Brookswords

Toronto Rock n' Roll Revival Revisited

The summer of 1969 was the summer of rock music festivals. In many ways these were an attempt to recreate the atmosphere of 1967's "Summer of Love" in San Francisco--and more particularly, the "Be-In" that occurred in that city's Golden Gate Park one day in January of that year. Yes, already by 1969 the counter culture was awash in nostalgia. The pinnacle was at Woodstock that August, but things would become seriously unhinged later that year at the Rolling Stones' one day event at Altamont. (I almost went to the latter, but I was sick that weekend. And I had a lot of homework to do.)

In Toronto, at the end of the summer of '69, things were a little different. It was a one-day affair, as opposed to the 2 or 3 day festivals that were the norm, and it was planned to be a celebration of the roots of rock n' roll. Consequently most of the acts were pioneers of rock, such as Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis -- with a smattering of newer acts, most prominent of which was the Doors.

Well, that lineup didn't entice ticket buyers in the summer of '69. Fearing the festival would collapse before it even began, the promoters invited the Beatles -- who were themselves on the verge of collapsing -- to make their first live appearance in 3 years. Needless to say, the Beatles, who had just recently spent their final days together in a recording studio, didn't show. But John Lennon did, and the concert was saved.

Since he hadn't been in front of an audience for such a long time, Lennon later admitted he spent the half hour before he took the stage nauseous in his dressing room. But his performance shows no sign of nervousness. In fact, he shows that he was one of the great rock vocalists. Bowing to the the nature of the event, he sang mostly only old rock n' roll chestnuts such as "Dizzy Miss Lizzie", with the able assistance of Eric Clapton's nimble, blistering lead guitar.

As for the rock pioneers, Jerry Lee Lewis, strangely enough, centered his set on Elvis Presley songs and not his own. Or maybe not so strange -- Presley had recently begun to return to live performances that summer in Las Vegas, and I can't help thinking "The Killer" was attempting his own style of one-upmanship. (His resentment of Presley culminated 7 years later with Jerry Lee showing up drunk late one night with a loaded pistol, at the gate of Elvis' Graceland mansion, ranting and raving. According to one witness, he said, "Tell him the Killer's here to see him" -- hardly assuring words coming from someone brandishing a gun. He was arrested at the scene.) As for Little Richard, he instantly revived his career at Toronto; as one observer noted, "in 30 frenetic minutes Little Richard had just made his comeback".

Here's Lennon's version of "Dizzy Miss Lizzie", Jerry Lee performing a manic "Hound Dog", and Little Richard -- with his terrifically tight band -- performing "Lucille" and making the original version sound like a dress rehearsal.

     

 

A Heartbeat and a Guitar

 I just learned an entire book about "Bitter Tears", Johnny Cash's 1964 concept album that centered on the plight of Native Americans, came out a few years ago, with cover art by Shephard Fairey, the artist who did the famous Obama Hope poster. The story behind this album is captivating. As one writer says, "In 1963, Johnny Cash released one of the biggest hits of his career with the trumpeting, propulsive 'Ring of Fire'. But he followed up with his most obscure and controversial effort: the 1964 folk-protest album called “Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian.”

Here's a summary from Amazon:

"With his highly personal early 1960s work, Johnny Cash had been trying the patience of the Columbia brass, who were less than thrilled with his commercial performance. When "Ring of Fire" topped the country charts in 1963, it allowed him to continue the many ambitious concept albums-history lessons close to his heart. The eight songs on 1964's Bitter Tears are sung from the point of view of the American Indian (still the accepted term in 1964), and together they form a potent work that is both deeply real and highly spiritual. With assistance from co-composer Peter LaFarge, Cash offers an  earnest, solemn portrait of Native Americans that examines a variety of issues through a range of  viewpoints and contained in unadorned musical settings. Cash actually took out full-page ads daring radio programmers to play "The Ballad of Ira Hayes," but all of the material hits home, from LaFarge's defiant "As Long as the Grass Shall Grow" to Johnny Horton's mournful, spooky "The Vanishing Race."

Here's "As Long as the Grass Shall Grow" performed by Cash shortly after the album's release on Pete Seeger's public TV show. One note -- Cash was in the middle of drug addiction & is clearly stoned out of his head. I'm kind of surprised Seeger had him on the program in that condition -- but his show, Rainbow Quest, was usually populated by little-known folk singers, so Cash must have been quite a catch.  And he does sing the song well & true.

After Johnny Cash cleaned up his act, here is another performance of the same song, with added lyrics, on his successful TV show. He sang it as part of a recurring segment of his program called "Ride This Train" -- within which Cash was now, on  TV, giving "history lessons close to his heart".  6 years after the Seeger clip -- and looking 10 years younger -- Cash frames the song with an extensive prologue and epilog (containing a short version of "Ira Hayes"), creating a more searing indictment of the treatment of Native Americans.

The Man in Black

It was Johnny Cash's birthday yesterday. Here is one of my favorite Youtube clips, filmed when he came out against the Vietnam war before a college audience in 1971. The students are respectful & quiet at the beginning, then erupt in applause as it's clear he's against the war. Note the smiling, yet tear-filled, woman near the end.  As the old Irish ballad says, 'Johnny, we hardly knew ya'. He receives a standing ovation.  

Eisenstaedt's 'Children at a Puppet Theatre, Paris,1963'

One my favorite photos is "Children at a Puppet Theatre". It was taken by famed photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt, most commonly known for his elegant portraits of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe. But he never stopped looking for those moments of serendipity out on the street. The most famous of these is the iconic picture of the sailor kissing the nurse in Times Square on V-J Day.

    'Children at a Puppet Theatre', taken at the end of a re-enactment of "St. George and the Dragon',  reminds me of how magical it can be reading to a group of children at story time. When you read a great time-tested tale such as The Frog Prince, it's amazing how no two children have the same reaction. One day when I came to the end of The Frog Prince, when the frog turns into a prince, one little boy stared at the book in utter amazement. He could not have looked any more stunned had a prince suddenly appeared in the classroom.

    Here is Eisenstaedt's account of how he was able to get the shot at the puppet Theatre:

 "It took a long time to get the angle I liked, but the best picture is the one I took at the climax of the action. It carries all the excitement of the children screaming, "The dragon is slain!" Very often this sort of thing is only a momentary vision, my brain does not register, only my eyes and finger react. Click."

 

Bob Dylan Killed My CD Player

In 1986, 'the most famous Bob Dylan bootleg of all time' was released. Called Ten of Swords, it was a 10 album comprehensive compilation of Dylan's unreleased work from 1961 to 1966. Dylan bootlegs have always had a strong cache to collectors, since he has always had the peculiar habit of leaving some of his best work unreleased. Ten of Swords brought together unreleased songs that had been released on dozens of bootleg albums, and the quality of the recordings--usually pretty poor on previous bootlegs--was virtually up to the quality of official releases. Ten of Swords was, unfortunately, hard to find--and quite expensive, to boot. (No pun intended.)

Many years later, however, Ebay came to my rescue. I found copies (now on 7 CD's rather than 10 records) for a relatively nominal price--as Ralph Kramden might have put it, for "a mere bag of shells".  So I bought it, popped the 7 CD's in my 10 disc CD player -- along with 3 of my other Dylan CD's -- opened a pint of Guinness, and sat down to listen.  I hit 'play' on the remote...and nothing happened   Absolutely nothing.  I know that's redundant--but how else can I convey the frustration I felt that night?  No matter what I did, my stereo just sat there, insolently glaring back at me.

