Khayem wrote an excellent tribute to Diane Keaton earlier
this week, most notably in his revelation that she directed the video to
Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven Is A Place On Earth. That’s a class piece of musical
trivia.
Khayem also provided a playlist of songs with titles that
matched Diane’s most famous movies… so there’s even less for me to add via the
Celebrity Jukebox… except a few songs that mention her by name.
We’ll start with this one, as it would have fit perfectly on
Khayem’s compilation…
Next, a little offering from Portuguese singer-songwriter JTX,
way back in 1982… especially for our Portuguese reader.
Over to Australia now for a Sydney guitar band who might
have broken a few copyright laws when making their video… but it’s all in the
name of art, so that’s all right.
Diane did pretty well in the song titles then… but what
about lyrical nods?
Well, here’s one that might have been in contention for the
Cancel Culture Club…
Hey yo, I kinda like the
musical Rent (no homo) Man, I can't decide who wore
it best (no homo) But I'm feeling Diane
Keaton's vest (No homo) I admit it I'm a fashionista
(No homo) And I know every line of
Mystic Pizza
“…a critique on homophobia among young, often athletic
and/or alpha-type males. It starts off by describing how the phrase “no homo”
can be used as a social mechanism to quickly defuse any suspicion of homosexual
attraction when giving a fellow male a complement. The examples of usage of the
phrase quickly escalate to overtly sexual acts, which nullify any suggestion
that they are merely comfortable in their heterosexuality, but are truly giving
into their gay urges. This suggests that many homophobes are actually
suppressing their closeted homosexual feelings through an exterior of hostility
and intolerance.”
And if you’re wondering how that’s relevant today…
“One of Diane Keaton’s most famous roles was in Annie Hall
where she dressed in men’s clothes, including vests. Although, Keaton likes to
dress in vintage men’s clothes regardless.”
So now you know. No cancellation needed. Apparently.
As we’ve already established, Diane was very popular on the
continent, as further evidenced here by this tune from French singer and writer
Yves Simon…
When you were stuck at 2 a.m.
I wished you would have called I would've been there in an
instant, we could've rented Annie Hall And I'd be your Woody Allen,
with my witty, subtle quips And you'd be my Diane Keaton,
'till you gave me the slip
Meanwhile, Merseyside’s Laurie Shaw has appeared on this
feature previously… and he’ll probably pop again soon. He’s extremely prolific…
and rather interesting too.
Brigitte Bardot's toes Turning the taps on the
bubble bath Carrie Fisher’s gold bikini Diane Keaton’s laugh Audrey Hepburn in her pyjamas Anne in 'Day of Wrath’
I saved this one for last though, because Allo Darlin’ are
fabulous.
In the movie of our lives,
would Woody Allen write the screenplay? Not his best era, but
certainly not his worst either But I wouldn't like to be
like Diane Keaton in Manhattan So cerebral was she, runs
away from any romance But though you're neurotic,
and a little paranoid It doesn't make me Annie, it
doesn't make you Alvy Woody Allen couldn't play you Woody Allen couldn't play you I know you want him to, but
he couldn't play you
I’m thinking back to when I worked in radio. When I moved
into the advertising department, there was a guy already working in there who
everybody liked. We’ll call him Kevin, because… no, I did that joke last week,
didn’t I? He wasn’t called Kevin. But Kevin was the exact opposite of Bob, the
guy everybody agrees is a dick. Kevin was wonderful.
He was so witty and charming and talented and kind… seriously, you’d love him.
The problem was, I didn’t take to Kevin at all. I just
didn’t get what everybody else saw in him. I mean, he wasn’t a Bob-level dick,
but out of everyone in the office, I found him by far the hardest to warm to,
and definitely the least welcoming. He seemed a bit stand-offish, and I
clearly got the impression he thought that he was better than me and that I
didn’t deserve to be working in the same department as him. This was never
overt, and you could well just put it down to my infamous paranoia, but I don’t
think it was purely in my imagination.
Putting aside the (possibly paranoid) idea that Kevin
treated me differently to everyone else he met, why else might I not like
someone everyone else thought was great?
To try to answer this, I waded once more, neck-deep, into
the sewers of the interweb, and the first link to come floating past was this
one from Headspace: What happens
in the brain when we dislike somebody?
Guess where the finger of blame gets pointed almost
immediately?
