Reviews by charidotes20

"I can't see me loving nobody but you for all my life; when you're with me, the skies are blue, for all my life." ~Happy Together, the Turtles

N.B. (A) There are alot of shows like this, but today I'm doing this one.

N.B. (B) Don't freak out, and don't get guilty on me. Life used to be serious, oh so serious, even close to home, and even on pleasant valley sunday.

Who represents us? Is it the political leaders in the capitol? Soldiers abroad? Local athletes?

All of those guys are somewhere to be sure, but there's also something missing from all that-- the housewife of the home, who for the folk is with her husband, the well, the source, of all things clean and unclean.

Juno-- wife, mother, lady.

Like Heather Dubrow, the sort of lady we might hope for.

I think, based on my experiences, that even most people feeling poorly about the States-- or teenage love songs or whatever the hell it is-- would allow that the Turtles are pretty good. In particular, "Elenore", "You Showed Me", (a song that was originally by the Byrds, but which the Turtles significantly re-worked), and of course, "Happy Together" are good examples of the sort of good quality music that emerged from the 60s, and the depth of talent of that period, since the Turtles were representative rather than totally extraordinary in terms of quality. But that is rather nice too-- it gives you a sense of the flavor of that source of music, and it has a sort of familiarity to it if you like this sort of thing, and there is something unique about the band's ability to be part of the spirit of its time so well.

And not everyone listens, but I think that this is a good example of the sort of thing that they miss who flame everything romantic and cling only and ever to that which drips with gore, or is wrapped up in impenetrable terminology.

And yes, buying the album actually does save real life turtles. Peace, love, nature.

(9/10)

Disney asks us people important questions like, What is a family? and Can you have parents? and such. And this time the answer is clearly No, you cannot exclude anyone from your all-embracing love.

And I must be modest enough to admit that this is good & right, and after all a little humility is good for Emma's character, and keeps her from being a brat. Jane Austen wrote a novel about Emma about a girl who had very little to complain about, and so she would probably agree.

And anyway there's no reason not to like Jessie. Sometimes it's important to let the "new girl on the block" have the same choices as everyone else, walk with her for a little bit and let her have the same impossible decision as everyone else in this little town.

We're a little confused about who your real parents are right now and where they are, but you can have a babysitter and a butler, and a little modern confusion to go along with the butler. And if by the grace of God "it feels like a party everyday", then know that the fairies shine down upon you, and give you peace. Because you can have a party, as long as you have it at school, which has been relocated to your apartment complexion, I mean, house.

And wow, that's difficult.

Who is it difficult for? Well, I'd like to think that it's worst for me somehow but, No-- it's just difficult.

But what I like about Walt best is that he's bipolar like me, So-- the thing is to wear white shoes, black socks, (mine are white), love your pink family, ask yourself how well does love go with intolerance, and good luck Charlie.

(9/10)

"Love is a ruthless game, unless you play it good and right." ~ Taylor Swift

Sofia is so good, it's almost a Guilt Trip to watch. I mean, it's Cinderella 2012, aged 7 or something-- it's so good it's impossible but it's real because it's magic, and it's what you have to believe. It is a guilt trip, though; it's like-- what, you want that? And who are you? (Seth Rogen?)

But I guess that that's why. Why I don't want to hear "Why" by the Byrds and all the songs like it. Why I don't watch Battlestar Galactica anymore and why I don't hang out with Sheldon and the gang anymore and why I had this thing for GIR from Invader Zim but don't even like that anymore so much.

I guess that's why I'll get the "Save the Turtles" album and try not to mind when the other white people try guilt tripping me about the bloody Turtles and end up letting my mom cut my hair to save money so I can go back again and get Seal anyway. And I guess that's why I write like this even though I get voted for 5% of the time and deleted 20% of the time, and why I wrote that review critical about the Mel Gibson movie about Jesus that was a horror movie that they made Danielle watch without her really having a choice and why I'll then go to church with my family and then to the multi-racial one and show up for their events half the time and let them go on suspecting that I'm an unbeliever because I believe in magic, because at least they're not violent like the science fiction movies. (I do bipolar things like that.)

It's all for Sofia. That's why.

And Juno's mercy, let that be enough.

