A Little bit of "Defining Love" by Ms. Lee

Hello Everyone

And Welcome to a little clip from the lecture "Defining Love".  


I had my lovely assistant SAR film this, the introduction to my lecture, for those of you who were unable to attend the fundraiser for Hospice Miramichi at the Rodd Miramichi River. Or, if you would like to see me, Ms. Lee, in action one more time, this video is for you too.


I am happy to report that the evening, "A Taste of Chocolate" for Hospice Miramichi was a wonderful, moving and successful event. We were sold out and even though the weather was against us, most people who bought tickets drove in the foul weather to attend the fundraiser. 


Thank-you to everyone who purchased tickets and/or donated money to Hospice Mirmaichi. Your support for this much needed cause continues to be inspiring.


Enjoy the clip!


Love and Laughter,


Ms.Lee

 
 

“Defining Love”: The Column, Day 3

By Ms. Lee, Sponsored By The Rambling Rule

Hello one and all. It is I, Ms. Lee, (of “Defining Love”: the play) once again using The Rambling Rule’s generously donated cyberspace to help you through the layered and sometimes contrived world of love quotes.
Today we are going to examine a few lines from a very popular love song from the 1991 movie, Robin Hood, starring the delightful Alan Rickman.
What?  Sorry, excuse me… I was just passed a note from my assistant…Kevin Costner was the star? Really?  Ok, well if you say so.  I really only remember the sheriff.
So to continue, I’d like to examine just four short lines from the very popular love song “(Everything I do) I do it for you” By Bryan Adams. This song really brings back some happy memories for me. A few minutes ago, when I sat down at my computer to start writing about today’s quote, I got carried away on a flashback tangent and recalled all the Friday nights I would go to my friend’s place, we’ll call her K, and we would watch this video over and over.  More specifically, we would watch a series of videos that K taped off of Much Music.  We would moon over specific guys (and their long hair…it was the tail and of the 80′s hair metal era after all) and giggle when they would look at “us” from their music set world.
“Oh! I love the look on his face when he does that thing with his hair!”
“Me too! Rewind it so we can watch it again!”
Yes, it was a sweet time.  As I was sitting here, not writing, I remembered that one our favourites videos on the tape was Mr.Big’s “Be with you”; a lovely, heartfelt ballad, with great guitar and harmony.  When I hear that song blasting from my alarm clock after the 6:30 news, I am taken back to those Friday nights. So of course, instead of getting down to the business of writing, I had to look up the video and sing along.  Then I wondered “What has Mr.Big been up to? Are they still around?” And I have good news: they are.  In October 2010, they rocked out in Japan and I can tell you that the lead singer can still belt out “Be with you” with all the intensity I remember from the video. However, there are two things that stand out about “Mr. Big” that I hadn’t noticed until today:
1.) The lead singer kind of looks like Bjork (you know, the famous Icelandic singer of the Swan Dress)
2.) The drummer is pretty hot.
But I digress. Let me get back to my professional self and work on breaking down a few of the lines from that Robin Hood love tune.
The lines I’d like to look at are:
There’s no love, like yo love
And no other, could give mo love
There’s nowhere, unless yo there
All the time, all the way, yeah.

