Reader CD Review
ABBA
George Krausser
We are now at that time of year where lots of sweets are
enjoyed - from Halloween to Christmas our collective
sweet tooth gets a non-stop assault of various holiday
confections. Well, it seems unfair to leave our ears out
of this, so a 2 CD set from ABBA has been released.
The Definitive Collection is the title of the new set
from the sugary sweet pop kings and queens of the
late '70's. All those hits you love (or hate, apparently
there are people out there who don't like sweets) from
Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny, and Anni-Frid are included here -
Dancing Queen, Waterloo, Fernando, Take a Chance on Me,
etc, etc. The happiness protruding from these
hits is infectious, and is almost a pure guilty pleasure (empty calories?).
As the '70's moved to the '80's, the mood of the music
changed. Bjorn and Agnetha divorced, and the songs'
subject matter reflected more serious topics. During
this time, ABBA's popularity in the States waned, but
they were still one of the most popular bands in the
world. Many of these songs are on a par with their more
memorable '70's fare, just not heard as often on the
radio when they play their various retro shows.
A choice remains for the buyer: do you buy this or the
single CD ABBA Gold - quite possibly the greatest sugar
rush in the history of pop music. The single CD, with
all of their hits, should suffice for casual listeners.
Big fans should be happy with this set despite the
clunkers (the first 2 songs, and the songs recorded just
before they broke up in late 1982. Perhaps I should call
them sour notes.). If you insist for more, ABBA's
individual albums have been reissued and remastered, and
there is also a 4 CD box set out there. I will take a
step back from those people if I run into one of them.
George Krausser
Thanks, George! As they say back where I grew up, 'You done good'. : )
In The Chaos Household
Last Night's TV
Saturday TV night started rather slow, and ended up watching non-network-over-the-air stuff...
locally, KTLA had 'Home Alone', and the KOCE - PBS for behind the Orange Curtain
offered an old 'Ed Sullivan Show', with a young James Brown.
At 9, KCET, PBS for LA had 'The Maltese Falcon' followed by 'To Have And Have Not'
(whistling is a lost art)...I love movies without interruptions, so it fit.
'Saturday Night Live' was fresh....Gwyneth Paltrow hosted for the 2nd time.
My favorite line was Tina Fey during the 'Update' when she stated that Geraldo becoming
a war correspondent posed an interesting ethical question - do we have to act sad if he dies?
Tonight, Faux finally has its Season Premiere's. Everything from 'King Of The Hill' to
'The Simpsons' to 'Malcolm In The Middle' to 'The X-Files' is fresh. But, be warned
that you won't see David Duchovny.
ABC is showing 'Saving Private Ryan - UNCUT & UNCENSORED so, beware the first 22 minutes!.
CBS has an 'I Love Lucy' 50th Anniversary Show', about 2 weeks to be historically accurate (Bet
it had nothing to do with 'sweeps'....LOL
NBC, like the WB is pushing 'Harry Potter', too.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
'Love Ride 18'
Jay Leno And .....
Once again, Jay Leno will lead a pack of over 20,000 motorcyclists in Love Ride 18, the largest
motorcycle fundraising event in the world, on Sunday, November 11, 2001.
Grand Marshal Leno will be joined by honorary Grand Marshals Peter Fonda, Robert Patrick (X-Files,
Terminator 2), and Lorenzo Lamas.
The 50-mile caravan from Harley-Davidson of Glendale to Castaic Lake will feature a Tony Roma's
barbecue, motorcycle trade show, and concert (performers yet to be announced).
The Love Ride is expected to raise over $1 million for the Los Angeles Times' "Reading By 9"
literacy initiative, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and other charities. In 17 years, the
Love Ride has raised almost $14 million.