(10/10)

It's so English that youtube had to subtitle it in Spanish, and John himself complained about it in 1971, but it has great music and admirable realism. In 1964 the Beatles are famous, but still living in a world full of stilted sorts and occasionally still held down to black and white by their producers and such, but they have a great way of being with things just because of who they are, and nothing really bad ever happens. It's also an interesting contrast with "Yellow Submarine". And it's a very interesting time-- it's very old-fashioned; very "Mr. Green is so serene he's got a TV in every room". (Pleasant Valley Sunday, The Monkees).

That, and, that it's so English that they had to subtitle it in Spanish. ;)

(9/10)

But comparing is what I do.

So anyway, yesterday I picked up an album that listal doesn't list-- "No me compares" (Don't compare me) by Frankie Negrón; it's a good show. (And the sharp black & white photo on the album cover somehow manages to obscure his complexion.) And so now I can listen to the Monkees, who are only the most best and lo mas anglo Brit-Yank rock band of the age of enlightenment.

The Monkees are a good group; 'your mother should know' about them. Like the Byrds, whose "Turn! Turn! Turn!" song is one of those 60s things that everyone must have heard somewhere, they've seeped into the culture of the land of "Pleasant Valley Sunday" and helped make it a little bit less bizarrely anti-romantic.

Like the Byrds, they were one with nature and not one with their producers, and I suspect that both groups traveled a path of growing artistic elbow-room later on, but with the early stuff being sometimes the better remembered. Though the Byrds were probably the masters of mellow (and Bob Dylan covers) the Monkees especially were groovy goofy. Although not usually offered the same space in the heart as the Beatles or even the Beach Boys, they did bring more heart to the world, and they managed to smile alot in a grey world that would have been easy to give up in, and instead of falling to failure they put out alot of art and music and without any major personal meltdowns or disintegrations, which is itself an achievement.

But anyway, the Monkees are certainly alot more than water under the bridge.

And sometimes, you can still hear "I'm a Believer" by the ocean on summer nights (BB) and pick up a hits album wherever oldies are sold (OG).

(8/10)

N.B. It's actually "Seducción", but listal doesn't list that one.

I guess that this is more or less what happened: in the little town of BB, there's a little shop called "Latino City" with two pretty pictures in the window-- one of Cinderella, Aurora, and Belle, and another one just of Aurora. So one day I popped in and managed to get something that looked like "Para Ti" by Juan Luis Guerra, and for a bargain price too, although honestly all I did was glance at it, and then ask 'how much' in very casual Spanish, without doing anything except glance at the face and wonder a bit. What this probably reveals about me I will leave implied.

Although it is true that you can't tell much about an album from what you have to look at it, except the face, really. (People say not to judge a book by its cover, but I like "Twilight" and its cover-- white and red.)

Anyway, this is what was inside.

I think there are two sides to this. One is that I'm still a fan of One Direction, that pop group from England, and "Get out, get out, get out of my head, and fall into my arms instead" means that I'm probably thinking about Cinderella.... One of my neighbors was throwing away this chair of Cinderella flanked by Aurora and Snow White, so now it's sitting opposite my "Theodore Bear" poster. So, I don't know, 'born this way', I guess.

But it is music, and love-music. It's mellow, I know that much about it, yeah. And it's worth more to me than any particular action movie, regardless of whether it's from Mexico or America, because with the exception of the budget all of that is pretty much the same regardless of either country of origin. (As far as the other side of it, on the one hand at least something must be allowed as to the reality of "universal love"-- so it is the same-- but then I cringe when people comment that the girls "all look the same", no matter whether it is England or Spain, so it is not the same, even though 'I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together'.

So, that's one way of looking at it. (For another answer, you could always have the guy in the suit go ask the little kids, right.)

And I'm not sure I'm going to look up the lyrics, since it didn't come with the right booklet, but, then, I'm not sure I looked up all the lyrics for "Gap var Ginnunga", either. So, I'm not sure what that says about me, other than, I listed Gap var Ginnunga and Sofia the First at about the same time, and then thought, That's so red, right. (Like RHOC or "Yellow" by Coldplay. Or "Red" by Taylor Swift.)

