I’ve been in a Bonnie mood this week.
Category Archives: Music
It’s Friday! C’mon, Get Happy!
Stars
I was so excited to discover a 25th Anniversary concert of Les Miserables (my all time favorite musical) came out on DVD last Tuesday! Must watch!
And it reminded me of Philip Quast who played Javert in the 10th Anniversary concert!
Les Miserables was the first professional stage musical I ever saw, and guess what? I saw it on a field trip in 1993 at the Fabulous Fox in of all places, St. Louis, Missouri. It was the first time I’d ever been to St. Louis, and isn’t it weird that I live here now? I remember it well and have seen Les Mis at least 4 times since then and would see it again and again.
Javert was my character that I connected with. I don’t know why. But I still tremble every time I hear him sing Stars. Don’t know if I’d put this song on the soundtrack of my life, but it definitely holds meaning…
Go West
And now let’s fast forward to 1994, the year my parents divorced and the year I graduated from high school. It was a tough year – the end of one part of my life and the start of another. And it was also the first time I ever heard a song by the Pet Shop Boys. I remember it like it was yesterday. On the dance floor at a bar called J. Wags – a position I had secured thanks to a gullible doorman who believed I didn’t have an ID because of a DUI. After asking the DJ who sang that song, I had to have the album which I bought on cassette, later investing in the CD which I still have to this day. Go West was definitely my big gay anthem back then! It would definitely have to be on the soundtrack to my life.
Let’s Erasure Monday!
NKOTBSB
And now for a blast from my past since New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys are coming to St. Louis this year on July 19th. I kind of get tickled at the (now middled aged) girls calling in to the radio stations and screeching when they win tickets. However, I seem to remember being a 12 year old boy once with the receiver in hand and the radio station on speed dial when NKOTB came to Memphis years ago. I had a wall full of NKOTB posters and all their cassette tapes. Yes, I said cassette tapes!
This one is for you, Corey!
Speechless
Miss Gaga is all about shock and awe, but this song leaves me speechless.
Too bad it doesn’t get any air time.
Oh what the heck….let’s here it one more time….but in a different costume….
Wow, that song sure sounds familiar…
…was it Shakespeare or the Bible that said there’s nothing new under the sun?
To answer my own question… (Ecclesiastes 1:9-14 NIV) What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. {10} Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. {11} There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.
Happy Birthday, Elvis!
Elvis turned 76 yesterday. The week of his birth is coined “Birth Week” in Memphis and definitely brings out the crazies, or at least a lot of Asian fans with cameras. When I lived in Memphis, it was practically a local holiday and every giftshop in downtown could expect a sales spike in anything with the king’s face on it, next only to “Death Week” in August.
I visited Graceland only once, and that was when I was a small child. My sister was more the Elvis fan in the family, so this was her trip. I vaguely remember it – tacky furniture and lots of leopard print. I remember the kidney shaped swimming pool which everyone said was supposed to be shaped like a guitar. I remember Elvis’s grave in the backyard, right next to his parents.
I never visited while I lived in Memphis, but had lots of friends who went for the candle light vigils, mainly for the entertainment – old fat biker chicks clad in leather slinging roses on the grave and crying, “Why did this have to happen?”
Our favorite joke was, “Remember when Elvis sang about In The Ghetto? Well, he meant it.” Most people who have never been there before are shocked to find that Graceland is not in 
the safest part of town. And outside the gates, the brick wall that surrounds it is heavily grafitied by fans from all over the world, much like Jim Morrison’s grave.
But we grew up on movie Elvis and later gospel Elvis. If there was a new book out, my sister usually landed a copy for her birthday or Christmas. I contributed to some of that book collection along the way. Elvis was a mainstay in our house, much like he is to rock and roll still today. I even read a fictional book about him just last month. Over the past few yaers, his daughter Lisa Marie has put out a few albums. I snatched those up and still listen to them.
It’s odd to wonder what Elvis would be doing if he was still alive today. Some believe that he is! How much longer would he have performed? Would he still live in Graceland? There will definitely never be another performer like him. His image and his music is just iconic. Having lived in Memphis for six years, I see that 
now.
If anything, he put Memphis on the map. The Asians love him. The fat biker chicks. They all come there because they are touched by him or his music in some way. And it’s hard to fathom, right? Especially if he died before you were born. (I was just 1.) But even people born into the 80s and now the 90s, they all eventually learn who Elvis is and get to know him just like the rest of us.
Now that’s history!
There are so many people who live vicariously through you…
I didn’t play football in high school, but I went to every game because I was in the marching band. Being from a small town, I know this feeling well. Also thought the coaches speech at the beginning was so true – for anyone.
