Flash! A-aaaah! (Flash Gordon part one)

I guess "This is a big f***in' deal" beats "As of now, I am in charge here." Joe Biden lives up perfectly to the wonderful way the Onion portrays him. Thanks, JB! Love it. I really do. That's not sarcasm. It's like a faint glimmer of the glory that was President Bill Clinton. That is also not sarcasm. It's so hard to tell on the electronic web, where almost everything is sarcasm but I remain endlessly, undetectably sincere. Anyway, what I was going to say before I got distracted by the internet, was...

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So here is one thing I am doing. Many years ago a sister of a friend was a huge Queen fan. I am a Queen fan only to the extent that I really, really love their original Greatest Hits album from 1981. This friend's sister had a spiral bound book with the entire oeuvre, dramatically reduced to chords, words and melody, and maybe a few bass notes or instrumental lines here and there. When I saw the transcriptions of the music to the 1980 film Flash Gordon I laughed and laughed. Why?

I have only ever heard the title song, but I am pretty sure the soundtrack music has more to it than is conveyed in the book. Curious, I recorded "The Kiss (Aura Resurrects Flash)" adhering strictly to the written music. Some of you reading may have on some old CD or even tape I gave you. It's the one with delicate nylon string guitar, a soaring Casio keyboard melody, no words, and long, inexplicable pauses. I mean I recorded it EXACTLY in accordance with the music as written in this strange little book. According to the book, there are several measures with absolutely nothing, which is only part of what made me laugh. The recording ended up being very beautiful and poignant if I may say so.

I put up an mp3 of the song to explain what I mean here.

I put up a scan of the music I'm working from so you can look at it while you listen to the recording. View scan.

I resolved to record the entire soundtrack without ever listening to Queen's version. I felt that listening to Queen's version would pollute my feelings and my vision and the relationship I was developing with this strange little book. About a year after I recorded "The Kiss (Aura Resurrects Flash)" I recorded "Marriage of Dale and Ming (And Flash Approaching)". So that was two songs in two years. I thought that was an appropriate pace for the project and figured it would be sort of an overview of my recording process as it evolved over the years. Like a greatest hits album can be for a normal band, only it would be a solo, cover version of Queen's Flash Gordon soundtrack. Good grief. You could not make this shit up. You have to live it.

Go on to part 2.

Ladiemens And Gentlemens, My Endorsement Goes To…

Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Why? Well you might ask, as I have been critical of Obama in the past here at Memphis Evans: The Blog. Here's the deal.

A person I know who is decidedly not a Republican got invited to a Republican fundraising event starring John Can'tthinkoflastnameanditdoesn'tmatter from Five For Fighting. Ultimately, my friend decided she could not go because the Republicans are ramping up the anti-gay-marriage and anti-choice rhetoric.

There are issues that are more important to me (school funding for one) but somehow gay marriage really just seems perfectly fine to me. And people who are against it seem fundamentally misguided at best. It seems like people who are against gay marriage are the same people who would have been against the abolition of slavery. I simply can find no reasonable argument against gay marriage. And I have personally known gay people who were sad because they couldn't get married.

So as far as I know neither candidate actually fully endorses gay marriage (which would probably be political death) but my understanding is that a McCain administration will try to amend the constitution to prohibit it for all time. That's such a bad idea for so many reasons, both conservative and liberal, that I now half-heartedly announce my complete endorsement of:

Barack Obama and Joe Biden for President and Vice-President of the United States.

There. Now we can all be done with it. I won't read or watch or blog any more about it if you won't. Deal?

(Incidentally, I tried to visit Obama's web site to research his position on gay marriage. A visit to www.barackobama.com yielded no meaningful content, only a way to sign up with my e-mail address, zip code, watch a video, and make a donation. Sigh. We're going to lose again, aren't we? Dammit.)