With the trouble I’ve been having with my essays this week I really didn’t think I’d find time to do this weeks Writing Workshop but when I saw the prompts I knew I’d just have to. So, I’ve worked late, started early, got them both done and managed to write a post too. See, some days I don’t just wile away the hours on Twitter, sometimes (not often admittedly) I get things done.

This week I’ve chosen the prompt  2.What’s your guilty pleasure? - Suggested by Leslieanne at Life with a Little Dude

 A few weeks ago we were having a normal, boring Saturday night in when poor, knackered Craig fell asleep on the sofa and I had free reign of the remote control. I flicked around and was over the moon when I found something I’ve never watched but secretly always wanted to. High School Musical. Before you ask, no I’m not a pre pubescent child masquerading as a 29 year old mum. My guilty pleasures are musicals. I love them! Of course I use the term quite loosely. Musicals or musical films to me are the atypical Phantom of the Opera, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice fare, Disney films with a lot of singing, The Little Mermaid, Hercules, Mary Poppins and films with lots of music and a fabulous soundtrack, like The Jazz Singer, Beaches, Calamity Jane etc. Incidentally I thought High School Musical was pretty mediocre as musicals go but even I was still humming ‘Breaking free’ the next day. I haven’t watched the other 2 though; I think I’d keel over with the saccharine sweetness of it all.

Craig doesn’t quite get why I love them so much and happily spend hours singing along to The Sound of Music, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Moulin Rouge. It’s because, in the most part they are happy, jolly, nothing-to-do-with-real-life-at-all, couple of hours of good, old fashioned fun (maybe not Moulin Rouge but you know what I mean!) You show me someone who isn’t cheered by the infectious music and feel good factors in Grease & I’ll show you a liar. I have to admit though I do think Grease 2 is the superior of the 2 films. Pure, innocent virgin Sandy just wasn’t a heroine I could identify with, not like Stephanie  Zinone with her tarty tendencies and face full of slap. Admittedly Johnny Nogarelli is no Danny Zuko but the amazing songs more than make up for the lack of eye candy. One big reason I miss my sister is that she’s the only person in the world with whom I can put the Grease 2 soundtrack on in the car, wind down the windows & screech ‘Cool Rider’. We ‘act’ out ‘We’re gonna bowl tonight’ and get over excited (every time) at the ‘What would they say if they knew it was Michael’ line in ‘Who’s that Guy’. One of Helen’s hen nights was a Grease 2 night & we (bridesmaids, mum, friends) performed ‘Cool Rider’ at Helen & Ant’s wedding.

I’ve been brought up with musicals. We were taken to see Joseph & his Technicolour Dreamcoat, Evita, Les Mis, and Starlight Express. Michael Ball CD’s were always on my mum’s CD player and even my Dad liked Buster – not a musical admittedly but the soundtrack was in my Dad’s car for years & I can’t watch the film without singing along to Loco in Acapulco like we used to.

Musicals bring me such happiness in a depressing world. I don’t want to be scared watching Saw, depressed watching Titanic or educated watching Michael Moore films. Real life is scary enough, depressing enough and educating enough for me not to want that in my spare time. I want to be cheered by films, have the cockles of my heart warmed and get lost in an unrealistic world where the women are model pretty, the men handsome and everyone breaks into ridiculous song and dance routines at any given moment. When one of my favourite TV shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer did a musical episode, ‘Once more with feeling’, I felt I could die happy. I have the series on DVD anyway but I also bought that one episode on special DVD and the CD. The songs are amazing and most of them are particularly good singers. I fell in love with Anthony Head all over again.

If you asked me what I would do with one day completely on my own, I’d get a couple of bottles of wine, lots of naughty food and watch Calamity Jane (take m back to the black hills, the black hills of Dakota…), Neil Diamond’s the Jazz Singer (my favourite soundtrack of all time), Hairspray (the original with Ricki Lake, not the John Travolta abomination), The Rocky Horror Show (by now I’d have finished the wine & be ready to dance in my fishnets) and lastly Mary Poppins, a bit of feel good magic before I went to bed. Heavenly indulgence.  

So if you see a ginger woman, dancing and singing at the wheel of a battered red Peugeot 206, give me a wave and join in. All together now: ‘The (Pennine) hills are alive with the sounds of muuuuuusic….’

For any other musical enthusiasts out there have a look if your favourite made it into the top 100.

Bria Murpy...is on fire

We have been waiting for this, and I see most of my viewers have as well.

I have been excited to see how many Bria Murphy fans are out there, so let’s all support this video.

View it before it gets pulled from You Tube due to whatever reasons. As long as it’s available, we will work to promote it, and get it to number one on the charts.

I will continue to feature her here, and give updates on what she is doing, but for now, here she is…

Exista o scena memorabila, in filmul Cantaretul de Jazz, unde Neil Diamond se deghizeaza ca un negru pentru a canta intr-o biserica afro-americana.

Totul merge perfect, pana cand unul din credinciosi observa ca Neil are mainile albe. Toata lumea e socata si enoriasii se iau la bataie.

Urmand acelasi sistem, in urma cu cateva ore am observat ca interiorul unei coacaze negre nu este intradevar negru, asa ca am decojit una.

Am fost socat.

Apoi am inceput sa imi iau prietena la bataie.

We have just been informed that Eddie Murphy will be in attendance on the season finale of ”America’s Top Model” that will aired on the CW network on Nov.18th. We encourage you all to watch.

He will not be in a judges chair, nor will he be judging the contestants, but he will be in the audience sitting next to Tyra Banks…hmm. I hope this stunt goes better than the blackface stunt she ran in the latest episode.

Tyra recently took the models to Hawaii, and give them a history lesson on the  mixed race culture there, the black face make-up and it’s context as to the new shoot, and asked the models to wear black face make up to mimic a race on the island.

Sort of like Al Jolson in the ”Jazz Singer” or a minstrel show. Bad call Tyra…but I still love you. I know what you were meaning to convey, but it probably went over the heads of some of the audience, so that is the bad call I am speaking of.

http://www.examiner.com/x-22496-Norfolk-Pop-Culture-Examiner~y2009m10d29-Americas-Next-Top-Model-blackface-controversy

People hated that, because of our history with blackface in our culture, it is definitely looked upon as a racist tradition…

Eddie Murphy will come to your rescue, the good brother that he is.

 Eddie and Tyra are not going public with their relationship, but Eddie will be there with Tyra in support of his beautiful daughter Bria, who will be taking part, walking the runway, in a fashion show, with the final contestants.

We ran a short article so we could show you her pictures last week, and she continues to make the news. Good for you Bria, get your hustle on….

The designer who has hired Bria to show off  her clothes on the runway, is fashion designer  Julia Clancey .

Bria’s mother is former top model, and drop dead gorgeous, Nicole Murphy,now going by the name Nicole Mitchell, and  Bria resembles her mom. The apple does not fall far from the tree.

I know Eddie will be proud, and we expect to see that big Eddie Murphy smile.

You did good Mr.Murphy, and we will continue to support Bria, as she grows and develops her career. 

Watch Bria Murphy rip the runway on ATM , November 18th, on the CW network.

Note: How about that old-time announcer, huh? Couldn’t even read his lines beforehand; he was quite clearly reading the cue cards the whole time! What a lazy bum!

The birth of the talkie is certainly an event that should never be forgotten. It has unquestionably changed the way the medium has been used, and rare is the occasion today that a movie has even a tiny bit of silence in it. But when all you hear out of a motion picture the entire duration of its existence is the pop and sizzle of a hot bulb touching celluloid, the addition of sound was quite a feat for a lot of people, and for most of the world, there was no going back. Today’s feature was the first motion picture to incorporate sound. It’s called The Jazz Singer, and it’s basically a promo for real-life jazz singer Al Jolson’s live act. If features dialog spoken by him as well as six of his smokin’ tunes. As a movie, it’s interesting, but it’s honestly a bit of a pariah compared to what it represented as a technological advancement.

It’s about the constant strain of a strict father on his son and the struggle to reconcile with one’s heritage. Kinda. Young Jakie Rabinowitz is a tiny  Jewish boy who loves the swinging new music known as jazz! He can’t get enough of it, and what’s more is that he can’t stand the idea of being a cantor like his father and his father before him. He wants to go to the clubs and sing some tunes, but his father forbids it, calling it nonsense and ridiculousness, and spanking him in the process. So, in response to this, Jakie runs away, only bringing a picture of his sweet mom to remind him of his past. So, it’s years later, and Jakie has reappeared in the world as a performer named Jack Robin. He is called up to sing a few songs, and really wows the crowd at the local cabaret. He still writes his mother, but has had no dealings with his father in over a decade. He’s gone far away from his roots, even as far as to be romantically involved with a shiksa (AHHHHHHH!!!!). So he’s his own man now, but the memory f his old life still haunts him, and when his father runs ill, he is forced to make a terrible decision; keep his fortune and fame growing as a talented jazz singer and forget about his dying old man, or singing for his father one last time before he dies, bringing them together again but possibly ruining his career. What will he do? What CAN he do?

Perhaps a powerful film for the time, The Jazz Singer does not age well. It has too much going against it, and not just the creeping advance of time. As you know, I have no problem with older films, but this one just doesn’t have a whole lot to relate it to the young man or woman of 2009. The story is somewhat inspirational, and I like what it says about the dangers of assimilation, but the characters are depth-less caricatures with little room to move in the face of Jolson’s electric jazz performances.

