I headed north into the wilderness for some necessary time off. Off the grid (well, except for Instagram). The drive is long and boring: interstates all the way. Hot muggy weather outside, nice AC in the car, and 5 hours of music, providing entertainment. The iPod is like the craziest DJ ever.
What the HELL am I going to do when my iPod classic dies.
So here goes.
“He’s Got a Way With Women” – A.J. Croce. This is hypnotizing and sexy. The piano.
“Wishing” – Buddy Holly. There’s something going on with that lead guitar in the background … a crazy picking-thing happening … that gives the song a weird pulse and drive. If you listen, you’ll see what I mean. And beautiful swoopy guitar solo.
“That’s All Right” – Elvis. The “song heard round the world,”, that launched Elvis. This is a live performance, on August 20th, 1955, on the Louisiana Hayride radio program. All of his performances on that program have been recorded, and it’s a fascinating glimpse of a now-lost world. By 1955, Elvis had already grown too big for the Hayride (he overshadowed all of the other guests), but he still had a contract. In this clip, you can hear the frenzy in the background, you get to hear Elvis’ “stage patter” – often awkward, with his stuttering (there are times when he has to stop talking altogether, because he can’t get the words out). None of it matters. The audience flip. Here, there’s some incomprehensible banter between Scotty and Bill and Elvis, with Elvis introducing the song – his accent thick as a chew of tobacco (he’d work to lose most of it once he got to Hollywood). I love hearing that thick tough Southern accent in his early days. When he finally starts the song, the crowd erupts into screams. And he ATTACKS the song. It’s great, too, to hear Scotty’s guitar keeping it all going. Elvis in his element. But already moving beyond it.
“American Tune” – Paul Simon. My pal Larry joked once that he read in Rolling Stone or something some writer saying: “Simon & Garfunkel gave rock ‘n’ roll a higher IQ” Larry cracked: “Who asked ’em to?” I tend to agree. I grew up listening to Simon & Garfunkel, my parents had all their albums, and I followed Simon for a couple of years into his solo career. I don’t really follow him anymore. I think this might be one of his best songs.
“Mule Skinner Blues (Blue Yodel No. 8)” – Dolly Parton. I can’t even express how much I love what’s going on in this song. She yodels. She is a “lady mule skinner.” There’s great fiddling going on in the background. There’s also a whip-cracking. She’s tough – little comments in between lines: “… and I’m sick of it …” Dolly Parton is everything. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do when the inevitable happens… I can’t even think about it. Be grateful she is still here, still putting out amazing music, touring, etc. We are LUCKY to have her.
“Coalhouse Demands” – from Ragtime. Brian Stokes Mitchell (who killed it on the series The Path this past year), as Coalhouse making demands that the guy who trashed his car pay him back. Violence ratcheting up. White fear of black rage. Hm, sounds familiar.
“Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners” – The Foo Fighters. Stunning. Instrumental. Sometimes I can’t believe that these guys “made it.” By that I mean, rising out of the ashes of Nirvana … that 1st album, which no one seemed to see coming, could have been it. And now it’s, what, 20 years later?
“Honesty” – Kevin McHale, from Glee, covering the Billy Joel song. It’s beautiful and simple. I was so into Billy Joel in high school that … I honestly have a hard time listening to him now. Like, I never need to hear Joel sing this again. I never need to hear “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” again. I feel bad even saying that. It’s not like I think the songs are bad – clearly, they are not bad songs – but I just have heard them all one (or 200) too many times. The Glee did a bunch of Billy Joel songs, and it’s actually kind of nice to re-hear some of these songs. Like “Vienna” and “Movin’ Out”. They’re beautiful songs. Never said they weren’t!
“Can’t Help Falling in Love” – Elvis, live. This is the final TV concert he gave. I actually should just get rid of these tracks. It’s too painful to listen to. His voice is so thin at points, overwhelmed by orchestration and the background singers. It makes me want to cry. But even more than that: there are moments where he pulls it OUT, because of course he does, because he’s Elvis fucking Presley. Like the end of this song here, when he finds it in himself to thrust his voice up, and up, and up, over the high-jump bar, and then back down. Oh, Elvis. These are painful tracks though. The man should have been in a hospital, not on a stage.
“Bionic” – Christina Aguilera. This feels like a Beyonce song. I love Christina – I love Beyonce too – but it seems like the explosion of Beyonce – I mean, into what she’s now become – which, as far as I can tell, really started with “Single Ladies” – not only encroached onto territory owned by Aguilera, Spears, and anybody else – but torched the ground in victory. I’m not going to take the time to research this. I’ve been a fan of Christina’s from the beginning, and I also loved Destiny’s Child, but this feels like Christina trying to re-assert dominance, or at least realizing: “Holy shit, I gotta Up my game a bit, because Beyonce is killing it.”
“Guitar Man” – Elvis Presley, with Jerry Reed on guitar. (Jerry Reed wrote it, of course. It’s his life story.) They called Jerry Reed in to play guitar on the track, and the stories of Reed rolling into American Sound Studio in 1969 to “play for Elvis” are legendary. Reed ended up practically running the session, pushing Elvis, encouraging Elvis, giving Elvis notes – giving ELVIS notes!! – I love you, Jerry Reed – and because Elvis recognized talent and dominance when he saw it (as only a truly Alpha can do), he totally listened to Jerry, and was inspired by Jerry. On some of the takes, you can hear Jerry saying, “Okay, take it back, Elvis, and make sure you really hit that word …” or whatever. Really specific. And smarty-pants Elvis realized Jerry knew what the hell he was talking about. Jerry played on a bunch of Elvis tracks and it makes me sad they didn’t tour together, so there’s be some footage of them in action together!
“Armed Forces Medley” – The Vocal Majority. A male choir. Their live performances are very entertaining, if you go for this kind of stuff, and I do.
“Yes I’s Finished On Y’Alls Farmlands” – the cast of Hair, on the cast recording of the Hair revival on Broadway. Listen, it’s a great cast. But there are so many damn songs, and I also can’t help but think of the following Hunter S. Thompson quote from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, VICIOUS towards the entire world-view of things like Hair:
Ignore that nightmare in that bathroom. Just another ugly refugee from the Love Generation, some doom-struck gimp who couldn’t handle the pressure.
Listen, I didn’t live through it. But that’s my view, for sure.
“A Call From the Vatican” – Penelope Cruz, from the Nine soundtrack. She’s so fabulous. I saw this on Broadway when I was in high school. Raul Julia as Guido. It was great! I had ZERO understanding of what was happening in that play.
“Urinetown” – the Broadway cast of Urinetown. It’s hard to believe that a show ending with the entire cast screaming “HAIL MALTHUS!!” would ever go anywhere. But here we are.
“Chess Game #1” – Chess. This is from the concert version, starring Josh Groban. I’ve written about this before: I have almost 13,000 songs on my iPod. And every time, every time there’s a Shuffle, at least one song from Chess turns up. It gets annoying actually. Like Chess is like: “Hey. Don’t EVER forget about me.” I will never get rid of my three (three!) versions of Chess though. I do love the music. And, more importantly, Dad loved it so much. None of us had ever even seen the show. It didn’t matter. Dad always played Chess in the car. So it’s okay. It’s a little piece of Dad.
“Stop, Look, and Listen” – Elvis. From Spinout. As frenzied as the beat is, this is some pretty tired shit, and it also has that typical “Elvis soundtrack” sound, with his voice pushed to the front-lines so far that he often drowns out his own background. This was the Colonel’s doing. “People don’t buy these records to hear the guitars.” The Colonel was brilliant in a lot of ways, and not so brilliant in a lot of other ways. Elvis HATED that sound.
“Beautiful Woman” – the gorgeous brilliant soulful Charlie Rich. Mmmmmmmmm.
“Drinkin’ In My Sunday Dress” – Maria McKee. Great lyrics. I love this woman. “I love to play the role of damsel in distress, flicking ashes in my coffee, and drinkin’ in my Sunday dress.” So happy we’ve become friends. The movies she makes with her husband! Amazing! And she and her husband were there at the reading of my script in Los Angeles in 2011. I mean, come on, Lone Justice! An amazing talent and human. I mean, the way Quentin used her “If Love Is a Red Dress” in Pulp Fiction …
“Little Green Apples” – Robbie Williams and Kelly Clarkson. This duet appears on his fantastic latest album, where he sings with a bunch of different people. I love this man. He is a superstar. He is a throwback. He is also very NOW. This is an old-fashioned duet. And Kelly Clarkson – obviously a lead singer – gets to sing the harmony line. It’s beautiful.
“I Will Survive” – The Puppini Sisters, singing the feminist anthem of Gloria Gaynor. And they slow it down at first, way way down. It’s quite funny. I love these dames.
“All Along the Watchtower” – U2, covering Jimi, from their great album Rattle and Hum. It still leaps out of the speakers and I’ve listened to this album 1500 times.
“Don’t Rain on My Parade” – Lea Michele, from Glee, trying to fill some pretty HUGE shoes. But she does a fine job. She’s not Barbra, but who the hell is?
“Last Night I Had a Dream” – Randy Newman. There is nothing more melancholy than melancholy Randy Newman.
“So Long Frank Lloyd Wright” – Simon & Garfinkel. Now I can’t get Larry’s comment out of my mind.
“Girl From the North Country” – Link Wray. Rock ‘n’ roll don’t need no high IQ. Right, Link? Absolutely love Link covering Bob Dylan. It’s FASCINATING.
“Four Green Fields” – The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem. At their most patriotic martyr-ish Irish sentimental. Tommy Makem singing alone. I remember saying to my Dad (and I had to be about 7 or 8, so factor that in), “Why is Tommy even in the group? He’s not a brother!” (I was annoyed.) And I remember Dad saying in reply, “Oh, but he’s the real singer.” Truth.
“Surfers Rule” – The Beach Boys. From their third album of the same title. With the famous cover photo of them with the surfboard. The harmonies. And that great and subtle bass-line. Chugging away. The hand claps. The falsettos. It’s all perfect, what else can you say.
“Wayfaring Stranger” – Jerry Reed. I cannot get enough of this guy. Ever. The guitar playing is so maestro-level and yet the WAY he does it sounds like he’s in the position on the album cover, just sitting on a porch in the Bayou, messing around, all as he bats away mosquitoes. He’s casually a genius.
“Andy” – The Indigo Girls. Who the hell would have predicted that these ladies would still be around? That they were an act that would last? I certainly didn’t, although I loved them off the bat. But they’re still here. They have some great songs. Some clunkers, too. But I love their harmonies, and there are two of their songs that I flat out cannot listen to ever again. Okay, maybe three. This isn’t one of them. I’m fine with this one.
“I’m a Believer” – Lenny Kravitz. He’s such a rock star.
“About a Girl” – Nirvana, live at Pine Street Theatre. His voice goes right through me.
“The Long Run” – The Eagles. I don’t mean to open up a can of worms, I really don’t, but I think it’s hilarious that somehow The Eagles are controversial. I’ve seen people go APESHIT with hatred in various Internet threads about these guys. They seem pretty innocuous to me. Chuck Klosterman’s essay about “The Eagles,” included in his essay collection The Man with the Black Hat is hilarious, as he tries to work out why he hates them so much. I’m not a huge Eagles fan, but I certainly don’t get why they would inspire such hatred. Is it because they are rich entitled bad-boy hippies?
