Meat Loaf - Rock n' Roll Thespian

This video above is a "Celebration of Life" video made by Meatloaf's daughters, Pearl and Amanda, working with a filmmaker, one year after their father passed away.  Born Marvin Lee Aday, he changed his name to Michael Lee Aday, and was dubbed "Meat," by his father as a stocky toddler.  But to the rest of us he was the singer and actor called Meat Loaf.  He died at age 74 on January 20, 2022.

This song below was my introduction to Meatloaf, played on a ghetto blaster on the school bus in Holiday Lakes, outside of Willard, Ohio, on the way to junior high.  It was late 1977 or early 1978.  The spoken intro to this song blew our young minds.  "On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?"  

"You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth" 

I've been a fan of Meat Loaf's music since high school, in the early 1980's.  But it was a weird series of events that led me to write this blog post.  I love it when that happens.  Since I have a dark sense of humor, I played several versions of the classic country song, "Ring of Fire" last Thursday.  I was hanging out down in Orange County for a couple of days when the horrific Palisades and Eaton fires, along with 4 or 5 smaller fires, sparked up during the Santa Ana windstorm last week (January 8 , 2025).  I've been living in the San Fernando Valley for about five years now, and when I got back, The Valley was surrounded by these fires.  When I got back on a computer, I listened to several songs about fire, before checking the news.

One of those versions of "Ring of Fire" I played, just to listen to myself, was June Carter Cash on the Johnny Carson (Tonight) Show in 1980, singing the original version she wrote and recorded.  Much to my surprise, June said Blondie had done a cover of the song.  Huh?  Blondie covered "Ring of Fire?"  So I had to look that up.  That led me to this video, Debbie Harry singing "Ring of Fire" with Blondie as a country band.  I had never seen, or even heard, of that version of the song before.  At the beginning of this video, Blondie kisses a guy in a cowboy hat on the cheek, and that guy is Meatloaf.  Following that lead, I learned Meatloaf starred in a movie called Roadie in 1980, featuring the band Blondie.  That was also news to me.  

Then I listened to one of the Meatloaf songs that popped up on the right side of YouTube.  That video brought up the tribute to Meatloaf by his daughters on the side of the screen, the video embedded at the top of this post.  Since I'm not writing many posts about my days in BMX freestyle anymore, the posts I do write on this blog often come from some random thing I find, or stumble into.  Like learning that Meatloaf  starred in a movie with Blondie where they covered "Ring of Fire."  Wandering through the interwebs, an idea for a blog post sparked in the little hamster wheel inside my brain, and a blog post was born.  

Digging into a singer I thought I knew pretty well, I found a whole bunch more work by Meat Loaf I didn't know existed, and that's what these blog posts are all about.  Meat Loaf got his start singing on Broadway in the play Hair, and went on to play Eddie in the The Rocky Horror Show stage play, and later in The Rocky Horror Picture Show movie, possibly the cult classic movie of all time.  Meat Loaf also performed in Shakespeare in the Park in New York City.  Auditioning for another play in New York City, he met playwrite and songwriter ,Jim Steinman, and a creative team for the ages was born.  Jim Steinman wrote all the songs for the album Bat Out of Hell, which launched Meat Loaf's singing career, a long with the later "Bat" albums, # 2 & 3.  

Meat Loaf sold over 100 million records.  The original Bat Out of Hell album has sold over 44 million copies alone.  He recorded 12 studio albums, 7 compilation albums, 1 EP, and put out 39 singles.  At age 46, his recording of the Steinman song "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" went to #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, it was #1 in 27 other countries, and won a Grammy.  In addition to recording and touring, Meat Loaf appeared in over 50 movies.  Through all of that, he was a husband and a dad to daughters Pearl and Amanda.  

Next Monday, January 20th, will be the second anniversary of Meat Loaf's death at age 74.  It's President's Day that day.  I don't think there's much on TV that day, so why don't you dive into all of these links below, and enjoy some of the work of this amazing artist, actor, and singer.  

Here's a look at some of the work Meatloaf did in his seven and a half decades on this planet.  

