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Darrellh
Member
07-21-2004
| Friday, June 15, 2007 - 6:57 am
I didn't know where else to put this. This article is great. I thought it might be a good place to put interesting articles and tid-bits that aren't front page news worthy. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070615/ap_en_ot/young_at_heart_chorus Singing seniors redefine rock songs By JAKE COYLE, AP Entertainment Writer 1 hour, 15 minutes ago NORTHAMPTON, Mass. - Fred Knittle wears his belt up high. His nose is tethered to an oxygen tank, and on stage he's confined to a folding chair. From this unlikely perch, he's turning rock 'n' roll on its head. Singing Coldplay's "Fix You," Knittle transforms the song into a powerful ballad about a grandfather's healing wisdom. It means something different coming from an 80-year-old retiree suffering from congestive heart failure. Knittle is a singer for the Young at Heart Chorus, whose members range from 73 to 92 years old. Singing songs they shouldn't even know, at an age when they're expected to be sitting quietly somewhere, they subvert all accepted notions of old and young. Songs by bands like the Radiohead, OutKast and Nirvana take on a new dimension when performed by these 23 foot-stomping senior citizens. "Fix You" or the Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go" become about life and death. Though little known in America, the Northampton-based Young at Heart has performed from Australia to London, serenaded the king and queen of Norway, been discussed on "The Daily Show," and been documented in an acclaimed film for British television. They're now recording an album tentatively titled "Rockin' At Heaven's Door." It may sound like a gimmick, but Young at Heart is no karaoke act. They're a cover band for the ages. "All we've ever had is now." — Jack Schnepp, 77, singing the Flaming Lips' "All We Have Is Now." <snip>
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Friday, June 15, 2007 - 8:35 am
Click and listen to their songs on Youtube. 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBeFL3qI-n8 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygWGcHVKv2s
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Mak1
Member
08-12-2002
| Friday, June 15, 2007 - 6:49 pm
While you're at youtube, you would probably like to check out The Zimmers too. I haven't read their entire background, but do know some of them were shut-ins before they started singing together.
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Friday, June 15, 2007 - 9:13 pm
.
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Friday, June 15, 2007 - 9:14 pm
Hey Makkie, I discovered the Zimmers a few weeks ago, I think they are awesome, too! You can click here to hear them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4i3tTmKdxQ
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Darrellh
Member
07-21-2004
| Monday, July 09, 2007 - 5:11 am
http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-carnegie29may29,1,4193519,full.story?ctrack=1&cset=true Please look at this article. It made me cry!
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Monday, July 09, 2007 - 5:48 am
Darrell, thanks for posting that. It made me cry, too.
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Monday, July 09, 2007 - 7:01 am
It asked me to register. Can someone copy and paste?
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Twiggyish
Member
08-14-2000
| Monday, July 09, 2007 - 7:06 am
That's great! I can't get that article, though! 
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Vee
Member
02-23-2004
| Monday, July 09, 2007 - 7:10 am
"Fix You" sung by Fred Knittle made me cry. Can't get to the article yet.
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Landi
Member
07-29-2002
| Monday, July 09, 2007 - 7:20 am
i can't get to the article either!
