I Look Like Groucho? No Way.

Above are pictures of Groucho and me. The picture of me is taken from a 3 page article that I wrote while still at Peat, Marwick in 1984. That picture shows up on the bottom left side of column 1 above a brief bio of me. My kids call it my Borat years. I think it's my Groucho years. As a matter of fact, I seem to remember that at the Christmas Party that year, every one of my staff wore those fake glasses/ big nose/ and mustache that could be found in any party store. I thought they looked great. You bet your life!

Baby Jacob and What to Sing to a New Born Grandson

I love to sing. Just like my mother in law. We sing to everything on the radio when we’re in the car together. And, just like my mother in law, my range is very very limited. I can sing songs that range from E4-G5, maybe A, but that’s about it. Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped me. So, now that we have a new grandson, I decided to see what the rest of the world thinks I should be singing to a newborn.

Here’s what Robin Raven, a Break Studios Contributing Writer lists as the top 10 baby boy songs.

“When it comes to looking for great music to lull your little one to sleep, you will find some great options with this list of the 10 best songs about baby boys. Although you may find that a lot of music for kids are targeted toward little girls, there is a rich song catalog for little boys. Some of the best songs may just be by artists that will take you by surprise.” So, here are his song choices, Pooh Corner (Kenny Loggins), Sweet Baby James (James Taylor), Baby, Baby (Amy Grant), Beautiful Boy (John Lennon), A New Day Has Come (Celine Dion), Godspeed (Dixie Chicks), Danny Song (Kenny Loggins), Reach Out For Me (Olivia Newton-John), Forever (John Stamos), Baby Love (The Supremes).

I’ll deal with these 10 in a later blog, but armed with this knowledge, I felt I was in good shape to renew my singing career with Baby Jacob. Well, tonight was my chance. Everyone was busy with something and my job was to hold and serenade the baby. What pops into my head? Yikes, I find myself singing Lydia the Tattooed Lady. And, of course, Baby Jacob loved it. He did the eye contact thing, he smiled (sort of), he definitely enjoyed himself. And so did I.

Actually, Lydia and I have a history. In 1972, when I first began wooing the Beauty, I also had that song fixated in my head. Lydia was the Beauty’s landlady, a very sweet old lady who lived in a big house while Susy lived in what was probably a servant house when the Smithtown, N.Y. property was owned by a wealthy family, who knows, maybe even Lydia’s family. Susy’s house was a kitchen, a bedroom, and another room which was big enough to be a dining room/ living room.

Continuing with tonight’s story. When Baby Jacob went off to sleep with his Mommy, I decided to look up Lydia’s origins on the net. You’re gonna love this, especially the introduction when Groucho explains that he met her at “The Worlds Fair, 1900, marked down from 1940”. Enjoy….

Marshall McLuhan Where Are You When We Need You?

As I watched the events unfold these past 18 days in Egypt, I kept hearing that social networking was the tool that was used for rallying the people, Without twitter and Facebook, this would not have occurred.

Wow,. What does this mean for the future? Once again, I think I need Marshall McLuhan to explain it to me.

Is this the beginning of the end of tyrannical dictators? Or, as I sadly suspect, a lesson learned by those tyrants. Stamp out social protest quick and with a heavy hand. I fear we are going to see a bit of each going forward. In the end, we shall see where the chips finally fall.

Still, Mr. Gandhi and Dr. King must be smiling to see another shining example of non-violent revolution.

When John Lennon wrote Revolution (1968), the song was inspired by a war protest that occurred in London which, like many anti-war protests had turned violent. His original lyrics were:

You say you want a revolution
Well you know
We’d all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well you know
We'd all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be alright

During studio sessions for the White Album, Lennon changed the “count me out” to “count me out, in”, making the song ambiguous as was his feelings at the time. This was 1968, and while Lennon suggests that he was definitely anti-war by then, he was not so sure about being anti-establishment.

We all know that he later became very firm in his anti-establishment convictions, and probably wrote one of the greatest anti-establishment songs of all time, re-recorded by Green Day for the John Lennon tribute album, and a statement about the many places in the world where we are experiencing war and genocide.

Congratulations Egyptian people. Good luck in shaping your country to what you want it to be. Your ancient civilization gave the world many amazing achievements from construction to mathematics to medicine. Perhaps your new civilization will also make its mark on the world forever. You're certainly off to a good start.

In the meantime, here’s Steve Martin, or should I say King Tut..

