Archive for June, 2010

Old Time Country Music

Old Time Country Music is Still the Best.

I grew up around country music. I have watched it change a lot over the years, and I have seen a lot of great country music singers, but to me, old time country music is still the best, and will always have a very special place in my heart. One of the first country artists I ever remember hearing was the great Hank Williams. My father would play his music all the time, and the movie Your Cheatin’ Heart was a regular fixture in our household.

I looked through my personal music collection the other day, and I found that the vast majority of my country CDs were of old time country music artists. Guys like Willie Nelson, George Jones, Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings are among my favorites, and I have found that the more recent country artists just really don’t do it for me.
I think one of the things that most appeals to be about the old time country music is that it told such great stories. Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger was an entire album that basically told one continuous story through a series of songs. It also seems that the older country singers really understood what it was to be country artists. They were not trying to appeal to fans of other styles of music, and they certainly weren’t trying to make country music into rock or popular music.

The old time country music singers knew exactly who they were and where they came from, and they sang for people who were from the same kinds of places and would understand what they were talking about.
The thing that I always find most interesting is that when I meet new people and ask them if they like country music, most of them act like it’s stupid or beneath them. Some people will reluctantly admit that they like some of it, but prefer a more mainstream style of music such as rock n’ roll or rhythm and blues.

I will even hear people do their impression of country music singers, and almost always they will parody the old time country music performers with real thick twangs, singing about something inane. Yet, when you read reports about the music that Americans are listening to, country music stations are almost always the most popular and abundant. I really love the old time country music singers and still listen to them on a regular basis. I really don’t care if people make fun of me for it, because it was how I was raised. I do like some modern country, and I listen to a few of today’s country artists, but for me, the older guys and girls are still the best.

School music programs

School Music Programs in Desperate Need of Funding.

Across the country, school music programs are shutting down or being down-sized due to lack of funding. The economic situation has caused massive cutbacks to the public school systems around the United States and art and music education are regrettably the first to be cut most of the time. In no state is this being felt harder than in California, where legislators are trying to find Federal funds to make up an estimated $21 billion budget shortfall for the 2010 fiscal year.

Schools have had to eliminate many of their most popular programs including sports, after school activities, art, music, band, and even tutoring programs. Many schools have slashed teaching jobs wholesale and have cut back hours for the ones that remain. This is a critical test of our public education system and it is up to our good parents and concerned citizens as well as educational professionals to band together and fight these massive cuts. Nothing less than the future of our children is at stake.

Because of the core mandated testing system that is currently in place in the California school system, the only things that absolutely have to be funded is test preparation for the spring assessments. Since the districts get allocated money based on student assessments and testing averages, test preparation gets funded first. Students are taking tests on average between 20 to 40 days each semester.

That is way too much testing and is not necessary. Students should be learning, not cramming for tests. Most education experts agree that when students cram they donít absorb the material and days later (if not minutes) the material is forgotten. The cost to prepare, administer and score these tests is very high. The Corona-Norco school district in Southern California for instance has had to cut several music teachers, effectively eliminating their music program.

In March of 2009 students from Capistrano High School in Capistrano, California came out in force and used their rights to demonstrate to protest the unfair cuts to their program and brought to light the plight of school music programs throughout the state that are in jeopardy.

A study done in 2008 presented findings that school music programs actually help students to excel in their assessment and standardized testing. Score boosts of 22 percent in English and 20 percent in Math were recorded. This should come as no surprise to musicians who have known for years that their ability to focus improves significantly when they practice music regularly. A lot of learning music is memorization and repetition and being able to focus your energies on a task. These are some of the same attributes necessary to excel in academic work.

Celebrity Gossip News

Celebrity Gossip News Has Lost Its Luster for Me.

I used to be the biggest hound for celebrity gossip news. I watched shows like TMZ and Extra on a regular basis, and I loved hearing the latest rumors about various celebrities. I started to realize a few years ago, however, that celebrities are human beings like everyone else, and celebrity gossip news quickly began to lose its appeal for me.

I think it is only natural to want to listen to gossip, and celebrity gossip news is typically pretty juicy. You hear about all of the sordid details of a love affair gone awry or an ugly feud between two celebrities, and it gives you something to talk about with other people and it almost makes you feel privy to something that should be a secret.

