Bah! Too much work! A family wedding! I want to participate on my own blog – lol – but haven’t been able to find the time this past week. I’ll try to catch up with everyone this weekend. Eager to hear everyone’s thoughts.
I’m super proud to be included in the soon-to-be-published anthology of writings that have appeared on Oscilloscope Laboratories wonderful blog MUSINGS. My piece will be included in Volume 2. When Scott Tobias reached out to me for pitches, I thought “what the hell” and told him, “I’ve always wanted to write about the connections between Sucker Punch and Gold Diggers of 1933. The subject had been percolating and obsessing me for YEARS. Tobias said, bless him: “Well, you know I want to read THAT one.” I’m really proud of the piece, and so happy it’s been picked for the anthology.
Pre-order both volumes – they’ll ship on November 19th. The author list is a murderer’s row of talent, and I’m honored to be included.
My talented brother Brendan O’Malley is an amazing writer and actor. He’s wonderful in the recent You & Me, directed by Alexander Baack. (I interviewed Baack about the film here.) His most recent gig was story editor/writer on the hit series Survivor’s Remorse. Brendan hasn’t blogged in years, but the “content” (dreaded word) is so good I asked if I could import some of it to my blog. He did series on books he loved, and albums he loved. I thought it would be fun to put up some of the stuff here. So we’ll start with his list of 50 Best Albums. I’ll put up one every Monday.
Brendan’s list of 50 Best Albums is part music-critique and part memoir and part cultural snapshot.
I have always loved these essays, because I love to hear my brother talk. I am happy to share them with you!
50 Best Albums, by Brendan O’Malley
11. The Z-Digs – Scared Crows
A boy watches his father die. He is the youngest of many children and yet he is already somehow the head of the household. He is an odd mix of achiever and artist. His wanderlust led him to the Peace Corps. During his time in Guinea Bissau he happened to read The English Patient. Now, 15 years later, after a world-traveling circuitous path, he works for the United Nations helping nations deal with unexploded land mines. If this trajectory were all you paid attention to you would have a lot to unearth.
But there is another side to his story.
In high school he was the wild-card guitar player in Fecund Youth. Seemingly from the instant he picked the instrument up he was a lead guitar player. Not everyone has this impulse. I have played guitar now for 20 years and it is still difficult for me to “solo”. Justin Brady was soloing almost before he knew how to play the damn thing. That’s probably why he’s so good.
He and I wrote a couple songs in high school, a couple good ones, actually, but he was definitely the George Harrison of our band. He came late and his creativity was not the focal point. He got to college and started his own band where he did most of the writing, music and lyrics. I was shocked (and am still shocked) that he chose a fraternity brother of his to be the singer. I wasn’t even considered! Can you imagine? Sure I had no time because I was in 8,000 plays every semester and sure he was a member of the fraternity and I wasn’t, but still…shocked I tell you. Shocked.
The Mag 7 was a very good band. But Justin still hadn’t taken that final step. Once he bought a 4-track recorder it was only a matter of time. He began singing his own material. And that’s when shit went crazy.
It is impossible to describe Justin’s voice. In all honesty, it shouldn’t work. It’s like Neil Young. I still wonder whether Neil can sing or not. Justin is the same way. But the authenticity of that voice paired with the idiosyncratic nature of his songs brought his aesthetic out of hiding. The songs didn’t have the same impact with someone else singing the melody.
Little by little he built an album. Most of these songs I’d heard at one time or another. Justin and I would have long bouts of creativity where we wrote, sang, improvised, joked, laughed, you name it. Then a few weeks would go by where I didn’t see him and he’d play me what he’d recorded. Often I’d recognize some snippet that he’d come up with on the spot out on the turf farm next to his house or in the backyard down by the river.
At some point I expect Justin to make this music available to the public at large.
I include this album on this list for sentimental reasons, yes. He is my best friend. This album probably spurred my songwriting more than any other because it was a direct influence: my friend wrote it. But make no mistake. These are great songs. The production is intricate and balanced even though it is home-made. The emotional scope is vast and I defy anyone to remain unmoved when they hear “Luka Blooms”, the imagined words of a dead father sent back to give his son what he needs.
So, yeah, Justin has saved countless actual lives with the work he has done at the United Nations. That is important. But before he ever became a modern-day superhero he had already recorded one hell of a debut album.
