Tell Me Why

Posted on July 2, 2009 by pgold

Those who are my friends on Facebook will know by now that my birthday dinner got postponed because I had to take Marsha to the hospital on Tuesday night. Actually, it was the ambulance that took her there. Marsha had been complaining of some pain in her back over the weekend, but we paid very little mind to it as it was mild pain and she just chalked it up to gas. Well, on Tuesday the pain went from mild to excruciating! She called me while I was walking home from the train hysterical and crying that the pain was unbearable. By the time I got home 5 minutes later she had already called 911 and the police was there.

Paramedics from New Brunswick were there within 5 minutes of my getting home but I quickly learned that they do not transport except in life and death issues like a heart attack. They call EMS, and unfortunately EMS in Highland Park was busy so Edison had to come. So it took close to 15 minutes or more for them to get there. We had them take her to St. Peters University Hospital in New Brunswick and I followed along in my car.

I got to the hospital and found no parking in the emergency room area so I had to go to the regular hospital parking deck and pay to park. Then because it was after hours, not all of the elevators in the parking deck work (not that there was any signage to this effect). I finally got to the Emergency room about 15 minutes after Marsha and then it took close to that for them to find her for me!

I get back into the ER and she is on a bed waiting and waiting and waiting … You get the picture. After an hour or so someone finally came over and said that they don’t know why but Marsha was not registered! This is why no one was doing anything for us. As far as they were concerned, she was not there! Didn’t anyone wonder who these people were taking up space in the ER? We got to watch some TV, but to tell the truth, I would have preferred to watch at home. We did not complain much as the TV took her mind off of things.

So she got registered and they nurse sent her for a CT scan figuring that the doctor would order that. When she got back from that (which went fairly quick) the doctor finally came. She said that it could be kidney stones or gall stones and Marsha would need an ultrasound to check the gall bladder. I asked if there was anything that could be done for her pain, and the doctor said; didn’t they give her the pain meds? She had ordered it a while before! They must have thought that her screams of pain were her screaming at the reality show that was on the TV.

So the morphine went in and after 15 minutes or so, the pain subsided. She got her ultrasound and we found out that Marsha was the proud owner of gall stones. Luckily the gall bladder was not infected and things looked good, so no emergency surgery was needed. They sent us home with a prescription for Percocet and told us to follow up with her doctor.

I took the day off yesterday to drive Marsha around. We went to our doctor who told us to follow up with a Gastroenterologist and an appointment was made for this morning. The rest of the day went find yesterday and the Percocet helped with the pain. This morning she got to the GI doc and he told her that he does not do gall bladders! I guess they must have forgotten that fact when our family doctor called to make the appointment. He gave her three names, two of which were in our insurance plan. One could not see her until Wed and the 2nd Doc saw her this afternoon. She is scheduled to get her gall bladder taken out on Monday.

At least I got my birthday dinner last night!

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Birthday

Posted on June 30, 2009 by pgold

What to write on my birthday? It’s been a while since my last post (as many have pointed out to me) and I knew that I wanted to write something today. Today is the beginning of my 44th year of life. I guess I should take some time and reflect upon my life over the past year.

To say the least, it has been a rough year. It was just over a year ago that our trek down this long and winding road with Avi began. To be fair, it actually started much earlier, when he was in pre-school, but a year ago in May is when we took Avi out of Schechter and brought him to our school district. After 2 in-patient hospital stays, 2 times in a day program, a special school and countless hours of frustration over the whole process I think I can say that we are in a better place now then we were a year ago. His meds seem to work to some extent and in September Avi will be starting a new school that we believe is much better than where he was. In four weeks Avi will leave for three weeks at Round Lake Camp and we believe he will greatly benefit from his time there.

Outside of Avi issues things are generally stable. We are still living in Highland Park NJ, and still eternally grateful for the wonderful community that we live in. I’m not sure how we would get through life without our friends and community. My job is going fine and despite the downturn in the economy seems pretty secure.

Facebook has become a part of my life this past year as most people know. Even though I had the current format, it has allowed me to be back in touch with many people and allowed the wonderful Hagalil 1980s reunion to take place.

So all in all, 43 has been a good year and I am hopeful that 44 will be even better.

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Here, There and Everywhere

Posted on June 16, 2009 by pgold

It’s been some time since I last updated my blog and a number of things have happened in our lives, both good and bad. I will concentrate on the good.

