Every Song In My Life Soundtrack Has A Backstory

Start the music, then read the background tale.

Terri was my first adolescent crush. Her brown hair was long and straight, her eyes a dazzling blue, and she possessed a beautiful smile, which was in the process of being made into an awesomely straight smile by sets of braces on both top and bottom. Her solitary imperfection was being my best friend’s girlfriend — until it happened. One magnificent Friday afternoon, he broke up with her. Later, he confided in me he did this because he wanted to go out with a different girl. Since Mark wished to ensure a smooth transition from one girl to the next, he felt breaking up with Terri hours before his first date with the other girl was the smart way to make it all happen while leaving everyone happy about it. His logic, not mine. Looking back, still pretty stupid.

 Since Mark was on a date and I was not, my Friday evening was completely free, which was a good thing because Terri invited me over. For those of you who were unaware, life on a military base is incredibly structured, and much of where you can go and what you do is age based. My friends and I were too young as ninth graders to go to the Teen Club, so instead, we usually hung out in someone’s backyard listening to music and talking. This activity would go on from sunset until parents ran us off. I’m not sure why or how, but on that evening, it was just the two of us alone on her patio under the light of some bamboo tiki torches. Having just been dumped, she was melancholy. We listened to music on the radio, and I told jokes to cheer her up. My entire repertoire then was borrowed from George Carlin with a bit of Richard Pryor thrown in; not exactly appropriate for the situation, but I got her to laugh and took her mind off things for a while.

As luck would have it, the King Harvest song "Dancin’ in the Moonlight" came on the radio. Terri leaped out of her chair and grabbed my hand, pulling me into her. It was one of her favorite summer songs, and she always made it a point to dance whenever it was played. Even though I was little more than a target of opportunity, I accepted my fate with a good amount of grace, letting my ego be stroked since my crush was now in arms. At fifteen, I’d slow danced with girls many times, but never one who’d first danced through my mind first. It could have been that, or it may have been any number of other things, but the way she danced was something I never felt before, as she seemed to be caressing my body with hers while we moved to the music. At fifteen, it was a mind scrambler.

Midway through the song, she began speaking softly to me––almost whispering in my ear. I’m not sure if she was actually talking to me or not. Terri seemed more to be having a conversation with herself about why she chose Mark to go out with rather than me on the day when we all first met. As if she came to some sort of decision, she lifted her face to mine and kissed me. Considering both of us wore braces, there was a certain amount of subconscious caution on both our parts, but it was still a beautiful and memorable kiss.

Before the weekend was over, we shared more than a few walks holding hands, enjoyed two sunsets, and more than a few terrific kisses. It was the best weekend of the summer. On Monday, I left for summer camp and was gone for two weeks. When I got back, I found she and Mark reconciled, but fortunately at the same time I was also told my father got orders to Virginia and we’d be moving in a couple of weeks. At least I wasn’t forced to stay there and dwell in the aftermath. I never had contact with either of them again.

When I wrote my book “Moonlit Silhouette,” I patterned the heroine after Terri. Part memory and part fantasy. It’s okay, I hold a valid Poetic License so I can adapt reality at will when needed to fit a story. One thing I wanted to include was a few of the lyrics from “Dancin’ in the Moonlight” as part of the book, so I contacted the composer Sherman Kelly for permission.  He provided me with the contact information to get approval from Sony and we swapped a few emails about memories the song brought back for us both. A really nice guy. The folks at Sony were not so nice, making me wish I used the song and then asked forgiveness rather than permission. In the end, I didn’t use the song but wrote lyrics to a new song just for the book.

Here’s the King Harvest original:

This song still holds memories of the weekend with Terri. It is one of the many vital parts of the soundtrack of my life.

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Live From Nowhere In Particular...It's Saturday Night!

I'd just turned 16 and started working at Baskin-Robbins. It was a time when changes in my life were speeding up and I was doing my best to not get left behind. I'd just come in from work on a Saturday night and found myself alone downstairs, my parents asleep upstairs. I turned on the TV and started flipping through channels. 