If You Really Want to Hear the Oldies, Go With the Impersonators.

It’s February, and like everyone else, my mind turns to Valentines Day. In my 35+ years of marriage, I’ve had some good ideas, and some not so good ideas. Some of my best have been concert tickets for My Love and I to go see a performer that she loves, but me, not so much. For example, one year I got tickets for Bon Jovi. True, of the 50,000 at the Air Canada Centre, there were only a handful of us guys, but The Beauty loved it, and I loved Bon Jovi giving props to Frank Sinatra at least. Don't believe me, watch Bon Jovi in Giants Stadium and when they pan the crowd, you tell me if you see any guys there.

So, this year I started looking to see who’s coming to town. I struck out. The closest I got was a maybe for Rod Stewart and Stevie Nicks who come to town on April 2, 2011 after already playing venues in Florida, Atlanta, New York, Connecticut, Boston, and Montreal. We saw Rod Stewart in Toronto in the 80’s, and he was great. But, then I got to thinking about this Great American songbook stuff and worried that I would have to hear that. And, what about Stevie Nicks? I loved her when she and Lindsay Buckingham fronted Fleetwood Mac, but, as a solo artist, not so much.

All of this reminded me of my friend Allan whose theory is, it doesn’t make sense to go see those old artist anymore when the impersonators are better, and don’t have to modify the song to fit their declining vocal ranges. Of course! What was I thinking? For many years, I had to go to Vegas on business, and whenever The Beauty could join me, we always took in an impersonator show. Every show had an Elvis, who was always great. And, we also saw an Elton, a Garth, a Michael Jackson, a Rod Stewart, The Beatles, a Cher, a Neil Diamond, and countless others. Great, great, great, and great. Allan was right, again.

Nevertheless, it is Valentines Day, and, I do need to come with something to make My Love’s heart sing (always a good thing). So, I hadn’t yet dismissed the idea of Rod/Stevie until I got an email from my N.J. Cousin inviting me to listen to The Diamond perform Little Darling, with the email claiming that they still had it. No they don’t. You be the judge, here are The Diamonds doing Little Darling in the 21^st Century.....

And, here they are doing the song when they could still hit those high notes and those low notes.

If you’re still not convinced that those “old” groups may not have the range anymore, here is a Rod Stewart impersonator doing Maggie May

And, here’s Rod Stewart doing it himself in the 21^st Century...

O.k., tell me the truth, who’s better at Rod Stewart, the impersonator, or the old guy who can’t quite hit the notes.

Legal Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are solely that, opinions. They are in no way intended to discredit, defame, slander, libel or in any other way harm the people mentioned in this blog.

P.S. - Just because we're all getting older doesn't mean I still don't love you Stevie/Rod/Elton, etc. "You're in My Heart, You're in My Soul"

“Please. I was the first Snooki. She thinks she invented the pouf. I invented it.”

Yesterday, while I was listening to CBC radio, I heard the host quoting the Ronnie Spector quip to Snooki about her pouf. I hadn’t heard this before, but I knew Ronnie Spector was the first wife of Phil Spector whom he met while producing The Ronettes, and she has the distinction of being called “the first bad girl of Rock and Roll”.

The CBC host then went on to play “Be My Baby” and I drifted into happiness.



A few years ago, Tiffanie had given me a copy of the Phil Spector’s biography, Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector by Mick Brown. I loved many parts of the book, not just because Phil Spector produced some of my favourite groups, including The Righteous Brothers, the first LP that I ever bought in my life when I was 17. I bought it at The Roosevelt Field Shopping Center. I remember the purchase, even today, but that’s another blog topic. What I loved about the book was it devoted a lot of time to the beginning of Rock and Roll, including an entire chapter on Bobby Darin (not really a rocker, but adopted by us anyway). But that too is another story.

Ronnie Spector and her Ronettes were one of the many great Girl Groups of the 1960’s. Besides “Be My Baby”, they also had a hit with “Baby I Love You” and “Walking in the Rain”. But they were the tip of the iceberg. There were The Crystals (another Phil Spector group), Martha and the Vandellas, The Dixie Cups, and of course, the Motown stars, The Supremes and The Marvelettes. Enjoy...

Buffalo Springfield and WOW What Great Groups They Were a Part of

Before Wikipedia, I knew the destiny of the 6 members of Buffalo Springfield, plus or minus a few mistakes. Thanks to Wikipedia, I can show it to you now with 100% accuracy.

