by Roxanne Tellier first published 21/12/2014 on Bob Segarini’s Don’t Believe A Word I Say …. So here’s what was happening, mostly in Youtube and music, 9 years ago!
This year it falls to me to be the last voice of 2014. Still decked out in my new holiday outfit, and digesting our early family New Year’s dinner, I’m parsing my memories of the events of the last 365 days. Some incidents filled me with joy, while others had all the appeal of an ugly, if ironic, Christmas sweater.
Life is a seesaw; for every up, there’ll be a down. Revelations and accusations of chronic sexual abuse of women were aimed at celebrities Woody Allen, Jian Ghomeshi, and Bill Cosby, as well as at pro footballers, politicians and university students. But in the music world, women took a strong lead, garnering awards for their abilities, and sadly, often attention for their willingness to literally expose themselves to the world. (What is it with our obsession with big butts, she asked rhetorically?)
One of the biggest winners of the year is Taylor Swift, who transitioned from introspective and observational country songs to pop and fashion diva . “She released a best-selling album, took on Spotify, performed at the Victoria’s Secret show and turned a tabloid reputation for man-trap desperation on its head, emerging as a single-and-loving-it cheerleader for girl power.”
“Ms. Swift’s latest album, “1989,” her first under the aegis of pop, arrived in October and in its first week sold 1.287 million copies, more than any of her competitors in first-week sales, and more than any album in that time period since 2002.” (The New York Times, December 2014)
I’m still not convinced. And I like this parody of “Shake It Off” better than the original.
On the country scene, Maddie and Tae’s “Girl In A Country Song,” hit number one on the Country charts December 20, 2014 after 23 weeks of climbing said charts. The song is a satire of the contemporary “bro-country” trend, where the biggest male country stars objectify their downhome ladies.
Meghan Trainor’s another female with a Nashville background. Only 20 years old, she previously wrote and self-released two albums, and has had song writing cuts with Rascal Flatts, R5, Sabrina Carpenter and others before releasing the mega earworm “All About That Bass.” Unfortunately the follow up, “Lips Are Movin’ ” is pretty much a virtual remix of “Bass.”
Iggy Azalea has cornered the market on Australian white woman rap. Her song “Fancy” reached number one on the U.S. charts, with Azalea becoming only the fourth solo female rapper ever to top the Hot 100. Jessie J, Ariana Grande & Nicki Minaj work the same street, and their joint effort, “Bang Bang,” debuted at number one in England, and reached the top 10 in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Bulgaria. The song now sits at number 3 on the U.S. charts, and has been nominated for 2015’s Grammy Awards for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.
On the adult contemporary front slash latest Disney song to drive parents mental, both Idina Menzel and Demi Lovato had hits with “Let It Go,” the first song from a Disney animated musical to reach the Billboard top ten. The song, from the smash hit Frozen, has sold 3.5 million copies as of this month. And still counting.
This adorable mother/daughter duo’s video went viral (4.5 million views) when they lip synched to another song from the movie, “Love Is An Open Door.”
Still bubbling on the charts, Sia’s electro-pop hit “Chandelier” video has enchanted viewers with the help of Maddie Ziegler, a young, fearless and apparently boneless 12 year old dancer. The track was certified quadruple platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) and platinum by the Recorded Music NZ (RMNZ) and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It’s hard to take your eyes off young Maddie, as 397 million hits will attest.
Madonna had a hissy fit this week, when her new music hit the Internet prematurely. She posted this on Instagram on December 17, “This is artistic rape!! These are early leaked demos, half of which won’t even make it on my album. The other half have changed and evolved. This is a form of terrorism. Wtf!!!! Why do people want to destroy artistic process??? Why steal? Why not give me the opportunity to finish and give you my very best?”
I guess she had it explained to her, because two days later she released six songs from her upcoming album Rebel Heart. Genuine outrage or publicity stunt? Who knows. Or cares.
It wasn’t all good for women this year. Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kim Kardashian, and more were digitally hacked in August 2014 and their nude selfies were posted all over the Internet. Here Comes Honey Boo Boo was cancelled after Mama June was found to be dating a sex offender – again.
