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Charlie Newman's avatar

OUTSTANDING! One of your best pieces, Bud.

While I admit both movies are terrific, I'm not a bug fan of musicals, so the movie I'd pick for NYC is Bye Bye Braverman.

Undoubtedly, being a New York Jew has something to do with my love for this movie.

If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and put it on your must-see list.

If nothing else, the cemetery state-of-the-union scene is worth the price of admission.

Have a good one, Amigo!

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Don Hall's avatar

It’s now on my list! Awesome!

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Charlie Newman's avatar

YAY!!!!!!!!!

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LavenderBlueMama's avatar

I love that you & Don R. have a continuous list of movie recommendations & my recommendation is a Muppet Show skit of Miss Piggy. Yep, that tracks. It’s fascinating how many things remind me of The Muppet Show actually. I’m gonna blame it on a suspected spinal fluid leak…

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Charlie Newman's avatar

Why 'blame' it? Everybody's taste is perfect...even my 1st ex, who's a big Lionel Ritchie fan.

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LavenderBlueMama's avatar

Lol. It’s a habit… the rusty nails of my old time religion shining through… justification of every thought & deed, & sentence.

I can’t fault anyone for loving Lionel Richie, when I’ve been loving the BeeGees since childhood, lol.

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Charlie Newman's avatar

In these discussions, I always fall back on my 2nd all-time favorite quote:

"If it sounds good to you, it's bitchin'; if it sounds bad to you, it's shitty." Frank Zappa

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LavenderBlueMama's avatar

That was Brilliant. Now I want to visit both cities, Chicago again, & New York for the first time. You always paint such vivid pictures with your words. I keep getting a mental image of you as Snoopy (naturally), deep in thought over your typewriter, figuring out what comes after “It was a dark and stormy night.”

It’s been so long since I’ve seen “The Blues Brothers,” I definitely need an updated viewing. “West Side Story” however, has already cemented itself in my history. I saw the musical in Wichita. My husband & I were meeting some friends & they had the tickets. They were late, so we ended up having to cross many laps & feet to get to our seats in the center of the first row of the balcony of Century II, in the dark. I am a walking catastrophic klutz in broad daylight, so I was terrified I would go sailing over the edge after stepping on the feet of one too many strangers.

I do love musicals, but for some reason it was slightly jarring & difficult for me to reconcile street fighting with musical theatre style dancing. MJ’s “Smooth Criminal” video hadn’t prepared me enough apparently. I loved the music & storyline though, after my heart rate reacclimated to the fact that I was still alive.

Long before I saw the movie or musical, 8 year old me was repeatedly listening to my mother’s Andy Williams album where all the tracks were show tunes, including “Love Is A Many Splendored Thing,” “Never On A Sunday,” & the heart wrenching “Maria.” Andy Williams was my first celebrity crush & heartbreak. I was infatuated with his voice & his photo on the album cover. I wanted to be whomever Maria was, just to hear him sing to me so desperately. I would listen in a dazed daydream, crooning & swooning like a lovesick ninny with the inner determination to marry him when I grew up.

I don’t know how long I clung to this fantasy before it suddenly dawned on me that as I aged, he would age also & that my future imaginary husband would remain forever beyond my reach due to the cruel logistics of time. It was indeed an impossible dream of constraint. I was absolutely devastated by this realization & also the self-affirmation that I must be an absolute idiot to have not understood this basic time concept before the 3rd grade. Oh Andy, I hardly knew ye…

This album was also responsible for establishing an unrealistic expectation of love, where someday a man might burst into song in my presence, because hopefully I would one day become just so damned glorious. Ahem. Welcome to the foreshadowing of phase one of the destruction of my ego…

I implore anyone reading this to do yourselves a favor:

Go to YouTube & type in

Miss Piggy Sings Never On A Sunday

Whenever I get overwhelmed by reality (or ego fragility), watching old clips of The Muppet Show snaps me right out of my funk.

Thanks for this one. It was a great way to start my day.

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Charlie Newman's avatar

NYC ain't what it used to be—by a long shot—but you do owe it to yourself to drop in at least once. It's my favorite city by miles.

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LavenderBlueMama's avatar

Yes, I have a vision (or delusion) of myself spinning amidst the cityscape of New York, looking like Mary Tyler Moore & singing like Barbra Streisand “Somehow, Someday, Somewhere…” But then reality takes over & the vision ends with me getting hit by angry taxi driver, so… 🥴

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Charlie Newman's avatar

You might want to think more Bladerunner than Moore or Streisand...

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LavenderBlueMama's avatar

Like the Partridge Family?!

What bands did you sing in?

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Charlie Newman's avatar

In terms of singing talent, my family is the Dead Partridge Family!

I fronted Dead Seals, minimalogic, ZOOTSUITBEATNICK!, and nighttime nobodies...maybe a few others best forgotten

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9jD9IJBxCQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97qKa07lV7I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TN3ysiqt6Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHyevoCYFaQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4jvr6n0Ebw

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LavenderBlueMama's avatar

Just listened. Very cool! I’m gonna save them to a YT playlist. What time frame were you performing here? I’ve been sorting through my music from the 80s & 90s. I’d forgotten about a Christian Rock band called Mastodon, that included John Elefante, who had formerly been the lead singer (I think) for Kansas. Anyway some of the guitar in your songs reminds me of him. Maybe it was the same era. Aside from their Christian lyrics, they were one of the bands that I thought sounded like “real music,” not just church music with a synthesizer behind it.

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Charlie Newman's avatar

Danke! We were kinda of our time, I guess.

Advertise & Populate were '78-'79

Incognito was

'80 (but not Dead Seals)

President Murder & The Same were 2010/2011

I remember Mastodon...I liked 'em more than most did, I believe.

One of the reasons Dead Seals broke up was because I wanted to do punk gospel and the rest of 'em wanted to go more mainstream.

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LavenderBlueMama's avatar

I’m willing to give it a go, but keep in mind that my spectacular singing (or lack there of) is integral to the perpetuation of the delusion…

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Charlie Newman's avatar

lol

I come from a family of singers who never should have & I fronted several bands - punk, industrial, noise

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