We do tend to hurt the ones we love the most. We know that they have got hurt due to something which we maybe done unknowingly, but aren’t able to do anything about it. I had learned to choose my choices of words carefully when I am upset. Saying “Can I have sometime alone and I promise to talk about it when I cool down.” instead of yelling “LEAVE ME ALONE!!!” is one of the most often used opening sentence when I got home upset. Sometimes we don’t have a clue how the people we love feels, but i believe that everything happens for a reason! Along the way we might, we just might realize that what we did is wrong but when at comes down to it all whatever happens happens. Its also just out of nowhere and then you find yourself feeling all the blame, but still there’s always a way to work things out and get along the way. I think we hurt the ones we love the most because we are so comfortable with those people that we just don’t think. I have been hurt enough by people I love, that I stop to think, making sure I don’t repeat the pattern and hurt someone else. It happens most of the time. Love and hurt comes at the same time.

Central Florida Future – http://bit.ly/8KleHL

By Cassie Turner

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Published: Friday, November 20, 2009

Updated: Friday, November 20, 2009

Caitlin Bush

"Most Americans do not know slavery not only exists in the world today, it flourishes," said Ron Soodalter, co-author of The Slave Next Door, in his presentation in the Pegasus Ballroom Monday morning.

"Somewhere around 27 million people are in bondage in the world today. Now, that’s over twice the number as were trafficked in chains in the entire 350 years of the African slave trade."

Soodalter, an active abolitionist and historian, kicked off International Education Week at UCF as the keynote speaker for the Second Annual International Breakfast. The Slave Next Door presentation concluded the three-part series on "Slavery’s Resurgence" facilitated by the Office of the Special Assistant to the President for Global Perspectives and the International Services Center.

The series began with Somaly Mam, a Cambodian human rights activist, former slave and author of The Road of Lost Innocence: The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine, when she shared her experiences in September.

In October, Micheline Slattery, a human-rights activist and former restavek, or domestic child slave, in both Haiti and the United States, addressed about 300 attendees.

Modern-day slavery includes around 800,000 men, women and children trafficked each year around the world. According to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Web site, about 17,500 of them end up in the United States, with a high percentage received in Florida.

Soodalter suggests a simple Google search on human trafficking for astounding results.

In spite of major federal legislation and anti-trafficking laws passed in 43 states, 103 human-trafficking convictions have resulted, Soodalter said.

Trafficking remains hidden, is largely unreported and difficult to identify. According to the 2009 Trafficking in Persons, or TIP, report, published by the U.S. Department of State, forced labor/involuntary servitude represents the majority of human-trafficking cases in the world. The co-author of Soodalter’s book,  Kevin Bales, wrote the original 156-page TIP report, titled “Trafficking Persons in the United States — A Report to the National Institute of Justice.”

“The whole thing is disserving and extending,” said retired UCF foreign language professor David Gurney. “It contributes to the antagonism from people in underdeveloped countries to Western civilizations or Western countries.”

In the 1850s, purchasing a slave ran roughly $1,200, the equivalent of around $40,000 in today’s money. The reality is purchasing a slave today costs as little as $100, which makes them affordable and disposable, Soodalter said.

A trafficking victim lives in fear of violence or the threat of violence daily, he said.

Shawn Cox, victim witness coordinator and licensed clinical social worker with the United States Attorney’s Office, advocates that trafficking is a crime of absolute power over someone. According to the report Cox co-authored, “Victims of Human Trafficking and Trauma,” the psychological consequences of a victim are similar to the consequences of severe or chronic child abuse or experiencing acts of terrorism.

"In case you thought slavery doesn’t touch you, guess again," Soodalter said. "Chances are, the clothes you wear, the food you eat, has been touched by slavery."

The good news is there have been some inroads made recently in the area of agricultural servitude, Soodalter said. When Taco Bell refused to stop buying produce picked by enslaved workers in an effort known as the "Ban the Bell" campaign, it set a precedent that several other companies, including McDonalds, A&W, Long John Silver’s, Pizza Hut, Whole Foods, Chipotle and Burger King, have followed, Soodalter said.

"The message is clear," Soodalter said. "Slavery and worker abuse will not be tolerated. Not here, not now, not ever."

