Mixed feelings. Thought “Unexpected Journey” was an unnecessarily elongated prologue, loved “Desolation of Smaug” (review here), and the final installment feels like a long-drawn-out closing paragraph. Should have been done in one film. Could have been done in one film. Still, there are some very strong sequences. And any review where I can mention John Keegan (think this is the first one) is a good thing.
My review of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is now up at Rogerebert.com.
On the essays shelf (yes, there are still more books to excerpt in my vast library. I can’t seem to stop this excerpts-from-my-library project. I started it in 2006!)
NEXT BOOK: Once More Around the Park: A Baseball Reader
This is what I’m talking about! The minutia of technique! “The Arms Talks” is yet another of Roger Angell’s massive essays about one of his favorite topics: baseball pitchers. To re-cap (and I am sure there are more, these are just the essays in the collections I own):
“Distance”, about Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson.
“On the Ball”, about pitching, in general
“Gone for Good”, a haunting profile of Pirates pitcher Steve Blass who one day, seemingly overnight, forgot how to pitch.
“The Web of the Game”, not just about pitching, but includes a portrait of legendary pitcher Smoky Joe Wood
Angell couldn’t get enough. And when pitchers talk … it’s almost like they deepen the mystery of what they do. A really great pitcher knows why he does everything that he does (what pitch to choose and when), but it’s still so above and beyond what any mere mortal could even attempt … that they sound like superheroes when they talk. (This isn’t about a pitcher, but I am reminded of Ted Williams’ almost casual comment that he saw fastballs coming at him in slow-motion. His depth perception and hand-eye stuff was on some supernatural level, and so a 95 mph fastball appeared slow to him so he was able to hit it. You know, some things cannot be adequately explained.) Pitchers are the same way. I love listening to pitchers talk too, about how they do what they do, and so the pitcher essays from Angell are a delight. Because he talks to as many pitchers as he can find. They are perhaps not as chatty as catchers (Angell found that catchers, used to being underestimated or taken for granted, were DYING to talk to him about how they do what they do), and there’s a lonely isolation to the pitcher position that is not shared by other fielders. A pitcher is a unique and solitary figure.
Written in 1986, Mets-fan Roger Angell was still living on the high of the 1986 World Series, and his way of coping with that (and the inevitable let-down) by obsessing on the split-finger fastball, and what it had done to the game. Or, that’s part of it. He writes about the dominance of pitchers, the Golden Age of pitchers, which was so extreme that the batters stopped being able to hit anything at all, and the League made the revolutionary decision to lower the pitcher’s mound a little bit, even the playing field. A controversial decision to this day.
The splitter has been around from the start but it gained popularity in the 70s and 80s. Roger Craig (one of these fine young gentlemen pictured below) used it, and was also a pitching coach, so he passed on his knowledge and know-how. Angell speaks with Craig quite a bit for the essay. He’s quoted extensively.
The pitch is called a fastball but it’s not necessarily fast and that’s the most confusing thing about it. It’s almost like a chameleon, or like that moment in Master and Commander when they trick the ship up to look like a ruined burnt-out abandoned ship, in order to camouflage the fact that they were still all on board. In other words, the split-finger fastball looks exactly like a fastball to the batter, when actually it is not at all, and at the last second, it drops down to a lower level, making it impossible to get a piece of. You’re swinging at empty air. It masks its true nature, all the way down the line.
I’m with Angell: I love this shit.
So he sets out to figure out more about the split-finger ball, seen at the time as a “gimmick,” aa trend, a phase, the “pitch of the 80s.” But he wanted to learn more about it. That’s the section I’ll excerpt today.
Excerpt from Once More Around the Park: A Baseball Reader
Not everybody, in truth, picks up the split-finger quickly or easily, and not all split-fingers are quite the same. Ron Darling, the Mets’ young right-hander, mastered the delivery last summer, after a long strangle, and when he did, it became what he had needed all along – a finishing pitch, to make him a finished pitchers. (He was 15-6, with a 2.81 E.R.A., for the year, along with a hatful of strong no-decision outings.) He has never talked to Roger Craig, and, in fact, his split-finger started out as a forkball taught to him by pitching coach Al Jackson at the Mets’ Tidewater farm club in 1983. But Darling, who has small hands, could never open his fingers enough to grasp the ball in the deep forkball grip, so it became a split-finger delivery instead. (Craig told me that some pitchers he knew had even gone to bed at night with a ball strapped between their fingers, in an attempt to widen their grip.) Darling had very little luck with the pitch at first, but kept at it because of Jack Morris’s example – especially after Morris pitched a no-hitter against the White Sox at the beginning of the 1984 season.
“The whole idea about pitching – one of the basics of the art – is that you’ve got to show the batter a strike that isn’t a strike,” Darling said. “More than half – much more than half – of all the split-fingers that guys throw are balls. They drop right out of the strike zone. That’s a problem, because you might have a great split-finger that moves a lot, and the batter is going to lay off it if he sees any kind of funny spin. So you have to throw it for a strike now and then. Hitters adjust, you know. Most of the time, you’re going to throw the pitch when you’re ahead in the count. But sometimes I throw it when I’m behind, too. All you have to do is make it look like a fastball for at least half the distance. A lot of times last year, I’d try to get a strike with a fastball and then throw a split-finger strike. If it does get over – and this began to happen for me for the first time last year – it rocks the world, because then here comes another split-finger and the bottom drops out, but the guy still has to swing. He has no other choice. Nobody can afford not to swing at that pitch – unless he’s Keith Hernandez. Umpires don’t call third strikes on Keith.”
Millie Kirkham had an unearthly high soprano voice, and recorded with some of the biggest stars of her era (and other eras and ours). Perhaps most famously, she provided the swoopy woozy soprano part on Elvis’ original recording of “Blue Christmas”. (Speaking of Elvis’ “Crimmus” songs.)
