Monday, December 31, 2007

Year in Review/A Look Ahead

Arrivederci 2007!

Coming up in 2008: Reviews of the DVD POPEYE 1933-1938 and a biography of Walt Disney. My new year's resolution is to make a little more money so I can get out more On the Town.

With all the excess eating and traveling the past week I'm cheating and offering this
2007 in review:

Friday, December 21, 2007

Sweeney Todd: Comments on the Film Itself and in Relation to TOS

Some of it works, some of it doesn’t. I’ll only make comments and not a full review.

I can’t pretend I didn’t see the stage production as the best film critics do and simply look at the film in a vacuum. For example, the phrase, “Don’t I know you mister?” is repeated several times by a certain character in the play but used one time in the movie. It ruins the setup for the final scene.

There’s a major goof in the script: Mrs. Lovett tells Sweeney she was with his wife and tried to talk her out of taking poison. In a later scene, she’s making conversation and asks him what she looked like. Right there he should have known she was lying and been suspicious of her motives.

Judge Turpin has to be hideously unappealing. Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin is not. Maybe because I saw LOST IN TRANSLATION or DADDY LONG LEGS or have seen any number of Douglas/Z.-Jones-like marriages in Hollywood, I believed he had a shot at a hottie like Johanna. The judge is addicted to porn, like Jud in OKLAHOMA! But other than a little stubble on the judge’s face, director Burton didn’t show the terror that Johanna is supposed to have at the thought of being with the judge, her legal guardian. We might need a female director to empathically convey this revulsion.

I posted this on imdb today: I saw the original Sweeney Todd on Broadway and was genuinely shocked during the last scene when a character's true identity is revealed. Can imdb lead the way and show some respect for the story by editing the cast list to hide this point? This is the info that the production company has released for listings in reviews. I compare this to the cooperation that the producers of THE CRYING GAME encouraged when it debuted: Don't reveal the shock to your readers! This being a fan board, you all know what I'm referring to, but I'm thinking of the young fan whom will miss the emotional jolt that isn't a slit throat and a spurt of blood. In addition to this comment, let me add that I went back to my original Playbill and yes, the Cast did not give away this dual role.

Zaniness, simplemindedness, fey qualities: Mrs. Lovett lacks the first, Toby the second, and the Beadle the third in the movie.

MRS. LOVETT

Mrs. Lovett is as much a maniac and murderer as Todd but Helena Bonham Carter is directed to play it low key by Tim Burton. Her mild singing voice and inability to hold a note hurts her performance. Here is an example: if you don’t know the tune, read the lyrics of “Wait.” First read them normally. Then read them and hold the word “Wait” for 3 or 4 beats.

Don't you know,
Silly man?
Half the fun is to
Plan the plan!
All good things
Come to those who can
Wait.

There’s a world of difference, between singing “wait” in one beat and waiting for the word “wait” to end on a nicely-held note. You need a singer who can hold a note for this song.

TOBY

It could be that it was politically incorrect to play Toby as mentally challenged as in the play, so the movie made him a drinker who doesn’t get drunk. In the play Mrs. Lovett addresses him as “child,” because of his child-like mentality. The movie casts a real child, Ed Sanders, and he is excellent, particularly in the song standard, "Not While I’m Around.”

BEADLE BRAMFORD

His kooky “Parlor Songs” with Mrs. Lovett is not in the movie. Onstage I suspect it’s a delaying tactic for the crew to set up the final scene in the basement and give the lead singer a breather. On film you don’t need to kill time or let people rest. Plus, you need a screwball performance from Mrs. Lovett to pull it off and that’s not the concept this time.

In the play, Antony is told by Sweeney Todd in the opening scene that he will not long forget the young man who saved his life when they were shipmates. In the film, this is watered down to something like, “helping me get through” the voyage. I’m giving the gist, I can’t recall the exact line. Why would you want to water down this bond? Perhaps to show the soullessness of Todd?

THE UNBEARABLY INSANE JOY OF “Have a Little Priest”

This of course is what encores were made for and on stage it’s a riot. I recently saw Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou on You Tube do this at a charity event in L.A. The movie cuts this duet short, as it does several other numbers. Maybe double entendres don’t have the humor they used to have, or the bloodthirsty audience this movie is aimed at just wouldn’t appreciate this delay to getting back to the action.

An imdb poster named B_Crawley made this comment:

I watched the movie on the 18th with such high hopes. Burton, Depp, Carter, Rickman, Cohen... all with Sondheim's approval. It's gonna be great, right?
Sadly, to make a good movie musical (or at least a good Sweeney Todd movie musical) you need leads that can carry a tune. Cohen's Pirelli was great, Rickman's judge was good. Toby, Johanna, Anthony, all good. But my God, Depp and Carter were horrid. I'll even give Johnny an A for effort as he seemed to sing on key and hold some notes. . But Helena...I just don't know what to say.
I really wanted to like this movie. Now I just want to forget it was made
.

I replied:

Your review is what I wrote in my head without seeing it yet and I hope you're wrong but I have a feeling you're right. Yet without Johnny the movie never gets made, supposedly. Sondheim has never been happy with a film version of one of his shows and after the hype is done I wonder what he will say. Big CGI movies often suck humor and warmth out of source material, I'm thinking of LOTR and Superman Returns for example. Sweeney needs singers and comedians, like Bryn Terfel and Bette Midler, but in Hollywood he's a no name and she's too old. I'll see it today and if you're right, maybe we'll live long enough for this version to be forgotten and a great movie will be made.

It looks like Mr. Crawley was mostly right. Johnny Depp was not horrid as Sweeney Todd. He acted it like the great actor he is, but he’s just not the guy to sing this score.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Holiday Concert

We're taking a break from the usual today as One on the Town offers selections from a holiday concert by the Brooklyn College Chorale and Conservatory Orchestra. One of my own bairns is the blond young man in the center of the stage, to the right of the conductor.

We open with the closing of Leroy Anderson's Christmas Festival.




Next up: The Blessed Son of God from Hodie by Vaughn Williams.




The grand finale: (standing optional) the Hallelujah Chorus by George F. Handel.



I hope you enjoyed the selections from this free concert at Brooklyn College on December 13, 2007, made possible through the support of the New York City Council.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet

Born on a Blue Day is the bestselling autobiography of autistic savant Daniel Tammett, published in paperback by Free Press. The author is born and we learn he has synesthesia, a mixture of senses often resulting in alphanumerics taking on colors. Tammett also sees numbers as “shapes,…, textures, and motion.” This experience of numbers allows him to perform lightning-fast calculations. Synesthesia, he claims, also allows him to learn new languages quickly. Researchers believe that an epileptic seizure at age 4 “may have played an important role in making me the person I am today,” and he cites other geniuses who had epilepsy and similar feelings such as Dostoyevsky.

The savant side serves him well in school in math but the autistic side makes it difficult to have friends and mix in with other children in grades school. He creates an imaginary friend, a widow named Anne. He talks about everything with her and she reassures him that although he was different, he “would be fine.” One day she went away because she said, “she was dying.” Tammet writes,

Looking back, Anne was the personification of my feelings of loneliness and uncertainty. She was a product of that part of me that wanted to engage with my limitations and begin to break free from them. In letting go of her, I was making the painful decision to try to find my way in the wider world and to live in it.