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Darrellh
Member
07-21-2004
| Monday, July 09, 2007 - 7:33 am
Feeling at home in Carnegie Hall A band teacher and his students first taught kids at a Santa Ana homeless shelter to play, then invited them along on a little gig in New York. By Seema Mehta, Times Staff Writer May 29, 2007 Carnegie KidsTHREE Decembers ago, middle school band teacher Ron Wakefield brought his 35-member orchestra to a crowded homeless shelter in Santa Ana. They performed a Christmas concert on a concrete slab in the backyard where some of the families slept. Tiffany Zoller, a skinny girl with stick-straight blond hair and a crooked smile, listened to them play "O Come All Ye Faithful" and "What Child Is This?" "I'd give anything if I could do that," said Tiffany, then 9. Wakefield, a teacher at North Park Middle School in Pico Rivera, was so moved by Tiffany's comment that he began buying new musical instruments for the shelter's children, spending $800 of his own money. He also rounded up volunteers from his band to tutor the children weekly. The Isaiah House Music Club was born. This year, the Music Club made Wakefield, 50, proud beyond expectation, in a concert setting leagues from the shelter's backyard. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Isaiah House, where Tiffany lives with more than 120 other homeless residents, is a California craftsman bungalow on a residential street lined with camphor trees. It is the last resort for the downtrodden. Each night, the privately funded house overflows with homeless mothers and children who can't afford rent at seedy motels or who have overstayed their welcome at short-term shelters. At Isaiah House they can stay as long as they want. The residents share two bathrooms, eat communal meals on paper plates in the backyard and wear layers of donated clothing to protect them from the evening chill when they bed down. Families with infants and toddlers sleep inside on thin foam pads on the hardwood floors in the furniture-less living room, dining room and foyer. Those with older children sleep in the backyard, using pads, blankets and tarps to create nests on wooden benches, picnic tables or the concrete. "When you find you can't borrow another dollar, you end up here," said Dwight Smith, who with his wife, Leia, runs the Catholic Worker shelter. "It's scary to live in a shelter. All these kids feel trapped. After a year or two here, they feel they have no future." THE first visits by the North Park volunteers — Wakefield, his current students and a former student — were jarring. Adults, virtually all of whom were mothers crammed into tight quarters, were frustrated by their problems and bickered incessantly. One boy lay on the floor barking. A shy girl with a speech impediment hid. Some adolescents, teased for joining the band, balked at rehearsing. Two flutes were stolen. Neighbors called police when the ragtag band practiced on the front lawn. The parents of some shelter children were in jail. The transient nature of homelessness meant that dozens of children filtered through the band. Some disappeared for weeks at a time, often to another shelter or motel, only to return. One girl snapped her clarinet in half after her father failed to visit on her birthday. "We end up living through many of their families' tragedies," Wakefield said. But week after week, the volunteers, just adolescents themselves, returned. They taught the children how to read music and to understand rhythm. Their students learned to play notes, then measures, then phrases, then entire compositions. The Isaiah House Music Club members practiced on their own nearly every day. They started with "Hot Cross Buns" and worked their way through more challenging works, such as "Mount Vernon March." After about 18 months, the band could make it through "Pieta," their most difficult piece, without tripping over a note. Not only had the children grown musically, they had matured emotionally. "When we [first] came, they gave us attitude," said volunteer Beatriz Mercado, 12, who plays the flute. "Now they have patience," said Inez Franco, 13, a North Park clarinetist. DURING a recent rehearsal, Inez helped Tiffany practice scales. A clarinet case, dotted with pink and purple hearts and stenciled with her nickname, Tiffers, sat at their feet. Her mother, Karol Zoller, said she and her four children had lived at her grandparents' house in Corona until the grandparents died three years ago. The family has been ricocheting between motels and shelters ever since, with the music club one of the few constants in Tiffany's life. "It's just something I look forward to every week," Tiffany said. Jasmine Bush, a 12-year-old, used to keep to herself. But she learned to play the saxophone, and her self-confidence blossomed. During a recent rehearsal, her laughter rose above the cacophony of instruments being practiced in various nooks of the shelter before she played a rich, soulful "Silent Night." "The first time it was hard," Jasmine said. "But then it started to be easy." Jasmine's mother can see the changes in her daughter in the two years since they lost their house in Monrovia and moved into Isaiah House. When they arrived at the shelter, Jasmine used to cry and complain. "She was depressed because we were here, " said her mother, Shelby Jimeson, who works nights as a Disneyland custodian and is on a waiting list for subsidized housing. "When the band comes, they go and have fun. They also learn. It makes me happy to see her happy, doing something that she enjoys." The band is about more than music, Wakefield and other volunteers said. It's about giving the children a constant in their unstable lives. "When I make