Anyway. About the music, the love-music.

It's something.

P.S. And I'd like to say it's all because I'm accepting, or something, (although there are people from here and there and I just plain happen to not like anything about), but probably half the reason is that my family has a habit of irritating me, so why not just walk in the rain and see what happens.

Anyway, it's something.

(8/10)

TV shows are difficult to catalog. How much have you really seen of "The Big Bang Theory" before you can say you know what it's about? And music can be especially difficult. Incidentally I have an Eric Clapton album, Old Sock, that listal can't seem to find. It's kinda cool. "The Rockies will crumble, Gibraltar will tumble, they're only made of clay, but our love is here to stay." On the other hand, I suppose that the reason why we have the radio and TV shows like this, is that not everyone is English like I sorta am. And there it is-- even if you try to listen to popular music, instead of letting yourself slip into the sometimes painful isolation of the indie, let alone the really obscure Tolkien sort, no matter what you do or who you are if the show is there for Everyone and it's not just an album for you, (albeit maybe played in the vicinity of someone else), then some wide slice of it is that it is and must be a sort of dance on eggshells atop the scales of justice.

Did you ever see that commercial? "And that's how you make everyone happy".

After all, that's the little catch in saying that you "like music". Everybody likes music, but....

I guess you get the idea.

In the end though, it is worth the effort, even though the whole thing of life is maddeningly impossible to get perfectly right.

"Great job, everybody!"

(8/10)

N.B. There are special little rewards in heaven for those of you who can untangle my clever little allusions. ^^ (And, sometimes I write paragraphs out of order, if you can pull something out of that.... Or, shove something into it, I guess.)

{If you want really specific song-by-song blow-by-blow, skip to the end.}

There are a lot of different kinds of music, but I'm starting to think that this is the best one. Not "pop" exactly-- I can tell that this is pop, but I can't explain why it's not rock-- but, love. Love. Love music.

{And I'm still not sure about some things sometimes-- how do you decide how good something is. Is "Fifth Dimension" better than "Turn! Turn! Turn!" and "Mr. Tambourine Man"? Yes..... no.... Ah.... Is "Walls and Bridges" better than "Mind Games"? What about "Cloud Nine"? (Incidentally, "Cloud Nine" is a great soft rock piece. Lennon's stuff usually is, too.)

But I do know that this is a superb piece of art, and I'm more sure of that, than that "Led Zeppelin III" is better than "Led Zeppelin" & "Led Zeppelin II". (Incidentally, Led Zeppelin is like soft metal or something. "Immigrant Song", but, most of their stuff is more like "Since I've Been Loving You", which I must allow is practically perfect.).... Although "Immigrant Song" does remind me, sure, of "Primordial" or one of the Viking bands-- metal because it's hard, and harder than rock, which is like, rocking back and forth to dance, or else.... a garden rock, kinda hard and rock-y, but also.... garden-y? ANYWAY.)}

And, also, if they are a tiny bit like the Liverpool band-- okay, I just gave you half of the clever allusion, see it now?-- because they are as popular as the Beatles now, seems like, and it's good that *somebody* is, if you know what I mean.... and, it's like, every song is a "Paul" song, it's not even like George and Cloud Nine and everything, it's *pure* romance, until it hurts, almost, the feelings are *there*..... and, "Little Things" for example, it's just *so*..... Good. Not bad, but, rather, good.

{Remember that line from the White Album, ("While My Guitar Gently Weeps", I think), "I look at the world and I notice that it's turning".... and how that's the little bit of good, right..... well, that would be 1D, right....}

And they're *just* like the Beach Boys, you know. They just kinda are. It's there. It's like that.....

Actually, the only big difference, I think, is that One Direction has this louder sound, and the Beach Boys are kinda laid back, kinda chill. It's very similar, though. There's just something about it....

Like, "Sounds of Summer", a (well done) Beach Boys compilation album I have, which I played in the morning today, before I went to school, and then, after school and when my mom was out of the house, I popped in "Take Me Home". There's something similar about it, though. (Maybe they're not as much like the Beach Boys as the Monkees, but, it's still pretty close, I find.)

Anyway. Time to add some song-specific stuff, so that this doesn't get deleted for relevancy or something.

