Drive-In Movie - Songs From The Last Q*Ball Album

What's it gonna be, boy? Come on
I can wait all night
What's it gonna be, boy? Yes or no
What's it gonna be, boy? Yes or no

Those are lyrics from Meat Loaf's "Paradise By The Dashboard Light," an overlong classic rock radio staple that I kinda hate.  I've always kinda hated that song.  But a lot of people love it, probably because it's one of those classic guy-wants-the-girl-to-give-him-sex-girl-wants-the-guy-to-give-her-love tunes.  It comes complete with the classic non-committal male and even sex metaphors featuring Phil "The Scooter" Rizzuto.

Go to a bar, put a dime in the jukebox, and select "Paradise By The Dashboard Light."  Then watch a bunch of drunken women put their arms around each other and start singing along to every note.  Why?  Probably because they identify with the song's female protagonist.

Will you make me so happy for the rest of my life?
I gotta know right now before we go any further
Will you love me forever?

Now here's a woman who demands respect.  She's not just giving herself to anyone.  But if she gives it, she's giving it all.

The guy, on the other hand, has less ambitious plans.  He's unsure.  Let me sleep on it. 

Because, y'know, guys are wolves.  We're wolves, we're cavemen.  We think with our meat loaf.  And the idea of "forever" - it scares a lot of us away.  We can't be tied down.  We're Danny Zuko before he meets Sandy.

Ah yes.  Sandy.  For yours truly, Sandy has been the biggest bitch of them all.  Why, Sandy darlin, why?  Why-ay-ay-ay-ay?

"Drive-In Movie" is my Danny Zuko Meat Loaf song.  But in my song, it's not the woman who demands respect.  It's not the woman willing to give it her all, but the man.  It's not the man who is less ambitious, less sure.  It's not the man who needs to sleep on it.  It's not the man who needs to sleep around, but the woman.

The man wants to park the car - not just in the way your Uncle Chaz and Aunt Joanie did up on Make Out Point back in 1959 - but because he wants to stay put.  For the girl, staying put seems a bit too claustrophobic.

In my marriage, I was the one jumping out of cars.  On the way to dinner.  On the way to couples therapy.  I was the one who couldn't breathe.  I was the one who walked away.  And it never felt unjustified.  It never does in the moment.  In the moment, we always think we're right.  But it's how we feel once cooler heads prevail that define how flexible we truly are.

My last love was never cool.  It was intense.  It had me cursing the gods one day and thanking them the next.  I was never in control of it, even in the short time that it was real and pure and not predicated on lies.  For the girl, staying put seemed a bit too claustrophobic.  So she was the one jumping out of cars.  She was the one telling stories.

So I understand both sides.  I've stomped on a few hearts in my day, but it has been a long time and my stompin boots are long retired.  I'd like to think I've learned from the mistakes a younger, less experienced guy tends to make - the type of guy in the Meat Loaf song.

I learned that if you can't breathe in a relationship, then you have to get out.  Even if you're part of the problem - and you always are, even if not the main culprit - you should walk away.  Not just for your own sake.

But so many of us do not.  When you're not happy, you're not motivated.  So you're not motivated to work hard to fix something that was once fulfilling.  So we hang on for all the wrong reasons - selfish reasons - and that opens the door for the ol' double feature.  Why watch one movie at the drive-in when you can watch two instead?  Why get ice cream with one dude when there are ice cream shops - and dudes - everywhere?

And these romantic double features are showing all over the world.  Seems like we all know someone who's steppin out.  Friends, co-workers.  Some of us might be related to a person like that.  Some of us have been victimized by a person like that.  Some of us might just be that person ourselves.  Some people learn to live with the guilt.  Others create some sort of logic, some sort of justification, for what others would consider loathsome behavior.  Because it couldn't be them.  It's never them.  Cheaters somehow never create their own messes.  

One thing I have learned in the four year experience that spanned the making of this album, and the inspirations for it, is that I am weak.  I am weak for love.  I give in too easily to it, I get impatient for it, I give the objects of my affection way too much rope.  And as a result, I have gotten less than I deserved.   

For all the times I should have just walked away, I didn't.  I couldn't.  My heart wouldn't allow it even while my brain and my gut were sending heat seeking missiles chestward bound to destroy it.  I'm what as they called in those drive-in days, a "sucker."  Except sometimes I was worse.  Sometimes I stuck around even after I knew the game was rigged.