The fact of the matter is that it should be a secret, as all of our private lives should be a secret. One of the things you most often hear about is that many of the rumors about celebrities are untrue, but even when that is revealed, many people still associate the celebrity with the rumor, and that person has to live with that forever.
Celebrity gossip news appeals to most people, I think, because we do want to know about people and gossip can either show us that they are regular people like us, or it can knock them off of their pedestal and give them a proper lesson in humility. Either way you look at it, even when the gossip is true, all it does is prove that celebrities, like the rest of us, are human and make mistakes.

One of the greatest analogies about gossip that I have ever heard came from the movie ìDoubt.î Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a priest, and in his sermon, he is telling the story of a young woman that goes to confession and said that she has gossiped about another person, and wants to know if that is a sin.
The old priest tells her that, for her penance, she must go home, get on top of her roof with a pillow, cut it open, and empty all of the feathers from the roof. She does so, and comes back the next to tell the priest she has done what he asked.

The priest then tells her to go and gather up every feather that came from the pillow, and put it back in the case. The girl protests saying that it would be impossible, that the feathers went everywhere and are all over now. There is no way that she can find them all.
And that’s gossip, he old priest tells her.

While celebrity gossip news may be entertaining and intriguing in some cases for us, it is not necessarily a good thing. Our natural fascination with celebrities leads us to want to know more about them, but I think we should all remembers that they are people, too.

College football recruiting

The ugly side of college football recruiting.

It’s almost every young athlete’s dream, getting a full scholarship to a large, division one NCAA football program. It happens to very few of us, though, and the ones who are the best, most athletic, get offers from the best college football programs in the nation. Whether it’s the University of Southern California, or the University of Notre Dame, or the University of Florida, college football recruiting is a big-time business where only the stout of heart and inflated of ego can succeed.

For some, college football recruiting can begin as early as at age thirteen. Take the example of the University of Southern California, one of the great and storied programs in NCAA football history. Their long-time coach, Pete Carroll, left this past offseason to take a job with the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks. The Southern Cal board of governors looks neither long nor hard for his replacement: they settled almost immediately on Tennessee head coach Lane Kiffin. Kiffin, who is a protege of Carroll’s, had an unsuccessful stint as head coach of the Oakland Raiders of the NFL earlier in the decade, but had done decently in his one season as head coach at the university of Tennessee.

Kiffin’s also a world-class blowhard who feels that the most important thing to do as a head coach is raise his own profile and make headlines in the national media. Contrast that to, say, Jim Tressel, the soft spoken (and wildly successful) coach of the Ohio State University, a man who rarely grants interviews, and you can see why so many folks rolled their eyes at Southern Cal’s decision to hire Kiffin.

True to form, Kiffin made an immediate splash when he extended college football recruiting to middle school. Rather than focus on the most talented high school players in the nation, Kiffin actually solicited and received an oral commitment from thirteen year old quarterback David Sills. Even though Sills won’t be college eligible until the 2015 season, and even though high profile high school football is littered with the careers of young phenoms who flamed out before they even reached college.

But such is the world of college football recruiting. Scruples are frowned upon, as is common sense and common decency. Lane Kiffin and the University of Southern California are the embodiment of that right now; of that there can be no doubt.

ABC’s LOST- An Epic Story

A plane crash. Survivors trapped on a mysterious, tropical island. Time travel, mysticism, and mysteries. Plotting, back stabbing and retribution. Such is the background of ABC’s LOST. The phenomenon of a television series hit airwaves in 2004, and has had a cult following ever since. Famous of for its lack of answers, the show lost a good deal of viewers after the initial two seasons, but maintains a devoted following to this day.

ABC’s LOST initially follows the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 after it crashes on an island shrouded in mystery. The group is struggling to survive as they encounter nightly disappearances, polar bears, and a strange monster made of black smoke. As time  goes on, they find a hatch buried into the ground, and find inside a man who was never on their flight. The man’s name is Desmond, and he is pushing a button every eight minutes in order to ìsave the world. Desmond abandons the hatch, leaving the survivors to continue the process.

