Employment at Last!!

It's been a long time since I posted but I am now fully employed in my chosen field. A few weeks ago I was hired as a substance abuse counselor for Prairie Ridge Addiction Treatment Services. It is an amazing opportunity and I am loving every minute of it. I am working with people who, while they have made mistakes in their lives, are working to correct those mistakes and move forward.

Companion Top Ten List

Here is my companion list to my Top Ten Badass Action Heroes Who Were Also in Broadway Musical list.

Top Ten Badass Movie Villains Who Were Also in Broadway Musicals

Introduction

     Many people would agree that movie heroes are only as good as the villains that they face.  After all what is James Bond without Goldfinger, or Superman without Lex Luthor, or Sherlock Holmes without Professor Moriarity?  Great movie villains are smart, devious, sometimes charming and above all, ruthless.  They can devise plots to hold entire cities hostage, destroy millions, or best of all, devise overly elaborate death devises for their good guy counterparts.  However badass movie villains never sing or dance.  Or do they?  Sometimes the same actors who send chills down our spines as they plot to overthrow the world or stalk an unsuspecting victim, also wow us on the Broadway stage with their singing and dancing talents.

 10) Alfred Molina – Molina started out as a bad guy.  For those of you who don’t know, he played Satipo (in his film debut), the questionable partner of Indiana Jones who steals the idol from Jones (throw me the idol and I’ll throw you the whip), only to be skewered by a wall of spears.  After that his villain roles moved up the ladder as he played the nemesis to Mel Gibson’s Maverick and then finally as the tragic scientist turned mad scientist Doctor Otto Octavius (Doc Ock) in the second Spider-man movie.  He also threw in roles as the evil Horvath in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and the equally evil Sheik Amar in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.  But Molina has a softer side as well.  He starred on Broadway as Tevya the man who dreams of being rich in the classic musical Fiddler on the Roof, for which he was nominated for a Tony.  Coincidentally, one of the Easter eggs on the DVD of Spider-man 2 shows Molina (as Doc Ock) singing a song from Fiddler on the Roof (he was performing in the play on Broadway at the same time he was filming the movie).     

  9) Anthony Perkins – Perkins played so many movie villains that you get creeped out just by seeing him show up on the screen.  Of course his most famous bad guy role is the slasher with the Oedipus complex Norman Bates from the movie Psycho and its three ill-conceived sequels.  But he also played one of the possible guilty members in Murder on the Orient Express, as well as the terrorists who faces off against Roger Moore (who was in between Bond movies) in Ffolkes.  But Perkins was also a stage actor and was in several Broadway plays during the 1960’s and 70’s, even winning a Tony for his lead role in Tea and Sympathy.  His only Broadway musical role was the lead in Greenwillow.  Interestingly, according to Perkins himself, he was not able to film the infamous shower scene in Psycho because he was rehearsing for Greenwillow in New York at the time and they had to use his stand in.

8) Margaret Hamilton – The name Margaret Hamilton might not be immediately familiar, but her duel role of Elmira Gulch and The Wicked Witch of the West in the classic Wizard of Oz is unforgettable.  There are very few people in the US who didn’t hide under the blankets as children when Hamilton threatened Dorothy Gale (and her little dog too).  Ironically, the actress who would scare so many children over many decades started out as a kindergarten teacher and deeply loved children.  But in addition to being the source of so many nightmares, she did her time on the Broadway stage, including the Musicals Goldilocks and Come summer.   

7) John Lithgow – Lithgow is probably best known for his role as Dr. Dick Solomon on the TV series 3^rd Rock from the Sun.  He has also been in many comedies and dramas on the big screen as well as the small screen.  However, he has also played the badass villain, Eric Qualen who tries to freeze, shoot, blow-up and drown one of the biggest badass action heroes, Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger.  In addition he played the mad scientist (always a staple for badass movie villains) Dr. Emilio Lizardo/Lord John Whorfin in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8^th Dimension.  He also played the less badass, but still really mean, Lord Farquaad in the animated feature Shrek.  But Lithgow has spent a lot of time on the Broadway stage as well.  He received a Tony award for Best Actor in a Musical for Sweet Smell of success and then was nominated for another Tony for the musical version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.  Despite its title, he doesn’t really play a villain in that one, just a bumbling con artist.