Before hurling my pint of Guinness at it, I decided to calm down, take the CD's out & listen to them one at a time on the CD player in my computer.  But not only was 'play' not working, but 'eject' wasn't either.  Not only could I not listen to the CD's -- now I couldn't even get them out of the CD player. I spent that night with a screwdriver in my hand, trying to take apart the machine & retrieve my CD's. I never was able to take it apart. If I'd have had a baseball bat in the house that night, I know what I might have done.

The next night I talked to my older daughter and told her what had happened. She spent her childhood with Bob Dylan as part of the soundtrack of her life, and she knows more than most that he is an acquired taste. (I remember my first wife waking up one morning & telling me she'd just had a horrible nightmare -- she'd dreamed that Bob Dylan had moved in with us and wouldn't leave!)

When I told my daughter that I'd loaded up the CD player with 10 Dylan CD's, she thought that explained everything; after all these years being forced to play Dylan CD's, this was the final, last straw for my CD player. It just couldn't take it anymore.

So, I guess I can sort of understand why the CD player decided to go to that big stereo store in the sky.  But why wouldn't it let me have my CD's back?  Besides being suicidal, did it also have to be spiteful?

The Girl Who Played With Fire

Just finished The Girl Who Played With Fire, which had me as transfixed as its predecessor, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The 'girl', Lisbeth Salander, is one of the most unusual & unpredictable protagonists I've ever come across. It will be quite a challenge for the actress just chosen to play her in the Hollywood version, Rooney Mara. In the weeks before the choice to play Salander was announced, there was quite a frenzy in Hollywood -- comparable to the protracted Scarlett O'Hara search which eventually handed stardom on a silver platter to Vivien Leigh. I like the fact that Mara, a virtual unknown, was chosen over big names like Scarlet Johansson -- said at one point to be a shoo-in for the role -- Ellen Page and Natalie Portman. And I also like the fact that, like me, she has a last name for a first name.

The Past, With Prologues

Back in the day, American popular songs often began with a prologue. Two of my favorite songs that employ that convention were both written in the 1920's, "If You Want a Rainbow (You Must Have the Rain)" and "What'll I Do". Here are two clips; first, Annette Hanshaw performs "Rainbow", which was released, of all things, on the "Diva" label. I first heard her music only recently, after I watched Nina Paley's multicultural phantasmagoria, Sita Sings the Blues, where her music provides the soundtrack to a vivid reinterpretation of the Ramayana. Hanshaw was only in her 30's when she performed a disappearing act & quit show business. The story goes that she was just tired of it. Her song not only has a prologue--it also ends with her trademark signature "That's All". And that's just what she said to her singing career.

The second clip is Harry Nilsson, from his 70's retro album of pop standards, performing Irving Berlin's "What'll I Do". Berlin wrote everything from "White Christmas" to "God Bless America", but of all his hundreds of songs, this is my favorite. Anyone hearing this song can probably guess that its writer must have been well-acquainted with heartbreak. Irving Berlin certainly was. His first wife died from an illness she contracted on their honeymoon. (His second marriage would last 63 years.)

Pearl Harbor and the Explosions

One of our first nights out on the town after the birth of my firstborn, my wife and I went to a club in Berkeley to see Pearl Harbor & the Explosions, a New Wave/Punk group that was hot at the time. They had a song out called 'Drivin' that was a local hit in the Bay Area. It was sort of a theme song for me at the time, since I did a lot of driving in my job.

We got great seats near the stage. The night soon turned strange. For some reason, Pearl Harbor -- who at one time went by the stage name Pearl E. Gates -- began looking at me as she sang. I was pretty surprised & mystified by this. At one point I even looked behind me, to see if maybe there was someone she knew behind me. There was no one there. Her focus on me only increased as the night wore on.

My wife was at first annoyed by this, and then increasingly irritated -- when she wasn't away from our table, calling home to see how the baby was doing. (She'd do this about every 20 minutes.) She kept looking at me, accusingly, as if I was inviting this. I'd shrug my shoulders in response to her angry glances -- to no avail.

We drove home in silence. I tried bringing it up a few days later, jokingly, but that would only make her lapse into silence again.

I saw my now ex-wife a few months back at my son's wedding. We enjoyed talking to one another at the reception, but I think it's a good thing I didn't mention Pearl Harbor.

Here's Pearl Harbor singing 'Drivin' -- apparently from a cable access show in 1979 -- and then you can see her perform 'Fujiyama Mama', backed by The Clash. 'Fujiyama Mama' was a 1950's Rockabilly song, by Wanda Jackson--who has been dubbed both the Queen of Rock as well as the First Lady of Rockabilly. There's the Queen, with none other than the King, on the right, at the birth of their careers. In the midst of the Disco nightmare of the late 1970's, I loved how the New Wave/Punk movement revived the Rockabilly sound, like when Sid Vicious revived Eddie Cochran's 'Somethin' Else'. The final clip is the original 'Fujiyama Mama', sung by that spitfire Wanda Jackson. She's still rocking her tail off -- she played here in LA only a few months ago.

In 1959 two television series, the Twilight Zone and One Step Beyond, began. They seemed at first glance like carbon copies. Each featured a charismatic host who would introduce a strange tale, then reemerge at the end to present a coda. The two series even shared some of the same actors, such as the pre-Star Trek William Shatner.

But there was one crucial aspect that separated the two. The Twilight Zone relied on the some of the best science fiction and horror writers of the time, like Richard Matheson and Robert Bloch. One Step Beyond, however, presented an early form of docudrama -- the stories were all based on real events.

Here is the very first episode of One Step Beyond, broken down into 3 Youtube clips. They appear to be  cut at the moment of commercial breaks. (If you want, you could turn on your TV to watch a commercial between the clips!) The starring actress, Virginia Leith, is pretty impressive -- she exhibits a raw emotion that makes me wonder why her career never really got off the ground. She would, however, go on to star in a cult classic, The Brain That Wouldn't Die. It's been presented -- tongue firmly in cheek -- by both Elvira and Mystery Science 3000.

Professor Elvis

In Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback Special, there came a point where he had to address the fact that, after almost a decade of making bad movies, he'd been eclipsed by the Beatles and all that had come after them. By 1968 he was largely seen as an anachronism. He was all too aware of the shallowness of his movies -- he once said "the only thing worse than watching a bad movie is being in one".

But after bringing up the Beatles, he...changed the subject! He launched into a little lesson on the roots of Rock n' Roll, pointing out that it grew out of Gospel and Rhythm & Blues. It was an eye-opening revelation to me as I watched at home. Within days I bought a B.B. King record, which lead to a life-long interest in roots music. Here's that section of the Comeback Special, which was, to me -- as much as I enjoyed hearing him sing his old hits -- the heart and soul of the show.

My Sister, the Beach Boys and Me

When they were on the top of the charts, the Beach Boys played once a year in Reno. My older sister Wendy & I saw them at their peak at the State Building downtown. After the concert, she talked me into waiting with her to meet them as they walked out. It seemed like forever as we stood there in the cold Fall air. But finally they appeared. They walked past us hurriedly -- except for the lead singer Mike Love, who broke away from the pack, chatted with Wendy & then invited us to join him at a restaurant across the street. My sharpest memory of the night was his passing his unfinished Pie a la Mode to me.