When the mood strikes and my star sign is in the house of Saturn I have been known write a song or two and so I understand the desire to want to get just the right rhyme, but why did Bryan Adams write Yo love, Mo love? It’s a bizarre way to get a point across and not at all romantic!
Sorry, excuse me again…my assistant who is hovering over my shoulder and making sure I get this done before I go for coffee is passing me another note…
Really? The lyrics are not Yo and Mo? They are Your and More?  Well, that makes more sense!  So why didn’t he just say that? OH…he is…I’m hearing it wrong. Thank-you for the correction. I suppose then this means he’s say Your there and not Yo there? Ah ok…it’s just a problem with his annunciation… or my hearing. Oh dear, where is a towel to wipe the egg off my face?
Well, everyone is wrong from time to time, even me. Let us move on now.
The last line of this lyrical section that I’d like to examine is:  All the time, all the way, yeah.
You may be wondering what this line means and I wish that I had a clear way to break this down for you, but for the last 20 years, I have not been able to define the line to myself in a way that makes sense.  I understand the love; he loves her a lot, she returns the love in an appropriate manner that satisfies like no other, there’s no one else in the world like her, life is vague and empty, sort of a nowhere land when she’s not around, but what does the last line mean? Is she always around? All the time, all the way? Perhaps this means she’s in his way, all the time and although he’s got love for her, MO LOVE than he ever thought he could have for another, she’s becoming distracting. Yes, I think that’s exactly right.  I think I’ve finally cracked the code on this lyrical mystery.
Now to wrap up, let me see what spin I can put on this love quote, to make it even clearer to you all.
No one in the world loves me like you do
My life is an empty chasm of cold, inky darkness when you’re not around
And yet, at the same time, you’re always here and I could really use a little space
Yeah.
Thank-you for walking down memory lane with me.  I hope to see you all learning about love and its complexities at the Hospice Fundraiser at the Rodd on February 11 at 7pm.
http://www.miramichionline.com/hospice-miramichi-presents-a-taste-of-chocolate

Best wishes for a happy day,
Ms.Lee

“Defining Love”: The Column, Day 2

By Ms. Lee, Sponsored by The Rambling Rule

Hello all and welcome to day two.  When I rose this this morning from a fairly decent sleep ( Although I should really rethink watching CSI until one am) I checked my email to find that I had a comment regarding my first article from  a Rose-Marie about roses.  If you recall from yesterday’s column I had said that if there was a quote you would like me to break down for you, to simply deposit it in the comment box.  Rose-Marie did just the thing.  Thank-you for the comment Rose-Marie and now let’s see what I can do to shed some light on your love quote which is:
“A life with love must have some thorns, but a life without love can have no roses.”
Ah yes; that old yarn. This quote reminds me of that love ballad by one of those hair bands back in the 80′s. You probably recall the song, no? I believe it is called “Every rose has its thorn.”  The singer, I believe is talking about love much in the same way Rose-Marie’s suggested love quote is; love, although beautiful  is painful.  You must take the good with the bad. However the song also goes on to say that “Just like every night has its dawn.” Which isn’t such a bad thing and to my mind means all things come to an end which isn’t the same thing at all. And furthermore, the singer goes on to drone “Just like every cowboy sings a sad, sad song.”  This, to me adds confusion to a metaphorically driven metal tune.  Why is this cowboy singing sad, sad song?  Is he singing because love is beautiful, yet painful? Or is he singing because the dawn is coming and as the sun peaks its head over then rocky horizon he will have to draw pistols against his arch foe who was once his closest ally?
The song is unfortunately unclear.
And the song was made even more unclear to me when I heard Bret Michaels, the singer of the famous ballad, rasp out a reworked version of it to Regis during “Good-bye Regis week”.  (I didn’t even know Regis was retiring and only found out because I had the information forced upon my knowledge base in my Dr.’s waiting room. Sad to see Regis go… I guess…I’ve only watched the show MAYBE five times in the thirty years he was on the show and therefore have no real feelings for his departure.)
So, to get back to my story, Kelly calls out “Please welcome Bret Michaels who is here to sing his hit song ‘Every Rose Has Its Thorn’.” Mr. Michaels comes out, guitar in hand, says some nice words about Regis and then he says “Here’s the song with new lyrics for Regis”. You could feel the audience’s collective gasp. This is not what they had expected! At his announcement of his reworked song I thought of two things at once:
1. “I’d really like to leave because this will probably be painful” and
2. “He’s going to Weird Al his own song.”
The second thought did not come true. Weird Al would be ashamed. The lyrics were in no way a parody of the original song, it actually sounded like he was making them up as he went along, and the tune not so much like the original but more like he was ripping off his original tune. Or maybe he’d forgotten the original tune, but just soldiered on anyway. Whatever the case, my first thought was correct; it was painful. Even Regis looked like he wished that someone would pull the plug on his show immediately so that he could go throw himself off the back of his couch rather than be forced to listen to a specially “written” version of the 80′s hair metal ballad of roses, the dawn and sad cowboys.
I believe that this is a good place to tie your sent in love quote Rose-Marie.  Much like love you can’t have celebrity status without battling your way through a wall of thorns from time to time, but also like love, you can’t be a celebrity without roses.  Dozens and dozens of roses that are sent to you your dressing room daily by adoring fans and desperate stalkers.
Thank-you for the quote Rose-Marie I hope I helped you understand your chosen love quote a little better and to my other readers, remember to feel free to drop a quote in the comment box. I’ll do my best to shed light on the complexities of love.
The live version of my insights is only 27 sleeps away!
http://www.miramichionline.com/hospice-miramichi-presents-a-taste-of-chocolate
Thank-you for reading,
Ms. Lee

