Month: December 2020

What can be said about the year 2020 that hasn’t already been covered, righteously bemoaned and suffered through a billion times over?  Let’s just say nobody will ever forget this long hard trip around the sun.  

While we all look to a better year in 2021 there’s a long road to hoe with avoiding that bastard virus, treating those stricken by it and awaiting the mass distribution of the vaccines.  Plus, there’s the hope of many more businesses re—opening and jobs recovered.    Everyone still needs to be vigilant & patient; that’s a tough to do combination.

For me, as much as missing the 2020 swim season at East End Pool really hurt, I knew it was for the best.  Ditto with the lack of movies in theaters and just being out with friends in ‘normal’ ways.  I’ve always been a very patient person (a trait inherited from my father) but this year dipped deep into that well of putting up with things. I got even stronger in my will to ‘calmly hang in there.’

There are other positives gleaned from 2020.  The remote teaching of students was a major adjustment but I grew from it, developing technical skills I used to resist. In my end of school year employee evaluation, I got high marks for joining the 21^st century with Google Slides, Google Docs, Google Meets, Google Classroom and other platforms that make me a better teacher.

In October when our class assignments were changed, I had to say a temporary ‘goodbye’ to several students in exchange for other pupils.  On our last day together one of my more distant and harder to teach kids asked in a hopeful tone, “Mr. Mick, will you be my teacher again someday?”  That got me.         

FOR A SONG- Just before the Pandemic kicked in, me and my parody partner Al Flash came up with a music video focused on south side girls.  The WGN Morning News show liked it so much they asked us to sing it live at their annual St. Patrick’s Day remote broadcast.  A few days later that event got scotched thanks to the virus.

The COVID virus greased up the creative juices in me and Al.  We had several Pandemic related music videos aired on the WGN Morning News. And late in the year we added Al’s lovely and much more talented daughter Michelle to our production of parodies.  She makes Al & I look like the ham & egg singers we are.

Writing wise I worked to be shorter with my blog lengths, keeping most posts under a thousand words. Offering my ideas and thoughts at mickkahler.com is something I do for myself but some others seem to like what I have to say.  I appreciate all the kind words and the constructive criticisms too.

I’m going to take a few weeks writing break and get back to posting new blogs in mid-January.  Until then, I hope you all have as good a holiday season as you can, given the current state of our world.  Make good choices, stay strong & safe and a year from now we’ll hopefully have a better year to reflect on.

I doubt anyone captured the mood and winsome hopes of us all in the Pandemic era better than Luke Combs in this song.

Finally, I’ll close off with timely dialog from Tom Hanks.

It’s time for one more round of re-living certain moments I’ve experienced while watching movies. 

“American Pie” 1999- I saw this bawdy comedy the first weekend it was in theaters.  While it certainly earned its R rating, I found the teen sex movie to also be sweet, poignant and relatable to my own high school days of lust and wanting.  And yes, Jim’s date Michelle sharing her post prom party revelation was a total surprise and a great belly laugh.  A friend of a friend made custom T-shirts and I came up with an idea and he delivered.  I asked for a white T-shirt with a drawing of a flute and under it the words, “And this one time at band camp…”  I still have that shirt.

“Eyes Wide Shut” 1999-  I heard plenty about director Stanley Kubrick and the making of this psycho-sexual thriller starring Tom Cruise and his then wife Nicole Kidman.  I saw this one alone and remember it being one of the most disappointing movies I ever paid to check out.  This film was not erotic, it was not enticing or exciting and the high pitched monotonous one note piano key playing used throughout it was annoying.  Before seeing this flick but after reading Roger Ebert’s review of “Eyes Wide Shut” I easily predicted Nicole Kidman’s last two words that ended the movie.  What a dull thud. 

“The Blair Witch Project” 1999- As if seeing “Eyes Wide Shut” wasn’t bad enough, later that very same day I took a date to see this shaky camera mess.  Two totally overhyped and under delivered movies in one day. And to make things worse, these two films were seen on the next to last day of my weeklong vacation.

“Winter’s Bone” 2010- I like how I fell into seeing the movie that made Jennifer Lawrence an actress to watch. I was on summer break and at the Landmark Theater in Highland Park to see an early afternoon showing of the charming film “Please Give.” While in line for my ticket I saw the poster for “Winter’s Bone” which was also playing there.  I had not yet read any reviews but the movie’s display piqued my interest.  I checked the show times and learned when my movie ended I’d have a half hour to kill before the next showing of “Winter’s Bone.”  “Please Give” was a solid three star film and when it ended I went across the street to Michael’s Deli for a quick hot dog. I then came back to the Landmark, bought a ticket for “Winter’s Bone” and fell hard for such a realistic drama about the struggles of Rhee Dolly in the middle of rural meth land. This was not your typical Hollywood movie with its feel being like a documentary of poor white folks. My mother passed away the previous fall and driving home late that afternoon I thought of how much she would have loved the bravery young Rhee Dolly showed in “Winter’s Bone.”  

“Uncut Gems” 2019- I knew very little about this movie before going to see it. All I heard was that this was a major breakout role for Adam Sandler as he played a fast talking degenerate gambler/jewelry dealer.  Put it this way. The frenetic pace and intensity of this drama left me physically spent!

“Parasite” 2019- All I knew about this Academy Award winning movie was it involved a poor Korean family trying to get into the lives of a rich Korean family. It was crazy, with all the twists and turns this subtitled film took. I was engrossed with the characters and the whole story. This was another one of those movies where when it ended, people in the theater were talking to each other and remarking about how special and different this drama was.

NEXT BLOG- Wrapping up 2020.

