{"id":1984,"date":"2009-02-03T00:20:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-03T04:20:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-02-03T08:32:53","modified_gmt":"2011-02-03T12:32:53","slug":"the-big-bopper-will-be-missed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-big-bopper-will-be-missed\/","title":{"rendered":"The Big Bopper <em>Will<\/em> Be Missed"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jNrpAgTXiC4?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>I haven&#8217;t been around lately.  Been busy.  Doin&#8217; shit.  So for those of you don&#8217;t know, I am <em><strong>the<\/strong><\/em> Mikey from the Life Cereal campaign.  Here&#8217;s me then:<\/p>\n<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/users\/mikey\/mikeythen.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"154\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Here&#8217;s me now:<\/p>\n<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/users\/mikey\/mikeynow.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"154\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Anyhoo.  I got that ad campaign because I&#8217;m supposed to be a cynic, right?  I&#8217;m supposed to hate everything, right?!  I swallow my anger, right?!!  Wrong dillweeds!!  Wrong.<\/p>\n<p>I have the open mind of a newborn babe.  That&#8217;s why I work in my birthday suit.<\/p>\n<p>So let&#8217;s talk about <em><strong>The Big Bopper<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>A cynic might say that The Big Bopper is the luckiest man in rock for if he hadn&#8217;t died in that crash, no one would remember him.<\/p>\n<p>A cynic might say that in the triumvirate of <strong>Chubby Checker<\/strong>&#8211;<strong>Fats Domino<\/strong>-Big Bopper, the Bopper comes up third no matter how you sort them: talent, fattest, most black&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I might suggest that we celebrate <strong>the fact<\/strong> that The Big Bopper wrote that <em>White Lightening<\/em> song and some song about a bear running that apparently deserve notoriety.<\/p>\n<p>A cynic might respond, WTF are you talking about?<\/p>\n<p>A cynic might say that the only people who truly celebrate <strong>The Day The Music Died<\/strong> are <strong>Don McLean<\/strong> and whoever inherited the royalties to <em>Chantilly Lace<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>But I&#8217;m not a cynic.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"120\" height=\"75\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"data\" value=\"http:\/\/rocktownhall.com\/musicdied120x75.swf\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/rocktownhall.com\/musicdied120x75.swf\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"120\" height=\"75\" src=\"http:\/\/rocktownhall.com\/musicdied120x75.swf\" data=\"http:\/\/rocktownhall.com\/musicdied120x75.swf\"><\/embed><\/object><\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;d like us all to imagine for a moment a world in which the Big Bopper didn&#8217;t exist.<\/p>\n<p>OK, let&#8217;s see.<\/p>\n<p>Well if he hadn&#8217;t existed then <strong>Waylon Jennings<\/strong> might have died.  Depending on your feelings about Jennings this could be some sort of <em>It&#8217;s A Wonderful Life<\/em> way to celebrate the Bopper.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;d have to find another song to fill the void where <em>Chantilly Lace<\/em> was used in <strong>American Graffiti<\/strong>.  I don&#8217;t recall the scene though and couldn&#8217;t find it.<\/p>\n<p>I personally wouldn&#8217;t have the memory of my dad lifting both hands off the steering wheel and gesturing while singing &#8220;Well hellloooooo baaaabay&#8221; when <em>Chantilly Lace<\/em> came on the oldies station.  I would have to be satisfied with only having the almost identical memory but with that &#8220;sing like a frog&#8221; song.<\/p>\n<p>I, along with countless others (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.earcandymag.com\/rrcase-bigbopper.htm\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beaumontenterprise.com\/news\/20124344.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/marinecorpstimes.com\/entertainment\/music\/gns_music_buddyholly_012909\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>&#8230;) see a world without music videos, because The Big Bopper is the <strong>visionary who created music video<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>A cynic might point out <strong>the fact<\/strong> that pre-rock musicians produced and distributed &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Soundies\" target=\"_blank\">soundies<\/a>&#8220;, as early as 1940.  But again I&#8217;m no cynic.<\/p>\n<p>So in short, I think we can all agree that The Big Bopper was indeed a great&#8230;man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I haven&#8217;t been around lately. Been busy. Doin&#8217; shit. So for those of you don&#8217;t know, I am the Mikey from the Life Cereal campaign. Here&#8217;s me then: Here&#8217;s me now: Anyhoo. I got that ad campaign because I&#8217;m supposed to be a cynic, right? I&#8217;m supposed to hate everything, right?! I swallow my anger, <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-big-bopper-will-be-missed\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[148],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}