Favorite Songs: "You Came Back" by Pete Townshend

Being a Huge fan of THE WHO lead quite naturally to a all-encompassing love of lead guitarist/ songwriter Pete Townshend’s work as well, and from albums like Who Came First down through the Lifehouse project and more, his songs have always been just as meaningful to me as his accomplishments with the band.

 In the early 80’s, Pete released an unusual collection called SCOOP…this was an album made up of unreleased songs, ideas, and precious demos that had been gathering up in Pete Townshend’s vaults. Among the many, many incredible songs, was a track called “You Came Back”, a tune that immediately got my attention with its catchy guitar riff...

Listening to the song’s lyrics for the first time, I had the distinct feeling it was another bawdy ditty of Pete’s a la Squeezebox, when I heard the line “That girl with the umbrella used to be a fella”…my first thoughts were that it was a song about a transvestite! Then the next verse sang about “remembering being dead and alive”, and trying to remember names of people’s faces…was this a “drinking til you blackout” song like Who Are You?

I didn’t know, but something about the gentle way the song was played and orchestrated made me feel like it was a particularly intimate song, really wistful and dreamy-like in feeling, despite not knowing its meaning, the melody still had that power to move me.

 I’d love to say that I figured it out all by myself, but the fact of the matter is, after puzzling about the song for weeks, I finally gave up and took a peek at the liner notes in the CD booklet, and read the explanation given by Pete himself:

You Came Back:

“This is a real favorite of mine about, you guessed it, Reincarnation.

The fact that I never got around to putting drums on it makes the exchanged guitar rhythms, played on an inexpensive CORAL guitar, more effective. Lead Guitar also missing, I’m afraid.”

OH MY GOSH! REINCARNATION? I hurriedly went back and put the CD in again and listened to the song with renewed eyes…it ALL made sense! Now all those confusing lyrics lent itself to one of the most gentle, wistful tunes ever!

Listen to Pete’s singing. This is one of the most sincere, heartfelt songs I think I’ve ever heard him sing, and when you consider the man has made a career out of wearing his heart on his sleeve, that’ s quite an accomplishment. Sometimes when I listen to it, I can’t believe it’s this unknown song tucked away on an “obscure and unreleased” CD package, but  that’s alright by me…finding songs like these are like finding hidden treasures! And Pete? Yeah, It’s a real favorite of mine, too!

An inspirational song for anyone who’s lost someone important to them. It’s hopeful to believe that our loved ones will always come back to us and are never truly gone!

Favorite Comics: Fantastic Four #236

To celebrate the Fantastic Four's 20th Anniversary, John Byrne and Company came up with this superb story that really celebrated the Fantastic Four and its origins.  A story that showed us that even with their memories and powers stripped away, the heart and courage that the Fantastic Four have always had still shone through!

Absolutely one of the very best Fantastic Four stories in the mighty FF canon!

"Terror In A Tiny Town"

The story opens with a scene Fantastic Four fans have long been familiar with: Four astronauts sneak onto the government base to pilot an unauthorized test flight to the moon. They are Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm, and they are about to make the jump into outer space that will become one of the most significant events in their lives as well as the world around them!

The secret flight has been planned in haste due to expected budget cutting, and as they hurtle upwards into outer space, they fear the shielding against the cosmic rays will not be enough to protect them. As they enter the cosmic storm, their worst fears are realized as the rays penetrate through the ship’s siding, and a bizarre transformation takes place within the four passengers aboard the ship as the rocket crashes back down to earth.

But here is where the familiar story diverges into a new and different story from the one we know…unlike the famed test flight when they crash land and are reborn as the Fantastic Four, in THIS scenario, the ship smashes down and explodes in a gulf of flame! Suddenly we see young Johnny Storm screaming up out of bed- the vision we have just seen has been no more than a bad nightmare of his!

But as Johnny crawls out of bed and gets ready for his day, we see at once that something is different- Johnny doesn’t appear to be the superhero Human Torch of the Fantastic Four, instead, he seems like a regular teenage boy living in a small town on his way to work at Sal’s Garage. He waves to the pretty girls on the street, and makes a visit to his favorite couple… Reed and Sue, who also appear to be no more than a normal married husband and wife in a quiet neighborhood!