promises to … the kids, I've kept the promises," Wakefield said. "They have this treasure in their hearts forever. They've learned there are people in this world that can be trusted, that can be counted on." THE North Park students, who come from the working-class city of Pico Rivera, bonded with their homeless charges. When they sit side by side in front of a music stand, they joke, trade stories and share secrets. The North Park students have helped in other ways — one night, when no volunteers showed up to make dinner, four girls got to work in the kitchen, cooking, serving and cleaning up for more than 100 people. The North Park band had a long-standing invitation to play this April at Carnegie Hall from the National Band and Orchestra Festival, a performance of student musicians from around the country. The band invited six of their homeless friends, most of whom had never heard of Carnegie Hall, to join them. Serena and Jesse Escamilla's mother, Renee Alto, didn't believe it when she heard her children would be visiting New York. "I knew they were going over there to do something I could never be able to do, and I'm very proud," she said. The six-day trip cost about $2,000 per child and was funded by donations from community members, band parents and North Park students, who sold snack foods to help raise money. It was the first time any of the Isaiah House children had flown. "It was really scary," said Serena, 11, a flutist. "We were really high above the clouds." The children passed the time dozing, chatting, staring out the windows and watching "The Pursuit of Happyness," the recent Will Smith movie about a single father grappling with homelessness. After they landed in Newark, N.J., they took a charter bus into New York. They bunked four and five to a room at a midtown Manhattan hotel, visited the Statue of Liberty and Times Square and took carriage rides in Central Park. The trip was the first time the Isaiah House children, ages 10 to 14, had been separated from their mothers. "I never went to New York before," Jasmine said. "It made me excited, but I was homesick too." The trip was capped by the Friday evening performance at Carnegie Hall. After all the boys donned tuxedos and the girls put on black gowns and cubic zirconia earrings — all paid for by donations and theirs to keep — they ventured to the green room beneath the stage, tuned their instruments and rehearsed. "I was thinking I was going to mess up really bad and make us sound horrible," said Serena's brother Jesse, 14, who plays the trumpet. The North Park band and the Isaiah House Music Club — Tiffany, Jasmine, Jesse, Serena, Anthony Partee and Tiffany's younger brother Brandon — stepped onto the stage. They performed together for nearly an hour under spotlights in front of hundreds of people. Midway through the performance, the six Isaiah House children slipped from their places in the band and quietly filled seats at the front of the ensemble. "I felt like all scared, like I was nervous," Serena said. "My heart was beating really fast." Wakefield hoisted his baton, and the Isaiah House children raised their instruments. Backed by a couple of their North Park tutors, they launched into "Pieta" by Joseph Lawson. The composition begins dolefully, grows calm, then ends in joy and triumph. When they finished, Wakefield held back tears. "There are no words to describe that beautiful joy and love that was on that stage," he said. "Some things are best unspoken."
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Ddr
Member
08-19-2001
| Monday, July 09, 2007 - 9:04 am
I'm in tears. Thanks for posting this Darrell.
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Monday, July 09, 2007 - 9:08 am
Dang, hard to type with my eyes swimming... Thanks Mr. D. 
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Pamy
Member
01-02-2002
| Monday, July 09, 2007 - 6:10 pm
wow! that was just wow...wiping eyes
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Vee
Member
02-23-2004
| Monday, July 09, 2007 - 8:02 pm
Following Darrell's lead here...I just received this in a forward and found it amazing. *Kite Life.* Some of the very best is saved for last; the clip is 5:03.
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Darrellh
Member
07-21-2004
| Friday, July 27, 2007 - 1:28 pm
Vee, I forgot to say that I LOVED this! Such a cool video clip.
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Biscottiii
Member
05-29-2004
| Saturday, July 28, 2007 - 7:42 pm
What a wonderful story Darryl! Thanks for sharing. Checked at Youtube and they have what looks like nearly an 8 minute tape (still waiting for it to finish loading myself). Haven't yet loaded Vee's "Kite Lite", but will check it out too. Bisc http://youtube.com/watch?v=kM8fW0MlFC0 Isaiah House Musicians go to Carnegie Hall
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Biscottiii
Member
05-29-2004
| Saturday, July 28, 2007 - 9:16 pm
Oh well, it was an attempt. Didn't show the kids at Carnegie, just the preliminaries..
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Biscottiii
Member
05-29-2004
| Saturday, July 28, 2007 - 11:41 pm
Vee, Awwww That Kite Life you shared was so absolutely beautiful, it left me stunned. Beyond words. Thx Bisc
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Darrellh
Member
07-21-2004
| Wednesday, August 01, 2007 - 2:02 pm
http://www.projo.com/news/content/death_cat_07-26-07_7O6GOJL.34bbc90.html I would be very afraid if the death kitty was coming my way!
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Twiggyish
Member
08-14-2000
| Wednesday, August 01, 2007 - 2:56 pm
I do think animals have an extra sense. At any rate, the kitty offers sweet companionship to those who are alone at the end.