Kirkham appeared on recordings with Carl Perkins, Patsy Kline, Chet Atkins, Bob Dylan, need I go on? She sang on Bobby Vinton’s Blue Velvet, Roy Orbison’s “It’s Over,” and Brenda Lee’s “I’m Sorry,” to name just a few.
She was pregnant when she sang that silly part on “Blue Christmas”, and Elvis was not expecting a pregnant woman to walk into his studio. When she entered, none of his guys (musicians, entourage) stood up for her. He chastised them, and found a chair for her. But the funniest capper to the story is: a couple of months after she had the baby, she was called in for another recording session with Elvis. She was feeling good, she had slimmed down and lost some of the weight, which was important to her. She walked into the room, and Elvis, meaning well, poor guy, put his foot in it when he greeted her with, “Did you have that baby yet, Miss Kirkham?” He meant it in the friendliest way possible, not at all realizing his faux pas. She laughed when she told the story years later. She loved him and loved working with him.
Here Kirkham is, reminiscing about her career. It’s long, but well worth it. The stories she tells!
In the interview, she says of “Blue Christmas” and its phenomenal eternal success: “If I was gettin’ royalties, I’d be a rich old woman.”
No official word yet, but this Nashville Cream piece seems legitimate.
Rest in peace.
That is just one quote from Part 1 of a projected three-part series of Kim Morgan’s group interview at a deli in Los Angeles with Elliott Gould, George Segal, and Joseph Walsh about Robert Altman’s California Split (and myriad other topics: these guys have all known each other for over 50 years.)
It’s glorious.
As Elvis joked in his 1968 television special, “‘Crimmus’ is Southern for Christmas.” He recorded a lot of Christmas music, some traditional, some totally not, some religious, some secular, and here are some of my favorites.
Chet Atkins: “I used to sing this when I was 8 years old and I didn’t know what it was about.” [Pause.] “What IS it about?”
Mark Knopfler: “It’s one of them titty bars, don’t ya know.”
Chet Atkins: “I thought it was just a house.”
Here’s the clip. They won’t let me embed it. But it’s worth sharing, poor quality notwithstanding. Amazing guitars.
I’ve been very sick. Nursing myself back to health and it’s slow-going. Thursday was a three-movie day: went to Hobbit screening in the a.m., then went to Birdman matinee, and then met up with Charlie for The Passionate Thief. Went to Selma screening last night (it’s terrific). Have my year-end polls to do and was waiting to see Selma before I made up my final tally. Doing all of this with flu-like symptoms was challenging but I powered through, with claritin, saline spray, and copious cough drop lozenges. My sleep has remained steady, so that’s really all that matters. What will I do when my iPod Classic bites the dust? What will I do? It’s so much a part of my life. Here’s the music that accompanied me on my flu-ridden meanderings through the city from screening room to screening room.
“Soul Survivor” – The Rolling Stones. Final track of Exile on Main Street, if I recall correctly. Mick is intense, but I am really drawn to Keith here. Killer sound. Huge.
“I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone” (take 9) – Elvis Presley. One of the Sun recordings. Sooo country, that twangy clip-clop guitar, but then his voice quivering with something else that needed to be unleashed. You can hear the merging/blending taking place, right here, in the moment.
“I Call Your Name” – The Beatles. From the Long Tall Sally EP, I think? 1964? Rough, raw, and PERFECT.
“Soon” – Squirrel Nut Zippers. Went through a big SNZ phase. This is my favorite song of theirs.
“Teenage Heaven” – Eddie Cochran. What a heartthrob.
What a loss.
“I Will” – Alison Krauss. Banjo-picking soulful cover of the Beatles song. I have an intense memory associated with the gentleman I just got a letter from, whose handwriting I recognized. The moment occurred at a county fair in Wisconsin, where I was meeting up with him, and was so intense my knees actually gave way. This song was playing as it all went down, and the lyrics seemed to describe what was happening in that moment. Sing it loud so I can hear you. I loved him more than I’ve ever loved anyone, and having it not work out made it seem like my life had been ship-wrecked. And that was just Phase One of it. Moving on.
“Precious Memories” – good ol’ Waylon Jennings. So far, this Shuffle has been Aces.
“It Might As Well Be Spring” – Doris Day. Every time she comes up now, I think of this.
“I Think He’s Hiding” – Randy Newman. He’s so psycho. I adore him.
“See You” – Foo Fighters. Like The Eminem Show, this album was one of the last albums I remember listening from start to finish, track by track, obsessively … for … a year? More? Music-buying is so different now. I still try to listen to albums (at least once, anyway) in the order in which the artist chose to place the songs.
“Heat Wave” – Marilyn Monroe. Go, Marilyn.
“Eat What You Want” – Siobhan O’Malley, my awesome sister. Check out her stuff. She’s amazing!
“Tragic” Symphony – Franz Schubert. Glorious and painful.
“I Had a Baby” – Sinéad O’Connor. I’m excited by where her career is going now. I’ve hung in there for a long time. Through the reggae, through Theology. I am a fan for life. Some really cool stuff seems to be happening right now.
“Hoodoo Voodoo” – Billy Bragg & Wilco. So joyous! Impossible to listen to and not “dance a goofy dance.”
“I Want You To Want Me” – Cheap Trick. I know what you want, boys, but life doesn’t work that way. You can’t force it so stop pressuring me!
“Kashmir” – Led Zeppelin. Ominous. Pounding. Eerie. Sexy, too, driving towards climax.
“Enter Sandman” – Metallica. It took me a while to extricate the song from this memory. Possible trigger warning for that link. Ha. I wish I had had a trigger warning before walking into that story. The story involves copious amounts of alcohol, 70s-era porn and me getting slapped in a bar bathroom. And loving it. So yeah, consider yourself warned. I would never publish that story now – writing in that way is what brought the crazy stalkers into my life, people who, to this day, harass me and send me mean anonymous emails. Whatever. That memory was the start of a really really terrible era in my life. Enter Sandman. Anyway, the song is such a favorite that I continued to listen to it, despite always finding myself back in Bellevue when I hear the first chords (not the mental hospital, but the bar – it was called Bellevue, hilariously).
