Neanderpundit

In my personal life and in blogging, I regularly run across people who, having arrived at a specific conclusion by whatever manner, will not let go of it no matter what.

You know the type. In the face of any evidence to the contrary, their idea/belief is the only one, and everyone else is of an inferior intellect.

So I just let them alone and let them head off in their own misguided direction, because for whatever reason, they are unwilling to accept that they might have something to learn. >.

I have been through a lot of shit in my life, and one thing I’ve learned, is that I always have something to learn. And I’m always trying very hard to keep that mind open. Not always an easy thing, and not always completely possible. It boggles me that people ostensibly much brighter and more learned than I, have such a death grip on some of their conceptions, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary (which they don’t even seem to hear)

Liberals are another story altogether.

Again, if i started bitchslapping all the people who so desperately need it, my right arm would start windmilling around like Pete Townshend’s, and I might never be able to stop.

Better have another coffee and go to work.

ate a big old plate of homemade Jambalayah with lots of spicy sausage, shrimp, and chicken. Tomorrow is gonna be a bad day. Help me, Preparation H!

Steve has been talking (in between tool and cabinetblogging) about music, and his interest in it, and the type of reproduction you get with vinyl.

I have only one vinyl album left, and that is “The great Caruso” with Mario Lanza.

Now, I often think that 700,000 Pall Malls ago, I might have been an OK tenor. Maybe even a little better than OK. Maybe I might even have gotten called on to sing at mass, or in local stage productions. I’ll never know, because it’s impossible to undo the damage of all those cigarettes.

Mario Lanza was a very young man when he died, under forty. Fact is, he abused his body, his voice, didn’t like to play the political games that would have landed him the good screen roles, and generally butted heads with everyone.

Scuttlebut at the time was he made enemies with the mob, and his “heart attack” amounted to a poisoning. I don’t know, maybe nobody ever will.

But the voice. He had a 50 inch chest, the man was built to control a great deal of wind. And could he ever. While few recordings of Caruso exist, plenty do exist of Mario Lanza, and even if you don’t like opera you owe it to yourself to either listen to some of his music or watch a few of his films. He does the singing voice for “The Student Prince”. He played Caruso in “The Great Caruso”A great part, and a great film, that you should see. When he sings “Be My Love” you will get a glimpse of how good that voice is, and when he sings “Ave Maria”, if you are a Christian, and you still have a soul, you will weep.

In my mind, and in the mind of many others, the unquestionable Grand Master tenor. A voice so intense and well controlled that it astonishes people today. God love Pavarotti et al, but compare the same piece by Pavarotti and Lanza, and be amazed. He was capable of oversinging an orchestra- imagine a tenor who can sing loud enough to drown out an orchestra, and still be crystal clear and in control, and display those sweet pipes.