The Rockford Files

A '77 tan Firebird, a bad back, and a too kind heart

In the 1970s American television series The Rockford Files, James Garner played Jim Rockford, an ex-con turned private investigator, who lived and worked in the LA region. In fact, he lived on the beach in Malibu - in a white-trash trailer.

Rockford went up against bad people, got conned, punched, suckered until he ultimately prevailed. He rarely or ever got paid his $200 a day plus expenses.

Why bring this up? I was at CFRO FM, the community run radio station in Vancouver, BC, last Saturday for a broadcast of Redeye, our public affairs show, and came across Mike Post's theme song for The Rockford Files in a box of free records.

As I dropped the needle onto the LP I remembered that at 16 I once waved at a tan Firebird as it drove by 6th Ave, near False Creek, with the vague idea I knew this person but just couldn't quite put my finger on who. Until I remembered that it was Jim Rockford, my imaginary friend on TV, who drove one.

I don't often connect with TV characters. I did for Bill McNeal (Phil Hartman) on Newsradio (I couldn't watch the show after Hartman was killed by his wife in her murder-suicide spree) and I did for Jim Rockford.

What's the Buzz? Tell me what's a happening!

WWJD on alternate nights starting July 9?

(Vancouver, BC) Theatre Under the Stars opens July 9th with their production of Jesus Christ Superstar at Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park.

The musical, by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, is the hipped up, wowie, outta-sight story of the Passion of Christ ending in the crucifixion of Jesus (or 'crucifiction' to the historical literalist or 'crucifixation' to the contemptuous condescending atheist).

Webber-Rice's play is a wonderfully wacky, musical plotting of the final days of the Son of God: chasing the moneychangers from the Temple, the last supper, the betrayal by Judas Iscariot, the trial by the Sanhedrin priests, the interview by Herod, the interview with the Roman Procurator, Pontius Pilate, and the Crucifixion.

Jesus Christ Superstar was nominated for five Tony awards in 1972 when it was performed on Broadway. It was subsequently made into a film in 1973.

For ticket information click here.

For directions to Malkin Bowl click here.

All tickets are $31 for adults, $29 for kids age 5 to 15, and FREE for kids under 5. Click here for more details.

Wanna follow a more adult, less bombastic, more theologically correct discussion of the Passion of Christ? Click here for Geza Vermes' book, The Passion (2005), published by Penguin Books. (Warning - not much foot-tapping music and certainly no memorable lyrics in the book - for that, ya gotta stick with the musical.)

See you there.

xo

MVL