10 for '08...

…being a semi-random (well it is in alphabetical order…more or less… so it’s not as random as it might otherwise be) list of 10 pop culture people and things that warmed the cockles of Neverending Rainbow’s jaded heart in 2008.

CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION

The original…and still the best…CSI was firing on all cylinders from the tragic death of Warrick that opened the season to the inexorable feeling of loss as Gil Grissom prepared to take his leave.

GEOFF JOHNS

This super-hero comic book fan’s hero was a writer…a writer who brought amazing, utterly engaging life to some of my favorite four-color adolescent power fantasies :-)

JON STEWART & STEPHEN COLBERT

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report were consistently entertaining and insightful companions throughout the seemingly endless political campaigns that informed life here in the States

NEW MUSIC FROM SOME OF MY FAVORITE FOLKS

Any year that features great new music from music making folks I unabashedly adore…Cassandra Wilson (the sublime Loverly), Emmylou Harris (the beautifully-realized All I Intended to Be), Tracy Chapman (the charming Our Bright Future...see below), and Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis (the accomplished and delightful Two Men with the Blues)…is more than all right in my book.

PUSHING DAISIES

I’m not really surprised that this quirky and whimsical show didn’t find a large enough audience to survive…it was, probably, one of those shows that either you liked or you didn’t with very few people in-between…but I am happy that it got a chance to exist at all.

SUPER-HERO MOVIES

A good year for the fanboys with the grim but amazing Dark Knight and the slam-bam wizardry of Iron Man heating up the box office in such a big way. Kudos as well to flawed by still sometimes very interesting offerings such as Hancock, Wanted, and Incredible Hulk (and we shall let things like Punisher War Journal and The Spirit slip into obscurity without comment.)

THE SOUP

The Soup is perhaps the one good reason for the E Network to exist. Joel McHale and his merry pranksters take a biting and often hilarious blowtorch to all of the silliness of pop culture in a fast-paced weekly half-hour.

THE WIRE

Yeah, I’m late to the party but thanks to the good folks at Netflix I’ve gotten completely caught up in the gritty streets of Baltimore as explored on this amazing show (a crime drama worthy of being brought into the conversation alongside classics like Homicide, Hill Street Blues, and The Sopranos.) Santa didn’t hook me up with the complete series box set (admittedly I was THAT good this year :-) but I’ll keep pestering him.

TINA FEY

Tina Fey’s dead-on impersonation of Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was a godsend to Saturday Night Live…and to all of the rest of us as well. Combine that with the fact that her sitcom 30 Rock has become a consistently funny shows on network TV and we just have to take off our hats to the remarkable Ms. Fey.

YOUNG SOUL SINGERS FROM THE UK

Amy Winehouse spent most of the year in tabloid hell but the baton of great soul music…retro but not in a navel-gazing, nostalgia-worshipping way…from enormously talented young women from the United Kingdom was ably picked up by Duffy (with the stunning Rockferry) and Adele (the powerful and passionate 19) and it was a good thing indeed.

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Here's hoping your 2009 is filled with an abundance of love, light, and laughter.

This is Tracy Chapman's simply charming "Sing for You":

The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time

Our pals at Rolling Stone are at it again with a list that is sure to provoke much discussion among music fans. This time they've polled a bunch of artists, producers, critics, and other music industry insiders and come up with their list of "The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time".

This list is, of course, skewed towards singers who came to prominence during the rock and roll era (which I guess qualifies as "all-time" now) and it leaves off a lot of really GREAT singers (at first blush I can think of Billie Holiday, Emmylou Harris, Frank Sinatra, Nat "King" Cole, k.d. lang, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Cassandra Wilson, Chrissie Hynde, Seal, and Margo Timmins.)

