In Laurie's Brain...: Beatles

Showing posts with label Beatles. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Why...

...does Ringo turning 70 make ME feel old?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RINGO!

Sunday, February 07, 2010

The Beatles approve of my new job and a note to human resources

As some of you know, I have a weird cosmic connection to the Beatles. (Click on the keyword "Beatles" at the bottom of this post to read more.)

When I started my car last week as I was leaving home to go fill out paperwork for my new job, "Silly Love Songs" was playing on the radio. Granted that's only one Beatle and it's Wings, but I still thought it was a good sign. When I pulled into the company parking lot twenty minutes later, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" started playing. That's Beatles with a capital "B."

For the curious among you, I haven't actually started my new job, because there are training courses and screenings and such that need to be completed. I should be back to being a productive member of society soon.

Note to Human Resources folks:
For all of you folks working in human resources departments out there, I know you're aware that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Please remember to also not judge a book by its page count.

Speaking for the over-50 year old work force and the unfortunately unemployed, we are experienced, we are reliable and we are eternally grateful for every opportunity we are given.

Although we have a few more gray hairs and wrinkles than we had thirty years ago, inside we're the same person we were back in the '70s except that we have a little more wisdom, a tougher shell and no longer sweat the small stuff.

Thanks for reading the whole book.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

BEATLES!!

I've told you about my weird Beatles connections before (click on the "Beatles" label below), and here is another mini story.

I ordered "The Beatles Rockband" from Amazon when I ordered some other stuff a few weeks ago. So, I couldn't just run out to Best Buy and buy my copy 9/9/09. I had to wait.

I've been tracking my package since Wednesday and my son and daughter-in-law were hoping it would be in today, so we can have a Beatles night this evening after I sit with dad this afternoon. Since the game hadn't arrived as of Friday, I told them I would come home after going to the hospital to check my mail, again, before going to their house.

About ten minutes ago, I thought, "I'm going check the mailbox, just in case." Number one, it was raining, but that didn't stop me from walking to the mailboxes which are at the end of my block and number two, the mail doesn't usually come this early.

When I got toward the end of my block, lo and behold the mail truck was parked at the mailboxes. And inside, hot off the mail truck...

(Please ignore the zit in the middle of my forehead.)

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Dad Update and Information Blog Post

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Dad Update and a Weird Beatles-ish blog post

Dad Update
Dad is still in the hospital in Houston. He ran a temperature of 101 this afternoon which I say is a good thing, because his temperature was normal all morning and we don't want him coming home until they figure out what is causing the fever. Dad agrees. The doctors agree. We all agree. Mom said the room he is in this time has a more comfortable "bed" for her and an HD television. I guess after you spend so much time there, you get a room upgrade. (That's not true...the upgrade part...by the way. That's just "in Laurie's brain.")

The Weird Beatles-ish Blog Post
A few months back, I did a blog post about the fact that I cashed in all the coins I had been saving and ended up with $184.31. By putting all that money on an Amazon.com gift card at the CoinStar machine, I avoided any fees which are usually about 8 percent.

So, tonight I finally went Amazon shopping and Happy Birthday to Me shopping. I put some things in my cart and wasn't really paying attention to the cost and was going to delete whatever was over the $184-ish amount.

I put this in the cart because I heard it on NPR the other night and thought it was cool...

I put this in my cart because I know I'll never spend $100 on something so frivolous unless it's for my birthday or from "free money" like coins that had been sitting in my closet for five years...and it was on sale...

I put this in my cart because I...MUST...OWN...IT...

The Weird Part
I've done previous posts about my weird connection with Beatles things. (Click here and here.) Several years ago, Cory and Jamie bought me a book about The Beatles that I've never gotten around to reading. Two days ago, I picked up the book to start reading it. One day ago, VH1 Classics had a Beatles Day in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of taking of the picture for the Abbey Road album cover.

Tonight I set out to spend $184.31.

Want to know what my completely random total was for the three items in my cart?

$183.47.

Pretty darn close.

Weird.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

The Beatles Christmas

Click here for a fabulous post over at The Wreckroom about The Beatles Christmas record releases.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

E-eee-ville Woman

I'm such an evil woman. When I go shopping, I get irritated when there is nobody else on the aisle I'm walking down except for one person and they're standing right in front of the very thing I'm shopping for. They're standing there like a stone reading every label and turning boxes over and over and over in their dirty little hands.

