sMiLe sOmE

I started actually putting my scribbled ideas into a form that will, by the end of this weekend, represent the form expected for this proposal. At first I was really stressing out, “oh my gosh I can’t write 7 pages!”… I was wrong. I’ll have at least 6 pages if not streching past the 7 page mark. The way I started was to look over the 3 sections Dr. Rice expects us to cover in the proposal: background, categories of research, and the plan of action. I figure that if I cover at least a page on each of these headlines for both albums I automatically have 6 pages knocked out. And as so far I’ve been able to cover more than one page. so don’t stress out guys… you’ll get it. Although I still might have to pull an all nighter to make sure it gets done right, i will be set for monday. good luck all.

My proposal is moving along much faster as of Monday… I need to focus on finding resources off the web for both Elton and Yellowcard. I can already forsee small issues with finding more than magazine articles for Yellowcard, but I should be able to find more on the connection i’m making between the War in Iraq as well as the album’s story line direction between the songs and the band’s journey away from Jacksonville, Florida (their home) to far away California. The connections I’m trying to make between Elton’s album is one between the Watergate scandal and the depressing tone of Elton’s songs. I’m researching more on how the morals and trust between the world and it’s leaders was going downhill in the 1970s. I think that finding off line resources regarding Watergate should be fairly easy. Most of the work I have to do is in the details of the connections. But I think that I’m on a roll so far.

Elton John
1974: Punk rock music emerges in Britain, with themes of nihilism, anarchy.
1974: Nobel Prize in Literature: Swedish novelists Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson.
1974: The word “Internet” enters the lexicon.
1974: Carrie is the first of Stephen King’s blockbuster gothic novels.
1974: U.S. newspapers start to replace reporters’ typewriters with terminals.
1974: Also at the movies: The Towering Inferno, Chinatown, Blazing Saddles.
1974: West Germany, after a somewhat shaky start to the tournament, eventually ran into form to win “its” FIFA World Cup. In the final, led by the “Kaiser”, Franz Beckenbauer, the West Germans were at the top of their game to beat a brilliant Netherlands side. The 10th FIFA World Cup tournament in Germany in 1974 was marked by the arrival of colour television! And as if to highlight this cultural revolution even more, the “Weltmeisterschaft 74″ featured two other major changes. The first was a change in the tournament rules. The first round group system followed by knock-out in the second round was replaced by a group system in both rounds. The second change was the replacing of the Jules Rimet trophy - won outright by Brazil four years earlier after winning the FIFA World Cup three times (1958, 1962, 1970) - by a new solid gold statuette known as the “FIFA World Cup”.
1974: The 55-mph Speed Limit Introduced:
Our theory about the 55-mph speed limit is that someone who always took the bus to work thought this brilliant idea up. Either that, or they were frustrated that they couldn’t get any action despite having sunk a high percentage of their salary into that puke-colored AMC Gremlin. And even though folks back then should have noticed these things, we have no doubt this 55-mph speed limit proposal was undoubtedly given Considerable Official Support before it got kicked up to The Powers That Be. Therefore, on behalf of everyone here at The Rant, we’d just like to say, “Way to go, wide-lapel pleather-wearing Seventies-era policy-wonk team! Thanks for all those wasted hours spent in the back of our folks’ car as we drove from Michigan to Pennsylvania! Thanks for letting our insurance firms charge us more money when we were caught boosting the speed up to a sinful 65 or even – gasp – 70 miles per hour!” A friend of ours did note today, however, that the 55-mph speed limit did prompt Sammy Hagar to write a song about the idiotic idea. Also he — Mr Hagar, not our friend — jumped around in some kind of weird yellow jumpsuit. Therefore, we must say this was a Cultural Watershed.
1974: Kraftwerk release ‘Autobahn’: Kraftwerk signalled the coming of the machine age, creating sleek computerised pop in their state-of-the-art Düsseldorf studio. This 22-minute opus to the monotony of the German motorway system reached the US and British charts in an edited version, and subsequently became a huge influence on hip hop, house and techno.
1973: Gram Parsons dies at the Joshua Tree Inn: It is debatable whether Parsons invented country rock, but he remains its most visionary exponent. Only 26 when he died from a heroin overdose, he left his stamp on three classic albums: Sweetheart of the Rodeo (1968), The Gilded Palace of Sin (1969), and Grievous Angel (1973). Thirty years on, he remains the defining presence in America’s thriving alternative country scene.