During the decade often referred to as the British Invasion, one spectacular North American band (3 Americans, and 3 Canadians), went on to become members of 2 of rocks super groups (Crosby, Stills and Nash, and The Eagles), and one of rocks legendary artists, Neil Young, and a duo that made great music (Loggins and Messina).

Here’s how it happened. Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Richie Furay, Jim Messina, Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin joined together to form The Buffalo Springfield in 1967. While the band made some spectacular music, they never quite put together a single album that caught on big. However, when you listen to Retrospective, their Best Of album, one thing is obvious, these guys have talent, both as a group, and as individuals. My favourites are Richie Furay’s Kind Woman, and Neil Young’s Broken Arrow, Expecting to Fly. Of course, For What It’s Worth, because of its appropriateness for the times is another great song from this album. Actually, everything is a great song from this album.

Listen to Richie Furay singing Kind Woman with Poco in 2004 and it sounds like something that could be released today by the likes of Blue Rodeo. Enjoy, and we’ll talk after the song....

Following along the Poco track, just listen to their music and it’s easy to hear what Randy Meisner brought with him to The Eagles. Here is one of my favourite Poco songs, In the Heart of the Night which was from the album Legend, released in 1978 long after Meisner, Messina and Furay were gone. Actually Paul Cotton, writer, and lead singer of In the Heart of the Night, joined the band as the replacement for Jim Messina when he went on to try his hand at a solo career before joining up with Kenny Loggins.

Neil Young deserves his own blog, as do The Eagles so, I will save them for a later date.

That leaves us with David Crosby, Graham Nash and Stephen Stills. While I love the solo work of Stephen Stills, especially his first album which contained Love the One You’re With, I never paid that much attention to Crosby or Nash, except that I love Almost Cut My Hair (the anthem for all of us freaks in the late 60’s-early 70’s). When Susy and I saw them live a few years ago, David Crosby’s voice is absolutely wonderful.

So, I’ll leave you with this. It’s not the Crosby of the 70’s regretfully, but still wonderful.

There's Something Happening Here

The very sad and tragic attempted assassination of a Congresswoman, and the killing of 6 people who were caught in the line of fire this past Saturday, reminds me of how far from civilized our politics have become. Last night I was watching CNN and Anderson Cooper was talking with Dana Loesch, David Gergen and Roland Martin. They suggested that the animosity of the opposing parties is just business as usual in Washington. NO, IT’S NOT. IT WASN’T ALWAYS THAT WAY. Anyone can look back at the 60’s and 70’s and see significant legislative achievements with bipartisan support including civil rights legislation and Medicare. According to Professor Emeritus Barbara Sinclair of UCLA, only 8% of major legislation in the 60’s suffered from “extended-debate-related-problems” such as the filibuster, while in the 2007-2008 congress, approximately 70% of bills were subject to that tactic.

My theory is things changed when Richard Nixon was impeached. Like two kids in a spat, one of the kids crossed a line that the other cannot ever forgive, and thus, the friendship is over. What I don’t understand is why this has also happened in Canada.

Justin Trudeau, in his beautiful eulogy of his father Pierre Elliot Trudeau had the following story to relate about Mr. Trudeau and the leader of the opposition, Joe Clark:

As I guess it is for most kids, in Grade 3, it was always a real treat to visit my dad at work.

As on previous visits this particular occasion included a lunch at the parliamentary restaurant which always seemed to be terribly important and full of serious people that I didn't recognize.

But at eight, I was becoming politically aware. And I recognized one whom I knew to be one of my father's chief rivals.

Thinking of pleasing my father, I told a joke about him -- a generic, silly little grade school thing.

My father looked at me sternly with that look I would learn to know so well, and said: `Justin, Never attack the individual. We can be in total disagreement with someone without denigrating them as a consequence.'

Saying that, he stood up and took me by the hand and brought me over to introduce me to this man. He was a nice man who was eating there with his daughter, a nice-looking blond girl a little younger than I was.

He spoke to me in a friendly manner for a bit and it was at that point that I understood that having opinions that are different from those of another does not preclude one being deserving of respect as an individual.

Liberals, Conservatives, PQ'ers and NDPers, take heed.

Enough seriousness.

Let’s hope for a better tomorrow, and let’s enjoy, Stephen Stills (next stop was Crosby, Stills, and Nash), Neil Young (next stop, an on going solo career that is still on going), Richie Furay (next stop, Poco) and Jim Messina (next stop Poco, then Loggins and Messina) from 1967: