THE LOVE BOAT

The Love Boat entertained us on Saturday night's in the mid 70's with it's campy 3 stories that were a  mix of drama and comedy.  (This was way back in the early days of cable when there was no FOX network, no internet and our phone was a black one on the kitchen wall!) 

Everyone and their brother guest starred on this show.  If you click on the title of this story you see one of the original opening credits with headshots of all the guest stars that week.  And of all people to show up on Love Boat, Halston with Bob Mackie and Gloria Vanderbilt!  Elke Sommers and Mike Connors, "Mannix" himself!

The theme song sung by Jack Jones reminded us that the "Love Boat promises something for everyone!"  Hummm Gloria, Haltson and Bob Mackie.  Could it be a fashion show on the Love Boat episode?  LOL  Jack continues to remind us that "love won't hurt anymore."  Really Jack?

We all watched and the show made Aaron Spelling rich, rich, rich!
Love Boat probably paid for that mansion in Bel-Air that Candy is withholding from Tori!

There was a crossover show with CHARLIE'S ANGELS.  The angels try to recover a stolen statue on the "Pacific Priness" and each of the Love Boat cast had a cameo in the show.

This must have been my friend Oscar and his writing partner Kurt Koehler's inspiration for their show called LOVE BOAT CHICAS.  The three "angels" of CHICO'S ANGELS go and help to protect Charo from a murderer onboard the Love Boat. 
Hysterical.

THE LOVE BOAT THEME

Love, exciting and new
Come aboard, we're expecting you
Love, life's sweetest reward
Let it flow, it floats back to you

Love Boat soon will be making another run
The Love Boat promises something for everyone
Set a course for adventure
Your mind on a new romance

And love won't hurt anymore
It's an open smile on a friendly shore
It's love
Welcome aboard
It's love!

TUESDAY IS SONG DAY: A DAY TO REMEMBER with 2 songs.

Today is the anniversary of my mother Evelyn's passing.
She was 34 when she died.  It was Oct 6th, 1976, I was 14.
My brother Shannon was 8 and my sister Missy was 6.
It is the single most significant event in my younger years.
It changed the course of my life profoundly.

In honor of my mom I would like to share with you 2 songs from one of her favorite artists.
My mom liked Anne Murray.  And in the 70's Anne Murray was everywhere on the radio.

DANNY'S SONG by Kenny Loggins
People smile and tell me I'm the lucky one
And we've just begun, I think I'm gonna have a son
He will be like you and me, as free as a dove
Conceived in love, the sun is gonna shine above

CHORUS
And even though we ain't got money
I'm so in love with ya honey
Everything bring a chain of lo-o-o-o-ve
And in the mornin' when I rise
Bring a tear of joy to my eyes
And tell me everything's gonna be all right

Love a guy who holds the world in a paper cup
Drink it up, love him and he'll bring you luck
And if ya find he helps your mind, better take him ho-ome
Yeah 'n' dontcha live alone, try to earn what lovers own

CHORUS




COULD I HAVE THIS DANCE by Wayland Hollyfield and Bob House
I'll always remember the song they were playin',
The first time we danced and I knew,
As we swayed to the music and held to each other,
I fell in love with you.

Could I have this dance for the rest of my life?
Would you be my partner every night?
When we're together, it feels so right.
Could I have this dance for the rest of my life?

I'll always remember that magic moment,
When I held you close to me.
'Cause we moved together, I knew forever,
You're all I'll ever need

Could I have this dance for the rest of my life?
Would you be my partner every night?
When we're together, it feels so right.
Could I have this dance for the rest of my life?

Two quotes from Mother Teresa about LOVE

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.  ~Mother Teresa
 


"We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love."
~Mother Teresa

In doing my research tonight I ran across a second quote about love from Mother Teresa.
When I think of her I think of a woman who so embodied love. that she devoted her life to working for the poor, to lifting up their lives.  So I take to heart tonight the idea of doing small things with great love.  Make a phone call to a friend and ask how they're doing and then listen.  Let someone you love know it.  These are the small quiet little daily things we call all do to just make the world and "our" world a better place.

Peace and blessings,
GM

I LOVE SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON

What do you get when you take a story adapted from a novel into a screenplay, then turn it into a brilliant opera?  SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON.  (Click here for LA TIMES review.)

Earlier this summer I attended an evening celebrating the music of composer STEPHEN SCHWARTZ.
It was at the Ford Amphitheater here in LA.  This is where he gave us a sneak peak at his new opera.  I was sold immediately and knew that if I didn't buy the discounted tickets that night I would regret it.  I am so grateful that I did.  Throughout my life I have been blessed to be a part of a number of many new projects and events.  Today was one of them.

Mr. Schwartz for those of you who don't know his work has written music and lyrics for a few little musicals: GODSPELL, PIPPIN and the blockbuster WICKED!

For films:  the songs for The Prince Of Egypt and lyrics for Disney's Pocahontas, The Huchback of Notre Dame, and Enchanted (all with music from Alan Menken.)

Stephen Schwartz went to screenwriter/director Bryan Forbes and got the rights to the story.
The original film stars Kim Stanley and Sir Richard Attenborough.  Steven Sharpe from Opera Santa Barbara called Mr. Schwartz to write an opera for them.  Seance On A Wet Afternoon had been suggested to Mr. Schwartz as a possible idea for a new musical.  He saw the story as being better suited for opera.  And today we were treated to amazing performance by it's two leads, Lauren Flanigan as Myra Foster and Kim Jospehson as Billy Foster her husband. This week's three performances were the world premiere for this amazing opera.

THE PLOT
A medium Myra Foster hatches a plot with her husband Billy to kidnap a child and then give the parents info as where to find her.  In the process bringing her fame and fortune and notoriety.
Mr. Schwartz is rumored to have written this part for Lauren.  Watching this artist perform this great material is like watching a great runner win a race!  You know they're going to win and it's the thrill of watching them do it!  Kim Josephson plays Myra's devoted husband Billy who goes along with her plot.  In Act II he sings a song about his wife and why he loves her.  It is an amazing insight into both characters and Mr. Josephson's amazing strong baritone voice brought to life Billy's love for his wife as he struggles to do what his wife wants against his better nature.

Such a dark subject matter and made for a delicious opera.  Set in the early 60's in San Francisco, beautifully costumed and with a full two story house set that revolved on stage, it all made for a flawless show! (I love me some good stagecraft!!!)  Beautifully lit and the full house orchestra made for an amazing afternoon of theatre!

My friend Doug and I got to talk to Mr. Schwartz today at the final performance at the Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara.  Oh it was so worth the drive up!  Doug got a picture with him.  I got to talk to him after the show and thank him for composing such a great show.  I asked him, "so when are you going to New York with this."  His reply, "as soon as they as us!"

(A special thanks to Doug for driving us up and for a great lunch before the opera.)

I LOVE ANITA BAKER

Just getting home from a night out with friends at the local disco.
Oil Can Harry's is a club that has been in the valley for decades.
(On Thursdays you can learn country line dancin' and boot scoot your way around the floor.

On the way home I was surprised when I turned on the stereo and hear Anita Baker.
Miss Anita Baker takes me back to the fall of 1986 when I made a brief move to Atlanta.  Her songs have a way of popping up on the radio at just the right moment to remind me of a time and a place that has long past into memory.  Hearing her always puts me at ease and reminds me to slow down, relax and listen for awhile.

Tonight I heard RAPTURE OF LOVE which then reminds of her other big hit SWEET LOVE.
All these songs take me right back to a my brief time in Atlanta. 
She is an artist with a distinct voice and someone that I really need to see live in concert soon.

I have bittersweet memories of Atlanta.  I injured my back there working a catering job and had to move home to Louisville.  I had moved from Nashville to see if I could break into the growing commerical/theatrical/stage market.  So whenever I hear an Anita Baker song from the RAPTURE album I am instantly transported back to my running around Piedmont Park and Atlanta's Midtown before it became a mini metropolis!  I was there for but a brief snapshot in time.  The AIDS crisis had hit the gay community in full force and there was fear in everyone's eyes.  It was an odd time and an amazing time.  By January of 1987 I found myself back in Louisville living in my father's house again.  That would last for 9 months and then I moved back to Nashville, to begin another chapter there.  When I write the book about my life it's title is, was and always will be....
ROADS I'VE TRAVELED TWICE!

Peace and blessings,
Gerry M.

I LOVE FRIDAY NIGHT WITH JONATHAN ROSS

FRIDAY NIGHT WITH JONATHAN ROSS is a great talk show on BBC AMERICA.
If you like a great old fashioned talk show with a lot of guest interaction, tune into this show.
It reminds me of the old Mike Douglas show, when a host could really spend time doing an in-depth interview with a guest.  And it's also Jonathan's combination of 3 to 4 guests per show that makes it interesting.  I've noticed that Jay Leno is starting to try and do something like this.
Most of the great new show ideas are ripped off from successful British series by producers in Hollywood.

My guilty pleasure this spring was the new show THE HOTEL INSPECTOR.
Ruth Watson a successful hotelier and author comes into B&Bs or small seaside hotels and whips the owners into shape and shows them what they can do to improve their overall business.  Look for an American ripoff next spring.  Better yet, keep the same production company, bring Ruth here and let her whip some American B&B owners into shape! 

For those of you who know me, then you know that I love everything British.  I love the Queen and all the Royals, I love the English Countryside and Jane Austen novels, British Rock and of course British men!  LOL  But seriously folks I love all the British TV shows for their inventiveness and humor, Dr. Who, Little Britain, Absolutely Fabulous.  The dramas like Torchwood are better than anything we have on American television.  One of my life goals is to go and work on British TV and on the stage there.  Big goal.

Jonathan Ross is currently on Friday nights on BBC AMERICA.  Check your local listings.
Here is a racy interview with Lady Gaga.   (Can't say this on American late night TV!)
Or a funny interview with Huge Jackman.
GM

I LOVE KEN BURNS' FILMS

I'm sitting here tonight watching the brilliant film by Ken Burns;
The National Parks:  America's Best Idea.

Call me a geek but I love history.  I've been blessed to visit a few of our Nation's parks.
Remember we own them.  I just watched a section about the Great Smokey Mountains.
The U. S. Government wouldn't buy the land to save it and left it up to the people of the states it straddled, Tennessee and North Carolina.  Ken's film is broken up into the different stories of each of your National Parks.  It tells the stories of the people who had passion and drive to save these treasures for future generations. 

I've been blessed in my life to visit the Smokey's when I was a child.

In the 70's we visited Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.  Our Uncle Skip was a cowboy and he and his wife Karen lived on a ranch with a view of the Tetons.  They lived near the old cabin where they shot the classic movie Shane. 

When I moved west I visited The Grand Canyon.   I thought I would just "run up" and spend a 1/2 day or so at the south rim and then be on my way to Los Angeles.  Not!  I was amazed by it stunning beauty and was overwhelmed with emotion.  That night was the harvest moon rising over the Grand Canyon in the eastern sky.  I will never forget seeing this orange moon hanging large on the horizon, the autumn air crisp and chilly after the sun set behind us.  This is probably the place I will have my ashes scattered.  And it will be on the full moon that always comes the around the first week of October, very close to October 6th, the anniversary of my mother's death.

Yosemite, the Northern Redwoods, Sequoia National Park, Mt. Rainer in Washington State, The Badlands and Mt. Rushmore, Pike's Peak and the Rocky Mountains, Death Valley and just this past winter I saw Joshua Tree.  They have finally made it a National Park.  I've been blessed to see a great number of places.  And there are a ton of parks that I have yet to visit like Mt. St. Helens, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Glazier National Park, Denali.  Care to join me?

Peace and blessings,
GM

Saw this on my search for pictures of the Grand Canyon.
Guess the view was just too overwhelming for momma!