And that's on me.  That's on all of you out there like me.  Never settle for anything less than you deserve in life.  Don't be afraid to just walk away.  Be open minded, just don't be stoopid.  Demand respect.  Don't give your heart to just anyone.  If you're willing to love, then love with your all.

I've been stoopid too many times because I want Crazy Stoopid Love.  And the movies remind us that Crazy Stoopid Love never takes a straight line.  It's crazy and it's stoopid because it's complicated, it's problematic, it's larger than life.  You make yourself believe it's meant to be this challenging because that's part of what makes it so special.

But this isn't the movies.  Love shouldn't be challenging.  It should be easy.  The challenge is in trusting that you're getting out of it what you're willing to put in.

Drive-in movies barely exist anymore.  The world has changed in a way that makes us redefine the word 'innocence.'  It's too easy to get away with being someone you're not.  It's too easy to hide the truth in a virtual world, it's too easy to sin and to be sinned against.  The art of the con has changed, but there are still con artists everywhere.  And deceit has truly become an art.  

***

The Last Q*Ball Album by Ron Scalzo - available now on iTunes and Amazon
www.lastqball.com

DRIVE-IN MOVIE

Have you seen the double feature?
It's showing all over the world
And if things get too emotional
Put your arms around your favorite girl

Come on let's park the car
I don't want it
I can't breathe in here
Let's get ice cream
Don't just walk away

She said 'I'm hangin with Vanessa'
'We're going to the diner on 3rd'
I said 'You promised me a date and it's getting late'
'This movie's really great or at least so I've heard, so...'

Come on let's park the car
I don't want it
I can't breathe in here
Let's get ice cream
Don't just walk away

Come on baby let's go to the drive-in movie
Gonna put on a show at the drive in-movie
Got a ticket to ride at the drive-in movie
Cuz there's nowhere to hide at the drive-in movie
Put my hand on your shirt at the drive-in movie
Slide my hand up your skirt at the drive-in movie
Come on baby let's roll to the drive-in movie
Cuz you're driving me insane

Come on let's park the car
I don't want it
I can't breathe in here
Let's get ice cream
Don't just walk away

***

Ron Scalzo - piano, vocals
Joseph Milazzo - guitar, bass guitar, vocals
Alexa Criscitiello - vocals
Theodore Pagano - drums and percussion

Music by Joseph Milazzo & Ron Scalzo.  Words by Ron Scalzo.  Copyright 2014 Bald Freak Music (ASCAP)
 
Artwork by Joseph Milazzo

Recorded at Thump Studios and Teddy's Basement, Brooklyn, NY
Engineered and mixed by Chris Montgomery
Mastered by Michael Judeh at Dubway Studios, NYC

10 Holiday Specials To Keep You Sane This Season

Joy to the world.

When I think of Christmas, I think of Nana and Nicky's house, the smell of seafood frying in the kitchen. I think of getting misty-eyed every time I watch the last half hour of It's A Wonderful Life. The battle with the bogeymen in March of the Wooden Soldiers on Christmas morning. A Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th Street, and A Christmas Carol with Alistair Sim as Scrooge. These are as essential to my annual Decembers as pine needles and wrapping paper.

But my love for short-form holiday specials rolls even deeper. Whether its the memorable music, quotable dialogue, unique animation, iconic characters, or best of all - a message - these gems have warmed my heart and opened my mind. They make me wax nostalgic for my childhood and a time where "appointment television" was a thing.

Disney, Hanna-Barbera and Warner Brothers have all made memorable shorts that should be hung by the chimney with care.  Ren & Stimpy's 'Son of Stimpy', in which a traumatized Stimpy searches for his lost fart during the holiday, is so oddly touching, beautifully animated, and yet so absolutely ludicrous in its subject matter that I could not find a way to include it.  It's my #11, but sadly this list doesn't go to 11.

So crack some chestnuts, pour some egg nog and read on for ten holiday specials that are sure to make your season brighter:

• 10. Tales From The Darkside - "Seasons of Belief"

Tales From The Darkside is not exactly the pinnacle of anthology horror/sci-fi series. Even when it originally aired in the 1980s, it was typically outclassed by Steven Spielberg's big-budget Amazing Stories on NBC (which, incidentally, has a pretty decent Christmas episode entitled "Santa '85").  

Tales was produced by zombie movie god George Romero, ran for about 5-6 years and aired mostly in the wee hours of the night.  The creepiest and coolest things about Darkside were the opening and closing credits, all spooky analog synths, haunting stills of large trees and eerie bridges, and seemingly narrated by Satan himself.

