I realized it's been too long since we've had one of those "Comedy Against Trumpism" viideos, and this seems a good time to rectify that. This time, it's Portugal's turn to chime and and ridicule the American president. If you don't know what these are -- not to worry, rather than me explain, they do in this video. And then about a minute in, they even show a little bit of the very first "Comedy Against Trumpism" video that started it all, from The Netherlands (which, for my taste, remains the best). They've all been pretty good, though.
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We'll finish our our brief Lea Salonga Trilogy with the fun and fascinating oddity that got me thinking of posting these in the first place. When Salonga came to national fame starring in Miss Saigon, there.was a subsequent document on the making of the show, which included her audition. The story was that the producers had looked all over the world for a young actress to play the lead, and after not being able to find anyone looked in unlikely places and came across the young Lea Salonga from the Philippines. That's all true. But the implication from it was that she came out of nowhere. In fact, it turned out that Ms. Salonga was a pretty big star in the Philippines. Certainly that's not the heart of the world's entertainment community, but it wasn't like she had just been singing in her living room and came out of nowhere. In fact, as a young girl she'd had a TV show there, starring with her brother, I believe. She also appeared on stage as a young girl. And though there aren't a whole lot of shows for a little girl to star in, there is one that is the Holy Grail of musicals for little girls. Yes -- nine-year-old Lea Salonga starred in...Annie. As the little red-headed mop-top. And we have footage of it! Not just footage, but THE song. The full number, in fact, complete with the dialogue scene that comes in the middle. And it will not shock you to learn that she's very good. (By the way, in every production or video I've seen of Annie, the dog Sandy is always a scruffy mutt. Here it's hilariously a German Shepard. Hilarious because it's not only almost as big as her, but you think one wrong move and she could be a goner.) But she makes it. And here is Lea Salong, age 9, singing, "Tomorrow." And because you've been so good sitting through all of these videos, here's a bonus just for you. This is Lea Salonga singing Annie's other big solo number, the sweet song, "Maybe" I'm a big lover of barbershop singing, so it's been a pleasure seeing a bunch of "chorale" barbershop videos that Mark Evanier has been posting lately.on his site here. (This is chorus singing as opposed to the more traditional quartets) He'd mainly been showing a European group, Zero8, that does a very nice job, but the other day he had a video from my favorite barbershop group, Ambassadors of Harmony. (To clarify, because I like the group so much, it's mis-identified as Masters of Harmony, an easy mistake. Masters of Harmony is one of the long-time perennial winners of the international competition -- and with another group, Vocal Majority, the two had won the top prize 15 times in 24 years. But then in 2004, the Ambassadors of Harmony finally beat them both and made it into the winner's circle. And five years later in 2009 they came back with an amazing rendition of "76 Trombones.) I recognized them immediately from their director, Dr. James Henry, who stands out in the cover-graphic on the video (looking a bit like the actor Richard Kind), but also the video itself when it runs identifies them as the Ambassadors of Harmony. However, I sometimes have to double-check which is Ambassadors and which is Masters. By the way, though this fellow, Dr. Henry, has been the leader on all the group's videos I've seen, this more-recent one brings a joint-leader who shares the direction, which surprised me. What I most-like about the Ambassadors of Harmony is not only how rich their singing and arrangements, but also because they have a great sense of showmanship, and put on far-more intricate performances than most. (You can see that in the "Top of the World" video Mark posted.) Much as I like so many of their performances, it's that winning-"76 Trombones" number that always leaps out in my mind. I posted it a long while back, March, 2013 -- in fact, the third month in after I started this site -- but a whole lot of new folks have joined here since, and since it deserves an encore, here it is again. It's enjoyable from the first, but stick with it since that's when they start throwing in the twists and turns that gets the audience roaring in appreciation. Okay, after yesterday's post, I figure that it only makes sense to have a few more Lea Salonga pieces, all of which are, I think, a bit off-beat and fun. We'll start with this one. When Lin-Manuel Miranda was starring on Broadway in the musical Hamilton, he began a bit of a tradition called "Ham4Ham," where he'd come outside the stage door and briefly entertain the looooong lines of the crowd waiting there. And often he'd bring out a guest celebrity. On this particular day, he brought with him Lea Salonga to sing a duet of "A Whole New World," from the animated film Aladdin, for which she'd provided the singing voice of the Princess. The video is fun for a few reasons. One is that Miranda is clearly a big fan of the movie and and an even bigger fan of Lea Salonga and is pretty excited to be singing the song with the original Princess. And also, around 1:40 in, Salonga appears to throw an unexpected surprise his way. It's certainly possible he knew beforehand, but that doesn't appear to be the case. I came across this video the other day and found it fascinating -- not just for what it shows, but also for how well it was edited. It's a video of Lea Salonga singing "On My Own" from Les Miserables. She had appeared in the show on Broadway, replacing the original actress, but performed the role in the superb 10th anniversary all-star cast production done in 1995 (and shown on PBS). The song became part of her repertoire, and there's video of her performing the song this year at the Lytham Festival in England, 22 years later. What this video does is edit those two performances together. The edit here is really well done, but what also stands out is how impressively close her voice, timbre and performances are two decades apart. (And a fine voice it is. I saw her at the Mark Taper Forum in the interesting remake of of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song. I've always love a line in the Los Angeles Times review when describing the plot. Talking about the main male character, the critic wrote, as close as I can recall, "And the plot revolves around the question of whether Wang Ta will fall in love with someone who sings like Lea Salonga.") Okay, this one's for sports fans. But I can't not post it. Last night, I was watching the UCLA football game against Texas A&M on national TV. I went to UCLA for grad school and like watching them, but it was no fun as the game progressed and they were getting crushed. Indeed, it was 44-10 deep into the third quarter. By that point, the announcers had pretty given up normal announcing and where just largely talking about the Aggies and how their coach had obviously turned Texas A&M around, and how great they were. The only time they spent much opportunity to talk about UCLA was when addressing the question that had been raised recently about whether their top-rated quarterback Josh Rosen actually "loved" playing football. This arose in large part because of some critical comments he made about how some other schools put too much emphasis on football rather than academics. (Horrors, what a comment for someone to make...) To the announcers' credit, they defended Rosen and talked about how he didn't go through all the practices, drills and games, taking all the pounding if he didn't love playing football. So, anyway, the game was 44-17 in favor of Texas A&M as the teams went into the fourth quarter. And that's when UCLA continued with its 35 point comeback to win the game! This was the second-biggest comeback in college football history. It should be noted that the FIRST biggest comeback came in 2006 when Michigan State overcame a 35 point deficit and defeated...my beloved Northwestern. Here's Scott Van Pelt on ESPN SportCenter with a recap of the game. You'll learn a very good life-lesson here at 1-minute mark -- think twice before swaggering and posturing, most especially with silly props, when you think you've beaten your opponent. It may come back to haunt you. Also, seemingly Josh Rosen likes playing football just fine. This above, as noted, is the ESPN highlights. So, there's no play-play game announcer in real-time. It's only the in-studio host. To rectify that and the excitement of the moment, here's the on-air broadcast with the call of two plays -- the one setting up the touchdown with no time-outs left and then the fake "spike" supposedly to stop the clock, but instead throwing the game-winning score. And hometown crowd going wild. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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