And how are the performances? Well, if you like this clean, white-boy jazz so popular with the youth of the 20s, I highly recommend them. Songs like “Dirty Hands, Dirty Face” and “My Mammy” are real show-stoppers, and one simply cannot deny the energy present in “Toot Toot Tootsie” (that whistling is AMAZING!). It’s not bad, but he played it exceptionally safe, unlike the wilder New Orleans jazz he grew up with, and I would have loved to have seen him play some of these tunes with some real verve.

And that brings us to an important part of The Jazz Singer; blackface. Al Jolson was a performer who brought the rich musical tradition of Louisianan black folk to the white audiences in blackface, which he used to honor the originators of the music, who were not allowed in to entertain because of the segregation present at the time. Jolson, from a historical standpoint, was a man who fought for civil rights in a time when it could kill a career to speak against the trends. He respected the music and the people, and blackface to him was a way of representing them. It was NOT a minstrel show he put on, as many might make it out to be, and many jazz artists at the time loved and respected Jolson for his many contributions to both the medium of jazz and the fight for civil rights. However, and I will certainly admit this, it is still offensive to watch, no matter the reasons for it, and if you are one who can see the historical background of it and sill not tolerate it, I understand your position. But bear in mind both that the blackface in THIS particular film has a unique relevance to the story and its message, and that this is 1927, and the idea of the minstrel show as an affront to decency was not yet an idea comprehended by mainstream America, so the producers, the director, and Jolson himself probably felt this was a great triumph for African-Americans.

So I don’t know how you want to look at it. The Jazz Singer is an undeniable breakthrough whose contributions cannot be overestimated, and that is a fact. Also, some of the performances in the film, like the musical stylings of Al Jolson and May McAvoy as the loving shiksa Mary, aren’t bad at all. But it hasn’t aged too well in the grand scheme of things, especially in the “racial sensitivity” department. Either way, if you’re a student of cinema, as I think we all are, in a way, it should be something that we all see once for posterity’s sake and its immense achievement. But, as a movie, I can only give The Jazz Singer 5 1/2 white folks talking about black folks out of 10. Sorry!

Tomorrow I have something special lined up for you guys! Keep posted for more details!!!

Recap

Last time we looked at the inventions that made film and motion pictures possible. Many people had a part in perfecting the medium and many small steps combined resulted in something that would change the world and how we see it.

Only a few years after the birth of the medium films were now printed on celluloid strips and shown to crowds of paying viewers.

Business

The icons of early film definitely include the Lumiere brothers. After their first screening of a motion picture for a paying audience December 28th 1895 they were unstoppable. Within the first four months of 1896 they had opened Cinématographe theatres in London, Brussels, Belgium and New York.
The company grew and other operators shot films for them. In 1900 they

decided to stop the screenings and focused on selling their technical inventions, which include equipment for one of the first partially colored photographic processes.

Last time I mentioned a man by the name of Robert W. Paul. He suggested that films should be shown to crowds instead of viewing them individually through peep-hole machines. One might think this is funny coming from him, knowing that peep holes is where his career began.

In 1894 two greek entrepreneurs asked Paul to build a copy of Edisons Kinetoscope, the peep-hole viewer for a single person viewing.

This was only possible because Edison did not have a patent on the kinetoscope for England, by mistake. Paul built a whole string of machines and sold them not only to the greek gentlemen. Edison was a smart man and stopped Paul from putting him out of business by only selling the films to licensed operators of his original kinetoscope.

The only way Paul could remain on the market was to build a camera of his own that could produce films to be played on his copy-viewer. He soon started working with the photographer, Birt Acres and together they developed a working camera. Acres wanted to patent the camera in his name and this resulted in a feud that split up the team.

Paul later developed a projector, the Theatrograph, so that the larger audience could simultaneously enjoy film art.

He also became a successful producer. After making huge amounts of money on selling the equipment, he constructed film studios in northern London and made 80 short film in the summer of 1898 alone. He kept on working until 1910 where he suddenly decided that the industry war to risky, closed the firm and burnt all the negatives.

Acres also developed a projector, the Cinematoscope, but is more famous for creating the first amateur cine camera, the Birtac in 1898. He kept on working in this field untill his death in 1918.

One company that did have a longer lasting success was Pathé.

Charles Pathé and his brothers Émile, Théophile and Jacques started the Pathé Frères company. At first they sold phonographs. After 1901 they start producing films, with Ferdinand Zecca in charge of the creative process. Their success was of yet unseen proportion. By 1905, Pathé was the largest film company in the world, a position it retained until World War I. The first expansion of the company brought them to London and from thereon to Moscow, Berlin and St. Petersburg. The company logo was and is the distinctive rooster of Gaul. Number two on the list of companies was Léon Gaumont’s company, easy to recognize by the logo flower, a marguerite, after Gaumont’s mother.

The brothers started by selling the equipment for cinemas and then began producing in 1897. The big success came to Gaumont through the creative people behind their film. The first female director, Alice Guy, was one of them and so was Louis Feulliade.

Below you’ll find the link to one of Louis Feulliade’s films from 1915, Les Vampires.

It’s a series of 10 episodes, 40 minutes each. This is the first part – “The Severed Head.”

The serial is set in Paris and follows the exploits of a gang of master criminals who call themselves “Les Vampires.”

http://www.archive.org/details/lesVampires1915Episode1-theSeveredHead

If you liked it and want to see more, please go to:

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=Louis%20Feuillade%20AND%20mediatype%3Amovies

Alice Guy’s short film La Glu can be seen here

http://www.archive.org/details/LaGlu1907

While most of the produced films showed so-called actualities, documenting life, some people took the new medium into the world of drama and fiction. One of my favorite icons of film history is Georges Méliès. He had worked as a stage magician in Paris during the late 1880’s when he had the opportunity to attend the Lumiere premiere. As a master of illusions he saw a new potential within the medium. He combined the techniques of stage performance with the visual possibilities of film. The camera would be fixed and the actors would perform their show before it.

My adoration of Méliès is not only due to the fact that he and his crew produced 531 films in the years between 1896 and 1914. It is also based on his absolute ingenuity. Others were trying to document the everyday life while Méliès

invented genres like science fiction or horror and executed them through his knowledge of magic tricks.
In late 1896 an accidental jamming of the camera sparked Méliès’ imagination.

Méliès was filming and the camera jammed. It took him a few minutes to get it working again. After processing the material he saw magic happen. Things moved across the screen, jumping from one side to the other, appearing, disappearing, changing shape. Stop motion was born and many other tricks with it.

I have included the link to a film that I believe you need to see. It is not the first film by Méliès, but it is one of the most beautiful ones. The film is called “Le Voyage dans la Lune” and was produced 1902. It’s a crazy little tale of a trip to the moon.

http://www.archive.org/details/Levoyagedanslalune

Another icon of the silent era who took motion pictures to another level was D.W. Griffith. The unsuccessful young playwright from Kentucky left his home for New York with the intention of selling a script to Edwin Porter who at the time worked for Edison at the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. Porter rejected the script but hired Griffith as an actor instead. After years of acting jobs an opportunity appeared. The main director of AMBC was ill and his son not able to run the company. The position was given to Griffith. Griffith became famous for producing films that blew their budgets. In 1915 Griffith’s most famous film hit the market. The original budget was 40.000$ but at the end of production cost 121.000$

The film was originally called The Clansman, after the book upon which it was based, but was renamed Birth of a Nation. It was a very controversial film due to it’s glorification of the Ku Klux Klan.

The next film, Intolerance, was even larger. It included over 3000 extras and a scene depicting a Babylonian orgy alone cost over 200.000$

As a Dane I feel obliged to have my country represented here.
In 1906, Ole Olsen, a fairground showman, founded Nordisk Film.
Asta Nielsen is the most famous actress from the golden age of Nordisk Film.

Other innovations

Back in the monochrome days one had quite a task ahead when wanting to display different light settings, for example night. The film wasn’t sensitive enough to shoot at night so you had to find another way of telling you viewers which scenes were night scenes.

Tinting was the way to go. The entire film strip was dipped in a colored solution that would leave the strip transparent but tinted. These tints had codes for what they were depicting. Blue meant night, yellow ment indoor light, red  suggested a romantic sometimes promiscuous atmosphere.

Close to tinting but much more difficult was the process of hand colouring the film strips. Frame by frame films would be coloured by painting areas inside the frames with translucent paints. Sometimes thousands of frames would be painted.

Here is a link to a fantastic example of a film that was coloured by hand.

http://www.europafilmtreasures.eu/PY/249/see-the-film-butterflies

As you may have noticed intertitles were the vehicle to getting the details of a story across. One country, although, had a different approach.

The japanese film audience had extra help. The so-called Benshi (speech person) were live narrators of the films. They would explain the film as it was shown. To this day the Benshi tradition lives on.

Sound-on…
From the start people were not satisfied with the soundless illusion.
And right from the start engineers tried to include sound into the film experience.

Some recorded the sound and put it on records to be played simultaneously with the films, the so-called sound-on-disc. But if the film broke, the sound would be out of synch. Eugene Lauste, a former Edison employee had a great idea. He put the sound of the film on the same strip, only as photographic information.

This way visuals and sound would run together, a first sound-on-film.

