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consanguinitatum · 8 months

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Rare David Tennant audios: another Did He or Didn't He? in The Tragedy of Two....whatsits?

I've talked about David's rarer audio work before (referring to the magical Tuesdays & Sundays, which I've covered earlier) but today I thought I'd switch gears and talk about one of the very few audio works of his I don't have and would love to find. This particular one is special because I've never seen it listed on any forum as an audio David ever did. I popped over to see if it was listed at the venerable David Tennant fan site and nope, they don't have it listed. Neither does VK's usually stellar David Tennant Asylum.

But he did it.

Before continuing, I need to first mention dramatist and author Jane Rogers. Rogers wrote the book The Island and worked on its radio adaptation in 2002. She also adapted The Beach of Falesa and The Ebb Tide from Terror in the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson. The Island was broadcast 22 Oct 2002 on BBC Radio 4 as the Radio 4 Friday Play, and the Stevenson duo was broadcast in Dec 2016 on BBC Radio 4. David has played roles in all of these audio plays.

Let’s keep Jane in mind for now, shall we? For here is where my journey began.

I first learned about this mystery audio's existence years ago from David's profile in the programme for his 1999 play Vassa. Listed among his radio credits was a play called The Tragedy Of Two Virtues.

WELL.

Knowing for certain I'd never seen this play listed elsewhere in his credits, I began to hunt. During the few years of frustrating on again and off again searching which followed I saw the words "Two Ambitions" pop up now and again. I kept dismissing this as a 'close-but-no-cigar' kind of thing - until finally I didn't, and started taking an alternate possibility more seriously. Perhaps the programme had just mis-named the thing?

To that end I did some reading on Hardy's A Tragedy of Two Ambitions. The story is about two brothers, Joshua and Cornelius Halborough, who want to escape from their humble surroundings and get away from the alcoholic, irresponsible father who threatens to destroy everything they've worked for. If you're interested, you can read further details about the plot here.

I also needed to narrow down the date when David might've done this audio, so I went back to the programme it had been mentioned in - the Jan 1999 Vassa programme. It was there, but it wasn’t in any published programmes from David's previous play (Real Inspector Hound/Black Comedy, Apr to Oct 1998). That helped me place the audio's possible production date between Oct 1998 and Jan 1999.

But this possible late 1990s time frame worried me. After 2000, the BBC policy was to archive all "performance programmes" on CD, so (theoretically) plays after that date should exist in the BBC archive. But before then? Oh boy. Well over 90% of broadcast radio plays were not kept. Ughhhh!

But onwards, research-wise. I dove into the BBC Genome Project to see if an audio production called The Tragedy of Two Ambitions fell in that time frame, and lo and behold it had! But it wasn't the full court press "AH HA!" moment I'd hoped; while David's name wasn't listed in its entry, it did give me the dramatist's name. So I determined it was best to just go to the source and ask.

(Re)enter Jane Rogers.

When I finally managed to contact her, my first question to her was, “Was a young David Tennant one of the cast members in the piece? I ask because he did an elusive audio in the same time frame that's been (possibly) mislabeled A Tragedy of Two Virtues, and I suspect your piece might be the correct title?”

Initially she told me she wasn't at all sure he was in it, because her first recollection of meeting David was for the audio adaptation of The Island. She told me, "As far as I remember, the first time I met David Tennant was when he played Callum in my radio drama The Island, adapted from my own novel. He was a young and relatively unknown actor at that point, and was absolutely brilliant. As, of course, he has continued to be!"

But later, after she found her script for the play, she was able to confirm for me that David was indeed a cast member in the audio - a fact which surprised and delighted her as much as it did me. Rogers said David played the lead part of Joshua, and the play had been recorded on 21 Nov 1998. And here's a cool story: she said the fact it was David had probably slipped her mind because the play was recorded in West Country accents, and she strongly associated David with his natural Scottish accent. West Country, huh? Now that's an accent I'd like to hear him do!

A Tragedy of Two Ambitions was broadcast on 7 Dec 1998 as the fourth of four episodes of Life's Little Ironies, a BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play. It was 45 minutes in length. Other cast members were Alex Lowe, Abigail Docherty, Anthony Jackson, Susan Brown, and Charlie Simpson. Its producer was Clive Brill for Watchmaker Productions, and it was recorded at The Soundhouse in Shepherds Bush, London.

It's an audio play that I would dearly love to have in my collection. I've searched high and low. Unless someone recorded it back in 1998 and saved it, it's likely gone. But stranger things have happened. After all, old DW episodes are still being found, right?

Now - if you've stuck with me this long, I've got a goody to tell. But it's not about The Tragedy Of Two Ambitions - it's about The Island (and if you haven't listened to that play go forth and do it! It's a lovely piece). Rogers told me The Island was recorded on the Isle of Skye because with a small cast, it was often cheaper to record on location than rent a studio in London. The cast stayed at the Kinloch Lodge and recorded in the hotel and on a small private beach. But recording on location meant the cast couldn't access fancy sound effects, so sound effects were done on the fly. While on that private beach, Rogers said, the cast noticed a ruined rowing boat half-full of water. David splashed around in it when they needed watery effects. So when you listen to the play and you hear splashing water, that's our dear David!

And thus ends my story of the mystery of The Tragedy Of Two Ambitions (and the tiny treat of a behind-the-scenes story about The Island).

If anyone can find that audio, contact me. I beg of you!

#DavidTennant #TragedyOfTwoAmbitions #ObscureDavidTennantPerformances #DavidTennantAudios #TheIsland

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keithrm · 2 months

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Memory Loss On Memory Lane

(2024/02/17)

When a relationship is broken, one of the many things we lose is mutual recall.

We all get nostalgic feelings from specific things, perhaps a place, a scent, or a song. For many of us in my generation, TV theme songs can be a real kick down sentimental memory lane.

Lately, part of my late night routine involves the TV being turned on to Catchy TV, and the show “Newhart” – not the “The Bob Newhart Show”, where Bob Newhart plays a psychiatrist, but “Newhart”, where he plays the owner of a little inn, in Vermont. For me, there is something very emotional about the theme.

The emotion connects directly with my ex, Elizabeth. But here is the catch; “Newhart” ran from 1982 to 1990. I did not meet Elizabeth until 1990. As such, the bulk of the show ran during a previous – and most unsettling – marriage. The nostalgic tug of the theme does not bring up any of the negative emotions or associations with the first marriage. The feelings the theme brings up are tied to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth and I were big fans of “Twin Peaks” when we first met. I have a very strong emotional response to that theme song. “Twin Peaks” premiered in 1990. My memory of it and Elizabeth is crystal clear. But my memory of Elizabeth and “Newhart” is non-existent. I have only the emotional tug of the theme to give me a clue. And when I look at the dates “Newhart” aired, she and I could have only watched the last season together, or perhaps reruns. That said, I do have a vague recollection of us discussing the college drinking game, “Hello Bob”, where everyone is required to take a drink whenever someone says “Hello, Bob” during “The Bob Newhart Show”. Likewise, there is a nebulous memory of discussing the fun characters Larry, Darryl and Darryl from “Newhart”, but these memories are so foggy, I could have had those debates with anyone.