Tammet is truly a genius. Woody Allen is still paying his analyst after 40 years and has yet to make this kind of breakthrough. Tammet does it at no cost and with profound insight into what holds any of us back from our achieving our dreams.

He begins to make friends and even fills in for a sick friend in the lead of SWEENEY TODD. He creates in his mind fictional histories of countries and an entire new language. Deciding to skip college because he’d “had enough of the classroom,” he’s accepted as a volunteer in a program that sends people to Lithuania to teach English. As a dividend he learns Lithuanian in return. Tammet starts a website, http://www.optimnem.co.uk/index.php, offering online language courses in French and Spanish using a technique he developed that is “intuitive and jargon-free.”

Tammet is clearly high-functioning in the autism spectrum. He’s developed a long-term relationship with a partner. The things that he thinks separate him from the average person are that he’s awkward in new social situations, he gets confused if a familiar rout or routine is changed, and, he’s a genius. By the end of the book he’s become an entrepreneur and world traveler, appearing on Letterman after learning pi to over 20,000 places. Tammet is doing very well.

The book gave me insight into what it’s like to be Daniel Tammet and his story is plainly written and interesting to read. Based on the stories I’ve heard from my wife, a social worker in a school for autistic children, this book does not describe what it’s like to be an average person with autism. The back cover copy claims that Tammet is “among people who have severe autistic disorders” but I disagree with that assessment of “severe.”

Tammet is in a best-case scenario for someone with autism: he’s high-functioning, has a loving family, and is a genius, if somewhat confused dealing with people socially. If you’re the parent of a child with a middle- to severe assessment of autism, this book might make you feel good for the author but won’t help you out much if you’re looking for a “how-to.”

Friday, November 30, 2007

BEE MOVIE; Book preview: Born on a Blue Day

Jerry Seinfeld was in Israel recently where he met the Prime Minister and the President, honors usually reserved for a head of state. He deserves it. This is a man who can do whatever he wants and he has chosen to make an excellent family-friendly film, BEE MOVIE. Mrs. 1OTT and I were the only adult couple in the theater in an audience of parents and children. What a relief it was to see a movie for kids that didn't contain the usually gross-out Shrek-humor that children supposedly enjoy.

I won't give away too much of the plot except to say that Jerry plays Barry B. Benson, a bee who wants more out of life than working in the hive and dying. He meets Vanessa, honey-sweetly voiced by Renée Zellweger, a florist who accepts Barry as the first bee to talk--a violation of bee rules--and the pursuer of justice for bees.

Hilarious Jewish humor abounds around Barry's family and a star turn by a cable talk legend. Nudge-nudge cameos are also entertaining and integral to the plot so don't read too many reviews before you go see it.

I hear people say, "Why should Jerry even work?" since he's so rich. Crosby kept working after his first 100 million and so should Jerry. One can only wonder what the extra episode of Seinfeld planned for DVD would have been like. Jerry said things didn't come together for it to happen, but I suspect the Michael Richards scandal kiboshed it. I saw Jerry's COMEDIAN documentary, showing his return to standup and was amused by it, but BEE MOVIE is a return to form by a comic prince.

Note to Chris Rock fans: his participation is a cameo, but the setup of his mosquito character, Mooseblood, near the beginning of the movie, leads to the funniest line of the movie near the end.


Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet

Free Press has just published the paperback of the British bestselling autobiography of an autisitc savant, Born on a Blue Day. Mrs. 1OTT is a social worker in a school for autistic children and wanted the book for herself, so I bought it, read chapter 1, and was drawn in. The author's love of math and some of his odd habits, such as spinning coins, reminded me of some of my own childhood habits and those of kids I knew and even my own children. But when you put all these behaviors together in one person you have the autism spectrum. I'm trying to learn more about this condition. One OPRAH show with Jenny McCarthy isn't enough to learn everything you need to know. I'd like to think that eventually we'll live in a world where, when a person with an unusual condition like autism enters a bus and acts up, people will have actually learned enough in school to understand what they are dealing with, instead of scowling or laughing. Full review to follow.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

I Built It One Piece at a Time: The Amazingly Durable Rio S10; This American Life

I got it one piece at a time And it didn't cost me a dime
You'll know it's me when I come through your town

I'm gonna ride around in style

I'm gonna drive everybody wild

'Cause I'll have the only one there is around.

By Wayne Kemp, copyright 1976, performed by Johnny Cash

March 13, 2003: cnet news reported that a $329.99 1GB SD card will be available in the third quarter.

According to the inverse ratio of the original Moore’s law (roughly, memory doubling in the same space every 18 months) the price of that card should have halved every 18 months. Let’s see, we’re in the third 18-month period since then. Let’s round down 329.99 to 320 because the math is prettier.

  1. half of 320 = 160
  2. half of 160 = 80
  3. half of 80 = 40.

I look forward to 2018, when memory is measured in quads and a 1 GB chip costs the same as a potato chip.

Actually, SD card prices are dropping faster than Moore’s law predicted, like Tiki Barber receptions before Tom Coughlin bought him a jar of pine tar. I bought a 2 GB card (2000 pictures) for $19.99 for my digital camera and remembered that my old Rio S10 from 2002 could take this card too. I had never considered buying an SD card before because of the expense. Now my old $79 10-song mp3 player can play over 300 songs on the same 2 GB card. I bought a new 1 GB card for the camera for $14.99 on the idea that I’ll be okay with having a 1,000 picture capability instead of 2,000.

I had never purchased an iPod so the SD card has opened up a whole new audio world for me. I actually own 2 Rio S10s. My daughter dumped hers after she got her first job and bought an iPod. She doesn’t live by Dad’s strike price of <$100 for technology. My friend Cicero Slim from Chicago calls me the poster boy for delayed gratification.

Rio transferring software is clunky. iPods work easily. You just think about a song and it’s transferred from hard drive to device. [Wireless SD cards just came out so this is almost a reality. You can now transfer pictures from camera to web without cabling into a computer.] Users who own both Rio and iPod claim that Rio software isn’t as elegant as Apple’s, but now there’s 3rd party software available to make the Rio process smoother. A significant Rio advantage over the iPod is that I can use 1 AA rechargeable NiMH. When iPod internal batteries die it’s soldering time.

What’s on my Rio? Regina Spektor, Wilco, Alison Krauss, Mel Tormé, Sweeney Todd, Harry Shearer’s Le Show, This American Life, Barenaked Ladies, Steely Dan, Bing Crosby, and room for more.

There were a lot of things in the 1990s that I heard about but never got into because I was too tired raising babies. One of the great public radio shows that started in during that decade was This American Life with Ira Glass. The weekly podcast is perfect for me because the content of the show is so high, that I don’t want to miss a word or note and I’m able to rewind. Mrs. 1OTT and I recently enjoyed a show featuring a woman writing a breakup song and enlisting Phil Collins to advise her. It is rare for Mrs. 1 and I to so thoroughly enjoy anything on TV or radio together. She’s Gray’s Anatomy and I’m Scrubs. Another outstanding entry featured violent criminals doing hard time performing Hamlet in prison. Almost every episode is good. I look forward to seeing the TV incarnation of TAL on Showtime (will either wait for the DVD or see via download).

