Michael Kantu
Bio
I have written mostly pop culture pieces for Medium, Substack, and on a short-lived Blogspot site (Michael3282). I see writing as a way for people to keep their thoughts, memories, and beliefs alive long after we depart from the world.
Stories (13)
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Who Eased Minds Best?
There are many things about being a kid that one never forgets. For example, I will never forget being 11 years old in the spring of 2001 and sitting in the passenger seat of my aunt’s black Nissan, eating my medium-sized cup of French Vanilla ice cream mixed with gummy bears. We were parked in front of a now long-gone Baskin-Robbins shop almost hidden inside a shopping center near Desert Inn and Sandhill, not far from the Boulder Station Hotel & Casino in the southeast corner of Las Vegas. The CD playing on the car radio was 1972’s Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits. Even 15 years later, I remember the powerful and dramatic crash that hit the la-la-lie chorus of “The Boxer.” I also recall setting my teenage romantic angst to the psychedelic sound and melody of “The Sound of Silence.” Finally, I still remember a wonderful kind of fear flowing down my spine while hearing the dramatic “Wall of Sound” force of “Bridge Over Troubled Water”. It was a kind of power only matched by Art Garfunkel belting those infamous high notes in the song’s crescendo.
By Michael Kantuabout a year ago in Beat
"One More Round, Delia's Gone"
One of the strangest things I’ve ever heard someone say came from Johnny Cash. In a 1996 interview to promote Unchained, his second album for producer Rick Rubin, Johnny talked about the renewed interest he was receiving from audiences following the first Cash/Rubin collaboration, 1994’s American Recordings, which featured just Johnny and his guitar. Cash discussed the long process leading to the solo format of that first album. The months of trial and error mostly consisted of Johnny and Rick sitting at Rubin’s Los Angeles home, with the recording equipment set up and running down a list of 200 songs that Johnny had in his head and which he had always wanted to record. According to Cash, after that process and the decision to keep the album bare, came the matter of working on Cash's guitar playing and making it sound good for recording since, as he put it, “I can’t play guitar.”
By Michael Kantuabout a year ago in Beat
"Don't Take Your Guns To Town"
Despite the songs, the close friendships, and the very shared genre of country music that binds them together, I’ve always seen Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson as two men who coexist in an unusual harmony yet maintain a distinct separation.
By Michael Kantuabout a year ago in Beat
My Obsession With A Nonsense Riddle
“If it takes fourteen geese to get down off an elephant, how many Palmolive wrappers can it take to paper a boxcar?” In his book, Riding The Elephant, Craig Ferguson briefly mentions one of the difficulties of hosting a late-night show, (The Late Late Show, pre-Corden), was sometimes simply not having anything to say or talk about on some days. As a fan of his show, I now recognize the difficulty in episodes that saw him devote part of his monologue to trivial footnotes like the independence day of some far-off country unknown to Western eyes.
By Michael Kantuabout a year ago in Writers
"Come On The Amazing Journey"
“I saw the film Tommy on cable television, and despite Jack Nicholson’s heinous rendition of “Go to The Mirror”, I was deeply moved by the music and the story.” — Jack Black honoring Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend at the 2008 Kennedy Center Honors.
By Michael Kantuabout a year ago in Beat
I Won't Be Ashamed of Love on The Streets of Philadelphia
With absolutely no disrespect to any fans of “The Day I Fell in Love” (Beethoven’s 2nd), Janet Jackson’s “Again” (Poetic Justice), and “A Wink and A Smile” from the romantic blockbuster Sleepless in Seattle, we will need to start by placing each tune off to the side for the sake of this piece.
By Michael Kantuabout a year ago in Beat
I Said "LUNCH", Not "LAUNCH"
Last November saw the death of legendary kids TV producer Marty Krofft at age 86. Marty along with his brother Sid, were to praise (or blame) for some of the most outrageous, crazy, and subversive children’s television of the 1970s and 1980s. Before Pee Wee’s Playhouse and before SpongeBob SquarePants, there was H.R Pufnstuf, Land of The Lost, Electra Woman & Dyno Girl, The Lost Saucer (with Jim Nabors) D.C. Follies, and much more. The Krofft brothers were probably the only people in the 1980s who imagined that Richard Pryor could headline a Saturday morning kids show (Pryor’s Place) in the style of Sesame Street.
By Michael Kantuabout a year ago in Geeks
The Most Underrated Lemmon/Matthau Comedy
There is a famous story about Jack Lemmon told by those blessed to have worked with him. The story was that before Lemmon took to the stage or started filming a scene in a movie, he would say two words to himself, almost as a mantra.
By Michael Kantuabout a year ago in Proof