6) Morgan Freeman – While Freeman is generally best known for playing good guys.  Case in point, he’s played the president of the United States and God (twice).  He’s also played a wide variety of dramatic roles in The Shawshank Redemption, Driving Miss Daisy and more recently, Lucius Fox, the friend and ally to Bruce Wayne/Batman.  But his first big break in movies was as the chilling, ruthless pimp, Fast Black in Street Smart.  He has also played the evil badass leader of a group of super assassins in Wanted.  But in his early years, Freeman sang and danced across the Broadway stage in musicals like Hello Dolly! and Purlie.  Of course Freeman’s singing and dancing skills should be of no surprise to those who grew up watching him as Easy Reader, the ultra-cool advocate of literacy on the PBS children’s show Electric Company.

5) Ricardo Montalban – One word…. Khaaaaaan!  Yes, Montalban forever cemented a place for himself in the badass villain hall of fame as the genetically superior Khan Noonien Singh. Montalban reprised his role from the original Star Trek series to return with a vengeance in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  A few years later Montalban played another, less serious villain in the first Police Squad movie as the nefarious Vincent Ludwig.  But Montalban had a long and distinguished career, even before his most famous role as the mysterious Mr. Roarke on TV’s Fantasy Island.  His career included numerous appearances on the small and big screens.  He also starred in two Broadway musicals in the 1950’s, Seventh Heaven and Jamaica, for which he received a Tony nomination for Best Actor in a Musical.

4) Bob Gunton – While Gunton has played a variety of roles in both movies and television, he is probably best known for his role as the evil, vindictive Warden Norton in The Shawshank Redemption.  He also played bad guy Pritchett (who gets taken out by the even bigger bad guy John Travolta) in Broken Arrow.  One of the things that makes Gunton such a great villain is his smile.  He can smile like he’s your best friend and all the time he is planning on throwing you in a pit or ready to push you off a cliff.  Certainly he has had his share of nice guy roles.  He played Franklin Roosevelt in the made-for-TV movie World War Two: Behind Closed Doors.  But then again he also played Richard Nixon in the made-for-TV movie Elvis Meets Nixon, so I guess that would be a toss up.  But Gunton also has numerous Broadway musicals to his credit, including Evita (Tony nomination for Best Actor), Big River (Tony nomination for Best Actor) and the Broadway revival of Sweeny Todd for which he received another Tony nomination for Best Actor as the demon barber himself.  Even Broadway knows a badass villain when they see one.

3) Bela Lugosi –One could make the argument that Lugosi’s Dracula set the bar for the badass movie villain.  He is charming, sophisticated, he speaks with a foreign accent, he’s pure evil, he has great lines, “I never drink…wine.”; “Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.”, and he has his own frigging castle.  He gets the heroine (for a while anyway) and he fights the hero to the death.  Of course Lugosi made many movies, both before and after Dracula, but this was undoubtedly his crowning achievement.  What many may not know is that he was actually reprising the role that he had played in the Broadway version of Dracula and no, it wasn’t a musical.  But he did go back to Broadway in 1933 to star in the musical Murder at the Vanities.  They also made a movie version but Lugosi did not reprise his role on the big screen for that one.

2) Glenn Close – This six time Oscar nominated actress has played a wide variety of roles over her illustrious career.  Many of those roles have been as a sweet hometown girl next door, as in The Natural.  But then there is Fatal Attraction.  The movie that convinced a whole generation of men not to have a one night fling and none of us will ever look at a pet bunny in the same way.  As the seductress/stalker Alex Foster, Close had those qualities that make movie villains work.  She had charm, good looks and evil right down to her bones.  In fact, she was so convincing that she was nominated for an Academy award for Best Actress for that role.  Later Close returned as the classic, although less serious villain, Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmations (and its sequel 102 Dalmations).  Anyone who has Devil as a last name you know is bad.  But her acting skills are not limited to the big screen.  She has been in numerous Broadway productions including the musicals Barnum and Sunset Boulevard for which she won a Tony award for Best Actress in a Musical.  

