Upending Low Expectations

Given my indiscriminate movie jones, my low expectations for genre films are bound to be upended periodically. Such was the case when I recently stumbled across The Marksman (2021). 

Although this Liam Neeson vehicle dutifully checked off many of the "action" boxes - car chases, lots of gunfire, stoic hero and cardboard villain - there were several touches that helped elevate it above pure popcorn fare. Here are a few:

* The actor playing Miguel (Jacob Perez) is wholly believable as a young boy grieving his mother. The solid script deftly juxtaposed Miguel's grief as counterpoint to Neeson's recent loss of his wife. 

* The vast reach of Mexican drug cartels using modern technology is presented matter-of-factly. That wise choice made the scary parts of this tense story credible and even more terrifying.

* The final two scenes - no spoilers - are perfectly balanced.   

Bottom line: With my low expectations for action films going in, I was prepared to be diverted, at best. Instead, I was involved throughout and more surprisingly, quite moved at the end. Can't recall the last time I used the word "moved" referring to an action film. What was the last instance when your low expectations were similarly upended, by a film, a book, some music, or otherwise? 

Request for Musical Assistance

Though it's only been sixteen months since his initiation, I'm pleased to report my grandson's musical instincts are nearly flawless. Because my daughter and son-in-law are doing a reasonably good job with the music they curate for the little man's enjoyment, I'll begrudgingly take just 99% of the credit for his impeccable taste. 

So far, his jazz chops are rudimentary but that will dramatically improve as soon as I can persuade my daughter to have my Spotify playlist - fifty-three ever-expanding hours - playing during his every waking hour. On the other hand, his latest "find" from that unimprovable playlist - Those Shoes - is a clear sign that his ear for expertly crafted popular music cannot be questioned. If that mesmerizing lesser-played Eagles song from The Long Run is not on any playlist of yours, my condolences. 

Despite his unimpeachable musical tendencies - thanks to the extraordinary tutelage his grandfather is providing - much remains to be done. First, more concert music needs to be added to his diet. Second, that playlist must continually reflect the best that contemporary popular music has to offer. Allowing my inner fuddy-duddy or any conservative and/or stodgy musical propensities to interfere with the little man's education is unacceptable. That's where you can help. If you have ideas, please share them with me. I will listen to whatever you suggest without judgment or comment. If a song you turn me onto ends up on that playlist? Thank you in advance on my grandson's behalf. And I'll ask him to give you a shoutout on his fifth birthday at his Carnegie Hall debut.    

Reflections from the Bell Curve: Initiation to the Miracle of Music              

Creating a World with Words

"We don't see the world as it is but as we are".

Because of work I began doing in the early 90's, I've spent the last 35+ years paying a great deal more attention to the way my language shapes my world. Early on, behaviorist Albert Ellis helped me learn of the effect of "shoulding" on myself and others and also to avoid the trap of "musterbation". Then Deborah Tannen and other linguists helped me reduce my over-use of absolutes like always/never and everybody/nobody when speaking. Later, my mentor - who'd studied with Fernando Flores - assisted me to shed weak and/or insincere expressions like "I'll try". All these teachers guided me on a journey toward speaking more powerfully and authentically. 

My latest challenge in this world of cognitive restructuring is to stay mindful of language that sends a message of rigid certainty. You've all heard many of these expressions casually tossed around: "I'm sure (or positive or certain) of it".  Or ... "I know this for a fact". Words like these send a clear message to others i.e., "This is the Capital T Truth". Which expressions of certainty do you routinely use that might shut down inquiry or meaningful dialogue with others? Ever been trapped in a certainty loop like I was recently? 

I'm driving with a friend. Though the GPS was directing us, I said more than once I was sure we were going the wrong direction. My patient friend did not react. Only after realizing I was incorrect did it occur to me how my certainty had temporarily blinded me. Was that repeated word of certainty (sure) before or after the thought of being "sure"? Doesn't matter. My language had let me down. We create our worlds with words. In this instance, I'd tried - in vain - to make the world fit my words. Work to be done. 

Music Supervisor for Hire

On the strength of Solo (2013), William Boyd has joined my destined-to-never-be-completed list of 100 favorite authors. Though spy thrillers are not a go-to for me, this novel clearly demonstrates how an author as talented as Boyd can adhere to a formula and still remain fresh. His control of the narrative, his prose, and the way he effortlessly integrates all the expected elements of the spy genre are masterful. It's easy to turn the pages and lose sight of the expert hands holding you. What a gift.

Because this is an authorized "James Bond" novel, the central villain needs to hold his own alongside Dr. No, Goldfinger, and Jaws, to name just a few from Ian Fleming's stable of memorable bad guys. Boyd's creation - a sadistic mercenary named Kobus Breed - is that guy with "...his usual shifting cocktail of moods - at once jovial, wired, and sinister." Boyd also handles other predictive Bond tropes, e.g., the alluring women, the compelling intrigue and double/triple crosses, the lethal gadgets and sleek cars ("...the virile baritone roar of the engine...") with equal finesse. 