For my next “Present Tense” column at Film Comment, I interviewed director Brett Hanover about his film Rukus, which we awarded Best Feature in the “Hometowners” category at Indie Memphis last year. A documentary-narrative hybrid, Rukus is a coming-of-age story, which starts with an entryway into the subculture of “furries,” which then leads into other diverse art subcultures in Memphis (where Hanover is from), and the film looks at all kinds of issues like intimacy, trauma, sex, art. I love the film so much and am so glad point people towards seeing it, and was thrilled to get a chance to talk with Brett about it. Here is our conversation.
He’s releasing it online for free (I asked him about that choice in our interview). You can view it here.
My talented brother Brendan O’Malley is an amazing writer and actor. He’s wonderful in the recent You & Me, directed by Alexander Baack. (I interviewed Baack about the film here.) His most recent gig was story editor/writer on the hit series Survivor’s Remorse. Brendan hasn’t blogged in years, but the “content” (dreaded word) is so good I asked if I could import some of it to my blog. He did series on books he loved, and albums he loved. I thought it would be fun to put up some of the stuff here. So we’ll start with his list of 50 Best Albums. I’ll put up one every Monday.
Brendan’s list of 50 Best Albums is part music-critique and part memoir and part cultural snapshot.
I have always loved these essays, because I love to hear my brother talk. I am happy to share them with you!
50 Best Albums, by Brendan O’Malley
12. Public Enemy – Yo! Bum Rush The Show!
In 1986 the blackest music I had in my collection was Prince, and as we all know he hails from Planet Purple. I listened to angry music made by young white suburban males. And show tunes. What can I say, I was confused.
I spent an awful lot of time flipping through album covers at Ritchie’s House of Bargains and Looney Tunes, the only local record stores. I come from Rhode Island, supposedly a bastion of the liberal northeast, but if you’d observed the stacks of Ritchie’s House of Bargains you’d have thought there needed to be a sit-in.
If 5 black people and 5 white people were in the store at the same time they could browse and never cross paths. It is similar today in that music has fragmented to such a degree, but the divisions then were startling.
One day I was in the store and it was empty. Now I remind you that I listened to nothing but punk rock at this point. I had disowned Prince briefly. Rap was a burgeoning force but I dismissed it as bubble-gum and silly and not creative enough. They aren’t playing instruments? That ain’t music. Drum machines? That ain’t music. No singing? That ain’t music.
For some reason, on this particular day, these prejudices were not sufficient enough to keep me from flipping through the rap section. I must have been curious enough to eschew my regular post, waiting for the latest Neutral Nation, 7 Seconds, Descendents, Circle Jerks, Meatmen, Dead Kennedys or Verbal Assault record to appear in the stacks.
So there I flip. My contact with rap had been limited to Run D.M.C., The Beastie Boys, The Sugarhill Gang, and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. “The Message” had caused a sensation when I was in sixth grade but I wasn’t really plugged in to popular music at the time. (See above reference to show tunes…ahem.)
Then an album cover leaped out at me. A bare light bulb glares directly into the lens. 7 young black men dressed in vaguely military gear gather around a turntable. The vibe is that of a group preparing for battle.
And their name was Public Enemy. Now I came from the punk world with band names like Social Distortion, Corrosion of Conformity, Youth Brigade, etc. But Public Enemy? Before I even heard a note I knew that this was way more punk rock than anything I was listening to. Even if I didn’t like the music I connected to the attitude.
I spent some of my hard-earned money. I worked weekends at Belmont Fruit occasionally and over vacations. Anything I wanted I had to buy on my own. There was one copy of the album in the store.
I got it home and put it on. In punk rock, the bare-bones production allowed the emotional content to be completely direct, unencumbered by studio polish or even songwriting craft. Much the same can be said for Yo! Bum Rush The Show!. I became quite a Public Enemy fan and when you compare this album to their later greats there is a vast difference. There are no bells no whistles, all force and beat.
What I liked (and like) about it is that you can hear the determination behind the sound. We only have this drum machine? We can only record for a short period of time due to finances? Don’t matter. What we have to say is all that matters. You could play a metronome behind Chuck D and it would be compelling.
The instant his voice bangs out in the opening songs, “You’re Gonna Get Yours” it is clear that this is no mere front-man, no mere performer.
He is incapable of a song that isn’t politically charged and historic in significance.
