Tag: entertainment
Tommy Shaw & Contemporary Youth Orchestra of Cleveland – Blue Collar Man
The Buggles – Video Killed The Radio Star
George C. Scott’s Patton speech
An evening pause: The opening speech from the 1970 movie Patton that captured the character of one of America’s most unique and successful generals.
Patton was a difficult man with little diplomacy, but then, soldiers are not hired to be diplomats. (At least we didn’t when America was the sane country of courageous fighters, as described in this speech.) Yet, as difficult as he was, his philosophy of war was a direct descendant of the war strategy and tactics of Ulysses S. Grant. As Patton is believed to have actually said,
“Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose!”
This was how Grant won the Civil War. It was how Americans fought every war that followed through World War II. Sadly, that philosophy was lost by the bureaucratic military that developed during the Cold War.
If only we had generals and political leaders today who understand this utterly essential approach for winning wars.
One note: The speech’s language at times violates my rules about obscenities. In the context of war and death however I think the use of such language wholly appropriate.
Hat tip Daniel Morris.
Voces8 – Lux Aeterna
James Brown & Charlie Daniels – Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag/I Got You (I Feel Good)
Caroline Jones – Rise (Sing It Loud)
An evening pause: Sorry this got posted late tonight, but better late then never.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
Soft Cell – Tainted Love
Steve’n’Seagulls – The Trooper
An evening pause: If the Rolling Stones can do country (see yesterday’s pause), why can’t a bunch of Finns cover some American music?
Hat tip Dan Morris.
The Rolling Stones – Bob Wills Is Still The King
An evening pause: Performed live in Texas in either 1998 or 2005, depending on whether you trust the webpage or the video itself.
Hat tip Dan Steele.
Jack Webb & Johnny Carson – Dragnet Clapper Caper
An evening pause: Another sketch from the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. This routine, as funny as it is on its own, is even funnier if you ever watched the TV show Dragnet with Jack Webb. It plays on that show’s very very dry delivery style.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall – Musical medley
An evening pause: Performed and aired live on television in June 12, 1962. Andrews is known for her singing, while Burnett is known for her comedy. In truth, their talent in both areas was special.
Hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime.
Doc Severinsen And The Tonight Show Band – Ode to Billie Joe
An evening pause: Another selection from the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, from 1974.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
One Voice Children’s Choir – America the Beautiful
An evenig pause: Man, do these kids belt this out.
This was once a standard that all kids sang in school. I doubt they teach it anymore. Even when they did, they would rarely make the meaning of the lyrics very clear (Read them all, they are quite profound). Consider for example the most well know first chorus:
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
It asks for God’s grace, demands goodness from us all, for the sake of brotherhood.. I’ll take that aspiration any day over the modern hateful, diversive Marxist ideologies of critical race theory that strives to tear people apart and instill distrust and racial bigotry.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
Talk Talk — It’s My Life
Jim Nabors – Impossible Dream
An evening pause: Performed in season four, 1967, of the Gomer Pyle television show, where Nabors played Gomer Pyle as a country bumpkin. When he sang this, however, he shocked not only his sergeant, he surprised the nation, since few knew he was such a polished singer.
The song is from my childhood, when Americans were all hopeful, confident, and knew their nation’s real history, based on liberty and freedom, a history that had strived consistently to achieve that for everyone.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Don McLean – Vincent
An evening pause: Performed live 1999.
I often empathize greatly with this song, and its closing verses:
Now I think I know
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them freeThey would not listen, they’re not listening still
Perhaps they never will
Marty Robbins – El Paso
Rodney Dangerfield on the Tonight Show
An evening pause: From 1974. His humor is funny because it is entirely silly. If for one second you try to take anything he says with any seriousness at all, you will have no fun.
Michael Martin Murphey & the Rio Grande Band – Wildfire
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers – Lonesome Polecat
An evening pause: This song, from the 1954 MGM classic musical, was one of the first evening pauses I posted back in 2010. As Diane and I recently rewatched the musical, I think it time to repost it. As I said then,
This haunting song from the movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is notable not only because of the beauty of the music and dancing, but because the entire number is shot as one take, no cuts. Everyone, from the actors with their axes to the crew moving the camera on its dolly and crane, had to be right on cue for everything to work.
Having spent almost twenty years in the movie business, I can promise you that this is not easy.
The 2010 evening pause uses the original voice of red-haired Matt Mattox, which was dubbed for the movie.