Yellowcard
2003: The IP phone is a mini-computer that can transmit movies.
2003: Two AARP magazines far outstrip all others in circulation.
2003: Nobel Prize in Literature: John M. Coetzee, South Africa.
2003: Alabama chief justice Roy S. Moore forced from office after his refusal to remove monument of the Ten Commandments
2003: On the premiere of Ashton Kutcher’s reality show with a straight razor’s edge, Ashton and his cohorts decided to have a little fun with JT by fooling the *NSYNCer into believing that he owed a considerable sum of money to the federal government, and that they were there to repossess all of Justin’s valuable personal belongings like his house, car, dog and even an acoustic guitar. It was television magic in motion that celebrated both the twisted pleasures of Ashton Kutcher and the hopeless naivete of the former Mouseketeer.
2003: If anybody can make married life interesting, it’s Jessica Simpson, along with her new hubby Nick Lachey. In what has now become the most infamous moment of the show, Jessica isn’t quite able to wrap her young nubile mind around a can of tuna fish. The can, which proclaimed tuna as “the chicken of the sea,” confused her. Tuna: chicken or fish? After a moment of stunned disbelief, her helpful hubby eased her troubled mind by explaining that tuna fish is fish–fish being the key word there.
2003: The opening smooch of the 2003 Video Music Awards sent shockwaves through the cathode ray tubes of anyone with their television sets turned on. A cross-generational, superstar lip-lock on live TV went a seriously long way for the superstar divas. Madonna, clad in her uniquely masculine latex tuxedo, embraced Britney and Christina–2 innocent girls donned in their own white wedding dresses–and passionately kissed them. Theirs weren’t the only open mouths in the house.
2003: In a fit of CGI-induced mania, Frodo’s traveling buddy from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers lost his mind during his acceptance speech at the MTV Movie Awards on May 31. After beating out stiff competition from Kangaroo Jack, Yoda and Scooby-Doo, the slithery virtual Gollum won the award for Best Virtual Performance. In an apparent battle with his alter ego Smeagol, Gollum delivered an expletive-riddled diatribe against his co-stars, MTV and his poor, poor competitors. Virtual golden popcorn, it seems, has as much psychotic power as that damn ring.
In early March, MTV News reporter Gideon Yago traded in the comfort of taxis and hot dog vendors in Times Square for the dust and heat of Kuwait City, knowing full well that the region was teetering on the brink of a massive scale invasion. Armed with a camera crew, Gideon found himself inside a nation about to witness the first major war of the 21st century. Gideon made it his duty to find out what was going through the minds of teenagers from around the region. It was a profound, moving experience, for both Gideon and the American public.
2003: Jackass expats Steve-O and Chris Pontius embarked on a quest to explore that special kinship they share with many of the earth’s most notorious creatures. In the premiere episode of their new show Wildboyz, the two stars of low moral caliber decide to brave the cold water and hang out with Jaws himself. The only thing that could make the crazy stunt any funnier was if they were actually ripped to shreds by the sharks. But, we wouldn’t want that to happen now, would we…?
2003 : Time Magazine: Could the Boykin problem really have been a surprise? The remarks that landed Lieut. General William ” Jerry” Boykin in so much trouble last week —his attaching a Christian mission to the war on terrorism—were part of a message he has been delivering in his dress uniform for more than a year. And one signal that these views could trip him up as the man charged with pursuing Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein came only six months ago.