Even something that seems like a sexist rant against a “Sophisticated Bitch” is rife with the implication that a weak personality in a black woman has social ramifications unlike those for a white woman. Incredibly challenging and difficult material.
Basically I flipped my lid. And wouldn’t you know it? A few of my punk rock compadres showed their true colors (pun intended) in their reaction to the mere possibility of putting these black punks up against the white punks they so revered.
Much like many of the choices I highlight here, there are many caveats. I don’t even feel that this is the best pure Public Enemy album. That honor for me would go to Apocalypse ’91: The Enemy Strikes Black. But I will never forget the thrill I got when those manufactured beats came roaring out of my shitty little speakers.
Public Enemy. Just take a second to say the name stripped of your previous knowledge. PUBLIC ENEMY # 1.
I never looked at the world the same way after hearing that album for the first time. How many works of art can say they affected ANYBODY that way? Let alone the millions Public Enemy reached.
One of Groucho Marx’s letters to Peter Lorre, having to do with Ulysses that makes me so happy. Peter Lorre, sending Groucho a book explaining James Joyce’s Ulysses?? This makes me feel that the world is a place that not only makes sense but is filled with magic.
October 5, 1961
Dear Peter:
It was very thoughtful of you to send me a book explaining James Joyce’s “Ulysses”. All I need now is another book explaining this study by Stuart Gilbert who, if memory serves, painted the celebrated picture of George Washington which hangs in the Metropolitan Museum. I realize that there is some two hundred years’ difference in their ages, but any man who can explain Joyce must be very old and very wise.
You disappeared rather mysteriously the other night, but I attribute this to your life of crime in the movies.
Best to you both.
Regards,
Groucho
Groucho and T.S. Eliot exchanged many letters, believe it or not. They were mutual admirers, pen pals, they sent one another pictures of themselves.
T.S. Eliot wrote to Groucho:
26th April, 1961
Dear Groucho Marx,
This is to let you know that your portrait has arrived and has given me great joy and will soon appear in its frame on my wall with other famous friends such as W.B. Yeats and Paul Valery. Whether you really want a photograph of me or whether you merely asked for it out of politeness, you are going to get one anyway. I am ordering a copy of one of my better ones and I shall certainly inscribe it with my gratitude and assurance and admiration. You will have learned that you are my most coveted pin-up. I shall be happy to occupy a much humbler place in your collection.
And incidentally, if and when you and Mrs. Marx are in London, my wife and I hope that you will dine with us.
Yours very sincerely,
T.S. Eliot
P.S. I like cigars too but there isn’t any cigar in my portrait either.
In 1963, Marx heard that Eliot had been ill. He dashed off this note.
January 25, 1963
Dear Mr. Eliot:
I read in the current Time Magazine that you are ill. I just want you to know that I am rooting for your quick recovery. First because of your contributions to literature and, then, the fact that under the most trying conditions you never stopped smoking cigars.
Hurry up and get well.
Regards,
Groucho Marx
On June 3, 1964, Eliot wrote a letter to Groucho, saying:
The picture of you in the newspaper saying that, amongst other reasons, you have come to London to see me has greatly enhanced my credit line in the neighborhood, and particularly with the greengrocer across the street.
Groucho also corresponded quite a bit with E.B. White. Here’s one of those letters:
April 5, 1954.
Dear Mr. White,
I received your note. I am now willing to concede that you are a fairly migratory gent. When I arrived in New York I was told you were in Florida. When I called you again they said you were in Maine.
I went to New York ostensibly to do the Rodgers and Hammerstein festival. Actually I came to New York to cut up some touches with the author of “Charlotte’s Web.”
Some years ago I had a dinner date with you and Ross. He showed up but you failed to appear. It’s strange–I have no difficulty meeting Nick Kenny, Toots Shor, and other minor luminaries in New York, but you have adopted the mantle of Garbo and to me you are just a wraithlike figure who lives suspended in a spirit world.
Sincerely yours,
Groucho Marx
Here is White’s reply:
April 12, 1954.
Dear Mr. Marx,
Before our correspondence attains the intensity of the Shaw-Terry letters, I want to explain my suspension in the spirit world–which is sometimes misinterpreted. Ross had a theory that if he could throw me with a better class of people, I might be more productive. (Ross entertained some incredibly unsound ideas and at great cost to himself.)