Mark Freeman, public affairs coordinator for the Global Perspectives Office, said they are hoping to continue the series next spring since response has been incredible. Because of the series last spring, students on campus were so spurred into action they formed the unofficial student group “Students Against Slavery @ UCF,” Freeman said. “Students Against Slavery @ UCF” has a Facebook page, and Harry Coverston serves as the faculty advisor for the group.

"Spreading the word is the most important thing," said Frank Hegedus, a senior political science and international relations major. "There is only right now."

http://www.centralfloridafuture.com/abolitionist-historian-wraps-up-global-perspectives-series-1.2093273

Created: November 21st, 2009

Stylized Quote

It felt like an absence
  because I found myself
naked and in darkness
the wood on which I sat
the timid air
the swollen imagination
could I repeat
my lucky survival once again ?
together, wed-locked
to the void that excites
me, to the nothingness
that caresses me, to the silence
that disintegrates me
I would remain
    somewhere, somehow
giving names to unknown
aspects of reality
    imagining myself naked
or aroused
  or isolated
or none of these
just then,
nowhere to be
found.

Nihilistic Poetry

New image in the hand sign photoshop contest

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Somewhere in the sky photoshop picture

SOMEWHERE

Director: Sofia Coppola

Reparto: Stephen Dorff, Elle Fanning, Benicio del Toro, Michelle Monaghan, Laura Ramsey

Sinopsis: Narra la historia de un actor cuya vida de excesos cambia por completo al aparecer su hija de once años

New image in the ginormous photoshop contest

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somewhere….sometime photoshop picture

So for the past 3 of my posts it has been about 2 girls from American Idol season 3. It was coincidence that I posted about them in sequence, but now I’m purposely doing this . Personally, it was the best season because the talent was exceptional. That was the season where Fantasia won the title, with other contestants like, Jennifer Hudson (woo!!), LaToya London, Jasmine Trias, Camile Velasco, Leah LaBelle, George Huff and so on. So this post will be a dedication to my favourite performances from that season (if I can remember all of them). Don’t get me wrong, other seasons have had spectacular moments, but I won’t get into that now otherwise I’ll be stuck here forever. So, let’s proceed!

This is in no particular order.

JHud singing Elton John’s Circle of life. That voice, my gawwwd!

JHud again singing I have Nothing by Whitney Houston.

…and again!! I really like this one..

Jasmine Trias singing Inseparable

Jasmine with I’ll never love this way again – I love Vonzell Solomon’s American Idol performance of this too!

LaToya London with All by myself

LaToya with Somewhere from the musical West Side Story

LaToya singing Don’t rain on my parade, Big band week

Leah LaBelle singing You keep me hanging on, sadly this was the last song she got to sing in the show.

Camile Velasco, One last cry by Brian McKnight. Love this

Camile singing Son of a Preacher man

Fantasia with Summertime. WOW!!!

Diana Degarmo 1st runner-up singing Don’t cry out loud

Diana singing Because you loved me

George Huff singing Against all odds. Loved this! I feel like I can reach out and touch his voice LOL

George Huff singing Dock of the bay.

This is when the Top 2, Fantasia and Diana sang with previous winners Kelly Clarkson and Ruben Studdard – Impossible Dream. I really enjoyed watching this.

The incredibly emotional winning moment for Fantasia. The raw and true emotion is inspiring. Best winning moment throughout the seasons!!! Singing I Believe, Fantasia!! Sadly, by user request I am not allowed to embed this video so to watch this, click here.

Well. I’m sure I’ve missed some out, but I hope you enjoy. Wow this was kinda long hahaa! Given me some inspiration though, hmm what should I do? A cover, anyone??

well, it’s been a bit of a strange day out today i must say, i was walking up the road when i was walking past this house that had like 3 or 4 motorcycle helmets on the front lawn……….but no bikes! not one in sight, there wasnt even so much as a bike around the corner, kinda of strange, and if things didnt get stranger, i was also walking up the road somewhere near town, and all the people that were driving by, were staring at me!!! wtf!!!   and to top it off, i was waiting right at the crossing section near the round-about, when 2 cars come along and starting circling around about 4 or more times beeping their horns like nuts then taking off….i must say, strangest day ive ever had so far, but im still glad i got to see a good mate of mine.

