My Kids’ Family

Let me start by saying that generally, I hate covers. When someone or some group records a song, that should be it. Leave it alone. I understand that there is some flattery in covering someone else’s song, but maybe spend more time on getting your own stuff together and we wont have to listen to Fran Sinatra singing “Yesterday.”

The Beatles may be the most covered group in history. For sure, “Yesterday” holds the record for the most covered song. There are only a handful of good covers of Beatles tunes, and a whole bunch of them can be found in the movie “Across The Universe.” I love this movie, and perhaps some day I will post something about it. In the meantime, my song today comes from the “Across The Universe” soundtrack.

There are a few songs on this album that I feel are as good as or even better to the Beatles version. One in particular that I would not say is better for as good is “Let it Be.” In the movie the song is sung by a gospel choir at a funeral in Detroit. After hearing the song as a gospel song, I thought to myself “why didn’t Paul think of that?” And that is saying something.

Anyway, here is the full scene from the movie.

Enjoy!

mkm and I are big fans of the Theater. BK (before kids) we used to go fairly often. Now it is a very rare thing to get to the theater (except that we have a subscription to a local regional theater). There are many musicals that I am fond of. I never really rank one over another because they all are great in different ways, but if I had to pick a sort of granddaddy of my favorite shows, it will be Les Miserables.

I have seen this show about 5 times in different productions. The first time I saw it I was just blown away by the story (I then read the book), the music and the production. I highly recommend this show to everyone, and if you have not seen it, then do so some day.

When the show hit its tenth year the producers did a few special things. There was a major concert performance in London, but they also produced a 3 CD set called “Les Miserables: The Complete Symphonic Recording.” Different from any of the previous recordings, these CDs were a recording of the entire production, rather than just the big songs. It was created in an interesting way as well. The producers chose different actors from different productions around the world who they felt were the best voices for the parts. They then had the London Symphony Orchestra record all the music and then had the different actors record their voices (sometimes by themselves). The most interesting actor to appear is the Eponine who was in the Japanese production and she spoke no English!

The Valjean they chose was Gary Morris who played the part on Broadway briefly. Here is his recording of “Bring Him Home.”

I’ll admit it. I’m hooked! We love Dancing with the Stars. I did not watch the first few seasons, and last year we tuned in at the end of the season, but this year mkm and I are totally hooked.

Last night was a lot of fun, and I will make the prediction here and now (lets all see if I am right). Kristi Yamaguchi is going to win this season. She may have an edge over the rest because skating (a major favorite of mkm) has taught her how to move and how to use her body in a similar way. It is possible that someone else can win, but I am picking her now. I think Marlee Matlin and Priscilla Presley will also be in the competition for a while too. On the mens side I think the last three men standing will be Mario, Steve Guttenberg and Jason Taylor.

As for those to leave soon, I the first two guys to go will be Penn Gillette and Adam Carolla and the first two women Monica Seles and Shannon Elizabeth. The only reason Shannon might stay longer is because she will get popular votes because she is so beautiful.

Tune in tonight to see if I am right!

I am very late in writing and time is limited. I need to choose a song only because it is fun and a good beat. The Ballad of John and Yoko is a very interesting song and you can read about it at wikipedia.

Enjoy!

Avi had a very difficult day on Saturday.  We went to Synagogue like we do every Saturday morning.  Usually Avi, Shayna and I go earlier and mkm and Noam come a bit later.  Our Synagogue has a lot of age appropriate programs for kids on Saturday morning as we have a lot of young families, but Avi has never really wanted to go.  We have learned to let him be in this case, and generally he either sits with me in services, or he just plays by himself nicely (or sometimes not so nicely) in the hallyway.  This time, though, he had brought a ball with him and at some point started throwing it around and he hit a couple of people.

In the end, as soon as mkm got there, I had to take Avi home.  I think it was the first time I had to take him home from Synagogue, but it does remind us that the medication is not a cure-all.  It helps him to focus and cope better, but it does not make him a different person.

From now on, I cannot leave him unsupervised no matter what I or mkm have to give up and we will have to work with this for now.

Sunday came along, and here was a totally different Avi.  We were back at our Synagogue for our Purim Carnival.  Unfortunately due to the fire last year, the carnival was in a different room from usual and Avi did not want to go downstairs to the room.  So he stayed upstairs helping different people doing some things in the Synagogue.  He was such a good boy and in no way resembled the Avi from Saturday.

We just have to take it day by day and hope that the good days outnumber the difficult ones.

“Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day.” Well, I don’t know about that, but I am not a huge fan of Mondays. I mean, who is? You would think after a nice relaxing weekend, you could wake up refreshed and ready to go, but who has nice relaxing weekends? (At least who with three little kids!).

Perhaps that is why I like the lyric. It many not be exactly what John Phillips was thinking of, but all the same, I do love the song, and the group. The Mamas and the Papas were an amazing group, and most of that is due to the beautiful harmonies and skillful arrangements that John was able put together.

Here is a video of Monday, Monday and California Dreamin.