The Top 10 Singers of All-Time (according to Rolling Stone) are:

1) Aretha Franklin
2) Ray Charles
3) Elvis Presley
4) Sam Cooke
5) John Lennon
6) Marvin Gaye
7) Bob Dylan
8) Otis Redding
9) Stevie Wonder
10) James Brown

Apparently all of the 10 greatest singers of "all time" got their start in the late fifties or the early sixties and only 1 of the 10 best is a woman...imagine that :-)

The rest of the list is here.

Discuss.

Below is the classic "A Change is Gonna Come" written by the wondrous Sam Cooke (#4) and sung by the incomparable Aretha Franklin (#1)

Billboard's Top 10 All-Time Songs

To celebrate the 50^th anniversary of their “Hot 100” chart our good friends at Billboard Magazine have put together their list of their “100 All-Time Songs” (“all time” in this case meaning the first 50 years of the Hot 100…August 1958-July 2008.) The list ranks the songs by sales and radio airplay (and not, as should be readily apparent by some of the tunes that made the top 10, by any subjective artistic merits.)

The top 10 All-Time Songs are:

1) “The Twist” Chubby Checker

2) “Smooth” Santana featuring Rob Thomas (see above)

3) “Mack the Knife” Bobby Darin

4) “How Do I Live” LeAnn Rimes

5) “Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix)” Los Del Rio

6) “Physical” Olivia Newton-John

7) “You Light Up my Life” Debby Boone

8) “Hey Jude” The Beatles

9) “We Belong Together” Mariah Carey

10) “Un-Break My Heart” Toni Braxton

Every decade in the period covered is represented…though apparently there were a lot of monster singles in the nineties. The Beatles made the top 10 only once and Elvis not at all (nor did Motown have a hit big enough to make the cut. ) I guess I’m surprised that Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” didn’t get into the top 10 either.

The rest of the top 100 can be found here.

And now, come on baby, let’s do the Twist! :-)

The Top-Earning Dead Celebrities

You gotta love it. There are dead people who still raking in more money in a year than most of us will earn in our entire lifetimes. Such is life :-) Forbes Magazine came out with their annual list of the Top-Earning Dead Celebrities.

At the top of this year’s list…which also includes two Beatles and the Godfather of Soul… is Elvis Presley. 30 years after his death, Elvis earned a cool $49 million (which must make Lisa Marie, his sole heir, very happy.)

John Lennon came in second with earnings of $44 million, followed by Charles M. Schulz ($35 million), George Harrison ($22 million), Albert Einstein ($18 million), Andy Warhol ($15 million), Theodor (Dr. Seuss) Geisel ($13 million), Tupac Shakur ($9 million), Marilyn Monroe ($7 million), Steve McQueen ($6 million), James Brown ($5 million), Bob Marley ($4 million) and James Dean ($3.5 million).

A Random Pop Culture List

Spinner.com has come up with their list of the Best Opening Lyrics (to a song from the rock and roll era one has to presume given the interesting...and decidedly random...results.) Their top 10:

10) Tommy used to work on the docks – Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer”

9) Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine – Patti Smith’s “Gloria”

8) Well it’s one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, now go, cat, go! – Carl Perkins’ “Blue Suede Shoes”

7) In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey – Beck’s “Loser”

6) Why do birds suddenly appear every time you’re near? – The Carpenters’ “Close to You”

5) Don’t call it a comeback – LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out”

4) Well she was just 17, you know what I mean – The Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There”

3) Hey ho, let’s go! – The Ramones' “Blitzkrieg Bop”

2) I was born in a crossfire hurricane – The Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”

1) She’s a very kinky girl – Rick James’ “Super Freak”


Um, okay… :-)

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MKW Creative Writing Blogstuff: Bread and Roses

MKW Comic Book Blogstuff: Suspending Disbelief

Entertainment Icons of the Century

Variety, the venerable magazine of the entertainment industry, is celebrating its 100th anniversary issue by naming the entertainment "Icons of the Century". There are 100 "icons" named but only the top 10 are ranked in order.

At the top of their list are The Beatles.

