Songs of the Day: Maria

These two songs, both involving a girl named Maria, seem to go together (at least in my mind).  Strangely enough, in neither case am I referring to the song from "West Side Story".

The first is "My Maria".  This song was later covered by Brooks and Dunn, but the version I prefer is the original by B.W. Stevenson, a top ten hit in 1973.




The next song is "Take a Letter Maria" by R.B. Greaves.  This song went all the way to #2 in 1969. If his voice sounds familiar, it probably because he is a nephew of Sam Cooke.

Fave Movies: "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers"

One of the movies I remember watching as a tween, before I could really understand and appreciate the nuances, is "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" starrring Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin and introducing (in his first role) Kirk Douglas.

The film is a very noir-ish tale of three children: Martha Ivers, the child of one of Iverstown's leading families; Sam Masterson, the daring and adventurous boy/friend and Walter O'Neill, a weak boy with a scheming father.  

The story begins with Martha and Sam running away in the town train yard.  They plan to ride a boxcar out of town but are caught.  Martha is taken home to her domineering aunt, but Sam runs away.  Martha has a fight with her aunt and makes it clear that she intends to keep running away from her and her controlling ways.  Walter is brought to the house by his father, who intends to see that his boy gets as much credit as possible for tipping the police to Martha and Sam's whereabouts and their plans.  To his delight, Mrs. Ivers promises to reward the boy, but the reward turns out to be a piece of cake, with some ice cream added as an afterthought.

Walter and Martha go to her room while the adults talk in the parlor.  Sam shows up outside of Martha's window.  Martha wants to go away with Sam that night, but he tells her it is best if she stays.  Meanwhile Martha's kitten runs down the stairs.  She starts after it but Sam goes instead.  Hearing Martha stage whisper to Sam, her aunt starts upstairs to investigate.  Frightened by the kitten and enraged, she begins to beat at it with her cane.  Martha and Walter see this and Marta moves to stop her.  She takes the cane and hits her aunt, causing her to fall down the stairs.  Walter's father rushes to her and declares her dead.  

After calling the police, Walter's father coaches the children on what to tell the police.  Martha and Walter have already decided to say that a strange man entered the house and attacked her aunt.  That story becomes their secret.

Eighteen years later, Sam Masterson returns to Iverstown by chance.  He has travelled, fought overseas in the war and makes his living by gambling.  He is surprised to find that not only is little Walter O'Neill the District Attorney, his wife is none other than Martha Ivers.  Sam meets a girl, Toni Marachek, a girl with a secret of her own.  They form a bond and plan to leave town together the next day.  

Sam is awakened the next morning by two detectives.  They tell him that Toni was on parole and one of the stipulations was that she leave Iverstown the night before.  Since she did not, she was arrested.  Sam decides to look up his old friend the District Attorney and pull some strings.  Walter is shaken by the sudden appearance of Sam, but plays it cool.  Martha stops by the office and all three see each other for the first time in eighteen years.  Afterward Walter is convinced that Sam has come to town to blackmail them for all he can get, using the truth of Mrs. Ivers' death as leverage.  He decides to do a background check and, for good measure, he decides to use Toni to set Sam up.  Here is the scene where Sam is run out of town:

Sam returns to town, determined to get Walter. 

"The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" is a minor noir film, with some plot holes, but overall a very enjoyable movie.  It has a great atmosphere and a very good performance from Van Heflin as the world weary gambler.  There are a lot of great character actors who appear in it, particularly John Kellogg, who plays "Joe" the private detective who pretends to be Toni's husband.  Toni is played by Lizabeth Scott.

Scott was, at this time, being marketed as the poor man's Lauren Bacall.  A few years later she was involved in a scandal involving one of Hollywood's more notorious gossip magazines.  They featured her in a story and hinted at her "deviant sexual behavior", 40's code for being a lesbian.  This almost derailed her career, particularly since it was true.  She had a few more good roles, most notably as the wily promoter in Elvis Presley's "Loving You" in 1957. 

Van Heflin went on to have a solid career in Hollywood with his biggest roles being the farmer Starrett in "Shane", Major Huxley in "Battle Cry" and the reluctant deputy in the original "3:10 to Yuma".

Barbara Stanwyck was already an established star and of course Kirk Douglas went on to become one of the greatest stars of all time, really hitting his stride in the 50's with such roles as "Young Man with a Horn", "The Bad and the Beautiful", "Lust for Life", "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (with Burt Lancaster)", "Paths of Glory" and "Spartacus".   

