Instant Karma

What in the world you thinking of laughing in the face of Love?

What on earth you tryin’ to do?

It’s up to you. Yeah, you…

Ad Astra per Ardua

John Winston/Ono Lennon

1940 – 1980

💜😢💋

It’s up to us. Yeah, us.

We have to save the world, each other.

If not us, then who? Who? Who?

Don’t laugh in the face of Love, Love.

Love

Trust me, darlin’.

Don’t let another day go by, my Love.

❤❤❤

Dead Winter Night

Frigid silver
Glittering cold
Run through the door
Drop my coat to the floor
“He’s waiting for you…
He should be gone…
But…
He’s waiting…
For you…”
Our yes meet with a song
It fills the air
“Who knows how long
I’ve Loved you…”
I will search eternity
Search the stars
Forever and forever
Always and a day
Because Time
With you, Love,
Shouldn’t end this way …
“… Will I wait
A lonely lifetime
If you want me to
I will…”
Then, my Love,
He just slipped away

💜💜💜

Love you forever and forever…

As Astra per Ardua

💜😢💋

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Norm!

There goes my baby. He knew how to rock and roll. He drove me crazy…

Ad Astra, Normie Norm

I ❤ you, Norm

I do

Still

Always

💜😢💋

Clap for the Wolfman

The Wolfman in George Lucas‘ American Graffiti

❤❤❤❤❤ the Wolfman Jack. That’s the fact. ❤ the Jack. They don’t make ’em like that anymore, ghouls and ‘goyles. Allan Freed, Dick Clark, neither. Nor fictional jocks Doctor Johnny Fever and Venus, baby, Flytrap. I ❤ these cats and old school radio like nobody’s business. They have been a HUGE and obvious influence on my life and this blog.

Spent the bulk of my youth watching The Wolfman host The Midnight Special. All THE best acts performed. For nine years beginning in 1972 everyone who was anyone from Carol Burnett to T-Rex was there. No kidding. Just plain everyone. AC/DC. Aerosmith. Earl Scruggs. George Carlin. The Cars! Uh, yeah. Blondie. Steve Martin. Cheap Trick. Heart! Uh, crazy, baby! Just crazy. Jimmie Walker. Ike and Tina. Everyone. Just everyone.

When The Wolfman played your record or had you appear on The ‘Special you had made it. If you hadn’t already arrived, you were presently. He had that much sway. Uh, yeah. He was almost singlehandedly responsible for the soundtracks of our youth. Radio and record industries were entirely different creatures than they are today. Almost everyone on the continent was listening to the same tunes, part of a musical collective consciousness and from coast to coast groovy cats like the Jack, Freed and Dick were in drivers seat.

The world wouldn’t be what it is today without the likes our beloved Wolfman. It just wouldn’t.

Hats off, dude. Hats off… and thanks a bunch.

So…? *shrug*

Hey? Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

The Guess.

The Guess Who?

Natch, baby. Natch. Ha-ha ha. Clap for The Wolfman.

Biko

Bantu Stephen Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977)

Graphic: Creative Corner

🔥🔥🔥

The man is dead. The man is dead.

Stephen Biko, political activist and ideological leader of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), was only thirty years old when he died in detention under mysterious circumstances on 12 September, 1977. His political career was brief, but had a profound impact on the liberation struggle. He espoused the philosophy of black consciousness, linking identity politics and social action.

Biko first became involved in liberation politics through the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) while attending medical school. His views on black identity and pride led to the formation and expansion of the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) in the late 1960s. Biko served as both the president and publicity secretary for this body, which served as the nucleus of the BCM. He founded the Black People’s Convention (BPC) and was banned by the South African State in 1973. This new movement empowered a generation of young black South Africans, fuelling revolutionary events, including the 16 June 1976 Soweto Uprising.

Biko’s prolific writings, political lobbying, and his community activism drew the attention of the Security Police, and he was detained on numerous occasions. His life was adversely affected in many ways, including expulsion from the University of Natal in 1972, his first banning in 1973, and, ultimately, his death in detention on 12 September, 1977. He is regarded as a martyr of the liberation struggle. His 18 August 1977 detainment included severe torture at the hands of security police. He was interrogated for twenty two hours, and beaten until he suffered brain damage. He was chained to a window grille and denied medical attention for his injuries. His injuries did not improve, but it was only on 11 September that he was taken to Pretoria for medical attention, but he died shortly after his arrival.