In "Seasons of Belief," veteran character actor E.G. Marshall -- who appears in two of my all-time favorite movies, 12 Angry Men and Creepshow -- spins a yarn about a mythical creature named The Grither with "fists the size of basketballs" to scare his bratty kids on Christmas Eve. This one isn't for your 5 year-old, but if you're a bit warped and twisted, it comes highly recommended.

• 9. South Park - "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics

Besides being one of the sharpest satirical series on television, South Park wins major points for its timely holiday specials that air every October & December.  Season 3's Christmas-themed episode features insane-yet-catchy musical numbers featuring Hitler, Satan, Michael Landon, and one of TV's most ingeniously written characters, Mr. Hankey, a cute talking turd who visits South Park every holiday season.

The musical numbers include the celebrity-skewering "Christmastime In Hell" and a Jesus & Santa duet that finds a way to incorporate Duran Duran's "Rio."  Wrapped around all of the songs, a live action nod to the obscure and infamously terrible Star Wars Holiday Special.  

Show composer and pianist Marc Shaiman -- once Saturday Night Live's resident musical director, -- provides the soundtrack, which spawned a top-selling album that was critically acclaimed -- all inspired by a singing dookie.

• 8. The Snowman

Oscar-nominated for Best Animated Short in 1982, this tale of a boy who builds a snowman that comes to life is far superior to Rankin/Bass' more popular Frosty The Snowman.  Based on the Raymond Briggs book, beautifully and uniquely animated, and carried by a great Howard Blake score, The Snowman contains only a few lines of dialogue - all uttered within the first 30 seconds of the special - and remains engrossing in spite of it.  

The UK production's realistic denoument is not all tinsel and magic, rather a sudden sadness that just might melt your heart (spoiler alert: that's not all that melts).

Incidentally, this snowman rides a motorcycle, knows Santa Claus personally -- and he can f*cking fly.  Eat your heart out, Frosty.

• 7. The Twilight Zone - "Night of the Meek"

This is not the greatest episode of the seminal Twilight Zone, not by a long shot. But it does star Art Carney as a boozy back alley St. Nick. Carney was one of the great actors of television's Golden Age, thanks mostly to his work as Jackie Gleason's best pal Ed Norton on The Honeymoners. A solid dramatic actor in his own right, Carney was a great physical comedian to whom the Barney Rubbles and Cosmo Kramers owe a debt of gratitude.  

Here, as a soused Santa who finds some purpose thanks to a little Rod Serling-aided Christmas magic, Carney shines, showcasing his wide range.  The episode's commentary on poverty and the religious undertones of "the meek shall inherit the Earth" add weight to the story.   

"Night of the Meek" is neither spooky nor scary, it has corny moments, and some off-putting cinematography. Season 3 of TZ was filmed on video instead of film (budget cuts!), and many of those episodes suffer because of it. But it's got more Carney than corny, and that makes it a holiday must-see.

• 6. Christmas Eve on Sesame Street

The Children's Television Workshop pulls out all the stops in this PBS staple from 1978, one of the rare holiday-themed specials to actually air on Christmas Eve.  

The main plot: Oscar The Grouch tells Big Bird that Santa can't possibly deliver all the presents to kids around the world all in one night, never mind fit down skinny chimneys.  Big Bird spends the episode doggedly determined to prove Oscar wrong, yet The Grouch's logic addresses an issue that many kids growing up on Santa eventually have to deal with - a suspension of disbelief, and an inevitable loss of innocence.

A secondary story features Bert, Ernie, and Mr. Hooper in a clever retelling of O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi.  The hour-long episode features a Kermit crossover cameo, a very funny (if somewhat disturbing) sidebar involving Cookie Monster eating everything in sight while fantasizing about the cookies he hopes Santa will bring, and a first act featuring adult-size Sesame Street characters ice skating in New York City.

Even tho Santa is never actually seen (he's represented only via shadows and voiceover), I firmly believed that the real Santa was involved in this production.  Of course, back then, I also believed that Sesame Street was a real street instead of a sound stage, and that Big Bird was really a big bird and not really an old white dude with whiskers who actually looked like Santa in real life.

• 5. Mickey's Christmas Carol

Screened in theaters alongside the forgettable Disney feature The Rescuers in 1983, Mickey's Christmas Carol was a full-on event, with some inspired "casting": Goofy as Jacob Marley and the odd, yet interesting choices of Jiminy Cricket, Willie the Giant, and Black Pete as the three spirits who visit the duck who was born to play Ebenezer Scrooge, Scrooge McDuck.