“Four O’Clock Blues” – Skip James. Delta blues. The birth of a sound. The voice, that guitar. It has everything in it.
“From Home” – The Troggs. Super-sexy.
“Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” – Bob Dylan. Bittersweet yearning tune notwithstanding, this song is one of the best and coldest disses ever put to music. “You just wasted my precious time.”
“He Got What He Wanted” – Little Richard. An insane song. Please look it up. Listen to it. Revel in how insane the performance is. And the orchestration. And the lyrics.
“A Big Hunk O’Love” – Elvis. One of his sexiest performances. 1958. Loud, rough, and listen to him moaning and grunting and singing during the breaks. These are all live takes with the band. He recorded this while on leave from basic training. He had a lot to unleash.
“The Road to Shamballa” – Good old Three Dog Night. Best blasted in the car as you careen down a wide open highway. On your way to the beach.
“Applause” – Lady GaGa. From ARTPOP, an album that is all over the damn place. This feels pretty stock.
“We Can Talk” – The Band. Woozy, bluesy, boozy, burlesque. They’re so great because the songs evoke an entire world, a place. Can’t you see it? The roadhouse? The off-the-beaten-path honky-tonk? A tent in a field, a country fair, a biker bar. The dance floor full of people.
“Do Me Now” – Robbie Williams. Sure thing, Robbie!
“Love Runs Out” – OneRepublic. Totally catchy. It’s on my workout mix. You must. keep. moving. when you hear it.
“Low Hangin’ Fruit” – Tenacious D. From their latest. This song gives me so much joy. “Don’t want no high class model in a designer fuckin’ bathing suit. We want the low-hangin’ fruit.” The song ROCKS and rocks HARD.
“A Woman, a Lover, a Friend” – Jackie Wilson. The man is, quite frankly, otherworldly. He inspired a generation. White boys, black boys, didn’t matter: he showed everyone up. On the Million Dollar Quartet recording, Elvis spends almost 10 minutes talking about seeing Jackie Wilson do “Don’t Be Cruel” in Vegas. People try to move the conversation on, but Elvis can’t move on. He keeps talking, doing imitations of Jackie Wilson … and he incorporated some of Wilson’s interpretation into his own, forever afterwards. Wilson was the One To Beat. People would watch him, listen to him, and just go BLANK trying to comprehend his genius.
“My Father’s Father” – The Civil Wars. They’re usually too painful for me to listen to. I have to be in a strong mood to be able to take it. I love them, but still … they’re so intense.
“Big River” – Johnny Cash. Here is what pure expression sounds like. It’s honest, and there are no barriers between the expression and the artist. He’s not ambivalent: out it comes. You cannot fake that kind of honesty or authenticity.
“In the Still of the Night” – The Five Satins. That sax, the slight echo on it … making it sound like you’re actually in a smoky dance-hall. It’s beautiful, perfect. The song creates a mood. No matter how many times you’ve heard it.
“Telstar” – The Tornadoes. Where on earth do I get all this stuff? Don’t get me wrong, I love that I have it. Shuffle is an unending adventure, what with 11,000+ songs – one of which appears to be “Telstar” by The Tornadoes.
“Baptize Me In Wine” – Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Real bump-and-grind stuff, with a typically hilarious and outrageous performance from this great artist. I love it when he screams, especially from the background.
“I Miss You” – Brenda Lee. I adore her. She set records in the 1960s that weren’t broken for 20, 25 years. Until Madonna. I admit I like her rough rocking stuff better than the ballads. Her voice is so … harsh (not a bad thing). She SWUNG it, baby. But this is good, too.
“Walkin’ In and Out of Your Arms” – k.d. lang. I was a huge Absolute Torch and Twang fan, and still am. Those songs still swing. I lost track of lang after that. I know she did some torch-song type stuff, and I didn’t care for it. I like her country-ish stuff. Hell of a voice, great songs, too.
“When You Were Mine” – the great Cyndi Lauper. That album was essential. Here she does a Prince song and owns it. And of course now I think of Greil Marcus’ commentary about “Money Changes Everything.”
“Guitar Boogie” – Carl Perkins. Masterful stuff.
“One of My Bad Habits” – Waylon Jennings. The man is in a world of trouble. He’s got to quit everything! This situation can’t go on!
“Honest I Do” – The Rolling Stones. From their debut album. Bluesy and burlesquey, with a harmonica solo that sounds like it is emerging from the bottom of a well.
“Cool, Calm, and Collected” – The Rolling Stones, from Between the Buttons. Lots of Stones in this Shuffle! This feels British music-hall-ish, with a rollicking kazoo solo. I love the Stones but am not an expert in their career, so take my impressions for what it’s worth. This is from a 1967 album, the same year as Sgt. Pepper. It feels Sgt. Pepper-y. Like something heard on a victrola played either too fast or too slow. With a music hall feeling to it.
“Citadel” – The Rolling Stones. Holy mackerel, it’s a cluster! The song feels rough, hard, driving, that insistent guitar from Richards pushing the song along. Also from 1967.
“Can’t Pull the Wool Down (Over The Little Lamb’s Eyes) – Maria McKee. She’s so wonderful. I feel proud to know her. She’s great. What a voice, right?
“I Want Some Sugar In My Bowl” – Nina Simone. Talk to me, Nina. I could stand some loving too. Her voice aches with her experience: “I feel so funny. I feel so sad.”
“Song for the Deaf” – Queens of the Stone Age. I was so into them for a hot second that I could not get past this album. The phase passed, but I still love that album.