Aside from that, was hot outside today, i think ive sunburnt my neck but ohh well, it happends.

thats all for now, ciao!

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Les Hollandais utilisent leur capacité à faire de belles acoustiques pour nous faire patienter en attendant le nouvel album en 2010/2011. Alors ils sortent An Acoustic Night At The Theater, résultat de la tournée acoustique faite dans les théatres aux Pays Bas. On retrouve donc onze chansons, plus le single de cet album, Utopia, fait en featuring avec Chris Jones.

L’ambiance qui se dégage de l’album est une ambiance très zen, très calme, quoi de plus étonnant ? On redécouvre la plupart des chansons, comme Stand My Ground, qui de chanson assez énergique devient presque une petite balade. Certaines chanson restent fondamentalement les mêmes, et d’autres ne sont pas si inédites que ça puisque on a pu les entendre par ci par là, au gré des bonus et des rééditions des albums précédents… On remarquera quand même que sur onze chansons, on en trouve quatre du dernier album, The Heart of Everything. Toujours est-il que Caged (et quelle version ! Superbe !), Pale ou encore Frozen font partie du tracklisting.

Au niveau des prestations, on ne peut pas dire grand chose. C’est irréprochable, c’est exécuté de main de maître, on pourrait peut être même se demander si il n’y a pas eu un ré-enregistrement des voix, quoique… C’est très bien fait, voilà tout ce que l’on peut dire.

Par contre, abordons maintenant le côté “reproches”. On peut être déçu du fait que, au vu des teasers VIDEO, cet album ne soit qu’un album et non pas un DVD comme le Black Symphony… Car oui, cela avait l’air vraiment très intimiste, très très réussi… Et pour finir, on peut encore regretter que cet album surfe encore sur The Heart if Everything… Un album, plus des bonus sur les singles, plus un live SYMPHONIQUE plus un live acoustique, ça commence à faire beaucoup, maintenant, on abandonne le filon là.

Note générale : 14/20 #On commence à se lasser quand même… Et les versions ne sont plus si inédites… Un bon moment de détente en tout cas.

Within Temptation – Caged (acoustic version)

Within Temptation – Somewhere (ft. Anneke van Giersbergen; acoustic version)

Jal’

]]> http://pxleyes.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/somewhere-in-the-future/ Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:28:48 +0000 fatabbot http://pxleyes.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/somewhere-in-the-future/

New image in the i robot 3D contest

sbs and finaly work…in progres …
somewhere in the future 3D picture

New image in the interiors 3D contest

cinema 4D……with SBS, work in progres…. …
a room somewhere 3D picture

“Everything is on it’s way to somewhere”, ran through my mind as I captured this series of  images. The breeze gently carried each and every tiny seed across the field in a hurry. It looked alot like my life, with bits and pieces of me rushing about going here and there, without an inkling of destination.

Life has been busy this past week and I haven’t had any time to chat-a  sick child, me playing the role of baby nanny and a new job. My seeds were scattered in all directions but as things began to quiet down I headed out with my camera on a mission to capture the journey of life. It was refreshing and now my child has recovered, batteries are recharged and my seeds are ready for a new journey- destination unknown, of course.

This one is my fave and I will probably make it available in my shop when I get some time- who knows when that will be- Soon I hope!

These tiny seeds are wrapped in a ball of fluff, their design is perfect and the sight of them taking flight is beautiful .  I tried to capture the magic as I saw it but I think you just had to be there.

xo-jj

New image in the gaudi style photoshop contest

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Somewhere dreamy photoshop picture

William Miller, Stillwater, and the Band-Aids, on the road; image courtesy of redriverautographs.wordpress.com

All right, folks. I’m home with the sniffles, so let’s roll up our sleeves for this one. I recently re-watched my VHS copy and am ready to get into it. At length. Double-album style. Watching the movie on video means I didn’t listen to any DVD commentaries to formulate my thoughts. And while I have seen the Untitled version, my opinions will mostly be generated from the theatrical release version. Keep this in mind reading on, but feel free to mix it up in the comments section. 