Millennials around the world were surely turned on to the classic Charles Dickens tale thanks to this Disney short. You have to give the filmmakers credit for their brave choice of placing Mickey & Donald in secondary roles, and staying true to the story rather than shoving the more popular characters down our throats.

When MCC made its way onto network television a few years later, it was accompanied by other great Disney shorts, including The Art of Skiing. Disney was the pinnacle of animation for so many years, and this was as good as they got.

• 4. Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer

This holiday classic based on the Johnny Marks song of the same name features inspired characters with inspired names. Yukon Cornelius? A flying lion named King Moonracer who lords over an island of misfit toys? What were these guys smoking and where can I get some?

Then there's the story, about "fitting in."  Rudolph faces the pressures that almost all kids face during their formative school years - bullying, puberty, and independence. Rankin/Bass' pioneering stop motion animation has some minor flaws that are impossible to squabble over considering how insanely difficult and time-consuming it must have been to film this in the 1960s.  

A minor gripe: most of the adult characters in Rudolph are major pricks, most notably Santa, who is completely out of character as a grousing, pompous douchebag, at least until the special's final minutes.  The Abominable Snow Monster (or the affectionately dubbed 'Bumble'), on the other hand, is a revelation and was a truly scary sight when kids first watched Rudolph.

The musical numbers are heightened by the unlikely presence and golden throat of Burl Ives as Sam the Snowman.  Hard to believe the guy who played Grade A asshole Big Daddy in Cat On A Hit Tin Roof could add so much warmth to the proceedings, but Big Burl pulls it off.  Great Bouncing Icebergs!

• 3. Ziggy's Gift

Ziggy is a long-running one-gag comic strip that featured a short bald dude whose only friend was his dog Fuzz, a character constantly living under life's cruel thumb.  Ziggy doesn't talk - in the strip or in this special - but here, he is mesmerizing, a lone nice guy in a world filled with selfish, stubborn folks and petty crooks.

When Ziggy answers an ad to become a street corner Santa, he crosses paths with a vile thief and a stereotypical Irish policeman dwho is after the crooked Santa scheme that Ziggy has unwittingly involved himself in.

The special's supporting characters - the cop, the thief, the crooked Santas, their ringleader, and a hilarious turkey salesman - are a voice acting master class, and creator Tom Wilson's animation is original and gorgeous.

The bow on top of this little-seen Christmas gift is the music - an uplifting jazz score and title theme composed and performed by one of my heroes - the late, fantastically great Harry Nilsson.  

Ziggy's Gift won a well-deserved Emmy award in 1982.

• 2. Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas

Top-of-Mount Crumpit animation from Chuck Jones, one of the men responsible for making Bugs Bunny a household name, the colorful songbook by Albert Hague and Seuss, the classic theme sung by Tony the Tiger -- they all make Grinch iconic.  But the cherry atop it all is Boris Karloff as The Grinch, perhaps the single most inspired bit of voice casting ever.

The Grinch has become as iconic as Scrooge and Santa Claus at this time of year, and the character embodies his Dickensian predecessor as he turns from anti-establishment sourpuss to Who-loving roast beast carver upon discovering that the true meaning of Christmas is being with each other.  

There is no greater holiday special than this.  Except...

• 1. A Charlie Brown Christmas

I've always related to Charlie Brown (I've had the haircut for awhile) - hopeful one moment, apathetic and depressed the next, never able to truly grab that brass ring. I am not alone in those feelings, and it turns out Charles Schulz, himself, in spite of all his many successes, was the ultimate Charlie Brown (tho apparently he had a little Snoopy in him, as well).

A Charlie Brown Christmas is not perfect, although the iconic jazz soundtrack from the maestro Vince Guaraldi is.  It's rife with flawed characters.  Lucy is a bitch, Pig Pen is a slob, Schroeder is a snob. Snoopy is obnoxious, Sally is materialistic. Even Linus - the "voice of reason" and the most sensitive of the bunch - has major security issues and a serious blanket addiction.  Then there's ol' Chuck, whose problems are too long to list, and the focus of nearly the entire episode.  "Everything I touch gets ruined," he bemoans.

But therein lies the true perfection of the special - we all feel down about something at some point in our lives, we've all had Christmases marred by some tragedy, bad feelings, or circumstance that didn't make it live up to how Christmas is represented on celluloid - candy canes and mistletoe and presents for pretty girls. But like the blanket addict says, Christmas is about something else -- Peace on Earth, goodwill towards men. It's supposed to be about the birth of Jesus.