“In This Windy Old Weather” – The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem. It’s live, and they ask the audience to sing. You can hear the crowd join in. “Let’s raise the roof!” It’s emotional.
“C’mon Everybody” – Eddie Cochran again. “I got some money in my jeans …” Talk to me, big boy. He was the voice of the Teenage Dream. His parents are gone, he’s got the house to himself, he wants everyone to come over!
“Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man” – Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn. Classic.
“The Hammer (Keeps A Knockin’) – Faye Adams. Her voice is out of control. That vibrato, the choices she makes, the commitment she pours into every single moment. I love her.
“Lucille” – Waylon Jennings. Absolutely gorgeous aching country version of Little Richards’ nutso rock ‘n’ roll hit. Oh, Waylon. Stop being awesome.
“Xanadu” – Olivia Newton-John and ELO. Just keepin’ it real here, folks.
“Fast Train Down” – The Waco Brothers. Kind of love these guys. Country mixed with … punk? From Chicago.
“Dear Jessie” – Madonna. My God, I had forgotten about this song. From Like a Prayer, which I had on cassette tape: the cassette tape was (remember?) scented with patchouli. I don’t care for that smell so it was rather annoying. But I did love this album. “Dear Jessie” was Madonna being sickly-sweet, “if the land of make-believe is inside your heart, it will never leave.” If you say so, girl!
“Am I Blue?” – Billie Holiday. Not much to say except, Wow.
“One Vision” – Queen, live at Wembley Stadium. Honestly, they’re like Pharaohs. The sound of that crowd.
“Deja Vu” – Eminem. From Relapse. That’s a pretty sad picture you’re paintin’ there, Marshall.
“You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” – Bob Dylan. I imagine I’m not alone when I say I’ve got major personal associations tied up with this song.
“How Are You Getting Home?” – Sparks. I love this album (Indiscreet) and this song has a great sound, great chords.
“Talking About My Baby” – The Impressions. Smooooth, gorgeous, happy doo-wop/soul. Their voices! The blend of them!
“Even Flow” – Pearl Jam. The song has a macho swagger to it that I really like. It’s aggressive, not recessive. I honestly heard it one too many times on the radio in 1991 or whenever it was it came out, but still, it’s good.
“All Apologies” – Nirvana, from their iconic MTV Unplugged concert. The lyrics still get me.
“The Judas Kiss” – Metallica. A thrilling song. Lars is INSANE. I like to listen to their stuff and try to isolate out Lars from all that noise. It’s always crazy, what he is doing back there. This song is a perfect example of my brother’s comment: “Metallica is metal for math nerds.”
“Don’t Be Cruel” – Elvis, from the “Million Dollar Quartet”. A gathering of Elvis, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis (there was no quartet, there were only three of them) in December 1956 at Sun Records. An impromptu jam session started, and Sam Phillips had the wherewithal to turn on the tape recorder. And speaking of Jackie Wilson up above: Here, Elvis launches his monologue about seeing this singer with Billy Ward and his Dominos – he didn’t know his name then – (“a colored guy … he was a Yankee, you know”) in Las Vegas, do “Don’t Be Cruel” and totally re-thought the song, the singer Elvis saw performed it at such a level that Elvis knew he had been shown up. Elvis upped his game because of what he saw Wilson do (and you can see the result of it in his final appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in January, 1957). Elvis talks and talks and talks about Jackie Wilson’s version, doing imitations, bursting out laughing, filled with admiration and awe. “He was much better than the record I put out …” Elvis said.
“Murder Incorporated” – Bruce Springsteen. Love those opening chords. Rocking.
“The Coventry Carol” – The Monks of Glenstal Abbey. If you don’t know these men, check them out. Listening to them is like praying. Or, no, it’s not “like” praying. It is praying.
“Runnin’ Away” – Sly & The Family Stone. From There’s a Riot Goin’ On, the album that was rejected by critics originally (where was all that happy “we are all one” stuff they used to do??) – and is now considered a masterpiece. And it is. It’s a sad and scary album, the culture breaking apart. You can feel/hear it.
“Blue Day” – Waylon Jennings. Early Waylon, I’m pretty sure. I love all phases of Waylon’s career: it had great integrity. He found his own way. He plowed through a lot of bull shit, carving out a space for himself (and others) to maneuver. He gave up his seat on the plane that went down, killing his dear friend and mentor Buddy Holly. Waylon was on that same tour. That plane crash and the death of his friend put him in a mindfuck-headspace for years. But he found his own way. And when the “outlaw” thing started wearing thin, he moved on. He was honest.
“The Sound of Your Cry” – Elvis. Big, gorgeous, dramatic Elvis. From his country album. People who wanted him to get rough and raw again hated material like this, resented it. I don’t at all. This is just as honest as the stuff from early in his career. This, too, is Elvis. He also loved to show off his pipes. The big huge ballads gave him an opportunity to do that. And he fucking MEANS this shit.
“8 Easy Steps” – Alanis Morissette. Another one of her “list” songs. She can’t help herself. She’s an obsessive counter!
“The Ballad of Stagger Lee” – Mississippi John Hurt. For those of you who have read Mystery Train (Greil Marcus again) you will remember well his extraordinary essay on this song, and how it has morphed and changed, and what that character of Stagger Lee (or Staggolee) signifies. I have so many different versions of the song, sung by so many people. This one is haunting. It’s almost 8 minutes long. And Mississippi John Hurt talks it, tells it. It’s incredible.
“Broken Heart Attack” – Jerry Reed. He was so insane. I ADORE HIM. Bad bad boy, wild man. This is from the album called Alabama Wild Man, and the title explains it all. He’s a genius.
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” – The Beatles. Still exciting. Still blasts out of the speakers.