In the 1920’s sound became more sophisticated and finally resulted in the first (part-)talkie “The Jazz Singer” from 1927.

Phew… that was a big bite. My head is smoking. If you should be an aficionado of silent films and the whole era you will probably find many things and details missing here. Please don’t take it personally if your hero wasn’t mentioned. I’m merely trying to condense these years and years of pioneer work and innovations down to a readable version.
I really hope that you enjoy this blog. I’d love comments.

In case you were wondering…

Next time I’ll go back just a step to the likes of Eisenstein to tell you about how you can depict emotions via a smart cutting technique.

Kinophile

Kol Nidre, Covenants and Excommunication

I just attended Kol Nidre which is considered one of the more iconic and spiritually significant prayer services of the Jewish year. This prayer has even entered into popular culture with its culminating place in Neil Diamond’s The Jazz Singer . I have always loved this prayer for its beautiful and intricate melody, but this year I focused on the words in particular and found many things that struck me in unique ways.

The English translation of the main bulk of the prayer is as follows:

“All vows, obligations, oaths or anathemas, pledges of all names, which we have vowed, sworn, devoted, or bound ourselves to, from this day of atonement, until the next day of atonement (whose arrival we hope for in happiness) we repent, aforehand, of them all, they shall all be deemed absolved, forgiven, annulled, void and made of no effect; they shall not be binding, nor have any power; the vows shall not be reckoned as vows, the obligations shall not be obligatory, nor the oaths considered as oaths.”

This prayer/declaration has been used by anti-Semites as grounds to declare Jewish people not worthy of trust. This prayer they would argue makes Jews unworthy to hold office because they will not fulfill vows such as the constitutional oath. Yet, any person reading this with spiritual sense or even the barest understanding of the purpose of Yom Kippur would reject this absurd analysis. Kol Nidre is concerned with spiritual covenants between man and God that have gone unfulfilled over the past year.

I think that all of us can admit to having been guilty of making promises in our personal prayer that went unfulfilled. How often have we promised to God that we would read the scriptures more diligently or turn to him with our whole heart, only to find old patterns and habits reasserting dominance. In such cases, according to Jewish and I’d venture also LDS tradition, we become guilty not just of the actions that took us away from the straight and narrow path, but also of a violation of our relationship with God. Simply put, the whole plan of salvation is an enormous covenant between man and God. When we bridge our part of the covenant and violate the trust of God, that is an action with consequence.

The people’s of the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon took covenant making with the utmost seriousness. The famous story of Jephthah and his tragic promise to god which ultimately necessitated the sacrifice of his daughter is one such example. Likewise, in his The Book Of Mormon: A Short Introduction (2009) Terryl Givens has argued that one of the dominant themes of the Book of Mormon is the importance of covenants. By Contrasting Helaman’s Stripling Warriors and the Pacifist “Anti-Nephi-Lehis,” separated by only a generation, Givens suggests that the takeaway message from both of these stories is:

“That faithfulness to covenants righteously entered into trumps both. The anti-Nephi-Lehies ‘had entered into a covenant and they would not break it (Alma 43:11). By identical token, their sons ‘entered into a covenant to fight for the liberty of the Nephites (Alma 53:17) In the Book of Mormon, covenant is the thread of safety on which the survival, spiritual safety, and very identity of the people hang.” (Pages 50-51)

Thus, covenant relations were viewed as absolutely sacred and unalterable in biblical times. Likewise, (This Is from a not yet endowed member, so take my writing here with a grain of salt) the most controversial element of the endowment ceremony came from a desire to literalize the spiritual seriousness and significant of the covenant that one undertakes.

Still, it becomes clear that we cannot live up to every single promise and obligation that we make to the lord. We will fail to live up to what is expected of us. Thus, for Jews, the Kol Nidre prayer plays a very vital role in spiritual healing for the New Year. Likewise, our weekly taking of the sacrament can in some ways be said to be analogous. As we renew our covenants and seek absolution from our sins:

“O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it, that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them; that they may always have his Spirit to be with them. Amen”

Another topic that was of especial interest for me in the Kol Nidre prayer was the mention of anathemas which in the version I saw last night was written as “excommunications.”

The explanatory notes in the prayer book I used explained that on the night of Yom Kippur those that had been excommunicated were brought back into the fold in order to allow the prayer to truly be efficacious and atoneing on the part of all members of the Jewish people and the congregation.

There is something profound here that I actually think that member of the LDS church can learn from. Those that are cast out of the community are viewed perpetually as still part of that community and of vital concern. Spiritual improvement of the individual is viewed as tied up with the communal. The highest form of spiritual success could only happen when every person of the covenant was restored to the fold. One ancient Jewish tradition stated for instance “The Jewish Messiah will come if every Jew properly observes two consecutive Sabbaths (Talmud, tractate Shabbat 118).” Every year, Jews were given a chance to renew their covenants with God and to regrow their ties to the faith. In some ways, perhaps we are doing a massive disservice when we do not allow excommunicated members of partake of the sacrament. If the sacrament is truly a weekly companion of what is a yearly practice among Jews, then should we not likewise truly give all individuals a chance weekly to restore themselves spiritually with God. I think there’s a lot to admire and learn from the Jewish custom.

I suppose it’s fitting that Pop is the album where U2 embraced irony the most, because it’s perhaps U2’s least popular album ever. I say “perhaps” because at least people might still be able to name a song from it. Quick — name a song from October. Any song from October. You have ten seconds and you’re not allowed to look at iTunes, Wikipedia, Amazon, or any other site that would give you the answers. Oh, and the title track doesn’t count.

Just how un-beloved is Pop? Even U2 themselves have all but abandoned this album. Only five of its 12 songs have been performed live since the PopMart Tour in 1997. They even stopped playing a few songs from Pop during the tour that was meant to promote it! The only Pop song they’ve played live in full since 2001 is “Discotheque.” And before they released All That You Can’t Leave Behind, the “comeback” album that “brought them back to their roots,” they said, “We’re reapplying for the position of best band in the world.” Translation: “Hey guys! Sorry Pop sucked so much! Our bad! Here, look, we’re going to stop all this wacky experimentation now! It’s okay to like us again!” Cue the opening chords of “Beautiful Day.”

Of course, when an experimental album contains the worst song of said band’s career, it’s easier to understand when people condemn them for stepping out of their comfort zone. That’s the kind of thing that happens… When Bad Songs Happen To Good Bands.

A lot of people may disagree with what I’m about to say, but here I go: Pop wasn’t THAT bad. It’s not like U2 made the next Metal Machine Music. They went out on a limb and tried things that were quite different from what people expected U2 to sound like, and for the most part kept it pretty accessible. How many bands can you say have taken such drastic turns in their careers? There’s the Beatles, of course. Radiohead too, but they hadn’t even released OK Computer yet when Pop came out, let alone Kid A, Amnesiac, and Hail To The Thief. Metallica did it with The Black Album. A popular rock band going this far away from their established sound simply wasn’t all that common.

So why does Pop have such a bad reputation? Well, there’s the expected shock to the system of a popular rock band suddenly announcing, “And now for something completely different!” It’s an effect perhaps best summarized by Nick Hornby’s review of Kid A for the New Yorker. Much as I like Mr. Hornby – I am, after all, the guy who ripped off the Top 5 list idea from High Fidelity – his opinion basically boiled down to, “Hey! You’re a rock band! Where are all the guitars?” But let’s face it, if a band sticks to the same sound over and over and over again, it gets kind of boring after a while. (Not that that’s stopped certain bands from selling millions of records — ixnay on the Ickelbacknay.)

The difference between U2’s experiments and those of bands like the Beatles and Radiohead was that they weren’t quite as successful in the execution. Some of the songs worked –“Mofo” is a churning, hard-charging electro-rocker; “Last Night On Earth” has an absolutely killer chorus; “Staring At The Sun” and “Gone” make good use of the Edge’s arsenal of effects; and “Do You Feel Loved” effectively blends the old with the new. Others didn’t work quite as well – “The Playboy Mansion” is a heavy-handed attempt at pop culture satire; “Discotheque” is a ridiculous dance number that thankfully embraces its own ridiculousness and features a sweet guitar riff; while “If You Wear That Velvet Dress” is just kind of dull.

But one song in particular sticks out above all the others as the biggest failed experiment of all. This is not merely the worst song on Pop, people. It’s not even enough to say that it was the worst U2 song of the ‘90s. No… this is a very special breed of monster. This is “Miami,” the worst U2 song I’ve ever heard in my life.

What we have here is an attempt at pseudo-industrial music that sounds like its creators haven’t even listened to industrial music outside of maybe a couple Nine Inch Nails songs. There’s barely anything resembling a melody to be found in “Miami” aside from a two-note synth loop that plays over and over. As a result, Bono is mostly left to carry this song on his own, though the backing ba-ba-bas help his cause. Those ba-ba-bas in the background are actually the catchiest part of this song. Now, no matter what you may think of Bono’s politics or his activism, the man can sing his heart out when he wants to. Here he doesn’t even sound like he cares that much, and there’s simply not enough going on around him to hook the listener any further.

