{"id":2386,"date":"2012-12-05T12:52:29","date_gmt":"2012-12-05T18:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.keloland.com\/lund\/?p=2386"},"modified":"2023-07-20T21:00:06","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T21:00:06","slug":"a-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-wop-bam-boom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/a-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-wop-bam-boom\/","title":{"rendered":"A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-wop-bam-boom!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201cGood Golly Miss Molly,\u201d Little Richard is now 80.<\/p>\n

\"little\u00a0I thought that was a pretty clever line until I Googled Little Richard, in order to confiscate a recent picture of the rock and roll legend, only to find that lots of other writers had beaten me to it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the thing about the internet; you quickly learn that you\u2019re not as smart..or clever..or at least not as original..as you thought you were. Anyway, I love Little Richard..well, you know, I really loved his musical talents..not his bazaar appearances and lifestyle choices which seemed to change every few years.<\/p>\n

\"LittleLittle Richard (Richard Penniman) and Pat Boone helped me, and millions of other Caucasian kids in the 50\u2019s, clearly understand the difference between black and white..soul and..well, Lawrence Welkism. WhenPat Boone released his version of Little Richard\u2019s Tutti Frutti, it was clearly\u00a0a\u00a0move by the record producers to \u201cprotect kids\u201d from exposure to that evil N word music. It sort of worked in that Pat Boone\u2019s version scored higher on the charts than Little Richard\u2019s Tutti Frutti but we all knew which one we wanted to hear and, as Little Richard said, \u201cThe white kids would have Pat Boone upon the dresser and me in the drawer \u2018cause they liked my version better, but the families didn\u2019t want me because of the image that I was projecting.”<\/p>\n

\"littleDon\u2019t get me wrong, I liked Pat Boone tunes too; Love Letters in the Sand, April Love, even Speedy Gonzales. I also\u00a0had a pair of his trademark white buck shoes but the only soul he ever had on stage was when he sang for a Billy Graham Crusade altar call.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But I digress.<\/p>\n

Linda and I finally made it to see Lincoln the other evening. There is no doubt, Daniel Day Lewis IS Abraham Lincoln. It was a marvel to witness.<\/p>\n

\"Daniel

Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln<\/p><\/div>\n

Sally Field is totally convincing as Mary Todd. But, dare I say..after over two hours listening to men in dark rooms talking, \u00a0arguing and yelling..I started looking at my wrist watch. \u00a0One of my biggest complaints about going to the theater these days (you know you\u2019re old when you say \u201cthese days\u201d) is the apparent requirement to demonstrate the full fury of the movie house\u2019s surround sound audio system even if there are only a dozen people in the audience. \u201cLet\u2019s see if we can\u2019t loosen their fillings..heh, heh\u201d \u00a0That was certainly not a concern during Lincoln. I was actually longing for a few hair raising explosions. The film takes place during the \u00a0Civil War after all and I guess I fully expected Steven Spielberg, one of the greatest action directors to ever hold a megaphone, to include a realistic battle scene or two.\u00a0 Other than a quick shot of hand to hand combat in the opening credits and old Abe riding his horse through a body-ridden battlefield..what you get is wonderfully acted gab fests. Sure, the topic (passage by the house of representatives of the 13th<\/sup> amendment ending slavery) was a major milestone in our history, I just didn\u2019t realize that was the singular message of the movie.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m fascinated by the Civil War and would have loved to see Daniel Day Lewis\u2019 jaw dropping portrayal of our 16th<\/sup> president in a role that encompassed Lincoln\u2019s entire time in the White House..not just that last couple of months. It would have been amazing to see Spielberg\u2019s directing skills applied to recreating the realities and horrors of Civil War battles as he did in Saving Private Ryan and, with equal sensitivity, show how Lincoln somehow managed to deal with it all; the hundreds of thousands of casualties, the death of his young son, an emotional wreck of a wife, incompetent generals\u00a0and, yes, the determination to free the slaves and above all\u00a0 preserve the union.<\/p>\n

That might make for an even longer movie but I\u2019ll bet I wouldn\u2019t be fighting back a yawn halfway through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201cGood Golly Miss Molly,\u201d Little Richard is now 80. \u00a0I thought that was a pretty clever line until I Googled Little Richard, in order to confiscate a recent picture of the rock and roll legend, only to find that lots of other writers had beaten me to it. That\u2019s the thing about the internet; you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11691,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386\/revisions\/11691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}