Yep, it’s our old friend the amygdala. When we decide we don’t
like some, “’there
is preferential activation of the amygdala’,” which means the brain region
associated with fear and aggression flares up. This visceral, emotional
reaction can spark a long-term pattern of dislike when it’s validated by
action: if you perceive that someone has hurt you, your fear of them becomes
rational.”
Essentially, we’re back to the storytelling brain creating
neural pathways in reaction to negative stimuli – it’s why I learned to hate
New Order all over again. But this isn’t really answering my central question –
why I dislike Kevin, when everyone else thinks he’s Superman.
When you instantly dislike someone, you’ve made a snap
decision that they’re threatening based on minimal information.
Ah ha – tell me more!
And they do… with six different
suggestions as to why I disliked Kevin…
1. He’s different.
Humans are wired to like and bond with their own tribe.
This one is the basis for all forms of prejudice, especially
racism. It’s about instinctively not liking anything that looks or appears different to
you. Many of us are able to overcome this in-built reaction because we teach
ourselves (or someone older and wiser has taught us) that it’s bullshit.
Of course, using your conscious mind, you can overcome
this bias. This is why education is so valuable.
That’s what I was trying to say.
Anyway, I can’t really
apply this to Kevin. He wasn’t particularly different from me – we had the same
skin colour, hair colour, similar height and weight… he wasn’t even a particularly
good-looking dude for me to feel inferior to. And he liked or was interested in
many of the same things as me. We were definitely from the same tribe, so there
was no reason to take against him on the surface.
When you get that bad ‘vibe’ from someone without knowing
why, it could be that they reminded you of a previous negative experience.
Again, I’m not sure I can make this fit. I’d encountered a
lot of unpleasant people by this point in my life, but Kevin didn’t really
remind me of any of them. Apart from people I’d met previously who everyone
else seemed to like… hmm. Could that be a clue?
This one’s more about suppressed memories of someone you’ve
met before. Like, say, you meet the school bully twenty years later in a
completely new context and you don’t even recognise him, but your subconscious
mind does, and it’s this which sets your amygdala screaming.
Which is fair enough, but I’d never met Kevin prior to starting
in the department. I’d seen him round the building, but that was about it.
Except…
when I had seen him around, I guess I’d seen him talking and laughing and
getting on with other people… yet he’d never made any attempt to talk to me.
Could it be that he’d taken an instant dislike to me? Did I remind him of
something threatening? Was the problem with Kevin’s brain, not mine? I guess
I’ll never know the answer to that one…
OK, so, this is where it becomes murky. Because I was going
to work in the advertising department with literally no previous experience. I
had recently passed my English degree and was writing on a regular basis – I
could easily evidence creativity, which is what got me the job… but I was new
to the concept of using creativity to sell things. Kevin, on the other hand,
was seen as the star writer in the department. He’d won awards!
Jealousy is often a big reason for disliking someone for
no apparent reason. Jealousy results from upward social comparison. You see
someone who’s better than you or has what you want, and you feel jealous.
That stings. That really stings. But I have to accept it as
a possibility for why I didn’t like Kevin. Although it doesn’t really explain
why he didn’t like me. Unless that was all in my imagination.
Or… prior to going for that job in advertising, I had made a
(small) name for myself in the station on air. (This was prior to the
arrival of my nemesis, the programme controller I referred to as “Tim Allen”
during my
long-running series about my days in commercial radio.) The show I
co-presented featured quite a lot of creative content – comedy sketches and
characters that went down well with the listeners, though I’m sure I’d cringe
myself to death if I heard any of them again today. Anyway, I’d been on air doing
all this “funny” stuff for a few years prior to my move into commercial
production… and chances are Kevin had heard some of that. Maybe he’d formed an
impression of me from that (“he’s just not funny”) or maybe – longshot, I know,
but we need to cover all bases in answering this question – maybe he was a teensy bit jealous of me. Yeah, he’d been winning the awards,
but only for writing ads. He hadn’t been doing the funny stuff just for funny’s
sake. Maybe he was angry I’d had that opportunity and he (being clearly much
more talented) hadn’t. Anything’s possible.
People tend to hide their flaws and ignore the qualities
they need to develop. So, when they come across someone having the same flaws
as them or having the qualities they want, they hide again.
For example:
You lack confidence, and confident people put you off.
Nail, thy head is hitteth, you might well be thinking.