Now, this is a movie that pushes and pulls me like few other. As I’ve grown older, depending on how I felt when I watched it, I waft somewhere between charitable introspection and vitriolic rejection, one time even going so far as drunkenly telling a friend who likes this movie to shut up (sorry, Leigh!).

I wasn’t always this way. When it first came out during my senior year of high school, I looooooooved it. I saw it with my best friend Jamie and a boy I would later regret dating. Jamie was the editor of the school newspaper. I made my extracurricular committment to choir, but wished I had room in my class schedule to write for The Clarion. I wanted to be William Miller, the fifteen-year-old journalist protagonist who fills in for director Cameron Crowe and his own (idealized?) experiences as a writer. Figuring I could catch up in college, I set my sights on UT’s journalism school. By graduation, I assumed I’d be working as a rock critic in New York City, perhaps following bands like Stillwater, the fictitious classic rock band based on The Allman Brothers Band that breaks (then promises to make) Miller’s career.

My hope of being a rock journalist was officially dashed the second time I was not hired as a writer for The Daily Texan’s entertainment section. After this rejection, 19-year-old me reasoned that these fat cats were shills for the man with terrible taste in music. I might have even phrased it that way at the time. From here, I officially cast my lot with college radio.

It’s important to bring up music journalism, not only to burn on it out of bitter feelings of rejection. When this movie originally came out, it was a dangerous time for print publications like Rolling Stone and Spin, much like the early 70s was a dangerous time for rock music. 1973, the year this movie takes place, was a harbinger of the bloated, corporate, cool-hunting enterprise the mainstream music industry would become. By 2000, it had completely transformed into a deregulated, conglomerate behemoth, peddling a handful of marketable, palatable, and safe talent that could sell ancillary products and jack up the retail prices on those ancillary products, which the compact disc had become. Music listeners, irritated by ever-higher CD prices, began downloading illegally in earnest. Sometimes they were met with arrests and lawsuits. Sometimes those lawsuits were filed by the popular musicians they idolized. As a result of these actions, and some truly stupid strategies the music industry has used to push units, people are more incredulous of the music industry than ever.

It’s important to bring in the Internet and the ubiquity of digital technology too, as online communication affected print journalism. Throughout the 2000s, publications scrambled to keep up circulation and readership. Some were bought and sold to other conglomerates. Some turned from monthlies to quarterlies. Some drastically changed their content and marketing campaigns (the saddest one for me was Spin, a high school favorite that was Rolling Stone’s cool, younger sibling; by the time I entered graduate school, it packaged itself as the hipster version of Us and lagged behind e-zines like Pitchfork and Tiny Mix Tapes in its coverage of new music). Some shilled out to reality TV (looking at you, Rolling Stone). Some simply folded.

Along with publications, staffs shrunk due to budget cuts. Some folks survived the fall-out. Rob Sheffield came into the field from the academy and penned a touching memoir. Eric Weisbard became part of the academy, currently an American Studies professor at the University of Alabama. Some folks, like Sarah Lewitinn and Chuck Klosterman, became cults of personality. But others didn’t fare as well. Sia Michel lost her position as Spin’s editor-and-chief, though was hired on to be The New York Times‘ pop music editor. At some places, an entertainment staff was whittled down to one person, if there was a department at all.

Sarah Lewitinn, aka Ultragrrrl; image courtesy of daylife.com

With the implosion of print-based music journalism came the advent of e-zines like Pitchfork and, of course, blogs. These folks, for good or for bad, may shape what criticism will look like in this century. I, for one, do see some good to blog culture (barring, you know, my recent public involvement with it). The principle assets I have found with it are its immediacy and DIY ethic. I couldn’t get a staff position at the Texan. I wasn’t financially able to take an internship. In short, traditional modes of ascension in the field weren’t available to me or many others. But blogging allows (some) writers to continue researching, hone their craft, and figure out just why they’re so interested in their subject of analysis.

Of course, there are hazards to blogging. Our collective attention span for new sounds has diminished. Furthermore, a considerable amount of misinformation gets reported. However, while I’m tempted to attribute this to a lack of fluency with journalistic principles of investigating, reporting, and fact-checking, I don’t know if it’s that simple. I’d hasten to point out that blogging and traditional journalism are both vulnerable to errors, unfair coverage, unequal time, and other ethical issues in the wake of the 24-hour news cycle.

