Marlon Brando

My brother Brian and I watched "The Young Lions" the other night.

1958. Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Dean Martin. World War II. Great movie.

So Brian tells my Mom that we watched it and she says something to the effect of.."Oh that movie is where I first fell in love with the name Christian"

Marlon Brando's character in the movie is Lieutenant Christian Diestl..... a Nazi officer.

Except for that minor detail, that would be a great story I could use:

Me: My mother named me Christian because she loved it in a Marlon Brando movie

Person: Oh wow thats so cool! What a great story! Which Brando movie?

Me: The Young Lions

Person: (awkward silence)...isn't he a Nazi in that movie?

Me: ummm yeah...but...he's not a really bad Nazi?

Person: Your Mom named you after a Nazi character from a movie?

Me: A Brando character....

Person: A Nazi Brando character...

Me: Well he is a Nazi, and he is a proud German, but he becomes dissatisfied with the path Hitler is taking Germany down and despises the war and what it has done to his country.

Person: Yeah...but your Mom named you after a Nazi.

Me: No, she got the name from a Marlon Brando movie..

Person: A movie in which he is a Nazi.

Me: (pauses) Did I say Brando in The Young Lions?...my mistake...I meant Mutiny on the Bounty...its a great story, my mother named me after Marlon Brando's character in Mutiny on the Bounty. Cool right?

Marlon Brando as Lieutenant Fletcher Christian

Video - Summer 2014

Music feeds the soul

My wife's passion for music is one of the greatest gifts she has given me over the years...don't get me wrong I have always loved music, but if it wasn't for her I would have missed out on some serious ass-kicking oddball shows and probably would have not popped into the little hole-in-the-wall places that her curiosity demands we explore. Where I would've walked right by a klezmer trio, Kelly is compelled to sit and listen for hours...and now I do too. When the local community radio station advertises an Irish-Ska-Punk band I don't even process the information, Kelly has already bought tickets. When I say "Hey, (insert name of big mainstream band) is playing at (insert name of large concert venue) next Friday, wanna go?"...Kelly says "We can't, we have tickets for Cliff Casino and The Purple Dragon Angel Dolls in the alley behind the Basement Annex Club at 11:30pm that night."...I used to scoff, now I say "awesome". (Don't google Cliff Casino and the Purple Dragon Angel Dolls or the Basement Annex Club...I made that up)

Recently, I went through our videos and took out the clips of music from our travels. There were TONS of them...hours worth of music. I clipped together a small sample of the wide variety of music we have had the privilege to enjoy over just the last seven years or so (the age of better video quality!)... if you have 10 minutes or so, and like music, check it out. There are clips from at least 30 different countries, and cities around the US as well. 

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. - Plato

Digital or Vinyl?

Last Christmas, I got the Mrs a record player. When I say The Mrs, I mean us. After 23 years, all presents, except jewelry, are joint presents. 

I can't tell you how much joy this little contraption has brought into our house. We now sit in our living room...TOGETHER...talking about music, listening to RECORDS. Now I know what you're thinking. Together? Aren't you guys always together?...Well, yes..of course, but like any married couple, we do our own things. I'm always up in my office and Kelly is tucked away somewhere reading a book, covered in hot bags of herbs. The record player brought us back to living room and its really nice.

The record player came in the  mail and I plugged it in....no fuss, no muss I got it all hooked up and when Kelly got home we marveled at the nostalgia and settled down to listen to a record.

We did it every night for the first week...and any night that we got new records in the mail.

It's fantastic. Sure we have the music on our iTunes, but there is something about a record. They only last 3 or 4 songs, then one of us inevitably, jokingly says "uggghhh, go flip the record!" or "uggghhh this record player sucks!". 

Can I tell the difference in sound between Digital and Vinyl? Is there a big difference in quality?

Nope. Don't know. Not even a clue. Can't tell. No idea.

What I do know is that I like sitting in the living room with my wife...listening to records.

Rise and Shine

At 8am this morning I was on the phone with my father....I walked into my bedroom and discovered my wife still in bed, apparently abusing the snooze function on her alarm and making herself late for work in the process.

I asked my father to hold on for a second, leaned over my wife and said "rise and shine".

Then it happened.

I was holding the phone down by my leg but I could hear it....the morning nightmare from my youth...my father was singing at the top of his lungs:

"Rise and shine

And give God the glory, glory

Rise and shine

And give God the glory, glory

Rise and shine

And give God the glory, glory

Children of the Lord"

I am a morning person....now....but when I was a kid, I hated getting out of bed. My father would come upstairs, turn the lights on, pull the sheets off the bed all while singing that damn song, every verse, as loud as he could...clapping and dancing like a crazy person. My brother and I had awoken in Hell and my father was a demon from whichever circle it is that they torture children.

"The Lord said to Noah: there's gonna be a floody, floody

The Lord said to Noah: there's gonna be a floody, floody

Get those children out of the muddy, muddy

Children of the Lord"

So this morning, when I heard him singing it again, it sent shivers down my spine.....then I put him on speaker phone.

My wife was up and on her feet before he finished the second verse. Apparently her mom had used the same technique.

Now of course, I was actually thrilled to hear my father singing, as he is in a nursing home and can get depressed from time to time,....but over the course of the rest of our morning call, he burst out into that song at least four more times. I finally had to ask him to stop.

He said ok....and sang it again.