And then we get to the chorus. Oh, God, that chorus. First of all, the Edge’s guitar has never, ever sounded worse than it does in the studio version of “Miami.” Second, there’s Bono rhyming the titular city with “my mammy,” a phrase that hadn’t been used in popular music since Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer. Third, when the chorus comes back near the end and Bono starts screaming “MIAMI, MY MAMMY,” the only thing that tries to reach a climax is Bono’s voice, which again is screaming “MIAMI, MY MAMMY!” The whole thing is just kind of laughable. It also doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the lyrics, which basically pinpoint Miami as the heart of everything Bono finds ridiculous about American pop culture.

Not only did this man help usher in a new era of cinema, but he also inspired Bono's most ridiculous chorus lyric ever. It's almost enough to forgive him for donning blackface.

But perhaps the most frustrating thing about listening to “Miami” is just how unfinished it sounds. It’s like they got Bono to just sing over a rough demo of a song that could have turned out to be cooler. And given the story surrounding Pop’s release, this might not be too far off. U2 had to rush this album out the door even though they weren’t satisfied with how it sounded yet. Why? Because they’d already booked dates for the PopMart Tour and needed time to rehearse the new material.

As a result, by the band’s own admission, some of the songs actually were unfinished upon the album’s release. This is why every song from Pop that was featured on the band’s Best of 1990-2000 compilation appeared as a new mix – “Discotheque,” “Staring At The Sun,” and “Gone” were remixed for the official disc, while “If God Will Send His Angels” was given a mulligan on the bonus disc. Could “Miami” have been one of the songs that simply needed a little more time? Only the guys in U2 know for sure.

Is there any real saving grace to this song? Well, it sounds a little better live, with the most noticeable upgrade being the Edge’s guitar sound. But despite the improvement over the album version, “Miami” was still one of the first songs from Pop that the band dropped from their set list during the PopMart Tour. So even the band couldn’t have been too fond of this song.

Then again, this is the band that has pretty much disowned this album and the sound they attempted on it. They’ve gone back to writing straightforward, less experimental rock anthems — which is fine, because they do it well. But the fact that U2 have been around long enough and successful enough to do whatever they want and will still probably never attempt another song like “Miami” speaks volumes.

It can’t possibly be Wednesday. It just can’t. 

New York City: Day 19

I don’t have any idea where the last four days have gone. I turned my head for a split second and they ran away. 

To briefly recap, I had a beautiful and lazy Sunday morning. That afternoon, I met up with fellow SLU alum Heather Wood for some cupcakes at Magnolia’s. Not only were the cupcakes unbelievably good, but Heather is just about one of the coolest girls around. Added bonus: while sitting on a stoop licking chocolate icing off of my fingers, I had my first New York City celebrity sighting. Jeremy Sisto (Detective Lupo on Law & Order/Elton from Clueless) was sauntering down the street in his sweats, listening to his iPod. 

Oh! Another exiting tidbit: 151 Bank Street, the building the houses The New School for Drama, our theatre, and all of our studios was the soundstage for the 1927 film The Jazz Singer– the first “talkie”. Keith was talking in class about all of the artistic energy in the facilities and mentioned that little bit of history. And it tickles me to no end. The air does seem to hum around 151 Bank Street… 

Mackenzie rocks the shades while Christopher enjoys the "beach".

The holiday on Monday was much-needed. Mack, Chris, and I decided it would be fun to go to the beach. After surfing the web briefly, we settled on Wolfe’s Pond Beach on Staten Island, mostly because I was intrigued by the name.

The entire trip was a farce. 

By the time we walked to the ferry, got to the island, boarded the Staten Island railway, found our stop, got lost trying to find the beach, walked back to the train station, and then back again in the direction we’d already been heading, it took us about two-and-a-half hours to get there. And it was filthy. The water was so brown, it was almost red. Trash littered the small stretch of sand that was supposed to have made up Wolfe’s Pond Beach. Farcical though it may have been, we all still had fun and laughed a lot. I spent the trip back fighting the cold, first wrapped in Chris’ towel and then in Mack’s sweater. Totally exhausted, I dozed on the train ride back to the ferry.

Sleepy on Staten Island

Shortly after this picture was taken, the boys decided it would be funny to move to the opposite end of the car. Which they did. I think I may have had a minor heart attack when I opened my eyes and realized that they weren’t there. My eyes eventually darted to the other end of the empty train where they were trying to control their laughter. Ha. Ha. Our adventurous little trio split a pretzel on our late-night ferry ride home. Most valuable lesson of the day: Staten Island is home to giant raccoons. And women who scare easily.  

I’ve update this album with shots that I took at the “beach”. Happy Labor Day. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2147582&id=33305394&l=40949ad136

It was back to class with me yesterday. Tuesday was a fantastic day, all around. I feel so lucky every day that I get to wake up and go to class. I don’t care if I sound overly-excited. I’m so happy to be here. I’m trying to suck the marrow out of the program and to use this time to be selfish– to invest in myself as an artist. I’m exhausted. The curriculum is intense. But I’m so happy to be surrounded by a group of people whose job is to push me to become the best actor I can be. Or to lay that foundation, anyway. And these people– between Troy and Matt, my classmates and my professors– I couldn’t ask for a greater group. 

Ok. Love Fest over. Neutral American Speech is going to make my head explode. I’d never touched the International Phonetic Alphabet in undergrad and I feel as though all of my classmates know it like the back of their hands. It’s like someone said, “Here! Learn a foreign alphabet in a week!” Jeezle Petes. In other school news, after only a few classes in Vocal Production, I was making sounds yesterday that I had no idea I was capable of. It was an amazing feeling. More tales from the studios later on.

The first round of auditions are approaching. I’m fantastically excited.

I suppose there’s one more thing I should post about. I feel silly writing about this to the void, but I suppose that’s one of the goals of a blog– authenticity and transparency. (Chris, if you’re reading this… um… hey…) So. Long story short, The Poet and I are an item. (Yes, I just wrote “an item”.) I choose to share this because everyone has been asking me about it. And by everyone I mean… people here, people in Georgia, people in Missouri, people elsewhere. My dad even inquired by way of text message. (Hey, Dad!) I suppose that’s what you get when you chronicle your new New York life and a certain name constantly pops up in the context of daily trips to read in various parks. So, world, there it is. And though our time together is cliche-laden (an actor and a poet living in New York City. gag.) we laugh a lot, and that’s pretty fantastic. 

Reading for class and my vocal exercises with Mackenzie call me away. 

I just looked out my window and saw the night lights of lower Manhattan. Sometimes I feel overwhelmingly lucky. 

Κάνοντας το διάλειμμά μου από τη βυζαντινή και νεοελληνική τέχνη (αλλες 2 μερες,κουράγιο!), είπα να μοιραστώ μαζί σας ένα αφισάκι που βρήκα χθες δουλεύοντας την ερευνητική μου εργασία! Πρόκειται για την πρώτη ταινία που βγήκε με διαλόγους το 1927 και λέγεται “The jazz singer”. Γενικά έχω μία ιδιαίτερη αγάπη στις παλιές αφισούλες, αλλά αυτή με συγκίνησε, γιατί μπήκα στο πνεύμα της εποχής. Με φαντάστηκα στους δρόμους της Νέας Υόρκης, λίγες ημέρες πριν την πρεμιέρα, να τη βλέπω με αυτήν τη μεγάλη επιγραφή “LEGENDARY FIRST TALKING PICTURE!”, να ενθουσιάζομαι για αυτήν την πρωτοπορία, να αγωνιώ και να ψάχνω ένα εισιτήριο για αυτήν την ιδιαίτερη μέρα!

Δεν πρόλαβα να τη δω ακόμη, θα τη δω μετά το πέρας του ερευνητικού μου, μιας και δε με αφορά άμεσα σα θέμα, αλλά από τα σχόλια που διάβασα στο ίντερνετ είδα ότι παρόλο που θεωρείται η πρώτη με διαλόγους, το μεγαλύτερο ποσοστό είναι χωρίς! Προφανώς έκανε την αρχή, για να γίνει η μεγάλη έκρηξη στη συνέχεια, μέχρι και την πληθώρα ηχητικών εφέ που χρησιμοποιούνται σήμερα στην κινηματογραφική βιομηχανία. Απολαύστε λοιπόν!