In short, I watch this movie and think three things: 1) I don’t know if William Miller would be a journalist today, as the publications he would want to work at might not be able to hire him, 2) I do think he’d be a blogger, as the fan-critic and musician-journalist binaries in media culture have been considerably blurred since the early 70s, and 3) while this movie seems quaint in its depiction of a just-booming American music industry, it still seems completely relevant, maybe even more so than when the movie was originally released. 

So, you would think based on all of this fodder, I’d love this movie. But it’s not so simple and the movie itself is only partly at fault. A major issue I have with the movie isn’t so much to do with its gender politics as it is with the gender politics of its fanboys. I have heard too many fanboys talk about this movie with fervor, as if God touched Cameron Crowe’s camera. They’ll regale folks with abstruse bits of commentary from the Untitled version and quiz people on what songs like Stillwater’s “Love Thing” and “Fever Dog” are really about (I think love and kicking addiction, respectively). They are often humorless, especially if you point out any similarities they might have to Vic Munoz, the movie’s Led Zeppelin devotee. Oh, and they always love Led Zeppelin. Always.

But Alyx. Smelly zealot fanboys shouldn’t keep you from liking a movie, you say. The movie has a lot of good things going for it, you add. There’s even a lot of interesting female characters walking around, being smart and human and brave, you note. You might even say they’re more interesting than altruistic protagonist William Miller, you whisper emphatically. Fair points all. So, let’s do what Mary Kearney did when I watched this movie in her gender and rock undergrad class and run through the women and girls we meet in Miller’s coming-of-age story. Note that many of them are autonomous beings, free agents on the road:

1. The Band-Aids, especially one Penny Lane (played by Kate Hudson in what many argue is her only credible screen performance). They are not groupies and consider themselves fans who are autonomous, exercise sexual agency, and are not disposable, though some musicians have trouble seeing them the way they see themselves.

1A. While Penny Lane is clearly the Band-Aid leader, I’ve always loved Sapphire (played by Fairuza Balk). Label it blonde antipathy or brunette solidarity, but it’s hard not to love this rough, mischievous, funny, and wise lady. Can you imagine the stories she could tell? She intimates with William’s mother about his travels on the road and how she should be proud of her son from a hotel phone. She’s responsible for orchestrating the orgy that takes William’s (who she calls “Opie“) virginity. She’s also the one who delivers the hard truth about Penny and William to guitarist Russell Hammond. And she’s the one who insists that younger groupies take birth control, appreciate the music, and quit eating all the steak at crafts’ services.

Sapphire is epic; image courtesy of fairuza.com

2. Alice Wisdom, a deejay whose playlist Lester Bangs rudely rejects. Now I don’t like The Doors either, Lester, but that doesn’t mean you should shout over her opinions and discredit her taste in music. Unless you’re actually discrediting the radio station’s taste in music, in which case the deejay’s role becomes even more compromised. And this woman is already compromised by having the regulatory whiskey-throated voice that all female deejays seem required to have or emulate.
3. High school girls running for gym class. Stillwater bassist Larry Fellows perks up at the view from the tour bus; Penny Lane gives them the finger, glad that she’s playing hooky. That she’s not them.
4. Fans. Some of whom are Band-Aids or groupies, most of whom are regular girls and women with jobs and parents.
5. Band wives and girlfriends. They were there before the band got signed, are not often there for the shenanigans on the road, and probably won’t be there after the break-ups and divorces. 
6. A particularly shrill feminist stereotype of a Rolling Stone journalist billed as Alison the Fact Checker. Sadly, she probably has to be in order to be heard in staff meetings. Plus, wouldn’t you be pissy if you were trying to forge a career, were all-too-cognizant of sexism and misogyny, but also loved writing about popular music? This is a question I’ve always wanted to ask Ann Powers, Dream Hampton, and Lorraine Ali.