Sunday, November 11, 2007

SLAM by Nick Hornby, or Bamboozled!: The Responsibility of the Critic

Page 145 of this 309 page novel confirms the dramatic core of the plot, whether or not the skateboarding protagonist’s girlfriend is pregnant. Too bad I already read the result of the test in the Library of Congress Cataloging in-Publication data on page vi. The promotional copy on the dust jacket doesn’t mention it, so why should the frontmatter?

I once read that a good critic, rather than taking pleasure in easily and totally trashing a work, can make it a challenge and find something in a piece that someone somewhere might like. The recently fired TV critic for the NY Daily News took this to an extreme. When he started writing for the Daily News in the 1990s, his viewpoint was that of a well-rounded individual writing for an equally well-informed audience, of whom TV watching was one of many entertainment choices or intellectual pursuits. If a show stunk, he’d tell us not to bother, to turn off the tube and do something else.

As the TV audience eroded to Internet and video games in the 2000s, I noticed the Daily News critic’s reviews becoming much more positive and less critical, except for the worst shows. He would talk of how a show’s worthiness was great enough for the viewer to devote hours of his or her life to. My first impression was that he assumed people watched TV all night so his job was to get people to watch the least bad shows. Finally I conjectured that he was subversive, knowing that most things on TV are junk, and seeing that if he wrote mostly negative reviews he would erode the audience even further until the position of TV critic would be endangered like radio, book, and buggy whip reviewers, he encouraged people to stick with mediocrity rather than turn off the set.

I found this book to be mediocre. After reading some reviews, I conclude it is overpraised by critics who are rooting for an author who sells a lot of books and keeps publishing afloat.

My only previous direct artistic experience with the author’s work was my viewing of HIGH FIDELITY, a great movie based on Nick Hornby’s first novel. I had no idea SLAM was his first Young Adult (YA) book. The humor escaped me, except for one chuckle where a man pictures himself as a 49-year-old being able to play club soccer with his 16-year-old grandson.

The book will be impossible for Hollywood to translate to an American setting, such as Hornby’s Fever Pitch and High Fidelity, because of the Romeo/Juliet age range of the parents. I’m sure it can be funny but I found it hard to laugh at this version of teen pregnancy. A 15-year-old boy (whose mum was 16 when he was born) getting a 16-year-old girl pregnant can only be the subject of a YA novel if it’s not explicit and this book isn’t. It makes a best case scenario; she has well-educated parents, his mother is young enough to help him, they have a roof over the head for the baby.

There’s even a happy scene at the end where everyone is still young but slightly more grown up, the couple is apart but the baby cared for, and the icing on the cake: she has a new boyfriend and he has a smoking hot girlfriend! By gum, why did I even stay married for all these 22 years? It’s the Gilmore Girls all over again, a world where children don’t need two parents, where they’re better off with just one, there only being half as many adults to screw up their wise-before-their-time teen noggins.

This book offers a lesson in middle-class civility when dealing with misfortune. The girl’s father pulls a little class snobbishness on the teen dad but instantly apologizes for the remark, “Don’t you people ever learn anything?” The book doesn’t get much deeper that this. Is he dreaming about the future or is he time traveling? Is the Tony Hawk poster to which he talks and from Whom he gets advice a metaphor for the Deity? Gimmicky with CGI possibilities, but not well done in the novel.

I found one redeeming feature for you kids out there. Be wise enough to pick good parents who can get you out of life’s biggest jam.

Published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in 2007.

Monday, November 5, 2007

2 Books: Janey A and Teenage Pregnancy

I can't get Johnny U out of my mind, so much so that when I just finished Jane Austen's first novel, Sense and Sensibility, I thought of her as Janey A and tried to find the comparisons to Johnny U. Let's see, when the Dashwood sisters and Mom fall on hard times, they have to reduce the number of servants down to two and move into a smaller grand estate of a relative. Johnny U helped his poor widowed Mom by delivering dirty bags of filthy coal.

Yet Sense has much to offer. Right up front, Austen lays out the basic plot: Old Man Dashwood dies and, by law, must leave his estate to his eldest son (product of his first marriage). If only Lear had a son he could have died in bed and avoided all that bloodshed. Mr. Dashwood's surviving second wife and their three daughters get nada. All four have to leave the mansion to fend for themselves. The eldest son, at the urging of his shrewish wife, reneges on the father's deathbed charge to very generously look after the half-sisters. He arranges instead, a pittance. This bit of nasty business, made me think long on how much of life is like this, things out of one's control that we can't know about. I remember the story of my father having to wrest his mother's bequest to him from his evil executrix sister. That has to be bad karma to deny your parent's last request, let alone all the other ones.

After Mom and brood are taken in by a relation, the mystery left is whom will the sisters marry? That's the only life destination these ladies can hope for. There is talk of them doing "work" as they talk away the day and I look forward to seeing the 1995 film to see what it is Janey was talking about. There is a scene where the ladies are working, literally basket weaving, and I thought this must be where the joke started about make-work jobs or easy classes for college athletes.

Inverted sentences and double negatives made my reading slow, about a chapter a day. We might say, "His friends would be happy to hear how much you like him," but Janey writes:

"I am sure," replied Elinor, with a smile, "that his dearest friends could not be dissatisfied with such commendation as that. I do not perceive how you could express yourself more warmly."


The characters are fully realized, which means you think you know them, then Janey gives you a jolt of the unexpected. Characters leave without warning, fueling one of the prime activities of this social glass, gossiping. I have read that most real-life dialogue among people today is also gossip so I won't judge 19th c. England harshly.

The teen sister, Margaret, appears so briefly that she's almost not there, disappearing for dozens of chapters at a time and making a cameo in the last scene. Not being an English major I wondered if it this was some well-known literary joke and the inspiration for famous unseen characters of radio and TV such as Duffy of Duffy's Tavern, Norm's wife on Cheers, Niles' wife on Frasier.

Idle talk and speculation and a bit of mistaken identity coupled with a secret romance conspire to make the happy ending. Good character is rewarded and low character is given a comeuppance. The sisters are supposed to represent SENSE (Elinor, the older and proper) and SENSIBILITY (Marianne, the younger and instinctive). My interpretation is a little more didactic in terms of Anglo history. Property rights and orderly transfer of property (SENSE) is the foundation of English and American stability, but it gets in the way of romance (SENSIBILITY).

Up next: Slam by Nick Hornby

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Johnny U: His Life and Times by Tom Callahan

After the Mets' devastating collapse this year (sorry Tom Glavine and Manny Ramirez, the fans take it hard even if you guys don’t) I even lost interest in football, like the guy who got hit so hard his grandfather felt it too. The Jets' poor start isn’t helping. Johnny U: His Life and Times by Tom Callahan has helped in my road to recovery.

By popular and official acclaim, Johnny Unitas was the greatest quarterback in history. Baltimore Colt Jim Parker told Unitas in the huddle that a defender “just called me a nigger.” Unitas said, “We can’t have that. Let him through this time.” Unitas hit him in the head with a laser, this in the day before helmets were as hard as battering rams. “’He fell like a f—kin’ tree,’ Parker recalled.” I thought this did more for race relations, at least on the Colts, than 100 speeches by well-meaning individuals.