The show takes a turn at this point in the series. The survivors find a man who claims his name is Henry Gale, but after a little bit of time, they discover that the man is instead Ben Linus, the leader of another group of island inhabitants known as The Others, and they are the ones who were taking people away from the group in the beginning. ABC’s LOST gets crazy when Linus escapes, and the survivors stop pushing the button, causing the hatch to implode in a burst of electromagnetic energy. In the meantime, key group members of the survivors are captured by the Others.

After weeks of beatings and near torture, the captured survivors find out that they are on an entirely separate island, and that these individuals are operating out of the old facilities of a group called The Dharma Initiative. No one is very clear on why the Others are there, but it is revealed that Ben was responsible for killing all of the former Dharma people, and that he feels he is tasked with ìprotecting the island, and is under the direction of a man named Jacob. ABC’s LOST becomes really exciting when a freighter appears off the coast, and the survivors believe they are saved. However, it is quickly revealed that the freighter is not there to save, but destroy them, as their leader is a former leader of the Others who is looking for vengeance.

Fortunately, the helicopter pilot of the freighter  is uneasy with the situation, and despite the freighter itself being blown up, is able to help six of the survivors get off of the Island. Several years after the fact, they still have not told anyone in the world about what actually happened after the plane crash, or that there are other survivors still on the island.  However, ABC’s LOST gets even crazier when another survivor comes back to the world named John Locke, and explains that if they don’t come back to the island, everyone they love there will be killed. Though it takes some coercion, and the death of the messenger, everyone eventually goes back.

During the time that they were gone, the rest of the survivors were enduring some crazy events. After they left, Ben and John had turned an archaic wheel in order to move the island and keep the other survivors safe. However, in the process, they had dislodged the island from time, and the inhabitants found themselves time traveling at a frequent rate, leading to some strange deaths. Locke is eventually able to stop the time traveling, but the island is at that point stuck in the 1970′s, so when the survivors that had left return, they too find themselves out of sync.

The story in ABC’s LOST becomes more and more convoluted, but the best thing you an do is watch it yourself. The story is even more complicated than it seems now, and is more than worth checking out.

Scary New Movies

Scary New Movies that have Been Released in the Past Year.

Nothing beats the feeling of being scared half to death by a fantastically freaky horror picture, especially at the theater surrounded by more freaked out moviegoers. Why is it that we love being frightened? Our hearts race and our pulse quickens and the hair on the back of our heads stands up as the ghoul jumps out from behind our hero. We jump straight up almost out of our chairs when that scary moment comes. Alas, great scary new movies have been hard to come by. Most of the junk that comes out of Hollywood could not frighten a heart transplant patient much less the typical jaded horror movie fan.

In 2009 one movie did come out that struck a nerve with audiences around the world and that was Paranormal Activity. This shocker, which cost very little to make and was mostly shot on high definition video has grossed over $110,000,000 in U.S. box office to date. It just came out on DVD and Blu-Ray and will probably gross another $50 million there in 2010.

Paranormal Activity was directed by first timer Oren Peli, who spent a mere $15 million to get his movie in the can. Starring newbies Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat as a suburban yuppie couple from San Diego that are being terrorized by a demon ghost from hell, this movie starts out pretty slow but builds up to an unforgettably chilling climax. I saw this film at the theaters with a packed house and everyone jumped out of their seat gasping in terror every few minutes or so, especially near the end. Scary new movies just don’t get much better than this and this particular movie not only did well with audiences but with critics alike. If you have not seen it you are missing out.

Another of the new scary movies that came out early in 2009 was Antichrist and it was a stark contrast to Paranormal Activity especially considering all of the hype it received before it opened. The trailers had it pegged as the new Exorcist and boy were they dead wrong.

Made by Danish film maker Lars Von Triers and starring Willem DaFoe and Charlotte Gainsbourgh as a couple that have recently lost their toddler son in a home accident, the film is more of a psychosexual character study and a depiction of a fever dream than any kind of horror story. The problem with this movie is not the movie itself. It is what it is, some sort of art piece with over the top bloodletting and gruesomeness. No, the main problem is how this movie was falsely advertised to the movie going public as one of the scary new movies of the year along the lines of the Grunge or The Ring, neither of which it even remotely resembles.

You need to pay close attention to any claims by studios of scary new movies that are opening soon. One of the freakiest looking of any of the scary new movies coming out soon is ìThe Black Waters at Echoís Pondî. Watch the trailer online and make up your own mind.