Oh, how I wish we could have remained a friendship connection, to email each other or to be able to have a dinner every now and then. I do send her a happy birthday email every year, and I give her a Christmas gift every year – secretly place by her door around midnight on each Christmas Eve, with the card signed, “ . . . Santa”. The three dots represent, “I Love You”. She knows who “Santa” is, but she does not know what the dots mean. Fourteen years now, Santa has left his gifts. Fourteen years, and she has sent me a small gift of her own, sent via my daughter.

In 2023, for the first time in those fourteen years, I did get to see her and talk for a bit. Her cheer and bubble was as effervescent as ever. She looked happy, and healthy, and honestly, beautiful. She had moved into a new house, and had an old family clock from my Dad that she no longer had a place for, and she wanted to return it to me. I crumbled in the meeting. I was not emotionally strong enough, but all this is a bit of a digression.

Would that I could ask her, “Did we watch ‘Newhart’ often?” As a couple, you have more RAM and even more ROM – your hardwired memory is larger, and your randomly accessed recall is greater. When a relationship is broken, we lose so many things. At times, like my first marriage, the breakup was the beginning of a new life. I was reborn. The breakup with Elizabeth has left me feeling old, feeble, and forgetful.

#life #love #feelings #relationship #heartbreak

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gchoate17 · 4 months

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I watched 25 movies in 2023 – down from 30 last year. Here they are, ranked in order.

Cherry

Fantastic story, well told. It covered a lot of ground in a short time and made me believe everything. Despite the bad decision, I never stopped pulling for him. Tom Holland crushed it.

2. Tetris

I love these stories that pull the curtain back on pop culture phenomena. An enthralling sprint from start to finish.

3. I, Tonya

Nice job of showing the other side of the story. I felt some empathy for “the monster.” Also, I wasn’t expecting to laugh, but I laughed multiple times.

4. Dune (2021)

It’s always impressive when someone creates a new world that seems to add up. The story is set, now show me the sequel.

5. White Noise

Intellectual and quirky, but ridiculous, in a good way. But it also feels a little too unhinged. Adam Driver crushes it.

6. The Beanie Bubble

Zach Galifinakis’s best performance? Enough of a true story to give me the satisfaction of learning something while also pointing to the ridiculous nature of American capitalism in the 1990s.

7. On the Rocks

Bill Murray and his character carry it.

8. Barbie

Stylistically, really fun. Concept, fantastic. Kate McKinnon and Michael Cera’s characters are the best part of the movie. It was also nice to see so many actors from Sex Education. Of course, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling were fantastic as well. Overall, the was good, but it certainly didn’t measure up to the hype (and how could it). My only real complaint comes with when they have all been enlightened and they name all of the problems with society, which is a little too on the nose for me. We got it without being told.

9. Narvik

I’ve been into Dutch things lately, and I always like a new perspective on World War II, but I wouldn’t say this one is a can’t-miss.

10. Seven Kings Must Die

SPOILER ALERT: I feel like I couldn't get into the movie because legitimately the only person I was pulling for at the end was Uhtred. King Athelstan was a dumbass who deserved to die. All the kings who got duped into allying with the evil Dane guy made the move I would have made. Moral of the story: War is terrible. But that final shot of the Great Hall was awesome.

11. Parasite

Kind of funny. A little too far-fetched.

12. This is Where I Leave You

Weak story, great actors.

13. Air

I know why they did it, but it was a mistake to make a movie about Air Jordans without Michael Jordan.

14. Blood & Gold

I couldn’t buy that what happened in that small town didn’t alert larger authorities. In that way, it was a lot like Three Kings, but less humorous.

15. Those People

I am writing this review months after I watched the movie and even after watching the trailer, I have no recollection of ever seeing this movie, but in my notes I gave it three stars, so I’m putting it at the end of my three-star movies for the year.

16. Everything Everywhere All at Once

Loved the first half-ish, and the acting was great, but – as is with most action mind-benders – when anything can happen because the filmmakers aren’t bound by the rules of reality, it felt completely out of control by the end.

17. The Covenant

Movies that pretend like you can move about freely in war are out of touch with reality. But I do love a battle-buddy flick.

18. Raymond & Ray

A little absurd, but Ethan Hawke and Ewan McGregor are always likable.

19. To Leslie

Predictable addiction story. Bad Southern accents.

20. Midsommar

A horror film, but replace the dark aesthetic with light. Immature characters who ignore all the red flags.

21. The Wonder

SPOILER ALERT: Eerie and intriguing, but my investment diminished once the jig was up. I don’t buy that a devout little girl like that would just walk away.

22. Greyhound

SPOILER ALERT: Decent action sequences at sea, but not enough background for any of it to really mean anything. Elizabeth Shue needed to come back, for sure. Otherwise, why have her play the role?

23. Dead for a Dollar

I’m a Christoph Waltz fan, but this one was full of melodrama.

24. The Incident (1967)

None of the characters do what they should and there was no payoff. I did enjoy seeing those actors in the early stages of their career, though.

25. The Menu

I want to know how Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, and John Leguizamo got trapped in this stupid-ass movie.

See previous years’ lists here: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017.

#movies #movie list #best movies of 2023 #2023 #best of 2023 #cherry movie #cherry #Youtube

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blue-opossum · 7 months

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Sudden Blizzard

Thursday morning, 12 October 2023

The content in this first A.I. image was NOT prompted as it appears. It curiously includes a goat (associations with vestibular-motor mobility regarding "slope navigation," a common dreaming trope, but NOT in my prompt at all, including as either a goat or any animal). The cords, that look like electrical cords and internal computer-related imagery were NOT in the prompt either but seem to imply gaining neural activity to gain real-world physicality (to leave the state of REM atonia). (However, it is somewhat ambiguous as cords in this particular case could also restrict movement - though that correlation is unlikely since it actually implies a neural net from the evidence.) More bizarrely, that particular dream has NOT been online. However, A.I. is now “predictive” (even for previous dreams from years ago).

I am with Marilyn and Carol (both half-sisters on my mother's side) in the living room of the Loomis Street house (unseen since February 1994). The room is featureless, with no furniture. For a time, the real-life sound of the fan filters into my ongoing dream, but it is much louder.

Eventually, I consider a blizzard is occurring. Carol and Marilyn are near the window when an unusual pattern of zigzagging ice appears through the window, somewhat like an irregular stack of icicles. They look puzzled, but we do not seem to be in danger.

My dream self lacks personal real-world recall beyond 1990 (to avoid associations or confusion with real life). My dream self does not recollect Marilyn and Carol dying (at different times) while I lived in Australia.

Hypnagogic visions of a blizzard occurred when I was awake (and standing up) after much of our roof came off several years ago, and I was uncertain how to move or think during this crisis. We stayed on the porch (liminal space) for some time. The experience confirms how snow and ice correspond with less physicality (even the inability to move as with the REM atonia trope) - or mental preparedness (lack of readiness) and viable real-world cognizance.

It was interesting how the snow and ice structure appeared - reminiscent of the brain's neural network.