"How do you do it, Dream Hampton?"; image courtesy of thestartingfive.net

7. A singer-songwriter jamming with another singer-songwriter who appear to be modeled after Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons. William sees them playing in a hotel room during his first visit at the Riot House.
8. William’s big sister, Anita. She has a turbulent relationship with her mother and leaves home to become a flight attendant, leaving her kid brother a haul of amazing records, including Joni Mitchell’s Blue. She even gives him some good advice about how to listen to The Who’s Tommy that seems to have a lasting impression.
9. And, of course, William’s awesome, anti-establishment, overprotective mother Elaine, who is a college professor in San Diego. She is also the family matriarch, and probably was even before her husband died. Besides Lester, Ms. Miller is one of the few rebels. They both hold the distinction of being the only people who recognizes that rock culture, and its attendant cheap thrills and promises, is just another corporate enterprise.

Anita and Elaine Miller clashing, with young William Miller looking on; image courtesy of rlslog.net

Now, now. The dudes are interesting too, you might say. And masculinity is a discursive minefield here. So let’s walk through it. Let’s make like the movie and use William Miller to do this.
1. Miller himself is a soft-eyed, feminine boy played by then-unknown Patrick Fugit. He is hopelessly in love with Penny, a girl who may be his age but is out of his depth and hopelessly in love with someone else.

William Miller and his quest for truth; image courtesy of blog.lib.umn.edu

2. Billy Crudup’s Russell Hammond is the talented, aloof, and cowardly lead guitarist for Stillwater. He’s technically better than his bandmates, and is quick to hover it over them. He takes William under his wing because he’s a fan, only to dismiss him when Bob Dylan makes an appearance at Max’s Kansas City. He also nearly ruins William’s journalistic integrity when his own credibility is on the line. He’s also in love with Penny, but more in love with becoming a rock star. He’s not so in love with his wife, Leslie. He loves himself more than anyone, and hates himself for it.
3. Stillwater lead singer Jeff Bebe (Jason Lee) feels differently toward Leslie. He also has considerable animosity toward Hammond, whose emergent fame and skill is threatening to eclipse him and the rest of the band.
4. Bassist Larry Fellows and drummer Ed Vallencourt round out the band. Fellows (played by singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek, who I named my cat after) seems only interested in barbeque and high school girls. Vallencourt (played by John Fedevich) is silent through most of the movie, until he announces that he’s gay during a traumatic airplane ride.
5. Dick Roswell (Noah Taylor) and Dennis Hope (Jimmy Fallon) manage the band. Fellows has been with them for most of their career. Hope convinces the band to cash in and sell out, most symbolically by trading their bus for a jet. They will regret this decision.
6. Jann Wenner and Ben Fong-Torres, Rolling Stone’s respective editor-and-chief and senior editor, who serve as William’s bosses. Note the Wenner is gay, though at this time in his career, he was married to a woman named Jane. They would go on to have three children before divorcing in 1995. I haven’t read anything on Wenner, but am fascinated to learn how he negotiated all of this. Note also that Fong-Torres is Chinese American and one of the few people of color in both the movie and perhaps the emerging mainstream rock music industry. Note also the “Torres” surname, which his father adopted, dropping “Fong,” in order to pose as a Mexican in order to be granted U.S. citizenship while Chester Arthur’s Chinese Exclusion Act was still on the books. The family later kept both surnames.

Stillwater, on the cover of Rolling Stone; image courtesy of jeffdurling.com

But William doesn’t really have much in common with Stillwater. He wants to be them, but is in actual fact a music geek. Two like-minded male characters empathize, and share a relationship that is at once classically masculine in its indexical organization of rock’s ephemera and, at the same time, feminine in their romantic, homoerotic obsessive fandom.
1. Lester Bangs, William’s mentor, played by the formidable Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is one of the main reasons I’ll be seeing Pirate Radio. Reportedly, his scenes were filmed while he had the flu. Bangs hates what rock journalism has become.

Lester Bangs imparting life lessons to William Miller; image courtesy of playground.chronicleblogs.com

2. Vic Munoz, played by longtime Apatow mainstay Jay Baruchel. He’s the Zeppelin fan who follows the band everywhere, clutches a marker frontman Robert Plant once held, and wears his “Have you seen the bridge?” t-shirt at all times.