“It Feels So Right” – Elvis Presley. One of Elvis’ sexiest tracks. And considering how sexy so many of his tracks are, that’s saying something. This one oozes intention. I wrote a whole post about his performing of it in Tickle Me and how incredibly he uses himself. Like a woman. Like a bodacious Mae West woman. Totally unembarrassed about putting himself out there as an object. Fearless. Comfortable in that realm. The power of it still blows the walls back.
“Until Jesus Calls Me Home” – Sam Cooke, with the Soul Stirrers. Soooo beautiful.
“Highway to Hell” – AC/DC. YES. They’ve announced tour dates for 2015. Note to self …
“I Hate Myself For Losing You” – Kelly Clarkson. Woman can sing. I love her best when she’s pissed off, like here. Her Christmas album is great, too.
“Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone” – Dean Martin. Ohhhh, Dino. He’s one of those rare performers who I think is actually perfect. There is nothing wrong with him. There is nothing about him that doesn’t work. A natural performer. He was as easy onstage as he was when he was by himself – maybe more easy. I love, too, how you can hear him smiling when he sings.
“Smoke On the Water” – Deep Purple. Ha! You know, it’s all about that guitar hook.
“Rolling in the Deep” – Adele. Already a classic. And now covered by Aretha. So, you know. It’s all set.
“No One Else But You” – Brendan Benson. I adore him. He’s so prolific. I buy every single thing he does. Or at least I try – there’s so much of it. I think he’s a marvelous songwriter.
“Óró ‘Sé Do Bheatha ‘Bhaile” – The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem, live at Carnegie Hall, an album I probably heard as I was emerging into this world. I don’t speak Gaelic, but I can sing this song phonetically. It’s great, too, because the whole audience in Carnegie Hall sings along. Wrote a post about this song.
“Honey Bop” – Wanda Jackson. She’s the best. So psyched I saw her live. She’s still out there, doing her thing, touring.
“Blue Monday” – Huey Lewis & The News. From their really cool (and hard to find) album Four Chords and Several Years Ago. 1. My very first concert was going to see Huey Lewis in Providence, R.I. 2. Years later, I was an extra in the video made for the Four Chords album. I’ve only been able to find one clip of it, and can’t see myself dancing up on that scaffold, but believe me, I’m there!
“Gett Off” – Prince. I love this whole album. I love him, in general. Lost … something … while one of his songs was playing. “International Lover,” to be exact, which I realize is RIDICULOUS, but I must tell the truth.
“Busted” – Ray Charles. Brill. The man is in a sorry situation.
“Piggies” – The Beatles. Damn you, Charlie Manson, for co-opting this song. Fuck you and your minions. For so many obvious reasons, but also for this.
“Ya Had Me Goin'” – Bleu. With Mike Viola, on their ELO-inspired joint album called L.E.O. Alpacas Orgling. Bleu is such a rock-star. I don’t care that he plays small clubs with 100 people there. He is a rock star. Went and saw Bleu in November of 2012. I was just starting my descent into psychosis there, and although it might not be obvious to others, I can feel the darkness roaring up at me from below in my writing there. I was in deep shit. Sometimes I want to delete all the posts from November/December 2012, as well as those from June-July 2009, but whatever, I will let them stand. Psychosis or no, it was awesome to see Bleu live. His songs touch me, and he’s wonderful in person. You should check him out!
“My Baby Likes Western Guys” – Brenda Lee. This strikes me as hysterical. Her voice is so HUGE. What the hell is happening. Does it matter? Her boyfriend “likes all the Western guys” and “has no use for her tonight.” Looks like you’ve got some problems, Brenda, for real, girl.
“The Wild Boys” – Duran Duran. Hilarious.
“Beggin My Baby” – Little Milton. One of the guys recorded at Sun Records. You can pick out the Sun Records sound out of a lineup. It’s like Motown in that way. Immediately discernible. Those who know more than I do could pontificate on what that sound really is. All I know is I know it when I hear it. Authenticity is, I guess, the key word.
“Asshole” – Eminem (featuring Skylar Grey). From his latest. Scary brilliant. So fast, so pissed. I will remember 2014 as the year I saw him in concert. He was amazing live. I like him best when he’s mad (like … really mad), but I like all Eminems. He’s an artist.
“Save the Last Dance For Me” – the great Dolly Parton. I absolutely adore her version of this song.
“I’m Ready To Go Home” – The Louvin Brothers. They’re nuts. Their harmonies are perfect. Their religion is terrifying. I love it all.
“I Saw the Light” – Hank Williams. Tap your foot, get saved. What’s it like to be such a pioneer? To be so out in front of the pack? To break new ground? To cross over to that degree, and be the first one to do it?
“Do Rae Me” – Eminem, and Lloyd Banks. Eminem’s daughter Hailey has a cameo in this one. “Hailey!” “Yeah?” “Bring Daddy his Oscar!” “Okay!” Brat. (Him, not her.)
“It’s Electric” – Metallica. From their album of covers. I think it’s a lot of fun. This one is a Diamond Head song.
“Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” – Elvis Presley. It makes me ache. I don’t know why. He skips off the surface of the song. The pace is fast, bluegrass-y. Elvis is practically snarking his way through it, but I sense … something else going on for him. It’s complicated.
“Rollin'” – Randy Newman. He’s so wonderful. The arrangements … the piano, the strings … So melancholy.
“Black Betty” – Ram Jam. Another workout-mix favorite.
“Little Red Corvette” – Prince. The sound of college.
“4 Carats” – Kelly Clarkson. From her super-fun Christmas album, that has covers, but also new songs. It’s a lot of fun. Girl wants a diamond ring for Christmas. Don’t disappoint her.
“Crazy On You” – Heart. Absolutely killer opening guitar. I mean, the whole song really … The Heart women out-tomcat their male counterparts, and it’s thrilling. Their songs are like, “Don’t care what your name is, just do me now, and do it right.”
“A Swingin’ Safari” – Billy Vaughn and His Orchestra. WTF. I’m not complaining, but still. WTF.
