HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2013-02-07, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2013. PAGE 5.
When you’re 35, something always happens
to the music.
– Gene Lees
Ifirst read that quote back when I was a
teenager – which is way more tree rings
than I care to count up. I remember
thinking at the time: yeah, the man is right.
It explained why my old man couldn’t get
Elvis or Buddy Holly. When the strains of
“Heartbreak Hotel” or “That’ll Be the Day”
would crackle out of our old Philco standup
radio, my old man would throw down his
newspaper and grouse “What the hell is that?
You call that singing? Can’t even understand
the words!”
Now, all these decades later whenever I hear
a current top 10 tune I find myself channeling
my old man.
Are mushrooms growing in my ears or did
the music change – as in, get stupider? At the
risk of offending thousands I have to say that I
find most modern popular music stupendously
boring and appallingly mediocre. The
vocalists sound like they’re singing through
keyholes; the instrumentalists sound like
they’re playing with boxing gloves on.
Haven’t these nimrods ever heard Ella or
Aretha? A guitar solo by Chet Atkins or a
trumpet riff by Wynton Marsalis?
Jimi Hendrix playing “The Star-Spangled
Banner” – recorded live at Woodstock?
Aren’t they embarrassed to pretend they’re
even in the same business?
How did popular music tumble from the
dizzying glory of the Everly Brothers and The
Temptations to the atonal squeaks and
flatulent squawks that dominate the charts
today?
Beats me. Beats Beck too.
That would be Beck Hansen, aka Beck
David Campbell, a 40-ish American singer,
songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who
prefers to be known as Beck. He’s been around
and on the charts for a good 20 years. You
might have seen him perform on Saturday
Night Live, The Tonight Show with Conan
O’Brien, or playing himself as a character on
The Simpsons. Last year, Beck put out an
album with a difference. Beck doesn’t sing on
this production, or play an instrument. Nobody
does.
Song Reader is not a CD or an LP or an
itunes download. Song Reader is a book of
sheet music. It consists of 20 original Beck
compositions along with 100 pages of art.
Beck’s idea is to take listeners back in time,
back to when people sang songs with and to
each other.
“You watch an old film and see how people
would dance together in the ’20s, ’30s and
’40s” Beck told an Associated Press reporter,
“...it was something that was part of what
brought people together. Playing music in the
home is another aspect of that that's been lost.”
Beck points out that nearly eight decades
ago – in 1937 – Bing Crosby recorded a song
called “Sweet Leilani”. Fifty-four million
copies of the sheet music were sold. That
means almost half the U.S. population was
trying to learn how to play and sing the song
for themselves.
Well...yeah. When I was a kid, we didn’t
have a car or a TV but we had a piano in the
parlour –as did most of the families I knew.
And in our piano bench were a pair of
castanets, a tambourine and a couple of dusty
old harmonicas.
Mom and my older sister sang harmony, my
other sister sang and played tambourine while
the old man chorded on the piano.
Me? I still play a fairly mean “Freight Train
Blues” on the harmonica.
I know, I know...corny as hell.
On the other hand, I watched a family of
four waiting for their dinner in a restaurant last
night. They didn’t talk. They didn’t even look
at each other. They were all texting, off in their
separate corners of cyberspace.
I’ll take corny.
Arthur
Black
Other Views Sung any good songs lately?
Is it possible that someone, rather than
something, could be deemed too sexy, or
graphic for human consumption? Well after
the longest week in any sports fan’s life, Super
Bowl week, it’s my opinion that it is possible
and the first person to break that barrier in my
lifetime is 20-year-old Kate Upton.
Released earlier this week was Upton’s
collaboration with Mercedes-Benz,
specifically the company’s CLA model, a 90-
second television spot that was scheduled to air
during the biggest football game of the year,
which also happens to be some of the most
valuable advertising air time of the year. The
spot has been deemed by some as being too hot
for television.
The commercial is titled “Kate Upton
Washes the All-New Mercedes-Benz CLA in
Slow Motion.” As I write this, the video has
over 6.6 million views on YouTube, which will
have no doubt climbed astronomically by the
time you read this.
However, what is it that makes the
commercial too hot for viewers like you and
me? It must be a bikini-clad Upton. Wrong.
She is seen wearing a simple black tank top
and a pair of short jean shorts that would not
have been out of place on Daisy Duke in the
1980s on a young Shawn’s favourite show, The
Dukes of Hazzard.
Then it must be Upton mixing it up with the
soap and suds while washing this magnificent
car. Wrong a second time. Upton doesn’t touch
the car. Early in the ad the camera pans across
the scene, showing the car and the three young
male football players washing it.
Upton then walks over to the car, in slow
motion (that much at least is true), and informs
the boys that they have missed a spot.
Mercedes-Benz apparently made a
commitment to not exploiting Upton, refusing
to show her in a bikini or in any other kind of
scantily-clad scenario.
In fact, Upton splashed on the scene as a
Sports Illustrated swimsuit model a few years
ago. One could make the case that she might
even be sweating due to the sheer amount of
clothing she has to wear for this commercial.
However, despite the lack of a “pay-off” on
the commercial’s enticing title, there are
people who felt the television spot was too racy
for the audience that saw it on Sunday.
The Parents Television Council claims the
commercial is too hot for television and that it
makes women believe they need to use overt
sex appeal to get what they want.
By all accounts (there are two other football
players in the background holding up a car
wash sign) Upton could have paid for her car
wash, and by doing so, she probably helped
this struggling football team pay for new pads
or helmets or something.