When some astute filmmaker gets around to adapting Solo - or any of the other three William Boyd novels I've greedily devoured that have yet to make it to the screen - I'm available as music supervisor. In that made-for-me capacity, I won't even insist on using one of my own compositions for any of those film scores, although I have been lobbying my daughter into making something like that happen with her upcoming film gig for Disney. Just saying. I did help pay for her college education.    

Reflections from the Bell Curve: Another Keeper

Blogging Ain't for Sissies

After almost fifteen years, the blogosphere still mystifies me. For example, analytics-wise, 2024-2025 was particularly weird. Take a look at the chart below.

According to Google God, my monthly view numbers climbed to almost 150,000 in mid-2025. See it? The last "spike" I had before that? Late 2016 - early 2017, easily spotted above. See the tiny bump? That earlier spike topped out at app. 10,000 views per month before returning to my previous baseline. (BTW, though that baseline appears to be "0", it is not. In order to accommodate the huge recent spike, the first horizontal line on the chart had to be increased to 25, 000. In previous years, it was 5,000.) 

Man, was I juiced during those months in 2016-17. Thought for sure viral fame was fast approaching. Subsequently tried every shameless groveling technique I could dream up to keep my numbers climbing, or at least steady anyway. Alas, my rapid return to blogosphere obscurity brought my first pathetic fantasy to a screeching halt.     

Which brings me back to now. How to make sense of what appears to have occurred beginning in late 2023, culminating in mid-2025? What do you think happened? While you're considering that mystery, please know I welcome any idea you care to offer to help me reverse the current death knell before it's too late. I'll stoop to any level, climb into any gutter; nothing is beneath me. In these early days of 2026, I'm shifting from mystification to mortification watching another precipitous plunge almost a decade after my first - much smaller - fantasy crumbled. I know, I know; numbers aren't everything. Tell that to your favorite ego-less Buddhist monk. Me? I'll crib Bette Davis's words. This blogging gig ain't for sissies. 

Monday Morning

How long will it be before Monday morning feels like any other morning?

I left the full-time work world in March 2010. It didn't take long for Tuesday - Friday to all begin feeling like Saturday or Sunday felt during the full-time work years. But somehow, Monday - particularly the morning - has stubbornly held on to its identity as the start of the week. It's weird.  

Almost without exception, I'm up on Monday morning earlier than I am Tuesday - Friday. I'm also usually done with breakfast sooner. And if a Monday gets off to a slow start and I'm idle for more than a few hours - no exercise, reading, guitar, etc. - I'm much more likely to notice than on those other days. 

Decided last night to skip a morning hike I'd scheduled for today; too cold to be outdoors. I'm pretty sure if today was any day between Tuesday-Friday, I'd have paid this no mind. But it's the start of a week, isn't it? Who cares? Apparently, I do.     

Words for the Ages: Line Thirty-Nine

"The part of you they'll never see is the part you've shown to me."

How many of us ever feel really known by more than one person? What song lyric has ever captured that thought as succinctly as those fourteen words from Do What You Gotta Do?

Awards for artistic merit are notoriously arbitrary. Still, the fact that Jimmy Webb has yet to receive the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song is arguably the most egregious oversight in the eighteen-year history of this particular award. Look at the list directly below and try defending the selection of a few past winners of the Gershwin Prize when the composer of Up Up & Away, By the Time I Get to Phoenix, The Worst That Can Happen is still absent. 

Gershwin Prize - Wikipedia

Putting aside the sentimental selection of Tony Bennett in 2017, of the thirteen songwriters on this list, I submit there are at least a few who have never written a single song that - end-to-end - can hold its own against the elegant craftsmanship of Wichita Lineman, Didn't We, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. There are dozens of other perfectly realized popular songs I could cite from Webb's sixty-year body of work. And he - unlike a few Gershwin Prize recipients - writes his own lyrics.     

OK, my rant about the fickle selections of the musically obtuse people responsible for awarding the Gershwin Prize - i.e., the ones who have overlooked Jimmy Webb - is over. Back to the concision and wisdom of that lyric from Do What You Gotta Do. I cry nearly every time I hear Roberta Flack sing those words. But if dirges are not for you, the Johnny Rivers version of this song - taken at a brighter tempo - is equally moving.       

For Your Consideration

Begin today's reflection by thinking of a seven-year-old you know well. Could be a relative, the child of a good friend or neighbor, perhaps a student. Bring that child into focus via hearing their giggle or watching them as they eat or doing something they enjoy. 

Now try picturing that same child walking hundreds of miles of arid landscape across a country enmeshed in a civil war. There are no adults anywhere nearby, food and water are scarce, menacing soldiers with automatic weapons routinely appear. Many of those soldiers are just a few years older than the child you know. 

Sadly, the story of Valentino Achak Deng - masterfully rendered by Dave Eggers in What Is the What (2006) - is far from unique. Seven-year-old refugees across the globe face circumstances like Deng's nearly every day. In lieu of recommending this disturbing and important book, let me instead pose a question to readers of my blog, many of whom I know to be responsible and humane citizens of the world.

Doesn't each of us have a moral obligation to at least expose ourselves to stories like Deng's, no matter the discomfort that exposure creates in us?