Women were largely unrepresented at the 2014 Grammy Awards, although Lorde’s “Royals” won Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year. Alicia Keyes won Best R&B Album, and Rhianna picked up the Best Urban Contemporary Album. But overall, it was a Grammy sausagefest, as Daft Punk, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and Pharrell Williams cleaned up in the main categories.
Speaking of Pharrell, his famous hat sold for $44,100 at an eBay auction to fast food chain Arbys The money is going to From One Hand to Another, a charity that helps children learn through technology and the arts. Unfortunately, he also seems to have sold his ability to generate a followup hit to “Happy” (Song of the Year at 2014 Soul Train Awards.) His new song, “Gust of Wind,” is pretty gustless.
We lost a lot of good people in 2014, including Joan Rivers, Shirley Temple, Lauren Bacall, Peaches Geldof, Jan Hooks and Maya Angelou. Although the voices of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Mickey Rooney, , Richard Attenborough, Harold Ramis, Sid Caesar, Casey Kasem, Tommy the last Ramone, Phil Everly, Pete Seeger, David Brenner, John Pinette, and others were silenced, it seemed that the loss of Robin Williams hit people the hardest. His last cinematic performance, in Night at the Museum; The Secret of the Tomb, debuted December 19th.
We also lost the services of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who withdrew from the race after being diagnosed with a rare tumour of the abdomen. Brother Doug Ford officially signed up to step into his place just minutes before the deadline for candidates to submit their registration papers. But it was John Tory who won the position. We’ll have to see how well Mayor Tory runs the city, but in the meantime, it’s been a refreshing and nondramatic breath of fresh air for the Big Smoke.
In the ‘States, a St. Louis County grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson in the August killing of teenager Michael Brown. And an Ohio special grand jury decided that no officers would be charged in the death of 22-year-old John Crawford III, who was shot and killed inside a Wal-Mart while carrying an air rifle sold at the store. In New York, a special grand jury decided to not bring charges against the officers involved in the death of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died in a chokehold during an arrest. This week, Cleveland Browns wide receiver Andrew Hawkins wore a shirt calling for justice for two black Ohioans (John Crawford and 12 year old Tamir Rice) recently killed by police, onto the field before a game against the Cincinnati Bengals. With racial unrest and worldwide protests over the apparent lack of justice, all eyes will be on the grand jury called to decide if the police offers who shot Tamir Rice will be indicted.
At the cinemas, the monster hits primarily had the first initial “G” – Guardians of The Galaxy, Gone Girl, Grand Budapest Hotel. Non-G movies included Ida, creepy 70’s cinema throwback Nightcrawler, Jon Stewart’s Rosewater, and Snowpiercer, with a dramatic ending making the political statement that sometimes you’ve just got to blow it all up and start all over again. What we won’t see this holiday season is “The Interview,” pulled from it’s planned December 25th opening by Sony Pictures Entertainment, after hackers leaked several other then-upcoming Sony films and sensitive internal information. The hackers, whom the FBI believe have ties to North Korea, demanded that Sony pull the film, which it referred to as “the movie of terrorism,” and threatened terrorist 9/11 style attacks against cinemas that played it.
On December 19, Craig Ferguson’s final episode of the Late Late Show aired, but was largely overshadowed by the finale of Stephen Colbert’s Colbert Report. Both shows will be very much missed.
What will the new year bring? Here’s hoping for a lot less controversy, and a lot more quality entertainment. Will the ladies take their current success to the 2015 Grammy Awards or will Sam Smith’s album win Record of the Year?
I’m keeping an eye on several groups that I hope will break out this coming year, including Vintage Trouble, who knocked us dead at Lee’s Palace in September; St. Paul and The Bones, who just keep getting better and better, and alt-J, a group I first saw on British TV who are starting to get airplay in Canada, after scoring several high profile late night spots on American television.
And of course, I remain infatuated and enthralled by Bruno Mars, who’s latest outing with Mark Ronson is racing up the charts. With nods to Nile Rodgers, Nelly, James Brown and early Prince, it’s a more classic funk that can’t help but pull you out of your chair and on to the dance floor.