Over the past month, we have Avi has been approved for both speech and OT therapies in school which he was not getting before. The speech therapy will help Avi to learn to use words to explain himself rather than emotional outbursts which we should be a big help to him and to us. The OT therapy will help him with his writing as well as a host of other issues.

Avi will be attending sleep away camp this summer! We found a wonderful camp called Round Lake Camp. It is part of the New Jersey Y camp system and as such is kosher and shomer Shabbat to the point where they do not use electricity on Shabbat and they don’t have the kids write or do other things that would violate Shabbat. The camp is the only Jewish special needs camp focusing on children with ASD, ADHD, and other social issues. Avi is really looking forward to going. He will be going for the 2nd camp session this year, which is three weeks from July 29th through August 20th. The day after he gets home from camp, we will be going on our family vacation to New Hampshire! So it will be a busy summer.

The last updates talked about our having the IEP meeting for Avi. We got the IEP back and it was a mess. No goals and objectives and it had nothing about his therapies (to be fair the evals were not done yet, so I do not understand why they could not wait a week or so to write the new one). So now Marsha will have ANOTHER meeting with the school district to discuss what needs to change.

The two biggest changes (besides the therapies) in the IEP will be having Avi reclassified as autistic rather than emotionally disturbed. The ED classification is really a horrible label that can have a negative impact on a child for a very long time. The other change is that Avi was accepted to go to the Newmark School starting in September and it seems that Highland Park is not going to stand in the way of that.

So it has been a good month since I last wrote. We realize though, that with Avi is it always a two steps forward and one step back. I am hoping that we get in more than two forward before the step back this time.

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Rain

Posted on June 16, 2009 by pgold

What would the Beatles have sounded like if they had kept touring? That is a question that many Beatles cover bands have tried to answer, with varying degrees of success. There are a few notable bands out there, like the Fab Faux and they are quite good. But there is one act that stands out from the rest and it is called Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles. The members of Rain were all part of the Broadway or touring companies of Beatlemania back in the late 70s (I was fortunate enough to see Beatlemania in 1978).

The great thing about Rain is that they not only sound and look like the Beatles, but they have their mannerisms and idiosyncrasies down pat. For example, Ralph Castelli, the guy who portrays Ringo, bops his head the same way that Ringo did. Steve Landis, the Lennon guy sways in the same manner as Lennon, and so on. The show is a lot of fun and it was quite interesting to see everyone at the Prudential Theater at NJPAC up on their feet dancing (this is a traditional grand looking symphony space).

Getting back to the question at hand, does the group sound like the Beatles would have if they had kept touring? The Beatles had their last concert in August of 1966 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. The vast majority of their work was then recorded in the studio. The question is a very complex one. First off, if the band hand continued to tour, they likely never would have created what they eventually did. But even if they did tour and they did do everything that they did, it is still impossible to surmise what it would have been like. So the answer that these cover bands have come up with is the note for note concept. They meticulously play each song EXACTLY as it sounds on the original album. This is no minor feat. The members of Rain have learned all of the music backwards and forwards and using guitar and keyboard synthesizers as well as the original instruments, they have succeeded is sounding like what you hear on the album.

I highly recommend this amazing show!

Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn2vYOel-G0]

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And Your Bird Can Sing

Posted on May 20, 2009 by pgold

This is a major week for TVaholics TV Fans like me. Each TV network unveils its upcoming season for the advertisers in a series of daily “upfronts”. Each day this week, one of the networks shows off the new lineups they have with the hopes that the advertisers will be excited and buy more ad time on their network. A byproduct of this is that screeners of the new shows make their way to the internet for pathetic zhlubs interested parties like myself to download and watch.

So far I have seen only one (which was also on FOX last night), but I was really impressed that I want to share. The show is called Glee and it is about a glee club in an Ohio high school. I know, it sounded stupid to me as well especially after I read the official FOX description:

Will Schuester, an optimistic high school teacher, tries to reinvent the McKinley High School’s glee club, while reinventing himself. He challenge a group of outcasts to realize their true star potential, while facing harsh criticism from everyone in the school.

So yeah, it sounds really sappy, and to an extent it is, however, they have taken a sappy idea and brought a bit of freshness to it. First off, the show is a musical comedy/drama. The drama is clearly of the feelgood afterschool special kind, but the comedy is somewhat quirky (reminds me a bit of Picket Fences) and the music is what really got me. It seems to me that the musical choices are going to be coming from the late 70s through the 80s. This is based only on the pilot and a lot of reworking is possible, but I am hoping that they keep this 70s – 80s focus on the songs.