George Blanda, Jim Kelly, Dan Marino, Joe Montana, Joe Namath, and Babe Parilli were other QBs from western Pennsylvania who had the ethnic work ethic but Unitas stands foremost in his leadership ability, taking the blame for others' mistakes and standing up for his own. Former Jet Joe Namath’s admiration for Unitas is evident, saying in his neighborhood he was “Joey U” growing up.

Not only Unitas’ story is told but those of his teammates: defensive end Gino Marchetti, Army vet via an avoided prison term (“I figured I could either face the Germans or I could face my father”); defensive tackle Art Donovan, who you might remember as a raconteur on Letterman’s NBC show; Raymond Berry, the contact-wearing wide receiver; and many others including the above mentioned Parker, and other characters, such as defensive back Johnny Sample. He wrote his own book, Confessions of a Dirty Ballplayer in 1970. It was written too early to cover his post-retirement activity. He broke the law (passing bad paper), sharpened his tennis game at Club Fed with the Watergaters, then became a respected tennis line judge. Reporters must have loved Sample because the first ten obits I read don’t mention his post-retirement problem at all.

On the first page we learn that Unitas et al. played football "when men played football for something less than a living and something more than money.” This book passes the Don Imus First Line test. Callahan’s beautiful prose, to paraphrase Renee Zellweger’s football movie, had me at “when men played football…” Players worked in the off-season out of necessity and stayed in town to live, drinking in the bars with the fans, opening businesses, living among us like…us.

A big score from a championship victory could make a difference in a player’s life. NFL commissioner Bert Bell told players to call him if they need anything and they did, like the ’58 champion Colt, Parker again, who was short for a house down payment. “Mr. Bell” (another great leader) told him to come down, he would cut him his championship check that day! Mr. Bell did.

The Colts beat the Giants on Dec. 28, 1958 in the Greatest Game Ever Played, but Callahan reveals that the players point back to a regular season game that year that surpassed The Greatest, in their view. He covers both Greatest Games in thrilling come-from-behind detail.

This book is laugh-out loud funny, touching, and a first-hand reporting job based on hundreds of interviews. I recommend it for sports fan and fans of life itself.

Published by Three Rivers Press; reprint edition August 2007 from the original hardcover by Crown.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Mr. Mann

Theodore Mann, co-founder of the Circle in the Square Theatre, gave a lecture at the NY Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center on October 20, 2007 before 50 or so theater lovers. He touched on as many highlights of his career as a producer and director as you can fit in an hour and change. The Circle is credited with starting the off- Broadway movement in the 1950s.

Ted has just written an excellent memoir, Journeys in the Night, which I had the pleasure of working on as a production editor for his publisher and my former employer, Applause Books. My favorite stories in the book have to be the George C. Scott tales, which could have filled their own book. Ted told the audience how he hired George C. Scott after one meeting. Not exactly a meeting, the book reveals he was totally taken by Scott’s bearing just by seeing him sleeping on a dressing room cot! Scott was hired to star in the Circle’s Children of Darkness with Colleen Dewhurst and became an integral part of the Circle as star, director, and benefactor.

He told more stories about Jason Robards, “Dusty” Hoffman, Geraldine Page, and the time Raul Julia met Ray Bolger. Ray had created the role that Raul was playing in the revival of Where’s Charley? I got goose bumps, even though I already knew the story, hearing again about Bolger leaping to the stage after Julia’s performance, tap dancing and taking a twirl around the set with the leading lady.

I started off the Q&A session by asking Ted how he made the transition from producer to director, which, if not a total rarity to try, is exceptional to excel at both. Ted revealed that during preparations for The Balcony in 1960, director and Circle co-founder José Quintero took a lesser role and Ted stepped forward in casting the roles and cutting text. Working closely with José, he morphed into his second career as a director, picking up the language of directing from José and others.

I was laid off from Applause Books in March 2007 in the middle of production of the book. Ted asked me to come over to the Circle to help him edit the figure captions for Journeys. He also gave me some plays recently sent to him. I read them and I wrote some comments for him. I thought of the hundreds of people he must have helped over the years for one reason or another with work and a check.

Going to the Circle during that brief period restored my self-respect after losing the Applause job to outsourcing. Applause told me I did a great job, but it’s just business. It hurt to lose the only paying job I ever loved or from which I even took work home. Ted reminded me I still had value as an editor or even as a human being. Maybe that’s what theater is supposed to do.

Thank you Mr. Mann.

Ted Mann, autographing a copy of
his book for his production editor.



Sunday, October 14, 2007

A Day at the NY Aquarium

You talkin' to me?


An off-season visit to the NY Aquarium is a treat. You beat the crowds and don't run into beachgoers on the way home. It had been five years since our last visit and that's too long.

One minor criticism is the alien stingers exhibit, which repeats several of the fish that are featured in other exhibits, such as the jellies.

If we ever make it to Io's oceans we might see creatures like the mysterious jelly.


The Aquatheater features California sea lions in a fun program with stunts by the seals and education by the trainers. When we went five years ago the program was slightly apologetic about putting the sea lions through stunts but it's possible the political climate has changed. Also, these sea lions, Otis and Osborne, didn't actually do many vigorous or exotic stunts, mostly just shaking their flippers and leaping out of the water to hit the balloon. Five years ago two other sea lions were jumping through suspended hoops and flying around the arena at high speed.

Trainer: Come on Otis, jump through the hoop. Otis: No ma'am, UPPSLUS* says we don't have to after the second show.


A lot of animals have physical antecedents in fish, such catfish and sea horses, so maybe there's something to Darwin and the Little Mermaid. Another good example is the toad fish.
A close-up of a toad fish or the reincarnated Eddie Robinson without trademark cigar?

A rare shot of Mrs. 1Ott out at the Aquarium, admiring Little Caesar.


Pretty as a picture.


This guy came formal, or, hey, they said this camera took color pictures!


Here is mama walrus Kulu, who gave birth this summer to 115-pound baby Akituusaq. Ouch! Actually the film loop that showed the birth shows him popping out in a few slippery seconds.


We close with a last look at some world famous Coney Island attractions so well-known that they need no description. Apologies to Kevin Walsh, Mr. Forgotten New York, who gets a royalty every time someone takes a New York picture of anything more than 10 years old.



Photos by B.P. Black

_____
*Union of Professional Performing Sea Lions of the United States.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

The Religion of 9/11

We have a lot of unrecognized religions in the U.S. First and foremost is the NFL. More people watch or attend football than go to church and it's easy to prove (been to church lately?; see any football?; your witness). The Vince Lombardi Trophy is even a golden chalice holding a football.

9/11 has become a religion. George W. Bush is its St. Paul, interpreting the events as one who wasn't there but knows what it all means. Rudy Giuliani is its pope, the reader of the law, excommunicating anyone who goes against his ex cathedra statements on fighting terrorism. Rudy by the way has yet to visit Iraq but I give him credit for an incredible eulogy for my wife's cousin, Fireman Tommy Kelly.