After this encounter, and a long letter that Mike Love later wrote to my sister from Manhattan Beach --which I proudly showed off to my friends--an urban legend arose at my grade school that the song "Wendy", on the latest Beach Boys album at the time, was written for my sister. I knew the song came out before they met, but when I heard the rumor, I didn't disabuse anyone of the notion as it was passed around. It gave me what little notoriety I had.

However, on the "Beach Boys Party" album, recorded after Wendy & Mike Love met, her name is called out as they sing a their cover version of the song "There's No Other (Like My Baby)". It occurs at about the 2:20 point of the following clip. When I first heard this song, and the shout out to Wendy, I was stunned. I pointed it out to my friends, but they were deeply unimpressed. After all, they already thought she'd had an entire song written about her! There's a moral in here somewhere.

Goose-Stepping in Echo Park

OK Go's latest video was shot mere blocks away from where I live in Echo Park, at Echo Park Lake. And they gained a 5th, nonhuman, member in the process--a large, people-loving goose, well-known to those that hang out at the Lake (who have named her Maria).

Here's the video:

National Spelling Bee

Watched the final championship round of the National Spelling Bee last night, and the crowning of a new champion, 14 year-old Anamika Veeramani of Cleveland, Ohio. It had all the nail-biting suspense of a Hitchcock thriller. For those who missed out on the drama from last night's prime-time finale, you could rent one of the best documentaries I've ever seen, the Oscar-nominated Spellbound, which chronicled the experience of 8 participants in the 1999 National Bee. (It's a little ironic that the National Bee is getting so much attention now, at a time when the budgets of schools and public libraries are being decimated.)

I was surprised and disappointed to learn that there were protesters at the event. But then I leaned that they were dressed up as bees--with signs saying things like "Enough is Enuf"--and were actually engaged in a pretty sophisticated argument for reform of the English language. Two clear steps toward reform that they suggest--ending the use of the  silent e, and the weird 'i before e except after c' rule. As this article explains, the "National Spelling Bee highlights what a mess English spelling is--a hodgepodge of orthographies borrowed from German, French, Greek and Latin. Is it time for a makeover?" 

The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw is said to have joked that the word "fish" could  legitimately be spelled "ghoti," by using the "gh" sound from "enough," the "o" sound from "women", and the "ti" sound from "action."

The curiosities of English were fully on display last night, as every participant asked for the etymology of every word. Some words have a long and winding road, beginning, for example, as Latin, on to Greek, and then French before becoming part of the English language.

Here's the trailer for Spellbound:

Lynda Kay at Amoeba Records

Saw Alt-Country crooner Lynda Kay at Amoeba Records in Hollywood a couple days ago. She put on quite a show, wowing the crowd from the start when she walked onstage in a golden suit and under amazing hair--looking just as she does on the left. Kay was also tugging along a big ol' Gretsch--she's affiliated with that great ol' guitar company in a publicity campaign. Here's a clip from that show, followed by a clip of Kay singing a hot Rockabilly number, from a concert in another city. When she performed it at Amoeba, it brought the house down. Finally, there's her Gretsch video. She appears in very  different guises in these. At one moment, she's the reincarnation of Patsy Cline; at another, she's the still alive & well Wanda Jackson. But that's nothing--she used to perform an act where she changed costumes 8 times, as noted in this week's  LA Weekly--which chose her one of its "People of 2010", and to grace one if its 4 covers. The picture they used was a cropped black & white version of the picture above. (Where I pick up my Weekly, her cover wasn't the one that was in the bin, dang it!)

The Gorilla That Missed Him

I recently wrote about a noteworthy gorilla that I once met, and how, in subsequent years, I would return to the zoo and try to see if he remembered me. Now, here's an amazing clip about the reunion of a gorilla and his former caretaker. 5 years before this reunion, the gorilla--named Kwibi--was reintroduced into the wild after spending his early years at a wild animal park. When the two are finally reunited, Kwibi not only remembers his former caretaker, he holds him in a warm embrace--and almost doesn't let him leave!

"That's it, man. 14 years right down the drain".

Elvis loses it onstage, at the beginning of his comeback tour in 1969. Apparently he thought he'd really messed up--at the end, he says "That's it, man. 14 years right down the drain". (14 years earlier, he had his first his first hit records.) But this was in the days before Youtube, where every mistake by a celebrity goes viral.

Also, well put together slide show. The family portrait from when he was a baby is very stark and kind of alarming. Smiling seems to be the last thing on their minds. But then again, probably to be expected for a poverty ridden Southern family during the Depression, haunted by the death, at birth, of Elvis' twin brother. It looks as if it could have been taken by Dorothea Lange. I guess, judging by the smiles & laughter seen in this clip, he was making up for lost time.

Be My Baby Everlasting

I'm not surprised that Be My Baby is reemerging in new forms--apparently it's a favorite of some musicians who were born long, long after it was a hit song for the Ronettes in 1964. At this point it's not so much a song as an archetype; its first three beats are one of the most recognizable openings in Rock history. When Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys first heard it, he was so overwhelmed that he had to pull his car off the road. Here are three clips, contrasting the original and a couple recent versions. First, there is the Ronettes at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in 1964, the year the song came out. Note the moment when Ronnie Spector's eyes drift heavenward, as she is seemingly overcome with sheer joy. Next, one of my younger daughter's favorite Indie groups, We Are Scientists. (At their shows, they sell t-shirts that say "I Are Scientist". Next time she sees them, I want her to buy me one.) Finally, there is the Dum Dum Girls a 'group' that is actually one woman, Kristin Gundred, stage name Dee Dee, with ever-changing back-up musicians. She labels her retro sound "blissed-out buzz saw" and I love it. Dee Dee's retro credentials are pretty sound; her producer also produced Blondie --who once hung out next to me at the beginning of her career, between sets at the bar of a music club in Berkeley where we watched the main act, Muddy Waters, and I was too shy too say a peep--and the Go-Gos and wrote "My Boyfriend's Back".

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The Day I Met Koko's Dad

All Fourth Graders in the L.A. public schools read a selection from "Koko's Kitten", a book about a gorilla that learned how to communicate using sign language. And many students are more than a little surprised to hear me recount how once I met Koko's Dad, long before he was a father.

Here's how it came about. When  I was a little tyke, my favorite movie was the old, black & white King King. I can even remember the afternoon I first saw it, alone, on a program that tended to show old movie classics. One day they showed King Kong. I was not at all prepared for what I saw. I was too young to have heard anything about the movie, so it overwhelmed me--and the ending stunned me. I hadn't a clue that those airplanes were going to come out of the blue and shoot the magnificent Kong down. It was the saddest thing I'd ever seen. (Years later, the ending of Dr. Zhivago hit me similarly.)

In a way, I guess, to assure my post-Kong recovery, I became a nut about gorillas. I drew them all the time, entered a kid's art contest--and won--for a drawing I titled "King Kong Running At People". I asked my Dad, who was an editor at Associated Press, to bring me home anything and everything about gorillas. (In the pre-internet world, I was lucky that he could do for me what a Google news search does for everybody  today.) I said I wanted to be a gorilla for Halloween, so my Dad brought home a gorilla costume. (It was actually, as even my First Grade eyes could tell, a kinda tacky knock off called "King Congo". But I pretended to love it, not wanting to hurt his feelings--I had actually been expecting a full gorilla suit.)