My awareness and understanding of dream content "meaning" (CAUSALITY and traceable influences, not "interpretation" - which I do not believe in or have ever seen any evidence of) has grown exponentially over the past several years.

The snow and ice make a neural pattern "through the window" (between imagination and proto-cognizance) to infer (and correspond with) the absence of real-world memory while dreaming.

#dream journal #meaning of dreams #dreaming #my dreams

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blalockcassidy53 · 2 years

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stereostevie · 3 years

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When you think of grunge, do you picture a bunch of long-haired White guys in plaid shirts, singing about teenage angst and self-loathing? Time to expand that viewpoint. Standing above them all should be Tina Bell, a tiny Black woman with an outsized stage presence, and her band, Bam Bam. It’s only recently that the 1980s phenom has begun to be recognized as a godmother of grunge.

This modern genre’s sound was, in many ways, molded by a Black woman. The reason she is mostly unknown has everything to do with racism and misogyny. Looking back at the beginnings of grunge, with the preconception that “everybody involved” was White and/or male, means ignoring the Black woman who was standing at the front of the line.

Bam Bam was formed as a punk band in 1983 in Seattle. Bell, a petite brown-skinned spitfire with more hairstyle changes than David Bowie, sang lead vocals and wrote most of the lyrics. Her then-husband Tommy Martin was on guitars (the band’s name is an acronym of their last names: Bell And Martin), Scotty “Buttocks” Ledgerwood played bass, and Matt Cameron was on drums. Cameron would leave the band in its first year and go on to fame as the drummer for Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. But he paid homage to his beginnings by wearing a Tina Bell T-shirt in a photoshoot for Pearl Jam’s 2017 Anthology: the Complete Scores book.

“For some reason a couple of skinheads are up front, calling her [the N-word] And all of the sudden, Bell grabs a microphone stand and she starts swirling it around her head like a lasso… She swung that fuckin’ thing around her head and about the fourth time, she smashed that son of a bitch.”

Bam Bam’s sound straddled the line between punk and something so new that it didn’t have a name yet. Their music combined a driving, thrumming bass line; downtuned, sludgy guitars; thrashy, pulsing drums; melodic vocals that range from sultry to haunting to screamy; and lyrics about the existential tension of trying to exist in a world not designed for you. The band’s 1984 music video for their single “Ground Zero” is low-budget, but Bell’s charisma seeps through.

“She was fucking badass. That’s all there is to it. She was amazing as a performer. I’ve only seen one White male lead singer command the stage in a similar way that Tina Bell did, and that was Bon Scott of AC/DC,” says Om Johari, who attended Bam Bam shows as a Black teenager in the ’80s and who would go on to lead all-female AC/DC cover band Hell’s Belles.

youtube

Christina King, a Seattle scenester who was close friends with Bell from 1984 until the early ’90s, says the singer’s talent was obvious. But she believes a lot of people dismissed Bell as a gimmick.

Among those attending their shows: Future members of grunge bands like Nirvana (Kurt Cobain did a stint as a Bam Bam roadie), Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam.

“I remember one person saying to me that they didn’t get ‘the whole Black girl singer thing,’ it just didn’t fit whatever they were into,” says King. “They were too ahead of their time.”

Bam Bam came into being in an era when hundreds of underground clubs, taverns, bars, and social halls — anywhere that you could cram in a band — were within the Seattle city limits. Bam Bam played almost all of them, and often to big crowds: The Colourbox, Crocodile Lounge, Gorilla Gardens, Squid Row — just to name a few.

Among those attending their shows: Future members of history-making grunge bands like Nirvana (Kurt Cobain did a stint as a Bam Bam roadie), Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam. Not to mention all the other people, mostly White and male, who would become prime targets for music labels trying to market this new sound.

Bell “already possessed everything they were trying to attain. She had a truer rock and roll spirit than almost any of those guys in that town. Everything they tried to do, she naturally was,” says Ledgerwood, still a loyal bandmate.

One Seattle club, The Metropolis, became “like our fucking living room,” says Ledgerwood. It was also the site of an overtly racist verbal assault against Tina Bell.

“For some reason a couple of skinheads are up front, calling her [the N-word],” Ledgerwood recalls. “And all of the sudden, Bell grabs a microphone stand and she starts swirling it around her head like a lasso… She swung that fuckin’ thing around her head and about the fourth time, she smashed that son of a bitch… She nailed that fucker right in the temple of his head. Split like a melon. And the other guy next to him caught it too, they go down, and we’re like, ‘What the fuck?’”

Ledgerwood says that after going backstage for a while to regroup, Bell came back “and put out the most blistering set of our fucking career.”

This could easily be an anecdote about Bell’s power, her resilience, and willingness to fight back against oppressive forces. But it’s also a story about the cost of being a Black woman who does something that some people don’t expect or approve of.

“She’s being pulled out of her zone because somebody is acknowledging how the rest of the world can see her,” says Johari, empathizing with the star rocker. “And even to react to it by picking up a microphone and smashing someone in the face, that means that that incident cost her not only that moment it takes to get back into the song, but the whole [effects of her] action will last for weeks.

“She’ll replay that over and over and over and over again. And then the people she sees that were there when it happened, they’re gonna come up to her and they’re gonna forget everything that she’s saying, all the stuff that she had did, and they’re only going to focus on, ‘I was at that show where you knocked a dude in the head for calling you an N-word,’” Johari says. “It has nothing to do with her artistry. But it reminds her of the way in which she has to be prepared, just in case it happens again.”

King remembers Bell also felt that some of the other men in the band’s changing lineup failed to treat her as an equal partner: “She’s getting that from her own band members — what do you think audience people are like?”

A European tour in the late ’80s gained Bam Bam international fans, but ended after Bell and Martin split up, and Bell was caught in an immigration enforcement dragnet in the Netherlands.

When they returned to the Pacific Northwest, Bam Bam continued playing shows until 1990, when Bell abruptly quit as they were packing up to head to the studio in Portland, Ore.

“She had just had enough,” Ledgerwood says. “For almost eight years she had almost literally eviscerated herself for the audience.”

But that work never resulted in the national recognition they deserved.

“Grunge, whatever that means, is being identified as from your community, your colleagues, your sound that you were a participant in help shaping, and you’re not even mentioned in any of it.”

“Sometimes you need to be a little bit of an asshole to protect yourself. And Bell wasn’t much of an asshole,” Ledgerwood adds. “She was a pure-hearted person and had a really hard time believing that people couldn’t accept her over something as stupid as race.”

Bell didn’t just quit the band, she withdrew from music completely, says her son, Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker TJ Martin. Not out of resentment, he adds, but perhaps to escape the painful reminders that the music she helped pioneer was now earning other bands multimillion-dollar record contracts.

“Grunge, whatever that means, is being identified as from your community, your colleagues, your sound that you were a participant in help shaping, and you’re not even mentioned in any of it,” Martin says. “I can’t even fathom what that would feel like for it to be sort of spit back in your face with such frequency.”

Ledgerwood believes Bell died of a broken heart. But when Bell died alone in her Las Vegas apartment in 2012, the official cause of death listed was cirrhosis of the liver. She had struggled with alcohol and depression. Her son says the coroner estimated her time of death as a couple weeks before her body was discovered. She was 55 years old.