Tourists can make the stations of 9/11. Every day the tourists buses pull up to the WTC cross, currently located at the side of St. Peter's on Church Street down the block from the WTC. They pile out, take pictures of the cross and do Ground Zero, Trinity Church, buy a few souvenirs.

Some people found a purpose to their lives for the first time. Recently I read about the reunion of the clappers who, in the months of rescue and recovery, stood on the West Side Highway cheering the rescue workers on their way into the pit. This year they assembled in the same spot and were told by the police to move, they were in the way. Don't you know who we are? they said but the police would have none of it. How sharper than a serpent's tooth is ingratitude.

I suffered post-traumatic shock from being down there, looking for my daughter who fled her high school on Chambers St. I will always be grateful to her princpal for safely evacuating the school.

I heard two African American youths talking on 9/11. One said to the other, "I can't believe what happened to us today." I thought many years later of a president who had a country 100% united and how he squandered that capital.

One night, a few years after 9/11, I was in my daughter's school watching a student production of KISS ME KATE. As the lights went down I had a hard time breathing and had to leave the auditorium. Very weird and I think I'm over it now. Ironically I now work on lower Broadway, one block away from the WTC and I look at the big sky where it was every day.

As I walked down Fifth Avenue and then through the meat packing district on 9/11, hearing the news reports, I had convinced myself that some part of the buildings were still standing behind the clouds of smoke. That's insane I know, but it wasn't until I talked to my wife's sister-in-law on the phone that night that I actually knew that both buildings fell.

photos by B.P. Black

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

His Master's Voice

This is my turtle riffing on Nipper and the old RCA slogan. Don't tell my wife that Speedy was on the rug today.

KNOCKED UP on DVD: Unrated and Unprotected

KNOCKED UP is a light-hearted look at an unplanned pregnancy. I found many laughs, especially from the porn-loving mostly male geek ensemble, but weak plotting for the lovers. I had never seen any of director Judd Apatow’s other movies or TV series but heard all about THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN (2005) from the movies and FREAKS AND GEEKS (1999) from TV, his two best known projects. This year’s SUPERBAD, which he produced, has solidified Apatow’s position as the hottest comedy producer/director/writer in Hollywood.

Katherine Heigl, the GREY’S ANATOMY beauty [excuse the redundancy] plays a producer from the E! Channel. She has a drunken fling with a chubby web-porn entrepreneur, played by Seth Rogen. He gets her pregnant and there are two things to resolve: will she keep the baby and will he take responsibility? No spoiler alert needed to tell you she does and he does.

The only problem left is how to get these two to fall in love. In another fat guy/blonde beauty comedy, SHALLOW HAL, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Rosemary falls in love with Hal (Jack Black) for many reasons, not just because she thinks he must be a great guy to overlook her obesity [he’s actually under a spell that allows him to see only inner beauty] but because of his actions [he’s great with the kids in the burn unit at her hospital (he can’t see their actually condition either)]. KNOCKED UP had her telling him way too early, with no strong motivation, that she loves him. Other than the fact that he said he’d be there for her, I didn’t get the love story from her end.

The DVD extras showed scenes where they spend time together, even a fight where she’s whining that he didn’t cry when they saw the first sonogram pictures of the baby. This is the stuff of real relationships, a stupid fight. I would like to have seen them together more like this. There’s no magic moment where they fall in love and this is a requirement in a comedy. There’s a motivation for the other requirement, the breakup that leads to the makeup, but it’s related to a ridiculous mushroom fueled Vegas road-trip that he takes with her brother-in-law, the consistently brilliant Paul Rudd.

So, worth a rental but glad I didn’t pay 11 bucks to see in a theater.


POSTSCRIPT: Knocked Up in Real Life

In real life I’ve known a few people who were involved in a pregnancy out of wedlock. Unlike the movies, it’s rarely funny. In one case I think it actually improved the life of my old poker buddy Fat Johnny [not his real name] who was trapped by his girlfriend into marrying him [per my psychic mother as she saw her waddle down the aisle], because Johnny became more responsible. After the wedding both families helped them out. They moved from Brooklyn out to Long Island, had the baby and then had a few more kids. Think Jack and Diane, two kids doing the best they can. Johnny had grown up without a father and had large appetites unchecked by the firm hand of Dad. Starting a new life, by all accounts Johnny became a good suburban Hockey Dad. The last time I saw Johnny he was bowling in a lunch-time league at MSG. He was heavy and bald but he looked content. Another happy ending.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

The Mets

I saw the Mets at Shea lose Tuesday and Thursday and when will it end?

I hear LoDuca won't be back. I'll miss the one guy who hates, HATES to lose. Duke is all guts, playing hurt in Friday's game after a shot to the knee from a foul tip.

All season I've been a Wright fielding knocker. There but for the grace of Delgado the Mets would lead the majors in balls thrown in the stands. Wright is an aimer, not a thrower.

Last night's performance was beyond belief. I used to tell my daughter, before the ball is hit to to you, picture what you're going to do with it. She was one of the few girls who didn't stare at the ball thinking for two seconds after she caught it.

With the bases loaded, when Wright threw home and got the ball back and didn't step on the 3B bag as he missed making the tag on the runner from second, I was gobsmacked. At third there are not too many options when the bases are loaded. Throw behind the runner and the force is off, then tag. Throw home is like a 6-4-3. How do you forget that or not know it or not plan for it if the ball comes to you?

Here's what might have confused him. Did you see the runner who was thrown out by Wright at home? The runner stopped in his tracks, turned around and looked back to third, as odd as that sounds. This might have messed up Wright's head into thinking the runner was alive, like, maybe LoDuca's foot wasn't on home. But even still, the force would have still been on at third.

No one ever accused him of being a genius off the field but I expect more from a so-called MVP.

The Met collapse has even affected my feeling about Jet football. Am I wasting my time?

Still, a day at the ballpark is always fun. My brother revealed that in 1975 he took his girlfriend to 7 Met games and the Mets won all 7. This was a .500 ballclub so the odds were 1 chance out of 2 to the seventh power of that outcome. Rolling the dice and trusting his gut, he married the girl and they have four daughters all these years later.

Why is Shea empty? I blame management. Florida and Washington are negatively promoted as third tier bronze games as they raise prices for Yankees, Atlanta, etc. I remember getting to the park at 10:30 to watch batting practice before a double header. We'd bring a big paper grocery bag of sandwiches and Sun Dews. The Mets were playing the Expos. All for $1.35. Then $1.50. Section 1 behind the plate, sit where you want "general admission." I think reserved ended around row D. Regular fans in that section included a bearded guy named Fuzzy and his cohort Nelson. I should have known that nothing could feel that good again for $1.50.

Read my other Met post this season. Could it be the same team?

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Brooklyn Book Festival 2007

The Brooklyn Book Fair was held on September 16 around and on the steps of Brooklyn Borough Hall and in a few nearby indoor venues, including my alma mater, St. Francis College. Beep Marty Markowitz, who I see every year more than my own reflection, was the ringmaster of the event. Over 100 stalls featuring small and larger booksellers were visited by 10,000 people. Markowitz said that they want to go to two days next year.