Then one day my Dad came home to say that he learned at work that the San Francisco Zoo was about to get two young gorillas. I had the gumption to ask if I could go in the cage and play with them after they arrived! Looking back, I'm surprised to this day that he took my request seriously. As it turned out, one of his friends was a fellow who was a photographer for both the AP and the zoo. This photographer talked to the zoo director and, incredibly enough, the director said yes!!

Come to think of it, maybe I shouldn't be surprised that this wish was so swiftly granted; I was a quite gifted extortionist around that time. For example, before every birthday party I was invited to, I always talked my parents into buying me the same gift I was getting for a friend. Needless to say, my friends always received very good presents. Looking back, I'm surprised I wasn't extorting rent from neighborhood lemonade stands. (After becoming a parent and later as a teacher, I added bribery to my repertoire; Tony Soprano would be impressed by my resume.)   

So, one bright Saturday morning, me, my Dad, my little sister, the man who bought the gorillas for the zoo, and the photographer who engineered this encounter entered the rear of the ape enclosure, behind the cages where the public viewed the apes. From inside a darkened cage, a full grown orangutan tried to grab my arm as we ventured toward the gorilla area. After we stepped into the gorilla cage--with a large crowd outside watching--the young gorillas, a boy and a girl named Bwana and Missy, came up to us. Interestingly, the two young gorillas were most interested in the two young people. The larger female, Missy, was very docile and affectionate. At one point she rested her head on my sister's shoulder.

The boy was another story. He was very excited and at one point playfully pushed me. But, since gorillas are 5 times stronger than humans, I went flying, and crashed into the opposite end of the cage. The crowed roared in laughter, which I didn't exactly appreciate. Bwana must have realized his mistake, because he didn't try playing with me like that again. Typical of his behavior that day, in the first picture he's hanging upside down from the top of the cage as I'm feeding him.

Bwana would eventually become a fully grown gorilla with a harem of three females, and one of the children he fathered was Koko. (Koko's Mom wasn't Missy, but another member of the harem named Jacqueline.) I would regularly visit the zoo until eventually moving to Colorado and then Reno. Whenever I'd visit I'd call out his name and when he looked back, I liked to think he remembered me. Certainly few--if any--children were let into his cage after that morning. In later years, he developed a familiar habit of resting his chin on his hands as he stared out at the crowds and was given a nickname--'the thinker'.

By the way, students really enjoy the pictures from the day I met Koko's Dad. Sometimes, they're most impressed by my vintage Converse tennis shoes!

Sita Sings the Blues

A cartoonist is informed, via email, that her marriage is over--and, after finding "solace in the sweet-voiced jazz stylings of Annette Hanshaw and the Ramayana" goes on to create, on her computer, a film that rivals the very best in animation. As the LA Weekly put it, "Pixar has nothing on Nina Paley's India-influenced animated musical for adults", and this homemade film is now #42 on IMDb's list of the "50 Best Musicals of All Time". Sita Sings the Blues has been available for online free viewing for awhile. (It can be found on here on Roger Ebert's website. On Twitter today, he called this film "a legend of indie filmmaking.) As of today, it has a perfect score of 100% at Rotten Tomatoes. Sita Sings the Blues has to be one of the most culturally diverse works I've ever come across; it successfully mixes together 1920's jazz, the complicated love story between Sita and Rama from India's Ramayana, and a starring character who is a new incarnation of Betty Boop--lip-syncing to Annette Hanshaw's bluesy vocals. If nothing else, Sita displays the universality of pain, loss and redemption.

 

 

The Greatest Rock Concert You've Never Seen

So said Steven Van Zandt of The T.A.M.I. Show, filmed in 1964 before a screaming capacity crowd at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. It's an incredible line-up; it seems as if anyone who was anyone in rock and roll showed up, except for the Beatles. (T.A.M.I. stood for 'Teenage Music Awards International', even though there were no awards, just an unforgettable concert. There were no complaints about the non-existent awards.)

The show was produced by Steve Binder; four years later he would take part in another chapter in rock and roll history when he produced Elvis' transcendent '68 Comeback Special. While that has been widely available for decades as a cultural touchstone, The T.A.M.I. Show basically disappeared after its initial release. As recounted in Entertainment Weekly, "It premiered in Los Angeles in November 1964, with a wider release just after Christmas that year, but before long was chopped up — in particular, the Beach Boys performances were removed — so that the full film has never been publicly available since that first release and is only out now on DVD for the first time". Again, EW: 

It was filmed just eight months after the Beatles made their debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, but you can see and hear how the culture shock that the Beatles represented had already rippled out into the world. Everyone in the movie, on stage and in the audience, is very polite, because “the 1960s” hadn’t happened yet. And yet the show, which is brilliantly paced, with a momentum that builds and builds, keeps pointing to the eruption that’s about to be unleashed.

One especially notable aspect to The T.A.M.I. Show is that it clearly reveals--and celebrates--rock and roll's indebtedness to, and conflation with, rhythm & blues. Rock and roll n' roll burst on the scene the same year that the civil rights movement kicked into gear; that was no mere coincidence, and here we see the on-stage state of things ten years later.

Even in 1964, a vast majority of the audience that ate up the music of Elvis and the Beatles had little to no idea that the basic rhythms they were grooving on were the creation of black rhythm-and-blues artists. The T.A.M.I. Show makes that thrillingly explicit. From the get-go, it mixes black and white musicians into a Utopian jamboree."

It ends in dramatic fashion with a face-off with the final two acts, James Brown and his Famous Flames, and the Rolling Stones. Rick Rubin has called Brown's appearance "the greatest rock and roll performance ever captured on film". Some say Brown won the day. Others think the Stones did. I consider it a perfect stand off.

The T.A.M.I. Show didn't just point to issues of race, but also feminism--pointing to another eruption about to be unleashed:

They scream when Lesley Gore comes out in her Tracy Turnblad flip, her movements just staid enough to make her look like the Hillary Clinton of teen idols. Don’t be fooled by her appearance, though — she’s incredible! A one-woman pop powerhouse! Standing in the spotlight, Gore turns “You Don't  Own Me” into a searing manifesto, The Feminine Mystique squeezed into three soaring minutes."

Here's two clips from "The T.A.M.I. Show', The first part of James Brown's performance, and Lesley Gore singing "You Don't Own Me"...

Welcome to the Wild World of Teabonics

It appears that a number of signs have been spotted at Tea Party rallies that suggest that these groups have a way with words. A very creative way, that is. President Obama, according to various protest signs that have been photographed and can be viewed here, wants to ignore the constution, force socilism on are country, mortage our daugters' future, and turn us into Gemany. But, by keeping infromed from Fox News, resisance can grow, and we can repeel Congress, kick out bad polititions and impeah Obama. (Oh, and Obama also wants alliens to cross the boarder and never learn the English langaguage.)

This isn't a new phenomenon, however; check out this photo from 'o8--at an anti-Obama protest before he moved into the White House.

(My apologies if this post has driven your spell check crazy!)    