The things that could have told Tina Bell’s story in her own voice are lost. Martin arrived in Las Vegas to find that the contents of his mother’s apartment — except for a DVD player, a poster, and a chair — had been thrown away. All of her writings — lyrics, poems, diaries — along with Bam Bam music, videos, and other memorabilia — went in the trash without her family even being notified.

If you think you were in Seattle in the ’80s, in the grunge scene, and you don’t remember Tina Bell and Bam Bam, you probably weren’t really fucking there.

“I couldn’t help draw a parallel between her not being respected and seen in the first chapter of her life, as the front person of a punk band, and then even in death being disrespected and not being seen for the merits of the life she lived,” says Martin.

Bell’s death is also an indictment of the way she was written out of her own story. The way grunge’s almighty gatekeepers chose to look through her instead of at her. Grunge became the domain of alienated young White men in flannel shirts, and Tina Bell didn’t fit the narrative they were trying to sell.

“Black herstory can suffer immense amounts of erasure if somebody is not brave enough to ensure that women get counted,” Johari says.

To many of those who were part of the scene at the time, the amnesia seems intentional. Ledgerwood brings up the seminal history of Seattle’s grunge era, Everybody Loves Our Town. In it, the author refers to Bam Bam as a three-piece instrumental band mainly notable because Matt Cameron was the drummer. Tina Bell isn’t even mentioned.

“How in the hell would he have a recollection of how great Bam Bam and its drummer was, and not this unbelievably beautiful woman, this firecracker, this explosive rock and roll goddess?” Ledgerwood asks. “Even if he thought she sucked, to not remember the only Black woman on the whole fuckin’ scene is — well, it’s like that old joke about the ’60s: If you think you were in Seattle in the ’80s, in the grunge scene, and you don’t remember Tina Bell and Bam Bam, you probably weren’t really fucking there.”

You can listen to more of Bam Bam’s music on this Spotify playlist. A vinyl album with the band’s songs is coming out this year on Bric-a-Brac Records.

#Alice in Chains #Bam Bam #black history #black women #black women in rock #grunge #Kurt Cobain #music #Nirvana #Pearl Jam #rock #Seattle #Soundgarden #Tina Bell #women in rock #women's history #80s

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scotianostra · 2 years

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Happy Birthday to Scottish actor, John Gordon Sinclair born February 4th 1962 in Glasgow.

His birth name was Gordon John Sinclair but there was a Gordon Sinclair already registered with Equity so added Sinclair.

He joined Glasgow’s Youth Theatre after he visited one night and met fellow fan of Canadian progressive rock group Rush, Robert Buchanan. As a result he starred in a number of films by director Bill Forsyth, perhaps the most famous of which was 1981’s Gregory’s Girl, shot when he was 19 years old. He reprised the role nearly two decades later in Gregory’s Two Girls, and also appeared in Forsyth’s Local Hero.

He has continued to act on stage and screen. Other roles include parts in Goodbye Mr Steadman, Mad About Alice Gasping and Roman Road. He was also in the first series of LWT’s Hot Metal and both the radio and television sitcom An Actor’s Life For Me. He played Dan Weir in Espedair Street, the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of my favourite Iain Banks novel, as well as playing the lead part of Dr. Finlay in the Radio 4 series entitled Adventures of a Black Bag.

He appeared in the 1982 Scottish squad’s World Cup song “We Have a Dream”, a number 5 hit in the UK, which was written and performed by BA Robertson. It featured John Gordon Sinclair speaking his recollection of a dream about Scottish football success. He later revived this Scottish footballing connection by narrating the 2006-07 BBC Scotland documentary series That Was The Team That Was.

John Gordon Sinclair played Frank McClusky, a leading character, in the 1990 John Byrne TV serial “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and played one of the main characters in the Tesco TV adverts in the late 1990s and early 2000s alongside Prunella Scales and Jane Horrocks. He has appeared in the West End of London on many occasions The pinnacle must have been when he was awarded an Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1995 for Best Actor in a Musical for his 1994 performance in “She Loves Me”.

Sinclair also performed the part of “Master of Ceremonies” in Mike Oldfield’s premiere performance of Tubular Bells II at Edinburgh Castle in 1992. More recently John has been seen in World War Z with Brad Pitt, the BBC series Ill Behaviour and the forensic crime drama Traces, alongside fellow Scots Martin Compston and Laura Fraser. There’s nothing new to report on John, his last film was in 2020, Miss Marx a period biography about Karl Marx’s youngest daughter.

I follow John on twitter and he has replied a couple of times to comments I have made, we share the same political views and is a supporter of Scottish Independence.

#scotland #scottish #actor #writer #funny guy #happy birhtday

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miserablesme · 3 years

Text

The Les Miserables Changelog Part 1: Barbican Previews

Hello everyone! I'm starting out a blog which will look at my favorite musical, Les Miserables, and will discuss the various changes it has gone through over time (musically and lyrically). As it turns out, a LOT of edits have been made over the years so this will doubtless be a series with several parts.

This first part may well be the most difficult and will almost certainly be the most incomplete, as previews can be a time of extensive editing and experimentation. At least for the first few weeks or so, it's perfectly possible any one day of previews will be slightly different than any other day. However, I only have access to two audios from the Barbican Theatre previews of Les Miserables, meaning it's likely that lyrical variants exist which I have no way of hearing.

I am aware of the existence of a third audio which is fairly early in the run of previews, as the tape's master has told me that Gavroche's death scene is in its original form (I'll clarify that later). However, that tape has never been traded, and has sadly only been listened to by its master. I am also aware of a video proshot of the Barbican era that exists in the Royal Shakespeare Company library, but currently have no access to it. I plan to inquire about whether I can look at it sometime (though I'm not sure a blog like this is "official" enough to warrant it for research purposes). As such, this comparison only entails the two widely circulated audios from the Barbican run.

Now that we've gotten that cleared up, let's get started!

First, let's look at the opening "Work Song". In the earlier recording I have (let's call it R1), the beginning music (the same tune used, for instance, at the opening of "At the End of the Day" and "One Day More" and for Marius and Cosette's meeting in "The Robbery") stops. Then, a few moments later, the more familiar opening that leads directly into the prologue begins. By the time of the later recording I have (let's call it R2), the scores have been combined so that the first tune directly transitions into the second one.

Meanwhile, in R1 there is a sequence of lines that goes as follows:

I've done no wrong

Sweet Jesus, hear my prayer

Look down, look down

Sweet Jesus doesn't care

I killed a man

He tried to steal my wife

Look down, look down

She wasn't worth your life

I know she'll wait

I know that she'll be true

Look down, look down

She's long forgotten you

Most fans of the musical recognize the middle sequence of lines ("I killed a man" through "She wasn't worth your life") as no longer being lines in the show (for good reason, as we'll get into in a later edition of this blog). However, R2 keeps the lines. Instead, it deletes the third sequence ("I know she'll wait" through "She's long forgotten you"). I have no idea if this lasted only a few performances or made it all the way to the end of the Barbican run, or somewhere in between.