“Do You Love Me Now” – The Breeders. These girls were bad-asses. I still miss them. This is a great song.
“1816, The Year Without a Summer” – Rasputina. Talk about bad-asses. I LOVE THEM.
“Down On Love” – Jamie Dunlap. I feel you on that.
“Four Till Late” – Robert Johnson. Goosebumps. All over my body.
“Reet Petite” – Jackie Wilson. I mean … really? He was on another plane. Untouchable.
“Fuck Her Gently” – Tenacious D. “I’m gonna fuck you softly, I’m gonna screw you gently, I’m gonna hump you sweetly, I’m gonna ball you discreetly …” So stupid. So funny.
“The Likes Of Me” – Pat McCurdy. Hey, Pat, where you been? Usually you’re extremely bossy on my iPod. Now, not so much. He’s an old friend. We’ve been through a shit-ton together. Although you’d never know it from this. If you live in the Wisconsin/Minnesota/Illinois area, go see him live. It will be like attending a cult meeting, just know that going in. I am a long-time member of that cult. I appear on one of his albums, he wrote a duet specifically for us – which pretty much captures/describes the excitement of that whole time (we sang the song facing each other in a little studio in Milwaukee – a live take, the two of us together, and if I recall we only did one take), I’m thanked in the liner notes for another album called Fainting With Happiness, I performed with him at the Milwaukee Summer Fest for thousands of drunk lunatics, that’s how involved in the cult I am. But trust me: he’s incredible.
“Suddenly Seymour” – Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene, from Little Shop of Horrors. It makes me cry. Every damn time.
“Lookin’ Back” – Bob Seger. Live. Awesome. Lester Bangs wrote an interesting essay about Bob Seger.
“Bon Voyage” – Jane McGarrigle, Kate & Anna McGarrigle. Painful and so beautiful. As always, when the McGarrigle sisters come up, I must point to Lian Lunson’s gorgeous concert film, Sing Me the Songs That Say I Love You: A Concert for Kate McGarrigle.
“Dream a Little Dream” – Robbie Williams and Lily Allen, a dreamy romantic duet, from his latest swing album, Swing Both Ways, which I adore.
“Sweet Transvestite” – Tim Curry, from Rocky Horror. This song used to be played at high school dances and everyone would strut around singing the lyrics. Was this normal?
“He’s a Man” – Madonna, from the Dick Tracy soundtrack. One of my favorite songs of hers, ever. This is my favorite Madonna Era.
“Kokomo” – The Beach Boys. You know what? They’re timeless.
“My Little Shirtwaist Fire” – Rasputina. Like I said: I love these chicks. Who else does a song about the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire? And it’s a great song.
“House of the Rising Sun” – Jerry Reed, doing a cover. It’s eerie. I almost prefer it to the original. Listen to that guitar.
I guess there’s as good a place to stop as any. Jerry Reed is always a good place to stop.
On the essays shelf (yes, there are still more books to excerpt in my vast library. I can’t seem to stop this excerpts-from-my-library project. I started it in 2006!)
NEXT BOOK: Once More Around the Park: A Baseball Reader
“Not So, Boston” describes the 1986 World Series, as well as all the championship rounds leading up to it. It’s a painful read, for any Sox fan (I mean, the title alone …). The first World Series I remember following, and knowing what was happening, and investing in all of it, was the 1975 World Series. I was a child, but I was born into a baseball-loving family (which, for us, meant Red Sox), my first blurry memory is of being at Fenway Park, and rooting for that damn team was the atmosphere I was raised in, similar to being raised Catholic. It may seem like an inappropriate analogy, but whatever, it’s true. Being a Red Sox fan was a given, in my Boston Irish family. And being Catholic was a given, too. There are some things that just are, you know. And of course when you come of age, you can make your own way, and choose what team you want to root for, and what religion you would like to practice (if at all), but as a kid, there were certain givens and being a Red Sox fan was one of them. (My siblings are continuing the tradition with their own children.)
The 1986 World Series was (agony notwithstanding) one of the most amazing World Series experiences in my lifetime. It was epic. It was operatic. It was written by a playwright from ancient Greece. It had tremendous heights, and devastating lows. For the duration of the Series, you felt like you were suspended in No-Man’s Land, the only thing you could do was get ready for the next game. I felt that way in 2004 too, and would experience strange moments of dislocation, mid-series, especially when I would meet up with friends who are not baseball fans, who had no idea what was happening. I was so caught up in it, my life totally dominated by that Series, that it was so WEIRD to meet people whose lives were still … normal.
As epic as the 86 Series was, for a Red Sox fan the entire thing can be summed up in one terrible image:
It is a scar on the psyche of the Red Sox fan.
Back in 1986, I remember worrying, almost obsessively, about how bad Bill Buckner must have felt about that moment. I know I felt bad, but I worried about him. I hoped his friends and family were surrounding him supportively. This is how painful that moment was!
Anyway, enough about me. Roger Angell, whose heart belonged to both the Red Sox and the Mets, had a hell of a time himself during the 86 Series, which he lays out in this monster essay. Reading it brings it all back! He was torn: should he go to Houston? Should he head to New York? Should he go to Fenway? While you were sitting at one game, crazy shit was going on at another game, and it felt like the entire WORLD had gone baseball-crazy. Angell starts the essay sounding almost amazed that it had all gone down in the way it did:
What matters now, perhaps, is for each of us to make an effort to hold on to these games, for almost certainly we won’t see their like again soon – or care quite as much if we do.