American Roots Music...From Australia and Ireland

According to Wikipedia, Americana music is "American roots music based on the traditions of country...the musical model can be traced back to the Elvis Presley marriage of 'hillbilly music' and R&B that birthed rock 'n roll". Strangely enough, some of the best Americana is originating far away from America itself. (Scary that other countries are not only making products we used to make, but now also making the music we used to make!) Kasey Chambers, a singer from the Australian outback who gave this performance on NPR, was called "the freshest young voice in American roots music" by Rolling Stone a few years ago.

And now, from Iceland, there's Lay Low (birth name Lovisa Elisabet Sigrunardottir) who recently also performed on NPR; on her latest release, 'Farewell Good Night's Sleep', "draws inspiration from country music of the 1950s and '60s, and even replicates recording techniques from that era". Here's Kasey Chambers, followed by Lay Low...

Cowgirl in the Sand

Neil Young's Cowgirl in the Sand is the musical version of a perennial flower. Here is his original electric version, a later acoustic version when he was part of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and finally a new version by dream-folk musician Marissa Nadler, "the melancholy East Coast singer/songwriter" who  "blends the traditions of British folk and dream pop into an atmosphere all her own". (And here she also blends both the acoustic & electric versions of Neil Young's versions of 'Cowgirl'.)

Green Eggs and Dylan

Dr. Suess, whose birthday arrives next Tuesday, and Bob Dylan would seem -- at first glance -- to be working in totally different worlds. But on further reflection, it's a smart and clever idea to blend the two. Both are known for their infatuation with the English language, twisting and turning and shaking it all about. When I read Dr. Suess to schoolkids, they delight his ever-present spirit of anarchic playfulness. The picture above is a nice work of photoshop; Bob Dylan has worn a lot of hats, but never that hat. And the Dylan impersonator in the following clip is spot on, as is the backing band; it sounds like an outtake from Blonde on Blonde:

Demon...Sheep?

Things are getting strange here in California, with the sudden appearance of a very bizarre political attack ad. It has been variously described as the wildest, worst, and weirdest political ad ever. Supposedly about a wolf in sheep's clothing, towards the end of the ad you seem someone crawling away, in dress shoes covered by a blanket. That ain't no wolf.

Strangely enough, a few years back there was a movie about demonic sheep, a parody of bad b-movies. It was actually pretty funny; I wrote about here a few years ago here.

Here is the 'demon sheep' ad, which seems like a parody, followed by my favorite real parody of political attack ads.

Obama's Mojo -- It's Back!

Barack Obama got his mojo back with his masterful repartee with the House Republicans last Friday, calling them out as the intransigent putzs that they are. However, to paraphrase the great Muddy Waters, I'm afraid he got his mojo working but it just won't work on them.

To Live Is To Fly

Looking forward to seeing the 'Crazy Heart'. Jeff Bridges has won Best Actor at both the Golden Globes and the SAG awards ceremonies, and appears to be on the fast track to a Best Actor award at the Oscars. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Bridge's Bad Blake is one of America's troubled troubadours, a character which is a pastiche of Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan--and so many others. But the closest parallel may be Van Zandt. The soundtrack, a mix of originals and classics, includes perhaps his best song, the shimmering 'If I Needed You'.

Here are two songs that appeared on the tribute album 'Poet', issued after Van Zandt's death at 53. (The singers are Guy Clark and Nancy Griffith.) The first, 'To Live Is To Fly', is resurrected in one of the original songs on the 'Crazy Heart' soundtrack, 'Fallin' and Flyin'', which contains the haunting refrain 'it's funny how fallin' feels like flyin' for a little while'.

01 To Live is to Fly

02 Tower Song

And here are two clips; the first is the film's theme song, 'The Weary Kind' (itself garnering awards like Bridges) and the second is Townes Van Zandt himself, explaining the genesis of 'If I Needed You'--it arose from a dream--and then performing the song.

Pasadena Field Trip

Yesterday, I was called to sub for a 1st grade class at a small school for the blind and visually impaired in Hollywood, one block away from Paramount Studios on Melrose. Turned out most of the school was going on a field trip--in the rain!--to 'Kidspace' in Pasadena, right next to the Rose Bowl. (At a park called, coincidentally, Brookside Park.) All the totally blind students were paired one-on-one with a teacher or aide, and I wound up spending the day hand-in-hand with a 6 year-old named Isabel. (At times, my mind would float back to the days of walking hand-in-hand with my own kids when they were little.)

Isabel was a sweetheart, with one caveat--she likes to bite people. Forewarned, I was able to avoid those bites--most of the time. On the bus ride home, I learned that her nickname is 'Piranha'. (When she heard this, she smiled & everyone laughed. 'You little devil, you', an aide said, affectionately.) One of my most unique days subbing ever.      

Not Happy When It Rains

We're getting hit with a lot of powerful rain in Los Angeles, the most I've experienced since I moved here. This song by The Jesus and Mary Chain keeps popping up in my head--it's one of my favorites, but it's also a case where the message is completely contrary to my own inclinations. I've lived in all kinds of climates, from balmy California to the snows of Colorado & Iowa--the latter with alarming sub-sub zero temperatures, where I once waited for a bus when it was around 20 below zero. My moist mullet (I had recently jumped out of the shower) turned into a block of ice! At first I thought a bird had landed on my neck & tried batting it away, while turning in circles to see the 'bird'. I must have looked pretty odd to passers-by.

But of all the weather I've endured, the worst is the cold windswept rain we're enduring here now, where your umbrella turns upside down because of the force of the winds, giving you feeble protection against the onslaught. 2nd worst--riding a motorcycle in the rain; it feels like your getting hit with thousands of bb gun pellets. I once crashed on my motorcycle in the rain as I was about to arrive at work; a kindly paramedic, as he covered my head to protect me against the rain, said, 'Don't worry, it doesn't mean you're dead'. However, one of my coworkers passed by; when she saw me covered up next to my broken motorcycle, she freaked; I mumbled to her, from underneath the banker 'I'm OK'.

	Jesus and Mary Chain - Happy When it Rains .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Howlin' at the Moon

    Elvis Presley became a professor of sorts to me when, as a kid, I heard him say during his 1968 comeback special that rock n' roll was just basically rhythm and blues. It was a revelation to me; devoted as I was to rock n' roll, I soon made a beeline to a record store & bought a BB King record. (Strangely enough, my payroll checks from LAUSD call me 'BB Ammerman'. I tell office clerks that I'm singin' the blues about my income.)

    I loved the record I found--a true classic, 'Live at the Regal'--but soon sought out more hardcore blues, the kind that never wound up on the Tonight show. Here are two choice selections, both by Howlin' Wolf; the first, 'Killing Floor', established a career for the guitarist brought in at the last minute, Buddy Guy. The second is both paranoid & confessional -- how many songs bemoan the loss of a love & then admit 'I'm the causin' of it all'?'

Howlin Wolf - Killing Floor

Howlin Wolf - Who's Been Talkin'

New Horizons

    Well, since the Moody Blues have been eligible for induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for 20 years without being voted in, the writing on the wall is pretty clear that they ain't gettin' in. But while I'm devoted as much as any rock purist to roots rock, indie rock, alt-country rock and so forth--my eclectic CD collection speaks volumes--I also have a soft spot in my heart for pop rock, which is woefully neglected in the Hall of Fame. (Don't get your hopes up, Bananarama.)