The news was just ending, and it was at least a half-hour before Dr. Madblood’s Movie came on. Howard Cosell had a new show, Saturday Night, and even though I was not a sports fan; I thought it might be a way to fill the thirty-minute gap. After flipping the channel to NBC and plopped down on my dad’s recliner.

Then something different happened. A person I had never seen before was on screen talking about something, then he tripped and fell before saying “Live from New York it’s Saturday night.”  

What the hell was this? 

As you may have guessed, it was October 11, 1975, and I was on hand for the birth of something that is still alive, well, and kicking. I wasn’t sure what it was, but again

I was just looking to fill half an hour, so I left the TV tuned to it. The announcer reeled off names of people I’d never heard of, but then got to people I had heard of before. Billy Preston was the musical guest, as was Janis Ian. I liked Billy and Janice was okay, too. Jim Henson was billed as being on the show, and I knew that meant Kermit the Frog. I liked Kermit. (BTW no Kermit) Then came the clincher, my favorite comedian George Carlin was hosting. Maybe I was going to skip the replaying of The Horror of Party Beach on Dr. Madblood. There was also Andy Kaufman. Who?

Carlin did a great monologue that included a discussion of the blue food that I still remember. In all the years since, I still have never found a blue food. Then came the sketches. I was quickly introduced to comedians that would fill my next few years with laughter. Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, and John Belushi. Because he started the show, and then later did the Weekend Update newscast, Chevy Chase struck me as being the leader of the cast, but he also struck me as being a real jerk. It was hard to tell how much of that was an act and how much of that was him. Over time, I found it was pretty much him. 

I did not know what I was part of that night, but I knew it was significant. The show I was watching turned into a heavy part of my life for several years as I always tried to make it home on Saturday nights to watch it - as this was before VCRs and DVRs. In between the sketches, the music of Billy and Janis provided a nice mind cleansing to prepare you before the next comedy bits. Then Andy did his Mighty Mouse bit. At first I was perplexed, but before it was over I was laughing out loud.

The show became the instant topic for Monday mornings at school. We shared various lines from the show that became part of our lexicon, and because it was live, we also talked about the mistakes we caught. Plus so many recurring characters and tag lines -- Never mind. The comedy and music became part of my life, as evidenced by just a small sampling of blog entries:

• Got Cat Class & Got Class Style With a Christmas Twist
• With Paradise In Sight, She Cried Out "Stop Right There!"
• Your Other Most Important Vote of 2012
• My Year In Live Music 2018, Act II: Paul Simon -- Tell Me That Crazy Story One Last Time
• I Got a Fever, and the Only Prescription...Is More Cowbell!!

Oh yeah, and an obsession with cowbell.

When I heard they had made a movie about Saturday Night Live, I was immediately excited. I wanted to see what it took to put on that show. It was lucky that I could never catch in the theater or even watch it streaming until recently. This allowed me to sit down and take time to watch the movie uninterrupted and then follow it immediately with the first episode from 1975, since it is exactly where the movie ends.

I think the movie is well made; the people portraying the various cast members, writers, and even Lorne Michaels did a great job. As a theatre kid, I understood and shared the underlying electricity as they prepared to go on stage for the first time. The props that were in the wrong place, people who were suddenly missing minutes before the curtain went up, and more. I think the movie perfectly captured what it must’ve felt like that first time. It also gave me insight into a lot of things I was unaware of.

I admit I knew Chevy was a jerk, so that was not a surprise but things like Garrett Morris questioning why he was there I was unaware of. The same with Lorraine Newman. The trio of extremely talented women who were on the show was amazing, yet they all questioned their own talent. John Belushi’s failure to sign his contract until the last minute was an interesting revelation. No doubt he could’ve made it without the show, but would the show have made it without him?

Learning what Lorne Michaels went through to get this on the air was also surprising. I’ve always looked at TV as something that was carefully scripted and choreographed. Maybe so, but from the show itself to the way it wound up on the air instead of a rerun of Johnny Carson proved that perception was another a bit of Hollywood magic. Should we talk about Michael O’Donoghue? No, we shouldn’t.