The rest of the top 10 are (in order): Louis Armstrong, Lucille Ball, Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, Charlie Chaplin, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Mickey Mouse, and Elvis Presley. (A worthy cross section of cultural and entertainment icons to be sure.)

The other 90 (unranked) "icons" include names such as Madonna, Frank Sinatra, Oprah Winfrey, the Marx Brothers, Kurt Cobain, Bob Dylan, Cary Grant, Tupac Shakur, Lassie (the only animal in the group...I guess Flipper can't get no love from Variety :-), and Pac Man (who made the list even while my main rabbit Bugs Bunny did not.)

As always, these types of lists are highly subjective (of course) but still kind of fun in a discussion-starting sort of way (I might have put Bob Dylan and Superman in the top 10 instead of James Dean and Mickey Mouse, for example, but I realize that others will have other worthy candidates as well.)

Variety has presented their top 10 entertainment icons of the past 100 years...who would you have put in yours?

Greatest American Top 10

The people...or at least the people who cared enough about this popularity poll to call, text message, or log onto AOL's voting site...have spoken and these are the people chosen to be on their list of the top 10 all-time "Greatest Americans" (as presented on tonight's Discovery Channel special, which I watched out of idle curiosity having skipped all but the very first hour of this mini-series):

1 ) Ronald Reagan
2 ) Abraham Lincoln
3 ) Martin Luther King, Jr.
4 ) George Washington
5 ) Benjamin Franklin
6 ) George W. Bush
7 ) Bill Clinton
8 ) Elvis Presley
9 ) Oprah Winfrey
10)Franklin Roosevelt

It's an...eclectic...list of personalities to be sure. It doesn't really bother me...it's not serious enough to get worked up about...but I think that their use of the word "greatest" was purposefully loaded. With about of a third of the overall top 100 list filled with athletes and celebrities (including Michael Jackson, Brett Favre, Tom Cruise, Michael Jordan, Madonna, and "Dr. Phil") it probably would have been more accurate to call this whimsical little enterprise "Most Popular Americans" (popularity and greatness do not necessarily go hand in hand.)

(In case you're interested, the rest of the top 25 were (in order): Billy Graham, Thomas Jefferson, Walt Disney, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, John F. Kennedy, Bob Hope, Bill Gates, Eleanor Roosevelt, Lance Armstrong, Muhammad Ali, Rosa Parks, The Wright Brothers (who are counted together as 1 "Greatest American"), Henry Ford, and Neil Armstrong.)

The Greatest American

What do George Washington, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Ellen Degeneres, Rush Limbaugh, Susan B. Anthony, Arnold Schwazenegger, Malcolm X, Jonas Salk, Tiger Woods, Joseph Smith, Cesar Chavez, Michael Moore, Alexander Graham Bell, Madonna, 2 Clintons (Bill and Hillary), 3 Roosevelts (Teddy, Franklin, Eleanor), 3 Kennedys (JFK, RFK, and Jackie), 4 Bushes (George H.W., Barbara, George W., and Laura...what, we can't get some love for Jeb up in here??), Oprah Winfrey, Benjamin Franklin, Walt Disney, Muhammad Ali, Lucille Ball, Nikola Tesla, Dr. Phil, Frederick Douglass, Bill Gates, Babe Ruth, Elvis, Condoleezza Rice, and 15 Presidents (besides those already named above there's also Carter, Eisenhower, Jefferson, LBJ, Lincoln, Nixon, Reagan, and Truman) have in common?

Well, my friends, they're all on the list of the top 100 finalists in a poll looking to name the "Greatest Americans". The Discovery Channel (which should know better) and AOL (which doesn't know better) teamed up to conduct the poll and after tallying 500,000 votes (I'm guessing that there was some massive American Idol-style ballot stuffing going on...I mean, come on, Dr. Phil?!? :-) they came up with a list that is..oh, let's be generous and say "eclectic".