Johnny arrives just as Reed is leaving for his teaching job at the local university. Sue remarks that Reed’s been having a hard time because his boss, a Mr. Vaughn, has been treating him like an incompetent(!) at the school.  She invites Johnny in, musing about a strange nightmare she’s had of them prepping for a space flight, which piques Johnny’s curiosity since it seems very much like his. But he brushes it off as coincidence, and makes his way to work, passing by a statue that indicates the town is Liddleville, a quiet burg that Johnny hopes to leave someday.

He drives past Ben and Alicia, another happily married couple outside their café, and we are treated to another surprise- Ben is Human, and Alicia can see! Cleary we are dealing with an alternate reality of the Fantastic Four…or are we? As Johnny drives off, we see a man across the street observing the exchange of pleasantries with obvious delight. He is Phillip Masters, the father of Alicia, and as he tells himself, “Perfect! It’s All Going Exactly as I Want It!”, we realize that whatever is transpiring here is some kind of conspiracy, and it is happening to the REAL Fantastic Four.

That night, Sue is haunted again by the mysterious dream, and this time, after a heated argument, she sees Ben turning into a monstrous thing, she sees him stretching a pliable Reed, and finally setting Johnny on Fire! It is clear the dreams are becoming worse, and when Johnny and Reed are discussing it the next day at Ben’s café, he sheepishly admits that HE’S been having the same kind of dreams, too! Reed tries to wrap his mind around the subject, but then Phillip Masters and Alicia arrive, and they turn the conversation to more pleasant things.

After a long and particularly frustrating day at the university dealing with Mr. Vaughn, Reed sits alone in the dark and ponders the coincidence of all three of them having such similar dreams. Johnny on fire. Ben as a monster. Reed as a rubber man. And the space ship. It always comes back to the ship…

Reed drifts off to a troubled sleep. He dreams… and all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place: The Space Flight. The Cosmic Rays. The Crash. The birth of the celebrated Fantastic Four, the Baxter Building, and then, something sinister…the Puppet Master hypnotizing them…and leading them down to a secret lab, with one other waiting in darkness... He almost has the complete story, but just as he reaches for the answer, Reed falls out of his chair, crashing awake!

The fall has left him clear-minded and positive of one surety: THE DREAM IS THE TRUTH. And as he knows that, he knows that whoever has imprisoned them in this fairytale town must also be a dangerous villain who must be stopped. But he must accomplish his first great task: Convince the other team-mates that their life has been a lie!

Reed arrives home at an ungodly late hour, his arm covered in matted blood. He has sliced his arm with a scalpel to prove to himself that the bodies they inhabit are not real bodies, but in fact some sort of synth-clone puppets that their minds are inhabiting. The others, of course, do no believe a word of it, and think Reed is delusional from the loss of blood. “You Don’t Believe me”. states Reed, “But you will. Our very lives may depend upon it. I WILL MAKE YOU BELIEVE ME!”

Phillip Masters is sweeping the front of his toy store when he is accosted by the angry members of the team. Reed has been successful in convincing them the truth, and their real memories have come crashing back. Seeing the ruse is over, the former Puppet Master admits that he had a hand in the deception, but only because he wanted to see his daughter Alicia happy. But Masters didn’t have the technological knowledge to implement this kind of project, and brought in someone who did. “Who?” asks Reed, and just then a voice booms from above, “SURELY, REED RICHARDS, THAT IS NOT DIFFICULT TO DEDUCE?” Their captor all along has been DOCTOR DOOM!

With the illusion lifted, Doctor Doom grandly reveals the complete picture: They are indeed trapped in synth-cloned puppets of their real selves, and have been sentenced to live out their lives in the tiny constructed town of Liddleville! Enjoying the bizarre prison he has made for them, he’d even occasionally “entered” the town by “jumping” into a robot body to harass Reed Richards…Yes, Doom was Mr. Vaughn! So now what? “What do you intend to do?” asks Reed, and Doom laughs. He doesn’t plan on doing anything to them- he has reduced them to his play-things, and will leave them there in the Liddleville prison, trapped in their puppet bodies, while he leaves to reclaim the throne of Latveria!

Reed knows there is a small spark buried within each of their little cloned bodies that is in all of them that made them become the Fantastic Four. He must find a way to get their powers back, escape this prison and stop Doctor Doom- and he remembers something that just might do it… Earlier, the University had received a special piece of machinery, a PARTICLE ACCELORATOR, a device that can recreate any type of radiation, whether it be radiation from the sun, or…cosmic rays! After examining the equipment, Reed determines that is a real, functioning device, and all that is left is for the group to make the decision to change back to the Fantastic Four.