So that’s it … goodbye 2014. Wishing all Don’t Believe A Word I Say readers a happy holiday season, and a bright and shiny New Year!
Happy Holidays to all! And to all a superior New Year!
Several handwritten drafts of the lyrics—sometimes titled “Beach Haven Race Hate,” “Beach Haven Ain’t My Home,” and “Old Man Trump”—are presently on display at the Woody Guthrie Center, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
He is a bully with awesome presidential powers, and a taste for the abuse of those powers.
Most of his posts are essentially sermons that could be just as easily spoken from a pulpit as read from your tablet. Pavlovitz asks the hard questions of those who consider themselves Christian – what kind of person does the world need right now? And what are you prepared to do to help?
Immigrants are the lifeblood of America. Without the influx of striving, determined workers, America would eventually fade away, as each generation has less children than the one before. It is immigrants who make it possible for Americans to retire – it is the taxes they pay that enable the country to prosper.
João Gilberto, 88, pioneered the bossa nova genre, and in so doing, brought a little bit of ‘strange’ to North America that it didn’t know it had been waiting for.
I believe that my cousin Michael Leo Donovan, a man who loves the city of Montreal with a fervour I’ve never seen excelled, wrote a book about one of the cemetery’s denizens, the statesman Thomas D’Arcy McGee, after repeatedly seeing his tomb on family visits.
“In 1867 he became a Father of Confederation. It was said that if Sir John A. MacDonald of Ontario and Sir George Etienne Cartier of Quebec were the architects of Canada. D’Arcy McGee was its prophet. He was murdered on April 6, 1868, in Ottawa, while returning home after a session of the House.” (A Shamrock in the Snow, 1996)
Montreal’s revered Joe Beef has a place of honour. “His real Irish name was Charles McKieman. He owned the famous “Joe Beef’s Canteen,” located near the port. His 3-storey building held a tavern, a restaurant with free food for the homeless, a dorm of 100 beds and a basement full of strange menagerie. He died in 1889 aged 54. His six sons and his wife organized a very impressive funeral for him. Every office in the business district closed for the afternoon, and there were representatives of workers from all classes in the procession.”
There is also a section dedicated to some of the 76 small children who died in the Laurier Palace Theatre fire in 1927, an event so horrific to Montrealers that a law was summarily passed forbidding the entry of children under 16 to any theatre or cinema screenings. That law remained in effect until 1961
But the most common ghost spotted on the mountain where First Nation peoples were also known to bury their dead is that of an Algonquin warrior.
Growing up, I think I always took my family a little for granted. Maybe I just assumed that all families were graced with so much talent, in so many fields. We grew up with my uncle Dennis , co-creator and writer of The Beachcombers; my uncle Leo, whose majestic land and seascapes graced our homes; my uncle John, who was possessed not only of great writing skill, but also of a deep, radio friendly baritone speaking and singing voice; my aunt Pat, a writer, painter, and woman of enormous intelligence; and my own mother, who was a superb dancer, writer, and editor.
With that sort of heritage, it is almost a forgone conclusion that the 15 children they brought into the world also possessed many talents, not only in the arts, but in social and computing skills. We just never thought that we wouldn’t be able to do whatever we wanted to do with our lives.
Many of us write. I mentioned Michael, above, but there’s also Kieran, the poet and singer-songwriter; and Rita, who has won multiple awards for her nine books, short stories and essays.
We all sing. Dianne toured with a Harry James tribute for years before settling down in Austin, Texas with her husband, where she also hosts Classical Austin on KMFA radio, produces a weekly vocal jazz show, “Voices in Jazz” for CKUA Radio in Edmonton, and has a new CD release, “A Musing,” featuring mostly original compositions. She also teaches a cooking class with her jazz trio, The Beat Divas. (dianne donovan beat divas.jpg)
Some of us draw, sculpt and paint. My cousin Aileen took her dad’s painting skill and crafted it into a long career as a well known animal portraitist during her years living in the North West Territories with the Inuit peoples. She now focuses mainly on past life regressions for both pets and people.