I should point out, however, that the girls index too. Penny Lane may not want William to take notes during Stillwater concerts, but that doesn’t mean that she, her peers, or William’s sister Anita, can’t rattle off band line-ups, industry players, and song lyrics.  

And lest we forget that William actually forges strong relationships with his sister, his mother, and the Band-Aids. While Sapphire, Polexia, and the gang seduce William, they also believe in him, intimate secrets with him, and provide him support, though they sometimes treat him as a minion and less as an equal.

I should also point out, since I opined that Miller doesn’t have much in common with Stillwater, that he does have an interesting relationship with Hammond nonetheless. Miller, a kid brother with an older sister, doesn’t seem to have any male friends or role models before he takes Bangs’s assignment to cover Black Sabbath for Creem, a band for whom Stillwater is opening and launches Miller’s almost-too-good-to-be-true feature assignment for Rolling Stone.

I wouldn’t necessarily categorize Hammond as a friend or role model. Perhaps he’s better suited for an older brother position. At first, Miller looks up to Hammond, calling his guitar-playing “incendiary” and trying (largely in vain) to emulate his slingin’, ’stached bravado. But, despite a Band-Aid orgy (controlled by the women who believe that “Opie must die”), Miller clearly doesn’t have that kind of swagger. He also doesn’t seem to want it, seeing Hammond’s cowardice beneath it. He also recognizes the irony of such inauthentic displays of machismo and ego in a form supposedly as authentic, romantic, and pure as rock is supposed to be, and is quickly unbecoming. Perhaps he also notices the rigid gender roles and chauvinism that inform the supposed gains of free love and the sexual revolution. This hypocrisy, along with the band’s quick rejection of real fans for industry success and the promise of rock mythology, make Miller able to put Hammond and his band mates in their place during the climactic plane scene. His honesty and integrity also earns him their trust, especially Hammond’s, who finally grants him a real interview at the end of the movie.

As an aside, if Hammond is Miller’s imperfect older brother, he steps right into the role by sassing Ms. Miller when he first talks to her on the phone, immediately snapping into a “yes ma’am, no ma’am” routine when she admonishes his behavior and values.

Miller’s character also wins the respect of Penny Lane, even when she’s ignoring the icky realities of seeing yourself as a fan but being treated as a groupie, as disposable as a real Band-Aid.

Note that it doesn’t win Lane’s affections, at least not physically. She may be too hard for or scared of Miller’s feelings (which are announced, unfortunately, in a scene where Miller kisses Lane, who just overdosed on Quaaludes). She may not be ready for rejecting her own rock star mythology in order to be truly intimate with someone (though she suggests she might when she tells Miller that she came into this world as one Lady Goodman). Maybe doing so would make her the typical teen she (and William’s mother) see little value in becoming. Maybe not consummating this relationship suggests they have no interest in typical interactions with one another.

Yet Miller’s and Lane’s relationship, which seems built on male fantasy, is an issue I have with this movie. I don’t get what the fuss is about, frankly. I understand that Lane is pretty, savvy, and well-traveled, but don’t understand why Miller has such a crush on her, primarily because I don’t understand how loving a band’s music leads you toward doing their ironing backstage while the boy you love in the band can’t be bothered to love you back. More importantly, I don’t know who she really is. Maybe the self-mythology is part of what prevents me (and certainly Miller) from getting close. Maybe the challenge of trying to find out who the real Penny Lane is warrants enough of a fascinating exercise for Miller. And maybe it isn’t any of our business who Lane really is. But I sort of wonder if she’s perfectly matched with Hammond, a man who wants desperately to be the myth he’s created for himself. Maybe this suggests that both of them have something in common with Don Draper. Here’s one scene where I think Lane, alone after a concert, drops the masquerade (note that the scene follows Stillwater’s treacherous meeting with super-manager Hope).

Admittedly, perhaps my problem resides in Kate Hudson’s performance. Perhaps I want her not to channel her mother, herself a manic pixie dream girl of this era, so much. Perhaps I’m projecting Goldie Hawn’s presence and ignoring how Hudson is making this role her own. I do think Hudson does a good job balancing Lane’s contrasts and contradictions, perhaps a better job than Kirsten Dunst (who almost got this role, but was cast in Crowe’s Elizabethtown instead) would.