When I went to shop for my new camera/microphone for my PC, there was a woman standing right in front of the webcams at Best Buy. I could tell by looking at her that she was going nowhere fast. Since I had no idea what I wanted, I couldn't just reach around her and grab one and run like I would do for toilet paper or eggs. So, I walked up to the cams and kind of scrunched near her so as to make her uncomfortable enough for her to pick her damn camera already and get the hell out of my way.

Here's where the evil begins. I knew the girl. Not only did I know her, she is one of the sweetest, nicest people I know. You want to know why she was buying a webcam? Go ahead. Ask me. Her dad, who lives in Indiana, had a stroke at Christmas time. The family thought they could help in his rehabilitation if he could see them when they were talking to him whenever they would call. I wanted a webcam to sing bad Beatles karaoke and this sweet girl and her whole family needed a webcam to speak to her disabled dad who lives hundreds of miles away.

I am scum. However, if you are standing in front of the Charmin, I will squeeze uncomfortably close to you so you will get the hell out of my way. Same goes for the eggs.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Ringo Starr on Ray Wylie Hubbard

Ringo Starr talks about Ray Wylie Hubbard's Snake Farm CD. (Click here.)

While you're buying Ray's Snake Farm CD (you are, aren't you?), you should also buy Live at Cibolo Creek Country Club. It has lots of his onstage joking and story telling on it and track number 9 (Wanna Rock and Roll/Folsom Prison Blues) is worth twice the cost of the CD.

Did I mention that Ray Wylie Hubbard is going to be at the Stingaree Music Festival? Yeah, I probably did.

While I'm spending your money, you should also buy The Beatles Love which Ringo also mentions in his little video. This is the stage show soundtrack to Cirque de Soleil's Las Vegas show of the same name.

A friend of mine at the office was actually fortunate enough to see this show and she said it was amazing. The Beatles and Cirque de Soleil together? It had to be fantastic. She brought the CD to the office so I could listen to it and I loved it.

I think I'll be spending my Best Buy Christmas gift card and mom and dad Christmas gift money today. Let's see: tax software, The Beatles Love CD, karioke machine and karioke CDs, DVD/DVR/VHS recorder. Ew, I might be a little over.

Merry Christmas, to me!!!

Monday, December 18, 2006

My First Crush

That's Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits. I even still remember his whole name: Peter Blair Dennis Bernard Noone and he had the most beautiful blue eyes. He was my first crush and also my first rock and roll album purchase. Next came 45's (children, ask your parents) of the Beatles, Rolling Stones and the Supremes. The rest is music trivia history in my poor overcrowded brain.

Hey, I was only 9. If I had any snap at that point, I would have fallen in love with Bob Dylan's words. I repeat...I was only 9.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Want to hear something weird...again?

This is the sequence of events that happened to me when I returned from lunch today:

The song Superstar (The Carpenters) was playing on my XM.
Out of the blue, I decided to check out Local Music Guide to see what was going on in Beaumont this weekend.
I saw that Leon Russell is playing at Cactus Canyon tonight. I thought he was playing 3/9.
I e-mailed my sister Terry at EXACTLY the same moment she was sending me an e-mail about Leon Russell playing tonight instead of 3/9.
I sent an e-mail to a friend who replied by saying “Should I know who Leon Russell is?”
While looking up Leon's bio for my friend who shall remain nameless because he should be embarrassed that he didn't know who Leon Russell is, I found out Leon Russell wrote Superstar.
Leon Russell has many Beatles connections. See this earlier post and this other earlier post for my other recent weird Beatles coincidences.

So, off I go to see Leon Russell tonight when I thought I was just going to be laying on the couch. How's that for a kick in the head?

Monday, January 30, 2006

Penny Lane Very Strange - Part 2

Last month, I did a post questioning the nature of reality and consciousness. A couple of weeks ago, I did another post about some strange coincidences that have happened to me in the last couple of months. Most of those coincidences were in some way related to The Beatles.

As I mentioned before, my son and daughter-in-law gave me a copy of The Beatles The Biography by Bob Spitz for Christmas. I have the book on my nightstand. This morning as I was getting ready for work I thought, "Okay, if someone is trying to tell me something through this book, lets see what it might be."

I picked up the book, opened it to a random page (page 564 to be exact) and, I swear to you, this is what I saw:

Chapter 28

Into the Cosmic Consciousness

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Penny Lane is in My Ears and in My Eyes...Very Strange

Sometimes several coincidences occur in my life that make me stop and wonder what the meaning might be. Most of the time, I can't find a meaning and this is one of those times.