“Here Comes the Night” – The Beach Boys. This was re-released as a disco song, which is hilarious. I think this is deceptively simple (as much of their stuff is). There’s a hell of a lot going on here. There’s a Stones-ish quality to it too … the Stones were clearly paying attention. (Although probably not on the night of the famous TAMI Show, where they closed out the show with looks of sheer terror on their faces because they followed James Brown, who gave a performance for the ages, showing them up before they even got on the stage. The Beach Boys had performed earlier in the night). I don’t know much about music, but doesn’t this sound Stones-ish? Am I making this up?
“Put the Blame On Me” – Elvis. One of my favorites of his. It’s dirty. He’s kept a girl out all night. She’s gonna be in big trouble. “You can say my arms were just too strong. Put the blame on me.” It’s hot.
“Ride the Lightning” – Metallica. I love men who are sensitive. Of course I do. (I love people who are sensitive, in general, but we’re talking about men now.) But there’s nothing like male rage – which is a kind of sensitivity. It’s also a kind of creativity when it is unleashed. (It can also be destructive. But that’s true of most emotions.) So here, they unleash their rage. At least they’re doing it in a song, and not out on the streets against their fellow citizens. This is what art is for.
“I Want You, I Need You, I Love You” – Elvis. A huge hit for him, off of his first album. The story behind the recording of this is fascinating. He and “the boys” were flown to Nashville for the recording session. I think they were touring somewhere. They had a horrific flight, really turbulent. Elvis emerged so shaken that he wouldn’t fly for YEARS afterwards, until he got his own plane. During his movie years, he drove to Los Angeles from Memphis and back. No more planes. He was so shaken up that he had a difficult time getting through the song (very unlike him). It was also Easter Sunday, if I’m not mistaken, and he had some religious issues about working on that day. He was pissed and offended. (Again, very unlike Elvis to let anyone see that stuff – but the bad flight stripped him of his defenses.) Once you know the story, you can hear all of that in the recording. It’s a very vulnerable performance from him: listen to how he THROWS his voice around. No holding back. No wonder it was a hit. He was all fucked up that day.
“Skyfall” – Adele. DRAMA. DRAAAAAAMAAAAA.
“I Got a Woman” – Elvis. Live. In the 70s, some time. Messing around with one of his first hits. It takes him forever to get the song started (it’s kind of famous to Elvis fans, those repeat “we-llll”s) but once he does, it jams. It’s such a huge orchestration, with various backup groups behind me. I love his original version: just him. Both innocent and corrupt at the same time. A young man, singing about this crazy relationship, way beyond his years (when Elvis recorded it he was still dating a girl from church, and they had vowed to stay pure until marriage. See, this is what is so amazing about Elvis. He burst onto the scene with rambunctious sexuality – that hadn’t even been expressed yet. At least not in that way. But sexuality exists whether you’ve already had sex or not, right? And repression makes things come out stronger anyway. I just think it’s great and perfect that Elvis was a virgin when he arrived, and made every girl in the Southeast of this here United States realize they wanted to be having sex as soon as possible.)
“An Evening Prayer” – Elvis. Going operatic. It’s almost beyond him. But I love these attempts at things beyond him: he knows what it will take, he works his ass off. He goes for the brass ring – he does not hold back. More importantly, he does not hold back what is going on inside of him: devotion, praise, love for Jesus. There it all is, as sincere as anything else.
“Rag Mama Rag” – The Band. Classic. Honky tonk, juke joint jam. Life on the road. There’s no “home base” feeling in their songs. Their home is a tour bus.
“Gotta Broken Heart Again” – Prince. Ugh. I still hate this. Is this even happening? This from Dirty Mind. Such simple lyrics: he misses it all, the things she said, the sex, he can’t believe it: “I can’t get you out of my head!” His voice surges up, out, reflecting the howl of pain. And ending abruptly: “There ain’t nothing left to say.”
“West Point” – Jonatha Brooke. I was into her for a hot (milli)second. Had this album that I feel is over-produced. Does every song need to be 5 minutes long? She’s a folk singer. Please relax. HOWEVER: her voice is beautiful and I do love her songs.
“Because of Love” – Elvis. From the movie Girls! Girls! Girls! I mean, what are you gonna do. He was under contract. And thank God for the Jordannaires. He felt safe working with them in a pretty uninspiring environment. They worked out arrangements together, trying to salvage something from out of nothing. Listen to this and you can hear how they’re elevating something not worthy through sheer force of will-power and talent.
“Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This” – The Eurythmics. Still gets radio play. Not surprised. It still feels like a hit. It was a hit upon arrival.
“Great Balls of Fire” – Jerry Lee Lewis. Reading Peter Guralnick’s long-awaited biography of Sam Phillips was fascinating in terms of Jerry Lee Lewis. Once Elvis was gone, it was Lewis’ time, and Phillips devoted so much time to Jerry Lee’s career that the other artists on the roster – you know, little-known names like Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison – felt like they got short shrift. Sun may have gotten them their start. But they were like, “Fuck this. Jerry Lee is not the only artist in the world. What about us.” (Not Jerry’s fault, of course. It was just one of those things that happen in a competitive atmosphere.)
“White Boys” – from Hair. Hair and Chess are in the running for the most obnoxious albums on my iPod.
“Hey Jude” – Tom Jones & Wilson Pickett. They did a TV special together. There are clips on Youtube of very poor quality. But they are not to be missed, ESPECIALLY this duet, which launches “Hey Jude” (a song I never need to hear again … sorry!) into the stratosphere. (Yes, I grabbed the clip from Youtube, turned into mp3, then put on iPod. I don’t normally do this but with TV clips I make an exception.) If you haven’t seen it: get ready.
“Ode to Somethin’ to Cry About” – Bleu. One of my favorite singer/songwriters working today. This is part of an album – Aquavia – that he put together with Mike Viola (they’ve done a couple of projects together: Love both of them.) I highly recommend going to see Bleu live if he comes your way. He gives a hell of a show. I was suicidal when I went to go see him in 2012, but honestly … well, I won’t say that show saved my life because the situation was more serious than that. Not one thing will ever save everyone. And I was so sad during that show it was at times unbearable and when the show ended I was actually afraid to go home. But something about his presence onstage, 10 feet away from me, and the vibe in that small room … I don’t know, I decided to write about it, which I did, and so I put “it” off for another day. And here we are today. Bleu means a lot to me.
“Sunday Bloody Sunday” – U2. I cannot explain the impact that this song had on an Irish-American teenage girl, who grew up steeped in Irish history, who was in Ireland with her family at the time of the hunger strikes (or at least for a portion of it: we were not in the North, but still, in looking back, it was like the entire nation was holding its breath about what was going on up north). “Bobby Sands” was discussed as though he was a member of the family. Prayers for Bobby Sands at church. Stories of Bloody Sunday. I don’t remember learning such things just like I don’t remember learning about Paul Revere’s ride. These stories were given to us, somehow, by our parents. So to have this song – become a Top-40 hit – I don’t know how to explain what that even felt like. It was like a family secret being told to the whole world. And I’m not from Ireland. But as a child, all of those stories were told in a way that were like: “This is where you are from. This is your history.”
“Satan Is Real” – The Louvin Brothers. I love these fire-breathing maniacs. You can search for a hundred years for a sense of irony in their songs. You will come up empty.
“This Is How I Disappear” – My Chemical Romance. What are they so upset about again? I can’t tell.
“Yes It Is” – The Beatles. I was wondering when they would show up. I was thinking the other day about how I learned to sing harmony. I am from a very musical family where we actually did stand around the piano and sing songs. So I learned there, but I really learned how to sing harmony from The Beatles. Their harmonies are so rich (I love the harmony here), and so figuring out the harmony line as an 8, 9 year old, was thrilling. It was like I suddenly understood how the songs operated on a deeper level. How tension builds, how things resolve: it’s all there in the harmonies.
“Óró Sé Do Bheatha ‘bhaile” – The Cassidys. A Gaelic-language contemporary group. With electric guitars to make this traditional song “hip.” I don’t know. It’s okay but … it’s also slightly embarrassing. But it’s about an ancestor of ours, a famous female pirate (one of my sisters has the pirate’s name as her middle name – and my Dad always called her by that name), and therefore I love it.
Tá Gráinne Mhaol ag teacht thar sáile,
Óglaigh armtha léi mar gharda,
Gaeil iad féin is ní Gaill ná Spáinnigh…
Is cuirfidh siad ruaig ar Ghallaibh!
“El Toro” – Elvis, from Fun in Acapulco soundtrack. There was actually some money and thought given to the songs for this movie, and they sound awesome. I mean, it’s Elvis singing mariachi music, so it’s ridiculous, but he kills it. Flinging his voice around, operatic and melodramatic – a mood which always suited him, and which he can pull off vocally.
“Bitch Please II” – Eminem. From The Marshall Mathers LP. Multiple voices, a choral series of monologues, with the chorus starting, “You don’t really want to fuck with me.” Duly noted.
“Jet Airliner” – The Steve Miller Band. Who are these people.
“Don’t Forget To Cry” – The Everly Brothers. Stunning harmonies, with a great kiss-off line (the title).
“My City of Ruin” – Bruce Springsteen. “This is a prayer for our fallen brothers and sisters …” is how he introduces the song, which he sang on the fundraiser that happened right after 9/11. It’s intense.
“Love’s In Need of Love Today” – Stevie Wonder. Huh, weird: this was the song Stevie Wonder performed in the same fundraiser mentioned above. It’s so beautiful and heartfelt and it brings back the horror of that aftermath, the wound. Lower Manhattan was still smoking when this telethon/fundraiser happened. Here’s that performance.
“Good Rockin’ Tonight” – Elvis. Off his first album. It’s almost scary. Yes, you have to go back to that time to understand how radical this performance was. But come on. Learn your history. It’s there for the taking. No excuses. It belongs to you.
“Carnival Tango” – from the Broadway production of The Boyfriend. I was OBSESSED with this musical when I was around 11, 12. It had two of the things I loved most in any story: girls in boarding school, the Jazz Age.
“Kizza Me” – Big Star. Phenomenal. Sexy. That guitar. The piano. His VOICE. You know Kurt Cobain loved him. Cobain’s voice has that similar angel-gone-darkside sound to it that Chilton’s does.
“Put Your Money Where Yer Mouth Is” – Oasis. I never tipped over into Love for these guys. I love his voice, but the songs just don’t do it for me. Or they don’t “do it” as much as I wish. My favorite of theirs feels like a departure: “She’s Electric.” It’s not an attempt to be an anthem. It’s a little funny British ditty, and it feels much more organic and natural to them.
“Fuckin’ Perfect” – Pink. You know what is fuckin’ perfect? Pink’s voice.
“I Went To Sleep” – The Beach Boys. 1969. A crazy year. With the classic Beach Boys choir-boy-with-a-twist harmonies. The Beach Boys had been far out ahead of The Beatles in a lot of ways, and the two bands paid close attention to one another – a friendly competition. You can really hear that two-way influence on both sides.
“Little By Little” – Nappy Brown. This was a big hit for him. You can see why. There’s that great saxophone accompanying him, but it’s his voice that sells it. The song still swings.
“Love Coming Down” – Elvis. Released in a 1976 album. The year before he died. Listen to his voice here. It shows the lie that the 70s were just one big wash, or that he could barely “get it up” for the majority of the decade. Okay, fine, maybe you don’t like the self-pitying power ballads. But ELVIS loved them. And he killed them! He’s so knowing here, so pained, so honest. A real grown-up.