J.T. Kruger, then-Minister of Justice, denied that police had abused their internationally renowned detainee, arguing that his death was the result of hunger strike. An autopsy conducted by the late pathologist Jonathan Gluckman at the request of Biko’s family found that he had died of brain damage as a result of blows inflicted upon him during his detention. Gluckman’s report led to an inquest: no policemen were charged, but Biko’s family eventually received a settlement from the state. The cover-up of Biko’s death in detention was exposed by then-journalist Helen Zille in the Rand Daily Mail, edited by Allister Sparks. Zille had received evidence from Biko’s doctors, including Gluckman. Biko’s death sent shockwaves around the world, and his funeral, attended by ten thousand, resulted in nationwide incidents of social unrest. During the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) proceedings, four of the surviving policemen involved in Biko’s death were refused amnesty.

~ SAHA

Mourners gather to pay their last respects at Steve Biko’s funeral in King William’s Town, 25 September 1977. Well over 10, 000 people attended — thousands more were prevented from attending by police roadblocks.

“The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”

~ Steve Biko

1987’s Cry Freedom, a Richard Attenborough film

🔥🔥🔥

Ad Astra per Ardua

Freedom!

😢💜💋

Homeward Bound

This one’s going out
To the disappeared
To the Love
Who never returned
Home where their thoughts escapin’
We learn the fates of some
While others…
Still, their Love lies
Waiting silently…
It must be understood
That wait they will
Until they know for sure
They will search high and low
They will hope against hope
Unable to eat
They will dream of you
In stolen moments of sleep
Even though they know
You’re nevermore
They will will you to walk
Through the door
Just once more
Please, just… once more
Then they’d hold fast
To your star
And never let go

💜

So… Here’s two of my very, very best boys for you with Homeward Bound…

💜💜💜

Ad Astra per Ardua

😢💜💋

9.11

John Coffey Was My Boyfriend

“He was Magic. He was a big Love of man and his passing leaves us stunned.” ~ Tom Hanks

Brutus “Brutal” Howell: Well, there must be something we can do for you, John. There must be something that you want.

John Coffey: [pauses] I ain’t never seen me a flicker show.

💜💜💜

Mike Duncan has passed away. Losing Neil Armstrong and Hal David was bad. The loss of Mike Duncan in additon has succeeded in fairly crushing me.

I am completely over the Moon in ❤❤❤❤❤ — LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! — with Mike’s character, John Coffey, from The Green Mile. I mean…?

Sigh…

That’s all I’ve got to say… I’m at a real loss here…

Totally.

💜💜💜💜💜

John Coffey: …it was a kindness you done. I know you hurtin’ and worryin’, I can feel it on you, but you oughta quit on it now. Because I want it over and done. I do. I’m tired, boss. Tired of bein’ on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. Tired of not ever having me a buddy to be with, or tell me where we’s coming from or going to, or why. Mostly I’m tired of people being ugly to each other. I’m tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world everyday. There’s too much of it. It’s like pieces of glass in my head all the time. Can you understand?

Paul Edgecomb: Yes, John. I think I can.

• • •

I think I can understand, too, John…

Really.

I saw the bees…

💜💜💜

Ad Astra, John Coffey

I ❤ You!

I DO!

😢💜💋

“I dreamed of you.

I dreamed you were wandering in the dark.

And so was I.

And we found each other.

We found each other in the dark.”

💜

Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head

Hal David was a Music legend and the author of many of my favourite songs. His collaboration with Burt Bacharach yielded some wonderfully whimsical lyrics: “What do you get when you kiss a guy?/You get enough germs to catch pneumonia…” Is that goofy or what? Or the completely and utterly groovy-sweet, beautiful dorkiness that is “This Guy’s in Love with You” and “Close to You” (I actually own a frog puppet that sings “Close to You.” We do an, ummmmm, duet. Ahem. 😊) They were the Kings of silly Love songs. The Kings! And that’s what we wanna fill the world with, hey? Heck, yeah.

Here’s one of my favourite songs, from a favourite film, starring some of my favourite actors…

Excerpted from the Montréal Gazette:

Through theatre, film and TV, David’s songs transcended the time they were written to become classics. With Bacharach, he was one of the most successful songwriting teams in modern history.

The 91-year-old, who died September first of complications from a stroke four days earlier in Los Angeles, “always had a song in his head,” said his wife, Eunice David. Even at the end, “he was always writing notes, or asking me to take a note down, so he wouldn’t forget a lyric.”

Bacharach and David’s hits included “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head,” ”(They Long to Be) Close to You” and “That’s What Friends Are For.” Many of the top acts of their time, from Barbra Streisand to Frank Sinatra and Aretha Franklin, recorded their music.