The series was arduous, tough, messy. Each team fought like hell to stay in the game. There was a sense that this was more of … a chaotic brawl rather than a nicely set-up baseball game on a pretty little diamond. Shit went awry. People went crazy. People messed up BIG and had to claw their way back. It felt like it went on forever. Angell writes:
More and more, we fans wanted each game to go our way, to come out right, to end the right way – our way – but again and again, it seemed, that wish was thwarted or knocked aside, and we would find ourselves tangled in a different set of baseball difficulties and possibilities, and pulling for that to end right somehow. We wanted to be released, and until the very end the games refused to do that; the baseball wouldn’t let us up. And if we were sometimes sorry for ourselves, because of these wearying repeated pains and disappointments and upsets, I think we felt worse about the players and the managers (sometimes the managers most of all), because they, too, were so clearly entwined in something they couldn’t handle, couldn’t control or defeat, in spite of all their efforts and experience and skill.
There were times when you would think to yourself, helplessly, “Please, God, let this end soon. I have a LIFE to get back to.”
In “Not So, Boston”, Angell walks us through it, game by agonizing game. The experience is fresh for him, there’s not much retrospect yet. He is still amazed by the whole experience.
There’s so much to this essay, but the excerpt I want to share has to do with Game Six of the National League Championship Series. Angell wasn’t even present, he had to piece it together, and obviously talked to a bunch of New Yorkers about their experience, and he puts it together into a hodgepodge of impressions that are hilarious, and really give a sense of how CRAZY the entire experience was. The setup is important:
Angell was in Boston, at Fenway Park, for the American League finale. Meanwhile, the Mets and the Astros were meeting up in Houston at the Astrodome. All of this was happening simultaneously. Angell was in the stands at Fenway, and there was a guy in front of him listening to the game going on in Houston, so Angell was keeping track of two ballgames at the same time.
Meanwhile, in New York, the entire city was caught in a time-warp. The game in Houston started being broadcast at 3 p.m. New York time. It ended at 7:48 p.m. Awkward timing for a work-day, yes? Angell talked to many folks in New York and got their stories. They are so entertaining and really captures, for this baseball fan, what baseball can do to us. I love the anecdote about the woman at the party who was initially dismissive of baseball, didn’t understand it, didn’t care about it, and by 7:48 p.m., she had lost her goddamn mind. YES. Also I love the guy at the opera.
This is what baseball brings us to. When the Red Sox won in 2004, I was watching at a Red Sox bar in Hoboken with my dear friends David and Maria. And remember there was an eclipse that night, happening AS the Red Sox were winning, I glanced up through the skylight at the bar, and saw the moon going into eclipse. You cannot make this shit up. In the mayhem that came with the win, I glanced around wildly at one point, and saw a guy, a well-dressed regular guy, standing frozen, like a Pentecostal preacher, arms in the air, tears on his face. It was not melodramatic. It was absolutely appropriate.
Angell captures a similar moment, in all its specificity and humor and emotion, gorgeously.
Excerpt from Once More Around the Park: A Baseball Reader
An art critic who lives in the East Village wrote, “At our apartment during the late innings of Game Six were my wife Brooke, our daughter Adam myself, two dinner guests, and two people who had dropped in on short notice and then stayed around. One of the guests was Nell, a film director we like a lot, even though she’s one of those people who can’t believe that anyone of your intelligence actually cares about baseball. One of the drop-ins, an Australian poet named John, knew nothing – nothing – about baseball but took a benign attitude, asking polite, wonderfully dumb questions about the game. The other drop-in was Aldo, our neighborhood cop on the beat, a Mets fan and a friend. Aldo was in full cop gear, and voices crackled from his walkie-talkie: cops out there talking about the game.
“Nell is one of those people who don’t know any policemen and who can’t believe that you do. She looked at Aldo for a while and then said, ‘Excuse me, what are you doing here?’ I had to explain that it was all right, he was here for the game.
“I don’t remember it all, but of course I do remember the growing delirium – like trying to explain to John what a foul ball was and how to throw a slider, and Nell becoming more and more agitated, and Brooke assuming her old rally posture in a particular doorway we have, and then, at the very end, all the whooping and hollering and inaccurate high-fiving, and some wild hugging. Nell was leaning out the window shrieking with joy.”
Charlie and I went to The Film Forum last night to check out the restored The Passionate Thief (1960), directed by Mario Monicelli, and starring Anna Magnani, Ben Gazzara and Toto. It’s getting a nice theatrical re-release, and it looks amazing, crisp and glamorous, dark and seedy, the one-crazy-night plot taking place throughout Rome, a city swept away by its collective New Year’s Eve celebrations. Everyone is out partying, everyone crams into the subways, everyone sets off firecrackers and, as one, throws things out of their apartment windows, a very literal gesture of “out with the old,” causing characters to have to dive for cover on the streets below. Slapstick, vaudevillian, totally screwball, featuring missed opportunities, mistaken identities, and ongoing running gags that get funnier with each repetition, The Passionate Thief was a BLAST, and awesome to watch after a week of super-serious end-of-year 2014 films. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen a lot of great stuff, but The Passionate Thief is devoted to pure silliness and farce in a way that was like a bubbly glass of champagne, light, airy, ridiculous. There was a guy sitting in the back who was laughing so hard, and stamping his feet that Charlie murmured worriedly that the dude might be about to have a heart attack. But it really was that funny: there is a catharsis in that kind of laughter that was just beautiful.
Anna Magnani plays Tortorella, a struggling actress (we first see her acting her part in a huge crowd scene where she has to react to a saint’s miracle: watching her gesture and scream, “A MIRACLE! A MIRACLE! A MIRACLE!” with 100% conviction was the first belly-laugh of the film). Tortorella is “up for anything,” as another character says, and when she gets an invite for a swanky New Year’s Eve party, she goes all out in preparation. She dyes her black hair blonde, she dresses in an evening gown with swirling little tassels all over it, and drapes herself in a white fox fur (complete with full fox head). She is ready for some fun! Unfortunately, she gets stood up by the group who invited her out (although their paths do cross again later), and so she meets up with Toto, an old friend, who lives in squalor, is perpetually broke, and has just taken a job to be a “second” for a professional thief, out to swipe jewels and purses and cigarette cases from the drunken New Year’s Eve crowds. Toto has hired himself out to Lello, a guy who has promised to bring in a specific amount of money by the next morning, and their first attempts to steal things go terribly, mainly because Toto’s life is one blundering disaster after another. Tortorella has no idea that Toto and Lello are in cahoots: all she knows is that Lello is … well, pretty Rowr, even though he is young enough to be her son, and so she basically decides to crush on him for the evening, an evening that should be fun, it’s New Year’s Eve! Lello plays along, but he’s using her in order to make the scores he needs to make.