Remembering Yellowcard:
1.) Ocean Avenue, Yellowcard’s debut for Capitol Records, was produced by Neal Avron and mixed by Tom-Lord-Alge. On the album, themes of self-empowerment and self-awareness reveal themselves throughout the 13 songs on tracks like “Believe” and “Inside Out.” And there is a conspicuous lack of irony or sarcasm — sincerity rules.
“We’re definitely a positive band,” says Key. “We want to take experiences in our life and use them in a productive way, to encourage people not to let anybody tell them what to do with their life.”
2.) He says the group realize they’re begging comparison with Good Charlotte and Simple Plan by courting the mainstream, but they’re confident they’ve got the goods to avoid a backlash. “We’re not getting, ‘Oh, it’s just another Good Charlotte,’ because we do our own thing. I just think we’re a little more intellectual when it comes to our songwriting, our performances, and our story — we have a story to tell. Those are the only rock bands that have really gotten any hype lately, on that kind of level. Hopefully, we’ll bridge the gap between cheesy and cool. You can be catchy but not be some kind of little-kid thing.”
3.)The song’s nostalgic kick makes it a foolproof emo anthem, but Harper says the actual object of its sentimentality is Jacksonville, which the group left behind when they moved to California’s Central Coast a few years back. “It’s this place where we used to hang out in Jacksonville. Instead of talking about a girl, it’s talking about a scene and a feeling that we want to get back to: hanging out and writing, before we moved to California.”
4.) The 2003 North America blackout was a massive power outage which occurred throughout parts of the northeastern United States and eastern Canada on Thursday, August 14th.
5.) Feb 1, 2003. Space shuttle Columbia explodes, killing all seven astronauts.

Cowboy Memories
1.) “The big thing was the cover, which was just a brilliant piece of animation by Alan Aldridge that perfectly summed up the cartoon aspect of our lives at that time. I think it was quite remarkable and unique for its time. You can put that cover next to ‘Sgt. Pepper’ and get the same feeling.” - Bernie Taupin.
2.) While his voice most often resembles Jose Feliciano; there are at times touches of Leon Russell and Mick Jagger… John’s songs are co-written by lyricist Bernie Taupin, whose lyrics often capture the same timeless, objective spirit of the Band’s Robbie Robertson… Beyond his vocals, melodies and arrangements there is a certain sense of the absurd … that is reminiscent of the American rock stars of the mid-1950s …
3.) `You’re always saying how Bernie has become the Brown Dirt Cowboy’ — he lives on a ranch in Santa Ynez (Calif.) — and I’m this guy who plays concert after concert, buying art, buying photographs, living a very lavish lifestyle. I’ve become Captain Fantastic.
4.) While Taupin sweated over every line, John dashed off the music on a luxury ocean liner. “I’d tried to book the ship’s music room, but an opera singer had it for the whole five days,” John said. “The only time she wasn’t there was when she scoffed her lunch for two hours. So every lunchtime I’d nip in there and grab the piano.”
5.) March 1, 1974- Watergate scandal: Seven are indicted for their role in the Watergate break-in and charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice. Including President Nixon, who resigned, the 1st president to do so.

Elton John history 1974
1.) http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/time/1970s.html
1974: Carrie is the first of Stephen King’s blockbuster gothic novels.
1974: Robert Pirsig’s oddly titled novel, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
1974: In England, the BBC transmits Teletext data to TV sets.
1974: Coaxial cable can carry 108,000 phone conversations at the same time.
1974: Electronic News Gathering (ENG).
1974: Telephone “hot line” is set up between the White House and the Kremlin.
1974: Arcade video game Tank uses ROM chips to store graphics.
1974: International digital voice transmission.
1974: Satellite transmission of mailgrams.
1974: Punk rock music emerges in Britain, with themes of nihilism, anarchy.
1974: Wall Street Journal successfully transmits an edition by satellite.
1974: Nobel Prize in Literature: Swedish novelists Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson.
1974: Telnet offers commercial packet data service.
1974: James Michener, Centennial, a fictional account of a Colorado town.
1974: Heinrich Bšll, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum.
1974: Magazine article on $439 Altair kit inspires many computer hobbyists.
1974: In Japan, Yukio Mishima’s The Sea of Fertility tetralogy published after death.
1974: Oscars: The Godfather, Part II, Art Carney, Ellen Burstyn.
1974: Also at the movies: The Towering Inferno, Chinatown, Blazing Saddles.
1974: Foreign language film Oscar: Amarcord, Italy.
1974: U.S. newspapers start to replace reporters’ typewriters with terminals.
1974: “Teacher-in-the-Sky” satellite begins educational mission.
1974: The word “Internet” enters the lexicon.
1974: Dolby Labs demonstrates Surround Sound and Pro Logic for movies.