Two stages were setup for interviews and we saw Marty at the Borough Hall stage turn the tables and interview Dominic Carter, political reporter for NY1. Carter was promoting his book and answered questions the way Bill Bradley used to answer Marv Albert, with 15 minute responses. The subject matter is rough, Carter’s sexual abuse by his schizophrenic mother and his eventual success thanks to a loving grandma and a tenacious desire for higher education. http://www.amazon.com/No-Mommas-Boy-Embraced-Future/dp/0595428398

I parted with some cash to take advantage of the bargains. At One Story, a Park Slope publisher who puts out 18 issues for $21 annually, I bought a book for a buck. Actually it was one short story, a staple bound booklet containing The 217 Pound Dog by Arthur Bradford. One Story has the novel idea of bringing back the short story and this little tale by Bradford has more chuckles in 28 pages than the last three Ben Stiller movies. http://www.one-story.com/

At Brooklyn College’s [one of my sons goes there] table I chatted with an author/professor who writes for a U.K. firm with a U.S office. As I thumbed through his book I mentioned that I had several friends at the company. He went on a rant against his editor and I thought it must be pretty bad to reveal his complaints to a total stranger, save for the facts that I told him about my son and the friends at the company.

I was surprised to find out that my alma mater, St. Francis College, had a Creative Writing Program. I spoke with co-editor and professor Terry Quinn, who kindly signed my copy of From the Heart of Brooklyn: Volume Two a collection of stories, poems, and plays by the students of SFC. Special Festival price was $10. If Professor Quinn had been around in 1976, there would have been many happier students, who when requesting a class in Journalism were given another seminar in Milton. This was a joke that speech professor John Monaghan used to crack. Monaghan eventually taught that inaugural class in Journalism and it was the only time I got to be in the same class as my brother Dennis, the accounting major. The class was way overbooked, so it was for the best that Dennis missed a lot of the classes so someone else could sit down. http://www.stfranciscollege.edu/rss/news.xml

Graywolf Press of St. Paul, MN featured some very attractively designed covers, real eyecatchers. I picked up another $10 bargain, Pocketful of Names by Joe Coomer, a novel that is “a deeply human tale about the unpredictability of nature, art, family and the flotsam and jetsam that comprise our lives.” The main character is a young woman, so when Clare Danes is finished playing Shaw in NY this year, her agent might take a flyer on this.
http://www.graywolfpress.org

Also spotted at the Festival: Michael Walker, pr maven for the AMNH, and young publishing marketer Samara Stob. These are personal acquaintances and I just wanted to let them know I couldn’t give a shout out there as I was sitting in the middle of the Marty Markowitz audience. We also saw Pete Hamill, or was it the guy from the Men’s Warehouse? Either way, he looked great in black, tieless, and seemed to be enjoying himself. Marty had the same getup on so I guess black is the new…black?

Much more to report but my editor says I’ve exceeded the 500 word limit where most people lose interest and go back to their AIM or email or surfing porn, so that’s all from me from the festival. We had a great time and look forward to the next year.

Friday, September 14, 2007

From the IFC: I WANT SOMEONE TO EAT CHEESE WITH

Jeff Garlin has written, produced, directed and stars in I WANT SOMEONE TO EAT CHEESE WITH, a new comedy about a comic actor, James, who makes a living acting and performing improv in Chicago. His unsuccessful love life and overeating are the running themes. Garlin is best known as the guy who stars in CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM on HBO and looks like fellow Chicago improv actor George Wendt (CHEERS). Wendt by the way, recently said that people tell him on auditions they’re now looking for a “Jeff Garlin­–type.”

James lives with his mother in a MARTY–like setup. I found it hard to believe that a performer who constantly works with other performers in improv had any trouble meeting a lot of women, regardless of his appearance. [Garlin is a little heavy as James but looked less heavy than on CURB and in recent appearances promoting the film.] He meets Beth (Sarah Silverman), who is kooky sexy. She throws herself at him, diverging from the MARTY plot [she has a dirty line about hoagies that could enter the language], but there’s a another lady in the plot, Stella (Bonnie Hunt), his niece’s teacher, who catches his eye. John Sayles­–lookalike David Pasquesi provides strong support as his brotherly best friend Luca. I enjoyed their portrayal of fraternal friendship, a brother from another mother.

Jeff Garlin has created a character distinct from “Jeff Greene” in CURB but I found two of the similarities to CURB distracting: the interstitial jaunty French-sounding accordion music and one particular sentence construction, “big bowl of…,” used in both projects. I was jolted into the CURB world of Jeff Greene when I heard it.

As a producer of CURB and former member of Second City, Garlin must know most of the good working comic actors in the business and the gang’s all here, including Roger Bart, Dan Castellanata, Tim Kazurinsky, Richard Kind, Wallace Langham, and so on. Special mention to the excellent Mina Kolb as James’ mother, loving but not sloppy about it.

Iif you’re looking for a warm fuzzy, this isn’t it, except maybe for the last scene. Even though the trailers are setting you up for a romantic comedy, it's really about a man who has peaked in his profession and is treading water, a successful loser in a career that others would envy--that's how hard it is to make it. He's working in show business but he's living with his mother so maybe he's not really making a living.

EAT ends too soon at 80 minutes and that's better than 2-1/2 hours of flying cars or guns, guns, guns. I would like to have seen a little more at the end, but like good literature the discerning reader has to fill in the gaps. The last scene must be less than a minute long but gives a lot of information so quickly that you'll have a lot to chew on as the credits roll.

Friday, September 7, 2007

From the IFC: PIERREPOINT

PIERREPOINT is an excellent film based on the true story of one of the last hangmen in the U.K. Timothy Spall plays Albert Pierrepoint, a delivery man turned hangman, following in the family business. We get to see what happens before, during, and after a hanging and the way Pierrepoint does it is efficient and respectful. He takes pride in his work and his reputation becomes such that Monty asks him to hang the Nazis convicted of war crimes after WWII.

Napoloeon called Britain a nation of shopkeepers and Pierrepoint invests his earnings in a pub at the urging of his wife, the business-like Annie (Juliet Stevenson). She bets there's plenty who'd like to have a drink with the man who executed the Nazis and she's right. I'm giving away too much plot so let me just say that the film is artfully done with clever camera work to show time passing, internal strife, and horror. Is he Jekyll and Hyde or the same man in and out of the execution chamber? His friend Tish (Eddie Marsan) helps him sort this out, as does the anti-execution movement of the mid-1950s.

I enjoyed the portrayal in the first scenes of middle-aged courtship and love and it stands in contrast to the bloodlessness of the execution room. They get married and like a good Mafia wife, she doesn't know where he goes on his business trips. Eventually she figures it out. It made me think of Mrs. Lovett's reaction to learning Sweeney's bloody hobby. "Seems an awful waste," she sings. All those dead bodies and her needing meat for her meat pies. Spall, by the way, will play Beadle Bamford in SWEENEY TODD (Chrsitmas 2007 release) the most highly anticipated project for me since the time I saw Rodney Dangerfield at Radio City.

Timothy Spall is one of those fine actors I knew I'd seen before but couldn't place the movies. I jogged my memory online and remembered him from WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART, TOPSY TURVY, and HAMLET (1996). I was also delighted to find his appearance on RED DWARF.