Songs of the Day: Paul Davis

There are some songs you always heard on the radio; never huge smash hits, but popular all the same.  The artist was perhaps obscure or nondescript.  Paul Davis was one of those artists for the longest time in my mind.

Paul Davis was a country/pop singer and songwriter.  In the late 70's and early 80's he had a string of pop hits: "Sweet Life", "I Go Crazy" and " '65 Love Affair".  I did not really think about him much until "I Go Crazy" was featured on Barry Manilow's "Summer of '78" album.  Then I looked into his career.  The most surprising thing was his appearance.  Here was a guy who wrote these 70's pop ballads, then the upbeat nostalgic " '65 Love Affair", and he looked like he belonged in Skynrd or the Allman Brothers band. 

After his most successful period, Davis retreated from the limelight.  He died in 2008 of a heart attack, just after turning 60.  Here are his biggest hits:

"I Go Crazy" with an intro by Rick Nelson


"Cool Night"


'65 Love Affair (set to scenes from "Sin City")

The Man (and Woman) Trap

One of the episodes of the original "Star Trek" was entitled "The Man Trap".  In it a shape shifting alien that craved salt appeared in the form of a woman named Nancy Crater.  This alien could kill men by touching them and draining their bodies of the sodium they needed to survive.

In the 21st century, we have a monster in our midst that kills us by adding to the sodium in our bodies.  Here is it's hideous form:

 

While the government, the booksellers and the American public have declared wholesale war on fat, carbs and calories, little attention is paid to the incredible amount of sodium in our foods.  Here are a few examples:

• A Burger King cheeseburger with a small order of fries has 1,360 milligrams of sodium: the equivalent of five Big Grab bags of Lay's potato chips!
• A large order of mozzarella sticks from Arbys contains 2,047mgs of sodium: the equivalent of 450 Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers!
• A grilled stuft beef burrito from Taco Bell contains 2,120mgs of sodium: the equivalent of 20 cups of buttered popcorn!
• Subway's footlong Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki contains 2,290mgs of sodium: the equivalent of six beef hotdogs!  Bonus: the Sweet Onion sauce has the sugar equivalent of four peanut butter Twix bars!
• Three tablespoons of soy sauce contains the sodium equivalent (2,818mg) as 564 Fritos corn chips!

Here's the kicker: the recommended daily intake of sodium for a healthy adult is between 1,500 and 2,400mg a day.  That means one order of mozzarella sticks would put you close to a full day's allowance of sodium.

Here is a great story from Salon.com about a doctor's advice on sodium intake.

What is the big deal?  Excessive sodium intake can result in:

• high blood pressure, which leads to
• heart disease and
• strokes

Next time you go shopping at the grocery store, take a look at how much sodium is in the food you buy.  You will be surprised.

By the way, that can of Campbell's tomato soup?  710mg...for half a can.     

This Modern World

One of the better editions of "This Modern World" by Tom Tomorrow that I have seen (plus it's prequel).  Click on each image to see it in it's own window (full size!)

The prequel:

It Ain't Me, Babe

Across the country and throughout the media, there is much gnashing of teeth over the projected budget deficits over the next few years.  However, it is important to note that Obama is not totally to blame.

I applaud his cuts at NASA, for one.  For too long NASA has been a sacred cow, an untouchable entity.  No President wanted to tell them "NO" for fear of being the President who cut funding to John Kennedy's dream agency.  Wrong.  We need to focus on getting our house straight first before we go exploring.  To be certain, there are and have been and will be benefits from space exploration, but as in any time where money is tight you cut back on unnecessary items and focus on staples. 

Now if we could only get the Pentagon budget under control. Imagine what we could do with that much money...

Songs of the Day: 80's Lou Gramm and Foreigner

After becoming rock icons in the 70's with such hits as "Cold As Ice", "Double Vision", "Hot Blooded" and "Urgent", Foreigner (along with lead singer Lou Gramm) released what was to become not only their biggest hit, but one of the biggest songs of all time and an iconic video of the 80's, "I Want To Know What Love Is".  A video with more slow motion footage than an NFL Films production!  As someone says in VH1's look back at the 80's, "Lou Gramm sings the hell out of this song".



Founder and lead guitarist Mick Jones wrote the song after listening to a recording by the New Jersey Mass Choir, who sing the chorus.  Mick Jones bears a striking resemblance to Marlon Brando in "Last Tango In Paris".

 

Lou Gramm later had a solo hit single, which became sort of a cult classic called "Midnight Blue"