RIP Rose Marie, Wait for Your Laugh

Rose Marie, the 9 decade show biz survivor has passed away (and surpassed us all).

Check out a tribute here:
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/12/rose-marie-dies-obituary

And check out info for her LATEST movie, Wait for Your Laugh (kid).
http://www.rosemariemovie.com/

She has connections to the Monkees, playing both "The Big Woman" and "Monkee Mother".

Also, her singing Vitaphone short ran with The Jazz Singer.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6cfcqy

Who knows about the OTHER connection between the Monkees and the Jazz Singer??

Micky Lighting the Tree

I wasn't in New York for this, but I LOVE how he (and the Monkees) have become mainstream again!

http://www.winterseve.nyc/treelighting2017/

What is more New York/American/Corny than having a "legendary rock star" at the tree-lighting?

Nothing, man, nuthin.

NaNoWriMo: Six Degrees, a Literary Journey

A mad dash through the 20th century, the fulcrum of which is a certain series.  Mid 1960's, a collection of everything that had come before, captured on film, 50 years in.

And then, a kid born 10 years after it all started and ended, How it introduced her to everything and everyone, the best kind of introductions, especially when the parents are absent or absent from this culture. 

Everything is a spiderweb, everything is a connection, a neural pathway, dendritic branches of people and stories, lost and irrelevant until activated by their relationships.

Everyone is Six Degrees away.

Monkees as a Good User Experience

The show was designed to be easy on the eyes.  Chock full of visuals and sounds and music and every editing trick yet invented, the pacing is designed to keep the attention of the "young generation".

The show was teaching us to be good consumers, not only of what they were trying to sell us (music and goodies), but also to be good audience members.  What jokes are good to laugh at?  When?  And if you don't get the joke, then you need to figure out what you are missing.

That was the biggest influence on me, it implanted a growing lust of curiosity, for history, for everything around these 4 characters and their beachhouse.  What world were they living in and how much of it was real?  Whether it was real or not didn't matter, it was a tv show and y its very nature, unreal.

It taught me to be aware of the line that tips fiction away from reality, and vice versa.  And to understand when reality is worse than fiction. (Like now)

#17 Case of the Missing Manchurian Candidate

Last night, TCM showed The Manchurian Candidate.

Sometimes, the events of the world need to swirl into focus for a piece of art/writing/movie to resonate with you. Or to become resonant again.  (I'm a big fan of Henry David Thoreau and his Civil Disobedience is cycling back again into public discourse).

The plot of the 1962 movie has to do with soldiers in Korea who get captured and get brainwashed.  One ends up being a killer who performs on command without conscience.  Frank Sinatra is the hero, Angela Lansbury is the evil "queen".  At one point Frank also mentions "All the King's Horses", but alas-does not break into the song.

A throwaway piece of the plot involves the bad guys checking on the power of the hypnotism.  They essentially kidnap him and offer a cover story to the papers, having him the victim of a hit and run.  The "hospital" they keep him in is a cover.  It's a building for rich alcoholics, but 3 floors of it are reserved for their Communist conspiracies.  A FAKE hospital.

This aside is what they base the whole episode on.  Hospitals can be fake, doctors can be fake. Hypnotism is real.  Evil Communist forces may or may not be real, but they can ultimately be foiled.

The more powerful part of the movie itself has to do with the manipulations of the presidential nomination.  Right before JFK was literally caught in the crosshairs.  And decades before the idea that Russia had anything to do with the 2016 election.  Whatever side you are on, watch the movie and see what other items this particular movie may have suggested to the public imagination.

Infinite Tuesdays on a Thursday

I'd like to recommend a trend here.

Of Mks Fans who do graduate work, or get their PhDs, and then continue a fascination with the Mks, but on a higher level.  (If you are "way too educated" to still be a fan, no worries, there are plenty of us here!! I have 2 Masters Degrees)

I'd recommend this review of Infinite Tuesday by Fandom Lenses, by a PhD.:
https://fandomlenses.com/2017/04/21/i-have-not-sung-this-song-reviewing-infinite-tuesday-by-michael-nesmith/

I'm not sure when I will get through the book, and this is an interesting reaction from a fan.

(Books find you at the moment you need them.  This book has not found me yet.)

Ann Moses, MEOW!!