“Sound Of My Own Voice” – Mike Viola. Boy can write a heart-breaking melody that’s for damn sure.
“Silent Night” – Shawn Colvin, a track on what I refer to as her “suicidal Christmas album.” Every song feels like she is celebrating her FINAL Christmas before opening a vein.
“The Rain Song” – from the Broadway production of 110 In the Shade, starring Audra McDonald. I am so glad I bought a ticket, if only to get to see McDonald live. If you get a chance, see her in ANYthing. She’s unREAL live.
“I Gotta Know” – Elvis. From his great album Elvis Is Back, released after he got out of the Army. I talked about this album here to Padraic Coffey. There’s an Everly-Brothers-ish quality to some of the harmonies. It’s Elvis at his most humorous, playful, mischievous. Listen to what he does with inflection, phrasing: you can hear him smiling.
“Hopelessly Devoted to You” – Olivia Newton-John, from Grease. Thank goodness Sandy realized what she needed to do to keep her man: don black camel-toe Spandex! Sandy, you are NOT perfect just the way you are, Sandy, and that is the crux of the problem. Floozy it up, girl. That’s the only way.
“Little Darlin'” – Elvis. Off of Moody Blue, the album that came out posthumously. Elvis cannot take one second of this song seriously. You can hear it. He did this in his live shows, too. I think it was suggested he do this song to “tap in” to the nostalgia-racket. But Elvis was always about the present and future, NEVER about the past. So he sings this traditional doo-wop song and goofs on it, or introduces it saying, “This is a very serious song.” In one concert he says, after finishing the song, “If you buy that … you’ll buy anything.” hahahaha
“Finale” – the cast of Wicked. Because I always remember every obnoxious comment made on my site (or most of them), check out this post I wrote a million years ago about Wicked, and the comment from Otis. I have no idea why I remember this – mainly because it’s the funniest example of the kind of people who used to comment here. I was like: “Where the hell did these stupid people come from?” I didn’t know how to deal with it at first, because I am not accustomed to having to say to people: “You are stupid and what you just said was stupid.” But oh well, a girl’s gotta do what she’s gotta do. I had to deal with people like that all the time back in the day, because my site was linked to by the Wall Street Journal and Instapundit. I grew to dread Instapundit links because another horde of people with cultural chips on their shoulder would come my way! People who couldn’t keep up. That’s how I saw it. They could not talk on the level that I wanted to, that I am accustomed to. Elitist? You betcha! Otis deserved what he got, which was mockery.
“Baby What You Want Me To Do” – Little Richard. When he turns on the sex … it’s the sexist sexiness that anyone has ever sexed. The only person who approaches that level is Prince. Well, and Elvis too, of course. That’s a given. But other than that? Little Richard is nasty, in the best sense. This is HAWT. The sexy-starlets like Britney Spears, or Beyonce … now, I love those ladies … but their sexuality is performative, “empowering”, and somewhat intellectual. It’s performance-art. Neither of them could ever even begin to attempt to be as open about their sex drives as this:
“Night of the Long Grass” – The Troggs. Talk about a bunch of guys in touch with their sexuality. They’re aggressive, yes. They have a song called “Come Now,” after all. (Yes, SIR.) I think why I love them though is that there is a sheer sense of pleasure in all of it – missing from some other cocky rock stars who sing of sex like it’s conquest. The Troggs are like, “This is FUN. Let’s do more of THIS. And I want you to come too.” Sad that this is still radical.
“Where I Belong” – The Beach Boys. This has been a very good shuffle for Beach Boys! There’s some synthesizers going on, moving on into the 1980s. The lyrics are sad and honest and yearning. Carl Wilson beautiful lead vocals.
“Ooh Ooh Baby” – Britney Spears. I know I just compared her unfavorably to Little Richard … which is totally unfair, but it does tell you something about how our culture views sex, and how (in my opinion) we have fallen behind into something prurient and grossed-out as opposed to the sheer pleasure and joy and nasty-boy-reveling of Little Richard, James Brown, Elvis. Never mind, Brit Brit. I still got your back.
“Until the End of the World” – U2. Eerie. Ominous. Yeats-ian.
“The Queen’s Chamber 2” – Sarah West. One of the most eerie haunting voices I have ever heard. I bought this album at the showing at an art gallery in Taos of Dean Stockwell’s work. Sarah West was there and she performed for the crowd out on the patio, the audacious sunset behind her, and it was like a spell had fallen over the group. It was a profound moment. And I can’t help it, I’m just reporting the truth. I was standing next to Dean Stockwell listening to her (his art dealer had befriended me and introduced me to Stockwell 4 times – full story here) and when she finished, he turned to me, cigar in his mouth, and said, “Isn’t that somethin.” Yes. It was.
“Got a Lot O’ Livin’ to Do” – Elvis, from the Loving You soundtrack. His second movie. Crammed with excellent songs. He’s wonderful in the movie. And him going “Come on, baby-eh!!” was used by Quentin Tarantino in True Romance.
“Those Were the Days” – Cream. Listen, I like them. And of course they are all brilliant musicians. But the ego … the ego is off the charts. It’s fine: rock stars are not known for humility. But … I don’t know. This sounds mean but I just don’t think they were good as THEY thought they were. Sorry if this offends.
“Rockin’ Down the Highway” – The Doobie Brothers. Sometimes I feel like if I don’t keep moving I’ll lose my mind, too.
“The ‘In’ Crowd” – Dobie Gray. That’s a pretty sad picture you’re painting there. How long can that situation last, do you think? His voice is so beautiful.
“Sharks Cant Sleep” – This has been a very boy-heavy Shuffle so it’s good to get some girl-power in here, especially someone like Tracy Bonham. The kind of singer who burst onto the scene only to find the entire culture change in the next second, with the advent of Britney. Rage was out. Performative sexuality was in. Because you know you can’t have more than one woman at a time. Women can’t be complex and multi-faceted, because people’s heads would explode!! I love Tracy Bonham’s rage, especially here, over and over and over: “No, it wasn’t okay!” I agree with you. It was NOT okay.
“Juke Box Hero” – Foreigner. OMG.
“Road to Nowhere” – Talking Heads. I love this song so much but unfortunately I associate it with my 10th nervous breakdown in a life full of nervous breakdowns. Good times! This is one of the songs we listened to all the time when my boyfriend and I drove across the country in our camper van. Barely talking to each other. I always see that van the second this song comes on. Will this last forever? I’m thinking Yes.
“Bip Bop Boom” – Mickey Hawks & The Night Raiders. Great raw rockabilly. You know you listen to this song, with the stupid nonsensical rhymes – I mean, it’s called “bip bop boom” okay? – and I really understand Larry’s comment about Simon & Garfunkel above. It’s fine to write smart intellectual lyrics about Frank Lloyd Wright. Seriously, no shame in that. But rock ‘n roll doesn’t need a boosted IQ in order to justify its existence.
“Am I Blue?” – Billie Holiday. I think we all know the answer to that, Billie.
“Bei Mir Bist Du Schön” – The Puppini Sisters. They’re so fabulous and fun. Tribute, yes, but with their own style and energy.
“Hey Porter” – Johnny Cash. It’s that old “rhythm of the tracks” again, as Keith Richards wrote so eloquently in his autobiography.
“I Feel Love” – Donna Summer. Maybe too much love, Donna? Just a thought.
“Piano Lesson” – Shirley Jones & Pert Kelton, from The Music Man. From Donna Summer to Shirley Jones. The glory of Shuffle.
“Sing Them Blues to Daddy” – Waylon Jennings. Well, since you asked so nicely, Waylon …
“Bombay” – Timbaland, with Amar & Jim Beanz. From Timbaland’s fantastic album Shock Value. Here he goes Bollywood.
“Even If It Breaks Your Heart” – Eli Young Band. I tripped over him randomly when I was seeking out contemporary country music that I LIKED, as opposed to shit that talked about butterfly kisses and ‘Murrica and small-town-bullshit sung by millionaires pretending to be men of the people with beat-up pickup trucks. I love country music, people! But I can’t bear so much of it, at least that’s happening right now. It’s got no TEETH and – more unattractively – it’s got a big chip on its shoulder like good old Otis up there in this thread. So I came across him, and I like him a lot. It’s pretty “stock,” I have to say, but I like his voice and his attitude. It’s truthful. He’s no Eric Church (who is?), but I like him.
“Funny How Time Slips Away” – Elvis, live in the 70s. I love his performance of this song. He’s so bluesy, so knowing, so grownup, so yearning, so accepting of time, and mortality. He doesn’t feel sorry for himself. But boy, time does slip away, don’t it.
“Don’t Fear the Reaper” – Blue Oyster Cult. Well, thanks for the advice, but I think I WILL fear the reaper, if you don’t mind.
“Goodnight My Someone” – Robert Preston & Shirley Jackson, from The Music Man. A cluster!
“Bad Way To Go” – Lydia Loveless. Charlie and I went to go see her at Webster Hall and had a blast. She’s awesome. She did her own stuff, she covered Hank Williams, she drank beer throughout. Rock ‘n’ roll.
“Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby” – Carl Perkins. Recorded in 1957 at Sun Records. One of the first songs where a singer/songwriter wrote about the trappings of fame. Now a song like this is de rigeur: every big rock star has one. “Oh man life on the road, screwing all these women, eating take-out food, it’s so SAD.” But as always: CARL GOT THERE FIRST.
“Gary Indiana” – Robert Preston, from The Music Man. Okay, this is hilarious now.
“The Girls In My Life, Pt. 1” – Randy Newman. He’s so bizarre. I love him so much. If you want a real treat, seek out Greil Marcus’ essay on him, included in Mystery Train.
“Love Surrounds Me” – The Beach Boys. Brian Wilson was super-sick during the recording of this album. There’s something missing. I don’t know. The spark. The Beach-Boys-ness of it all.
“Hound Dog” – Little Richard. KILLING IT.
“A Better World” – The Monkees. YES. THE MONKEES. From the album that just came out, which is super-fun.
“Dream a Little Dream of Me” – Ozzie Nelson. I love my music collection. Seriously.
“In the Closet” – Michael Jackson. Oh, Michael. :( I remember back when this song came out, there was all this tittering chatter like, “In the closet?? Ha! Michael Jackson is admitting he’s gay and he doesn’t even know it!” Mitchell was like, “You honestly think he doesn’t know what that means and isn’t USING his knowledge of that term to get you all to say exactly the shit that you are saying right now? Give me a fucking BREAK.” The loss of irony. The rise of literalism.
“Moon Dawg” – The Beach Boys. So loopy, so nuts, with those howling dogs, and that phenomenal guitar. Great!
“Only With You” – The Beach Boys. You guys, suddenly The Beach Boys are like: “Let us in, man. You know you want to listen to our entire body of work front to back, so go for it.” This is a sad little ballad. Reminds me a bit of The Band.
“Hash Pipe” – Weezer. The only way to play this is really loud. I am sure the cars around me stuck in traffic were jamming out to the sounds emanating from my car. Or annoyed as hell. Either one.
“Strange Things Happen” – The Beach Boys. I swear I am not manipulating this to happen, but I am really happy nonetheless. We’re getting a good cross-section of their entire career here.
