All This Twerking's Got Me Smirking

In case you were wondering, that's former 'tween' star Miley Cyrus in the picture to the left. A few years ago, you and your kids knew her as the star of the "Hannah Montana" franchise from Disney Channel.

Those days are apparently long gone, at least as far as Miley herself is concerned. Last week in a performance on the MTV Video Music Awards that could perhaps be described as a sad attempt at being raunchy, she decided to come out of her pop queen shell and start twerking in public.

What the heck is "twerking", you might be asking? Well, according to the Oxford Dictionary Online, 'twerking' is "to dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance."

First introduced in the early-90's, the word is of dubious origin, but likely a contraction of the words 'twist' and 'jerk', and was used in that decade in the lyrics of some hip-hop songs.

While I could never be accused of having been a prude to this point in my life, and can certainly appreciate a beautiful, fit, young woman exploring her sexuality and trying to bring a former kiddie image to a more mature one, something just struck me as being very wrong with that Miley Cyrus performance.

Heaven Can't Wait

One of my all-time favorite songs is the beautiful ballad "Heaven Can Wait" recorded by the artist 'Meatloaf' from his classic "Bat Out of Hell" album and written by his longtime collaborator Jim Steinman.

The message of the song is that the singer has found such a deep, fulfilling, passionate love in their life here on earth that, despite it's promise of eternal beauty and peace in God's presence, as far as they are concerned heaven can wait.

I'm not going to waste any time in bashing the song or it's lyrics. This is one of the most simple and timeless love songs in modern music. But it does provide an opportunity to take a closer look at one of the most wide-spread mistakes that we as humans make. The mistake is in not understanding and accepting that no matter the beauty or peace provided us by anything or anyone here on earth, it pales in comparison to what is promised in Heaven.

The vast majority of us operate within the framework of our daily lives as if this is it, that this life is the only one that we get, so we need to live it to its fullest. How many times have you heard the phrase "life is short" or "life is meant to be lived" in defense of some course of action that someone is taking.

The truth of the matter is that, while a human lifespan on earth is relatively short, our promised existence in God's presence in Heaven is eternal. And while we certainly should strive for happiness and peace in our time here on earth, and strive to spread those to others, life is not meant to be lived to the point that we experience every sensation, good or bad, in our human lifetimes.

Rock & Roll Heaven ?

"If there's a rock-n-roll heaven, you know they got a hell of a band" are the famous lyrics from a song that was itself called "Rock and Roll Heaven" released as a comeback reunion hit by the 60's duo The Righteous Brothers.

 In 1974, the song rose to #3 on the U.S. charts, talking in its lyrics about the untimely deaths of a number of rock, soul, and pop music stars.

The song perfectly leads into a special series that I will be doing here at the blog next week called 'Rock and Roll Heaven'.

Each day from Monday through Saturday, barring some incredibly major world news event, I will do a mini-bio on some of the legendary rock stars over the years who have died young. I will explore how they died, how they lived, their contributions to music, their home lives, etc.

For diehard fans of particular stars, it may be old ground. But for many, it will be a nostalgic trip back in time, and not just to the psychedelic 60's and turbulent 70's, but also to the 80's and 90's and beyond. And hopefully for everyone, I will mix in enough lessons to be learned from those lives.

There will be good, bad, and ugly, and there will be criticism of legends. The following is the schedule: Janis Joplin (Monday), Jimi Hendrix (Tuesday), Kurt Cobain (Wednesday), Michael Hutchence (Thursday), Jim Morrison (Friday) - and then there will be a wrap-up piece.

If it goes well, and folks want to see a few more, I will consider it as an ongoing feature into the future. So stay tuned here each day next week to find out whether they have a hell of a rock band in heaven, or whether simply these burned-out stars went straight to hell.

NOTE: all entries in this series into the future can be viewed by simply clicking on the 'Rock and Roll Heaven' link at the bottom of each article in the series

The Gypsy That Remains

It's been a bit 'heavy' here at the blog lately, so I thought that I would lighten things up a bit as we ease out of July, and as I ease into my summer vacation.

Last night I had finished up watching the Cubs-Brewers on ESPN and was getting ready to go to bed, and decided to do one last flick through the program listings.

There on WHYY's local public broadcast 'Arts' channel was listed the program Soundstage, which features concert performances, and here they were offering a concert by one of the true loves of my lifetime, Stephanie Lynn 'Stevie' Nicks.

I hadn't watched Stevie perform in some time, and the program information said that this concert was filmed this year, in 2008, and so I was curious to see just how she looked and sounded today. I wasn't disappointed. Stevie is still a beautiful woman, and her voice still rings true with that same raspy, story-teller quality that has made her a rock icon.

Well, this kept me up for another hour watching the concert, but it was well worth it. Listening and watching her perform songs like 'Rhiannon', 'Gold Dust Woman', 'Edge of Seventeen', 'Landslide', and more took me back to thinking about various times in my life. Especially remembering those times that I first heard her and the opportunities that I had to actually see her perform live and in-person.

Viva La Vida

From the minute that the iTunes commercial began airing back in the spring with snippets of the song "Viva La Vida" by Coldplay, it was fairly obvious that this was going to be a monster hit.

But the obviousness wasn't just because of the 'i' connection, as powerful as that has become these days. The more obvious factor was that the damn song was catchy. It was a good tune, and it featured great vocals by Coldplay's leading man Chris Martin (also famous as Mr. Gwyneth Paltrow.)

The song has been all over the radio this summer. It has definitely been my personal favorite new tune, and is arguably going to go down as 'that song', the one that you will always equate with this particular Summer of '08.

The success of the song should also be no surprise once you know that the producer is Brian Eno, he of U2 and David Bowie reputation and success (among many other projects.)

What Eno did with the already great Irish rockers of U2 in producing the smash hit album "The Joshua Tree", he may be repeating here with "Viva La Vida" for Coldplay.