An evening pause: This song, from the 1954 MGM classic musical, was one of the first evening pauses I posted back in 2010. As Diane and I recently rewatched the musical, I think it time to repost it. As I said then,
This haunting song from the movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is notable not only because of the beauty of the music and dancing, but because the entire number is shot as one take, no cuts. Everyone, from the actors with their axes to the crew moving the camera on its dolly and crane, had to be right on cue for everything to work.
Having spent almost twenty years in the movie business, I can promise you that this is not easy.
The 2010 evening pause uses the original voice of red-haired Matt Mattox, which was dubbed for the movie.
Lemon Pipers – Green Tambourine
An evening pause: From yesterday’s cutting edge graphics we go to the early days of television color special effects, taped in 1968. Hardly as convincing, but with a sense of light-hearted fun that is quite infectious.
I also wonder how much drugs were involved with the writing, recording, playing and televising of this song.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
I am still in need for evening pause suggestions. If you’ve suggested before you know the routine. If you haven’t and want submit something, say so in a comment and I will forward you the guidelines. Don’t reveal your suggestion in the comment, or I won’t be able to use it.
Blender FLIP Fluids Addon
An evening pause: What you are looking at here appears to be a demo video of a software addon that provides users with all types of liquid visuals. And creating realistic flowing water is not easy, as the splashes and waves represent chaotic behavior which is very hard to model.
Hat tip Cotour, who adds, “At some point in the future there will be ‘reality’ and no one will be able to tell the difference.”
Peter, Paul and Mary – Don’t Ever Take Away My Freedom
An evening pause: A nice intro to the weekend as well as a fitting closing to my July fund-raising campaign. Strangely, there are no live performances of this song by Peter, Paul, & Mary available on the web. Could it be that they themselves became uncomfortable with its sentiments in later years, being hardcore leftists? I wonder. Consider the lyrics:
[Third verse]
Now when I’m old and thinking over the life that I’ve led
If there’s one final wish left to me
I will pray for the children yet to be born
I will pray that they will always live free[Chorus]
Don’t ever take away their freedom
Don’t ever take it away
Let us cherish and keep that one part of our lives
And the rest we’re gonna find one of these days
These are not the sentiments of most leftists today. The last thing they want is freedom for all. What they want now are mandates, edicts, rules, regulations, and a boot smashing the face of all humans, forever, in the guise of a muzzle.
Note also that the song opens with Home on the Range, which is how PP&M originally recorded for their album, Peter, Paul, & Mommy Two.
Louisiana Jazz Band – All Of Me
Glen Campbell – William Tell Overture
An evening pause: “Hi-Yo, Silver! Away!”
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
Note: I am in need of new evening pause suggestions. If you wish to suggest something that you think the readers here will like, mention that you have something to suggest in a comment but don’t, I repeat, don’t say what the suggestion is. I will contact you directly to get it, also providing you the guidelines for offering more suggestions.
The Music Man – Till There Was You
An evening pause: Sung by Shirley Jones, from one of the greatest American musical films ever made, The Music Man (1962).
Diane and I have been watching a lot of those ’40s, 50s, and 60s American musicals. To today’s bitter and cynical youth, these films might seem to portray a too-perfect world filled with too much happiness and wealth. And while there is some truth to that cynical view, it is mostly wrong. The America portrayed in these films was actually quite like this. People were free, they were generally happy, and they lived a life of prosperity that no one before had ever seen. Nor are future generations likely to see such a life again during the coming dark centuries. These musicals provide a window into that time.
These musicals as well as most of the Hollywood movies prior to the 1960s are also quite unique in the history of literature and art in that they told stories not of kings or rulers or nobility, but of ordinary people. Such stories were rarely told before the coming of America. This fact also tells us much about the culture that then existed. It was ruled by those ordinary people, and thus the art and literature catered to them.
Which is why the Marxist power-driven culture that now dominates this country is desperate to ban the viewing of such art and the learning of that history. It tells a tale they cannot stomach.
The Righteous Brothers – Unchained Melody
The Bangles – You Were On My Mind
The French Family – Highway 40 Blues
An evening pause: To quote the YouTube website: “Stuie (Electric), Camille (Acoustic), Sonny (13) and Chet (16) from our living room in Nashville.”
Very nice, but I must admit the best part might be watching the expressions on the face of Mom in the background.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.