“Whiter Shade of Pale” – The Box Tops covering the hit song that so many people have covered. There’s that Memphis grit there in Chilton, in all the rest of them. Only in Memphis does stuff like this come together. It’s in the air, in the water. And then Chilton, just a teenager here, who would go on into Big Star, and it all seems just too good to be true. We’re just lucky it happened. Thank you, Memphis, for who you are as a cultural hub, what you do, what you encourage and provide.
“She’s In Love With the Boy” – Trisha Yearwood. Okay, fine; I like this song. But it’s an example of what I was talking about above in re: contemporary country. We’ve got all the right symbols and images as shorthand: beat-up Chevy, dirt roads, one-horse town, Maw and Paw waiting up, etc. It’s effective, sure, but it’s also bullshit. Trisha Yearwood then would go on to break up a longtime marriage. She’s been married 3 times. So much for traditional values. I don’t JUDGE her, but I DO judge the hypocrisy as well as the performative aspect of the values/world in current country music: Barbecue sauce, church dances and picnics, country nights, etc. Listen, I like those things too. But country music used to be the music of the downtrodden, the outsiders, the way-out-there-non-mainstream, and it has moved so far away from that that you can see why Waylon Jennings would write a song called “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?”
“I Can Dig It” – The Box Tops. More Box Tops! Lazily and confidently sexy.
“Laredo Tornado” – ELO. The first album (vinyl) I ever bought all on my own was ELO’s Time. I was obsessed from the first second my junior high friend (still a friend today) Meredith played me the first track on her turntable in the living room of her parent’s house. Up until then, it had been all show tunes and Irish political songs. With a little bit of John Denver. All in my parents’ collection. ELO was the entryway into my OWN THING. Of course this track isn’t on Time. Time was also the entryway into all of ELO’s stuff. They’re still a favorite. The love has not waned.
“I’ll Bet He’s Nice” – The Beach Boys. What a sad song. I think we can all relate to these lyrics. Side note: The Beach Boys are everywhere. I am not complaining.
“As Long As I Have You” – Elvis Presley. An absolutely gorgeous performance from him in the film King Creole. There are so many wonderful performances from him in this film, including his acting.
“Congo River” – The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem. Talk about rousing Irish tunes from my childhood. Picture sweaty children bellowing the lyrics to this song in the back seat of our station wagon as we headed home after a day at the beach.
“Summer Romance” – The Rolling Stones. I’ve missed them in this Shuffle. Good of you boys to show up.
“I Feel a Sin Comin’ On” – Pistol Annies. They are a new discovery for me. I adore them. Let’s hear it for country music that’s all about sin, darkness, temptations, failure, the intensity of life and its problems. They’re fabulous. One of the things I love about country music (the good stuff, anyway) is that – lyrically – they’re sophisticated. Way more sophisticated than most pop music. Or even r&b, where the beat is more important than what is being said. Country music is filled with puns, and comparisons, and specificity, and word-play. Like Eric Church’s song “Cold One,” about a break-up – where “cold one” refers both to 1. the beer he needs and 2. the “cold” way his girl broke up with him. It’s clever. Pistol Annie’s has a song about the shit women go through to make themselves “presentable” to just walk out of the door every morning – and the song is called “It Ain’t Pretty Being Pretty.” I love these girls.
“Thank You Friends” – Big Star. I love his voice so much. It’s not as raw-agonized as Kurt Cobain’s but there’s a similar vulnerability there, an honesty – always always honesty. I love, too, how this song has a bursting big choir in the background, showing up as the song picks up speed. It’s thrilling and it suits the big-ness of the song and the big-ness of Chilton’s whole … THING.
“For the First Time in Forever” -Kristen Bell & Idina Menzel – from Frozen, of course. Very familiar with it because 1. It’s good. and 2. I have nieces who are OB-SESSED.
“Women Do Know How to Carry On” – Waylon Jennings. You said it, Waylon. And you love it.
“Little Pink Umbrella” – Pat McCurdy. I was wondering where he was. An old old friend of mine. If you live in Illinois, Wisconsin, or Minnesota you may have heard of him. That’s his circuit. Hugely successful. He plays over 300 shows a year. I was a fan, attending his shows in Chicago with religious regularity (he is a blast. His shows are more like… cult meetings, than your garden-variety music show). Then we became friends. Then he had me start singing with him. He brought me (and three other friends) to perform with him at Milwaukee Summer Fest. (Here I am backstage. Which … says it all … and says nothing … at the same time.) He wrote a duet for the two of us to sing which appears on one of his albums. Our adventures were legion. That was all a long long time ago. “Little Pink Umbrella” appears on an album – different from his other albums, more serious, introspective – where I’m thanked in the liner notes … and I still don’t know why. We had fallen out of touch by then.
“Hungry Like the Wolf” – Duran Duran. Naturally.
“Good Morning Jury/John Henry/Furry’s Blues” – the great Furry Lewis (with Leon Russell). Their whole “session” is on Youtube, and I so recommend checking it out. Furry Lewis was one of those Memphis guys who was well-known to locals, who fell into almost total obscurity, before a revival in the 60s with the folk music explosion. Stanley Booth wrote a great piece about Lewis in Rythm Oil. A real “character.” This medley has that insistent beat that keeps things going, no matter what happens … the song needs to express itself … the song goes through its repetitions – with Leon Russell twanging and twisting it up, supporting, riffing, so that Furry can GO where he needs to GO. The SONG says when it’s over. And “John Henry”? A million years ago, I wrote a short post about songs I heard as a child that haunted me. “John Henry” was one of them. “Eleanor Rigby” was another. “Puff the Magic Dragon” was on the list, and the final one – “The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond…” was the most haunting. I actually remember agonizing about it. Thinking to myself, pangs of pain in my heart, “But why can’t they just take the same road???”
“Red Football” – Sinéad O’Connor. One of her best. One of her angriest.
“I Beg of You” – Elvis Presley. One of the songs that came out of the incredibly fruitful RCA recording sessions in spring 1958, while Elvis was on leave from basic training. He was headed to Germany in September for two long years, where he would do no recording. There was urgency to get down as much as possible. The material was great, the Jordannaires were there, the band was awesome, and Elvis was … well, not in rare form … but at the top of his game. There is something about the songs from that session (released on the album where he stands there in his gold-lame suit) that stand out, with a unique quality of sound and energy, something that could be felt in the room at the time.
“I’m a Man” – Bo Diddley. Primal.
“Little T & A” – The Rolling Stones. Listen to Keith. LISTEN TO KEITH.
“Shorty the Barber” – Charlie Burse. A Sun Records track which, of course, is recognizable without even knowing it was recorded at Sun. It’s that Sun Records SOUND. The feel of that tiny ROOM.
“I Saw the Light” – Hank Williams. Is it possible this man died at 29? Like Elvis, he was up in the rafters of his own field, as high as anyone had ever gone, the world changing, the possibilities exploding … but no manual for how to deal with success, who could tell you how to deal with something like that? Nobody had been there before. Not to mention the fact that people like Hank Williams grew up dirt-poor. How to even process the switch change-over to having money? And Hank Williams glittered and shimmered on that stage with fringe and all-white suits and pristine hats and sparkling belt buckles: part of his tradition, but moving up and on out of it too. (This goes back to my whole “Bling” thing. People who call “bling” crass or tasteless have probably never known poverty and want in their lives. Williams loved his bling. As well he should.) It’s a lonely position to be in. The first big crossover star, a harbinger of what was to come. He’s so forthright in his delivery. Whatever he sings it’s like it’s a one-on-one conversation with each member of his audience.
“Man of Constant Sorrow” – Waylon Jennings. As weird as this might sound, there’s something very gentle about him.
“Baby Got Going” – Liz Phair. From her follow-up to Exile in Guyville. Another great album. This is one of my favorite tracks on it. She’s my Gen-X soul sister.
“You Know I’m No Good” – Amy Winehouse. So bummed out. Every time one of her (few) songs come up, I feel the loss of her all over again. Dammit.
“14th Street”- Rufus Wainwright. “Why’d ya have to break all my heart? Couldn’t you have saved a little bit of it?”
“Flight 505” – The Rolling Stones. The opening sounds like it’s emerging from the past, an old dusty saloon in a frontier town, playing for ghosts long passed from the earth. It’s very cool. And then the song really starts, but it’s filled with the echo of the jingly echoing piano from the opening.
“Here Comes the Sun” – Nina Simone. I’ve said before that I think her version is almost superior to the original. Or, she has so taken it into her own hands, and re-thought it, and inhabited it, that it doesn’t even feel like the same song. It sounds like she MUST have written it. Despite the (slightly) hopeful lyrics, the way she sings it sounds almost like a suicide note. It’s staggeringly brilliant rendition. I can’t even imagine what Lennon/McCartney must have felt when they heard it.
“That’ll Be the Day” – Buddy Holly. The lyrics tell a very different story from the zippy melody.
“Drink You Away” – Justin Timberlake. SO HOT. Listen, he’s a Memphis kid. Nobody should be surprised.
“Day Drinking” – Little Big Town. Another contemporary country band I like. It’s got stuff like banjos, but with rock ‘n’ roll percussion. “I know you know what I’m thinking. Why don’t we do a little day drinking?” No thanks, but it sounds like a blast the way you sing about it.
“Hey Wow Yeah Yeah” – Robbie Williams. He’s such a maniac. I think we’d get along like gangbusters. #deadserious
“Mississippi Rolling Stone” – the legendary Tina Turner. So fortunate that I saw her live on the “Tiny Dancer” tour a million years away. Wang Chung opened for her, so that gives you an idea of the era … But she was as phenomenal live as you would imagine. Always wish I had seen her and Ike in action together. They had the sickest live act perhaps ever. Just watching the clips make you feel dirty … upset … turned on … fucked up.
“Santa’s Beard” – The Beach Boys. Hahahahahahaha
“Shut Up and Fish” – Maddie & Tae. Okay, so there’s a bit of a “let’s see what this city boy can do” thing that I find tiresome, but it’s still rather adorable. Again, with some clever-ness in the lyrics, lots of fishing-as-courtship metaphors: “I was fishing, he was wishing we were kissing, I was getting madder than a hornet in an old Coke can …” You know, it’s cute. Also it tells a story. He was getting too hot and heavy, she was trying to slow him down. Please don’t try to hold my “reeling hand” while I’m fishing, city boy.
“This Magic Moment” – Lou Reed. How to put this into words? And why I love the arrangement? And why it thrills me? I’m not sure I can do it.
“Too Many People” – Paul McCartney. Ram, man. Right??
“Lay Your Shine On Me” – The Box Tops. So damn FUNKY.
“The Ballad of Dorothy Parker” – Prince. I kind of want the relationship he describes here. He takes a bubble bath with his pants on, for starters.
“Carol” – The Rolling Stones. It’s basically Johnny B. Goode. (Speaking of which, Mitchell and I had a funny text exchange last week about Johnny B. Goode’s illiteracy. “Learn how to read, Johnny.” “Right? Get a tutor.” “It’s unfortunate, but FIX IT.” Dumb. But entertaining. It went on forever.) I love the hand-claps.
“Rap God” – Eminem. You know, with a title like that, you better live up to it. Uhm ….. Yeah. He does.