Celebrity participants this year include Billy Idol, Larry Hagman, Pat Boone (singing National
Anthem), Janice Pennington (Price Is Right), Dan Haggerty, Robert Blake, Willie G. Davidson,
The Nelsons (Matthew & Gunnar), Zach Ward (Titus), Robert Duncan McNeil (Star Trek Voyager),
Robert Beltran (Star Trek Voyager), Roxann Dawson (Star Trek Voyager), Branscombe Richmond,
Molly Culver (VIP), Francesco Quinn, Dennis Haskins (Saved By The Bell), Jonathon Haze
(Little Shop Of Horrors).
Previous Love Ride concerts have featured Bruce Springsteen, The Steve Miller Band, Sammy
Hagar, Dwight Yoakam, The Doobie Brothers, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Billy Idol, Jackson Browne,
George Thorogood, Los Lobos, Little Feat, Eric Burdon, Robbie Krieger, Credence Clearwater
Revisited, John Kay & Steppenwolf, David Lindley, and others.
You can visit the Love Ride on the internet at www.loveride.org.
From BartCop Entertainment, Wednesday, 7 November, 2001.
New! Updated!
(6 Nov, 2001)
The official BartCop Astrologer, Geneva, has provided another eye-opening set of charts!
A brief excerpt: " "The influence of the opposition across the 3rd/9th axis may indicate
we have more to fear from domestic terrorism than a foreign entity. Sagittarius on the cusp
of the foreign 9th house, with ruler Jupiter in Cancer, the sign most closely associated with
home and country, in the home 4th, shows the source of anthrax and other bio-chemical threats
are more likely from within our own borders; by a home grown group of domestic terrorists. The
recent wave of breast beating, chest thumping, and flag waving can be attributed to the most
excessive planet (Jupiter) transiting the most exorbitantly patriotic and jingoistic sign (Cancer).
Jupiter also has jurisdiction over religion, so the source of these dreadful bio-terrorist attacks
could very well be a group with a strongly opinionated religious axe to grind. "
Very interesting reading!
Original 'Oz' Munchkins Go On Tour
Jerry Maren
Jerry Maren, who got his start in the movies playing a Munchkin, had no idea he would be
talking about ``The Wizard of Oz'' more than 60 years later.
``I thought it was a typical Metro Goldwyn Mayer musical,'' the 4-foot-31/4-inch actor said.
It quickly proved to be anything but ordinary, and Maren, now 81, parlayed the part into a long acting career.
Maren - whose signature song welcomed an awe-struck Dorothy to Munchkinland - spent Thursday afternoon
in the Concord Mills mall food court, signing autographs for a grinning public. He will be there through
Monday, reliving memories of Oz.
A movie talent scout approached Maren during the ``Three Steps and One Half'' dance show in Hartford,
Conn., saying: ``We need a lot of little guys like you.''
After the musical, Maren played Little Oscar, the world's smallest chef, for the Oscar Mayer sausage
company. He has appeared films ranging from the Marx Brothers' ``At the Circus'' (1939) to Mel Brooks' ``Spaceballs'' (1987).
He's earned enough for a comfortable, custom-fitted house in the Hollywood hills.
Maren is among seven Munchkins who travel the country on the appearance circuit. They're among
10 of the 124 original Munchkins still living; three others are in nursing homes and unable to travel.
Jerry Maren & 'The Munchkins' On Tour
Merry Mayhem, Not Merry Pranksters
Ozzy
Despite what legions of metal followers would have you believe, Ozzy Osbourne is apparently mortal after all.
The heavy music pioneer has suffered a stress fracture and will have to reschedule 10 dates on his
Merry Mayhem tour, according to a statement released late Friday (November 9). Ozzy injured his leg
when he slipped stepping out of the shower before last week's Merry Mayhem stop in Tucson, Arizona.
The metal kingpin then proceeded to tour on the broken leg for a week before seeing a doctor on
Thursday and being ordered to rest.
As a result, Ozzy's Merry Mayhem trek with Rob Zombie will miss 10 shows starting with Friday night's
stop in Houston. Ozzy has also postponed dates in Bossier City, Louisiana; Knoxville, Tennessee; Nashville;
Cleveland; Cincinnati; Birmingham, Alabama; West Palm Beach, Florida; Greensboro, North Carolina; and
Atlanta. There's no word yet on when the dates may be rescheduled.