1) Tim Curry – What can you say about Tim Curry?  He has the perfect look for a badass movie villain.  With his beguiling smile, smooth voice and perfect laugh he has played countless movie villains throughout his career.  From the butler Wadsworth in the movie adaption of the board game Clue (who may or may not have been guilty, depending on which version you watched), to the evil Farley Claymore in The Shadow, to the devious Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers Curry has played virtually every kind of movie villain out there.  Not only that, but in the animated television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars he was the voice of Chancellor Palpatine (Darth Sidius).  It doesn’t get any more evil than that.  Of course Curry’s most famous role has to be the evil mad scientist Frank-N-Furter in the cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  What many people may not know is that movie was actually the movie version of the Broadway musical The Rocky Horror Show which also featured Curry in the starring role.  Additionally, Curry starred in the Broadway musicals My Favorite Year and Spamalot.  Both of which earned him Tony award nominations for Best Actor in a Musical.

Another Top Ten List Published

Here is my personal favorite of my Top Ten Lists.  I really like action movies and I have also been a big fan of Broadway musicals since I was a kid.  Enjoy the list.  Tomorrow I will publish the companion list that didn't get published.

New Top Ten List

Here is a link to my second Top Ten list that was just published.  I am particularly excited about this one because it combines my love for obscure trivia with my love for the Olympics.  I took my oldest son to the Atlanta Olympic Game back in 1996 (the 100th anniversary of the game) and we had a great time.  We were just there for one day, but we saw pretty much everything there was to see.  It was the experience of a lifetime.

Job Interview

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am currently self-employed.  However, I continue looking for employment, especially in the Social Work field.  Tomorrow morning I have an interview for just such a position.  It is part-time so I should have some flexibility in my schedule for school and my miniature golf business.  The position is with a large, well-established human services organization, so there would be room for advancement when I complete my Masters program.  I'm hoping the interview goes well.

On a similar note, I start my Spring classes on Monday.  At the same time I am on call for jury duty for the month of February.  Since my classes are all on Mondays and court is not in session on Mondays, it should work out fine from that standpoint.  Surprisingly enough, in my roughly 35 years of being eligible, I have never been called up for jury duty.  It should be an interesting experience.

4 Symbols that Have Been Given New Life Because of the Internet

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I like to make lists.  This one stemmed from my contemplation of different symbols used on the internet.  Enjoy.

     We all remember taking typing class.  Okay those of us over forty remember taking a typing class.  The rest of you remember taking “keyboarding” class.  Anyway, we remember the finger positions for the letters and (if you were really good) the numbers as well.  We also had to know where the shift, return, spacebar, period, comma and quotation mark keys were.  However, most of the other keys were largely ignored except when we had those excruciating bonus assignments that used the upper case of the numbers row and practice the !, $, %, ^, &, *, (, ), etc.  Inevitably, in order to type these we had to break the cardinal rule and look at the keyboard.  However, since the introduction of the internet (yes, young ones, there was a time before the internet) there are a few symbols that have seen a surge of life.  These previously ignored symbols are now part of our everyday keyboarding experience.

4 - / (Slash)

The slash is often referred to (inaccurately) as the backslash.  It is also sometimes referred to as the stroke or the forward slash (just to confuse those who call it a backslash).  It has a long history.  It dates back to ancient Rome.  It is most commonly used as substitute for the word “or” such as his/hers, I/we, etc.  It can also be used to separate the day/month/year.  Other than these uses, it was seldom part of everyday usage (unless you were on a bowling team that picked up a lot of spares).  However, with the onset of the internet, the slash is now literally used everywhere.  Every website starts out with http://.  In addition, the slash is also used as a component separator.  It has truly made a long journey from ancient Rome. 

3 - : (Colon)

The colon has been part of our written language since ancient Greece.  In the past, most people avoided using colons and semi-colons because, despite the best efforts of our high school English teachers, it was just too confusing as to which one should be used when.  That all changed in 1982 when Scott Fahlman came up with the idea of the emoticon and used the colon, the dash, and the closing parenthesis to make a smiley face :-) and the opening parenthesis to make a sad face :-(  Once this caught on, people came up with all kinds of variations, but almost all of them included the colon (or semi-colon for a wink).