When I was about 12 years old, my mom’s step-sister and her son lived in a duplex in Beaumont. The people who lived next door had a daughter named Penny. I remember her name because, that summer, Penny Lane was a big Beatles hit. I also remember that she loved the Cowsills which I found odd. I never knew anyone who was obsessed with the Cowsills.

Many years later, I got a job in Beaumont and the building I worked in was in the same neighborhood where I remembered my aunt and Penny’s houses to be. I always wondered if I could find those two houses. I knew I would recognize them because my aunt’s house was a brick duplex and Penny’s house was a wood frame house with a little porch on the side facing my aunt’s house.

Several months ago, after working in this building off and on for the last twenty years, I was looking out of my fifth floor window and it hit me like a bolt of lightning. There were the houses. I had a direct view of them from my office window. I had always thought the houses were on Liberty or Laurel when they were actually on Broadway. I've had this office with this view for about three years and never noticed the houses until sometime late last summer.

When I got back to work after the evacuation for Hurricane Rita, I saw that a tree had fallen through the roof of Penny’s house. Sometime around Christmas, I watched as they finally hauled the tree away and this week they removed the blue tarp and repaired the roof.

Along with my revelation last summer that the houses were right outside my window, here are the other coincidences which really started piling up this week into one surreal moment:

For my birthday last September, my sister found an old Beatles poster we used to have hanging in our bedroom when we were teenagers and she had it framed and gave it to me as my birthday present.
For Christmas, Cory and Jamie gave me the two DVD set of the Concert for Bangladesh. I had been looking for it for years and I didn’t even know it had finally been released and Cory didn't know I had been looking for it.
Cory and Jamie also gave me the new Beatles biography for Christmas and this week I read a passage about Penny Lane (the actual street in Liverpool, not the song).
That same night, my cousin Zina sent me an e-mail telling me that one of the Cowsills died in New Orleans sometime during Hurricane Katrina and his body was found this week.
The next day, after reading the passage about Penny Lane, I came to work and as I watched the workers patch the roof, the song Penny Lane played on my satellite radio, which I had bought for myself for Christmas.

Penny Lane playing on the radio, as I watched the men work on the roof of Penny's house, after reading about Penny Lane the night before, was strange enough, but then I suddenly remembered Penny's fascination with the Cowsills. When I had received the e-mail the day before from my cousin, I hadn't thought of Penny. I was only thinking that it was another sad story from New Orleans.

Weird.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

In Laurie's Brain - When was the last time you...

Hopped on one foot?
Sat in the grass and made a clover necklace or looked for a four leaf clover?
Rode a bike at top speed standing up while riding someone on the back?
Walked barefoot on a hot asphalt street?
Rode in your car with the windows down without the radio on and just listened to the sounds of the city (or country or beach)?
Stuck your arm out the car window while driving down the highway and let the wind whip it back and forth?
Passed by a kid’s soccer game or baseball game or football game and stopped to watch even though you didn’t know any of the kids?
Walked down the toy aisle at the grocery store and looked at the toys?
Walked down the cereal aisle at the grocery store and bought the cereal with the best prize?
Ate that cereal while watching Saturday morning television?
Played jacks?
Played Red Rover or Swing the Statue or Hide-n-Seek or threw a ball over a house to someone on the other side of the house?
Went on vacation with someone and let them plan the whole thing and get up every morning while on that vacation and just go with the flow?
Read a Dr. Seuss book or a Mad Magazine?
Woke up, brushed your hair, brushed your teeth, put on the first thing you grabbed out of your closet and ran out to meet your friends and didn’t give a second thought to what you looked like?
Sat and watched a lizard?
Played on a see-saw or slid down a slide or tried to see how high you could swing…while singing Beatles songs at the top of your voice?
Chased boys?
Played office or doctor or Man from U.N.C.L.E. or Murder in the Dark?
Played Candyland or Mr. Potato Head or Cootie or Hi Ho Cherrios?
Tried to talk your friends into starting a garage band?
Said Wait Up or Groovy?
Wrote some guy’s name over and over again in big bubble letters or wrote your first name with his last name?
Passed someone a note when you shouldn't be passing notes?
Pierced someone’s ears with ice cubes, a cork and a really big needle?
Had a slumber party and watched movies that made everyone scream and movies that made everyone cry?
Rode past a guy’s house that you had a crush on?
Thought about Jacques Cousteau or Carl Sagan or Wild Kingdom?
Saw your neighbors playing driveway basketball and joined them?
Did a somersault or stood on your head?

To be continued.

By Laurie Ransonette Anderson

Monday, May 09, 2005

Robert Plant on David Letterman

I planned to be in bed long ago but when I heard Robert Plant was going to be on Letterman, I had to stay up.