Go see this thoughtful look at an era that's over in Britain but not in the U.S. It's one more reason for them to feel superior to us, but hey, I don't think we were ever hanging people as they did for stealing a buttered scone or passing bad paper.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

SUMMER WRAP-UP: 2 BOOKS AND 2 MOVIES; BRA SHOPPING WITH MY WIFE AND LUNCH AT OTTOMANELLI’S

PLEASE STAND BY: A PREHISTORY OF TELEVISION by Michael Ritchie is a fascinating book from 1994 about television before 1948 in the U.S. and Europe. Amazing technical and show biz angles are covered in great detail with personal interviews with the people who made it happen, not flies on the wall like a Ken Burns doc where some professor speaks of 1861 in the present tense. I had always thought it was only the war that stunted TV’s growth in the 1940s but a major factor was the resistance of Petrillo, president of the musician’s union, to the use of live licensed music on TV. Once a deal was struck with him, it lead to variety on TV (with more than just amateurs singing unlicensed public domain music), which led to Milton Berle, and to TV’s domination over radio, movies, and all other night time leisure.

HERE’S JOHNNY by who else, Ed McMahon is a 2005 love letter to his late boss and friend, Johnny Carson. Fluff, not enough detail, all heart. The best reprinted gag from Karnac the Magnficent:

KARNAC: The answer is Hasbro.

ED: The answer is Hasbro.

KARNAC: The question: How did Tito Jackson get into show business?

SPIDERMAN 3

Tobey Maguire can act and that’s what makes S3 superior to the current Superman franchise. The love story still doesn’t sizzle enough for me but he and Kirstin Dunst make a cute couple. There’s a dangerous flirtation with camp when Peter shows his dance moves, but that would only upset people who don’t like to be entertained.

2 DAYS IN PARIS

My wife likes the Angelika Film Center and she likes Julie Delpy since she saw BEFORE SUNRISE/BEFORE SUNSET, so she dragged me to see 2 DAYS IN PARIS, which Delpy wrote and helmed. A woman takes her Amercan boyfriend to meet her folks in Paris. A lot of real life infuses the goings on—Adam Goldberg, the boyfriend, is Delpy’s former lover. Her parents play her parents. She really is French and so on. The characters are unappealing and the source of their attraction is not made known. I don’t believe that common interests are necessary for a couple but chemistry is a minimal requirement. Their sex life is mediocre, they seemed like a couple who had been married for forty-nine years. Perhaps Delpy was showing a marriage in reverse time. It's Annie Hall without the laughs.

BRA SHOPPING WITH MY WIFE AND LUNCH AT OTTOMANELLI’S

Ladies, Intimacy at Madison and 90th is the place to go for the hard to fit woman. If Dolly Parton were a New Yorker, she’d go here. I’m told the service was excellent and my wife will probably become a return customer. Before we went we had a delicious lunch at Ottomanelli’s on Lexington and 93rd. She had the spaghetti and meatballs and I had the pecan chicken salad. A two-pint glass of watery Coke [that’s how I like it, with lotsa lemon slices] completed our prelude to Intimacy.

Friday, August 17, 2007

The Old Town Bar--1 on the Town for Less Than a Gen'l Jackson

Most of my friends have moved away, like the Johnny Cash song, to everywhere man, like Chicago, Long Island, upstate New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Florida, and so on. The ones who commute to Manhattan are always looking at the watch for the last train to Podunk. So it was that I found myself alone at 6:30 p.m. at the end of the bar at the Old Town on E. 18th St.

There's a gap where the wooden bar to your left ends and a marble bar begins. The waitress moves through it. I sat at the far end of the marble bar, not quite at the corner and not on a barstool but on the edge of a small table, sharing the surface with a large plastic container that slowly filled up with dirty dishes. When the real barstool to my left emptied, I moved over. This was my first promotion in a long time.

The Brooklyn lager was so good I had another. I asked for the menu, even though I already knew what I was going to order. I enjoy eating at the bar, not that I could get a table (it was a crowded Thursday evening). The chili came hot and was good too. I asked the bartender, "Do you have any pie?" "None that I can recommend," he said. I don't if that was funny but hearing it said with an Irish accent made me chuckle.

"We have apple crumb," said the bartender. I then asked for coffee and felt a little guilty because this looked like the first coffee made all day (maybe all month). I thought he 's thinking, I make more on liquor than I do on coffee. I forced the coffee down with the apple crumb.

I sat in front of the very active dumbwaiter, which connects with the second floor kitchen. I thought of my old Irish father, who would have been 100 in 2010. He lived in an old building and claimed to have ridden a dumbwaiter for fun when he was a kid. The flopping around of the Old Town's dumbwaiter cables was hypnotic, almost dizzying. Could have been the beer, the chili, and the coffee. Or the apple crumb. Did I mention the whipped cream on the side? Nice touch.

This is as good of a time as you can have by yourself for less than $20.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Phil Rizzuto 1917-2007

Scooter made a personal appearance when The Wiz opened across from Kings Plaza in the 1980s. He signed a Wiz cap for my mother and sister. When she told him they were in Richmond Hill HS at the same time in the 1930s, Phil flattered my mother and said, "That's not possible!"

A couple of years later, she asked him if he could send an autographed pic to a priest friend of our family for his birthday, which he or somebody did. What a great guy.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

THE SIMPSONS; The Sandbar; Looking for Work

THE SIMPSONS

Go see it, it’s great. My only criticism: there’s a scene about 20 minutes in where Bart undergoes a public burning so to speak, and the cruelty of it set a dark tone that the movie doesn’t recover from until the last scene. THE SIMPSONS was the Bart Show for the first five years with the catch phrases and the national debates on negative influence but it’s been Homer’s for the last fifteen. The movie belongs to Homer but Bart is there with him for the resolution. Stay for the credits as there are several gags lasting until the last frame.

It will be interesting to see if the events of the movie become canonical, which doesn’t mean anything of course. On TV Homer forgets he was Mr. Plow many seasons ago even as he’s wearing the jacket. Whatever they do for a laugh is perfectly cromulent to me.

THE SANDBAR

Voltaire declared that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. So it is with The Sandbar in Rockaway, Queens. [If you Google this you will find the Village Voice misplaces it in Far Rockaway.] The Sandbar is at B. 116th and the Boardwalk. Last week after accepting a new job offer, I went down to the beach and had a few at The Sandbar. Like a neighborhood bar, your Irish bartender John offers a buyback every 4th brew or so. I sat there reading the New York Review of Books but made sure it was folded over to look like the Post or News. This ain’t Park Slope and no use alienating the regulars. It’s okay to pull out a book at the bar but I feel the NYRB is a little snobby in a neighborhood bar. A constant breeze from the beach wafted through this open air paradise, open to the beach side and the far wall on 116th. There’s a burger counter on that other side too but I didn’t have the nerve to try it. Maybe next time.

In movies and TV I’ve seen guys yell out, “Cat fight,” when two girls start fighting but I’d never seen it in real life, until last week right outside The Sandbar on the boardwalk. In this case, the cry was “Girl fight!” as two girls in bikinis were jawing and finally slapping each other on the boardwalk. There’s a major NYPD presence until 5 p.m. at 116th and the fight was immediately broken up by two cops.