The Jazz Singer

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1890 Monkeyshines 1891 Dickson Greeting 1891 Edison – Newark Athlete, Part I 1893 Men in Blacksmith Shop 1894 Annie Oakley shooting at targets 1894 Edison – Chinese Laundry – November 26, 1894 1894 Edison – Kinetoscope Films from 1894-1896 1895 Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (The Lumière Brothers) 1895 Edison – The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots – August 28, 1895 1895 L’Arroseur arrosé 1895 The Dickson Experimental Sound Film 1896 Bataille de Boules de Neige (Louis Lumière, 1896) 1896 Edison – The Kiss 1896 Fred Ott’s Sneeze 1896 Louis Lumiere – New York,Broadway At Union Square 1896 Rip Van Winkle 1897 Edison – Admiral Cigarette advertisement 1898 Turkish Dance, Ella Lola 1899 Cripple Creek Bar-room Scene (Edison) 1899 Edison – Bicyclist tricks 1900 Edison – Grandma’s Bad Boys 1901 Edison – Boxing Woman 1901 Edison – Circular panorama of electric tower – Pan-American Exposition, 14 August 1901 1901 Edison – The Martyred Presidents 1901 What Happened on Twenty-Third Street, New York City 1902 Le voyage dans la lune 1903 Life of an American Fireman – Edwin S. Porter 1903 Move On 1903 NYC Ghetto Fish Market 1903 The Great Train Robbery Part 1 – Thomas A. Edison 1904 Westinghouse Works Part 1 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire 1909 Princess Nicotine 1910 Jack Johnson -vs- James Jeffries 1914 Cabiria Giovanni Pastrone 1914 Charlie Chaplin – The Kid Auto Race 1914 Der Golem or, The Monster of Fate 1914 Gertie the Dinosaur 1914 The Exploits of Elaine 1915 The Birth of a Nation 1915 The Italian 1916 Intolerance 1917 The Immigrant 1919 Broken Blossoms 1920 The Cabinet of Dr Caligari 1920 The Mark of Zorro 1921 Charlie Chaplin – The Kid 1921 Manhatta 1921 The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 1922 Buster Keaton – Cops (1 of 2) 1922 Nanook of the North 1922 Nosferatu 1923 Le retour a la raison – Man Ray 1923 Safety Last! 1923 Salome 1924 Body and Soul 1924 Buster Keaton – Sherlock Jr 1924 Buster Keaton – The Navigator 1924 Peter Pan 1924 The Thief of Bagdad 1925 Battleship Potemkin – Odessa Stairs Massacre – Pram 1925 Battleship Potemkin – Son Shot 1925 Charlie Chaplin – The Gold Rush 1925 The Freshman 1925 The Lost World 1925 The Phantom of the Opera 1925 Theodore Case Sound Test – Gus Visser and his Singing Duck 1926 Flesh and the Devil 1926 Son of the Sheik 1927 Buster Keaton – The General 2 1927 It – Clara Bow 1927 Metropolis – Montage 1927 Oktober – 1 1927 Sunrise 1927 The Jazz Singer 1927 Wings 1928 Charlie Chaplin – The Circus 1928 Steamboat Willie 1928 The Cameraman – Breaking the Bank 1928 The Wedding March 1929 Luis Bunuel – Un chien andalou Part 1 1929 Man with a Movie Camera 1929 St. Louis Blues 1929 The Broadway Melody 1930 All Quiet Along the Western Front – Trailer 1930 Morocco 1931 Charlie Chaplin – City Lights 1931 Dracula 1931 Frankenstein 1931 Fritz Lang’s M, ending, 1st part 1931 Le million 1931 Little Caesar 1931 The Champ 1931 The Public Enemy 1932 Freaks 1932 Grand Hotel 1932 Love Me Tonight 1932 Shanghai Express 1932 The Music Box 1932 Trouble In Paradise 1933 42nd Street 1933 Duck Soup 1933 King Kong – ending 1933 She Done Him Wrong – Mae West 1933 Snow White 1933 The Emperor Jones 1934 It Happened One Night 1934 It’s A Gift 1934 Little Miss Marker 1934 Tarzan and His Mate 1934 The Goddess 1934 The Man Who Knew Too Much 1934 The Thin Man 1935 A Night at the Opera 1935 Bride of Frankenstein 1935 Mutiny On The Bounty 1935 Naughty Marietta 1935 The 39 Steps 1935 Top Hat 1935 Triumph of the Will 1936 Camille 1936 Modern Times 1936 My Man Godfrey 1936 Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor – Part 1 1936 Rose Hobart 1936 Show Boat 1936 Swing Time – Trailer 1936 The Great Ziegfeld 1937 A Star Is Born 1937 Hindenburg disaster 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – hi ho 1937 Stage Door 1937 The Awful Truth 1937 The Life of Emile Zola 1937 Way Out West – ‘Blue Ridge Mountains’ 1938 Bringing Up Baby 1938 Love Finds Andy Hardy – Trailer 1938 Olympia 1938 Porky in Wackyland 1938 You Can’t Take It with You 1939 Destry Rides Again 1939 Gone with the Wind 1 – kiss 1939 Gunga Din 1939 La Règle du jeu 1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 1939 Ninotchka clip 1939 Stagecoach 1939 The Wizard of Oz 1939 Wuthering Heights 1939 Young Mr Lincoln 1940 Charlie Chaplin – The Great Dictator 1940 Fantasia 1940 His Girl Friday 1940 Pinocchio 1940 Rebecca 1940 The Bank Dick 1940 The Grapes Of Wrath 1940 The Philadelphia Story 1940 The Shop Around the Corner 1941 Citizen Kane – Final Words 1941 Meet John Doe 1941 Sullivan’s Travels 1941 The Lady Eve 1941 The Maltese Falcon 1942 Casablanca 1 – play it again 1942 Cat People 1942 Holiday Inn – White Christmas 1942 Jam Session 1942 Random Harvest – She’s Ma Daisy 1942 Road to Morocco 1942 The Battle of Midway 1942 The Magnificent Ambersons 1942 To Be Or Not To Be 1942 Tulips Shall Grow 1942 Woman of the Year 1942 Yankee Doodle Dandy 1943 Meshes of the Afternoon – Part 1 1943 Shadow of a Doubt 1943 Stormy Weather 1943 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp 1944 Arsenic and Old Lace 1944 Double Indemnity 1944 Going My Way 1944 Henry V – Trailer 1944 Laura – Trailer 1944 The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek 1945 Blithe Spirit 1945 Brief Encounter – end 1945 Detour 1945 Les Enfants du Paradis 1945 Mildred Pierce – Trailer 1945 Roma Citta Libera 1945 Spellbound 1945 The Body Snatcher 1945 The Lost Weekend 1946 It’s A Wonderful Life – ending 1946 La Belle et la bête 1946 My Darling Clementine 1946 Notorious 1946 The Best Years of Our Lives 1946 The Big Sleep 1947 Black Narcissus 1947 Brighton Rock 1947 Crossfire 1947 Miracle on 34th Street 1947 Out of the Past 1948 Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein 1948 Bicycle Thieves 1948 Hamlet 1948 Letter From An Unknown Woman 1948 Mr.Blandings Builds His Dream House 1948 Red River 1948 The Red Shoes 1948 The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre 1949 All the King’s Men 1949 Kind Hearts and Coronets 1949 The Heiress 1949 The Third Man – ending 1949 Twelve O’Clock High 1949 White Heat – Top of the World 1950 All About Eve 1950 Gerald McBoing-Boing 1950 Harvey 1950 In A Lonely Place 1950 Rashomon 1950 Sunset Boulevard 1951 A Place in the Sun 1951 A Streetcar Named Desire 1951 An American in Paris 1951 Duck and Cover 1951 Flying Padre – Stanley Kubrick 1951 Strangers on a Train 1951 The African Queen 1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still 1951 The Thing from Another World 1952 High Noon 1952 Hurlements en faveur de Sade – Guy Debord 1952 Ikiru 1952 Magical Maestro 1952 Singin’ in the Rain 1952 The Bad and the Beautiful 1952 The Greatest Show on Earth 1952 The Quiet Man 1952 Umberto D 1953 From Here to Eternity 1953 Le Salaire de la peur 1953 Let’s All Go to the Lobby 1953 Mr Hulot’s Holiday 1 – start 1953 Roman Holiday 1953 Shane 1953 Stalag 17 1953 The Band Wagon – That’s Entertainment 1953 The Hitch-Hiker 1953 The Tell-Tale Heart 1953 The War Of The Worlds 1953 Tokyo Story 1953 Ugetsu 1954 A Star Is Born 1954 Carmen Jones 1954 Creature from the Black Lagoon 1954 Dial M For Murder 1954 House in the Middle Pt 1 1954 La Strada 1954 On The Waterfront 1954 Rear Window 1954 Sabrina 1954 Seven Brides for Seven Brothers 1954 Seven Samurai – Akira Kurosawa 1954 The Caine Mutiny 1954 The Dam Busters 1954 White Christmas 1955 Blackboard Jungle 1955 Kiss Me Deadly clip 1955 Les Diaboliques 1955 Marty 1955 One Froggy Evening 1955 Pather Panchali 1955 Rebel Without A Cause – knife 1955 Richard III 1955 Rififi 1955 The Night of the Hunter 1956 Around the World in 80 Days – Trailer 1956 Don’t Knock The Rock – ‘Tutti Frutti’ 1956 Giant 1956 Invasion Of The Body Snatchers 1956 The Court Jester 1956 The Killing 1956 The Searchers – Trailer 1956 The Ten Commandments – Trailer 1957 12 Angry Men 1 1957 Bridge On The River Kwai 1 1957 Jailhouse Rock 1957 Le notti di Cabiria – Fellini 1957 Paths of Glory 1957 Pyaasa 1957 Rock You Sinners – Brighton Rock 1957 Smultronstället 1957 Sweet Smell of Success 1957 The Seventh Seal 1957 What’s Opera, Doc 1957 Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter 1957 Witness for the Prosecution 1958 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 1958 Mon Oncle 1958 The Defiant Ones – Trailer 1958 The Vikings 1958 Touch of Evil 1958 Vertigo – The Stairs, first time 1959 Anatomy of a Murder – Trailer 1959 Ben Hur – Trailer 1959 Les quatre cents coups 1959 North By Northwest – The Airplane 1959 Shadows 1959 Some Like It Hot 1960 A bout de souffle 1960 House of Usher 1960 La Dolce Vita 1960 Psycho 1960 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – Trailer 1960 Spartacus 1960 The Alamo 1960 The Apartment 1961 Breakfast at Tiffany’s 1961 Dog Star Man – Prelude 1961 Judgment At Nuremberg 1961 Jules et Jim 1961 West Side Story 1961 Yojimbo 1961The Hustler 1962 Dr No 1962 How the West Was Won 1962 Lawrence of Arabia 1962 Lolita 1962 O Pagador de Promessas 1962 Ride the High Country 1962 The Manchurian Candidate 1962 The Music Man 1962 To Kill a Mockingbird 1963 8 1-2 – dream 1963 Charade 1963 Dog Star Man – Part II 1963 Shock Corridor 1963 The Birds 1963 The Great Escape 1963 The Nutty Professor 1963 The Servant 1964 A Hard Day’s Night 1964 Bande à part 1964 Deus e o diabo na terra do Sol 1964 Dog Star Man – Part III 1964 Dr. Strangelove 1 1964 Empire – Andy Warhol 1964 Goldfinger 1964 Mary Poppins – Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious 1964 My Fair Lady – Wouldn’t It Be Loverly 1964 Zulu 1965 Darling 1965 Dr. Zhivago 1965 For A Few Dollars More 1965 Repulsion – Catherine Deneuve 1965 The Sound of Music 1966 A Man For All Seasons – Trailer 1966 Alfie 1966 Blow-up 1966 Fahrenheit 451 1966 Georgy Girl 1966 La Battaglia di Algeri 1966 Persona 1966 The Endless Summer 1966 The Good The Bad and the Ugly 1966 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf 1967 Belle de Jour – Luis Bunuel 1967 Bonnie and Clyde 1967 Cool Hand Luke – boiled eggs 1967 Far From The Madding Crowd 1967 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner 1967 In the Heat of the Night – Trailer 1967 Mouchette 1967 Playtime 1967 Stop, Look and Listen 1967 The Graduate 1967 The Jungle Book – I Wanna Be Like You 1968 2001 Space Odyssey 1 – start 1968 Bullitt 1968 Carry on Up the Khyber 1968 If… 1968 Night Of the Living Dead 1968 Oliver! 