"Live While We're Young" is a great single; it's exactly what a single and a lead track should be. Incidentally, maybe, it's what makes it almost difficult, at times. It's so *hard* to be, "22", if you will. It's worth it, though. The song, I mean.

"Kiss You" is a sorta smooth transition from "Live While We're Young"; you could almost mis-label the one as the other. Maybe. Anyway, this is the one where the actual phrase "take me home" crops up. It's an interesting phrase, in itself. Not least because it has at least two sides. What do you mean, quote, Take me home, close-quote. Take you home.... to kiss you? Or, take me home, I'm done with this now.

"Little Things". Is. Something. ("Something", lol.) (And they are like the Liverpool guys re-incarnated as Beach Boys, I think sometimes....) I mean, as far as virtuous love goes, really, really virtuous love goes, I can only compare it to "Anna (Go To Him)"-- that's all that comes to mind. Really. And it's funny, because it's a very modern song. Five years ago, even, we would not have had it like this. "Anna" is a very oldies kind of song, and "Little Things" is a very modern song, but they're both.... I don't know. Virtuous. It's like the working-class ethic in "Since I've Been Loving You"-- how can you escape it, something so obvious? It's just there. Also kinda interesting, something in this, 'Summer Love', maybe, has that word/phrase "(my girl-love is) mine"-- "you were mine"-- which I thought was banned or something, but I'm glad, now, if it isn't, because you can't ban stuff like that, 'cause it ain't right.

"C'mon, C'mon"-- the implied story-line of "the one I came with, she had to go" being the one who didn't like the "little things" slipping out of his mouth-- it's actually a very healthy sort of song, and even *more* comforting, really, than the phrase, at least, "born this way": "but if I do, if I do, (let the little things out on the table, so to speak), it's you, it's you, that they add up to"....... It's even more, really, than just the girls and the very modern stuff-- it just helps. It's me, it's me, that they add up to. Okay, cool. Even when I'm a little freaky-- those little things, it's me, it's me, *that they add up to*. But anyway yeah, "C'mon, C'mon" is a little hilarious with the implied story-line.

"Last First Kiss"-- the use of the "last" and "first" and such in this song is clever. Also, it's amazing to me as a young person, (male youngling, specifically), how much young people stress about.... everything? The entire rest of our lives, for example? (You're right, I should decide now that....) Middle-aged people call us babies-- 22, you're a baby, 24, (me), even.... and then, there are these people, 20, *17*.... 15, wow, numbers go that little.... and, even *I* know that that's young, but, here we are, worrying about our grand-kids when we're unmarried (undivorced) single..... "Will you still feed me, will you still need me, when I'm sixty-four", right. We are insane.

"Heart Attack"-- this could happen to you. I don't know. What am I supposed to write about every single....

"Rock Me"-- rock it, rock on-- just rocking, you know. I don't know. I see how they're obviously pop, (I read somewhere that McCartney started it, with "McCartney", but, I have no idea myself), but, they could be rock, you know. I mean, they're popular, sure. But, they're rockin'. They're rocking back and forth, dancing, and doing rock and roll..... And, it's like a rock, right. Rocks are like these little things. Right. They're hard and stuff. But they rock. And you want to rock. And when a girl says..... "Rock Me"....

"Change My Mind"-- Ironically.

"I Would"-- This is a great song if you want virtuous love, I mean, if you want someone to kill you. Killing is so bad. And, yet, so prevalent in our world today. So bad, though. We need more martyrs for love. This song can help you with that. Fair warning. But, then, nothing is fair.

"Over Again"-- This has happened many times before; it has happened before and it will happen again, but, this time it happened in London, *again*. Damn it, what about America! Sorry.

"Back for You"-- I need to listen to the entire album over again so that I remember each and every track.

"They Don't Know About Us"-- they might not even care, sadly enough.

"Summer Love"-- Tragic, almost. Something like that. Sorrowful. Not as much of that with the Beach Boys-- "she'll have fun fun fun until her daddy takes her T-Bird away"-- but, I don't know.

They earned it.

(10/10)

The thing with Wendy and Tinker Bell is priceless. It's like Cinderella only with boys, lol. *Good* boys.

(10/10)