One by one, the members each step up to the accelerator, and get dosed with the equivalent of the space flight’s cosmic rays, reverting them back to the Fantastic Four, albeit a much smaller version! Using their powers, they break free of the Liddleville town prison, and soar out into Doom’s laboratory, where they have been secured away. They get to the control console , but find Doom has removed the Power Module that will start the controls and free them.

They lure Doom back to the lab and get him to “jump start” the module with an energy blast, and railroad him into setting off the controls, which frees the group at last from the puppet bodies they’ve been imprisoned! The group leaps up and quickly prepares for a battle with Doctor Doom, but find that the energy shock has left him strangely immobile. Not quite dead, he seems to be in a type of coma…

The reason we find, is that Doom has jumped back to his little robot body, and with only a twist of a ring, is ready to jump back when the Fantastic Four are off their guard! He is about to commence departure, when the ring is smashed by a thrown rock.

  It is Phillip Masters, and he has re-programmed the entire town to his will. All he wanted was for his daughter to be happy, and Doom has ruined it for them. He orders the townspeople to destroy Doom, who flees for his life, knowing that if he should “die” in robot form , his mind will perish as well. He knows that in the robot body, he can run forever…but so can they!

A Terrific story by John Byrne, celebrating the story of the Fantastic Four and their origin!

Favorite Actresses: Greta Garbo

Back in the days before Cable or even- gulp- DIGITAL Broadcasting , back when there were but THREE major television stations, ABC, NBC and CBS, channels used to sign off at the end of the day, and for most of the night, all you saw was a test pattern.

For those insomniacs out there like me, sometimes there’d be a temporary reprieve after all regular programming was done, in the form of “Nite-Owl Theater”…. this was basically the TV station broadcasting old Black and White films in the wee hours of the morning, usually between 12:30 to 2:00 in the morning, and I just loved it!

There is something sort of magical about watching old movies late at night , wrapped up in a blanket, where you feel you’re the only person awake in the world. The movies really come to life, and you almost feel transported to that earlier time. Those days of watching those late night movies still bring back fond memories!

By chance one night I happened to catch a random movie from 1933 starring the incredible Greta Garbo called Queen Christina. Talk about beginners luck, as I was to find later that many regard Queen Christina as one of Garbo’s finest and regularly recommend it to beginning Garbo enthusiasts!

But I didn’t know anything about the movie besides the fact that the story was one of the most interesting and appealing tales I’d seen in a while- and the fact that Greta Garbo was far, far prettier than I ever could have imagined…and that VOICE!!!!

I don’t know, my general image of Greta Garbo was of your usual pin-up platinum blonde…Garbo was just about anything BUT average! Exotic and Moody, from the very first time I laid eyes on her and heard that mesmerizing, husky voice, I knew she was truly something special!

Greta plays a Queen who escapes the crushing responsibilities of royalty to hide out dressed as a boy in a small town tavern. There she meets a man on his way to meet the Queen, who hasn’t the slightest inkling that she’s right there in front of him! One thing leads to another, and they fall in love…but when she assumes her responsibilities once more, they find it is harder that they think to continue the doomed romance.

It’s hard to even pick a favorite scene in this movie, they’re all so good. Each scene with her is a joy to watch, her emotional delivery of every line is captivating, and one of my favorite touching scenes (where she says she is “memorizing the room”) is one where she doesn’t speak at all!

Well, I just flat out loved this movie, (In fact, to this day, it is still one of my very VERY favorite movies of all time!) and I needed to see more, more, more! Fortunately, there was this wonderful Video Rental store in town that specialized in the classic films, and it was through here that I saw almost all of Greta’s major movies and a few lesser ones, too! From Grand Hotel through Susan Lenox, even my very first silent movies Flesh and the Devil and The Temptress, if Garbo was in it, I rented it! In time, I even managed to special order the Laserdisc of Queen Christina, which was, for years, the only copy I had of this beloved movie.

When MGM finally released a selection of Greta’s movies in a Deluxe DVD Box Set, I was thrilled to finally get Queen Christina on DVD , as well as other favorites Ninotchka, Mata Hari and Anna Christie, none of which had ever been given a DVD treatment before!

I’m hoping that they get around to releasing a second Box Set because there are a few other favorites Still to be released on DVD-I’m gonna keep my fingers crossed for these treasures!!!