1968 Once Upon a Time in the West 1968 Planet of the Apes 1968 Rosemary’s Baby 1968 The Producers – Springtime for Hitler 1968 Why Man Creates 1969 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969 Easy Rider – ending 1969 Goodbye, Mr. Chips 1969 Kes – cane 1969 Midnight Cowboy – I’m walking here 1969 The Italian Job – doors 1969 The Sorrow and the Pity – bourgeois 1969 The Wild Bunch 1969 Women in Love 1970 Five Easy Pieces 1970 Love Story 1970 MASH 1970 Multiple Sidosis 1970 Patton 1971 A Clockwork Orange – droog fight 1971 A Touch Of Zen 1971 Fiddler On The Roof – To Life 1971 Get Carter 1971 Harold And Maude 1971 Shaft 1971 Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song 1971 The French Connection 1971 The Hospital 1971 The Last Picture Show 1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory – Pure Imagination 1972 Aguirre the Wrath of God 1972 Cabaret 1972 Deliverance – ‘Dueling banjos’ 1972 DT 1972 Frenzy 1972 Last Tango in Paris 1 1972 OffOn 1972 Sleuth 1972 Solaris 1972 The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie 1972 The Godfather – offer 1972 The Poseidon Adventure 1973 American Graffiti 1973 Badlands 1973 Coffy 1973 Don’t Look Now 1973 Enter the Dragon 1973 Frank Film 1973 La Nuit americaine 1973 Mean Streets 1973 Sleeper 1973 The Day of the Jackal 1973 The Exorcist – Pt.1 1973 The Sting 1973 The Wicker Man 1974 A Woman Under the Influence 1974 Blazing Saddles 1974 Chinatown 1974 Foxy Brown 1974 The Conversation 1974 The Godfather, Part II 1974 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – ending 1974 The Towering Inferno – Trailer 1974 Young Frankenstein – Puttin’ on the Ritz 1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – ending 1975 Barry Lyndon 1975 Dog Day Afternoon 1975 Flåklypa Grand Prix – 1 1975 Jaws 1975 Monty Python and the Holy Grail 1975 Nashville 1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 1975 Picnic At Hanging Rock – Trailer 1975 The Return Of The Pink Panther – Karate Kick 1975 The Rocky Horror Picture Show – Damn it Janet 1976 All the President’s Men – Trailer 1976 Car Wash 1976 Marathon Man 1976 Network 1976 Nuts in May 1976 Rocky – Adrian 1976 Taxi Driver – Talking To Me 1976 The Omen 1976 The Outlaw Josey Wales 1976 The Pink Panther Strikes Again 1977 Abigail’s Party 1977 Annie Hall 1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1977 Eraserhead 1977 Killer of Sheep 1977 Looking for Mr. Goodbar 1977 Powers of Ten 1977 Saturday Night Fever 1977 Soldaat van Oranje 1977 Star Wars Episode IV – A New Hope – Deathstar1 1978 Dawn Of The Dead – mall 1978 DDD 1978 Every Which Way But Loose 1978 Grease – Summer Nights 1978 Halloween 1978 Midnight Express 1978 National Lampoon’s Animal House 1978 Pennies From Heaven 1978 Superman The Movie 1978 The Deer Hunter 1978 The Last Waltz – The Weight 1979 Alien 1979 All That Jazz – Bye Bye Life 1979 Apocalypse Now – Napalm in the morning 1979 Mad Max and Feral Boy 1979 Manhattan – start 1979 Monty Python’s Life of Brian 1979 Stalker – Tarkovsky 1979 Star Trek The Motion Picture 1979 The Black Stallion 1979 Woyzeck – Herzog 1980 Airplane! 1980 Atlantic City 1980 Flash Gordon 1980 Gregory’s Girl 1980 Heaven’s Gate 1980 Mon oncle d’Amerique 1980 Raging Bull 1980 Superman II 1980 The Elephant Man 1980 The Empire Strikes Back 1980 The Long Good Friday – ending 1980 The Shining – Here’s Johnny 1981 Chariots of Fire 1981 Das Boot 1981 Gallipoli 1981 Mommie Dearest 1981 Raiders Of The Lost Ark 1981 The Cannonball Run – 1 1981 The Evil Dead 1981 The Postman Always Rings Twice 1982 Blade Runner 1982 Boys from the Blackstuff 1982 Conan The Barbarian 1982 ET 1982 Fast Times At Ridgemont High 1982 First Blood 1982 Fitzcarraldo 1982 Gandhi 1982 Koyaanisqatsi 1982 Made in Britain 1982 Poltergeist 1982 Porky’s 1982 Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman 1982 Sophie’s Choice 1982 Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan 1982 The Draughtsman’s Contract 1982 The Thing 1982 The Thing 1983 A Christmas Story – Oh, Fuuudge 1983 Return of The Jedi 1983 Scarface 1983 Terms of Endearment 1983 The King of Comedy 1983 Trading Places 1983 WarGames 1984 1984 1984 A Passage To India 1984 Amadeus 1984 Dune 1984 Ghostbusters 1984 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 1984 Once Upon A Time In America 1984 Paris, Texas 1984 Police Academy 1984 Repo Man 1984 Stop Making Sense 1984 Stranger Than Paradise 1984 Supergirl 1984 The Karate Kid 1984 The Killing Fields 1984 The Never Ending Story – Trailer 1984 The Terminator 1984 This is Spinal Tap 1985 After Hours 1985 Back to the Future 1985 Brazil 1985 Clue 1985 My Beautiful Laundrette 1985 Out of Africa 1985 Ran 1985 Teen Wolf 1985 The Black Cauldron 1985 The Breakfast Club – dancing 1985 The Color Purple 1985 The Goonies 1985 The Official Story 1985 Weird Science 1985 Witness 1985 Young Sherlock Holmes 1986 9 1-2 Weeks 1986 A Better Tomorrow 1986 A Room with a View 1986 Betty Blue 1986 Big Trouble In Little China 1986 Blue Velvet – start 1986 Caravaggio – Derek Jarman 1986 Ferris Bueller’s Day Off 1986 Flight of the Navigator 1986 Hannah and Her Sisters 1986 Hoosiers 1986 Jean de Florette 1986 Labyrinth 1986 Little Shop of Horrors 1986 Manon des Sources 1986 Mona Lisa 1986 Platoon 1986 Rita, Sue and Bob Too – Bananarama 1986 Short Circuit – Trailer 1986 Stand By Me – 1 1986 The Fly 1986 The Money Pit 1986 The Name of The Rose 1986 The Singing Detective 1986 Top Gun 1986 When the Wind Blows 1987 Der Himmel über Berlin Wings of Desire 1987 Dirty Dancing 1987 Fatal Attraction 1987 Full Metal Jacket – drill sergeant 1987 Harry and the Hendersons 1987 Naayagan 1987 Planes, Trains and Automobiles – waking up 1987 Robocop 1987 The Last Emperor 1987 The Princess Bride 1987 The Untouchables 1987 The Witches of Eastwick 1987 Throw Momma from the Train 1987 Withnail and I – Camberwell carrot 1988 A Fish Called Wanda 1988 Akira 1988 Big 1988 Child’s Play 1988 Coming to America – bride 1988 Dangerous Liaisons 1988 Die Hard 1988 Distant Voices, Still Lives – Trailer 1988 Mississippi Burning 1988 Rain Man 1988 The Accused – lawyer 1988 The Last Temptation Of Christ 1988 The Naked Gun 1988 Who Framed Roger Rabbit 1989 Back to the Future II 1989 Batman 1989 Born on the Fourth of July 1989 Cinema Paradiso clip 1989 Dead Poets Society – ending 1989 Do The Right Thing – 1 1989 Glory 1989 Henry V 1989 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 1989 My Left Foot 1989 Sex, Lies and Videotape 1989 Uncle Buck 1989 Weekend at Bernie’s 1990 Back To The Future III 1990 Dances With Wolves 1990 Edward Scissorhands 1990 Ghost 1990 Goodfellas 1990 Home Alone 1990 Miller’s Crossing 1990 Nuns on the Run 1990 Pretty Woman 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990 The Hunt for Red October 1991 Beauty and the Beast 1991 Boyz n the Hood 1991 Cape Fear 1991 Daughters of The Dust 1991 Delicatessen clip 1991 Fried Green Tomatoes 1991 Robin Hood Prince of Thieves 1991 Terminator 2 1991 The Commitments 1991 The Silence of the Lambs – fava beans 1991 Thelma and Louise 1992 A Few Good Men 1992 El Mariachi 1992 Home Alone 2 1992 Howards End 1992 Leolo 1992 Malcolm X 1992 Peter’s Friends – song 1992 Reservoir Dogs 1992 The Bodyguard 1992 The Crying Game 1992 The Last of the Mohicans 1992 The Player – Trailer 1992 Unforgiven 1993 Carlito’s Way 1993 Falling Down 1993 Farewell My Concubinet 1993 Groundhog Day 1993 In the Name of the Father 1993 Jurassic Park 1993 Naked 1993 Philadelphia 1993 Schindler’s List 1993 The Fugitive 1993 The Piano 1993 The Remains of the Day 1993 The Wrong Trousers 1993 Three Colours Blue 1993 What’s Eating Gilbert Grape 1994 Chungking Express 1994 Clerks – corpse 1994 Drunken Master II – Final Fight Scene (Part 1 of 2) 1994 Ed Wood 1994 Forrest Gump 1994 Four Weddings and a Funeral 1994 Il postino 1994 Leon The Professional 1994 Muriel’s Wedding 1994 Pulp Fiction – dancing 1994 The Madness Of King George 1994 The Shawshank Redemption 1995 Braveheart 1995 Heat 1995 La Haine 1995 Nine Months 1995 Richard III 1995 Se7en 1995 Sense and Sensibility 1995 The Usual Suspects 1995 The White Balloon 1995 Toy Story 1995 Twelve Monkeys 1996 Brassed Off 1996 Fargo 1996 Jerry Maguire 1996 Romeo and Juliet 1996 Secrets and Lies 1996 Shine 1996 The English Patient 1996 Trainspotting 1997 As Good as It Gets 1997 Boogie Nights 1997 Good Will Hunting 1997 L.A. Confidential 1997 La Vita è blla 1997 Nil By Mouth 1997 The Full Monty – ending 1997 Titanic 1997 Waiting for Guffman 1998 American History X 1998 Elizabeth 1998 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 1998 Festen 1998 Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels 1998 Lola Rennt 1998 Rushmore 1998 Saving Private Ryan – D-day Scene (1-4) 1998 Taxi 1998 The Big Lebowski 1998 The Truman Show 1999 American Beauty 1999 Being John Malkovich 1999 Fight Club 1999 Magnolia 1999 Office Space – 1 1999 The Green Mile 1999 The Matrix 1999 The Sixth Sense 2000 Amores Perros 2000 Billy Elliot 2000 Chocolat 2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2000 Dancer in the Dark 2000 Erin Brockovich 2000 Gladiator 2000 Meet the Parents 2000 Memento 2000 Quills 2001 Amelie 2001 Donnie Darko 2001 Kandahar 2001 Legally Blonde 2001 Lord Of The Rings 2001 No Man’s Land 2001 The Royal Tenenbaums 2001 Wit 2002 Bowling for Columbine 2002 Chicago 2002 City of God 2002 Dirty Pretty Things 2002 Spider-Man 2002 Spirited Away 2002 Talk to Her 2002 The Magdalene Sisters 2002 The Pianist 2003 Finding Nemo 2003 Lost in Translation 2003 Monster 2003 Oldboy 2004 Crash 2004 Der Untergang 2004 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 2004 Fahrenheit 9/11 2004 Gegen die Wand 2004 Hotel Rwanda 2004 Million Dollar Baby 2004 Napoleon Dynamite 2004 Shaun Of The Dead 2004 Sideways – Trailer 2004 Tropical Malady 2005 Brokeback Mountain 2005 Good Night, And Good Luck 2005 March of the Penguinsm – Trailer 2005 The Tulse Luper Suitcases 2005 V for Vendetta 2006 Borat – Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan 2006 Lage Raho Munna Bhai 2006 Little Miss Sunshine 2006 The Lives Of Others