    'New Horizons' is my favorite Moody Blues song--I think it's even better than their biggest hit, 'Nights in White Satin', which I've never actually understood. White satin what? Pajamas? Never reaching the end? Are the pajamas too big?

    Enough of this digression. Here's 'New Horizons', which I listened to endlessly as I was about to become a father for the first time. Interestingly, a pregnant woman appears early in the clip; I guess I'm not the only one to connect this song with the changes that the birth of a child can bring.

Missing Dignity

Saw this posted on a telephone pole here in Echo Park. Funny stuff. Click on the photo to read the text below the picture. (The Short Stop, Little Joy and The Gold Room are all Echo Park bars.) And here's a tune on the same subject.

12 Dignity (original version)

A Little Touch of Nilsson in the Night

Many rockers of the 60's and 70's, like Rod Stewart, Linda Ronstadt and Carly Simon, later issued albums where they went 'retro', covering pop songs of the 30's and 40's. The irony was not missed; rock n' roll was a revolutionary break from tradition; these returns to the past seemed like the musical equivalent of 'Wrong Way Corrigan'. But, at least once, merging the old & new traditions paid off big time. The first--and still the best--album in this genre was Harry Nilsson's 'A Litle Touch of Schmillson in the Night'. Unlike the others, Nilsson didn't turn to the past after the hits stopped coming; he took his retro turn at the height of his career, still basking in the success of Nilsson Schmillson (and the Grammy he won for his performance of one of the songs on the album, 'Without You'). He chose the Gordon Jenkins orchestra (one of Frank Sinatra's favorites) to collaborate with--a very wise choice that worked beautifully. The recording of the album was actually filmed by the BBC, and some of the songs can be seen in the following YouTube clips. In the first clip, 'Nevertheless'; in the longer second clip, 'I'm Always Chasing Rainbows', 'I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now' and Irving Berlin's heart-rending 'What'll I Do' (complete, with the original prologue).

East LA Gold Line Party

Had a fun Sunday riding the rails for free--no, I wasn't a hobo for a day, hoppin' train cars; I took advantage of all-day free rides in celebration of a LA's new extension of the Gold Line (a subway/street-car mix), which is servicing--at long last--East LA. (A rail line into East LA vanished about a half century ago, and it has been sorely missed.) There was a  real party atmosphere, heightened by great music and food. Everything went very smoothly on the new trains, despite the fact that whenever the brakes were hit, crowds of people scrunched together would then fall on top of each other; this only resulted in laughter, not injuries. One odd ,glitch, though, involved the strange disembodied voice announcing each stop--which were Pico-Aliso, Mariachi Plaza, Soto, Indiana, Maravilla, Civic Center, & Atlantic. Unfortunately, the voice was getting them all wrong. Minutes after boarding at Mariachi Plaza, the voice said 'next stop, Mariachi Plaza'. Befuddled passengers asked, "Did the train turn around?" At the next stop the voice said 'Now arriving at Atlantic' (which was actually 4 stops away). One gleeful passenger exclaimed, "This is one fast train!". Here's a sampling of the day...particularly the food:

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall...Makes a Table!

    In what I guess is an unfriendly move away from recycling, this website shows how you can turn all the empty beer bottles that are strewn on your floor--making a rough trip as you maneuver around your dwelling--into a table! Here, at the right, you can see the finished product, one very, very strange table. It'll certainly be a conversation piece--but what kind of a conversation, I'm not sure. It might even turn into an intervention.

    To top this off -- literally --you can go, as they say, 'over the top' -- you can decorate the table with beer bottle caps! 

Bob Dylan Killed My CD Player

In 1986, 'the most famous Bob Dylan bootleg of all time' was released. Called Ten of Swords, it was a 10 album comprehensive compilation of Dylan's unreleased work from 1961 to 1966. Dylan bootlegs have always had a strong cache to collectors, since he has always had the peculiar habit of leaving some of his best work unreleased. Ten of Swords brought together unreleased songs that had been released on dozens of bootleg albums, and the quality of the recordings--usually pretty poor on previous bootlegs--was virtually up to the quality of official releases. Ten of Swords was, unfortunately, hard to find--and quite expensive, to boot. (No pun intended.)

Many years later, however, Ebay came to my rescue. I found copies (now on 7 CD's rather than 10 records) for a relatively nominal price--as Ralph Kramden might have put it, for "a mere bag of shells".  So I bought it, popped the 7 CD's in my 10 disc CD player -- along with 3 of my other Dylan CD's -- opened a pint of Guinness, and sat down to listen.  I hit 'play' on the remote...and nothing happened   Absolutely nothing.  I know that's redundant--but how else can I convey the frustration I felt that night?  No matter what I did, my stereo just sat there, insolently glaring back at me.

Before hurling my pint of Guinness at it, I decided to calm down, take the CD's out & listen to them one at a time on the CD player in my computer.  But not only was 'play' not working, but 'eject' wasn't either.  Not only could I not listen to the CD's -- now I couldn't even get them out of the CD player. I spent that night with a screwdriver in my hand, trying to take apart the machine & retrieve my CD's. I never was able to take it apart. If I'd have had a baseball bat in the house that night, I know what I might have done.

The next night I talked to my older daughter and told her what had happened. She spent her childhood with Bob Dylan as part of the soundtrack of her life, and she knows more than most that he is an acquired taste. (I remember my first wife waking up one morning & telling me she'd just had a horrible nightmare -- she'd dreamed that Bob Dylan had moved in with us and wouldn't leave!)

When I told my daughter that I'd loaded up the CD player with 10 Dylan CD's, she thought that explained everything; after all these years being forced to play Dylan CD's, this was the final, last straw for my CD player. It just couldn't take it anymore.

So, I guess I can sort of understand why the CD player decided to go to that big stereo store in the sky.  But why wouldn't it let me have my CD's back?  Besides being suicidal, did it also have to be spiteful?

Cloudbursts

     Awhile back I was listening to a few new songs I'd downloaded that were recommended by my kids. I was surprised that, at regular intervals, the sound of thunder popped up during the first song. I thought that was, well...interesting...or maybe a bit odd, since the song had nothing to do with the weather.  (Not even weather-as-metaphor, such as in, say, Tom Waits' 'Emotional Weather Report'.)  Then I started to listen to the next song--again, the sound of thunder!!  What's this, I thought--some strange new trend in indie rock?
    Finally I figured it out.  I recently added 'desktop weather' to my computer, courtesy of the Weather Channel, and that day I learned that severe storm alerts are issued to the sound of thunder.  Never mind that our severe weather that day was high winds...but I guess you can't getting anyone's attention with the sound of wind.
    Anyway, here is one of my favorite songs, and positively my favorite weather related song--The Ronettes'  majestic 'Walking in the Rain'.  The song opens with the sound of thunder, then a couplet that is the apotheosis of hopeful anticipation:

I want him, and I need him,
And someday, someway, I'll meet him...

The sound of rain & thunder repeats again & again in the song--one might even think a little too often.  Get out your umbrella...