“AIN’T IT FUNNY HOW A MELODY CAN BRING BACK THE MEMORY, TAKE YOU TO ANOTHER PLACE IN TIME, COMPLETELY CHANGE YOUR STATE OF MIND.” (CLINT BLACK)

At this time forty-five years ago, C.W. McCalll’s “Convoy” was climbing the charts to become a number one hit on pop radio.  The track about toll busting lead truckers Pig Pen and the Rubber Duck introduced the rest of the world to CB radio talk.  It also inspired the CB fad among non-truckers and even brought us a bad movie starring Kris Kristofferson and Ali MC Graw.

As schlocky as “Convoy” was, the song brings back great memories to me.  Ones that make me smile and laugh to this day.

First memory– The fall of 1975. I was a high school freshman and the main focus in my life was playing pinball. Several pals of mine and I would often get our parents to drive us to The Game Room in Lombard which housed half a dozen pinball machines and an air hockey table.  No other nearby towns had pinball.

However, the BEST place to play the silver ball was at a huge arcade in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin called “Game Land.”  They had more new and old school pinball games and attractions than you could play in a weekend.  

That fall and winter, my older  sister Marianne was the good sport who drove me and my close pal Mark Fredriksen up to Lake Geneva to flip our flippers and aim for high scores on the Gameland pinball machines.  This was heaven to us and Mary even played a few games herself.  She was in nursing school at the time and the Saturday rides 90 minutes north for gaming, fudge and other eats were a welcome break for her. 

Mary drove a ’73 Plymouth Duster with an AM radio and a cassette deck under the dash. The big song blasting on that radio during every trip to Lake Geneva and back was, you guessed it, “Convoy.” WLS and WCFL seemed to spin that hit every damn hour and while in the car on our trips, we caught every play of it. I think I knew that song backwards as well as forwards.

My sister and I had many other adventures over the years; Movies, concerts ballgames, beach trips and of course loads of fun at home too.  She passed away in November of 2014, but the fun we had on those gaming trips to Lake Geneva as we rocked out to “Convoy” will never be forgotten. 

2^nd Memory– The summer of 1981- I was at a college classmate’s raging beer bash in Carol Stream the night before I was to host an all day 4^th of July barbecue at my parents’ house.  With me at this party was my longtime buddy Willie Costello. Will and I had comparable tastes in music and similar twisted ideas on how to liven up social gatherings.  (There was the time at a party when someone left a disposable camera laying around and Will & I covertly took photos in a bathroom documenting a pissing contest, but I better not say any more about that one)

Anyway, the host of this Third of July wingding had a killer stereo sound system in his basement rec room with speakers set up in the backyard where most of the partygoers were tapping a keg.  The guy had a giant collection of vinyl discs. 

The party was packed guts to butts with college kids as they rocked to music by The Police, Clash and Rolling Stones.  So late in the evening before leaving the party, we took one last look at this guy’s record collection. There in the stacks of wax was C.W. McCall’s album. We snickered at the discovery of this novelty gold. Nobody else was manning the stereo so Will and I decided to play impromptu dee-jays and switched out the Jimmy Buffett disc on the turntable for, you guessed it, “Convoy.”

The song started up with the opening CB radio talk among truckers as Willie and I prepared to dash out of the house to his car.  For good measure I pushed the lock button on the rec room doorknob behind us so it would take a couple of minutes for someone to bust in and dump the corny “Convoy” cut.   As we zipped out the front door and McCall’s hit was pumping though the speakers, I could hear the groans and some “What the hell is this?” complaints from the party crowd.   Willie and I laughed our asses off the whole way back home to Elmhurst!  

HERE’S THE LINK TO C.W. MC CALL’S MID 70’S NOVELTY HIT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqYTX7parRw

So whenever I think about C.W. McCall’s “Convoy’, I get taken back to good time trips with my late sister. And I also get taken back to that basement rec room when Willie and I schooled some hipsters on what fun a schlocky novelty song can be.

NEXT BLOG– One more round of movie memories.    

I’m sharing some more of my favorite opening lines to songs from all genres. 

ODE TO BILLY JOE/Bobbie Gentry-“It was the third of June another sleepy dusty delta day. I was out chopping cotton and my brother was bailing hay.” 

A southern gothic tale about indifference and a mystery still unsolved.  I can easily picture the characters in this one and that’s thanks to the framing of that opening line.

SATURDAY NIGHT’S ALRIGHT FOR FIGHTING–Elton John w/lyrics by Bernie Taupin– “It’s getting late have you seen my mates, ma tell me when the boys get here.”  

This one also has the best line about going out to get drunk. “Get about as oiled as a diesel train.”  Whoa!

LYIN’ EYES/Eagles– “City girls just seem to find out early, how to open doors with just a smile.”

I could go on to the rest of that lyric about the ‘Rich old man’ but this notation does just fine on its own. 

THREE CHORDS AND THE TRUTH/Sara Evans– “On a highway bound for nowhere, I ran my fingers through my tangled hair as I pulled in for another tank of freedom.”

If you want a great example of how country music affects people, this is your song. (One of the most underrated songs in that genre) One time during a radio interview at US*99 John Howell and I had to convince Sara to put this song back in her set for an upcoming Chicago concert.  And she did!  I still can’t believe Sara Evans doesn’t play this one at every show she does.

GIRLS TALK/Elvis Costello- “There are some things you can’t cover up with lipstick and powder, thought I heard you mention my name can’t you talk any louder?”

Elvis done well with these words, who can resist thinking of an interpretation of this line?

NEXT BLOG– A novelty song that brings back great memories.