I'm VERY excited to receive Ann Moses' new book, called (perfectly) MEOW!!  I just ordered my AUTOGRAPHED copy and cannot wait for it to arrive!

She's spent a career interviewing the hippest bands of the 1960's for Tiger Beat, the envy of almost every former teenage girl.

I wonder if the excitement was always there for her, or if she got used to it? What details did she notice, what stories does she have to tell that haven't already been published?

Was there a different story, other than the one of glamour?  I would love to see a pastiche of details, where she met up with everyone.  Conversations beyond their favorite color.

Does she know about the book "I Think I Love You" by Allison Pearson?  It's fiction, but still.

How did she get where she got?

What are the questions she WISHED she could've asked?

Did she become friends with any of her subjects?  Why or why not? (Was it a professionalism thing, or too much of a good thing?)

How does she explain the screaming teenage girls?  Why is that an ongoing phenomenon?

I have so many questions!! :)

Manchester

This brave (cowardly?) new world gets more complex.

Monday night, 22 people were killed at a concert. Including an 8 yr old girl. By a 22 year old man (kid?)

At an Ariana Grande concert, but if the terror wanted to strike preteen girls, it could have just as easily been The Beatles in 1964, (or the Monkees).

Or the next concert you go to. 

The 8 year old girl haunts me. She haunts the 8 year old me, and the grown woman I am that she will never become. 

Davy was from Manchester, an immigrant jockey/entertainer who came to America and was assimilated into a "Cowboy". A smiling nod at the truth.

All the girls screaming, their throats sore from screaming in happiness at music. 

The trauma & re-traumatizing of the original audience, and the viewers at home.

And lest you think this is about the terrorism of the moment, 1968 was a year of death & assassinations. It just gets edited out.  

But now you understand why they included that shot of a Vietnamese soldier getting killed in HEAD. It was as "popular" then on TV as the Zapruder film.

The media is the message. Everything is more immediate now, including the context of history.

Never forget.  Never forget that this is not new.

"Where is Love?" Baby Davy

If you have a craving to hear Davy as a VERY young singer, here are a nice couple of songs from "Oliver!".

Where is Love & Consider Yourself

He sounds like he is 12!!

And by the way, both have become Broadway standards, recorded & rerecorded by MANY young hopefuls!!

Micky & Coco At 54 Below, 3/24/17

Consensus was that Coco is the better performer. 

But that there also might be bias bc we've all seen so much of Micky. Maybe too much. 

Or never enough?

Order of Shows

After getting distracted with life, I was triggered to watch an episode.

(One leads to many, like potato chips or laughter)

I was shoveling. And while shoveling, I think of snow. And how much I dislike shoveling. And how I am forced to focus on my yard. And how my yard looks free of snow, especially in the spring & summer. 

And Summer= Monkees.

I was debating watching the whole series in alphabetical order, like the Monkee Magic book. But it seemed WRONG. For me at least. As a format of a book, it helps it for reference.

I also thought of watching in REVERSE order. But that also seemed wrong. Altjough, perhaps a challenge.  It might be fun to see them all growing gradually more innocent. 

But I am biased to the network cycle. A gradual circle, where their hair begins smooth and shiny, like Beatles ripoffs. And then everything becomes more complex, especially the scene structures.

Lately, I've just been skipping around. Seeking out the shows that I have a craving for, or that I think I haven't seen in a while. Last week, I wanted to watch Ruth Buzzi bc I've been watching Laugh In. Then Success Story because I can't remember the last time I watched it (a good thing-I like forgetting & being reacquainted) Then Machine, bc I work with too many computers. And it's fun to see computers as babies. Or at least as their primitive caveman versions.

I know that I've seen the entire series at least twice every summer of my life, from age 5 to age 17. And once I got it in DVD, I must've watched those versions at least 5 times. And there was a time when I was watching online. That's another round.

Never enough.  Like Shakespeare, I keep seeing new things. If anything, it's hard for me to get through an entire episode without stopping to look up an obscure reference. It's a huge Thing for me, really. 

What year is this?

The year of the Monkey/Monkee is over, and now we are in the year of the Rooster, according to the Asian  Lunar New Year.

But we now seem to be embroiled in a new nation. "Making it great again" with nazi slogans and unconstitutional bans on Muslims.

What year are we in? 1968? With all those protests & marches and the country fighting for Civil Rights.

Or are we in 1939? Awaiting a giant world war.