2.)http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/study/sshglo.htm#Corporatism
Corporatism
R. E. Pahl and Jack Winkler argued in 1974 that a political vocabulary that “sees the alternative pure forms of economy as simply capitalism or socialism” is “blinkered”. They wanted to re- introduce the term Corporatism as “a distinct form of economic structure”. This was the term that Mussolini used for the economic organisation of Italy under fascism. Pahl and Winkler argued that it fitted the social order that was emerging in response to the the crisis of capitalism that people saw in the 1970s.
“This corporatism is a comprehensive economic system under which the state intensively channels predominantly privately owned business towards four goals, which have become increasingly explicit during the current economic crisis: Order, Unity, Nationalism, and Success.”
It was a direction in which political economic development might have gone - but it did not.

3.) http://www.thenortheast.fsnet.co.uk/page94.htm
1974 April 1, - TYNE AND WEAR AND CLEVELAND CREATED
(North-East)
Local government reforms have considerably changed the shape of County Durham’s boundaries. Gateshead, Jarrow, Blaydon, South Shields and Sunderland have all been moved from County Durham into the new county of Tyne and Wear. Most of the Tyneside area north of the Tyne has been moved from Northumberland into Tyne and Wear. In southern County Durham, Hartlepool has been moved into the newly-created County of Clevaland which includes most of the old borough of Teesside, which dates from 1967, plus areas of rural North Yorkshire including Guisborough.
1974 - METRO STARTED
(Tyneside)
The building of the Metro Rapid Transport System commences on Tyneside.

4.)http://en.wikipedia.org/
July 22 - the US Navy and Marine Corps evacuate 500 people from Cyprus, away from the conflict erupting between Greece and Turkey on the island
March 3 - Turkish Airlines Flight 981, a DC-10, crashes into forest near Ermenonville, France, killing 346 people. At the time, it was the worst aviation disaster in history.
September 1 - a SR-71 Blackbird crosses the Atlantic Ocean in less than two hours.
November 20 - Lufthansa flight 540 crashes and burns moments after takeoff, killing 59 people. It was the first major accident involving the Boeing 747.
Psychology
Civilized Man’s Eight Deadly Sins is published by Konrad Lorenz.
Astronomy and space exploration
February 8 - After 84 days in space, the last crew of the temporary American space station Skylab return to Earth
Events
January 2 - Richard Nixon signs a bill lowering the maximum U.S. speed limit to 55 MPH in order to conserve gasoline during an OPEC embargo.
January 4 - U.S. President Richard Nixon refuses to hand over materials subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.
February 28 - After seven years, the United States and Egypt re-establish diplomatic relations.
February 28 - General election in the U.K. results in no majority for any party; Labour will form a minority government until October despite having received fewer votes nationally than the Conservatives. See UK general election, 1974 (February).
March 1 - Watergate scandal: Seven are indicted for their role in the Watergate break-in and charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice.
April 25 - Portuguese democratic revolution.
May 18 - “Smiling Buddha” nuclear weapon test by India.
July 20 - Turkey invades the country of Cyprus and occupies the northern third of the island (later declared the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus).
August 9 - Resignation of U.S. President Richard Nixon.
September 12 - Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie ousted in a coup by the Derg.
October 10 - General election in the U.K. is won narrowly by Labour.