LOOKING FOR WORK

One of the worst job-hunting experiences I ever had involved a publisher in 2005. The fellow who interviewed me said he’d recommend me for the job, whatever that meant. Did I have the job or not? I found out: he left the firm, his supervisor left, and the higherups I followed up with thanked me for my diligence. The trail ran cold after that. Oddly, I have a 2007 update coming up with the same company [stay tuned].

Monday, July 23, 2007

Life Imitates Life: Vermont and Richie Havens Every 25 Years

I'm repeating stuff I did 25 years ago. Case in point 1:

In 1982 we took a trip to Arlington, VT and spent a pleasant time at the West Mountain Inn. I remember the inn dog, a basset hound named Frodo. Covered bridges [before THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY made them popular], memorable skunk smells, and a side trip to the Grandma Moses Museum in Benington are still fresh in my memory. In 1988 actor Michael J. Fox married actress Tracy Pollan at the West Mountain Inn. I imagine this gave the inn a boost so we were glad we discovered this place before it got too popular. The happy couple also have twins like we do, so there might be something in the syrup. Of all the places to which I've traveled, Vermont water has been the best on my insides.

This year we returned to VT, to a two-day wedding extravaganza in Ludlow. We stayed at the Jackson-Gore Inn, where the receptions [Welcoming, Wedding, Sunday breakfast] were held. First class in every way, except the two bathroom door locks [we had a suite] did not fit right and would not lock. Saturday morning I hiked up the hill, past the ski trail and the train tracks. It was exciting to see the train barrel through the mountain grading. I tipped the valet five bucks and am never sure what to tip a hotel valet.

Case in point 2:

In the 1980s we saw Richie Havens in Prospect Park. I'm pretty sure it was 1984. Richie did a number from a new album that reminded me a lot of Marvin Gaye, who had been killed that year by his father. I was thinking that Richie's agent was setting him up to pick up some of Marvin's audience for sexy soul.

Over the weekend we saw Richie again at Governor's Island. I learned that even though the island is closer to Brooklyn than Manhattan, it is legally part of New York County. Richie played the same songs since he hasn't charted in a long time and was well received.

If you're planning a trip to GI, take the free ferry next to the Staten Island Ferry. Bring food and water is the warning as there isn't much more than a hot dog stand or two on the island.

Case in point 3:

I'm taking a class in InDesign next week. I haven't been in a classroom, except for a first aid orientation a few years ago, since the week Reagan was shot.

The older you get it's harder to find things to do for the first time.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Vets Screwed Again; No Justice in NY City Council; Clinton and Truman

True or false: All service personnel earn lifetime V.A. care.

False.

Because of the high demand, the gov't. made this asset and income dependent in 2003. Bob, our co-op board vice-president, told me he was denied V.A. care so I researched it and it's true. This used to be gospel--you served, you got what you earned.

Another casualty of the Iraq war? Yes. The money's gotta come from somewhere.

Bob was drafted too so this beats the needy greedy what's-in-it-for-me program-abusing non-patriot argument that Republicans give when one of their blondes denigrate true heroes and regular guys who did their duty.

Bob's a real guy by the way. He sounds like one of those phony examples politicians have to dream up because they don't meet enough real people like I do. The co-op is like a small town of 500 people except it's only on a couple of acres in three buildings. New York City Councilman Lou Fidler shows up at our annual meeting every year. His kids played with my kids in the playground when they were little.

Speaking of City Council, they have a staff member who has called for the assassination of a council member. This staff member's mentor [another councilman] wants to run for borough president [Marty Markowitz is term-limited out of office]. Got a feeling this will hurt his campaign. He has given her his full support. [Imus gets fired for a joke; this woman gets full support for a felonious death threat.] The president of the Council tried to fire her today but the legality of her authority to do so is in question.

Anybody see Clinton on C-SPAN2 last night? He gave a [long] speech at the 50th anniv. of the Truman Library. Great stuff, Tom enjoyed it too. Clinton said Truman, except for heroic service in WWI, didn't have much foreign experience but he was a voracious reader. He made reading and the quest for knowledge a running theme in the library-setting. Couldn't help but think of Bush when he said it.

He had some notes but he didn't need them. He'd still be talking if C-SPAN hadn't turned off the signal. He was always charming but now has reached a Will Rogers level.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Radio Roundup: AM, HD, XM; Phillies Save the Day; Rick Monday Saves Old Glorious

There are a few AM stations where time stands still. Try picking up 740 CHWO [this is the old CBL, formerly a CBC station] after sunset from from Toronto [big band and standards] or 900 CHML from Hamilton, Ontario [old-time radio around midnight]. Locally, WHLI 1100, a daytimer, still plays a mix of new guys like Bublé, old standards, and Sid Mark's Sinatra show from Philly on Sunday. There was another standards holdout I used to pick up, 950 AM from Phila., who finally gave up and went to sports talk. Some big markets now have two sports talkers. Whouda thunk?

AMs are going to HD and that is creating noise at both ends of the carrier if you listen on a current receiver. I hear that HD will have less range than regular AM and this could hurt WABC and WOR, who sell ads based on their mighty overnight signals, if the government ever mandates HD and turning off the old analog signal as they have done for television's conversion* to digital. It would also give people in fringe areas less choices.

Real life intruded in Denver, CO as the Mets lost to Houston today in the last game before the All Star Game break. I turned on the XM to find out how the Phils were doing in Colorado [they won]. A major downpour occurred before the seventh inning and a lot of Phillies who came off the field after the bottom of the sixth must have still been in the dugout. The Rockies disappeared except for two players. The grounds crew was being rocked by the tarp and it sounded like some men fell under it and others were being carried aloft as they held on. Seventeen Phillies charged onto the field and along with the two Rockies and two umps manfully helped the Rockies crew. Good job Phillies!

In 1976 two filthy rotten bums tried to burn the flag as they ran on the field at Dodger Stadium. I can hear Vin Scully say at the beginning of this radio recording, "Now wait a minute, there's an animal loose." This was to deincentivize anyone from running on the field back when games were on the radio with no TV [common in the 1970s]. No one except the people there and fans of the Police Blotter would know about it. Rick Monday [who I heard on XM today doing the Dodger-Marlin game with Charlie Steiner] snatched the flag from the bums.

If you can watch this and not get duck bumps, you must, like Dick Cheney, have other priorities. I got the bumps, stifled a tear, and then watched it again, biting my lower lip. Rick Monday says anyone in that situation would do it. Nah. Tom Glavine? Yeah. Jose Reyes? He'd just watch, like he did against Houston on a recent dribbler up the third base line. Paul LoDuca? Most def, and with prisoners taken.

Rick Monday saves Old Glory was selected by MLB as one of the top 100 moments in baseball history.

One more note: Charlie Steiner, who I like, called Jeff Kent "a banged up warrior." Since we've been in Iraq, most broadcasters have stopped calling ballplayers warriors unless it's V. Guerrero.

__________
*Yup, Bush signed the bill making Feb. 17, 2009 the day your old TV becomes obsolete. Don't worry, the gummint is subsidizing converter boxes that will turn your old TV into a monitor for the box.