Willy Wonka Collectible Cards

One of the great things about wearing your fandoms on your sleeve is that your friends tend to remember your loves when they happen to come across them in their regular lives. I remember an old girlfriend’s mother browsing a cookie store (in Vegas of all places) and, seeing a tin with the Wizard of Oz on it, remembered my obsession with the Judy Garland classic and brought it home for me!

In that same way, a friend of mine was taking his young daughter to the Shopping Mall’s Fun Factory to play games and ride rides. There was a ticket crane-type game where you could snatch up these hard plastic cards of characters from the 1971 Gene Wilder movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory:

After grabbing a few and seeing how nice they were, remembered, “Hey, Z was a really big fan of that Willy Wonka movie…bet he would LOVE these!”He then managed to get ahold of all 10 of the collectible cards and handed the whole deck over to me this past weekend, all bundled up with a rubber band.

MAN, these are some really beautiful cards! Not mere paper, they’re hard like credit cards and glossy. From what he said, you’re supposed to redeem these cards for ticket prizes but many opted to keep ’n’ collect ‘em instead!

Whooohoo, I sure lucked out! I’m the man who suddenly got everything he ever wanted…and I lived happily ever after! LOLOL!

An Amazing Sci-Fi Series: BODIES

 Whoa, don't know HOW this amazing series flew under my radar, but the NETFLIX series BODIES grabbed my interest from the set-up alone, and kept me guessing and on my toes throughout its entire run!

Stephen Graham as the mysterious Mannix

A mysterious dead body appears in the same alleyway across FOUR different timelines, and it's up to four different detectives from each respective era to figure out who the person is ...and the greater underlying mystery beneath!

Amaka Okafor as DS Shahara Hasan (present day)

Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as DS Karl 'Charles Whiteman' Weissman (1941)

Kyle Soller as DI Alfred Hillinghead (1890)

Shira Haas as DC Iris Maplewood (2053)

Everyone excels in their roles, but for me, the show's scene stealer has to be actress Shira Hass in the role of futuristic law enforcer...simply stunning from her first introduction and most compelling character-wise as well!

True, the fact that her "arc" is in the future gives the writers more to work with, it's the human side of her that's most interesting: the support of a "big brother" system to ensure peaceful existence, or the unruly nature of free will. 

Wish they dedicated even MORE time for her, though there IS some buzz about a second season happening, Not sure I want that as the story ends so satisfyingly, but I would love a deeper look into the characters themselves!

Album "Title Drops" in Songs!

 There is a trope in movies called the “Title Drop” where they say the name of the movie (Example: Will Smith in Suicide Squad, asking, “So what are we, some kind of…Suicide Squad?”
It’s a trope that for some reason is largely disliked, though I personally I don’t mind it at all... MORESO, there’s a SIMILAR trope that I really LOVE, and that’s when the title of a MUSIC ALBUM is a line taken from a specific song from the LP.
I love it because it has a sort of easter-egg feel, a real “Aha!" moment, when you realize that’s where the title of the album came from. Additionally, the song track itself is usually one of importance or sums up the overall theme of the album best...

Here are just a few examples of ones I really love!

10,000 Maniacs/ The Wishing Chair

line from

"Can't Ignore the Train"

"The second daughter, how she fell

Young locked in some folks' prison, made to dwell

Till they're braiding her gray hair

Sitting in the wishing chair"

Depeche Mode /Some Great Reward

line from
“Lie To Me”

“So lie to me, like they do it in the factory
Make me think that at the end of the day
Some great reward will be coming my way.”

The Cure/ The Head on The Door

line taken from:
“Close to Me”

“But if I had your faith,
Then I could make it safe and clean
If only I was sure
That the head on the door was a dream”

Nirvana / Nevermind

line taken from:

"Smells Like Teen Spirit"

"And I forget just why I taste

Oh yeah, I guess it makes me smile

I found it hard, it's hard to find

Oh well, whatever, nevermind"

The Sundays/ Static and Silence

line from:

"Monochrome"

"It's 4 in the morning July in '69

Me and my sister, we crept down like shadows

They're bringing the moon right down to our sitting room

Static and silence and a monochrome vision."

Stephen “TinTin” Duffy / The Ups and Downs

line from 


“Be There”

"Whisper I don't know where I'm going

Can't move without you knowing the ups and downs

The stopping train is loading up with sentiment

The backyard breeze is blowing back its sacrament

Whisper I don't know where I'm going"

The Church/ Of Skins and Hearts

line from

"For A Moment We're Strangers"

"In the empty place the soul stripped bare

Of skins and heart and I come apart

In your icy hands

I forget my role, as I stare into your soul"

The Breeders/ Last Splash

line taken from:

“Cannonball”

“Spitting in a wishing well

Blown to hell, crash! I’m the last splash.