— Wonderful article by my friend Farran for Film Comment on Tim Holt, who has appeared in a couple of masterpieces, as well as a steady career in B-Westerns (one of my favorite kinds of careers). I love him in Treasure of the Sierra Madre (and Farran pulls out a moment I love too, with the gila monster), and The Magnificent Ambersons but I didn’t know that much about him. Thank you, Farran!
— Almost done with The Familiar, Volume 3: Honeysuckle & Pain, the third of Mark Danielewski’s series, which I cannot put down. Volume 4 is supposed to come out in Winter 2017. I dread the wait. The book is eerie, complex and, in typical Mark D. style, sometimes you have to turn it upside down to follow the print and sometimes you honestly need a magnifying glass. It’s a multi-voiced book, with narration switching off. Who knew that an 11-year-old girl getting a cat could spawn three volumes (so far)? (But consider the title. And consider cats.) MD is a hell of a writer and a hell of a mimic. The voice of the Los Angeles gang member/drug dealer, the voice of the addict in Singapore, the voice of the troubled PhD candidate, the voice of the tough LA cop of Turkish origin, the voice of the 11-year-old girl … all of them distinct (each with their own font), and all of them pushing the story along. I’m sure he drives some people crazy as a writer but I find him fascinating as well as totally sincere (the font-changing and upside-down-writing and all the rest – present in his other books too – are not just clever tics, or gimmicks: This is how his brain works.) The Familiar doesn’t hold a candle to his House of Leaves – but then again, what does? The Familiar, so far, is a gigantic accomplishment. Each volume is about 700, 800 pages long. But they zip by (also considering the fact that he uses all of these different fonts, and sometimes there are only one or two words on a page.) He’s so inventive. Seriously, it’s intimidating.
— Articles like this make me laugh. And there are so MANY of them. And bookshelves filled with books agonizing over this all-important conundrum. And whenever I see a new article on the subject, I have to read it, I can’t help it. (Some people say that something “makes them laugh” when what they really mean is “This enrages me.” I am actually saying that articles like this actually make me laugh.) People make CAREERS studying this (good on them!). People spend their LIVES devoted to studying this topic because it is SUCH A HUGE MYSTERY and NOBODY CAN FIGURE IT OUT. Scientists in their labs around the world fall to their knees in defeat, howling to the full moon, “But WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY?” Meanwhile, people keep going along, enjoying the fruits of evolution, and we don’t give a shit why, and take Ben Franklin’s attitude towards beer about it: “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy”. It’s fun being part of a gigantic evolutionary mystery and honestly, I don’t CARE why, but it does make me happy/amused/etc. that the answer has baffled generations of scientists for centuries. It makes me feel … proud? Listen, I’ll take any evolutionary advantage I can get. Not that the “why” wouldn’t be interesting, and not like I think they shouldn’t be studying it, but the QUOTES are so funny, people basically throwing up their hands for 600 years, going, “Damned if I know.”
— Confession: I have not read any of Jonathan Franzen’s books. For no particular reason. However, I find him so fascinating as a public figure, starting from his “Thanks, but no thanks” to Oprah, lo, those many years ago. (The guy I was dating at the time was a writer. I asked him what he would do in Franzen’s situation. “I’d fucking take her up on her offer. Are you kidding me? I’ll tell you one thing: That douchebag’s got BALLS.”) And he’s so bizarre in print, and foot-in-mouth, and he drives people INSANE and then people LOVE him and maybe people like talking about him more than they like reading him. I don’t go in for schaudenfraude – like, at all – so that’s not what this is about. I feel like I’ve missed the boat with Franzen, and I get the sense that HE feels (on occasion) that he’s missed the boat. He wants to be like Norman Mailer or Philip Roth and doesn’t understand why he isn’t considered that way, not realizing the world has changed. He’s young, too, to feel that way. He’s a premature fuddy-duddy. And then there’s the David Foster Wallace thing, who was a legitimate genius, and tapped into a zeitgeist (sorry) that Franzen tries but didn’t seem to be able to do. Like a Salieri/Mozart thing. (Again: I haven’t read any of his books. I am not weighing in on something I have not read. But the conversation AROUND Franzen is what intrigues me.) I have good friends who read whatever he writes, and it’s interesting to get their take on what’s good, and what’s not good. What Franzen does that they like, what he does that drives them insane. That being said, I read interviews with Franzen (there aren’t that many). I read his articles. Any time the man opens his mouth, he appears to make headlines. SO. If you’ve been paying attention over the last couple of days, Franzen just gave an interview where he made some unbelievably tone-deaf (not surprising; he is tone-deaf in general) comments on race. Like: NO, JONATHAN. DON’T SPEAK! STOP! Because I find Franzen a fascinating figure, I clicked around reading responses, trying to get off Twitter where the general feeling is #outrage.org. Gawker is obsessed with Franzen, but I don’t read Gawker anymore after they “outed” that random man. I know. Gawker has done all kinds of sketchy shit over their long history but that was my line, apparently. Someone somewhere mentioned a piece on Grantland that expressed exactly how they felt about Franzen’s writing, so I went and found it. (I miss Grantland.) This may all seem rather bizarre since I haven’t read any of his novels. I love literary dust-ups. I’ve written about this before. And hoo boy, the piece on Grantland is a hell of a piece of writing by Brian Phillips. The Franzen of It All: ‘Purity’ and the Great American Novelist. Wow. (Also, it’s hilarious.) But then totally profound too at what Franzen (apparently) is trying to do in his work, and what – in our contemporary world – he is attempting (and failing, according to Phillips) to do in his novels.
— Tearing through The Selected Letters of Elia Kazan. I don’t want it to end. I feel like I have been waiting for this collection to be published since I was in middle-school and first watched East of Eden. He – more than anyone else – was my “way in.” Being introduced to him – and his films – have helped make me the person I am today. I made CHOICES in my life, and followed a certain path, beCAUSE I was exposed to his work. Hell, I ended up at the Actors Studio, which he helped start. And – full circle – I still can’t believe it happened – I got to meet him one snowy night at the premiere of an Actors Studio production of Awake and Sing where I was the stage manager, and general helpmeet and line-runner for Anne Jackson. (Incidentally, Elia Kazan used to be the stage manager for the earliest Group Theatre productions in the 1930s, as well as acting – most historically in Waiting for Lefty where his final shout to the audience “STRIKE!” almost literally brought the house – and balcony – down.) I met him right after he won the Lifetime Achievement Oscar and all of those idiotic actors who were soooo morally superior – who I am SURE would have behaved IMPECCABLY during the McCarthy hearings! – refused to stand up for him. Good for Robert De Niro and Al Pacino for ushering him onto the stage. And good for Meryl Streep for standing in the midst of her scowling cohorts. So then, at our premiere of Awake and Sing – Clifford Odets’ Depression-era play – put on by the Group Theatre in the 1930s – with Elia Kazan backstage helping out, just as I was backstage helping out (the coincidences were too much for my brain to handle) – he showed up. I did my best in the situation and fell apart later. Reading these unbelievable letters is a revelation because even though I know it all happened – I forget sometimes just how MUCH he did, and how MANY legendary projects he helmed. Back and forth from stage to screen and back. He was a voluminous and emotional letter-writer (and if you’ve read his autobiography, or his director’s notebooks, or his novels, then you know the dude can WRITE.) I am so glad that finally we get Kazan’s correspondence, quoted everywhere else in biographies of his colleagues, tantalizing glimpses – but here, the full letters, all in one place. It’s a treasure trove. A very very complex man.
The Great Gatsby (2013; d. Baz Luhrmann)
Watched 3 times. Never written about it before. I think there’s a genius in it.
The Great Gatsby (1974; d. Jack Clayton)
Never written about it before. I DON’T think there’s a genius in this one.
Supernatural, Season 2, Episode 23, “All Hell Breaks Loose, Part II” (2007; d. Kim Manners)
Preparing for next re-cap. Season 2 finale!
The Great Gatsby (2013; d. Baz Luhrmann)
Watched again. Hmmm. I wonder if maybe … I might be working on something.
The 25th Hour (2002; d. Spike Lee)
What a brilliant film. A “9/11 film”. Filmed when New York City was still reeling from what had happened. Yes, all of America was reeling, but it was different for us here, with the smoke rising from downtown, and the dusty trucks roaring up and down the Avenues carrying debris away from the gigantic hole downtown. This movie isn’t about 9/11. But it feels like what New York felt like in those days … because it was filmed in those days. Brilliant performances too.
Supernatural, Season 11, Episode 23, “Alpha and Omega” (2016; d. Philip Sgriccia)
I forced myself to re-visit the disastrous last three episodes of the last season. It was even worse the second time, because I had critical distance and could actually attempt to examine how it all fell apart. It’s shocking, actually.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958; d. Richard Brooks)
I returned home after seeing the play done in the Berkshire Theatre Festival, and felt the desire to re-visit the film.
Advise and Consent (1962; d. Otto Preminger)
It’s been a long time. With our current presidential “campaign” (sorry, quotes are necessary in this case), the film – a wonderful and complex and honest look at the political process, and the compromises, and the cutthroat nature of it all – was a welcome tonic. Also, Charles Laughton’s final film.
Compulsion (1959; d. Richard Fleischer)
Watched 3 times. Hm. Maybe I might be … working on something? Dean Stockwell! Orson Welles! The Leopold and Loeb story. I love Stockwell’s intense wound-up-tight and yet fragile performance in this.
Supernatural, Season 11, Episode 21, “All In the Family” (2016; d. Thomas Wright)
WHAT have you done with SAM. Because I don’t know WHO that guy is. So tone-deaf. So unbelievably tone-deaf. The whole thing … Ack. No. I don’t care about ANY of those people and why are they clogging up the screen in the three final episodes? Makes no sense.
Supernatural, Season 11, Episode 13, “Love Hurts” (2016; d. Philip Sgriccia)
To refresh myself, I went back to one of the Season 11 episodes I love … but it just highlighted how much the season tumbled off the cliff as though a bridge collapsed at the last second. The final confession of Dean about “deepest desire” … how compelling and bizarre it all was … and how it came to …. nothing. Oh, hi Chuck. Why don’t you take over the whole damn series? Amara wants Dean so she can get to Chuck? Wow, what a cop-out.
Home Alone (1990; d. Chris Columbus)
My niece and nephew are obsessssssssed. Watched with them when I was home. I don’t think I’ve seen it since I first saw it in a movie theatre and was amazed at how I still knew practically every scene and dialogue. It was so much fun watching my niece and nephew watching it. They’re so cartoon-oriented. I guess most kids are – especially now. This – and Princess Bride, which I gave my niece for her birthday – are the only movies starring real live humans that have caught their attention.
Terriers all 13 episodes (2010)
Oh my God, I love this one-season series and I can’t thank Jessie enough for recommending it. It’s streaming on Netflix, just FYI. After seeing Michael Raymond-James as “Brick” in the production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in the Berkshires, I thought: “Man, I have to catch up on what else he’s done.” Yes, True Blood, AND he played Paul Revere in a TV movie or something like that, but then Jessie said her favorite M-R-J was Terriers. Raymond-James and Donal Logue star as unlicensed off-the-grid private investigators, living and working in Ocean Beach, a beach town near San Diego (I think? It felt a lot like Venice Beach.) There’s a season-long Arc about a shady real estate developer up to no good, and then there are one-off “cases” (like, neither of these guys have any business investigating cases, since they are not real PIs) … but it’s really about their relationship (as well as each guy’s relationship with the woman in his life). Really in-depth-full stuff, AND a beautiful example of a male friendship that is open, honest, and quite tender actually. Highly recommended. I watched it all in the space of 36 hours. I recommend Noel Murray’s wonderful re-caps on The A.V. Club as well as (and I can’t believe I’m saying this) the comments section. Everyone loves the series so much, and everyone has excellent observations.
