'Fifth Dimension'

This is a story of songwriting.

Before the primary recording of Fifth Dimension, Gene Clark left the band originally citing a fear of flying disallowing him to fulfill his obligations with the band. Later it was learned that there was animosity among the band members about the cut Clark was getting due to being the primary songwriter.

Ironically, the biggest hit from Fifth Dimension is Clark’s “Eight Miles High.”

After Clark, David Crosby and Jim McGuinn took on songwriting duties although they wound up doing three covers and an instrumental.

As for the songs, “Eight Miles High” was banned because folks thought it was about drug use. It was about flying.

“Mr. Spaceman” is literally about Crosby and McGuinn’s sincere belief that extraterrestrials could be communicated to by radio waves.

It was also thought that “5D” was about an LSD trip, although it was actually about Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Which sort of makes sense.

'2001: A Space Odyssey'

This is an interesting book only because it was based on Arthur C. Clarke’s short story from 1948, “The Sentinel.”

In 1964, director Stanley Kubrick approached Clarke with the idea of a movie adaptation and the author volunteered to write the screenplay. Kubrick instead recommended turning “The Sentinel” into a novel and thus basing the film on the full work. The novel was published several months after the release of the film.

So it’s a novel first written as a short story and basically commissioned for the sake of turning it into a movie. The cart didn’t come before the horse; the horse was riding in the cart.

Clarke was a very technical writer, more so than other science fiction authors. He had worked in communications and technical advances with the Royal Air Force and he even penned the paper purporting geostationary communications satellites. A futurist, Clarke’s interviews and articles (and stories) tended to mark lifestyle shifts in the future even predicting things like online banking and commerce.

Clarke spent most of his life in Sri Lanka after moving there to pursue his interest in scuba diving. Some believe Sri Lanka’s lax attitude toward homosexuality as opposed to England. He never expressly “came out” although his sexual preference is well-documented.

'Zorba The Greek'

Nikos Kazantzakis wrote Zorba the Greek based on his real-life experiences with minor George Zorbas. No real word if the man was anything like the literary character, but we must assume as much. We do know that Zorbas was a spiritual man becoming a monk, which is how he met Kazantzakis.

Religion, faith and spirituality are the major themes to Zorba the Greek: “The boss” being an academic who is coaxed into this listless, carnal way of life by the free-wheeling Zorba, the man who’s seen too much death and war to put value into the faith of a God or gods. Even the struggle within the narrator is great although you get the feeling that the complexities of life – and even the small moments of gracious humanity – make a higher power a definite likelihood. If that makes sense.

I found myself thinking a lot about Jack Kerouac and his work while reading this. He himself a spiritual person, seeking some sort of satori or nirvana through life (drugs, women, poetry) not unlike Zorba who found it through women, food and music. And perhaps a hard day of work. Zorba the Greek was published in English in 1952, five years before Kerouac would publish On The Road, which is just the American version.

I wonder too how Kazantzakis’ home country of Greece and its current place in history affected his writing and even his personal thoughts on God or religion. In his time, there had been three prominent holocausts, one of which included his Greek brothers in the Ottoman Empire, a regime which also took its toll on the Armenians. Meanwhile, the word “genocide” hadn’t even been coined until Adolf Hitler gained power and began his pogroms against the Jewish population of Europe.

I would imagine the idea of God would be hard to comprehend under those circumstances.

'Nick Of Time'

I think it’s underreported just how much Bonnie Raitt looks like Rogue from the X-Men comics. Especially the 1990s Rogue when her hair was big and primped. 

I searched and searched for this album in bargain bins and I could never find it. Honestly, I had it mixed up with her other album, Luck of the Draw, which came out two years later and was a bigger commercial success, although Nick of Time was her first album to sell much after about 20 years of recording.

In all honesty, Nick of Time was released during my peak radio-hit/pop music years and I don’t remember one single from the entire album. It sold five million copies. She followed it up by selling seven million of Luck of the Draw.

Interesting tidbit on Raitt is just how active she is on social issues. She dedicated her 1972 effort to the “people of North Vietnam.” She went to college studying social relations and African studies with the idea of going to Africa on nation-building trysts.

Nick of Time, generally, is a silly pop record aimed at 35-year-olds around 1989. Probably Patrick Bateman from American Psycho.

'Better Living Through Chemistry' & "You've Come A Long Way, Baby'

Fatboy Slim – see: Norman Cook, who actually goes by “Norman” although his name is Quentin, which is monumentally cooler – was banned for playing his hometown of Brighton due to a 2002 concert in which 250,000 people pounced on the seaside town. 

Upon his return to the city about five years later, they issued tickets only to citizens of Brighton in order to keep the attendance down. Performances by the likes of Fatboy Slim and other DJs are really popular often garnering large outdoor crowds. I assume this has everything to do with drugs and, thus, dancing.

Cook actually started in the music business as a bass player for The House Martins and only later did he delve feet first into the house music scene and later as Fatboy Slim. Under this pseudonym, he’d breakout with Better Living Through Chemistry and later with the gigantic You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby, both titles being taglines for major corporations.

You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby garnered the evil Parental Advisory sticker after “Fucking in Heaven” featured 108 instances of “fuck” and “Gangster Tripping” had 57 instances of “shit.” Want to sell a million records: Get the Parental Advisory sticker.