Here’s another one of those weird albums that found their way into my CD collection through mysterious circumstances I no longer recall.
I can’t remember ever reading any reviews of the Josh Joplin Group or hearing them recommended by friends. I assume I picked the album up on the cheap either used or at my office’s semi-annual auction, because I never pay full price for a blind item.
I’m becoming a lot more aware of my age in recent months. It’s not that I’m approaching a milestone (I’m 36) or having a mid-life crisis… nothing like that. I’m just experiencing for the first time what I’ve always heard people say, that the years fly by faster the older you get.
It happens when I realize some people I work with were born in the mid or late 80s. Or when it occurs to me that there are just three months left in the 2000s, when I remember attending the millennium New Year’s Eve party at my sister’s place as if it were last week. The 90s seemed to last forever… the 2000s were over in a blink.
Have you ever heard somebody describe a dream or aspiration and liked it so much that you adopted it as your own?
I don’t mean something broad and obvious like “I want to travel the world” but something specific and tangible like “I want to see the Taj Mahal at sunset.” The image clicks with you and suddenly, yeah, you want to see the Taj Mahal at sunset, too.
So what does this have to do with Tom Petty?
I was destined to rank this movie high for two reasons.
First, it’s a girl power film. As the parents of two young girls, my wife and I have been compiling a list of movies we’ll show them when they’re old enough… movies that take on gender stereotypes and present realistic, positive female characters in lead roles. Films such as Bend it Like Beckham, Bring it On, Ever After and Whale Rider (my favorite), to name a few. And of course we have seven whole seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer waiting patiently on the shelf.
Whip It might just be the most girl-power-y girl-power movie yet. It follows small-town Texas teen Bliss Cavendar (played by Juno‘s Ellen Page) as she is awakened from a malaise brought on by her job at a dead-end diner and her mother’s fixation on beauty pageants. What she falls in love with isn’t anything glamorous or fancy, and it isn’t a guy — it’s roller derby.
‘Here, There and Everywhere’ is probably my favorite track on Revolver, but giving it a run for its money is another Paul McCartney tune, ‘For No One.’ This song is the flip side of ‘Here, There and Everywhere,’ as sad and resigned as that song is buoyant. It’s a song about the pain that lingers long after a breakup… the little ache that sneaks up on you unexpectedly. As Paul puts it, “There will be times when all the things she said will fill your head. You won’t forget her.”
Meet Me In Montauk 