The Legend of Tarzan (2016; d. David Yates)
Absolutely loved every second. Beautiful film. Epic and emotional. Good performances.
Little Men (2016; d. Ira Sachs)
Opens this Friday. Will be reviewing for Rogerebert.com. The follow-up to the extraordinary Love Is Strange (which I also reviewed for Rogerebert.com.)
Into the Spiral (2015; d. Konrad Aksinowicz)
Wonderful film. I moderated the QA with the two lead actors at a recent screening (its first in the US) at the Tribeca Film Center.
The Bachelorette, Season 12 in its entirety
I got hooked after reading one of Ali Barthwell’s laugh-out-loud funny re-caps on Vulture. One episode and I was hooked. Clearly. Finale next week. But I lost interest the second she sent Chase home. Oh, Jo Jo, no.
Disorder (2015; d. Alice Winocour)
Wow. Will be reviewing for Rogerebert.com so I won’t say anything else. It opens in 2 weeks. Directed by the co-writer for the amazing Mustang.
The Bachelor, Season 16 (2014)
Was recommended to me as peak reality TV especially Courtney. Courtney was a terrible human being (as quoted by my sister), and a great reality TV villain. Maybe the best. She wrote a book about it. Skipped around in this one. One of the most awkward kisses I’ve ever seen with one of the contestants. I almost turned it off. Poor girl. She seemed to think men like it when women take charge – and yes, they do on occasion – but not like THAT. She also kept saying to the camera, “I am prude.” No, honey. The phrase is: “I am A prude.” OR you could say “I am prudish.” Not “I am prude.”
The Bachelor, Season 18, (2014)
My friend Nate who dominated in the FB thread about these shows recommended Juan Pablo, due to the sheer craziness of it all. Juan Pablo is a DREADFUL person. Worst boyfriend ever. And you could SEE the women ignore their intuition and ignore the red flags, which was painful to watch, because most of us have been there. Andi calling him out on his bullshit was extremely satisfying.
The Bachelor, Season 20, (2015)
I got interested in Jo Jo’s journey as a contestant, because of course I did, so I skipped around in Season 20, watching her in action. I wanted to get a further line on her, what she seemed to want, etc. To try to understand why Robby – ROBBY – made it as far as he did. (And yes, people, I KNOW the whole thing is manufactured. I KNOW. But I find the whole thing entertaining as well as interesting in a sociological and practically anthropological and zoological way.)
— a bunkhouse for itinerant fruit-pickers in 1932
— a communal-living way station on our way to California as we fled the Dust Bowl
— a cult compound
— a house used for a non-Equity summer stock company
— something out of Grapes of Wrath (see above) …
— or the Waltons
— a house in a ghost story
— the Munster homestead
One late-night conversation:
“I feel like we’re in a John Steinbeck novel. Like we’re fleeing the Dust Bowl and stopped here for a night with 30 other families.”
“Right! Or there’s a girl with a prosthetic leg up there –” gesture at the raw bare ceiling. None of us except the speaker knew what this meant, or what it had to do with the Dust Bowl. Perhaps I hadn’t read Grapes of Wrath closely enough and had missed something? It also sounded literal, so we all glanced up, fearfully, half expecting to see a girl with a prosthetic leg dangling from the ceiling beams that we somehow had never noticed before.
“Wait. What?”
“Where is she?”
“You know that Flannery O’Connor story about the girl with the prosthetic leg who is lured to the barn by the Bible salesman, who then sexually assaults her and takes her leg?”
“Good Country People.”
“Yes!”
Long silence.
“I’m not sure what that has to do with John Steinbeck.”
An EXPLOSION of hilarity. It continues to this day.
“I honestly thought a girl with a prosthetic leg would be dangling from the ceiling.”
“I didn’t know what the hell you were talking about.”
“God, that was terrifying.”
“I thought – is a girl locked in an attic up there? Should we go get her out?”
“I feel like we’re in a cult compound in the middle of the Texas panhandle.”
It is enormous with hallways leading to off-hallways with beds crammed in every corner, and upstairs porches clearly built long after the house was built. Kind of tacked on. The ceilings are bare wooden beams, as are most of the walls. No insulation. It would be unlivable in the winter. It is filled with random objects. Everywhere. Glass bottles. Deer heads. Huge old victrolas. Calendars on the wall dating to the 19th century. Tables that fall over. Porch with rotting floorboards that gave way, alarmingly, when you stepped on them. Step-stools that fall apart if you touch them. On the second floor, one room had double doors that led to nowhere. Just the empty air over the porch. We had to block it off. Teeny miniature chairs. Doors leaning against the walls, unattached to anything. Someone removed that door in 1979 and has never touched it again. Post-It notes everywhere warning us to not open this, don’t touch that, please don’t go through here. Random metal bars criss-crossing the air over our beds. For curtains used to separate different immigrant groups on their way to greener pastures? (The jokes abounded on what those bars were for. “Maybe three or four families stayed in this room?” “Maybe it was part of the Underground Railroad?” “Maybe it was to separate the Russian immigrants from the Ukrainian immigrants?”) One of the bedrooms had an ancient collage on the wall of front-pages from newspapers dating to 1980, showing the election of Reagan and the return of the hostages from Iran. It was so alarming-looking that we hung stuff in front of it so we wouldn’t have nightmares. As huge as the house is, the kitchen was too small to hold more than two people at a time, and if you stood at the fridge, you blocked people’s exit/entrance. “Excuse me” was said every other second. On the fridge was a typed-out warning: “ENTER TREEHOUSE AT YOUR OWN RISK.” None of us ever found a treehouse on the property. No washer/drier. None of the clocks (digital and non-digital) worked. A fireplace with a Post-It on top: “Don’t use.” A woodstove with a Post-It: “Doesn’t work.” Double front doors with a Post-It on one door: “Only open this half of the door.” An actual ball-and-chain which we found lying in the middle of the living room floor when we walked in. An old-fashioned radio (we listened to the Red Sox games from that radio since the joint may have been overflowing with Post-It notes and bedrooms, but it did not have NESN.) A TINY TV screen, basically a computer on a random broke-down table. I watched the penultimate episode of The Bachelorette on that tiny screen. CHASE??! NO!!! NOOOOOOO. JO JO, HOW COULD YOU. It ruined my day. Most of the house was of the ramshackle-Munster-Waltons-Dust-Bowl variety, but then you turned a corner on the first floor and suddenly there was a living room right out of a suburb in Iowa, with a recliner, a little glass table, a proper and ladylike couch, and a rug on the floor. Nobody ever went in there. Out of all the crazy rooms in this house, that one was the creepiest.
None of this is meant as a complaint. The house was an ongoing source of comedy (and danger, and splinters). We all have great affection for it. Plus 10 steps down to our very own dock. Plus an in-tune piano. We all play so there was much music. And each other. All in the same place at the same time.
I think I watched the first season of The Bachelor, which was practically 20 years ago. Never kept up with it. A couple weeks ago, someone Tweeted a link to Ali Barthwell’s re-caps of The Bachelorette on Vulture, and I read one – having no idea what she was talking about or who any of these people were – and found myself in TEARS of laughter. (She is a funny funny writer.) So I thought, “Lemme check this out.” And here we are today. I’m up to speed on Season 12, and I am totally invested. I have my favorite, and it’s almost like the Super Bowl or the World Series is approaching, and the Red Sox and the Patriots will be competing. Like, maybe not THAT level of investment, but close. There is some other stuff going on in my life that is making this show seem intensely interesting to me – particularly now. I’m looking at it almost sociologically, or anthropologically. And so stuff is being churned up because of where I’m at, and I don’t say stuff like that to be coy, I say it to be honest but also to keep what is “in development” to myself because Boundaries. But that “other stuff” impacts how I watch this three-ring-circus. I don’t have a lot of free time, so when I choose to add something else to the mix – like watching this show – it’s because I want to. So I’ll leave my in-depth psychological response to what is happening on this show – or, the sheer CONCEPT of the show, and what that means to me right now – for another day, for maybe never.
In the meantime, I had a dream about my favorite bachelor. Like, this is the level I’ve reached. I almost never remember my dreams. So clearly I’m so into this damn thing that my subconscious tossed him up in front of my face as I slept. I decided to throw a post up on Facebook about it. 5 seconds after I posted it, people came SWARMING out of the woodworks to converse about the show. It was such a fun thread (and it’s still going on), with no condescending nitwits making comments like, “You do realize the show is edited, right?” No! REALLY??? I HAD NO IDEA THEY EDITED THIS FOOTAGE! WOW!
You would be wrong if you assumed that most people commenting on this thread were women. There were more men than women commenting. Gay men, straight men, the whole nine yards. Friends and family. And one TV writer. And of course myself. A broad spectrum. The person who is one of the most avid watchers below, giving me the low-down on fantasy suites and recommending past seasons, is a straight male. For the most part, I won’t differentiate between voices but you can probably tell where I am in this mix. There are some off-shoot conversations about different aspects. And then one-off comments I am still laughing about.
Thought I would share it all here.
My initial Facebook post
I am suddenly so into The Bachelorette Season 12 that I actually had a dream about one of the guys last night. We were boogie-boarding on Narragansett Beach. It was super fun, thanks so much for asking! Probably should be ashamed to admit – well – any of this, but I’m way past caring about stuff like that. My sister and I text off and on all day after each episode airs, sharing our impressions, and the texts are laugh-out-loud funny. “I feel like Derek is … pretty delusional at this point”, so far is my favorite. But I so rarely dream! And by “so rarely” I mean “never.” Maybe because my heart is a piece of coal? So to have my first dream in years star one of the freakin’ Bachelors on The Bachelorette – is sooooo funny to me. I mean, I want to go boogie-boarding with Alain Delon. Why hasn’t THAT happened? But, happy to report, it was my favorite bachelor in my dream. it wasn’t delusional Derek or terrifying AWESOME Chad (I miss Chad. He was awful but he was also so great.: “I mean, it was like having a bunch of Care Bears come up and confront me …. slightly.”) or dead-eyed shell-of-a-man Robbie or carefully-coiffed totally incoherent country-boy Luke or that weirdo from Vancouver who once tied a girl to a bed and chopped off a lock of her hair. It wasn’t any of those clowns. It was my favorite. I don’t believe in guilty pleasures, by the way. Pleasure is pleasure. Don’t knock any of it. Life is STINGY, man. Soak up pleasure where you can get it and feel no guilt about it. Well, if you get pleasure from doing shitty things to people/animals/the-environment, then yes, feel guilt. But when I find something entertaining or pleasurable, I don’t second-guess it. I love this show and I am finding the dynamic FA-SCI-NA-TING. I haven’t watched any of those Bachelor/Bachelorette shows in years – I’m way off the reality TV train – and now I’m so onboard that my mind has tossed up the image of my favorite bachelor hovering on an imaginary boogie-board. Life is good.
A hodgepodge of comments
“i think luke is innocuous but a total snooze.”
“robbie can kiss my ass. if he says he is the front runner one more time, i might send the fucker anthrax in the mail.”
