Just Giblets

For Day 02 I am supposed to talk about my least favorite song. I thought about this for a while, and I found that I couldn’t really thing of my least favorite song. Honestly, if I don’t like a song, I tend to put it out of my head. There are plenty of songs that I would change the radio station on, but I don’t feel passionate enough about the songs I dislike to keep them in my memory.

So I thought about genres that I don’t like. I wasn’t a big fan of 80’s metal bands, and was going to pick a song by Poison, because I really didn’t like Poison, but honestly, I just couldn’t work up enough ire toward Every Rose Has It’s Thorn or Talk Dirty To Me (although that one was pretty close).

Rap was the next genre that I really dislike, but the rap songs I don’t like, I don’t know, so I that didn’t work.

Then, yesterday morning as I was walking to work it hit me. I knew what my least favorite song is. It’s Ice, Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice. Besides the fact that it’s a stupid song, it adds insult to injury by taking a brilliant song and co-opting it into a really bad song. Therefore, since I don’t want to post the video for a song I don’t like, I’m going to post the video for Under Pressure (which also happens to be my and Scot’s big Karaoke number) by Queen and David Bowie, which is the brilliant song that Vanilla Ice bastardizes to get his big hit.

Why, hello there!  Bet the two of you who have been keeping track didn’t think you’d ever see anything new on here again!  And with Facebook and Tumblr and Twitter and all those other ways of socializing on the web, I honestly didn’t expect to spend anymore time on this page.  But I’ve still got a soft spot for blogs, and when this 30-Day Song Challenge intrigued me enough to try it, I thought I’d revisit our little Just Giblets page and give it a shot.

I’m really terrible with most memes, and I usually never do them, but I enjoy reading them, and have been particularly inspired by Howard’s answers to this challenge over at the Web Pen Blog, so I thought I’d give it a go.  I can’t promise that I will be consistent and post every day for the next thirty days, and I reserve the right to change my response to any particular day’s question five minutes after I’ve posted.  Still, let’s see how this works out, shall we?

So, day one is simultaneously the easiest and most difficult:  Your favorite song.  Everyone has a favorite song.  In fact, everyone probably has several favorite songs.  I have had many over the years, but as far as I can tell, my current favorite song has actually been locked in place for several years, and it’s the first song that pops into my mind when someone asks me what is my favorite song, so I’m going with it.

Kate Bush – Hounds of Love

Kate Bush is without question my favorite musical artist, so it’s appropriate that my favorite song be one of hers.  That said, Hounds of Love didn’t emerge as my favorite song until relatively recently even thought it was released as the title track of Kate’s fifth album in 1985. It was the album’s third single released in the UK on February 24, 1986 and climbed to #18 on the charts.

The driving drum beat and the rhythmic strings propel the song along musically and perfectly underscore the lyrics which use the analogy of a fox hunt to tell the story of a woman who is afraid of surrendering to love with elegance. The lyrics are elegant in their simplicity and their creativity. It’s a perfectly constructed song.

Tracy Wright was the recipient of the Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film’s “Career-so-Far” award in 2006. At that time, I was pretty familiar with her film and television career, and I did some research to fill out my knowledge about her theatre career. You can read my tribute honoring her acting career at the 13th Annual Awards page. But what I knew about Tracy Wright that night was a mere fraction of how I have come to know her in the three+ years since then. Three years ago she was a talented actor that I admired. I was in fact, in awe of her talent, so natural, so creative, so understated yet powerful. In the last three years she has added to her already impressive resume, adding starring roles in Reg Harkema’s MONKEY WARFARE, and Bruce McDonald’s TRIGGER, among others, but for me personally she has become something much more. She has become my friend.

It happened so fast. She was instantly warm, funny, engaging and fun to be with. She was self-deprecating but funny; experienced but down-to-earth; optimistic but at a career-crossroads. She worried. She laughed. She engaged. I felt so lucky to spend so much time with Tracy during her first visit to Boston, and when she returned soon after for MONKEY WARFARE’S stint at the Independent Film Festival of Boston, I felt even luckier. Then there were the couple of trips to the Toronto International Film Festival where we hung out and a final trip in the last month just to see her. Every single one of these visits brought me closer to this amazingly honest, direct, warm, engaging woman and enhanced the quality of my life.

I also learned, through her circle of friends, that she was loved. People loved Tracy, and it was easy to see why. In this way, her life touched so many, whether she was a wife, a long-time friend, an artistic collaborator, or someone she met a few years ago and only saw a handful of times. When we heard she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, it was without a moment’s hesitation that Scot and I decided we would travel to Toronto to visit her soon. We were fortunate enough to get there over Memorial Day weekend, and despite the fact that she’d just had surgery, we were able to see her several times. Our last visit was lovely and we were able to connect with her for a nice amount of time. She was in good spirits and as happy to see us as we were to see her. To hear of her passing just three weeks later filled me with sadness, and gratitude that I had been fortunate enough to know Tracy and to call her my friend.

Tracy, you are so loved, and you are so missed.

