It took me until about halfway through the video to figure out what was wrong. Listen to the track. Once your foot starts tapping, notice where it taps in relation to the clapping. Unless you’re my dad, in which case…nevermind. Also, note the clapping in the background. It really is fascinating.
Now I realize Dion was lip-syncing. I get that. But the rest of this was live, baby. And that’s really no excuse for the Belmonts to screw this up too. Weird.
Did Ringo teach us all how to figure out the beat? Or was it someone else? Perhaps someone who was there could enlighten the class.
Thinking about it today, I thought about my own struggles with mental health. The thing is, no matter how sunny things are in your life, and right now it’s nothing but blue skies and ocean breezes in mine, that little black cloud is always around. And you’re always aware of it. It could be over your shoulder. It could be way out on the horizon. But it’s there. It’s kind of comforting in a way, because you know you can always run to it and find refuge. You can hide inside it and shut out the rest of the world. Sometimes it’s a struggle to keep looking ahead, goodness knows I’ve had my moments.
So we soldier on. We’ll watch and see what Steve is up to. We’ll keep an eye on the band too. It won’t be the same. But then, that’s what adulthood is all about, isn’t it?
I’ve been a fan of Steve Martin’s for years now. I’ll stop whatever it is I’m doing to watch The Jerk, and Roxanne and LA Story both remain among my all-time favorites.
In addition to the stuff you’ve seen on TV and in the movies, he’s also quite an author. Shopgirl was fantastic and I just finished his memoir Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life. Turns out there’s quite a mind inside the head that spent a decade with an arrow through it.
Wow. What an AWFUL sentence. We trudge on…
There’s been quite a controversy over in La Grande about a high school production of Martin’s play Picasso at the Lapin Agile. Parents successfully petitioned the school to cancel the production. Undeterred, the students took the whole thing off-campus and are presently scheduled to perform it on the campus at Eastern Oregon University in mid-May.
Martin has become aware of the issue and sent a letter to the La Grande Observer offering to pay for the production. That’s the Steve Martin I love.
I’m going to try and get over to La Grande to see the production, not only to support the kids but also to support Martin.
If you haven’t seen the video, it’s definitely worth watching. Not only for the turkey, but for the endless nonsense that comes out of Palin’s mouth. Does she honestly believe that after 8 years of George W Bush, this country is still over regulated? We’re watching the stock market crater in part because there’s zero transparency. Transparency which is created…through regulation.
I digress…
General opinion on the web today seems to fall into either the “why on Earth would she ever choose to do an interview in front of that?” column or the “where do you think your Thanksgiving dinner comes from?” category. I happen to fall into the former. It’s not because I’m squeamish. It’s not because I’m naive either. It’s because I just don’t want to see it any more than I want to see a steer slaughtered. And if society wanted to watch these activities, then processing plants wouldn’t be in out of the way locales. They’d be at the mall food court.
Wordstock is this weekend, and while the focus is on John Hodgman, I’m looking forward to seeing William Least Heat-Moon. Pete in Parkrose turned me on to him back when we were young 20-something idealists. I’ve probably read Blue Highways a half dozen times over the years. It’s never gotten old for me. Heat-Moon will be appearing Sunday at 1:30.
As long as you’re there, you’re gonna want to get there early. Oregon’s poet laureate, Lawson Inada, will be reading at 12:30 along with former Lewis & Clark instructor Vern Rutsala. Lawson gave a spectacular reading at Wordstock a couple of years ago. I can’t wait to see him again this time around.
Robert De Niro’s character Ace Rothstein in Casino, one of my all-time favorite movies, was based on Rosenthal. USA just showed the movie yesterday. Don’t know whether that was planned or not. Either way, Rosenthal was as much an innovator as he was a bad guy.