Beef Recipes from the Caribbean

When you think of Caribbean cuisine most people think of seafood and bean dishes, not necessarily beef recipes, but especially in Cuba, beef has been a traditional staple of the populace since before the 20th century. In Cuba these days however regular citizens can’t afford beef. A pound of ground beef costs over $20 dollars or the equivalent in Cuban pesos. Taking into consideration that the average Cuban makes less than $30 per month, beef just is not an option for most Cubans unless they work in a dollar restaurant or one of the tourist hotels.

Cuban beef recipes include the ever popular picadillo (pronounced pick-a-dee-yo) which is basically seasoned ground beef. You need to make the seasoning, or sofrito first which consists of fried onions, a little oil, and some garlic. Let the sofrito cool and then add it to one pound of 80% lean ground meat. The ground meat is then mixed with about half a cup of tomato paste or tomato sauce (paste is better). The mixture is then cooked on a skillet for half an hour. Add chopped or sliced green pitted olives at the end and it is ready to serve over plain white rice and accompanied by fried plantains and black bean soup.

Another one of the great tasting Cuban beef recipes is beef empanadas, which are pastries filled with picadillo. These meat filled treats are deep fried until crispy and perfect. Most good Cuban restaurants will also offer beef, ham, chicken, or bacalao (dried smoked cod) croquetas (croquettes). Croquetas are made with finely ground meat or fish filling and spices, then rolled and formed into little Finger shapes, then rolled in egg yolk and finally into bread crumbs. Once they are ready the croquetas are deep fried until golden brown and crispy. Both croquetas and empanadas are really tapas, or appetizers but can also serve as a main dish when accompanied by traditional fried green plantains and some form of rice dish, or black beans.

Cuban beef recipes from the island include the famous ropa vieja, which literally translates as old clothes. This is a dish of shredded skirt steak sauted in a sauce of red bell peppers, onions and tomato sauce. All of these dishes begin with the traditional ìsofritoî and then the meat is mixed in and cooked.

Most Cuban recipes go better with plain white rice and a black bean soup, or potaje (pronounced po-ta-heh). Add some fried sliced sweet or green plantains and you have a great traditional Cuban dish right at home.

Cuban beef recipes go well with mixed rum drinks such as rum and coke with a slice of lime, also known as a Cuba Libre (free Cuba) or the favorite drink of Ernest Hemingway, the Mojito (pronounced mo-hee-to) which is white rum, lime juice, soda, simple syrup, and crushed mint.

If you really want the entire experience you need to put on some spicy Salsa dance music and invite some friends over for a party. They will love the tropical drinks and the delicious Cuban food that you serve.

Bar Business Plan

One popular type of small business that many people like to try out is to open a bar. Bars are usually locally owned, though there are some chains out there. The chains are the exception though. If you want to try a bar as a small business opportunity, you have to come up with a good bar business plan before you go into the bank to try to get some financing. There are many different types of bars out there, so know exactly what you want to do and where you want your business to go before you write up your plan. There is plenty to think about in this direction.

When writing your bar business plan, you have to think about what type of bar you want to open. There are many, many different types, and what you choose will then give you more to think about when filling out your business plan. This will dictate the size of your bar, how many people you hope to have each night, what you want to have for inventory, and also what type of people you are going to have to hire and retain on staff. This will also dictate where you want to open and how many days and nights a week you will be open. Some types of bars do better on particular nights of the week.

If you want to open a bar that is more like a dance club, your bar business plan should reflect this. You want to have a larger space, as you want to have a larger crowd. The more space you have open for dancing, the more people you can draw. You also want to make sure you have a plan for a DJ and also you have to decide if you want to serve food. If so, do you want a restaurant type of setting or a simple bar area for easy foods that do not require a lot of preparation or time to eat.

Another type of bar you may want to open would be a bar that features live music at least a few nights a week. This type of bar has many variables. You have to have enough space. Many bars make the mistake of trying to fit a band into a bar that simply is not big enough, leaving the bands and the people attending frustrated with lack of space. Business will fall off eventually as people will find more comfortable places to go see live bands. You also have to decide how many nights a week you want to have bands and what you will want to do on those other nights to keep attendance up and to keep the bar turning a profit. These are key points in this type of bar business plan.