(This picture was taken by a friend of Daniel’s. I really love this shot. She is so beautiful and full of life.)

Please excuse this splash page from X-Men #57 from 1969, drawn by Neal Adams, featuring Lorna Dane. It’s one of the very first comic books I ever remember reading, and I clearly remember it getting me very excited about comics. I’m posting this for Gail Simone, who asked for it.

Scot Colford is a fan of

Shut up, The World Won’t End in 2012.

Create your Fan Badge

That is all.

So, in lieu of Scot’s review of the FOREVER PLAID cinecast that we saw last night (thanks again, Mr. Caggiano!) I must confess that I developed a little crush on David Engel, the actor who played Smudge in the show. Like Scot says, he’s adorably goofy, but also very handsome, and carries off the nerdy glasses really well. He’s also got a nice voice and is very charismatic on stage.

So this morning, after reading Scot’s post, I was doing a little google searching for pictures of David and what I found put a little smile on my face. David Engel and Larry Raben (Jason Graae’s replacement as Sparky) are more than just partners in entertainment… it turns out they are life partners as well, as stated in this interview in Grigware Talks Theatre. They’re engaged, and have been a couple of around 15 years. Isn’t that sweet? No wonder I found him so attractive.

I know, it’s been months. I’m sorry. I’ve been busy.

What has finally brought me back? Well, it’s a long convoluted path. It started this morning, reading my RSS feeds. David Lee King posted about how he keeps track of all his social networking connections. That inspired me to check out blip.fm (among other things) and that has occupied much of my evening. Through the course of blipping around, I discovered two videos on YouTube that I surely never thought I’d ever find. One I’ve never seen, and the other only partially once over 20 years ago.

Adventure Set was one of my favorite local bands in the early 80′s. Their radio hit, “Blue is for Boys,” had special meaning for me as a young gay man trying to sort out my identity. I still listen to that song quite often, and finding this video of a live performance of the song was super exciting. Check it out.

The other musical find isn’t nearly as cool, in fact, it’s a little cheesy, but no less exciting for me. In the mid-80s I was a huge fan of Sandy Stewart. She wrote with Stevie Nicks on her second album, Wild Heart. In fact, she wrote the music for “If Anyone Falls,” one of Stevie’s hit singles. Sandy also had a solo album called Cat Dancers, which I really loved. I remember seeing the last minute or so of her one video, “Saddest Victory” on MTV, but never saw it again. Now, at last, it has appeared on YouTube. It’s oh-so dramatic, but I just love it. Enjoy.

You know, I’m not a big fan of war films. And I couldn’t even sit straight through The Two Towers without fidgeting. But I find this film strangely moving. Warr — Hell it iz.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned my love of the Wilson Sisters and the rock band Heart in this forum. Needless to say, I’ve been a stalwart fan since my brother bought the Little Queen album back in the mid-70s. Sure, they strayed a little during the 80s and 90s, but they managed the unimaginable and came back as strong as ever, both as a nostalgia act, but writing and performing new music in the new millennium. I’ve seen Heart perform live numerous times, most recently a few years ago, and it’s absolute fact that Ann Wilson will be remembered for having one of the best voices in rock & roll history.

Now Heart is getting its own jukebox musical. That’s right, “Allies” (title from a little-known Heart piano ballad from the album Bebe le Strange) is a rock and roll musical featuring the music of Heart. Heart follows the footsteps of such seminal acts as Queen, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and ABBA whose works have all been translated from the arena to the theater. The plot is described as following a brother, his sister and the man who comes between them. I don’t know about you, but it sounds frighteningly similar to the plot of that fabulous early 80′s movie musical THE APPLE to me! According to Variety, a reading of the musical will take place at the Zipper Factory Theater on January 26.

Now, I’m as big a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as the next guy (well… okay, the last couple of seasons left something to be desired.)  But Faith rocks my world in a major way.  I love what Eliza Dushku does with that character!  So when Dollhouse was announced, created by Joss Whedon and starring Eliza Dushku, I was excited!  Then the launch of the series was plagued with problems, and that worried me a bit.  But when Ducky posted a clip from the TV show, I rushed over to see it.

Let me just say that after watching that clip, I thought I’d stumbled on some sort of parody by The Onion.  I think it’s perfectly dreadful!  Needless to say, I’m a little worried about the show.

Then a recent of issue of Entertainment Weekly reviewed the Dollhouse trailer, giving it an A.  Well, I was a little shocked, thinking that the wooden, poorly written scene above was what they were reviewing.  Thankfully, that was not the case.  The new trailer, edit in the style of a movie trailer, was a lot more fun and a lot more intriguing that that clip above.  Even though it uses the “Was I asleep?” tag not once but twice.  (That blonde guy couldn’t be more annoying if he was shooting me with spitballs.)  At any rate, the trailer at least looks like fun, and maybe I’ll be able to enjoy Eliza Dushku kicking some ass in her inimitable style.  Check out the trailer and skip the clip above if you want to remain hopeful.