Happy New Year 2011...to all of our Gentle Readers!

Have a great New Year, everyone!!!

iPhone image....MTS

Merry Christmas 2011

From the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland 2011...A Platonic Day....

iPhone image.  MTS

Send One Your Love

"Send One Your Love" is a song written by Stevie Wonder for his 1979 album, The Secret Life of Plants.  The tune was the lead single from that album.



The song eventually reached number 4 on the Billboard charts that year for pop singles, and became Stevie Wonder's second adult contemporary single to top the charts, preceded by "You Are The Sunshine Of My Love" from 1973.

I am particularly fond of Nelson Rangell's instrumental version, seen below, available on his 2006 CD Souls to Souls (thanks CA Girl).  The song has also been performed by Micheal Jackson and Boney James.  Posted videos are from YouTube.

Videophones for the Masses ... Skype and FaceTime

Although AT&T introduced it's much lauded Picturephone at the 1964 World's Fair (seen below),

the concept of VideoTelephony was conceived many years earlier, most successfully implemented by the Germans, connecting Munich and Nuremberg, a connection broken after the outbreak of WWII.  The videophone has become important keeping families together, in conducting business via videoconferencing and in the setting of telemedicine.  It is essential for those using sign language for communication.

With the introduction of FaceTime by Apple and video service on Skype, video communications are available to most everyone via several off the shelf products.  We are rapidly catching up to The Jetsons.

Image Credits: (top) AT&T; (bottom) Hanna-Barbera Productions
          Picturephone is a trademark of AT&T

I Just Wanna Hang Around You - Life Story of a Song

When love songs were actually about love and respectable enough to play in front of your kids (think RAP), it was the 1960's, 1970's and the 1980's.  George Benson wrote "I Just Wanna Hang Around You" for 20/20, his smash hit album of the day.




The song was redone several times, my favorite version by the L.A. Jazz Fusion group, Hiroshima.  It was a huge loss when Barbara Long left Hiroshima as a singer, given her great perfomances on the 1985 release, Another Place.  It took industry insider, Los Angeles resident and Grammy nominee Terry Steele, collaborating with Hiroshima as lead vocalist on The Bridge, to elevate the song to an art form, and to reposition Hiroshima as a Fusion band with a proper vocalist.

The lyric is here:

You're my Heartbeat of life
and you fill up my mind
I wanna stay close, close to you

It's the old lover's spell
that you weave oh so well
Oh at least hold to me
Oh you got to see


I just want to hang around you
every day and night
All of my life around you
I just want to hang around you
every day and night
All of my life around you
Hang around you


I get so Hipnotized
when I look in your eyes
Oh you can cooo control me

I feel all butterflies
when I'm right here by your side
Oh I need your touch,
can't get enough
Love Me
Oh you've got to see


I just want to hang around you
every day and night
All of my life around you
Hang around you


Spending every moment of my life
within your gaze my forever love
to have you and to hold you
so you never ever need to use
your crystal ball
to know where I'll be, always

I just want to hang around you
every day and night
All of my life around you
Hang around you

All I want to do is Hang around you

I just want to hang around you
every day and night
All of my life around you
Hang around you

All I want to do is hang around you

I just want to hang around you
every day and night (everyday and night)
All of my life around you (all of my life around you)
Hang around you

(Fade out)


Play it for the one you love....

Social Networking...

I am compelled to write today about social networking.

According to a survey (2010) of The American Association of Matrimonial Lawyers, Face Book, MySpace and Twitter are a pernicious and increasingly common cause of relationship trouble and divorce.  Face Book is by far the market leader here at 80%, MySpace at 15% and Twitter at 5%.

Spokespeople for Face Book proclaim that it’s not Face Book’s issue, that it is people that cause relationship problems.  I couldn’t agree more.  The trouble is, that social networking appears to amplify the problem, perhaps by increasing access for people who are unsatisfied in relationships or who have inherent holes in their personality that are amplified electronically.  What’s more, as in every form of electronic textual media, there is no explanation of the motivation behind the prose.  The purposes of the posts are not transparent to the reader.  The aspects of trait jealousy and assumption as well as conjecture are all that is available to the reader.

In addition, it seems that some people use social networking sites to bolster their sense of self worth, to amass as many “friends” as possible, often not knowing many of the “friends” they have indeed collected.  Then, there's the whole issue of privacy, or what's left of it....

If you use Face Book or Twitter or even MySpace to communicate with family or friends, then, why not pick up your phone in this age of bundled cellular minutes and data.  Talk to those people and nurture them.  Speak to your family and kids…remember, over 85% of communication is non-verbal, whether you can see the other person or not.  If you are sitting in a Hospital ward or other institution, a voice call means more than a wall post.

If you are in a committed relationship, then by all means talk to your partner if you are not receiving what you want or need.  If you are a business owner, then more power to you.  Face Book and Twitter as well as MySpace are great no cost means of marketing your business.

Image Credit:  dubinandlee.com

Friendship...revisited

My last essay on Friendship was a different animal, a discussion of a friend that passed on.

This past weekend as part of a business trip, I was able to enjoy the company of old friends and make a couple of new ones.

In the case of the old friends, upon our meeting, as it always is with old friends, the discussion took up where we last left off, years ago, as if the intervening time was processed by a relativistic machine, compressing years into days.  As in a business meeting, there is a structure, albeit loosely formed.  After “new business” or “catching up” is discussed, old business in the form of reminiscing takes precedence.  The major difference from a business meeting is that the time of the next meeting is not scheduled.

In the case of the new friends, one business and another social, it’s commonality of life experience and pursuit of similar goals that ultimately brings people together.

You can tell a lot about the character of new friendships based upon the friends that those people surround themselves with.

Quote of the Day

Today's quote is from Ingrid Bergman:

"A kiss is a lovely trick, designed by nature to stop speech, when words become superfluous."


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Omelette Fest...Abbeville, LA today...

To be sure...One of my favorite Louisiana festivals is the Omelette Celebration in Abbeville.  5000 eggs and appropriate seasonings.  According to Andrew Bourdain, one of the best dishes every man should know how to prepare.

Image Credit:  MTS; Leica M8.2 28mm SanDiskCard

Borealis Lodge

On my Bucket List....The Borealis Lodge above the Arctic Circle in Alaska to watch the Northern Lights. Last time I was there it was Summer and the mosquitoes were as thick as Louisiana, maybe worse.  No lights and lots of cloud cover.

It is a bit above the magnetic fields of Fairbanks, which are some of the strongest, but it'll do.

Image Credit: MTS; Leica M8.2 28mm SanDisk card

Questions 67 and 68 from Tokyo

Written by Robert Lamm, and arguably one of Chicago Transit Authority's best.  Here is the Live version from Tokyo....

Bruce Lee....Words from the Master

When one has no form, one can be all forms; when one has no style, he can fit in with any style.