At any rate, once in a while he would pry me loose, and on the whole they were miserable experiences for the person who got involved. I think of an evening when he attempted to throw me with Ginger Rogers and we all went down to Chinatown for a debauch that should live forever in Miss Rogers’ memory as an example of midnight stagnation. (Another Ross illusion was that he understood Chinese food.)
It is nice here in the spirit world and if you get here I would like to buy you a drink. Garbo is here. We maintain separate residences, for appearances’ sake.
We had an idea of doing a Marx Brothers picture set against the background of the United Nations. They were the four representatives of a republic. And that is always good, because the Marx Brothers were at their best against a very serious, pompous background. They were very good in A Night at the Opera because it’s very pompous, the opera. They were also quite good at the race track in Day at the Races. But other things they did, they were not so good because there was nothing good to poke at. I wanted to do a Marx Brothers picture, but then Chico died, and Harpo was very, very unstable. But Groucho was a genius, absolutely a fabulous, fabulous man. They were at Metro. The movie would have been a combination of at least six of their top stars of the early sixties. Zeppo was the leading man. Zeppo as lead was incredible, absolutely incredible. When you went to see A Night at the Opera, you were not disappointed. Thalberg was very smart, you know, because he treated it like a serious picture.
A legendary Marx Brothers scene from A Night at the Opera:
Groucho Marx told the following story to Roger Ebert, in 1972:
I knew [W.C.] Fields well. He used to sit in the bushes in front of his house with a BB gun and shoot at people. Today he’d probably be arrested. He invited me over to his house. He had a girlfriend there. I think her name was Carlotta Monti. Car-lot-ta MON-ti! That’s the kind of a name a girl of Fields would have. He had a ladder leading up to his attic. Without exaggeration, there was $50,000 in liquor up there. Crated up like a wharf. I’m standing there and Fields is standing there, and nobody says anything. The silence is oppressive. Finally he speaks: “This will carry me 25 years.”
It was my boyfriend in high school who introduced me to The Marx Brothers. (Boyfriend was a couple years out of h.s.) I would walk over to his house during study periods or lunch hours and he’d pop in battered VHS tapes of every Marx Brothers movie, and show them to me. He knew every line, every joke, every bit by heart. He’d have to hold himself back from explaining why something was funny, backstage stories, etc. He wanted me to experience the brilliance afresh. I did. This same boyfriend also introduced me to Mae West, W.C. Fields, silent film, the works. We would go to little film-noir festivals on the local university campus. That’s how I saw Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, The Big Heat, Maltese Falcon. I had already discovered James Dean, the 1950s, Montgomery Clift, Elia Kazan. But it was that first boyfriend who brought me back further, to Hollywood’s earliest days.
I am not at all surprised that that old boyfriend of mine, my senior prom date, would end up writing two books (so far) about that era of Hollywood: No Applause–Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous and Chain of Fools – Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to YouTube. We lost track of one another for years and we’re friends again and it’s great. I think of my 17-year-old self, watching Night at the Opera or Duck Soup, with my 20-year-old guy sitting next to me, stopping the VCR tape to explain some bit to me, and then rewinding it so we could watch it again. It’s beautiful that his obsession would, indeed, become his life’s work. I love it when life works out like that. Thanks, Trav. Huge contribution to my life!
In 1969, Groucho appeared on The Dick Cavett show (he had been on it a bunch, actually), and the episode is famous. Well worth watching. Brilliant lunacy.
As Dick Cavett said, Groucho was not just an actor. He was an American institution.
I know I haven’t really written on it, but my pal R. Kurt Osenlund interviewed me about it for a gigantic piece he was writing for Playboy. It’s a doozy of an article. I talked mostly about the “controversy” about Margot Robbie not having as many lines as her co-stars. There are not enough eyerolls in the world. This is one of the many reasons why there needs to be more writers who actually understand acting writing about film.
. 
, Billy Wilder told Cameron Crowe:
and 
. We lost track of one another for years and we’re friends again and it’s great. I think of my 17-year-old self, watching Night at the Opera or Duck Soup, with my 20-year-old guy sitting next to me, stopping the VCR tape to explain some bit to me, and then rewinding it so we could watch it again. It’s beautiful that his obsession would, indeed, become his life’s work. I love it when life works out like that. Thanks, Trav. Huge contribution to my life!
