November 17,1997

My Times

I've been busy writing the score for the feature film; Stuart Bliss.
Although I've not done a full score since the 1980's, the short films IPOLA and Lucky have kept my mind open to the possibilities.
Like most things we do, there's plenty to learn about film music.
For one thing you can't just barge in like you can with a pop record. A film score needs finesse.
Todays lesson then - less is more. (try telling that to John Williams)

I know we've all been waiting for Celine Dion's new album to come out. Wait no longer. It's out this week.

Some things never cease to amaze me. Who would have thought that Fleetwood Mac would be in their 12th week on the Top Ten of the Billboard Album charts in 1997.
Even I was a child when their first album came out!

You might find these Musi Clinks useful.

No matter which side of the fence you sit on, it never hurts to have facts to back you up. In the past when I had the urge to shoot my mouth off about our little community here on Planet Earth, I really wished I had them close at hand.
Nowadays, I can say things with more certainty, knowing I can use Internet links as footnotes.
And when I see a story on TV or read about an incident in a newspaper, I can do my own research through local connections near the source of the story...times have really changed.

I've been getting angry lately at news stories talking about how easy it was to neutralise the Iraqi Military with high tech weapons back in 1991, and that the Iraqi's had better watch out or we'll send in the Stealths and with pin point accuracy take out their television sets. (We all remember the General showing us the awesome high technology weapons dropped down the chimney.) Unless it's cloudy or raining and we make a mistake and confuse a school bus with a house or something, in which case we'll saturation bomb them with B-52's like we really did in the Desert Storm operation.1
Of course they'll still tell us that the billions of tax dollars we're spending on these futuristic toys will make wars quick and easy, even cheap and cheerful. We'll only kill bad guys and their pets. By using Laser Guidance and a host of other expensive toys we won't harm their gardeners, though we might hit a house keeper.
And if the latest technology doesn't work quite as promised, they'll be happy to have more of our tax money to re-engineer it and make it work!

If you can't see the bastards through the clouds, bomb the hell out of them with the oldest technology in the arsenal. Just don't spoil it for the kids. If they knew this Star Wars stuff didn't work, they'd never grow up willing to have such a large percentage of their tax dollar paying for it. And anyway, I can't imagine the TV news programs getting very much money for their advertising space next to pictures of B-52's at high altitude dropping 32 million pounds of 500 lb bombs that get blown off course with the wind...not very high tech.2

The General Accounting Office of the United States Government has many stories that are just too complicated for 2 minute soundbites on the 6 o'clock news.

Go to their Search page and type Desert Storm in the Report Field to get the whole story.

"GAO questions the military's increased reliance on precision guided munitions given their limited effectiveness during the Persian Gulf War."
Operation Desert Storm Air War (Letter Report, 07/02/96, GAO/PEMD-96-10)1 ©Bayview Avenue Records Inc.