David S. Cohen – Variety

   Pacific Title & Art Studio, the 90-year-old Hollywood post-production house, has gone into receivership and will be liquidated.

   According to an email Pacific Title prexy-CEO David McCarthy sent to employees, efforts to obtain new financing for the company have failed.

   Pac Title will complete all current projects before the end of June.

“We will be contacting our customers shortly to explain what our intent is and to work with them to either complete their pending projects or to cease activity on the projects and transfer the elements to other facilities or return customer materials as appropriate,” he wrote.

   McCarthy’s missive held out some hope that a buyer may emerge that will leave the company intact but told all employees, “You should immediately consider yourself laid off.”

   The company received a $3 million cash infusion in 2008, but McCarthy said the industry slowdown caused by the turmoil surrounding SAG, “tax incentives in other locales and general economic conditions have all combined to create an excessively harsh industry situation that Pac Title could not escape.”

  The company has been dogged by rumors of its impending failure for weeks, after missing payroll more than once and furloughing a number of employees last week.

Pac Title was founded in 1919 by Warner Bros. animation artist Leon Schlesinger and counts among its credits “The Jazz Singer,” “Gone With the Wind” and “Ben Hur.”

Recent credits include “Terminator Salvation,” “Fast and Furious,” “Watchmen” and “Gran Torino.”

   In recent years it had moved into digital post, including visual effects and restoration. It was bought by private equity funds Celerity Partners and Ticonderoga Capital, which felt the company was well positioned to take digital work that would be outsourced by the major studios.

   But the company ran into hard times after the new owners dismissed topper Phillip Feiner in 2007. In August of that year he sued for wrongful termination and breach of contract

…       more like this at GoreMaster.com

Al Jolson would’ve turned 123 today. A man of great talent, charm and humor, by the time he died in late 1950, he was dubbed by many “the world’s greatest entertainer.” It has been said that he “was to jazz, blues and ragtime what Elvis Presley was to rock’n'roll.” A showman of incomparable skill, he is perhaps best known for his starring role in The Jazz Singer, the world’s first talking picture. 

The original show bill of The Jazz Singer

Carole Demas turns 69 today. Sadly, her only Broadway credit is originating a role nearly everybody in the world attributes to another actress. She, not Olivia Newton John, was the first to play the role of Sandy in Grease way back in 1972. She is definitely overdue for a Broadway comeback – she just needs the right role to come along. 

Jeff Conaway and Carole Demas in Grease

Chart Position: 2

• From the film The Jazz Singer which stars Neil Diamond
• Written by Neil Diamond and Gilbert Becaud
• Produced by Bob Gaudio
• This is the first of 3 consecutive Top 10 Neil Diamond hits from the film’s soundtrack
• The 1980 soundtrack LP The Jazz Singer became Diamond’s biggest seller in the U.S.
• Later recorded by Shirley Bassey (1995), Patricia Paay (1995), Michael Ball (1998) and Russell Watson (2007)

the first Academy Awards ceremony was held 80 years ago today, by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, “a professional organization dedicated to advancing the art and technology of filmmaking”, the event was hosted at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel,
Wings was awarded “Outstanding Picture” & Sunrise was awarded “Unique & Artistic Picture”, 2 uncategorized awards were given to Charles Chaplin’s The Circus as well as The Jazz Singer produced by Warner Bros.

also referred to as “The Oscars” (a name the trophies were officially dubbed with 10 years later) the Academy Awards continue to be held annually in the U.S.A., for more information check out: http://oscars.com/ & http://www.oscars.org/

Who owns this photo?

(DISCLAIMER: Facebook does not own this shit!)

The biggest non-event of this week in the cyber world was the discovery that Facebook suddenly owned everything we write and publish on Facebook. This led to outrage amongst many of my friends who began deleting everything they had ever written on that social network. Some people even started taking down all of their photographs. This also led to a mass exodus to Twitter. I had just joined Twitter before this happened and was surprised to see new people joining every day.

I was personally not worried about Facebook’s legal bullshit (thankfully they returned our lives memories back to us due to the widespread outrage). The reason I was not worried is because it has been my life experience that the thieves you have to really look out for are the thieves you know personally.

In the past five years or so I have had my work stolen by people I knew very well. I’m going to attack the comedy community here so if you are sensitive to this then stop reading NOW. Look its the world I live in so what the hell else can I draw on?

One time I lent a song to a comedy company for what was apparently going to be a demo. I was really surprised (and honoured) to find out that the song was included on a DVD that is currently being sold in stores. I was even more surprised that I owned the DVD in question which I had never watched because of negative feelings I had towards the company. I was outraged to discover that the music was credited to someone else. When I confronted the company about this they had the audacity to imply that I didn’t write the song. Then they proceeded to ignore me. Very insulting.