So then is it Upton herself who is too sexy
for the boob tube? She has gotten into trouble
before with an ad for Carl Jr.’s that was deemed
“too hot” for the public. And now this.
Can Upton be seen as a liability for the
public at large? Is she indeed too sexy to walk
among us? Because I’ve seen more skin
watching the Olympics than I saw in this
commercial. So if it is indeed Upton who is too
sexy to be viewed, and not the commercial,
then what is the next step?
Surely it must be congratulating Detroit
Tigers pitcher and rumoured Upton boyfriend
Justin Verlander. He’s been able to “tolerate”
what people are trying to keep from the rest of
the viewing public, and no doubt they’ve
gotten up to more than washing cars
together.
Well done Justin. Well done.
Too hot for T.V.
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
Of all people, I understand the need to
have a comfortable vehicle when
travelling.
An oft-made joke around my house revolves
around my father conjecturing that, instead
of living in the house, I live out of my car
because of the sheer amount of stuff I have in
there.
It’s a fair comment to make; I spend a lot of
time on the road. Between driving to and from
work, driving for work, driving to see my
friends who live anywhere from Goderich to
Guelph to Toronto to St. Catherines and
making a weekly trip to Brampton, I spend as
much time behind the wheel as I spend doing
anything else in my life, including sleeping.
So I know that it’s important to be in a
vehicle that you know and that has space for
all your bits and bobs and bed knobs and
broomsticks... or, in my case, electronics,
cameras, cell phone, Airsoft guns and stacks
and stacks of mail and magazines.
However, there are limits to what I will do to
keep myself in a comfortable vehicle.
Just over two weeks ago, for example, we
were under the yoke of a pretty oppressive
snow storm and, given the choice, I would
have gladly taken a family member’s truck
instead of trying to fight through a storm to get
to council meetings. Unfortunately, that didn’t
happen and, while everything went okay, the
extra clearance a truck provides can make a
big difference when you’re pushing through
the snow.
So there are limits as to what I’ll do to
keep myself in the comfort of my own vehicle.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper apparently
has no such hangups about logic.
During a visit to India late last year,
Harper, under the suggestion of the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), enlisted a
Canadian Forces C-17 transport plane to fly an
armoured Cadillac limousine and an SUV
because the transportation provided didn’t
have adequate protection according to the
RCMP.
Now, I don’t believe for one second that the
decision to have the vehicles shipped there was
anything short of Harper’s decision.
I think a prerequisite for being a higher-
ranking member of his caucus is having some
sort of hole surgically created in your back so
he can treat you as a puppet.
That’s not a criticism, by the way, just
a colourful way of saying that he knows
the image he wants his government to portray
and will go to great lengths to ensure his
words are heard even if it’s out of someone
else’s mouth.
Some people may call that slightly
controlling but, when you are one of the most
controversial leaders a country has had in
recent memory, you need to hold a firm line.
So it’s safe to say this decision, while at face
value made by the RCMP, likely was made by
Harper himself.
It cost $1 million to transport the vehicles
there and back. As far as government spending
goes, I suppose that’s a drop in the bucket, but,
to me, it seems like that money could be better
spent. Maybe some of those great new student
assistance programs, for example, could be
extended to those of us still paying off our
debts with that kind of money.
The only reason I can think that Harper
would do this, given that other leaders who
visit the country don’t make such grandiose
acts, is that, in 2010, Harper’s bestie U.S.
President Barack Obama brought an armoured
six-vehicle convoy to India for his trip and
Harper doesn’t want to be left out.
Back when the visit took place, Foreign
Affairs Minister John Baird defended the
spending, saying that, in recent history, two
heads of state had been assassinated in India,
both of them native to the country.
Ignoring the fact that no foreign leader has
ever been harmed on Indian soil (as far as my
research shows), bringing the vehicles was
something that could have had dire
consequences on the world stage.
Recently, experts in India have come out
against the act saying it was a waste of money.
Ajai Sahni, for example, the executive
director of the Institute for Conflict
Management in Delhi, who is regarded as an
expert on South Asian terrorism, stated that the
act resulted in “money down the toilet,” from a
security standpoint.
He stated that, for a Western country to
believe that India couldn’t protect a foreign
dignitary, the act showed a lack of intelligence
and was “just plain stupid.”
India’s Ministry of External Affairs
spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said that
Canada was welcome to make that choice, and
any expenses would be their problem.
Now, if I was a high-ranking official in an
Indian government organization, I would see
this as a slight against the country.
Essentially, the RCMP (or Harper through
his excellent puppeteering skills) has stated
that the vehicle that would have been provided
to protect Harper, an armoured Mercedes-
Benz, was insufficient, despite the fact that
higher ups in the Indian government, who do
face numerous actual threats, use similar
vehicles.
If I were a security-minded individual in the
Indian government, I would definitely take
some offense to that.
Now, I don’t know about the history lessons
that are taught in Ottawa, but looking through
my experiences, aside from an overly-
publicized and absolutely hilarious pie in the
face, I think that Justin Bieber likely receives
more malevolent threats that any Canadian
politician does, so any armoured vehicle is
likely overkill.
One way or another, in November, Harper’s
government ran a $1.85 billion deficit. Maybe
this $1 million vehicle transport wouldn’t
really make a difference, but if 1,849 other
decisions like this were rethought, it could
have meant the government breaking even that
month.
Is Harper keeping up with the Obamas?
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den