I think it's impossible to compare rock groups and I could never pick a favorite between The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, though people are always asking each other those sorts of questions. It would be like trying to compare REM to Nirvana to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It can't be done. All that being said, I lean ever so slightly toward Led Zeppelin if I were forced to pick between them and the Stones and the Beatles.

I'm still awake 30 minutes after Letterman ended because I'm a little depressed. When did Robert Plant start looking like Gene Wilder? I don't know if watching my DVD of The Song Remains the Same will make me feel better or worse.

To quote D'yer M'ker: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh...

Thursday, February 03, 2005

Music Poll

My newest blogging friend, Donna, who used to work on the Tonight Show, by the way, and has some great stories over at her blog, tagged me to do this musically oriented thingy. Here goes:

Music Poll:

1. Song that sounds like happy feels:
I'm Walking on Sunshine

2. Earliest musical memory:
We had these little plastic records of different colors which were mostly Disney and we also had some records that had picture books with them and you would turn the pages as you listened to the records. We had a little portable record player. We were so cool.

My first pop music purchase was a 45 of the Rolling Stones Get Off of My Cloud and I remember singing Beatles songs on the playground in second grade with my friends.

My first musician crush was on Peter Blair Dennis Bernard Noone (Herman's Hermits), then Bobby Sherman, then David Cassidy.

3. Last CD you bought:
I bought four: Cher, Jason Mraz, Coldplay and Maroon 5.

4. Reminds you of school:

Elementary
Beatles (see above)

High School
Allman Brothers

College
I went to college way later, after my divorce. That was the mid-80's and I was frequenting the country bars. So it would have to be George Strait.

5. Total music files on your PC:
I had about 500 music files and accidentally deleted all of them when I got rid of Kazaa. Now I have about 5 but at least I came by them honestly. I paid my $1 per song, by God.

6. Song for listening to repeatedly when depressed:
You can't beat country for that. I'll go with anything Patsy Cline or Hank Williams.

7. Song that sounds British, but isn't:
I'll have to think about this one. Moving on...

8. Song you love, band you hate:
Abracadabra (Steve Miller Band)

9. A favorite song from the past that took ages to track down:
From a Castle Kicker to a Braid Puller to a Heart Breaker (We had a girl band in elementary school and we played this record over and over and memorized every word. I have no idea who sang it and I still haven't found it.)

10. Bought the album for one good song:
Fever In Fever Out (Lucious Jackson)

11. Worst Song to Get Stuck in your Head:
Well, now I have that damn Castle Kicker song in my head so I can't think of anything else.

12. Best song to dump a beer on someone's head to, then storm out of the bar?
Don't Ask Her on A Straight Tequila Night (John Anderson)

13. Who should do this next?
Lorna

Lauren

Astrid

Jen

Sunday, January 30, 2005

Chris LeBlanc Band

Last night Terry and Dan and I went to Antone's and saw Chris LeBlanc. By the way, that's pronounced la-blon here in Southeast Texas. We Cajuns don't take offense that Matt LeBlanc insists on unsilencing the C out there in California. However, if you you call a LeBlanc la-blank in Louisiana or Southeast Texas, you're on your own and you can't say I didn't warn you.

Chris and his band play original music and outstanding covers of Beatles (Let It Be, Back in the USSR), Hendrix, Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Elton John (Rocket Man), Inxs and Creedence to name a few. However, I don't want to give the impression that they are a simple cover band. Chris' outstanding guitar playing and singing make their versions individual masterpieces which stand on their own.

I leave you with the lyrics to Simple Man which Chris sang amazingly last night and the words of which have been running through my head all morning. I hope I'm not violating any copyrights by doing this but if I am, you are all accomplices. Have a nice day and see you in court.

Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd
(gary rossington - ronnie vanzant)

Mama told me when I was young
Come sit beside me, my only son
And listen closely to what I say.
And if you do this
It will help you some sunny day.

Take your time... don’t live too fast,
Troubles will come and they will pass.
Go find a woman and you’ll find love,
And don’t forget son,
There is someone up above.

And be a simple kind of man.
Be something you love and understand.
Be a simple kind of man.
Won’t you do this for me son,
If you can?

Forget your lust for the rich man’s gold
All that you need is in your soul,
And you can do this if you try.
All that I want for you my son,
Is to be satisfied.

Boy, don’t you worry... you’ll find yourself.
Follow you heart and nothing else.
And you can do this if you try.
All I want for you my son,
Is to be satisfied.