I'll be your whatever you want

The bong in this reggae song”

Boomtown Rats / A Tonic For The Troops

line taken from:

"She's So Modern"

"And Charlie ain't no Nazi

She likes to wear her leather boots

Cos it's exciting for the veterans

And it's a tonic for the troops!"

Basia/ London, Warsaw, New York

line taken from 

"Copernicus"

"Our love will take this globe by storm

If it's London, Warsaw or New York

'Cause all around the world,

people want to love and be loved"

Amy Grant/ Age To Age

line taken from:
“El Shaddai”

“El Shaddai, el Shaddai
El-elyon na Adonai
Age to age, you're still the same
By the power of the name.”

Rachel Stevens/ Come And Get It

line taken from
"So Good"

"I get this feeling that you're taking me under,

I get this feeling that you're taking it down.

'Cause it's you, you, you, all you-

Come and get it."

Girls Aloud/ What Will The Neighbours Say?

line from
“Love Machine”

“I'm just a love machine, feeding my fantasy
Give me a kiss or three and I'm fine
I need a squeeze a day instead of this negligée
What will the neighbours say this time?”

Queen / Hot Space

line taken from:

 "Dancer"

"Dancer, Dancer

Why don't you kick off your dancing shoes

And come and ride with me?

Ah hot space, let's go!"

Van Halen/ Fair Warning

line from 
"Mean Street"

"A gun is real easy in this desperate part of town, 

turns you from hunted into hunter-

 you go and hunt somebody down.

Somebody said fair warning, Lord, 

Lord, strike that poor boy down."

Carly Simon/ Another Passenger

line from
“Libby”

“I'm just another passenger,
Traveling on these crazy high seas
Very likely be the same in a Paris breeze.

Libby, we'll fly...”

Fleetwood Mac/ Mystery to Me

Line from 

"Emerald Eyes"

"Find emerald eyes in the night

Gleamin' shiny and bright

As if covered with silver

She's still a mystery to me

The way she sails away slow

Makes your day to day life easy"

Pat Benatar/ Crimes of Passion

line from

"Prisoner of Love"

"Cold hard labor, it's a labor of love

Convicted of crimes, the crimes of passion

Caught in a chain gang, the chain of fools

Solitary confinement, confined by the rules"

Paul McCartney/ Flowers In the Dirt

line from

"That Day is Done"

"She sprinkles flowers in the dirt

That's when a thrill becomes a hurt

I know I'll never see her face

She walks away from my resting place"

Roger Hodgson/ In The Eye of The Storm

line taken from:

"Had A Dream (Sleeping With The Enemy)"

"Had a dream, I was born

To be naked in the eye of the storm

And now it's standing right in front of me

What's it gonna do to me?

Who knows?"

LIVE ALBUMS

Live Concert Albums sometimes use a prominent line from a song off the album they are touring for. It instantly lets you know what Album Tour it is, and it's lot fancier than just calling it "Live In Concert!!!" 

Talking Heads/ Stop Making Sense

line from 
"Girlfriend is Better"

"I got a girlfriend that's better than this

But you don't remember at all

As we get older and stop making sense

You won't find her waiting long"

U2/ Under A Blood Red Sky

line from

"New Year's Day"

"Under a blood red sky, a crowd has gathered in black and white

Arms entwined, the chosen few

The newspapers says it's true, and we can break through

Though torn in two, we can be one."

U2/ Rattle and Hum

line from 
Bullet The Blue Sky"

"In the locust wind comes a rattle and hum

Jacob wrestled the angel, and the angel was overcome.

You plant a demon seed, you raise a flower of fire

See them burning crosses

See the flames higher and higher."

The Doors/ Alive She Cried

line from 

"When the Music's Over"

"The face in the mirror won't stop

The girl in the window won't drop

A feast of friends, alive she cried

Waitin' for me outside"

BTW, Albums named after actual songs on the album aren’t quite as thrilling as lines taken from them, and worse, there's nothing more boring than an album named after the lead single! 

There’ve been times I've been listening to an album and loved when I heard the title of the album… only to learn that there is a title track song on the album.
Examples:
Listening to Joni Mitchell's “Blue”, 
the lyrics for “All I Want” go:
Do you see, do you see, do you see how you hurt me, baby?
So I hurt you too, then both get so blue.”
I remember being blown away by the ‘reveal” of the title, only to learn that there was a actual song called “Blue” on the LP.
Or listening to INXS’s “Kick”, the lyrics for “Devil Inside”
“Here come the man with the look in his eye
Fed on nothing but full of pride
Look at them go, look at them kick
Makes you wonder how the other half live”
I went” Ah! The title of the LP! But then, once again, there WAS a song called “Kick” later on in the album.