Hijinx ensue. The hijinx never stop. Toto ends up wearing a woman’s flowered hat at an upscale party and singing an Italian ballad on a little stage for the roaring crowd. He doesn’t even know how he got there. Tortorella ends up having to ride on the back of a motorcycle to get to a certain nightclub, after being ditched on the subway by a scheming Toto and Lello … and seeing Magnani, staggering off the motorcycle, in her gown, with newspapers stuffed into her cleavage and up and down her legs in order to ward off the cold on the back of the bike, was one of the funniest bits in the film. Magnani, teeth chattering, says to the motorcyclist: “Could you help me with the newspapers?”
Cars careen through the streets. Furniture flies out the windows. Tortorella has a fight with Toto every 5 minutes. He’s worthless! He’s a beggar, a scoundrel! But then, oh well, let’s move on to the next party. They end up crashing a snooty party filled with stuck-up Germans. It does not go well. The three interlopers are eventually tossed out onto the sidewalk.
There are recurring funny bits involving a drunken American who cruises through the streets of Rome in his gigantic obnoxious tail-finned car. He seems to think that all Italians would love nothing more than to jump into various fountains, fully clothed. He’s seen La Dolce Vita one too many times (it had just come out when Passionate Thief was being made), and Tortorella says, when he tries to drag her into the fountain. “You’ve seen too many movies.”
The pace is perfection. The gags are ridiculous: Toto, arguing with Lello on the sidewalk outside a restaurant: “Would you go away? I am out with a RESPECTABLE LADY tonight.” (meaning Tortorella). Just as he says that, we see Magnani through the window of the restaurant bop another woman over the head with her purse, screaming curses at her.
Magnani is delicious and completely spontaneous. I re-watched Mamma Roma just last week, and it’s extraordinary to see the difference in approach, depending on the material. The Magnani THING is still there: total truth, always thinking, reacting, totally in touch with her impulses – both physical and emotional – but Mamma Roma is so tragic (despite her determination to do what needs to be done to save her son), and Passionate Thief is so buoyant and openly comedic. It was great to see her in a flat-out farce: running around in her heels, barking out insults at Toto, shivering with excitement at the thought of going to bed with Lello (she has a great moment where she talks to herself in the mirror about it: “So he’s young enough to be your son. So what.”), snuggling up in her furs, fighting, crying, laughing uproariously. She’s the best. Toto didn’t even need to do anything: he just stepped quietly into the action, and I started laughing. And Gazzara was great: sexy, young, intense, and a match for Magnani onscreen (because let’s face it: not many people could keep up with her. Brando told Truman Capote he was afraid to work with her in the proposed stage production of Orpheus Descending, saying: “I had no intention of walking out on any stage with Magnani. Not in that part. They’d have had to mop me up.” Thank goodness, the two eventually did work together, on the film adaptation of that play, The Fugitive Kind – it is electric to see them together, because she is as grounded as he is, and as emotionally truthful. She brings out great great stuff in him.)
Gazzara wrote about the experience filming The Passionate Thief in his autobiography:
Monicelli was a very serious, unsmiling man but a master at directing comedy. As Toto and I weaved through what must’ve been a thousand people – men in black ties, women in evening gowns – our attempts at lifting things from the other guests were truly comical. As he did in BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET, Toto found the humor in his own ineptitude. That production gave me a lasting lesson in freedom and improvisation. Magnani and Toto came from a background of theater and variety shows, where dialogue was often improvised or rewritten, and they war forced to use their imagination and their wit. They kept me on my toes but I learned fast, and despite the fact that I acted in English while they spoke Italian, the timing never suffered. I’d always spoken the Sicilian dialect with my parents, never a word of English, and that was a big help in understanding my costars. I never missed a cue …
I first saw Anna Magnani in Rossellini’s OPEN CITY. The raw realism of her work in that 1945 movie was an eye-opener. Whenever I could, I used to go to the World Theater on West 49th Street, which showed foreign movies, usually Italian or French, in the years after WWII. A few directors who were part of a new movement called Neorealism had started making terrific pictures. I was still a kid but I knew that these movies had something that American films lacked. Neorealism WAS a new realism, shot often on real streets. In some scenes the directors had nonprofessionals playing scenes with professional actors, who didn’t seem to be actors either. Magnani’s Roman roots were evident in her passion and in her humor. Her talent bowled me over….
One night we were shooting in a beautiful Baroque church. Toto, Anna, and I were seated outside near the entrance. The street seemed deserted. It was August, holiday time, and most Romans had left for the country or for the beaches. I asked Toto to sing me the song [he had written]. He looked at me from behind his dark glasses. He didn’t so much sing the song as talk it, with a reality and an immediacy that I’d never heard before. At one point, Anna joined him in harmony. An extraordinary night.
Charlie and I had an absolute blast. We laughed nonstop for the entire length of the film. It’s that much fun! Any movie that can bring on that sort of reaction has my heart and soul forever.
New Yorkers, it’s playing at the Film Forum (and has been extended through the 16th). Also keep your eyes peeled for the restored version on DVD. It’s wonderful.
Jerry Lee Lewis, Jackie Wilson, Carl Perkins, and Linda Gail Lewis, performing “This Is Your Land” from the pilot of the never-produced Jerry Lee Lewis Show. Watching this has made my morning.