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Azriel
Member
08-01-2000
| Sunday, August 19, 2007 - 9:34 pm
My daughter sent me this. I think it's just hilarious and I thought I'd share it with you. I really think my sister wrote this because this person has to have the same mother. I thought I was the only one crazy enough to put my purse around my neck,too! I hope you all get as big a laugh out of it as I did. This will make you laugh and cry all at the same time. It's pretty hilarious and so true! And we all know that this has happened to us in some way... Long but worth the read. When you have to visit a public bathroom, you usually find a line of women, so you smile politely and take your place. Once it's your turn, you check for feet under the stall doors. Every stall is occupied. Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the stall. You get in to find the door won't latch. It doesn't matter, the wait has been so long you are about to wet your pants! The dispenser for the modern "seat covers" (invented by someone's Mom, no doubt) is handy, but empty. You would hang your purse on the door hook, if there was one, but there isn't - so you carefully, but quickly drape it around your neck, (Mom would turn over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR! ), yank down your pants, and assume " The Stance." In this position your aging, toneless thigh muscles begin to shake. You'd love to sit down, but you certainly hadn't taken time to wipe the seat or lay toilet paper on it, so you hold "The Stance." To take your mind off your trembling thighs, you reach for what you discover to be the empty toilet paper dispenser. In your mind, you can hear your mother's voice saying, "Honey, if you had tried to clean the seat, you would have KNOWN there was no toilet paper!" Your thighs shake more. You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday - the one that's still in your purse. (Oh yeah, the purse around your neck, t hat now, you have to hold up trying not to strangle yourself at the same time). That would have to do. You crumple it in the puffiest way possible. It's still smaller than your thumbnail. Someone pushes your door open because the latch doesn't work. The door hits your purse, which is hanging around your neck in front of your chest, and you and your purse topple backward against the tank of the toilet. "Occupied!" you scream, as you reach for the door, dropping your precious, tiny, crumpled tissue in a puddle on the floor, lose your footing altogether, and slide down directly onto the TOILET SEAT. It is wet of course. You bolt up, knowing all too well that it's too late. Your bare bottom has made contact with every imaginable germ and life form on the uncovered seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper - not that there was any, even if you had taken time to try. You know that your mother would be utterly appalled if she knew, because, you're certain her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, dear, "You just don't KNOW what kind of diseases you could get." By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, propelling a stream of water like a fire hose against the inside of the bowl that sprays a fine mist of water that covers your butt and runs down your legs and into your shoes. The flush somehow sucks everything down with such force that you grab onto the empty toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged in too. At this point, you give up. You're soaked by the spewing water and the wet toilet seat. You're exhausted. You try to wipe with a gum wrapper you found in your pocket and then sneak out inconspicuously to the sinks. You can't figure out how to operate the faucets with the automatic sensors, so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past the line of women still waiting. You are no longer able to smile politely to them. A kind soul at the very end of the line points out a piece of toilet paper trailing from your shoe. (Where was that when you NEEDED it??) You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it in the woman's hand and tell her warmly, "Here, you just might need this." As you exit, you spot your hubby, who has long since entered, used, and left the men's restroom. Annoyed, he asks, "What took you so long, and why is your purse hanging around your neck?" This is dedicated to women everywhere who deal with a public restrooms (rest??? you've GOT to be kidding!!). It finally explains to the men what really does take us so long. It also answers their other commonly asked questions about why women go to the restroom in pairs. It's so the other gal can hold the door, hang onto your purse and hand you Kleenex under the door! This HAD to be written by a woman! No one else could describe it so accurately!
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Urgrace
Member
08-19-2000
| Sunday, August 19, 2007 - 10:06 pm
LOL and you know it really isn't funny LOL Az!
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Juju2bigdog
Member
10-27-2000
| Sunday, August 19, 2007 - 10:54 pm
Very cute. Even though I have seen it before, it is still true, so very true. Az, aren't you over in the part of the world where if you go just a bit far afield you will encounter the dreaded squatter toilets? (Basically, a ceramic encased hole in the ground with foot guides, or sometimes literally a hole in the ground; you squat over both of them) I like to say that we are doing our traveling from the U.S. to the far east while we are still young enough to suffer the long air flights, but who am I actually kidding? We are going while I am still nimble enough to use a squatter!
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