But the collaboration for which they were best known came in 1962, when they began writing for a young singer named Dionne Warwick.

Warwick’s versatile voice could convey the emotion of David’s lyrics and handle the changing patterns of Bacharach’s melodies. Together the trio created a chain of hits: “Don’t Make Me Over,” ”Walk On By,” ”I Say a Little Prayer,” ”Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” ”Always Something There to Remind Me” (which later was a hit for the 1980s synth pop band Naked Eyes), among others.

They were a “triangle marriage that worked,” Warwick wrote in her memoir, “My Life, As I See It.” Bacharach was “the handsome one,” and David was level-headed — a “thoughtful, gentle, sincere” man — Warwick wrote.

Ever the writer (he studied journalism at New York University), David said in a 1999 interview that he thought of songwriting as telling a narrative.

“The songs should be like a little film, told in three or four minutes. Try to say things as simply as possible, which is probably the most difficult thing to do,” he said.

The New York-based writer often flew to Los Angeles, where he and Bacharach holed up for weeks of intense songwriting. They also conferred by telephone, a method that birthed “I Say a Little Prayer.”

When a song went nowhere, they stuck it in a desk drawer and left it there for months.

In a brief essay on his website, David recalled having an idea for a song for “at least two years before showing it to Burt.”

“I was stuck,” he wrote. “I kept thinking of lines like, ‘Lord, we don’t need planes that fly higher or faster …’ and they all seemed wrong. Why, I didn’t know. But the idea stayed with me.

“Then, one day, I thought of, ‘Lord, we don’t need another mountain,’ and all at once I knew how the lyric should be written. Things like planes and trains and cars are manmade, and things like mountains and rivers and valleys are created by someone or something we call God. There was now a oneness of idea and language instead of a conflict. It had taken me two years to put my finger on it.”

And so they had another smash: “What the World Needs Now is Love.”

David and Bacharach met when both worked in the Brill Building, New York’s legendary Tin Pan Alley song factory where writers cranked out songs to sell to music publishers. They scored their first big hit with “Magic Moments,” a million-selling record for Perry Como.

Their success transferred to film and theatre, where they won an Oscar for “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” (from the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid“), and Grammys and Tonys for the songs from the hit Broadway musical “Promises, Promises.”

But the hit-making team broke up after the 1973 musical remake of “Lost Horizon.” The pair and Warwick had devoted two years to the movie, which was scorned by critics and audiences. Bacharach then sequestered himself in his vacation home and refused to work.

David went on to collaborate successfully with other composers: John Barry with the title song of the James Bond film “Moonraker” Albert Hammond with “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before,” which Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson sang as a duet; and Henry Mancini with “The Greatest Gift” in “The Return of the Pink Panther.”

David joined the board of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in 1974 and served as president 1980 to 1986. He was head of the Songwriters Hall of Fame from 2001 to 2011, and was chairman emeritus at his death.

“As a lyric writer, Hal was simple, concise and poetic — conveying volumes of meaning in fewest possible words and always in service to the music,” ASCAP president, the songwriter Paul Williams, said in a statement. “It is no wonder that so many of his lyrics have become part of our everyday vocabulary and his songs… the backdrop of our lives.”

In May, Bacharach and David received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song during a White House tribute concert attended by President Barack Obama. David, recovering from a major stroke in March, did not attend, but his wife accepted on his behalf.

“It was thrilling,” she said. “Even though he wasn’t there, Hal said it was the highest honour he had ever received.”

Obama noted their music is still being recorded by such artists as Alicia Keys and John Legend.

“Above all, they stayed true to themselves,” Obama said. “And with an unmistakable authenticity, they captured the emotions of our daily lives — the good times, the bad times, and everything in between.”

Born in New York City, David attended public schools and NYU, then served in the Army during World War II, mostly as a member of an entertainment unit in the South Pacific. After the war, he was a copywriter at the New York Post and wrote lyrics for bandleaders before hooking up with Bacharach.

He married Anne Rauchman in 1947, and together they had two sons.

Singer Smokey Robinson called on others to honour David’s musical legacy.

“I hope that the music world will join together in celebrating the life of one of our greatest composers ever,” he said.

• • •

I hope so, too, Smokey. I hope so, too.

❤❤❤

Ad Astra, Mr. David

😢💜💋

England’s Rose

The Princess of Hearts. A Prophetess of Love. The embodiment of Kindness and Grace.

Lady Diana

❤❤❤

I have nothing more to add.

Space Oddity

To the stars…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL3LB650plw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

🌟🌟🌟