C'mon Everybody

Eddie Cochran has always been one of my favorites, but until I'd caught the following clip on YouTube, I'd never known that he was, in addition to being great singer & songwriter, one mean rhythm guitarist--essentially inventing rock rhythm guitar.  As noted on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's website (he was inducted its 2nd year):

Eddie was also a virtuoso guitarist, overdubbing parts like even on his earliest singles and playing with an authority that led music journalist Bruce Eder to pronounce him “rock’s first high-energy guitar hero".  Although born in Minnesota, Eddie Cochran actually grew up in the LA suburbs.  Here he is playing at a Compton show while in the area, filming  'Go, Johnny, Go' in Hollywood.  That commitment forced him to cancel his plans to tour with Buddy Holly, on the tour in which Holly died in a plane crash along with Richie Valens and the Big Bopper.  (Richie Valens also was was in 'Go, Johnny, Go', but he filmed his scenes earlier.)  Cochran's absence on that tour only postponed his own tragic, early death; a year after these clips, he died at the age of 21, in an auto accident. Like Princess Di, he had a bad driver -- in his case, a taxi driver; in hers, a limo driver. Sadly, he wasn't around to see how the Punk movement of the late 70's embraced his songs, like 'Somethin' Else', a fav of Sid Vicious.   Here he is, performing 'C'mon Everybody' and 'Summertime Blues":

Monty Python on IFC

Tonight the Independent Film Channel begins a 6-part documentary on the Monty Python comedy troupe, Monty Python; Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut), which, in the words of the LA Times, 'beats any Python documentary yet made for comprehensiveness and depth'. The doc, however, is only part Of IFC's celebration of Monty Python on the 40th anniversary of their formation in 1969; there will also be a number of Python movies this week as well. The title of tonight's first installment of Almost the Truth is drolly Pythonesque -- 'The Not-So-Exciting Beginnings'.

Here's a classic bit, via YouTube:

Great Films, Too Little Seen

Two films recently released as part of the Criterion Collection are the kind that you can't get out of your head--or at least I couldn't after I saw each of them years and years ago.  They are both focus on the effect of war on children--in fact, one particular child in each.

In a review of the current Pan's Labyrinth, Ella Taylor notes that the main character, Ofelia is:

a little girl whose anxious dark eyes recall those of that other dreamy daughter of the fascist era — the Frankenstein-obsessed Ana from Victor Erice’s The Spirit of the Beehive  

Both films center on a young girl  retreating into a world of fantasy & imagination in the face of war.  6 year old Ana, played by Ana Torrent, is mesmerized by Boris Karloff's portrayal of the misunderstood monster in Frankenstein as she watches the film at a screening of the film in her small Spanish town. After her mischievous older sister tells her a similar monster is hiding somewhere nearby, Ana becomes obsessed with finding and helping it.  Reviewing the DVD,  A.O. Scott of the New York Times said that Spirit of the Beehive is an 'extraordinary film, impossible to forget' (looks like I wasn't the only one!) and Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune said that Ana Torrent turns in a 'stunning' performance in a 'great film, too little seen'.   

 

The second film is  Forbidden Games, the 1952 Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film.  Reviewing the film at the time of it's original release, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote:

It had been the vague hope of many that the French would eventually come through with a film which would boom such shattering comment upon the tragedy and irony of World War II as their memorable "Grand Illusion" did for World War I. That hope at last has been realized.

In this case, the film introduces us to 5 year old Paulette, played by Brigitte Fossey--in 'a performance that rips the heart out with its simplicity and sincerity'--who has been orphaned by the war and is taken in by a family in a rural French village.  There, she is befriended by 11 year old Michel, and the two of them--after burying her pet dog, who died after the same air attack that killed her parents--begin an elaborate  graveyard for animals, largely because of Paulette's fascination with the symbols of death.

Again, Bosley Crowther:

...this film finds its area for comment upon the damage that has been done to humankind in the seemingly innocent realm of farmers and children in the undisturbed countryside. The towering symbol of the war's vast devastation is one little 5-year-old girl.

 

Balloon Boy

What a strange day. News breaks out that a 6-year old boy named Falcon Heene is trapped in a helium balloon high over the skies of Colorado. Hours go by with cable news going nuts, following every twist & turn of the balloon. But then some other twists & turns occur, as some curious information about the parents of the Balloon Boy begins to dribble out. Turns out they've been on a reality TV show that has the creepy title 'Wife Swap'. The balloon lands, and, guess what! No boy in the balloon! Cable news shifts on a dime and begins to cover the more depressing search for a boy who may have fell out of a balloon, anywhere along the balloon's flightpath.

Finally, the mystery is solved when the 6-year old wakes up from a nap in the attic of his family's garage. From the start, the whole affair seemed a bit dodgy. Their appearance on tonight's Larry King revealed there was something very dodgy going on. In the following clips you'll first see Falcon saying to his dad "we did this for the show" when asked why he had been hiding in the attic. Unfortunately Wolf Blitzer was filling in for King -- he's a lousy interviewer, not even knowing how to give a follow-up question. He finally follows up in the second clip--some 40 minutes after his original question! Then, after the shady dad goes after Blitzer for simply asking the follow up question, Blitzer backtracks & gets all apologetic! An embarrassment all around!!

Gimme Shelter

Gimme Shelter, the documentary covering the Rolling Stones tour of America the Fall of 1969, has been called a "legendary, harrowing symbol of the tragic demise of the  'Peace and Love' era". It is far from a routine rock doc; it chronicles a triumphant tour of the U.S. that culminates in a horrible debacle at Altamont, California. The Rolling Stones wanted to give a free concert for a farewell show, but when the first choice of a venue--San Francisco's Golden Gate Park--was unavailable, an unused motor speedway at Altamont was chosen. The Stones wanted to pull off another Woodstock (which took place only a few months before), but but the concert devolved into chaos, with a murder occurring near the stage. And so the 60's ended on a very, very bad note.

The disillusionment that would descend upon the counter culture in the 1970's can be seen prefigured in the face of this young woman at the front of the crowd; after the violence she had witnessed, she sadly watches the Stones gamely playing on, tears streaming down her face.

This film has been reissued as part of the Criterion Collection; as their website states, Criterion is "dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements."  Judging from what I've seen of their releases, they are more than fulfilling their pledge.

Taking Off

Until recently, I had only seen the film Taking Off once, yet it has always been one of my favorites. I've seen it only once because, bizarrely, it has never been released on VHS or DVD.  I say bizarrely because it was a critical success and the first American film by Milos Forman--a hero of the Czech new wave cinema of the 60's who, after relocating to America, went on to direct 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' (he received the Best Director Oscar for that), 'Amadeus' and many others. I was finally able to see it once again on The Sundance Channel, and now  Taking Off can be seen on You Tube in 9 clips of about 10 minutes each.

Released in 1971, Taking Off centers on a 15 year old runaway (15 and a half as she notes at one point) and the the frenzied reaction of her parents--played by Lynn Carlin (whatever happened to her?) and Buck Henry, whose deadpan comic instincts have never worked to better advantage. 'Taking Off'  is one of the best takes on the generation gap of the 60's and 70's; one critic termed it the 'sweetest of generation gap movies'. There's a telling scene early in the film where the parents and another couple enter the missing daughter's bedroom in a search for clues to her whereabouts; they look and behave like a group of explorers on some far distant planet. It's interesting that a foreigner would pull it off such an accurate--at times poignant, at other times hilarious--portrayal of America at the time when so many native born American directors tackled the same subject in ham-handed ways.  (Sissy Spacek and Henry Winkler are probably still trying to forget their involvement in 1975's 'Katherine'.)

