Wednesday, October 03, 2007

"Before" and "After" photos...
...sometimes they're useful; other times, they're not...


You see them on TV all the time...for instance, you'll see a commercial which advertises some kind of glop that men can put on their hair to make it thicker. Then, you'll see before-and-after photos of their bald spots, and one picture does look a little fuller than the other...but those pictures always look to me as if what little hair there was to begin with was just moved around a little bit to cover more scalp...I'm still not sure of the validity of those photos...nope, not totally convinced.

Still another set of before-and-after photos are believable, verrry believable...Kirstie Alley, who gained a ton of weight, is doing weight-loss commercials for "Jenny", and yep, Kirstie has lost an awful lot of tonnage, especially off her "back porch". Thing is, the newer, slimmer Kirstie still looks like Kirstie. I can live with that. And now Valerie Bertinelli (another babe) is doing weight-loss commercials with Kirstie. Valerie, do what you need to do, but don't change too much, okay? I like you 'just the way you are'........

Another lady who's lost weight, Star Jones, used to be on "the View", you know, the TV show that cleaned house by getting rid of Rosie O'Donnell, who needs to lose weight and have a VOLUME control installed in her mouth. Anyway, Star Jones has changed her looks SO much, that she doesn't look anything at all like Star Jones...so I tried to listen to her so I could identify her by voice, but since it had been ages since I'd seen "the View"; in all honesty, I couldn't tell. She SAYS she's Star Jones; I'll just have to take her word for it.

At my 20th high school class reunion, a stunning blonde came in, and didn't hardly speak to anyone. No one I talked to knew who she was! Later on, we all found out that she was one of our classmates, only, we couldn't tell. Why? She lost a whole bunch of weight and changed her appearance so much, no one could tell who she was. She looked like Hollywood-type material. And maybe she was exacting some form of vengeance upon us by appearing, remaining aloof, and then disappearing after a couple of hours. After all, people who are fat in high school usually aren't very popular. And she wasn't, back then. And I'll bet Rosie O'Donnell didn't get any prom invitations, either.

Usually, if you see someone on a frequent basis, they may go thru changes, but since you see them often, you don't notice all that much any differences in appearance. In the case of Paul McCartney, he keeps himself in the public eye, and really never has retreated for any kind of extended time period. If anything, perhaps he feels he has to keep himself in the public eye MORE, because he's 65, and doesn't want to seem irrelevant in the face of today's up-and-coming musicians. So Paul keeps writing songs, filming TV specials, doing interviews, making music, making records, and he'll probably keep doing that until he keels over in a recording studio somewhere.

And no, Paul's not irrelevant. His latest album, "Memory Almost Full" is quite good. And, since ol' Paul's picture is in the papers quite often, yes, we know he's not as young as he used to be...but try doing a side-by-side thing; a Paul Beatle-photo alongside a current-Paul photo, and you'll be shocked. Well, I was! While reading Beatle news at http://www.whatgoeson.com/, an article I saw contained before-and-after pictures of Paul McCartney. And all of a sudden, how much his looks have changed over the years really amazed me...

On the left, Paul, circa 1966; on the right, Paul, circa 2007. 41 years. What a difference! I suppose I could try doing this with old and new pictures of ME, but I really don't need anything else to have nightmares about. But it's amazing how time flies. We all know that John Lennon died when he was 40. His son by his first marriage, Julian, is now 45! And the musical group U2, one of my favorite bands, has now been together at least 27 years, and that's pretty amazing, too. Longer than most marriages these days!

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Well, I WAS going to take out the ol' photo album and look at pictures of me in my younger days, but I think I'll just keep it at the bottom of the box for another decade or so...

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