Osbourne and Zombie are expected to return to the road on November 29 in Grand Fork, North Dakota, and
run through December 29 in San Diego.
Ozzy's Tour On Hold & In A Cast
Updated!
BartCop TV!
Visit the site at BC TV
The 'Vidiot' never seems to rest - and doesn't let little things like laundry or
housekeeping get in the way!
Damn near every show on TV must is listed - days & days worth of great reading.
For an amazing variety of information on an awesome array of tv programs check out
BC TV!
Another Opinion
Peter Yarrow
A folk singer whose group made a name promoting the peace movement during the Vietnam War says President Bush went too far in declaring the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks an act of war.
Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary said Thursday the U.S. government has fostered too much fear at home.
``If it's called a war, it allows the invoking of special governmental choices that would have been appropriate during World War II,'' Yarrow said. ``I haven't been able to understand why the government has been trying to do everything it can to make people as frightened as possible.''
Peter, Paul and Mary performed at a sold-out concert at the Grand Theater on Thursday, including their classic hit, ``Puff, the Magic Dragon,'' written by Yarrow.
Before the show, Yarrow said the United States could learn from Israel how to react to terrorist attacks: gather information and make a measured, targeted strike. By pressing too hard, the military effort could backfire and create the impression that the United States is trying to wipe out those of the Islamic faith, the singer said.
``These people are not pathological, but their misery can be mobilized into hatred for the United States,'' Yarrow said. ``I'm not saying we should go hug a terrorist.''
Peter Yarrow
New!
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
To check out 'Train Station Chicken', and more (like 'Cranberry Autumn Tea'),
In The Kitchen With BartCop
At Harvard, Friday
James Taylor
Singer James Taylor says the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks should make people think about what in the American lifestyle is worth defending.
``It didn't make things more meaningful, it made them deeper, though,'' he said during a panel discussion Friday at Harvard University. ``I became worried about my audience's reaction and what state they were in.''
The discussion, ``Sprung From Ruins, A panel discussion on the Arts during a Time of National Crisis,'' focused on the Sept. 11 attacks and their impact on the arts and the creative process. About 1,000 people attended.
The panel also included: Jamaica Kincaid, an author and essayist and a visiting lecturer at Harvard; Mandy Patinkin, Tony Award winning stage and film actor; Elizabeth Murray, a visual artist; John Guare, a Tony Award winning playwright; and Trisha Brown, a choreographer and dancer and founder/artistic director of the Trisha Brown Dance Company in New York.
James Taylor
'Through The Lips, Over The Gums....'
'Really, It's Only Grape Juice'
Audio Files From BC
Bonus Page Link
Here are some MP3 files from BC
In Memory
Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey, whose LSD-fuelled bus ride became a symbol of the psychedelic 1960s after he won fame as a novelist with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, died Saturday morning.
He was 66. Kesey died at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene, Ore., two weeks after cancer surgery to remove 40 per cent of his liver. "He's gone too soon and he will leave a big gap," said Ken Babbs, a longtime friend. "Always the leader, now he leads the way again."
After studying writing at Stanford University, Kesey burst onto the literary scene in 1962 with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, followed quickly with Sometimes a Great Notion in 1964, then went 28 years before publishing his third major novel.
In 1964, he rode across the United States in an old school bus named Furthur - driven by Neal Cassidy, hero of Jack Kerouac's beat generation classic On The Road.
The bus was filled with pals who called themselves the Merry Pranksters and sought enlightenment through the psychedelic drug LSD. The odyssey was immortalized in Tom Wolfe's 1968 account, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
"Anyone trying to get a handle on our times had better read Kesey," Charles Bowden wrote when the Los Angeles Times newspaper honoured Kesey's lifetime of work with the Robert Kirsh Award in 1991.
"And unless we get lucky and things change, they're going to have to read him a century from now too."