And I’ll get to see some, though not all of them, this week. While the occasion is solemn, visits to my city and my family are never terribly formal for more than a few minutes. We are a group that cannot be repressed for long – laughter, good humour, and our love for each other guarantees a boisterous reunion.
I’ll bring that up with the clan at the wake next week, and see if anyone’s pencilled in a date for when we can get to the ‘growing up‘ part of life. With any luck, we can keep putting it off forever.
I’m always most interested in the conferences, and as usual, the choice of subjects and speakers means that I’ll be run ragged. I’d like to catch 4 Non Blondes Grammy Award-nominated producer and songwriter Linda Perry‘s Masterclass on Thursday the 9th, where she’ll be giving live critiques on a selection of songs by artists and producer-songwriters attending this session.
Ah, Jeopardy … the trivia lover’s best friend. Hosted by Canadian Alex Trebek, 78, who holds a Guinness World Records™ record for Most Game Show Episodes Hosted by the Same Presenter, the show’s unique formula has kept viewers tuning in since 1984, a mind boggling 35 years of compering.
Holzhauer uses the odds, selecting and correctly answering, the harder, top dollar clues first, and then seeking out the “Daily Double” clues, and making huge bets. By the halfway mark of the game, he’s ahead of the other two contestants with an insurmountable lead, and the game is pretty much over, as he romps to the end and Final Answer.
Lauren tells me that he often winds up sitting by himself in a corner, because people just can’t take his constant proclamations of political corruption, upcoming wars and the inevitable destruction of our planet through unregulated capitalism.
But here’s the thing … people are getting very, very bad at handling reality. It’s one thing to say, “not now, please – I’m enjoying this brie,” and another to simply close your mind to the facts and truth of your current political and physical environment.
Truth be told .. it’s as bad as it looks. Actually worse. It’s so bad that people are seriously asking what will happen after the next election, if/when Trump just won’t leave the office if voted out.
One of the most recent cuts in the Ford government’s budget is to a long standing project called the 50 Million Tree Program. 
Ford’s vision ‘for the people’ of Ontario appears to be aimed at the needs of drunks and gamblers, not at the campers, hunters and fishers wanting to enjoy the splendour of our province.
“If music be the food of love, play on!” Like food, music can be comforting. It can also be stimulating, annoying, or cloying. Music releases dopamine, the ‘feel good’ hormone, just like sex and actual food. Music can arouse feelings of euphoria and craving. Dopamine release is at “peak emotional arousal” during music listening, so you really ARE getting a bang for your musical buck.
Complex changes occur in our brains when we hear our favourite songs. We can be unconsciously manipulated through sound; studies show that listening to sad music can lead to a wide range of complex and partially positive emotions, like nostalgia. Listening to particularly sad or happy music can change the way we perceive the world.
The sort of music we want to hear at a given moment has much to do with what we’ve heard before, the sounds that we’ve absorbed through our lives, the sounds that feel familiar, that work within the tonal range that defines what is ‘popular’ in our culture. Which is why Britney Spears’ music has been used by the British Royal Navy to scare off Somali pirates.
If your pet has a tendency to overeat in stressful situations, or suffers from separation anxiety, quiet music playing on the radio may calm their anxieties, relax muscles, improve digestion and increase restful sleep. Dogs are particularly sensitive to music, with classical music having been shown to actually calm pups prone to epileptic seizures, and stimulate and release endorphins in the brain that aid in pain reduction.
But there’s a limit to how much repetition we can take. Although hearing a song again and again makes your brain happy, because it’s already done the work to figure out what comes next, after a while, overexposure to songs causes an actual irritation. Like when you can’t bear another chorus of “Jingle Bells,” or break into hives at the ten millionth rendition of “Stairway to Heaven.”
There’s an actual term for misheard lyrics – mondegreen. It was coined by writer Sylvia Wring, in a Harper’s piece in 1954. She admitted to mishearing a piece of ancient English poetry her mother had read to her in her youth. Instead of hearing, “They hae slain the Earl Amurray, / And laid him on the green,” she heard, “They hae slain the Earl Amurray, / And Lady Mondegreen.”