And I do think I’m being unfair in my dismissal of Kate Hudson and Penny Lane. Because I think my real problem, as it usually is with Crowe’s movies, is the director’s unfortunate habit of crutching on the magic of pop music. Admittedly, this might be a hard habit for a music geek director to break, but it has kept me from enjoying his other movies (including, yes, Say Anything). And it’s probably contradictory for a music fan not to like pop music playing such a pronounced role in Crowe’s work. To me, however, Crowe’s use of pop music suggests the necessity of delicate application. Because I hate how he uses Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” in one of the movie’s big reconciliatory moments, as its obvious that he is making the case for how pop music’s universality heals all psychic wounds. When Lane tells Miller that he is home, all I can think is “fucking duh.”

While I feel like the movie’s score adds to the treacle (especially during the scene when Miller runs with Lane’s departing plane), I do admire Cameron Crowe’s ongoing collaborations with wife and Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson. We’d do well to remember Wilson’s rock legend status, score work, and Crowe’s relationship with Wilson when making sexist assumptions about Sofia Coppola’s relationship with Phoenix’s Thomas Mars, who is working on her next movie, Somewhere. We might also like to keep it in mind when thinking about Karen O’s involvement in ex-boyfriend Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are.

Going back to Crowe’s unfortunate flirtations with the obvious for my closing remarks, he does make a few other points in this movie in highlighter yellow that I love anyway. So much so that I’ve shaped my life around them. In the interest of full disclosure, I will share them now, suggesting that sometimes flirtations with the obvious are essential and humane.

1) The introductory scene between Bangs and Miller, when Bangs talks about staying up all night, writing about music. Whether or not he was high on cough syrup and speed or the tomes he devoted to The Faces or John Coltrane were dribble didn’t matter. The objective, as William knows well, is ”just to fuckin’ write.” It’s an objective I know well too. It’s a key reason why I put this blog together in the first place, and I’m certainly not alone.
2) Lane has a great line as well, one that has stayed with me as I age. I’m a firm believer in the advice she gives Miller when she drives them to the Riot House: ”if you ever get lonely, you just go to the record store and visit your friends.” The comfort I have found in record stores cannot be overstated, and I only hope that, as I get older, at least a few of them don’t get completely mowed down to make way for more lucrative businesses. I might have to stay in a city that shares kinship with Austin to assure this, but I think it’s worth it. I’d rather live in a city that appreciates the cultural and communal value of record stores over a city that only sees value in their market returns.  

After all this, I believe Almost Famous to be an interesting and challenging movie at times marred by its idealism, sentimentality, and emphasis on one very lucky boy’s experience following around a band and writing down what happened. Thus, it’s a movie I keep coming back to, even if I don’t feel the need to replace the tape.

I love how so many people are always in a hurry and trying to get somewhere so fast!

So, I made some images today with my focus on people…

Enjoy,

Jeremy

That’s why she has it all. They don’t make ‘em like Brandy no more.

Seems we love a bit of a sing-song at work, so this week’s The Fashion Office Recommends has been dedicated to Musicals. Sorry boys, us girls love them!

Here’s what my fashionable desk sharers chose…

Sostylistic recommends: Porgy and Bess – Summertime.

Sartoriology picks: An American Tale – Somewhere Out There.

New Favourite Thing selects one of my all time favourite musicals: Bugsy Malone and We Could Have Been.

Frankie’s choice: Grease 2 – Reproduction.

A Work In Progress selected: Chicago – Cell Block Tango.

Ellie opts for South Pacific and the brilliant There Ain’t Nothin’ Like A Dame.

Emily elects: Cabaret – Maybe This Time.

Soldiersailor nominates: Phantom Of The Opera – Masquerade.

As we were inundated with so many much-loved suggestions, it seemed only fair to have a few runners up too…

My Fair Lady – Why Can’t The English.

Phantom Of The Opera – Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again.

Phantom Of The Opera – All I Ask Of You.

West Side Story – Somewhere.

The Sound of Music – The Lonely Goatherd.

Annie – Little Girls.

Anti-musical musical, Romance And Cigarettes – Scapricciatiello.  

Plus, last week we dived head-long into The Charts. Find out what tunes got the office rocking.

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