur/pilot/sailor/beach bum Jimmy Buffett died from a rare form of skin cancer.  As I said some time back regarding the death of Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, I don't normally get bent out of shape over celebrity deaths just because I don't know them personally.  I've had the pleasure of meeting a few and shaking some hands in my life, but I never got to know them as people.  But as I get older, if a celebrity's work leaves a lasting impression on me, their death does tend to hurt.  Like Charlie Watts, Jimmy Buffett's passing hurts.

I really became affected by Buffett's music in the early 1990s.  Like most people, I knew his 1977 song "Margaritaville," his second of only two Top 40 hits in his career and the only one to crack the Top 10.  But through the influence of my Uncle Frantz, who had a couple of his CDs, most notably the 1985 compilation album Songs You Know By Heart: Jimmy Buffett's Greatest Hit(s), I started to absorb other songs into my musical consciousness.  I found myself quite drawn to his work.  Perhaps it was his clever rhymes and wordplay.  Maybe it was his mischievous sense of humour that isn't always as prevalent in pop music as it probably should be.  It was almost as if he was daring people to enjoy themselves in spite of the dramas and traumas of everyday life.

("Dramas and traumas"--now there's a phrase I've used a few times in various essays I've written.  I've never seen it used anywhere else, so I'll take credit for it, but I think it's safe to say that, if nothing else, Buffett certainly had an influence on me as a writer.)

Whatever it was, it began to resonate with me.  Even today, when I listen to his songs, I feel like I'm actually inside of them, witnessing everything he's singing firsthand.  He was first and foremost a storyteller which added a certain quality to his songs that is unusual... in a good way.  By the time I was a senior in high school, I was regularly calling up my local DJ, the great Johnny Henderson ("The Big Guy"), to play some of his songs on the radio during my morning bus ride to school.  They became part of the soundtrack of my life, especially after I went to college and started experimenting (badly) with poetry and/or songwriting.  I actually found a lot of inspiration in Buffett's works.  The titles alone were enough to bring a smile to anyone's face--songs like "Trying to Reason With Hurricane Season" (a particularly timely notion right now, especially down south), "Growing Older But Not Up," "The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful," "Last Mango in Paris," "If the Phone Doesn't Ring, It's Me," "Please Bypass This Heart," "Son of a Son of a Sailor," and--one of my personal faves--"My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don't Love Jesus."  I also have to give him serious props for the greatest title ever bestowed upon a live album, 1978's You Had To Be There.  The only other artist I've ever known who wrote such catchy titles was Frank Zappa and even he never came up with something as drunkenly silly as A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean.

His ability to tell stories transcended music.  In fact it only seemed natural that he would expand this skill into the field of literature.  Over the years, he wrote a number of bestselling books, both fiction and nonfiction, for both children and adults.  In fact, he's one of only a handful of writers to top The New York Times Bestseller list in both fiction and nonfiction.  His collection of short stories, Tales From Margaritaville: Fictional Facts and Factual Fictions is one of my all-time favourite books.  As part of a media writing class in college, I even wrote a screenplay to his story "I Wish Lunch Could Last Forever."  It couldn't have been too bad, I got a B on it... actually, it may have been a B-.  I'd have to go back and look to make sure.  I'm still waiting for someone to make a movie of his novel Where Is Joe Merchant?  When I read it initially, I found that it had such a cinematic quality to it, that I was even casting the movie in my head (I seem to recall picturing Tommy Lee Jones in the role of the missing title character).

I never had the opportunity to see the man in concert.  There was a possibility of seeing a show in 1997, complete with backstage passes, but I was flat broke at the time.  There was talk of seeing him again as a family event at Wrigley Field in 2005, but that never came to pass.  I have a DVD of that specific concert so I can at least see what I missed.  Like the Grateful Dead, he's one of those artists that I would like to have seen just to be able to say I had.  I consider myself a "Parrot Head" just because I enjoy his music and have a weakness for brightly coloured floral print shirts, but I'm not as obsessive about it as some.

Perhaps my favourite thing that I like to point out about Buffett (and, sadly, I share this every chance I get) actually involves someone else's music.  It was Labour Day Weekend, 1996.  I was driving to Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, to pick up my sister for the holiday weekend.  I got stuck in traffic somewhere between Indianapolis and Muncie and the classic rock station out of Indy played Gordon Lightfoot's 1976 epic "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" about... well the real life shipwreck.  The song became an earworm and was stuck in my head the rest of the night.  This would be fine except for the fact that--as is the case with any truly effective earworm--I didn't know the words.  27 years later, I still don't.  So I substituted the only other song I knew regarding boats, Buffett's 1978 song "Son of a Son of a Sailor."  Amazingly enough, I found that you can actually sing the lyrics of Buffett's song to the melody of Lightfoot's.  In 2017, Buffett released an album of early recordings that had been presumed lost and suddenly resurfaced titled Buried Treasure.  In the liner notes, he wrote that he had been heavily influenced by Gordon Lightfoot's music.  The whole connection suddenly made so much more sense to me. *

In April of 1996, I performed my own rock concert for my Senior Honours Thesis.  As I always say, this just shows you what kind of leeway they give you in the Honours College at Ball State University.  For the show, I decided to perform a cover of Buffett's 1974 song "A Pirate Looks at Forty."  Buffett once said of the song, "I guess I wrote this for an old friend of mine a few years back that could just not find his occupation in the twentieth century.  So he just chose to live in a fantasy world.  And then I looked at him and I went, 'well, what the hell is wrong with that?'  So if this song has been able to ease your pain ever so slightly, I'm glad I wrote it, 'cause that's what it's for."

I found I identified with the character in that song.  In the written portion of my thesis, I wrote, "I sometimes think I was born about eighty years too late and I would have had a very successful career in vaudeville.  'My occupational hazard is/My occupation's just not around.'  Nobody my age really has any respect for the way things use[d] to be anymore.  Sometimes I feel old, even though I'm only twenty-one at the time of this writing.  That's why this song means so much to me--It's for all those pirates and vaudevillians who are lost and forgotten in this God-forsaken, computerized wasteland known as the 1990s."  Damn--that's pretty good if I do say so myself.  Damn--it's amazing how certain things never seem to change.

Jimmy--and, even though I never met him, I do feel like I'm on a first name basis with him--is one of those rare celebrities whose work not only meant something to me, but one that I've been exceptionally grateful for over the years.  If nothing else, he's one of those people that I've always wanted to meet just to thank him for his art.  He was never a favourite among critics and most music snobs (at least the ones I know) always seem to exhibit disdain for his work, but he never seemed to care about any of that.  His goal always seemed to be to put a smile on people's faces, make them forget their troubles for a bit, and not take anything--including himself--too seriously.  And while his songs may not be as revered as those by Dylan, The Beatles, Marvin Gaye, The Stones, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson, or any number of artists who are known for writing their own material, they've left a permanent impression on my psyche and my world viewpoint.  Personally, I think we need more people like Jimmy Buffett in this world.  Whether we realize it or not, I believe society has lost one of its greats and we are poorer for it.

* If, like me, you don't know the words to "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," you can also substitute the lyrics to Billy Joel's "Piano Man" as well as "Amazing Grace."  Go ahead--you know you want to try it.