And it’s perfectly feasible that this is the answer: Kevin
was a confident guy and I hated his confidence. Although it’s equally possible
that he was just as insecure as I was, but much better at hiding it and coming
across as confident. Which would link back to my longshot from #4… but this is
all supposition, there’s no science to it at all.
When we meet people, we’re constantly making snap
judgments about them. If they display welcoming and open body language, we feel
good. If they show closed body language, we feel off.
Clearly, this is the case with Kevin – he actively went out
of his way to get on with everybody else in the office, but stayed cool around
me. And that’s still the case to this day when I bump into him in the book of
faces. One of my (friendly) old colleagues will post a photo or a memory from
our past and various people will leave a nostalgic comment… and there’s me and
Kevin in the same (virtual) room all over again, talking to everybody else but
ignoring each other.
We’re quick to put people in the ‘friend’ or ‘foe’
category because, again, the mind doesn’t want to take any chances. It makes
these critical decisions based on minimal information gleaned from body
language, facial expressions, and voice tone.
The ironic thing is, Kevin left soon after I joined the department (was it me?) and went on to a successful career writing for TV comedy shows. Despite many attempts to follow in his footsteps, that never happened for me. Maybe that’s because he was more talented than me… or maybe it’s because he was more confident. It doesn’t really matter in the end: he won. And here I am, thirty years later, still fretting over this, while I doubt he's given me a second thought...
Not many votes last week, as the two Iron Maidens proved too much torture for most of you. The more famous Maidens, from what I recall... Ernie danced on stage with them and C sold them dodgy records. Didn't help them win against the Band Formerly Known As Bum. You never can tell.
The first thing that must be asked before we consider any of
today’s options is: Why is there an apostrophe in Go-Go’s? Does something
belong to them? Is it an abbreviation? No? Then it doesn’t need an apostrophe!
I was forced to consult the interweb. And lo! An answer from the horse’s
mouth!
Anyway, onto the bands themselves…
Let’s start with a little 60s surf rock. There was just
bound to be a 60s surf rock band called the Go-Go’s, wasn’t there?
THE GO-GO’S #1
Gary Usher was a singer, songwriter and record producer who
worked with the likes of The Beach Boys, The Byrds and Dick Dale. He gets a
co-writing credit on two top Beach Boys songs, Lonely Sea and In My Room, among
others. Iffypedia tells me he also “produced fictitious surf groups or hot rock
groups, mixing studio session musicians with his own troops”. I’m guessing this
was one of those entirely made up bands…
THE GO GO’S #2
Still in the 60s, with an apostrophe but no hyphen, we
encounter the Geordie band responsible for this weird Christmas novelty record.
Songwriter Les Vandyke (real name John Worsley) wrote Number
Ones for Adam Faith and Eden Kane, as well as top 70s tune Gonna Make You AnOffer You Can’t Refuse by Jimmy Helms. But this was surely his finest hour… or perhaps not.
THE GO-GO’S #3
Belinda Carlisle, Jane Weidlin, Charlotte Caffey, Gina
Schock, Kathy Valentine, Belinda Carlisle.
Some debate (in that interview clip at the top of the page)
about the use of the definite article. If the band themselves can’t even make
up there mind whether or not to use a The, there’s no hope for the rest of us.
Still. Belinda Carlisle.
According to The Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, The Go-Go’s are
“widely considered to be the most successful female rock band of all time”. I’m
not sure how the Bangles feel about that. Still. Belinda Carlisle.
Which Go-Go's gets you going? Go Go to the Comments and let me know...
Every Sunday morning, we discover the Heaven Is A Place On Earth, when the answers to Saturday Snapshots are finally revealed. And I Get Weak when I think about how much hard work you guys put into solving these clues. Sometimes I have an idea which are the hardest ones to guess, but if you'd asked me yesterday I'd have told you that was probably #7 this week... and yet Walter was first in with that yesterday. So what do I know?
I find it increasingly hard to add up the points for this every week, but I'm pretty sure yesterday was a 3-points-each draw between Lynchie & C. I'm sure Lynchie will tell me if I'm wrong. Thank you all for playing, as always.
Here are this week's answers...
10. Policewoman sees scarlet, burgundy and raspberry.
Scarlet, burgundy and raspberry are three colours red.
Thank you Alyson for correcting my Bond-counting and reminding me about poor old George Lazenby who appears in my favourite Bond film... yet is probably my least favourite Bond actor. (Although the way Daniel Craig is going, it's like he's trying his best to win that crown.)