If you haven’t seen it yet, I would advise you to watch the movie but only if you can follow it immediately after with the first episode. Seeing how they got there and what they eventually delivered together like that is perfect. In fact, I think it should be required watching for anybody doing anything on stage. It shows you how you go from that mass confusion of high energy to delivering a product that the audience raves about without ever knowing what it looked like just a minute before the curtain rose.

PostScript: I haven’t watched the show in years. It has morphed into something I no longer recognize nor enjoy -- but that’s okay. I am not 16 anymore and that’s who the show is for.

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See My Beard -- Ain't It Weird?

 

I have no recollection of exactly when I made the decision, but it must’ve been around 8th or 9th grade when I decided that when I grew up, I was going to have facial hair. My commitment then was only to having a mustache. Over time, I decided I’d go further and have a beard as well. The primary driver behind it, as best as I can remember, was Vincent Price or maybe Snidely Whiplash.

It may seem strange to want a mustache based on movie villains, but that’s the way it was — C’mon man, I was in 8th grade. As time passed, I realized a lot of the men I admired for their creativity had mustaches, Edgar Allen Poe and Mark Twain, for example. As I got older, and time marched into the 70s, there were many more folks with mustaches that I admired, Burt Reynolds and Tom Selleck to name just two. All of this solidified my decision to be mustachioed.

So, by the end of high school, and thanks to the gift of facial hair from puberty, I grew a mustache. Ever since then I have had one, except for twice in my life: Air Force basic training and once in the 90s, for two weeks after a botched attempt at trimming. I also had a beard occasionally. During most of my college years I sported a full beard, but it wasn’t until after I was out of the Air Force and moving on to my next career that I grew fuller facial hair which started as a close-trimmed beard but then morphed into a goatee. At one point I tried a Van Dyke but the upkeep was killer. To paraphrase the words of George Carlin "See my beard, ain’t it weird—– don’t be skeered it’s only a beard — now that I’ve shared this affair of the hair—do you care?" 

Care or not, that’s not what this blog entry is about, anyway. It’s about my foray into beard care products. I know, I know—– my last entry about how to towel dry after shower — now this one about beard care. Where the hell is this guy at? Don’t worry, my dwelling on such matters will end with this entry—at least a few months.

While I am blessed with full facial hair, I’m cursed with sensitive skin. This means after my goatee gets to be a certain thickness, I get flaky skin under it. Beardruff. Also, when I grow my beard longer, it gets course and even after careful trimming, I’m left with flyaways that give me an unkempt appearance. I’ve tried shampooing, and using various head hair products on it without success. I even picked up a bottle of beard oil, but it just left stains on my shirt. Then I discovered a full range beard product. 

My research was more accidental than serious; I was talking to my barber (Hunter) about the issues I was having. He suggested I try Uppercut Beard Balm and let me try a sample. It kept my beard more controlled, and the scent wasn’t bad. The biggest take away was the realization there were products out there for what I was experiencing. I'd discovered a new world of stuff. 

Before I proceed further, a disclaimer: No review ever published on this blog is produced because I am paid or given payment in kind. If I find something good, I share that discovery here and you are free to do with that information whatever you choose with the knowledge the review was unbiased. Of course, your mileage may vary and you may or may not agree.

In today’s environment of algorithms and data mining, the simplest way to start research is to perform a simple Internet query for what you’re looking for. Within 24 hours, you’ll be deluged with pop-up ads, email, and ads on your social media timelines. That’s what happened to me, but in and amongst all the noise, I found one ad that caught my attention. It was from a company called Lived Bearded.

Among the things that drew my attention to it were the variety of scents available. I don’t know about you, but it bugs me that products are only available in a baseline scent that was decided upon either by a focus group or the owner’s girlfriend. I should want to smell like coconut/lime with patchouli accents --- really?

Live Bearded has a sample pack which let me try each of their baseline beard care products (shampoo, conditioner, oil, and butter) in each of the six scents they offer. It doesn’t get much better. It was $10 for the sample pack when I ordered; now it’s $20, but you get a $10 credit on your first order. Still very fair and it lets you try everything. I’ve seen other companies wanting twenty bucks to try your choice of two of their scents and you only get one product. I like that Live Bearded let me weed out what I did and didn’t like from their full selection.