On June 5, Discovery will begin a series, hosted by Matt Lauer, entitled Greatest American that will be counting down the list and, this being the great democracy that it is, also allowing "we the people" to vote for our choice of THE greatest American (that should prove interesting...)

A list like this isn't meant to be taken that seriously (at least I sure hope not...after all, Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart, Senators Barack Obama and John Edwards, Brett Favre, Tom Cruise, Donald Trump, Lance Armstrong, and Marilyn Monroe are on the list...while, for example, Thurgood Marshall, Robert E. Lee, Duke Ellington, Chief Joseph, Walt Whitman, Bob Dylan, Sacagawea, Will Rogers, Louis Armstrong, and Lewis & Clark are not) but rather as a starting point for discussion and debate (and as evidence that a lot of the voters had a sense of history that went back no further than their own childhoods at best.)

I'll be (somewhat) interested to see how the 100 folks end up being ranked (a complete alphabetical listing of the 100 is available at the Discovery Channel site...click on the link two paragraphs above.)

21st Century Rock

In the May 2005 issue of Esquire, Chuck Klosterman "celebrates twenty-one high-quality albums from the past three years" in an article, entitled "21st Century Rock", that imagines that it is clever, archly tongue-in-cheek, too-cool-for-the-room (but, in actuality, is often just smug, snarky, and condescending.)

Klosterman showcases what the cover declares are "21 great albums of the 21st Century" and they are ("in no particular order"):

Almost Killed Me -The Hold Steady
Guitar Romantic -The Exploding Hearts
It Still Moves -My Morning Jacket
Peanut Butter and Jelly Live at the Ginger Minge -Coachwhips
The Big Come Up -The Black Keys
Suffrajett -Suffrajett
Now Here is Nowhere -Secret Machines
Fire -Electric Six
Cream of the Crap! Volume 2 -The Hellacopters
So Much for the City -The Thrills
America's Sweetheart -Courtney Love
Southern Rock Opera -The Drive-By Truckers
Gallowsbird's Bark -The Fiery Furnaces
Gonga -Gonga
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot -Wilco
Maladroit -Weezer
From a Basement on the Hill -Elliott Smith
Dear Catastrophe Waitress -Belle and Sebastian
Electric Version -The New Pornographers
Baby I'm Bored -Evan Dando
Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes -TV on the Radio

Man, we're just a few years into the new century and, if this list is accurate, already I'm way behind the curve when it comes to keeping up with the cool rock and roll...I've never heard of some of these bands and I only own four of these records (Wilco, New Pornographers, TV on the Radio, Drive-By Truckers.)

Rats. I guess this means I'm officially even more un-cool than I already thought I was :-)

Angelina Jolie

Is this the "sexiest (famous) woman in the world"? The readers of the American edition of FHM seem to think so (this year anyway). The erstwhile Mrs. Billy Bob Thornton came in first when the 15 million votes were counted in the magazine's annual poll.

The rest of their top ten were (in order): Jennifer Garner, Paris Hilton, Charlize Theron, Halle Berry, Alyssa Milano, Teri Hatcher, Pamela Anderson, Scarlett Johansson, and Lindsay Lohan.

Apparently the readers of the American edition of FHM are an extremely fickle lot...last year's poll-winner, Britney Spears, didn't even make the list of 100 this year. (But then People Magazine's annual "sexiest (famous) man alive" list fluctuates wildly from year to year as well...)

Favorite Movies of the 90's

I found this one on PSoTD (and, of course, I couldn't resist playing too...)

In alphabetical order:

American Beauty (1999)
Fargo (1996)
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
Gods and Monsters (1998)
Goodfellas (1990)
JFK (1991)
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Malcolm X (1992)
The Player (1992)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Quiz Show (1994)
Rushmore (1998)
Short Cuts (1993)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Wag the Dog (1997)

(I tried to limit it to 10 but found that I couldn't...)