Taking Off reminds me of one of my more current favorites, Little Miss Sunshine; they both they both weave comedy & drama in pitch perfect fashion.  99% of the time, blending the two is a disaster (think Adam Sandler) but when it works, it is truly sublime.

Finally, here's the scene where the parents enter the strange, new world of their daughter's bedroom.

 

 

Half Nelson

A few summers ago, my daughters & I went to see Half Nelson on its opening night in Los Angeles. It had opened earlier in New York, & I had learned that Ryan Gosling's performance was garnering early Oscar buzz for Best Actor. In Half Nelson, he plays a teacher, teaching about the civil rights movement--I did the same a couple of lifetimes ago at the University of Iowa, so there was no way I could ignore this film. We went, we saw, we loved it.

The very next day, we went to the  Sunset Junction Music Festival in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, next door to my own neighborhood of Echo Park.  We were having quite a good time, and as we were about to leave, we saw--or thought we saw--Ryan Gosling! Walking around with a few friends & carrying a motorcycle helmet. (Guess he got to Sunset Junction on a motor bike--safely.) We looked at each other; either we were engaged in a multiple hallucination after seeing a great movie or that was the real Ryan Gosling.

Finally one of my daughters resolved our doubts by striding up to Ryan Gosling's back, tapping him on the shoulder, then asking 'Are you Ryan Gosling?'

With my 'be nice to my daughter' gears in full force, I watched protectively as he said he was; then she said 'I saw your new movie last night & really liked it'; he smiled sweetly and thanked her, then even asked about her & her name.

It's nice when a celebrity turns out to be a nice guy.   

Record Of The Year

I like the music of the troubled songstress Amy Winehouse, with her retro sound and appearance. Her ginormous Ronettes-style beehive and cleopatra eyeliner brings me right back; after all, I was into retro when it was 'now-tro'. I was piqued a couple years ago when she cancelled a gig I'd bought tickets for. But I was bowled over by her string of awards at last year's Grammys. Her beatific rapture upon winning Record of the Year for 
'Rehab' was best described by TV critic Mary McNamara in the next day's LA Times--as she put it, Amy had, upon winning the award, 'the look of fearful joy on her face -- like a beehived Christian mystic catching a glimpse of the risen Christ'.  And, also in the LA Times, music critic Ann Powers said Winehouse was 'the most exciting performer of the evening. Her desperation to do well was palpably human, and her delivery was a gamble -- a harder push, and a more electric one, than you usually see during a staged event like the Grammys.'  But the best take was by  Judy Rosen in Slate: 'Doubtless many viewers had tuned in to witness the latest chapter in the drama—another disastrous performance, or, if things went well, a tear-jerking moment of redemption. What they saw was something more banal, and more uplifting: a professional.'  The entire article is just as perceptive.   

Here's a clip of Winehouse, live via satellite from London, during the Grammys last year; you'll see the professional at work, followed by her stunned reaction upon receiving Record of the Year. I've read she's doing better these days since, contrary to the song, she finally did wind up going ...to rehab.

Wife Power!

The Ku Klux Klan comes to town. How to respond? To ignore their racist rants seems somehow wrong.  But staging a protest only plays into the hands of these knuckleheads. Heavily caffeinated Klansters & protesters are arrested, & the media shows up to chronicle the whole ugly mess.

Finally a fitting -- and admittedly absurd -- response to a Nazi/Klan white supremacist rally at Knoxville, South Carolina.  The ARA  (Anti-Racist Action) 'clown posse' showed up at the rally, pretending to support these idiots --- and the KKK rally was transformed into a nice example of performance art comedy, while the Klansters became even more unhinged than usual:

Alex Linder the lead organizer of the rally kicked off events by rushing the clowns in a fit of rage, and was promptly arrested by 4 Knoxville police officers who dropped him to the ground when he resisted and dragged him off past the red shiny shoes of the clowns.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s shouted, “White Flour?” the clowns yelled back running in circles throwing flour in the air and raising separate letters which spelt “White Flour”.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s angrily shouted once more, “White flowers?” the clowns cheers and threw white flowers in the air and danced about merrily.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s tried once again in a doomed and somewhat funny attempt to clarify their message, “ohhhhhh!” the clowns yelled “Tight Shower!” and held a solar shower in the air and all tried to crowd under to get clean as per the Klan’s directions.

The clown women thought they finally understood what the Klan was trying to say. “Ohhhhh…” the women clowns said. “Now we understand…”, “WIFE POWER!” they lifted the letters up in the air, grabbed the nearest male clowns and lifted them in their arms and ran about merrily chanting “WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER!”

Police, rather than hauling some protesters to jail as usual, happily escorted them away.

The cops stopped the clowns and counter protesters. “Hey, do you want an escort” an African-American police officer on a motorcycle asked. “Yes” a clown replied. “We are walking to Market Square in the center of town to celebrate.”

The police officers got in front of the now anti racist parade and blocked the entire road for the march through the heart of Knoxville.   

The Three Cat Stevens

Never thought I'd ever do something called 'blogging', nor did I ever see the day I'd have postings about two singers named 'Cat'--one male, the other female. Here are three videos showing the transformations of Cat Stevens.

First we have the young folk-rocking pop star happily posing for teen magazines like a solo Jonas Brother, singing his first big hit, 1967's 'The First Cut is the Deepest'. Then we have him singing 'Father & Son', while he was the brightest star of the singer-songwriter boom of the 70's. I first heard this song when I was a son, later as a father--time has certainly added dimensions to this song. Finally, there is the current day Yusuf Islam, long after his 1978 conversion to Islam, singing one of his hits from the 70's, 'Peace Train'.

Seeing him tuning his guitar before 'Father & Son', I remember a story --probably apocryphal -- about the time Neil Young spent about twenty minutes, before a concert, tuning his guitar. When he was done, the drug addled audience cheered, as if they'd heard a great new rock instrumental

 

The Man In Black

Johnny Cash came came out against the Vietnam war before a college audience in 1971.  The students are respectful & quiet at the beginning, then erupt in applause as it's clear he's against the war. Note the smiling, yet tear-filled woman near the end.  As the old Irish song says, 'Johnny, we hardly knew ya'. He receives a standing ovation.

 

Colin Powell, Barack Obama

Colin Powell prefaced his endorsement of Barack Obama with a powerful denunciation of the Islamophobia the Republican party seems sadly willing to inflame in the final weeks of the McCain-Palin flameout. Responding to his own Republican party's willingness to encourage rumors that Obama is a Muslim, Powell notes that the correct answer is that Obama is Christian; but then he goes on to state the right answer--"Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no, that's not America."

Crazy McCain Rally Lady

It's a strange sight these days seeing John McCain, in the final weeks of his ten year quest for the Presidency, fending off wing nuts in his own audience. But it's also weirdly appropriate; these crackpots are only responding, like Pavlov's dogs, to the red meat of the McCain campaign--which is trying to scare the country out of voting for Obama. Here's a clip of the now infamous 'Crazy McCain Rally Lady', followed by SNL's take. SNL should really be paying the McCain-Palin ticket these days; their ratings have shot up due to all the rich material they've been feasting on lately.

Enough food metaphors. Cue the videos.