Here is a the pilot from hulu.com.   The song is Don’t Stop Believing by Journey.  To get to the song, just choose to watch the video with commercials (the 2nd choice) and then when the video starts playing, click to move to 39:30 in the video.

Enjoy!
[vodpod id=Groupvideo.2559585&w=425&h=350&fv=]

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Beatles For Sale

Posted on May 1, 2009 by pgold

I missed yesterday’s post, so today we get a double dose. The final album in the early Beatles is Beatles for Sale. This album marked the beginning of a turning point for the group. The band was becoming weary of touring and recorded this album between concerts. Because of this schedule, they had only eight original songs available for the album, adding in six covers to fill out the fourteen songs found on all British albums of the time. Those eight songs, however, are prime examples of how the group was beginning to experiment with their writing and their music. Lennon and McCartney were working together on all of their compositions, mostly one providing the middle eight sections for the other. John and Paul each contributed four of the eight original songs. They were starting to see an album as a whole rather than just a bunch of songs. Three of John’s songs were in a sad and remorseful mode which in itself was unusual.

Here are two picks from Beatles for Sale. First No Reply, the opening song of the album is notable not only because it fits in with John’s remorseful writing, but because it tells a complete story. You can see John growing as a writer. Eight Days a Week is the first song where they band did extensive studio experimentation that would be used through the rest of their recordings. Two sessions totally about seven hours were devoted to this one song. Different styles and techniques were tried over and over until a final arrangement was picked. The opening guitar intro was then recorded at a third session and added in.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NA-IhxhCfc]
No Reply is the second song from this episode of the Beatles Cartoon.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn4YedmgsoI]

During this period, the Captial records, the American arm of EMI (which owned Parlophone the imprint of the early Beatles albums) released eight albums. These albums were different compilations of the songs on the UK albums plus some of the singles and other material not previously released on album. This explains why some of the more well known Beatles song in America were not part of the official Cannon of Beatles albums.

Two great picks from these singles are She Loves You and IFeel Fine. She Loves you hold a number of records, it was the best selling Beatles single in the UK, and the best selling single in the UK in 1963 all around. It also was part of a group of five Beatles songs which held the top five slots on the Billboard chart, which has never been done since (the other four are I Want to Hold Your Hand, Please Please Me, Twist and Shout and Can’t Buy Me Love). I Feel Fine is based on a wonderful guitar riff that John wrote and the group fleshed out in the studio just after they finished Beatles for Sale. The song also shows their experimentation in the use of audio feedback in the intro of the recording.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q7KXWzA2fQ]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3j6S8N8bTE]

Enjoy!

Posted in Music, The Beatles | Tagged | 1 Comment

A Hard Day’s Night

Posted on April 29, 2009 by pgold

The four early studio albums can be broken down further into two groups. The first group I covered the past two days. The second group, A Hard Day’s Night and Beatles for Sale marked a big turning point for the band. First off, from here on, almost all of the Beatles songs are original songs. They would still do a few more covers, but basically they were recording their own work. Second, they were touring extensively all over the world. This tour schedule would later get so hectic that they band decided to stop touring by the end of 1966.

The movie and album were both release at the very height of Beatlemania and for some this is the quintessential early Beatles album. The A side is perhaps one of the best “sides” of an album of all time. These songs show Lennon and McCartney begin to come into their own as songwriters, and in particular John as he contributed most of the songs on this album. This album together with Beatles for Sale, mark the transition from the simple rock and roll of the earlier two albums and the experimental compositions of Rubber Soul and Revolver. Two other interesting facts about this album are that it is the only album that features ONLY Lennon/McCartney songs and it is the only album that does not feature one song with Ringo Starr as lead singer.

My two picks from this album are the two slower songs, one written by Lennon and one by McCartney. If I Fell, written primarily by John Lennon is notable for a few reasons. First it does not fit the Beatles usual style of writing. It begins with an introduction that is not repeated at all during the song, and has no middle eight section. What might be called a chorus is really a continuation of the verse. There are very intricate chord changes in the song and John and Paul sang this in two part harmony into one microphone. This all shows how they were becoming more comfortable with writing and the progression from rock and roll to the experimental work that came later.

And I Love Her, was written primarily by Paul and is typical of later works where one of them would write the majority of a song and the other would contribute the middle eight.

Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh5YwjfaCXk]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8fNDfdjXd8]

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With The Beatles

Posted on April 28, 2009 by pgold

Just four months after The Beatles finished recording Please Please Me, the band recorded their second album, With The Beatles. This album was the 2nd album in UK history to sell a million copies and sat at number one for 21 weeks (displacing Please Please Me, giving The Beatles 51 consecutive weeks at the top of the UK charts). The album was a great follow up for Please Please Me, with very similar material. Out of 14 songs, 7 were original to the group (6 for Lennon/McCartney and one for George Harrison).

By this time the writing duo of Lennon and McCartney showed their ability to write a lot of songs in short periods of time, which was good because the demand on them was very great. They were touring all over the world and people wanted the next Beatles song. These first two albums also show off the influence of American blues singers like Chuck Berry and American Rock groups like Buddy Holly and the Crickets. The songs were simple, but very crisp and classic rock of the early 60s. Another interesting innovation was the duo’s use of the middle eight style of songwriting. Much American music from the 30s through the 60s employed this style. Middle eighth meant that the song was 32 bars long separated into 4 sections of 8 bars with the first, second and fourth repeating so AABA. For example in the song All My Loving, the middle eighth is the section “All my loving, I will send to you, all my loving, darling I’ll be true. Lennon and McCartney began to experiment with this AABA format and came up with a few styles they would use time and again, AABABA or AABAABA. Unfortunately this form of writing fell out of use by the 80s to be replaced by the very repetitive verse-chorus-verse-chorus (ABAB) style.

My picks from this album are two Lennon/McCartney songs. One made it up the charts and the other did not, but I think are classic early Beatles songs and perhaps their best work on the album. It Won’t Be Long was written primarily by John and typical of the groups call-and- response yeah yeahs and is made great by the unusual (at the time) use of chromatically descending chords. All My Loving is a McCartney composition which made it to number 45 on the US charts. It was the first song they played on their debut performance on the Ed Sullivan show.

Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8ai5fleyjA]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxdNTpUj8jE]

Posted in Music, The Beatles | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Please Please Me

Posted on April 27, 2009 by pgold

Long time readers of my blog will remember last year I had a song of the day posting for most days. Back in March I did a special week of Beatles postings, focusing on what I called middle Beatles. This middle period for The Beatles was from 1965 to 1967 and featured the albums Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Peppers, and Magical Mystery Tour. This is certainly my favorite of the Beatles catalog and I think the most creative of all of their work. I also spent a week focusing on the self titled album The Beatles (aka the White Album) which is perhaps the most disjointed of all of their work.

This week I want to get back looking at Beatles work (pun intended 🙂 ) and focus on the early Beatles. I am not going to go over the band’s history, but suffice it to say that by 1963 the band had solidified and recorded their first album, Please, Please Me in March of 1963. The album did well in the UK but was not released in the US. It was not until January 1964 that their singles were being played on the radio in the US, and by the time they were on the Ed Sullivan show in February they were a major hit and Beatlemania was an official word in the US as well as the UK.

The albums produced in this period were Please, Please Me; With the Beatles; A Hard Day’s Night; and Beatles for Sale. There were also a few singles recorded that did not make any of the albums. I am going to highlight one album each day (with a song pick for the day) and on Friday choose my top three from the period.

Please, Please Me was released in March of 1963 following up on the major success in the UK of the singles Please, Please Me and Love Me Do. The most startling thing of this album was that of the fourteen songs on the album, eight were written by Lennon and McCartney. They can easily be credited as creating the “self contained” rock band, writing their own songs and playing their own instruments. The album is sometimes ranked as the best of the early albums, and I think it clearly established the group as the best rock band of the day.

I have three picks from this album. The first is the first song on the album, I Saw Her Standing There is perhaps not as well known as Love Me Do, or the title song, but I think a better song and really shows off their talents. The second is also less popular, Do You Want to Know a Secret. Here we can see more of their vocal talent which was often not as highlighted on the earliest songs. Finally the last song on the album, Twist and Shout, while not written by Lennon/McCartney, is perhaps one of the best recordings and certainly one of the most well known from the band.

Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZThkK7KjIo]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkbUHMA-yF0]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6TIEkB4_F8]

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New Blog URL and Title

Posted on April 24, 2009 by pgold

Please note that my blog is now called The Long and Winding Road and can be found at longandwinding.wordpress.com.

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