“i might send fucking anthrax in the mail”
“i laughed as i wrote it. so 2001….”
“i suspect jordan is seeking fame out of the whole thing and if she ends up with him i doubt it will last.”
“i’m afraid she might turn away our favorite. boo on jo jo. it really is fascinating and it’s not all staged like so many people think. sure they edit the shit out of it but there is also a lot of authenticity there. i remember when i worked on the real world when i was at MTV and the cast members all said that there was a specific point where they adapted to the fishbowl situation and stopped thinking about the cameras. they all had some version of this same notion. that they forgot the cameras were there and i believe that. of course they don’t literally forget the cameras are there but they become desensitized to them and go about their lives as they otherwise would. it’s such a weird phenomenon. i’m sure many psych phd candidates have written their thesis about this. is it a book yet? if not, it needs to be and i would read it.” (These are all from my friend Allison. I have told her before that I think she needs to write a book about working on “The Real World”.)
“I thought she should have kept James around too. Robbie instead of James??”
“james was a peach!”
“I was also gunning for the hot boxing club owner. who barely got a chance. But jumped into the pool with his suit on and seemed like a good guy.”
“poor james. he probably would have been really good for her. but our favorite also seems very promising.”
“I feel like she and my favorite are actually ready right now to turn the cameras off and get started. Like, it feels super real and intense and all the rest. My fear is that that poor wounded-bird-HOT-MAN is going to get his heart fucking CRUSHED by this”
“I liked wells…he was my favorite but he probably weighed 92 pounds. i liked his attitude though….always trying to be the peace keeper. he seemed sweet but very unready for all this.”
“I loved his speech at the “funeral” for Chad.”
“I don’t remember his speech….but he stood out to me from the beginning and now i stalk him on instagram. he is a radio dj somewhere in tennessee and he partners with a local pet rescue organization, posting regular pictures with him and dogs looking for homes. so you know i’m a gonner on that.”
“Oh so he is just as awesome as he seems.”
“he grew up in california, i think. he’s doing that broadcaster thing where they slowly work themselves up to the biggest markets. just loved him though. i wish he could be the next bachelor. what was his speech at chad’s funeral?”
“He was holding up Chad’s protein powder – and he made a speech that incorporated a couple of Shakespearean phrases – all as James played a guitar in the background. It was so stupid and so funny.”
“hahaha! i don’t know how i missed that…..but the protein powder and shakespeare AND james taylor (!!) playing guitar?? that is so funny. is there irony in there somewhere? i feel like there is. i just googled this to no avail: ‘wells’ speech protein powder chad’s funeral the bachelorette jo jo'”
“i am DYING”
“i am laughing, too. i am cackling. as though you were in the room with me.”
“I think ‘jo jo’ tacked on at the end is what put it over the edge for me”
“there are people who will try to make you feel shallow for being interested in this shit. fuck them. i can NOT look away and i totally agree with the guilty pleasure thing. fuck that. i enjoy it so deal with it. and by the way in the past 5 years, so many of the couples have gotten married….it’s happening more often now than not so who says people can’t find love on a reality show. bah humbug. you must watch bachelor in paradise, which starts right after the bachelorette ends. it is a different kind of entertainment but riveting. i invited the couple (jade and tanner) who got married last season to present at hero dog awards last year and they were exactly the same people in person that they were on tv….no difference at all. that says a lot.”
“also, I’m actually learning a lot but I don’t want to talk about it in this forum. when next I see you. and we can look up Wells’ speech together. I actually feel like I AM Chase. That’s what the dream was really about and that’s why he showed up. but that’s getting too deep for this conversation.”
“let’s definitely break it down when we get together.” (Also Allison, who now works for the Hallmark Channel, hence the reference to “Hero Dog Awards.”)
“I think if you had to go boogie boarding with Chad that would be a nightmare, not a good dream!”
“I mean, for ME the choice is SO. CLEAR. But I’m feeling like Luke might be the one she picked? But my prediction is she’d be bored out of her mind with him within 7 months. WHAT would they talk about?”
“I have to say , though, that with the hometown dates, I did find my two least faves (robbie and luke) a little bit more endearing. I loved Robbie’s family!”
“I still love Jordan. I think he is a little love bug. I love his funky hair and his skinny jeans!”
“I really need to know WHY Aaron Rodgers doesn’t talk to his family.”
“Well…. If you must know, it’s because his girlfriend, Olivia Munn, spoke opening about their sex life on some late night tv show… That didn’t sit well with momma Rodgers…. So Aaron chose her over the family….. Or so say those of extreme importance over at E! News and ESPN….”
“this seems like a very small thing to just shut the whole family off over! i feel like there must be more. somebody needs to break this story WIDE OPEN!”
“I’m not going to even start with how invested I was in last night’s Coupled, a HORRIBLE Bachelor/Bachelorette rip-off on FOX that we’ve been watching this year. But if Alex doesn’t find happiness, I’m going to be very upset. In all honesty, I spoil Bachelor/Bachelorette for myself (but don’t tell Lauren), so I can then appreciate it as a glorious example of reality TV editing, seeing how they shape the narrative of the final four early on and how they edit in a way that points to the winner from the very beginning. It’s kind of fascinating.”
“It really is fascinating – the editing, especially. I’m now so into my one guy in the final four – that I went back to watch some of the earlier episodes – and I was actually seeing a lot of stuff going on between them in the background and in the periphery of group scenes – and like a delusional person, it gave me hope that she’ll choose the RIGHT guy, which is HIM. Like: foreshadowing in Week 1??”
“You can see the Final Four getting more screen time and narrative from the VERY first episode.”
“Yup. It’s the background stuff that fascinates me. Chase and Jo Jo went on that hot yoga date early on, right? Awkward, embarrassing, hot kissing, etc. A whole episode later – where Chase barely plays a part – they’re having a pool party. Everyone’s just hanging out and all the guys are there so there’s a lot of stuff going on in the background. The wonderfully entertaining Chad was bitching about how awful the rest of the guys are – and in the background – not even a “scene” – juts something happening over on the side – Chase and Jo Jo were trying one of their yoga poses and Chad points over at them making fun of them. It took me a couple of viewings to catch it. I was like, ‘Oh my God, they’re practicing what they learned two days ago.’ I love continuity like that – especially when it isn’t made a big deal of.”
“I’m also fascinated by the clearly ‘written’ or at least amplified storylines they give the final four – the one with the ex, the one with the brother problem, the one who can’t say I love you, etc. – and then how they return to them throughout the season, making them characters about whom you feel like you know when you really know almost nothing, but the repetition creates the impression of familiarity.”
“Right, and so it’s a relationship in microcosm. Stuff comes up – you have to deal with it. Some of those plot-points feel manipulated to me and others feel organic – some guys just are more shy than others, some guys are more emotional, or distant, or whatever. And there’s some behavior that cannot be faked. It’s why Robbie comes off as false to me, and Chase does not. in re: subplots, etc: this week’s ‘cliffhanger’ was whether or not Luke would say I love you. and Chase had the same issue, right? But Chase all along has been a guy who is VISIBLY uncomfortable talking about his feelings whereas Luke is verbose (yes, he only has about 50 words in his vocabulary, but still.) Luke is like, ‘You have all of my heart.’ ‘I see the future with you in it.’ He’s been saying that from day one, all as Chase seems actually full of real emotion but is unable to say it because he is afraid. Like I say, some behavior cannot be faked. So the whole ‘cliffhanger’ of Luke not saying the magic words ‘I have fallen in love with you’ and that’s why he’s on the chopping block … I didn’t buy it – I get it, they need to SOMEHOW knock Luke back a peg! They need to give Luke SOME problems so people stay at least interested in him. I’m bored out of my mind by him at this point.”(This is a conversation with Brian Tallerico, managing editor of Rogerebert.com.)
“I really have no idea how it’s going to go.”
“To me, he seems like the real-lest guy. In that he has all these problems expressing himself – and it feels HONEST – whereas Robbie is like “The stars twinkle like your eyes, my darling, and my heart is filled with fairy-tale love, Jo Jo My Darling” and I’m like, are you for REAL, Mr. Man with the dead eyes?”
“Robbie is a creepy, over-manicured Ken Doll Man.”
“(I just want to poke my head in here and say you guys are cracking me up. Carry on with your conversation but it’s kind of making my night right now, and I’ve not seen one episode)”
“On a very shallow note, I just don’t find him attractive. He is too coiffed.”
“And I don’t enjoy the profile of his nose. There. I said it.”
“I think JoJo is right to be nervous about a guy that ended a four year relationship 3 months before!”
“Oh, Hope will definitely rise again.”
“i hear this in a voice over voice.”
“accompanied by crack of thunder”
“i mean, the way this show works–i wouldn’t be surprised if they gave her a plane ticket, and a map to the house so that she could supposedly “show up unexpectedly” in one of the final episodes. i’d love every second of it”
“I NEED to see Hope.”
“the double entendres with her name are worth it for the appearance alone! “Hope is gone.” “I didn’t ever think I’d see Hope again.” “Hope is the worst.””
“and it’s my cat’s name so it makes me feel really weird to say it. When my cat was lost for 3 days, I wandered around the neighborhood shouting “HOPE! HOPE! HOPE!” – which is so hilarious in retrospect. Like I was “hope”-less and trying to rectify it.”
“I think Luke is nice, and I think he’s on the level, unlike Robbie, and I appreciate how he served his country and us – AND when his Dad choked up, I thought my head would explode – but … besides hot/steamy/hands-on-thighs chemistry …. what is there between them? Does he have ANY words in his vocabulary other than, ‘You have all of my heart’??”
“I’ve thought from the beginning that it was Jordan. And I didn’t love this. I don’t *hate* Jordan. But there’s something fishy about him.”
“I think Jordan would be a good friends-with-benefits guy. Not necessarily what she wants though. I am currently so invested in Chase finding happiness that it’s taking up 80% of my brain space.”
“now i’m thinking of the sad P.A whose job it is to make a big heart road in a field.”
“In scorching Texas heat.”
“He’s like, “I got a BFA in theatre for this shit?!””
“i think she’ll still send Luke home. it’s a classic Bach moment to have him finally say he loves her and then send him home in the next moment. it’s like….. too little, too late pal! and i think she picks Jordan in the end and i think it doesn’t last. she probably should pick Chase. but i think she feels this sexy connection with Jordan. and even though everything is telling her there’s something wrong, she can’t resist her urge to discount doublecheck his brains out!”
“what the hell with keeping Robbie on. Is it just good television? I don’t feel the vibe and I think she seems a little … I don’t know – it’s AWKWARD between them. He says all these flowery words – unconnected to anything – and she just sits there. Robbie is definitely gonna bite it, big time. Chase, though, honestly, seems just like a regular guy – who has flaws, knows them, and is trying to be better because he wants it to work out. In other words: RECOGNIZABLE HUMAN BEHAVIOR. I don’t get the Robbie thing!”
“then again, if she is smart. she will fantasy suite every single dude she wants to sleep with, get it out of her system. and then go with the guy that will be the best in the long run!”
“well, who they all are in bed – what they’re like – would be incredibly revealing but I’m not familiar with the show – do they ever discuss “well, he was wonderful in bed” or “that didn’t go well” – probably not, right? I think Robbie is awful in bed, Jordan is fun, Luke is a sensuous snooze, and Chase is a tiger.”
