Here we go, here we go, here we go…
- Several folks have written to point out to me that Stevia is a natural sweetener, not an artificial sweetener. They're right. I don't particularly like it but it is from a natural herb. At the moment, I don't have much of a sweet tooth so I may not be the best judge.
- Jim Korkis sends this link to a good interview with Dick Beals and notes that Dick's autobiography, Think Big, is available on Amazon. True…but I'm going to order my copy from the address on that interview page so Dick makes a few more bucks off it. The man has had an astounding career, popping up in the darnedest places. The other day, I was watching an episode of the TV series, Captain Nice, and there was the sound of Beals in the theme song.
- Two people wrote to ask why I didn't also mention that Ross Bagdasarian (aka David Seville) did the voices of the Chipmunks in that commercial. Well, I'm not sure he did. He probably did at least one of them but contrary to popular belief, the sounds of Alvin, Simon and Theodore were not all done by Mr. Bagdasarian with a sped voice. I used to think they were all him, and perhaps some articles said so…but folks who've slowed down Chipmunks records and TV shows have noted others in there, even in the original hit, "The Chipmunk Song." And it isn't always even consistent within one project. I'm told (I haven't studied this myself) that Bagdasarian is usually Alvin, frequently Simon and rarely Theodore. Or sometimes he does the singing voices of all three but the speaking voices of only one or two — this, along with doing David Seville in his natural, unsped voice.
- As a P.S. to the above item: I never really appreciated the skill Mr. Bagdasarian put into those recordings until I decided to have some characters on Garfield and Friends sing and talk in sped voices. It takes a fair amount of engineering skill and creative direction to blend voices in that situation and to keep them understandable. There have been a lot of imitations of The Chipmunks over the years and I never thought any of them were as good because, among other reasons, they didn't have someone with Bagdasarian's skill as a record producer and performer.
- As a P.S. to the above P.S.: When we tried speeding up Lorenzo Music on the Garfield cartoons, we discovered that his voice sounded like the same guy. It just plain refused to speed up.
- I really, really enjoyed the new Lewis Black special last night on HBO. It reruns many times to come.
Lastly, a continued thanks to the folks who've sent in cash donations this weekend. I'm quite stunned by both the volume and by some of the amounts. I'm thinking of having a big party when I hit the "100 pounds lost" mark and inviting everyone who helped. If we do, we'll hold it in my old pants.