Mondegreens work so well, in poetry, music and everyday life, that the misheard can become a new reality. “Spitting image” was originally “spit and image.” (Spit meaning likeness.) It drives me batty when I see a writer refer to an all-intensive purpose, but they’ve come there from ‘for all intents and purposes. “.It’s not ‘tow the line, ‘ it’s ‘toe the line,’ from the early days of the British Royal Navy,(those guys again!) at a time when seamen fell in for inspection barefoot.
When you think about it, one of the most famous, and presumably wealthiest, person with a high profile, back in those days, was Elvis. And by today’s standards, Graceland isn’t exactly the Taj Mahal. Not with all that shag carpeting. But for the time, it was high glam.
In the seventies, you’d have been more likely to hear someone snigger, “geez, who does he/she think he/she is!” when a Canadian even got a mention in American media.
I’m not saying that the days of mud sharks, Whovian displays of hotel trashing, and the deaths by overdose of nearly every icon of the day opened the door to the pedestaling of the rich and famous….
MTV glommed onto that envy, and promoted the lifestyles of celebrities in shows like “The Fabulous Life Of … “ and “Cribs.” These quasi reality features pretended to give the plebes a glimpse into the opulent homes, glamorous lifestyles, and vacation playgrounds of those musicians who had ‘made it.’
There have always been camp followers, disciples, those who believe that proximity to what they covet, for even a few moments, raises their own profile and value amongst those who have not had the same access to the royalty of their time.
We would never expect our dentist to take out our appendix or fix our plumbing, but for some reason, we think that someone who has managed to acquire – by hook, and likely crook – a large amount of money, should be given free reign to guide a country, or should be allowed to tell us who and how to worship. The mind boggles.
Dangling the promises of future prosperity, they will assure their acolytes that there is a brilliant future awaiting them, if they’ll just listen to their master’s advice. The prey might wonder at what is asked of them, if they follow this path, and they may be reluctant to give their all, without the assurances, as false as they may be, that their faith will bring them enormous rewards in the end.
What goes up .. must come down. At some point, the blinders fall off, and we see that those we call gods and kings are just selfish, spoiled, narcissists, and that we are the toys and pawns they use to satisfy their own whims and urges.
The most uninformed man in the world, who doubles as the president of the U.S., told them they were all wrong, and that only he, based on his ‘gut feelings’ and a solid and continuous scrutiny of the talking heads of the FOX Network, knew what was really going on.
Oh, and also that his orange facial tinge is due to ‘good genes‘ – not makeup and definitely NOT from a tanning bed.
… little in common indeed … what’s a 100C degree temperature swing amongst friends, amirite?
“He told his audience that people in Davos talked about participation, justice, equality and transparency, but “nobody raises the issue of tax avoidance and the rich not paying their share. It is like going to a firefighters’ conference and not talking about water.”
That series, Politically Incorrect, ran from 1993 to 2002, first on Comedy Central, and then on ABC. Ironically, the show was cancelled due to … political incorrectness.
In the wild, as a concept … political correctness is a wonderful idea. It is an effort to put the spotlight on those unconscious biases that many of us grew up with, and sometimes find ourselves blurting out at awkward moments. It is an exercise in trying to dig out those prejudices at the root, and kill them forever. Many of the things we say without thinking betray unconscious biases, because we are the products of not only our society, but of the thoughts and opinions of our parents and grandparents, who lived in a much less permissive time, and who imprinted their preconceived judgments on our little psyches when we were at our most impressionable.
But here’s the thing – some very well-meaning people have taken that lovely, Christian, politically correct, desire to make everything and every one equal, and run it into the ditch. And while those very well-meaning people may consider themselves pretty ‘woke’ … they are actually in a clear minority.
It’s been an interesting week all around. On Thursday, I heard an unearthly yowl coming from the front yard, and raced out to see that the psycho kitty I call BlackAndWhiteCat had pinned Lord Farlsworth against the fence. The Lord is a big boy, a twenty-pounder, but he’s a lover, not a fighter.
But I’ve got to question the Messiah complex of the person who thinks that their presence is somehow slowing down the worst possible horrors Trump would unleash on the world without these guard rails.
frustratedboomers 