“Defining Love”: The Column, Day One

By Ms. Lee (Sponsored By The Rambling Rule)

Hello all and welcome to my four week guest spot on Miramichi Online. I will be appearing in a play at the Rodd Miramichi River on February 11th as part of a Hospice Miramichi Fundraiser and Cindy Rule (AKA the Rambling Rule) graciously offered me the use her cyberspace as a way of promotion and to allow me to have a place to air my thoughts about love. After all, since my role in “Defining Love: the play” is that of a lecturer who heavily researched the topic of love (for an hour least) and has lived a life full of heartbreak and heartbreaking, it really only makes sense that I may have the knowledge base to wax beyond the production and help shed light on the mysteries of love.
My plan over the next four weeks is to take love quotes and break them down for you.  What is on the surface of a quote such as “I love you” may not be the full story. I feel that as an “expert” in the field of love I can help shed light on the obscure meanings below the simple words and make the quote and its lesson accessible to you all.
So let’s get started.
The first quote that I’d like to look at is “Love means nothing in tennis and everything in life.”
Ok, so right off the top, a falsehood. I’ve played tennis, and took lessons once upon a time and while I may not have been the best player (unless it is a good thing to say I was the best of the worst) I know that while “love in tennis” may literally mean nothing as in “zero”, it means something to the person who has a score of “love”.  It means that they are not “in the zone” or they keep “dropping the ball” or letting the ball rush by them like a tribble on a mission, which results in getting no results point wise and landing a in a score of “love”.
It is sad really, that the word “love”, a word that when spoken by the right person can fill you with a sense of life, would be used in such a derogatory way; what a racket.
Let us move on to the second half of the quote “and everything in life”. While the first half fills me with memories of being a bit of a loser, the second half smacks me in the face with its presumptuous quality. To say that “love” (and we’ll assume that the one who penned this phrase was speaking of romantic love) is “everything in life” is basically saying that all and sundry assume that if you do not have someone special to share your life with, that you don’t have romantic love, well…you might as well just hang your head in shame.  Do you have friends that care about you? Big deal! Do you have self-respect and a feeling of purpose in the world that replaces needing to have a partner?  You must be delusional! Do you have a job you love? So what! Your job doesn’t tuck you in at night and love you even when you wake up with pillow marks all over your rumpled face!
This part of the quote seems to be saying that romantic love is a goal that should be achieved. It heavily implies that this kind of love will fill all the gaps in your life that are empty because of the lack of it. It is basically telling you that without life “love” much like scoring “love” in tennis; it is nothing.
I think that it is an unfair quote and would like to give you, as an ending to my first column, my own reworked version.
“Love is nothing in tennis, which only matters if you are highly competitive or a professional tennis player in which case if you keep getting love in tennis perhaps you should rethink your career path, and everything in life UNLESS you know that life can be fulfilling even without romantic love and can always be replaced with the heavenly confection know as chocolate.”
Yes, that’s much better.
So, I hope you enjoyed my first “Defining Love” column. I will be back soon with another love quote interpretation for you all.
If you have a love quote that you would like dissected or broken down into simple terms for you, please put your idea in the comment box.
And remember for a life version of my insights, I hope you’ll come on down to the fundraiser for Hospice Miramichi “A Taste of Chocolate” on February 11th at 7:00pm.  For information, please this link. http://www.miramichionline.com/hospice-miramichi-presents-a-taste-of-chocolate
Thank-you for your time,
Ms. Lee.