This was a very strong message half a century ago. If commercialism was rampant in 1965, imagine what Schulz would think of the present day. It's ironic that you still see Snoopy, Charlie and friends plastered everywhere this time of year, and it was the success of this special that opened the floodgates for a billion-dollar merchandising empire that still exists today.

The fact that A Charlie Brown Christmas is still one of the most beloved - if not the most beloved holiday special ever - is testimony to the distinct message it sends even after all these years: Be Nice To Each Other.

In the end, Charlie's friends practice what Linus so eloquently preaches by decorating his sad little tree and 'Oooo-ooo'ing him into the closing credits.  I'm sure on December 26th, they reverted back to treating Chuck like garbage, but for one magical night of 'Oooo-ooo'ing, the message sank in.

We could all use some more 'Oooo-ooo'ing in our short time on this planet together.

Happy Birthday Sista

It's my little sister's birthday.
Paula.
She was born one year, one month and one day after I showed up on this planet. 
We grew up together right from the start. 
Year after year.  Graduations, holidays, birthdays, vacations.  We shared a room til I was 7 and then we moved upstairs to adjoining walls.  Paula somehow got the bigger room even tho I was older, which, three decades later, I am still calling 'shenanigans' on.

My sister and I went to the beach together and played Uno atop old bedsheets while eating sand-filled ham and cheese sandwiches. 
We went to camp together, we went to all the same schools up until college. 
By the middle of junior high school, my sister was officially cooler than me.
She got into trouble more, which was still not a lot.  She had a boyfriend way before I ever had a girlfriend.  We had a lot of the same friends and, of course, we had the same family.
Over the years, I've come to learn what the word 'family' truly means - it goes beyond blood.

Family is a bond, it's a closeness that is difficult to maintain sometimes.
Family is a gift that we can take for granted.  It's a dance full of challenges and hard decisions.
Sometimes family is the problem rather than the solution.
I've encountered more than my fair share of people who epitomize that - who will never get how special that is, to have a friend, a confidante, someone to reminisce with, someone who knows everything about you since you were a little boy. 
Someone who is always rooting for you.

My sister and I have always been close. 
We have our parents to thank for that - and, of course, each other.
But my sister isn't just my buddy.  Tho younger than I, my sister has often been the pioneer.
She got married before I did.  She got divorced before I did.
One night, she came over to my apartment, emotional. 
We got drunk and played Candy Land in my kitchen. 
She cried on my shoulder and I felt this overwhelming sadness for her, one that she would feel for me on a night not that long after.

My sister and I are still both pimps.
She got remarried before I did.
She got back on track before I did, back on the horse, back in the game.
She bounced around for a little while before landing where she belonged, and with who she belonged with.  We have rarely fought, and it has always been easy for us to reconcile our differences.

Over the years, people tend to grow apart.  Not just physically, but emotionally. 
But shouldn't it be the opposite?
Shouldn't the bonds we have with those we love strengthen rather than fall apart? 
That's the lesson my sister and I have gotten from our parents 40 years later in spite of our own temporary failures.  And for that we count ourselves lucky.  Because what we have is rare.

 

I don't have many female friends, and I often wonder if my sister is the biggest reason why.  Sometimes she's the only friend I need. 

Sometimes we dance like idiots around the Christmas tree.

 

Two years ago, my sister had a baby.
My nephew, my godson.  Baby Anthony. 
I was in the waiting room that day, going through one of the hardest times of my life.
My house had been destroyed by a hurricane and my heart had been destroyed by a woman.
Just two months later, my sister was experiencing the most joyous moment of her life.

My sister is my role model.
She taught me that you can come back from hard times. 
You can come all the way back and find your true place in this crazy world.  This little bugger she birthed has given me fleeting moments of joy, not just during the times I get to enjoy his company. But also in seeing how he has affected the lives of the people I care about the most. 
Thanks to my sister, I get to be an uncle. 
Thanks to my sister, I'm still pondering if I wanna be a Dad.

So thank you, my sister.

Thank you for the long talks, for the advice, for the delicious meals.

Thank you for being a great mother to your son and a great wife to your husband.

Thank you for making me laugh and for hearing me cry.
Thank you for being the loudest fan in the room every time you came to see me play a show.
Thank you for monkeying around with me during my highest highs and my lowest lows.

Thank you for always being there for me.

I love you.

And I'm so proud of you.

Happy Birthday.