Music- Best known songs, all written by Jim Steinman

"Paradise by the Dashboard Light" - with Patti Russo

"Bat out of Hell"   (Over 44 million copies sold of Bat Out Of Hell album)

"Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" - with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

"I'd Do Anything For Love"  (#1 in 28 countries and won Meat Loaf a Grammy)

"All Revved Up and No Place To Go"

"Objects in the Rearview Mirror" - Meat Loaf accompanied by Jim Steinman on piano

"Heaven Can Wait" 

"For Crying Out Loud"  

Interviews- 

Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman interviewed in 1978 in Germany

Meat Loaf Legacy - 1994

Meat Loaf- VH-1 Storytellers (aka The Locker Room Concert- ) - 1998

The Big Interview- Dan Rather interview with Meat Loaf - 2016

Concert movies

Meat Loaf Rockpalast Live 1978

Meat Loaf Night of the Proms - 2001

Meat Loaf Three Bats Live - 2007

Meat Loaf Legacy - In Search of Paradise - 2007

Meat Loaf - Live in Sydney (Guilty Pleasure Tour) - 2011

Music- Other songs he sang over the years

"National Anthem- Star Spangled Banner" - 1994 All Star Game

"Torna a Sorrento" - duet with Luciano Pavarotti

"Jailhouse Rock" - Tribute to Elvis Presley

"Dead Ringer for Love" - 1980's duet with Cher

"Rock n' Roll Paradise" - with Todd Rundgren in 1982

"Mercury Blues - Gimme Shelter"  ("Gimme Shelter" is cover of The Rolling Stones song)

"Hard Headed Woman"  

"Nowhere Fast"- early 1980's cover of the main song from the movie Streets of Fire 

"You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth"  - with Rick Derringer on TV- 1987

Music videos he appeared in

Blondie- "Ring of Fire" - from the movie Roadie, which Meatloaf starred in

Talking Heads - "Wild, Wild Life" - That's either Meatloaf or John Goodman at 1:15, IMDB says it Meat Loaf, but it looks more like John Goodman to me

TV and Comedy

Meat Loaf as Barry Jeffries on Glee

Meat Loaf and Stephen Fry on Saturday Night Live

Movies Meat Loaf starred in

Roadie - 1980 (Full movie)

Dead Ringer the Movie- 1981 (Full movie)

Meat Loaf Hell and Back - TV movie- 2000

Movies Meat Loaf appeared in.  He appeared in more than 50 of them.   Let's start with two of the great cult classic movies of all time... Rocky Horror Picture Show and Fight Club

Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) Trailer

Rocky Horror Picture Show- Meat Loaf played Eddie both on stage and in the movie

Fight Club - (1999) - Meatloaf played Bob

Wayne's World - Tiny, the doorman at a club

Spice World - Dennis, the tour bus driver

Formula 51

Meat Loaf- The Top Ten Movies he's appeared in  - YouTube compilation

All of these links are only part of the work Meat Loaf did, and of what's now available to view online.

Meat Loaf Wikipedia page

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Fire storm Los Angeles- The Palisades, Eaton, and other wildfires of January 2025

This is video of the early part of the firefight of the Pacific Palisades fire, from January 8th, 2025.  The fire was just beginning to spread rapidly at that point, with high winds, sometimes reaching 80 to 100 mph, pushing it through brush and homes, after a winter season with almost no rainfall for most of Southern California. 

As I write this post, just to document Los Angeles' most devastating fires ever, in loss of homes and structures, the Palisades Fire is one of several fires currently burning north of L.A..  This fire is still burning three days later, has burned over 21,000 acres, and is beginning to burn homes in Brentwood, far to the east, right now.  Well over a thousand homes and structures are burned to the ground in Pacific Palisades and Malibu.  I'm writing this post mostly as documentation of what's going on here.  

The other really big and devastating fire, the Eaton Fire, has burned over 17,000 acres in the Alta Dena and Pasadena area, one report says over 5,000 homes and structures have been lost.  Eleven people are known to have died in the fires at this point.  Both fires now (January 11, 2025) have 15% or less containment.  Here are more links, as these two big fires, and 3 or 4 smaller fires, rage on.  Winds have calmed today, allowing planes and helicopters to really get into action fighting the fires.  Stronger winds, offshore Santa Ana winds, are expected to pick back up tonight.  Here are more links:

Aftermath of Malibu/PCH area- from Palisades fire

Aftermath of Pacific Palisades from Palisades fire

Aftermath of Alta Dena area after Eaton fire

First home burned in Brentwood/Mandeville Canyon area- east side of Palisades fire

Rodney Mullen meets Andy Anderson- The last Hawk vs. Wolf podcast of 2024

Rodney Mullen meets Andy Anderson.  Hawk vs. Wolf podcast.  I need to watch this whole thing Thursday.  I don't have a laptop right now, so I have to wait to use the library Thursday to watch it.  

No... really... this is my favorite Christmas album

I'm not kidding, this is my favorite Christmas album, A Partridge Family Christmas Card.  Really.  