Lastly, you may want to have a bar that is more upscale and a bit more laid back. This type of bar as a more expensive decor and will be for the patron that may be out to meet someone special but does not like the average bar atmosphere. They also want to avoid loud bands and loud dance music. They may be more into sipping a martini than doing shots of liquor. This type of bar business plan may very well include a fine dining restaurant as well that can help keep profits up and gives the customer an entire night of entertainment rather than just some drinks.

Your Family History

Your Family History Could Reveal Some Interesting Facts.

I had always heard that my family arrived in this country from Ireland right at the turn of the 20th century, and that I was third generation Irish-American. All of that is true, but I recently discovered that I have distant relatives that were in the United States long before my family arrived.
One thing that I quickly discovered is when you research your family history, it can reveal some interesting things that you may have never known.

The biggest thing for me was finding out that one of my ancestors was the rather mediocre but nevertheless well-known U.S. general, Ambrose Burnside. He was a Union general during the American Civil War.
Burnside was the commander during a few successful campaigns in Tennessee and North Carolina, but was routed at the Battle of Fredricksburg by Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. Burnside was actually the commander of the Army of the Potomac, but still lost badly.
He eventually resigned and went on to work in the railroad industry. The thing that he is probably the most noted for was his unusual facial hair at the time, which came to be known as side burns because of him. I am proud to say that I am the proud owner of side burns, though not quite as fluffy as my great-great-great-great grandfather’s.

Studying your family history can be fun for reasons just like this. To learn that I was related to a famous Civil War general was pretty amazing. Now, it would have been even better if I learned that I was descended from Robert E. Lee or Ulysses S. Grant, but you can’t change your family history.

In researching your family history, you sometimes come across things that seem too remarkable to be true. For instance, I learned that a distant cousin of ours was another Civil War figure, P.G.T. Beauregard. He also served as an engineer during the Mexican-American war.
Your family history is something about which you should feel proud. I had always thought that I was exclusively of Irish ancestry and knew a lot about my culture. However, in learning about my family history, I came across a Scottish-American and French-American to whom I am related. It was fascinating to learn.

I would suggest to anyone interested in learning your family history to go online and research it, or speak to some of your older relatives who may know a little bit more about your lineage than you do. It is really amazing to see how your family came to live where it does and who you are descended from, so that you can pass it on to your children.

Outlaw Country Music

Outlaw Country Music is a Different Breed.
In the realm of country music, outlaw country music holds a very distinct and special place. Started in the late 1970′s, this style of country music featured some of the best country artists of all time and the best country music ever performed.
Outlaw country music was started in response to a style of country music called the Nashville sound, which was a bit softer than country had ever been. Such country music artists as Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash were the originators of outlaw country and really made it what it was.

Jennings was the king of outlaw country music for me. He had a number of songs that exemplified the style, including Lonesome, On’ry and Mean and Honky Tonk Heroes, which was a tribute of sorts to the old honky tonk-style country singers like Hank Williams and George Jones.
Outlaw country music is a different breed because nothing before or after sounded quite like it, and it was extremely popular while it lasted, which oddly enough was not very long. It went against the establishment and had a more rugged sound.

One of the interesting things about outlaw country music is that there was a women’s movement during that period that featured such performers as Jessi Colter and Sammi Smith. Jessi Colter was actually Waylon Jennings’ wife, and with him she created the great compilation album called ìWanted! The Outlaws,î which was a huge success.
The outlaw country music movement also spawned a new movement in country music called Texas country music, which has already established legions of loyal followers. Hank Williams III is one of the more notable musicians from that movement.

One of my best friends asked me one time if I thought that outlaw country was better than other types of country music, because he liked more of the pop country style of modern artists. He said that it just seemed to be more listener-friendly style and that it appealed to a much larger listening audience than some of the outlaw country artists.

I told him that was precisely the reason that I prefer outlaw country music. To me, it had more of an authentic feel to it, and when I listened to it, I knew that I was listening to real country music and not a pop song.
I grew up with outlaw country music, idolizing guys like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash. It definitely turned the tide of country music back to what it was supposed to be, in my mind, and featured some of the greatest country musicians of all time. Anyone that wants a good introduction to country music should definitely check it out.