Political Wrinkles - Entertainment, Music & Sports

Blockbuster Movies, starring political figures, that we'll probably never see :(

Oftencold — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:17:12 GMT

Move type: science fiction/ action adventure

Cinematic style: heavy use of special effects and over-the top stunts

Scenario: The World has been devastated by an alien attack, and now stands defenseless before the advancing space armada.

Only a secret warrior, the last adherent of an ancient cult, long sheltered by the British Government offers the world any hope of victory.

Spoiler

Note: I may not be getting enough oxygen to my brain.

Jazz - post your youtube clips

SHOSHANA — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:08:56 GMT

Stan Getz & Bill Evans - Night And Day - YouTube

Celestial Navigations

Mikeyy — Wed, 09 May 2012 01:05:48 GMT

This story will get you

Celestial Navigations: Horses (Storytelling At Its Best) - YouTube

Goober is a Goner

Mikeyy — Sun, 06 May 2012 19:09:31 GMT

George Lindsey who played Goober on the Andy Griffith show has died. He was 83

'Goober Pyle' actor George Lindsey dies - CNN.com

A Sports Triva Thread

StanFan — Sat, 05 May 2012 00:20:32 GMT

What were the original locations of the following sports franchises?

Philadelphia Warriors (NBA)
Los Angeles Lakers (NBA)
Oklahoma City Thunder (NBA)
Los Angeles Clippers (NBA)
Utah Jazz (NBA)
Atlanta Hawks (NBA)

Kansas City Chiefs (NFL)
Tennessee Titans (NFL)
Indianapolis Colts (NFL)
New England Patriots (NFL)
San Diego Chargers (NFL)
Baltimore Ravens (NFL)
St.Louis Rams (NFL)

Los Angeles Dodgers*** (MLB) Bonus Question. Where did the Dodgers nickname come from?
San Francisco Giants (MLB)
Washington Nationals(MLB)
Atlanta Braves (MLB)
Oakland Athletics (MLB)
Seattle Mariners (MLB)
Baltimore Orioles (MLB)

Dallas Stars (NHL)
Winnipeg Jets (NHL)

*** Second Bonus Question - The Toronto Maple Leafs last Stanley Cub Championship was 1966. What was odd about it?

Junior Seau RIP......

Dave1 — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:48:04 GMT

This was so sad......

Years of serious "sloshing", his brain bouncing around inside his head from violent helmet to helmet collisions along with steroids to recover leave permanent scars no one can see on the outside.....

I heard he drove his car off a cliff years ago but, said it wasn't a suicide...

He was a first ballet hall of famer and he was tougher than damn near all them when he was playing.....

I saw his mother on TV today and it just broke my heart. The things she said sent shivers down my spine. Jr. did indeed inflict severe pain to his family but, I have no idea how bad he was suffering.....

It's just a sad day......

Bill Maher says US the Racist States of America

cnredd — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 07:41:23 GMT

Bill Maher says US the Racist States of America - YouTube

For those who simply want to dismiss Maher in an attempt to distance themselves from Obama's base; the lunatic fringe; don't just listen to what Maher states...:no

Listen to the REACTION from the audience...

They overwhelmingly agree with him and applaud...:yes :mad

'Blowin' In The Wind' Still Asks The Hard Questions

Coyote — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:27:56 GMT

'Blowin' In The Wind' Still Asks The Hard Questions : NPR

Quote:

Bob Dylan was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama on April 26, 2012. The honor is due in no small part to songs like "Blowin' in the Wind" still asking the same hard questions 50 years later.

By 1962, Bob Dylan had been hanging around McDougal Street in Greenwich Village for a little more than a year. He was known as a nervous guy with a funny cap, a singer and writer of songs like dozens, maybe hundreds, of others. Happy Traum and Bob Cohen were members of a folk group playing the Village at that time, called The New World Singers. They would invite Dylan up on the stage to join them.

"He was very sort of rough around the edges," Happy Traum notes, "and at the same time he had built this mythology about himself where we didn't know where he came from; he just sort of appeared, hitchhiking or riding boxcars out of the Southwest or something like that. And so he was immediately this kind of iconic figure even for a 19- or 20-year-old kid."

Rough as he was, Dylan had caught the eyes and ears of some important and influential people. John Hammond, already a legendary producer at Columbia Records, heard Dylan and signed him for the label. His first album contained just one original composition, "Song to Woody," and sold only a few thousand copies. But Dylan continued to play and to learn. One night at Gerde's Folk City, Dylan heard The New World Singers perform a Civil War era freedom song, one that Bob Cohen still remembers.