Sometimes a Great Notion, widely considered Kesey's greatest book, told the saga of the Stamper clan, rugged independent loggers carving a living out of the Oregon woods under the motto, Never Give an Inch. It was made into a movie starring Henry Fonda and Paul Newman.
But One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest became much more widely known, thanks to a movie Kesey hated. It tells the story of R.P. McMurphy, who feigned insanity to escape a prison farm, only to be lobotomized when he threatened the authority of the mental hospital.
The 1974 movie swept the Academy Awards for best picture, best director, best actor and best actress but Kesey sued the producers because it took the viewpoint away from the character of the schizophrenic native, Chief Bromden.
Kesey based the story on experiences working at the Veterans Administration hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., while attending Wallace Stegner's writing seminar at Stanford. Kesey also volunteered for experiments with LSD.
While Kesey continued to write a variety of short autobiographical fiction, magazine articles and children's books, he didn't produce another major novel until Sailor Song in 1992, his long-awaited Alaska book, which he described as a story of "love at the end of the world."
"This is a real old-fashioned form," he said of the novel.
Kesey considered pranks part of his art and in 1990 took a poke at the Smithsonian Institution by announcing he would drive his old psychedelic bus to Washington to give it to the country. The museum recognized the bus as a new one, with no particular history, and rejected the gift.
In a 1990 interview, Kesey said it had become harder to write since he became famous.
"When I was working on Sometimes a Great Notion, one of the reasons I could do it was because I was unknown," he said.
"I could get all those balls in the air and keep them up there and nothing would come along and distract me. Now, there's a lot of stuff happens that happens because I'm famous."
"And famous isn't good for a writer. You don't observe well when you're being observed."
A graduate of the University of Oregon, Kesey returned to his alma mater in 1990 to teach novel writing. With each student assigned a character and writing under the gun, the class produced Caverns, under the pen name OU Levon, or UO Novel spelled backward.
"The life of it comes from making people believe that these people are drawing breath and standing up, casting shadows and living lives and feeling agonies," Kesey said then.
"And that's a trick. It's a glorious trick."
"And it's a trick that you can be taught. It's not something, just a thing that comes from the muses."
Among his proudest achievements was seeing Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear, which he wrote from an Ozark mountains tale told by his grandmother, included on the 1991 Library of Congress list of suggested children's books.
"I'm up there with Dr. Seuss," he crowed.
Fond of performing, Kesey sometimes recited the piece in top hat and tails accompanied by an orchestra, throwing a shawl over his head while assuming the character of his grandmother reciting the nursery rhyme, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Other works include Kesey's Garage Sale and Demon Box, collections of essays and short stories, and Further Inquiry, another look at the 1964 bus trip in which the soul of Cassidy is put on trial. The Sea Lion was another children's book, telling the story of a crippled boy who saves his Northwest native tribe from an evil spirit by invoking the gift-giving ceremony of potlatch.
Born in La Junta, Colo., on Sept. 17, 1935, Kesey moved as a young boy in 1943 from the dry prairie to his grandparents' dairy farm in Oregon's lush Willamette Valley. He earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Oregon, where he also was a wrestler.
After serving four months in jail for a marijuana bust in California, he set down roots in Pleasant Hill in 1965 with his high-school sweetheart, Faye, and raised four children. Their rambling red-barn house with the big Pennsylvania Dutch star on the side became a landmark of the psychedelic era, attracting visits from myriad strangers in tie-dyed clothing seeking enlightenment.
The bus Furthur rusted away in a boggy pasture, while Kesey raised beef cattle.
Kesey was diagnosed with diabetes in 1992.
His son Jed, killed in a 1984 van wreck on a road trip with the University of Oregon wrestling team, was buried in the back yard.
Ken Kesey
http://www.key-z.com/
Kesey information: www.intrepidtrips.com
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Still Really Like This One....
"Boondocks" (9 Oct 01)
Gonna let it ride for awhile.
Still MISSING
Marc Chagall's "Study for 'Over Vitebsk'"