During "On Parole", specifically after Valjean is underpaid for his labor and sings about his frustration, R1 uses a variation of the "Work Song" theme which, to my recollection, is heard nowhere else in the musical. It can be heard here. By R2, it was switched to an in-tune version of the number with a unique opening. The musical retains that version to this day, but in case you can't recall it you can hear it here.

Minus an unintentional line flub in "At the End of the Day" in R2, the two Barbican recordings seem to use the same libretto and score from this point until "The Runaway Cart". At this point, R1 has a rather extensive scene leading up to Valjean saving Fauchelevent, which goes approximately as follows (the dialog is difficult to make out):

(VALJEAN)

Is there anyone here who will rescue the man?

Who will help me to shoulder the weight of the cart?

I will pay any man thirty louis d’or more

I will do it myself if there’s no one who will

We can’t let him die like that down in the street

Can you all watch him die and do nothing at all?

(FAUCHELEVENT)

Don’t approach me, Monsieur Mayor

The cart’s not gonna be holding

Not my poor mother would care if I should die

(TOWNSPEOPLE)

Don't go near him, Monsieur Mayor

There's nothing at all you can do

The old man's a goner for sure

Leave him alone

Most of that dialog is deleted in R2, so that it goes directly from "Who will help me to shoulder the weight of the cart" to "Don't go near him, Monsieur Mayor". I really like the idea of the original version; it seems reasonable that Valjean, having become a more trusted man, would expect the townspeople to help him. It's more meaningful that Valjean is good enough to do what's right when there's more time to establish that no one else is. Having said that, the original version did take quite a while and didn't really contain any relevant information that wasn't in the final version. I think the cut version as heard in R2 is a good compromise and retains the general mood and pacing to make Valjean's ultimate action satisfying (something that can't be said of later cuts, as will be discussed in a future edition of this blog).

Additionally, at the end of the number Javert refers to "the mark upon his skin" in R1 and "the brand upon his skin in R2 (as well as literally every subsequent performance since then to my knowledge). I have no idea if the "mark" line was a minor flub or was actually the original lyric.

"Who Am I?" is an interesting one. The musical content is identical in R1 and R2, but in R1 after his high note, Valjean shouts "You know where to find me!" with emotion so dramatic it sits right on the border between awesome and campy. By contrast, Valjean is totally silent after his high note in R2. Neither version would see its final day just yet, although the latter certainly has become more traditional over time. More on that in future editions.

From this point until "Master of the House" everything is the same between the two recordings. Roger Allam even comes in slightly late in both "Confrontation" scenes (making his line "-jean, at last...")! However, in the opening to "Master of the House" the following lines occur in R1:

(THENARDIER)

My band of soaks, my den of dissolutes

My dirty jokes, my always pissed as newts

My sons of whores

Spend their lives in my inn

Homing pigeons flying in

They fly through my doors

And their money's good as yours

(CUSTOMERS)

Ain't got a clue what he put into his stew

Must've scraped it off the street

Hell, what a wine

Châteauneuf de Turpentine

Must've pressed it with his feet

Landlord over here

Where's the bloody man

One more for the road

One more slug of gin

Just one more or my old man is gonna do me in

All of those lines would be scrapped in R2. Personally I prefer this shortened variant than the one that would occur much later. Sure, some fun moments get lost, but nothing that actually adds any substance or characterization to the musical (unlike the later cut, which I'll discuss in a later edition of this blog). Some have speculated that this is simply lost dialog due to a tape flip of degrading, given that future performances would retain those lines. However, there is firsthand confirmation that the cuts were in fact part of the performance. To quote Trevor Nunn on page 87 of 1990's The Complete Book of Les Miserables (a page which elaborates that "the cost of overtime incurred after three hours could be crippling at a time when Les Miserables was still trying to find an audience"):

"Cameron wanted major cuts, which would have reduced its length to two and a half hours. I resisted, refusing to discuss things on those terms... Some of the other proposed cuts - like the removal of the "Master of the House" scene-setting preamble - were tried out in previews and then restored as the scenes would not work without them."

From a historical perspective that quote is invaluable. As will be brought up in a later blog post (notice a pattern today?) the musical would in fact be cut much later to avoid overtime charges. When people like myself have expressed the opinion that these cuts come at the expense of artistic integrity, I've seen others defend them by claiming that the overtime costs never were relevant to Cameron and the gang until Broadway sales began to go down, and that if they were taken into account the musical may well be in its shortened form from the beginning. However, this quote proves that argument to be false. Right from day one, the crew was aware that retaining a >3 hour runtime would come with severe financial costs, but this was deemed a worthy sacrifice in order to tell the story they wanted told. Indeed, it sounds like Cameron Mackintosh was waiting quite some time to enact his infamous cuts! (Cameron Mackintosh valuing profit above art?! Crazy, right??)

But I digress. Going back to the musical, the "Waltz of Treachery" number is mostly the same. However, after Valjean's "It won't take you too long to forget" line, R1 has over a minute of wordless vamping which leads right into the rather awkwardly-placed "Stars" song. By contrast, in R2 this vamping (which is still a minute long, mind you) leads into a humming duet between Little Cosette and Valjean, similar to the duet right before the number. A nice little bookend that makes the scene feel all the more resolved. (Much later this duet reprise would ironically be scrapped again, though!) The remaining segment of R1's vamping now plays after this sequence in R2.

Minus some unintentional missed lines at the beginning of "Stars" in R1, the recordings seem to follow the same libretto right up until "One Day More". Here, R1 uses the following lines:

(EPONINE)

One more day with him not caring

(MARIUS and COSETTE)

Was there ever love so true?

(EPONINE)

What a life I might have known

(MARIUS and COSETTE)

I was born to be with you

However, by R2 this scene is in its current form:

(EPONINE)

One more day with him not caring

(MARIUS and COSETTE)

I was born to be with you

(EPONINE)

What a life I might have known

(MARIUS and COSETTE)

And I swear I will be true

And that closes act one! Going on to the second act, the opening barricade scene has a few changes. First off, following the opening notes, R1 features a rather odd tune bearing resemblance to "Do You Hear the People Sing" (which can be heard here) before transitioning to a more true-to-form instrumental reprise of "Do You Hear the People Sing?" By contrast, R2 goes straight from the opening notes to the true-to-form reprise.

Next, Enjolras proclaims "Have faith in yourself and do not be afraid" in R1, while in R2 he instead states "Every man to his duty and don't be afraid". It's unknown if this was an intentional libretto change or if it simply reflects a flub during R1. A later sequence uses the "Have faith in yourself" line, meaning he may have just sung the wrong line for that particular scene.

Finally, R1 includes the following sequence (at least I think this is how it goes, since the lyrics are a little hard to hear):

(PROUVAIRE)

And the people will fight

(GRANTAIRE)

And join with you

Who gives a speech in the square

Fortunately, R2 uses a much less clunky (though still somewhat so) sequence:

(PROUVAIRE)

And the people will fight

(GRANTAIRE)

And so they might

Some will bark, some will bite

This isn't quite its current form ("dogs" and "fleas" will soon respectively replace the two usages of "some"), but it's pretty darn close.

I've heard that the very first Barbican preview(s?) didn't have a finalized opening to "On My Own". Sadly there is no known audio record of this, so I cannot comment on what exactly it began as. As such, the next major change takes place during Gavroche's death scene. This honestly is probably the biggest of all the changes between the two recordings. R1 uses the following death scene (in the tune of "Look Down" right up until the "So never kick a dog" verse, which is in the tune of "Little People"):

How do you do, my name’s Gavroche

These are my people, here’s my patch

Not much to look at, nothing posh

Nothing that you’d call up to scratch

Some fool, I bet, whose brains are made of fat

Picks up a gun and shoots me down

Nobody told him who he’s shooting at

He doesn’t know who runs this town

Life’s like that

There’s some folk

Missed the joke

That’s three, that’s three

That one has done for me

Too fast, too fast

They’ve got Gavroche at last

So never kick a dog

Because he’s just a pup

You better run for cover when the pup grows...

By contrast, R2 uses a much shorter variant which is set entirely to the tune of "Little People":

And little people know

When little people fight

We may look easy picking but we've got some bite

So never kick a dog

Because he's just a pup

You'd better run for cover when the pup grows up

And we'll fight like twenty armies and we won't give...

This is much closer to its current form, although the last two lines are inverted (we'll get to that in a later edition).

We now fast-forward to "Dog Eats Dog", which while recognizable is very different from the number we know today. The chorus of R1 claims that "It's a dirty great sewer that's crawling with rats", which R2 changes it to "stinking great sewer" instead. I'd definitely say the revised lyric better captures Thenardier's and the sewer's grossness.

Additionally, regarding Marius' ring, Thenardier originally exclaims that he "didn't mean to waste it, that would really be a crime". By R2, the line changes to "wouldn't want to waste it", which I'd say makes a lot more sense.

"Javert's Suicide" has changed a lot. R1 features the following remarks following "Vengeance was his and he gave me back my life":

Damned if I live in this caper of grace

Damned if I live in the debt of Valjean

I'll spit his pity right back in his face

Is this the law or has sanity gone?

(I'm a little unsure as to how accurate the final line is.)

By R2, the lines have been replaced with the current ones:

Damned if I live in the debt of a thief

Damned if I yield at the end of the chase

I am the law and the law is not mocked

I'll spit his pity right back in his face

In R1, the "Where's the new world, now the fighting's done" line is absent, and there is nothing but instrumentals in the segment where it is usually sung. By contrast, it is sung as usual in R2. My guess is that an actress simply forgot her line in R1 and it was always supposed to be there, though I can't say for sure.

The final change occurs at the wedding scene. The singing which opens the number is repeated in R1. By contrast, R2 has it sung once and then done with, as it currently is (and as it should be in my opinion, since the music isn't particularly pretty and contributes nothing to the plot).

Later in the same scene, R1 includes approximately this exchange (again, it's quite hard to make out the exact lyrics):

(THENARDIER)

I was there

Never fear

Even got me this fine souvenir

He was there

Her old dad

*indecipherable* and fleecing this lad

Robbed the dead

That's his way

(MME. THENARDIER)

That's worth five hundred any old day

(MARIUS)

I know this...

By R2, everything between "He was there" and "Any old day" were removed, which makes sense given that they essentially just rehash what was already said.

Finally, there's a subtle difference in the epilogue, specifically during the "Do You Hear the People Sing?" reprise. In R1, the ensemble sings "They will live again in glory in the garden of the Lord". R2 replaces the word "glory" with "freedom", and that word remains the one used to this day. I suppose "freedom" is more appropriate for the context of peace and prosperity. To many, I'd guess that "glory" conjures imagery of knights, battles, and the like; just the kind of violence that the characters wish to move away from! I have no idea if this was why the writers changed the lyric, but it's my hypothesis.

Towards the end of the show, the chorus in R1 sings "Even the darkest moon will end and the sun will rise". By R2, this is changed to "the darkest night". Makes more sense to me, since moons aren't known for being particularly dark!

And that just about sums this part up! If I missed anything feel free to let me know, as my goal is to create a changelog as thorough and complete as possible. I plan on making more parts in the near future covering all the changes that have been made in the show up until this day (discounting concerts). Any feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated.

As a side note, both for this project and my own enjoyment, I want as complete a collection of Les Miserables audios as possible. I already have most of what's commonly circulated, but if you have any audios or videos you know are rare, I'd love it if you DMed me!

Until the turntable puts me at the forefront again, good-bye...

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harrisonarchive · 2 years

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George Harrison's animated guest appearance on The Simpsons, season 5 episode 1, “Homer’s Barbershop Quartet,” a spoof on The Beatles. It first aired in the U.S. on 30 September 1993, and in the U.K. on 3 October 1993.

“When you meet them and you don’t talk about the Beatles, they get really happy. We did talk about the Beatles, but I also mentioned one of [George Harrison’s] solo albums [Wonderwall Music], and his eyes lit up.” - Matt Groening, Paley Festival, 15 March 2007

According to the episode commentary on the season 5 DVDs, George arrived at the recording studio in L.A. by himself without any entourage or bodyguards, and seemed - according to Matt Groening - “pretty glum” and unenthusiastic regarding questions about The Beatles. But after Groening asked George about Wonderwall Music, he “perked up,” since the album wasn’t particularly one he was often asked about. Groening ranks George’s guest appearance as one of his favorites because George was “super nice” and “very sweet” to the staff. (x)

#George Harrison #quote #quotes about George #Harrison cameos #1993 #1990s #Matt Groening #Homer's Barbershop Quartet #Wonderwall Music #fan recollections #fan recollections: 1990s #fits queue like a glove

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thislovintime · 1 year

Video

Clips from 1997 and 2006.

Q: “Why did you get into the music business?” Peter Tork: “Approval. Respect. Love. Girls.” - Beachwood Confidential, 1995 (x)

* * *

"What I was working towards was to be in a group. When the Beatles hit, where were all the folkies going to go? But I also wanted to be a folk music performer. A lot of what I did was hanging out, feeling for the first time that I was part of the scene, walking down the street and seeing people I knew, doing a little flirting." - Peter Tork, Bringing It All Back Home: 25 Years of American Music at Folk City (1986) (x)

* * *

"Dear Peter, I hope this doesn’t sound stupid. It’s something I’ve always wanted to know. Why do rock stars get all the women? I figured you would know. Even my sister likes you a lot and she doesn’t really like anyone very much. She says hi, btw. I was thinking of becoming an architect but that doesn’t seem to get the girls excited. Should I learn to play guitar? Thanks bro, Jon L."

"Dear Jon, Thanks for asking. I’ve never wondered the same thing; I’ve been too busy trying to get the women by being a pop star so I’ve never had time to stop and tell on the roses, as it were. But since it all came up lo, these many years ago, I’ve actually given the matter some thought. Here’s some of what I’ve come up with: For one thing, those of us who got into show business did so IN ORDER to get attention. This is sometimes an outgrowth of a conviction in childhood that people didn’t much care about us, or even notice us. We determined that if we could get the millions (or, say, dozens) to love us, then it wouldn’t matter that we weren’t much regarded on an individual basis in our youth. For some of us, it worked. Unfortunately, it has its drawbacks. You don’t get to know these ahead of time, so I’m going to tell you. One of them is, that the girls we do get mostly want us for the show we put on. By that, I don’t mean only the stuff that goes on onstage, but the way we present ourselves when we meet someone. I have a ready stock of funny stories and sly ways to hook a girl in, but in the end, that’s what she goes for, and when it comes time for me to be myself, she’s always kind of shocked. […] Check it out: architecture is a deeply satisfying career and you’re going to find a relationship that suits you if you’ll only let it happen and what you do for a living will be only one measure of your true value in the eyes of a worthy, intelligent, supportive woman. Good luck, Peter” - Ask Peter Tork, The Daily Panic, 2008 (x)

* * *

"In spite of all his clowning, Peter was a rather serious chap. […] Peter was a loud, powerful singer (I used to call him a romp’em, stomp’em type of singer), while I was a soft ballad singer. He had enormous stage presence and I had very little. He played the banjo, I played the guitar. […] He was restless and intense, while I was calm. He loved to be with a lot of people all of the time, whereas I liked to be completely alone some of the time. And last, but not least, Peter Tork had quite a way with the girls." - Bruce Farwell, 16’s The Monkees: Here We Are (1967) (x)

* * *

“Next to his music, girls interested Peter Tork more than anything else in the whole wide world. He loved them all — and most of them loved him. Peter wasn’t tall, dark or handsome, but he made up for his liabilities with his great warmth, enthusiasm and sense of humor. He was also basically a very kind and giving person. He just had a way of making people happy even when he was broke, freezing cold and there were no prospects for work in the future. That Pied Piper-ish quality Peter had attracted girls of all shapes and sizes. He had many brief romances and a couple of very serious ones, and even today Peter is still good friends with almost every girl he knew, dated, or fell in love with during his Greenwich Village days.” - Lance Wakely, 16, March 1967

* * *

“Peter was great for the chicks of the village… they queued up to see him and talk to him. But eventually he had an offer to join the Phoenix Singers, who were short of a guy to play banjo AND guitar. And if you still have any doubts about whether he really does play, and play well, then the thing to do is ask the management behind the Phoenix Singers. Even without the Monkees, there is little doubt that the amiable Peter would have mae the grade in the music business. When, eventually, Peter went to the West Coast, to California, he wasn’t kept waiting long for fame. Within two months he was auditioned and accepted for the Monkees. Behind him was a mass of previous girlfriends but, unlike many blokes, Peter has the knack of staying on very friendly terms with girls even after he’s stopped going out with them.” - Record Mirror, February 25, 1967

* * *

“...Inside his dressing room, he towels the sweat from [his] head, takes out a guitar, pulls up a chair and starts singing ME a song. [...] He DIPS me, yes, like a dance dip, asks me permission and then kisses ME chastely on my cheek!... [...] Months later, when I returned back to earth, I received a three page letter from Peter Tork (remember, he asked me for my address before the dip) which was just beautiful, poetry mixed with kindness, which is how I choose to this day to describe him as a human.”:

“I heard this on the radio!

‘TODAY at 4pm, THE MONKEES will be appearing at RECORD WORLD!’

I looked at a map to see where Record World was located (yes, I had a map in my glove compartment) and plotted and within seconds, turned the car in the opposite direction of Georgetown and hightailed to some mall in Virginia. The line to meet the Monkees was surprisingly huge. It wrapped all the way around the mall twice. Anxious to make it back to campus for the first night of my senior year, which we all know is the BEST night of the year, I became anxious the line was too long and The Monkees would leave before they got to me. I needed to come up with a plan, stepping off the line, I found myself moments later in Sharper Image, purchasing a small tape recorder.

With tape recorder in hand, I marched myself up to the security guard outside the RECORD WORLD where all four of the Monkees were signing records.

‘I’m here from the Georgetown University newspaper, The Hoya. I wasn’t even sure if that was the title of our school newspaper…a lucky guess.

‘I’m hoping to get a quick interview with the guys.’

‘Sure, right this way.’

WOW! That was easy.

They let me cut the line and stand RIGHT behind the Monkees while they continued to sign records. Me looking out at a sea of other Monkee lunatics, just like me!

OMG!!! I had NO questions, I had no way of handling being this close to the four guys that I spent my entire pubescent life fantasizing about marrying, dancing or at least camping!

‘Hello.’ Micky Dolenz says to me!!! and I go numb. I got nothing.

I look over to Peter Tork, who asks me my name and when I say Mary, Davy Jones chimes in and says, ‘Ah, Mary Mary.’

 WHAT!!!!???? Smelling salts please?? (Actually, true story, Lara did really pass out once when she met Davy Jones at a book signing!)

I stumbled my way through the interview, holding up the tiny tape recorder every time I asked a question. Thankfully they never caught on that the tape recorder didn’t even have batteries in it or that I had not actually pushed any of the buttons to start or stop recording. I just moved it from my mouth to their face, like a child playing make-believe.

I kindly say thank you and tear up. The security guard ushers me away from the table but right before I was about to steal a tuft of [Micky]’s hair, Peter Tork looks at me and said, ‘write your phone number down here.’

In a Monkees haze, I write it and then, I’m quickly whisked away by security.

I cried the entire 3-hour car ride back to DC, happy tears, and this was before cell phones, so I had no one to call and scream the news. Just me, alone, reliving how I had just pulled off a Monkees miracle.

When I arrived back to my senior year house, all my pals were wondering why I was so late and informed me I had thirty minutes to get dressed because we were all heading out for the BIG first night back at school. The night you waited all summer long for, so you could show off how great you looked to your biggest crush.

I threw down my bag, jumped in the shower and was interupted by my roommate telling me that I had a phone call.

Wet from the shower, I grabbed the call.

‘Hi. This is the Monkees Tour Manager. Peter Tork asked me to leave two tickets for you at the Will Call for tonight’s show. It starts at 8pm.’

I looked at the clock…it was 6pm….the concert was two hours away, back to where I had just left the scene of my delicious deception.

I HAD TO GO!

I started down my list of roommates to come with me, one at a time, rejection, followed with ‘YOU’RE NUTS!!’

Finally, I bribed my most beautiful and most fun pal Emily to join me. I think the bribe was, I’ll pay all your bar tabs the entire first semester if you drive to Virginia with me. If you saw how we drank back then, this was a generous offer.

She agreed to join me, but made me promise we could be back by midnight as to not miss out on the first night back to school.

‘Done!’

And there we were, back in my car, heading two hours south, right back to where I just come from.

We arrived at the concert hall and Emily (my personal timekeeper) reminded me. ‘You have two hours…that’s it.’

We had great seats and a bunch of songs in, a roadie came and plucked us from our seats to go backstage. WHAT!

There was an intermission or maybe it was the moment between the last song and the encore, but all I remember what that it was fast and there was a lot of scrambling.

This was the first ‘backstage’ I had ever seen. A minute in, Peter Tork comes over to ME!? Says, ‘I’m so glad you made it’ and invites ME!? into his dressing room.

I look at Emily, who somehow understands just how big a deal this was to me and grants me, sternly, ‘10 minutes!!’

Inside his dressing room, he towels the sweat from [his] head, takes out a guitar, pulls up a chair and starts singing ME a song.

The 13-year old girl in me dreamt about this moment for years and now it was right in front of me. My very own little concert with Peter.

‘2 minutes!’ An announcement comes up on a loud speaker, but the perfect amount of time for him to put down his guitar, change his shirt, tell me that I was a very special person (something about my aura), asks me to write down my address in a small book AND then………

He DIPS me, yes, like a dance dip, asks me permission and then kisses ME chastely on my cheek!

The door opens, Emily is now [tapping] her feet and thwarting off flirtatious talk by Davy Jones (with something I remember as subtle as ‘FUCK OFF!’)

‘You’re done!’ She tells me sternly.

I was, forever. Forever change, just like Marcia Brady was when Davy Jones kissed her on her cheek.

The whole ride home we laughed at the idea that we were ‘groupies’ and I tried to downplay to her how UNBELIEVABLE and SUREAL the whole moment was. Like I had manifested a dream.

Later that night, back with other people my own age, back to what we all deemed very important…shots and dancing, I was still reliving every moment of what happened that magical day, wishing I had a phone to call Lara (she’d never believe it) or that that there was a special Monkees hotline that I could call to discuss ‘my feelings.’

‘What is that!?’ My friend Chudney asked me mid dance to Franki Valli’s Oh What A Night, pointing to a small foam ball peeking perfectly outside the middle of my bra. I looked down, reached in and just started laughing.

Peter’s microphone fob (or whatever the furry thing is at the tip of the microphone) must have fallen into my shirt during our torrid dip.

This was sure to go into the Smithsonian of my life.

Months later, when I returned back to earth, I received a three page letter from Peter Tork (remember, he asked me for my address before the dip) which was just beautiful, poetry mixed with kindness, which is how I choose to this day to describe him as a human.

Yes I was 22 and he was 52, yes this moment would be fully frowned upon today, but it was my moment, willingly and open heartedly. I willed myself backstage and into that dressing room and I’m grateful for that his real sweetness and this (I’m hoping you find benign and funny) story.

Yesterday when I heard of Peter’s passing, I danced with my daughter (even dipped her a few times) and then expressed gratitude to Peter and The Monkees for keeping me innocent, for keeping me weird and for keeping me alive with possibilities of real love – the kind you get from a song, or a glance or a sweet cheek kiss.” - Mary Giuliani, thriveglobal dot com, February 2019

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krispyweiss · 3 years

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Song Review: Grateful Dead - “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” (Live, July 6, 1990)

After kicking ass and stealing faces all night long, the Grateful Dead often encored with the musical equivalent of a make-up kiss and a returned face.

Their soothing version of Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” was one of the vehicles they used to do it. And on July 6, 1990, in Kentucky - a night that featured extreme heat, extreme performances and extreme heat from the cops - “Baby Blue” was like a cool breeze to send those who hadn’t been arrested on their way, in a calm and orderly fashion.

Out as part of the band’s “All the Years Live” video series, this performance is just as Sound Bites recollects. Essentially perfect. Serene even. And, though no one knew it at the time, the final version the group would play with Brent Mydland.

Fans regularly clamored for more-upbeat endings to Grateful Dead concerts. And encores were often anti-climatic. But this “Baby Blue” on this particular night, was, and remains, just exactly perfect.

Grade card: Grateful Dead - “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” (Live - 7/6/90) - A

Read Sound Bites’ previous “All the Years Live” coverage here.

9/2/21

#Youtube #grateful dead #all the years live #bob dylan #it’s all over now baby blue #jerry garcia #bob weir #phil lesh #mickey hart #bill kreutzmann #brent mydland

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gravesdiggers · 4 years

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Courtesy of a very kind person on Twitter...

(Will add transcript later when I get a moment!)

ETA: Transcript below... (any typos mine!)

I grew up in Weston-super-Mare, and the first time I went on a plane was on a family trip to Mallorca aged ten. It took me many years to appreciate that holidays could be even more glamorous than a few days in Magaluf. Before my acting career took off I'd spend my free time hitchhiking around France with friends. On occasion it got hairy, including the times we got stuck in a lorry and rode in a van full of chickens.

Since then, acting has granted me access to many different experiences. I shot a film called The Sheltering Desert in Namibia in the early 1990s, a few months after the country gained independence, and you could still feel the simmering tension. We visited Swakopmund, on the coast, one of the few old towns that used to be part of the colony of German South West Africa. There were still people driving around with SS number plates and antique shops full of Nazi memorabilia.

Filming often means working 14 hours for six days a week, so exploring can be a luxury. But when I do get to look around I can sometimes see places through a different lens. We shot some of the TV drama Riviera in Venice, mainly at night, and when we finished at 5am it was still dark and the streets were deserted. We got to see the beauty of all the little alleyways and canals, sumptuously lit by ancient sodium streetlights. And I managed to catch a football match, too, complete with chainting away fans arriving by gondola.

I had more time off in Buenos Aires, a magnificent, slightly faded city with incredibly beautiful public buildings that sit cheek by jowl with the crushing poverty of barrios such as La Boca and Villa 31. The restaurants were sensational and music was everywhere. I was lucky enough to attend the Bomba de Tiempo, which is essentially a drumming rave in a huge courtyard.

Actors tend to hang out together after filming, and I've certainly done that in some interesting places over the years. Perhaps the most memorable occasion was on a beach in Dorset during the filming of The Madness of King George. Nigel Hawthorne (who played the lead role) and I ended up smoking there with about 20 other people and indulging in a bit of night swimming.

There was also an apparent incident at Orly airport in Paris, where I bumped into a friend who said that the last time he'd seen me I had just arrived there after a particularly big night in Mexico City and was "going round on the luggage carousel", of which I have absolutely no recollection. Thank God it was before the age of camera phones.

Mexico, where I worked on the film Silencio, was a destination I will never forget, not least because of the country's very unusual bar snacks, including salted smoked locusts and grasshoppers. They might not be everyone's cup of tea, but they were tastier than they sound.

I have five children, so family holidays tend to be a challenging experience -- at times they can be hellishly difficult. My wife is from Australia, so when the seven of us travel there it can be a logistical nightmare, but it's well worth it when we arrive. The last time we visited we had an amazing holiday at Great Keppel Island, which is on the southern fringe of the Great Barrier Reef. It was going to be a resort island and the development was built, but for some reason it never opened, so it's been reclaimed by jungle. It's odd yet eerily beautiful -- the only signs of life are a few little guesthouses in the would-be resort's shadow, There are also a couple of bewitching woodlands in the interior of the island and you can walk through a glade that comes alive with butterflies.

Japan and Ethiopia top my holiday bucket list, but for different reasons. I'm interested in Ethiopia's natural beauty and ancient history; Japan has compelling art and I'm intrigued by the country's novelists. I'm just fascinated by the two cultures.

#Rupert Graves #interview #Quotes by Rupert

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