"It was very dramatic and a very beautiful song, very expressive. And Dylan heard that and heard other songs we were singing. And some days later, he asked us, he said, `Hey, come downstairs.' We used to go down to Gerde's basement, which was�is it all right to say?�full of rats, I don't know, and other things. And he had his guitar, and it was kind of a thing where when he added a new song, he'd call us downstairs and we'd listen to it. And he had started�and he wrote, (singing) `How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?' And the germ of that melody of "No More Auction Blocks" certainly was in that."

The New World Singers were the first to record "Blowin' in the Wind." Dylan later said he wrote the song in a cafe across the street from the Gaslight. He claimed it took him 10 minutes. Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman, gave a demo of the song to another act he managed, a trio named Peter, Paul & Mary.

"Blowin' in the Wind" quickly became an anthem of the civil rights movement then reaching its peak. Dylan sang it himself at a voter registration rally in Greenwood, Mississippi, in the spring of 1963. Peter, Paul & Mary performed it on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August of that year, a few hours before Martin Luther King delivered his `I have a dream' speech. And Peter Yarrow remembers singing it during the march from Selma to Montgomery.

"When we sang it, it was in a field where probably I'd say, oh, 5,000 of the poorest people I'd ever seen, all of them black. And they waited in the rain for a couple of hours 'cause the sound system had gone to the wrong destination. We sang it very slowly, very, very�in a very determined way, but with a sense of the weariness of the people that surrounded us."

"Blowin' in the Wind," with its references to cannonballs and white doves, was also adopted by the anti-war movement. Peter, Paul & Mary's version of the song became the fastest-selling single in Warner Brothers' history. It was topical, it was political and it was completely unlike anything else on the radio, which at the time was dominated by highly produced pop songs: Stevie Wonder's "Fingertips, Part 2," "Judy's Turn To Cry," by Lesley Gore, and The Four Seasons' "Candy Girl."

Writer David Hajdu chronicles the era in his forthcoming book, "Positively Fourth Street."

"I think it beat out the 'Chipmunk Song,' or it was right up there with the "Chipmunk Song" and "To Know Him Is to Love Him. And can you imagine what it was like to be a teen-ager and to be flipping through the dials and to hear that kind of silly pop and then the next thing, or the next song, is "Blowin' in the Wind"? What a revelation that must have been."

In fact, it's the most covered of any Dylan song, with everyone from Duke Ellington to Glen Campbell to Stevie Wonder having recorded it.

Greil Marcus has written about Dylan and the '60s. He says "Blowin' in the Wind" was a product of its era.

"You know, there are songs that are more written by their times than by any individual in that time, a song that the times seem to call for, a song that is just gonna be a perfect strike rolled right down the middle of the lane, and the lane has already been grooved for the strike. And this was that kind of song. Someone had to write this song."

But what does it mean, `The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind?' Dylan himself was cryptic about it, telling Sing Out! magazine in 1962, quote, "There ain't much I can say about this song, except the answer is blowin' in the wind. It ain't no book or movie or TV show or discussion group, man. It's in the wind." Writer David Hajdu says its ambivalence is part of the song's appeal.

"The song can be anything to anybody. It's critical and it's hard, this litany of questions about what's wrong with the world, OK; so if you're inclined, you know, to damn the establishment and the prevailing authority, there's your song. If you're of a more positive nature, well, this song provides an answer, too, or it hits�it leans toward an answer. `The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.'"

Peter Yarrow, who, with Noel Stookey and Mary Travers, has probably sung the song more often than anyone else, says it's wrong to take the lyrics too literally.

"You can hear in this a yearning and a hope and a possibility and a sadness and sometimes a triumphal proclamation of determination. The answer is blowin' in the wind means we will find the answer. So it's a matter of interpretation and, frankly, I think Bobby was probably right and legitimate in not giving a specific interpretation."

Dylan's own version of the song appeared on his second album, the 'Freewheelin' Bob Dylan,' released in May 1963. What it lacks in polish it gains in authenticity."

Dylan himself has downplayed the significance of "Blowin' in the Wind." In the liner notes to his 1985 "Biograph" collection, he called it `just another song,' although he admits he knew it was special but not to what degree. It is still a staple at protest rallies and campfires, and it remains, in Peter Yarrow's words, "part of the secular liturgy of our times."

Blowing in the Wind is one of my favorite all-time songs, I think it will always be relevant:thumbsup

2012 Draft Day

cnredd — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 21:48:21 GMT

Andrew Luck is going to Indianapolis for the first pick overall, and will probably be followed by the Redskins taking Robert Griffin III...

The Dallas Cowboys will pick Stephen Hawking, Perez Hilton, and a 1973 AMC Gremlin...