Here are Live Bearded’s selections and each fragrance's elements:

Tombstone: Sweet Tobacco, Cedar

Executive: Leather, Vanilla, Cedar

Legend: Sandalwood, Vanilla

Canyon: Juniper, Cypress, Fir Needle

American: Cedar, Pine, Vetiver, Bergamot

1880: Bourbon, Bitters, Citrus

What I liked about these from the outset was that all of them seem to be reasonable smells and the names were not trying to be something they weren’t. At my age, do I need Midnight Nekit Body in the Mist with traces of cedar, rosemary, and a hint of Arctic glacier? To me, the scent of soaps and shampoos is a secondary consideration. What I’m most concerned about is the way it blends with what cologne I choose to wear it with or the scent of other products I use. I’m sure you have run into at least one person in your life who is using ten different products with ten different fragrances resulting in a something akin to Dumpster at Sunset. One scent not part of the set is unscented. There’s no real reason to get a sample of that. We all know what nothing smells like.

Okay, I’m not going into the science of each product. They do what the label says they do: The shampoo shampoos, the conditioner conditions, etc. I liked how each of them worked except for one which I will talk about later. Want the ingredients, etc., check out Live Bearded's website.

My method was simple, because I have a goatee and not a full mountain man beard. I was able to get two uses out of each sample. I tried each of them, using all four products of the same fragrance, and I even used a little scorecard that came with the sample pack to track scents and performance.

Shampoo: I was a little disappointed the first time I used the shampoo, because it didn’t lather up. The second time I wet my beard well before applying the shampoo and all was good. You don’t have to use a lot of shampoo in order for it to be effective, and once I was able to get it foamy, it cleaned very well.

Conditioner: Because you have to rinse the shampoo out first, your beard is fairly wet by the time you put the conditioner on. It lathers up nicely. It’s best not to allow it to sit on your beard for a bit before rinsing. The feel after rinsing it out is quite pleasant as your beard feels nice and soft.

In the shower, the scent of the Live Bearded surrounded me and most times was quite pleasant. No, I didn’t like all the fragrances, but that is why they produce several flavors.

Oil: After my shower, I would apply a small bit of the oil to my beard and rub it through. It felt good against my skin as I worked it all the way to the roots. I’m happy to report that after a month of use, I wasn’t finding any oil stains on the front of my shirts from using the oil. It was probably because it soaked in versus the oil being stain-free or maybe I was applying the correct amount versus too much. Regardless of why, I liked it didn’t ruin my shirts.

Butter: I just disliked this product. Never got satisfying results, regardless of how I applied it. I used as instructed. Tried using more. Tried using less. It just did not work for me. The butter made my beard feel stiff, as if I used Aquanet on it. Maybe this is something that only people with longer beards need and appreciate.

How did it all work together? I no longer have beardruff. While I still have flyaways, they are easy to smooth down and they stay down when I comb my beard after applying all the products. The coarseness of the hair is also gone. Now that it is properly conditioned, it feels nice. The sample pack from Live Bearded has proven that their products will solve my problems and have convinced me they are worthwhile.

My trial period led me to choose not one but two fragrances that I liked: Executive and Tombstone. They mesh well with my cologne and also my hair shampoo, etc. As for the other fragrances, there were none that I out right hated, they just didn’t suit me.

(Since I didn’t like the beard butter, I regressed to the beard balm I had on hand. Fortunately, the two fragrances I chose mesh well with the scent of the balm.)  

Finally, I appreciate the way Live Bearded products are available for order. I hate it when a company forces me to buy things I will not use or dislike in some sort of preassembled kit. Live Bearded seems to understand and lets you order the shampoo, conditioner, and oil separately. You aren’t forced to order all four products to get what you want.

Customer Support: Sometimes you need some help to make things right. Because of my error, one of my shipments from Live Bearded got mis-routed. A quick email to the company and Danielle fixed it within hours. There is nothing more you can expect because it simply does not get any better than that.

I heartily recommend this company. For 10 bucks I found products I need and fragrances that work for me. 

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