“when it is down to just two choices left (i.e. if say, she chooses chase and jordan and they are the last two left standing)–they each have an night with her in the “fantasy suite”. No cameras allowed. So we just hear about it in euphemisms afterwards.”
“I literally cannot wait for this. I need to get a life. Euphemism! Is it always complimentary euphemisms? Or is there ever anything said like, “I don’t know if we clicked” etc.”
“actually sometimes they fantasy suite THREE! which is amazing. but they don’t often ask all three to the fantasy suite.”
“the bachelor or bachelorette will snub someone and not give them the card?”
“in recent seasons, some great things have happened in the fantasy suite. most often, someone having sex with someone then dogging them. like with andie and juan pablo.”
“CLEARLY according to the preview SOMEONE is going to be totally unmasked. and we only saw his shoulder. He was very tall. Jordan’s tall, right? Chase seems tall and Luke does not – but I just couldn’t tell from the glimpse of shoulder I saw – I’m guessing Robbie or Jordan. what the hell would Chase have to hide? He literally bursts into tears when he sees his mother.”
“when i first started, i think it was with Emily the mom. she didn’t even use the fantasy suites because she didn’t want to send the wrong message. but then i heard later through some people close to the show that she still slept with peeps just not then so she could still appear mom like. but more recently, girls and guys alike they go for it! which i think is natural and why not?”
“I totally would are you kidding me?”
“what’s fun is…. they used to just use these euphemisms. and say like they wanted to spend more time and “talk”. which you knew just meant let’s screw. but then in the season with ben and claire, she basically said on camera that they had sex in the ocean and then he kind of slut shamed her afterwards. so the recent trend is to kiss and tell. which makes for glorious trashy reality tv!”
“I definitely hope there will be kissing and telling.”
“i think the most dastardly but reality pitch perfect move was last season where the dude said he loved both girls TO THEIR FACE(which is almost verboten, most bach’s don’t say how they feel to preserve suspense) so after that, you knew he could with a straight face ask both girls to the fantasy suite.”
“none of these guys seem like kiss and tell types. Chad definitely would have kissed and told.”
“if Chad has a chance to go back to the “buffet” more than once, you know he will!”
“yes. I loved Andi for that reason. She was so blunt. “you didn’t ask one question about me. You have no idea where I’m from, what religion I am or what I like.” She handed him his ass on a platter”
“If I were to watch another season of Bachelorette, which one should I pick?”
“I mean, near and dear to me are the Ben season(so many Bens) but the one of Ben and Courtney. That was the first season I watched. Courtney is such a great villain. And then I think Juan Pablo season. Just for pure silliness. There are other seasons that perhaps are better for more romance. But those two really did it for me for stupid reality trashiness! Plus in JP’s season you get to meet Tierra. Who is an amazing reality character. Bache seasons are good too. But I enjoy the crazy women more than the crazy men.”
“In my humble opinion – the power dynamic is better when the woman chooses the man – as opposed to a man choosing from his harem – but granted I haven’t seen much. It must be so DIFFERENT with 25 girls in the house!! – although this season the guys were acting like they were in high school too, gossiping about Chad, forming cliques, etc. I do like the villains – I find them very entertaining”
“well, you’ll have to try both and see! my deal is—i think the men tend to blend into each other a lot. they just don’t stand out. the women tend to. and they find a way to have problems with each other. this is a good season for the men having problems with each other. most seasons, they don’t. like there’s one villain but then… that’s it. i like the conflict. except for the “all the right reasons” crap. i mean, NO ONE is there for the right reasons. because, there is no right reason to be there. it’s a stupid idea, to find love on a game show. but it’s fun to watch!”
“Courtney was and probably remains to be a terrible human being. But fascinating for television! I also loved the last bachelor. That might have been my fave Ben is adorable and so funny and you get why every girl would want to date him. And leaving Olivia on an island was the funniest, most karmic thing”
“As ususally, I am utterly on your train … even in regard to missing Chad. I miss Wells!”
“Chad was the best. ‘I think Chad is just here for the free food.’ Cut to Chad eating with turkey falling out of his mouth. And I think Evan actually had that coming. The stand-up about steroid use was over the line. I mean, whatever, he ripped your shirt, but stop acting like it was an Armani shirt. It was a T-shirt. Move the fuck on.”
“I love when they go off the standard script – Chad had that in spades. I recall an especially great Bachelorette season when many of the bachelors just started leaving the show because they didn’t like her. It was like three in one episode. Brilliant.”
“For some reason I loved when Chad went on his meat eating binge.”
“So so so funny.”
“We all crave a caveman now and then.”
“During the rose ceremony!! He still was eating during the rose ceremony!”
“And it was fucking lunch meat! Slices of smoked ham from Stop & Shop. Probably Ralph’s since we’re in LA”
“he literally is a meathead.”
“Whistling as he walked through the woods after he was sent home. member when Evan got the first bloody nose of many when diving into the pool – and later Chad was pointing out all his competition, saying contemptuously that none of them were as good as him. Shot of Evan, Chad saying: ‘We have a weeping bleeding man over here …’ I mean, the guy could be funny.”
“To repeat – I miss Chad.”
“I can confirm for the record that your heart is not a lump of coal. It is the absolute opposite. It is the hope diamond. It is a bolt of lightning on a deserted beach. It is cracking brain waves and shimmering talent. I know this. I saw the x-ray.”
“I want to print this comment out.”
“and what about Alex in his gaucho outfit?”
“He was a clueless man. To the tune of ‘fat guy in a little coat’: short guy in a pair of gauchos / short guy In a pair of gauchossss”
“When she said, ‘You are such a cute little gaucho’ I knew Alex was toast.”
“People, if I weren’t afraid of seeming like a creep, I would like every comment of this conversation. You are awesome.”
“thank you for that image of Alain Delon boogie boarding”
“I need him to do this. You KNOW he could pull it off!! With cigarette dangling.”
“and fedora”
“pistol tucked in his swim shorts.”
“I know nothing about any of this show, nor 99% of anyone on this thread, yet now feel compelled to invite every single one of you to come sit on my deck and have a season finale party.”
“Luke looks like Billy Crudup. It didn’t occur to me till now.”
“With very tall hair. I continue to believe that Jo Jo would be bored out of her mind with him in 6 months flat. He seems very nice, though. Pretty genuine. Unlike Robbie who seems empty as a man. Don’t believe a word he says to her!”
“Don’t hate me for weighing in without reading this entire thread, but that Robbie just creeps, man. He reminds me of Will Forte and I have an inexplicable red ass for Will Forte. Chase is my favorite at this point but it took me a while to distinguish him looks-wise from Jordan, who, duh, is just a playah. All the guys this season seem like they came from the same Ken doll factory. And Luke with your last-minute, hope it saves my ass declaration of love! I spit on your high stupid hair!”
“Chase was the one in my dream! Not only is he my favorite – but I’m having a rather profound response to him that has nothing to do with attraction and I actually have been trying to write about it because it’s so bizarre and tapping into something rather deep. I think it’s that I see myself in him – which … how? why? I just did a mini re-watch of some of the one on one dates and Robbie … I don’t get what she sees in him. It seems to be that Jo Jo, like a lot of women, believes in the power of words. If he SAYS the right thing, if he SAYS what I want to hear, then that means it MUST be in his heart. She’s young. She’ll get over THAT hopefully. I like Jordan – especially in his interviews – where he comes off honest – and I also like him in group settings where the focus isn’t on him. He seems smart and funny. But not ready for marriage at ALL. Luke? He’s another one where he seems much more funny and smart when he’s hanging out with the other guys than when he’s with Jo Jo. This is clearly a matter of editing – but still – I don’t get playful or funny at ALL from Luke. So who knows. Something BIG is coming. Some huge teary-eyed betrayal in Thailand and I can’t wait!! For me, Chase is the only clear choice.”
I love Mike Birbiglia. I’ve seen his standup act and adore him. I love Sleepwalk With Me. His latest, Don’t Think Twice, is amazing. Making a film like this – and making it good – is NOT easy. Creating a multi-million-dollar blockbuster filled with CGI is a far easier project than making something like Don’t Think Twice. I enjoyed every second of it.
(This is a humorous side note but this guy makes a cameo appearance. Not in the film, but in my review. Listen, it had to be brought up. I know that whole environment so well. If he runs across that review – as I am sure he will since it’s a movie about his whole world – a movie that opens with a couple of quotes and anecdotes about his own personal mentor, the improv guru Del Close – he will see his name and go, “What the hell. Worlds collide.” Whoda thunk that those two crazy kids crawling through windows in the dead of night and soldiering through dangerously high fevers to see each other, would ever make it to where they are now? The movie brought up so many memories. It understands that world so so well.)
Don’t Think Twice is one of my favorite movies of the year.
, the third of Mark Danielewski’s series, which I cannot put down. Volume 4 is supposed to come out in Winter 2017. I dread the wait. The book is eerie, complex and, in typical Mark D. style, sometimes you have to turn it upside down to follow the print and sometimes you honestly need a magnifying glass. It’s a multi-voiced book, with narration switching off. Who knew that an 11-year-old girl getting a cat could spawn three volumes (so far)? (But consider the title. And consider cats.) MD is a hell of a writer and a hell of a mimic. The voice of the Los Angeles gang member/drug dealer, the voice of the addict in Singapore, the voice of the troubled PhD candidate, the voice of the tough LA cop of Turkish origin, the voice of the 11-year-old girl … all of them distinct (each with their own font), and all of them pushing the story along. I’m sure he drives some people crazy as a writer but I find him fascinating as well as totally sincere (the font-changing and upside-down-writing and all the rest – present in his other books too – are not just clever tics, or gimmicks: This is how his brain works.) The Familiar doesn’t hold a candle to his 
– but then again, what does? The Familiar, so far, is a gigantic accomplishment. Each volume is about 700, 800 pages long. But they zip by (also considering the fact that he uses all of these different fonts, and sometimes there are only one or two words on a page.) He’s so inventive. Seriously, it’s intimidating. 
. I don’t want it to end. I feel like I have been waiting for this collection to be published since I was in middle-school and first watched East of Eden. He – more than anyone else – was my “way in.” Being introduced to him – and his films – have helped make me the person I am today. I made CHOICES in my life, and followed a certain path, beCAUSE I was exposed to his work. Hell, I ended up at the Actors Studio, which he helped start. And – full circle – I still can’t believe it happened – I got to meet him one snowy night at the premiere of an Actors Studio production of Awake and Sing where I was the stage manager, and general helpmeet and line-runner for Anne Jackson. (Incidentally, Elia Kazan used to be the stage manager for the earliest Group Theatre productions in the 1930s, as well as acting – most historically in Waiting for Lefty where his final shout to the audience “STRIKE!” almost literally brought the house – and balcony – down.) I met him right after he won the Lifetime Achievement Oscar and all of those idiotic actors who were soooo morally superior – who I am SURE would have behaved IMPECCABLY during the McCarthy hearings! – refused to stand up for him. Good for Robert De Niro and Al Pacino for ushering him onto the stage. And good for Meryl Streep for standing in the midst of her scowling cohorts. So then, at our premiere of Awake and Sing – Clifford Odets’ Depression-era play – put on by the Group Theatre in the 1930s – with Elia Kazan backstage helping out, just as I was backstage helping out (the coincidences were too much for my brain to handle) – he showed up. 