Folk legend Pete Seeger honoured by arts academy

Coyote — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:18:10 GMT

Folk legend Pete Seeger honoured by arts academy

Quote:

Pete Seeger, the 92-year-old grand statesman of folk music, will receive a 'Distinguished Service' award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters

Academy executive director Virginia Dajani said that Seeger, born in New York in 1919, may even perform at the ceremony, on 16th May, where playwright Tony Kushner will present Seeger a certificate and a check for $1,000.

In an acceptance letter sent to the academy, Seeger wrote that his father, Charles Louis Seeger, Jr., would have been "especially pleased." His father was a musicologist and, with Aaron Copland, formed the Composers Collective.

"I am glad we are all realising that the arts, in a broad sense, may save the world, save the human race," Pete Seeger wrote to the academy.

Among the very many musicians inspired by Seeger was Bob Dylan. Seeger came to prominence in the 1950s as a member of The Weavers. He was a prominent protest singer in support of international disarmament, civil rights, and environmental causes. Among his best known recordings are Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song), and Turn, Turn, Turn.

I grew up listening to Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie - what an incredible man, and at 92 still sharp as a tack :)

TV Shows We Watch

762nato — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 22:51:20 GMT

The "Hawaii 50 and NCIS: LA Crossover Next Week!" thread
got me thinking about who watches what shows. Here is my list in random order:

Justified
Hawaii 50
The Closer
Rizzoli and Isiles
Law and Order SVU
Grimm
Once Upon a Time
In Plain Sight
Sons of Anarchy
Bones
CSI (all three with a preference for CSI-NY)

Cancelled shows I used to watch
The Shield
24
Third Watch
Rescue Me
NYPD Blue

Sitcoms I watch
Mike & Molly
Last Man Standing
Two Broke Girls
American Dad (animated)
The Simpsons (animated)

Grown Ups 2!

Lpdon — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:26:57 GMT

Just been announced! I am stoked!!!!!!!! I loved that movie, it was one of the funniest movies I have ever seen!

Columbia Pictures and Happy Madison Productions are currently in negotiations for a sequel, with Fred Wolf signed on to write the script and Dennis Dugan returning to direct. Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Maya Rudolph and Salma Hayek will reprise their roles from the first film, while Oliver Cooper, David Henrie, Shaquille O'Neal and Taylor Lautner have signed on to play new characters. The film has been confirmed for a July 12, 2013 release date.

Grown Ups (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

How old would they be now?

Comet — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 08:32:49 GMT

Found this article interesting and it brought back memories. Also, we have quite a few younger posters here in their thirties and twenties who do not know a lot about some of our older and famous actors and musicians, who may as well be thousands of years old to them. Most do not realize many of them would be old enough to still be alive today.

See how old some of your favorites would be today. It is also neat to compare the ages of various individuals.

Here are some from the list.

How old would they be now? | Fox News

Grace Kelly - 82
Johnny Cash - 80
Ray Charles - 81
Audrey Hepburn - 83
Elvis Presley - 73
River Phoenix - 39
Hamk Williams - 88
Freddie Mercury - 65
Janis Joplin - 69
Buddy Holly - 75
Marilyn Monroe - 85
James Dean - 81
John Lennon - 71
Sam Cooke - 79
Stevie Ray Vaughn - 57
Bruce Lee - 71
Otis Redding - 70
Natalie Wood - 73
John Belushi - 62
Marvin Gaye - 73
Ritchie Valens - 70
Jim Morrison - 70
Keith Moon - 65
John F. Kennedy - 94
Jimi Hendrix - 69

Frozen Planet

Comet — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:38:02 GMT

Has anyone been watching the 'Frozen Planet' seven-part series by BBC and the Discovery Channel? It has been airing on the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet. It is hosted by David Attenborough (British version) and Alec Baldwin (American version).

If you liked Planet Earth, Life and The Blue Planet, you will love this. Just when you think you have seen all there is to see, this fantastic series shows you things you rarely or never seen. The shots are gorgeous and the material is outstanding. Extremely well done. It features Antarctica and Arctic regions, weather and animals.

There are so many amazing things on our planet no amount of documentaries could ever show it all.

Frozen Planet - BBC Trailer - YouTube

BBC - Frozen Planet - Trailer (HDTV) - YouTube

Hawaii 50 and NCIS: LA Crossover Next Week!

Lpdon — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 04:21:25 GMT

Hawaii 5 0 2x21 'Pa Make Loa' (Touch of Death) & NCIS LA 3x21 'Touch of Death' Trailer 1 - YouTube

This is the second time this season. They had Danielle Ruah in a cameo in the beginning of the season but this is a major two night event. The entire cast of both shows are going to be a part of the whole two part episode airing Monday and Tuesday night and I can't wait! :banana:

I am a little dissapointed, when I read about this back in January I was hoping they would be coming in to assist McGarrett on the Shelburne investigation but oh well.

Now if only Criminal Minds and the original NCIS would cross over my life would be complete!