2 - # (Pound Sign)

While the pound sign was used as a numbering system (as seen in this list) it was otherwise generally ignored.  It garnered a bit of recognition when the touchtone phones included the pound sign and the mostly-ignored-counterpart-on-the-other-side-of-the-zero asterisk (*).  It continued to gain popularity with the implementation of automated answering systems (press the pound sign when complete).  However, it stagnated for quite a while after that.  Then along came Twitter and the pound sign was reinvented as the Hashtag.  Now the pound sign/hashtag has become a part of our daily lives :) Did you notice how I snuck in both a slash and a colon in that last sentence?

1 - @ (At Sign)

The @ (or at sign) has some curious origins.  Curious in that no one really knows where it started.  There are several theories as to its origins.  Some believe it was a mercantile shorthand symbol of "each at"—the symbol resembling a small "a" inside a small "e"—to distinguish it from the different "at" (symbolized by the mere letter "a") or "per.  Another theory is that it derives from the Norman French "à" meaning "at" in the "each" sense, i.e. "2 widgets à £5.50 = £11.00" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/@

     The Oxford dictionary says, “This sign originated as a scribe's quick way of writing the Latin word ad, especially in lists of prices of commodities. It's usually just known as 'the at sign' or 'the at symbol':  although it has acquired various nicknames in other languages none of these has so far caught on in English.” http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/words/what-is-the-origin-of-the-sign

     Whatever its origin, it has been used in many cultures and languages over the centuries, including Spanish, Portugese, Arabic, Latin and English.  In all these, its use was mostly confined to commerce and trade.  About the only time the rest of us used the at sign was when we accidentally hit the shift key and the number two key at the same time.  Ironically, despite the usage of the at sign in multiple cultures and languages, it has never been given an official name in English.  Hence we still refer to it as the “at sign”.

     It’s likely that the poor @ would have languished forever in the storage basements with accounting ledgers if not for the intervention of the internet, and more specifically, e-mail.  BBN Technologies' Ray Tomlinson is credited with introducing this usage in 1971.  This idea of the symbol representing located at in the form user@host is also seen in other tools and protocols.  According to Tomlinson, “I am frequently asked why I chose the “at” sign, but the “at” sign just makes sense. The purpose of the “at” sign (in English) was to indicate a unit price (for example, 10 items @ $1.95). I used the at sign to indicate that the user was "at" some other host rather than being local.” http://openmap.bbn.com/~tomlinso/ray/firstemailframe.html

Vlog Brothers

Like most bloggers I will probably write more entries early on in my blog and then slow down as time goes on.  Sorry if that' the case, but such is our nature I guess.

 

This will be a fairly short entry as I have to teach today.  In addition to my small business, and my college classes, I also substitute teach.  I have my teaching degree in Elementary Education and although I have taught full-time in the classroom for many years, I still enjoy working with kids, so I substitute teach.  It works out well because I can work around my class schedule and my business obligations.

 

My main topic today is the Vlog Brothers, otherwise known as John and Hank Green.  If you have a teenager, you may know the name John Green.  He has written several brilliant Young Adult fiction novels, including most recently, The Fault in Our Stars (which is soon to be a major motion picture).  It has also been on the NY Times Bestsellers list and has received numerous other accolades.

 

Anyway, the Vlog Brothers started out as a series of video blogs that Hank and John did for each other on YouTube.  They took turns corresponding every other day.  Within a year their following had grown and their followers became known as Nerdfighters.  Since that time they have started several fund raising organizations and produced several amazing classroom type video series - Crash Course World History, Crash Course US History, Crash Course Science, etc. that look at these subjects in a fun and refreshing new way.

 

I highly recommend their vlogs and their Crash Courses.  Check them out on Youtube.  You can get all their information on the Nerdfighter's website above or get more info on Wikipedia.

 

As John and Hank would say, DFTBA (which stands for: Don't Forget to be Awesome)