The Partridge Family was an early 1970's TV show with a family of musicians who had a crazy painted bus they traveled around in.  Think hippy Brady Bunch musicians, something like that.  The show ran from 1970 to 1974, and this Christmas album was released in 1971.  

I think I was in third grade, my family living in Coshocton, Ohio, when my parents found this record album at a garage sale, and bought it for 25 or 50 cents.  I remember listening to this album when I was in 4th grade, 9 years old, while making Christmas cookies with my mom and sister the next Christmas.  We had moved to a big, yellow farmhouse, outside the tiny community of Shiloh, Ohio.  My dad changed jobs that year, and was designing locomotives at Fate Root Heath, in nearby Plymouth.  Somehow one of us managed to get flour all over this already used record, and thought we ruined it.  My dad cleaned it off when we he got home, and it was playable again.  We played that album every Christmas until I was in high school.  To me, this is the quintessential Christmas album to get in the holiday mood.  Watching Bad Santa is my other main source of holiday cheer.  Yeah, I'm fucked up, but these two get me feeling festive.  Enjoy.  

Here's the link to the album playlist, in case the embedded video only plays one song.  

Merry Christmas everyone.  Enjoy the holidays, because next year's going to be even crazier than the last five years have been.  

A Twilight Zone Christmas Carol? Sort of...

It's now Christmas Eve Eve, December 23rd, and I went looking for a cool video about the origin of Santa Claus, the actual person that was Saint Nicholas.  But I ran into a whole bunch of religious propaganda videos, rather than one that seemed fairly objective.  Then this odd video popped up, a version of Dickens' classic story, A Christmas Carol, written by Rod Serling, the guy behind The Twilight Zone.  This film was produced in 1964, and has rarely aired.  This isn't the actual full movie, but a cool doc looking at the story behind this unusual, made-for-TV movie.  Looking for something Chrismasy that you haven't seen before?  Interested in a deeper look at this holiday seasons than the Hallmark Channel crap?  Here you go.  Merry Christmas everyone! 

Party City closing all stores and Big Lots "going out of business" sales

As public officials continue to tell us the economy is going well, the Retail Apocalypse continues apocalypting in the background.  The word just came out that Party City is shuttingdown all of its  stores, and also that Big Lots is bankrupt and beginning "going out of business" sales.  Two more well known national chains of retail stores are going under.  This video above tells the story of the rise and fall of Party City.  It's December 20th, 2024 as I write this, office Christmas/holiday party season, and a week and a half before New Year's Eve.  Did everyone stop partying?  

I live in the San Fernando Valley these days, a place where there's a lot of wealth in the general area.  But one Big 5 just closed, and a Guitar Center store just closed as well, not to mention all of the 99 Cents Only stores that all closed down months ago.  This is in an area where there are hundreds of "mom and pop," privately owned, brick and mortar stores that are still in business.  But as the flood of pandemic stimulus money got spent, business has slowed back down for many stores, and major shutdowns are happening again.  Here's a video about the downfall of Big Lots.

The Rise and Fall of Big Lots

There are a whole bunch of reasons for these stores closing down, like the rise of online sales, getting bought out and loaded up with debt by private equity companies, and the sales slowdown of the pandemic.  These factors are part of the bigger picture of why these particular chains have closed down.  In any case, two more chains are going under, and hundreds of large stores are going to become vacant soon in cities across the United States.  

The term "Retail Apocalypse" popped up around 2016, as chain store closures and dead malls became a trend.  In reality, many stores had been closing for a decade before that, but those closures increased dramatically around 2015-2016-2017, as online sales surged.  Chalk up a couple more large chain closures to the list of dozens of other retail chains that have become extinct, like Toys-R-Us, Radio Shack, and others.  

I'm doing most of my writing now on a platform called Substack, designed specifically for writers.  Check it out:

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Nick from Reventure Consulting takes a look at California Real Estate- December 2024

Over the last couple of years, Reventure Consulting founder Nick Gerli has built an amazing app to look at residential real estate all over the United States.  In this video, out a few days ago, he takes a look at where prices are likely to go up, and likely to go down, around the state of California.  Hint: Here in SoCal, the region from downtown L.A. west through Beverly Hills, Brentwood, and Santa Monica is going one direction, and Orange County is doing the opposite.  Watch the video to see his overview of the state, and then check out Reventure App to check our neighborhood.  

There are no paid links in this post.  

I'm doing most of my writing on a platform called Substack now, which was designed specifically for writers.  Check it out:

Steve Emig The White Bear's Substack