5.) http://www.onmc.iinet.net.au/UK/uk74.htm
Top Ten Singles in UK
1. Tiger Feet - MUD
2. Seasons in the sun - Terry Jacks
3. Billy, don’t be a hero - Paper Lace
4. when will i see you again - The Three degrees
5. Rock your baby - George McCrae
6. gonna make you a star - David Essex
7. she - Charles Aznavour
8. kung fu fighting - Carl Douglas
9. everything i own - Ken Boothe
10. sugar baby love - The Rubettes

Yellowcard history 2003
1.) http://en.wikipedia.org/
The 2003 North America blackout was a massive power outage which occurred throughout parts of the northeastern United States and eastern
Canada on Thursday, August 14, 2003.

2.)http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030904-7.html Patriot day declared by Bush on September 11, 2003

3.) http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/time/2000s.html
2003: From Apple Computer: the browser Safari.
2003: For the first time, more DVDs than videotapes are rented in the U.S.
2003: Cellphones add computer and Internet capabilities.
2003: Supreme Court mandates porn filters in federally funded public libraries.
2003: iTunes music store offers tunes for 99 cents.
2003: Flash mobs, organized on the Net, start in New York, spread worldwide.
2003: Some U.S. states tax Internet bandwidth.
2003: Zip-Codes.com offers Zip-code information online.
2003: Popularity of blogs increases sharply.
2003: The IP phone is a mini-computer that can transmit movies.
2003: One-third of books bought in U.S. is a romance novel.
2003: Amazon.com scans texts of 120,000 books for Internet users.
2003: An estimated one million camcorders worldwide.
2003: Harry Potter books attacked as satanic, but also defended.
2003: International piracy of films is rampant.
2003: Estmated 5 trillion unwanted messages set on the Internet.
2003: A World Summit on the Information Society meets in Switzerland.
2003: European Union requires Internet companies to tax downloads.
2003: French Ministry of Culture bans the word “email.” Wants “courriel.”
2003: Two AARP magazines far outstrip all others in circulation.
2003: Cable TV offers TiVo-like features: storing, skipping commercials.
2003: Intelsat has more than 20 communication satellites orbiting worldwide.
2003: Internet becomes integral part of political campaigning.
2003: Apple’s G5 64-bit processor contains 58 million transistors.
2003: Destructive computer worms and viruses sharply increase.
2003: Hollywood releases heavy on special effects, violence, sequels.
2003: Auckland, New Zealand, has city-wide high-speed wireless network.
2003: Nobel Prize in Literature: John M. Coetzee, South Africa.
2003: Oscars: The Lord of the Rings, Sean Penn, Charlize Theron.
2003: Non-English language film Oscar: The Barbarian Invasions.
2003: Oscar for animated film: Finding Nemo.
2003: Also at the movies: Pirates of the Caribbean, Mystic, Cold Mountain.
2003: U.S. law bars telemarketers from “Do not call” phone list.

4.)http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0921199.html
there is a huge page of world history for 2003 on this page

5.)http://www.northnet.org/stlawrenceaauw/time14.htm
Sports
Tigers Capture BCS Title
The grand finale of the college Bowl season took place on Jan. 4, as the Tigers of Louisiana State defeated the Oklahoma Sooners, 21-14, in the Sugar Bowl. Among the highlights were LSU freshman Justin Vincent rushing for 117 yards and Marcus Spears scoring a touchdown off an interception for the Tigers. LSU never trailed in the game.

2003 - Pat Summitt becomes the first coach in women’s basketball to win 800 career games when her Lady Vols beat DePaul 76-57. She is just the fourth coach in Division I to post 800 victories, and the first woman. Her record stands at 800-161 in 29 seasons with six national championships.

2003 - Serena Slam: Serena Williams wins her fourth consecutive Grand Slam, the Australian Open, against old sister Venus (7-6 (4), 3-6, 6-4). In 2002 she won the French Open, US Open, and Wimbledon, all in finals matches against her sister. Serena has a 5-4 career edge over Venus in major titles, and 6-5 lead in sister-to-sister matches. This is only the sixth time a woman has held all four of tennis’ major championships at the same time (last done in 1994 by Steffi Graf). The Williams sisters are the first two women in Grand Slam history to square off in four consecutive finals.