What would you do? Scream outside of their building? Call the CMRRA? If it was Paul McCartney would they have ignored him?

The emotional fallout of this experience is that I have learned to not be so naive when it comes to trying to help out a corporation. Without getting into details (and to stop myself from ranting for too long – even though my friend Frank misses my rants) let’s just say that when I went to help out a more grassroots theatre that they also stole my work – TWICE! Boy am I ever a bonehead. Actually the second attempt at thievery was thankfully blocked at the crossroads.

I have learned the hard way about something called CONTRACTS!

And just in case people don’t understand this, when a songwriter owns a song then that songwriter OWNS THE FUCKING SONG! (I’m sipping tea calmly as I write this so don’t call security please!) Furthermore, when a producer produces a show they also OWN THE FUCKING SHOW! (I’m pleasantly saying goodbye to my wife as I write this – bye honey!)

And don’t give anything away for free either.

I cannot claim to be perfect. As I came up with the idea for this column I did some soul searching. If I am going to criticize people for what may have been honest or misguided mistakes I have to admit my own imperfections.

Like many people in the comedy community I have been in group settings where everyone was tossing around ideas. There have been times where I have put up sketch shows and then had someone confront me about where the idea came from for some of the sketches. Looking back I can see that maybe I was confused about who came up with an idea first. Working in the genre of parody I have based entire shows on someone else’s work knowing that the simple fact that it was parody would protect me legally. I mean for Christsakes the first thing I was known for in comedy was doing a Neil Diamond Tribute act with The Goatee Boys.

I saw a stand up I don’t personally know a few months ago who ended his set with a joke I remember Drew Carey delivering on The Larry Sanders Show. It got a great laugh from the audience. I guess he wasn’t counting on someone in the audience being a huge fan of The Larry Sanders Show. I’ve seen every episode twice and I remembered the joke quite clearly. I know many stand-ups who often argue about who came up with a joke first.

My point in all of this is that the people you should worry about are the people you know – not Facebook. With tens of millions of subscribers I would have been very surprised if they had used one of my stupid blogs or pictures. Why would they want them? Know this, the thieves are amongst us.

If you are currently in the comedy community then you probably know some of the people that have stolen from me very well and probably would never suspect that one of them would steal people’s television shows, comedy awards, money and hard work and claim it as their own. And yet I know one person who did all of those things and they are on almost every improv poster. I even know someone who is white but because she looked like she might be Eurasian she was hired to help balance out a certain company’s white washed casting. Suddenly Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer doesn’t seem like such a relic with that kind of ethnic thievery going on.

All I can say is protect yourselves and don’t be naive like I was.

COPYRIGHT TWO THOUSAND AND NINE! SUGA JAM ENTERTAINMENT (Sip —- ahh this tea is delicious).

Out of a mother’s heart a son a song arose,

lullaby of love,

A tender tune,

And tired little eyes begin to close,

When mama very softly starts to croon.

Lu lul la lu lu HUSH A BYE

Dream of the angels  way up high,

Lu lul-la lu lu, don’t you cry,

Mommy won’t go away,

Sleep in my arms while you still can,

Childhood is but a day,

Even when you’re a great big man,

Mommy won’t go away.

Lu lul la lu lu HUSH A BYE

Dream of the angels way up high,

Lu lul-la lu lu, don’t you cry,

Daddy won’t go away,

Sleep in my arms while you still can,

Daddy would always say,

Even when you’re a great big girl,

Daddy won’t go away.

Lu-lah, lu-lah, lu-lah lu.

When Lex lived in Los Angeles, he would make midnight treks to a once great concert and sports venue called the Forum. There he would enjoy seeing the bronze plaques awarded to those few artists who held records for the most sold out nights. One of his heroes, Neil Diamond, has more plaques than anyone else. Happy birthday to Neil, who has a birthday on January 24.

So, I’ve been waiting for a Neil Diamond compilation I ordered, for what seems like weeks. Called Glory Road, it covers his 5 years at Uni / MCA Records. I like a lot of his work from other labels, but there’s something about the Uni stuff that will always draw me back to study Neil’s songs.

When I was young, I’d tape my favorite 60s radio stations. I was always sure to catch a song that I’d never heard before. One day, I caught “Cherry Cherry” by Neil Diamond. It got me moving. I looked for the single, but could only find the song on a CBS compilation of Neil’s early tracks for Bang! Records. I bought the album. I heard other great songs, like “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon,” “Thank The Lord For The NIght Time,” the original version of “I’m A Believer,” and a song that Poppermost would have fun covering called “Solitary Man.”

I was starting to wander into his Uni / MCA period when a movie called The Jazz Singer appeared at my local movie theater. The star of the movie was none other than Neil Diamond. Everybody in the movie (and the audience) really seemed to dig the songs. People young and old, white and black, seemed to connect with Neil’s music. I dug that. I also dug that the songs were being played loud over the movie sound system. The concert sequences in the movie were larger than life for my ears. What a blast!

Christmas 1982 included records by Neil Diamond and a brand new Atari Video Game System. Result? The music for PacMan could be perfectly sync’d to “Sweet Caroline.” Asteroids worked a lot better when I turned down the television volume and played to “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show.” Space Invaders? “Cracklin’ Rose.”

If I had to pick just one of Neil’s songs, it would probably be “Shilo.” I first heard the version he recorded for Bang! Records, and thought that it was just an “okay” song. Then I heard the Uni version. It’s one of my favorite pop songs, bar none. It was one of the first songs that I listened to religiously to figure out the arrangements. It stuns my ears every time I hear it. And what wonderful lyrics about a child’s make believe friend. And I could relate to the lyric personally – when I was young, my imaginary friend was a girl.

Now, where in the hell is my Neil CD?

(Lex Neon is the musical mastermind behind the music of indie sunshine pop / rock band Poppermost.  For more info, go to http://www.poppermost.com/)

Currently listening : Glory Road: 1968 to 1972 By Neil Diamond Release date: 30 June, 1992

]]> http://dailydalia.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/like-the-corners-of-my-mind/ Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:53:26 +0000 dalia http://dailydalia.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/like-the-corners-of-my-mind/

So yesterday I pop in the CD The Jazz Singer…I had the album years ago but I haven’t listened to it in probably 20 or more years. Low and behold the words poured from my mouth…I was amazed how I remembered most of them. I just think the memory is an odd thing. To this day I still have to ask which screwdriver is which but then again, I don’t really care about screwdrivers so maybe that is the reason. If there were only 2 kinds of shoes, pumps or wedges, there is no way I would forget that. And why do I remember “conjunction junction what’s your function” from Sesame Street about 35 years ago but I seem to forget a part of a movie I saw 2 weeks ago. And don’t get me started on people’s name, sometimes I have to play games in my head to remember. I know age has to do with the beginning of being forgetful I just wish my brain was on my computer and I had to power to delete exactly I want to forget and save what I want to remember.

MIn lille serie med Neil Diamond fortsetter. Det er ikke kun en serie til din opplysning, kjære leser, men også en serie som lar meg gjenoppdage og nyoppdage sangeren Neil Diamond. Og det er ei fantastisk reise for min del, et dypdykk inn i en musikalsk genialitet som har overlevd årtiene.

Denne gangen en sang jeg ikke kjente fra før; Love on the Rocks, fra filmen “The Jazz Singer”. Nok en gang har jeg funnet en ikke-video, en del av filmen der Neil leverer en sterk vokalprestasjon.

“Ikke-video” = en video som ikke er kul eller effektfull, gjerne bare stillbilde(r), eller som her; sangeren sitter med en gigantmikrofon midt i fjeset mesteparten av “videoen”. Det fine med ikke-videoen er at musikken får stå aleine. For min del, som syns mange musikkvideoer er pretensiøst tull, er det et pluss.

Det er noe med denne stemma; ei spennvidde som favner fra det lavmælt myke til det overveldende sterke, uten en eneste falsk eller anstrengt tone. Dette er gull, vet du, smeltet gull i øregangene; vondt og vakkert på én gang. Nyt, kjære lytter, nyt …

(og spill den igjen, mens du ser på ingenting)

Now that you walk me through it, the reference seems so…obvious?  No I still don’t understand.

I guess I’m your opposite (Bizarro Justin, if you will) because I’ve been reading like Thomas Jefferson on No-Doz (because Thomas Jefferson read alot, and on caffiene pills he’d read even more…just answering that question before it even gets asked).

Even having finished Book 5, which covers Tristram unplanned bris I find myself with little to say.  Definitely my least favorite of all the books.  Even the ending was boring…something about polar bears (I really stopped caring about half way through the last chapter).

Instead of focusing on that I choose to remember something I truly enjoyed…The Jazz Singer starring Neil Diamond.  Now whenever I find myself dis-enjoying the book I close my eyes and take myself back the final cathartic moments as Neil sings at a giant concert (to “his congregation”) in his super sparkly shirt as his traditional Jewish father (Laurence Olivier!) sways to the rockin’ beat (My only complaint: Where’s the Jazz?)

Ah…now I feel better.  Ready to tackle book six.

Your Twin,

Jon

P.S. Do you constantly find yourself forgetting that Trim is a character?  Each time they say Trim I think they’re using some affectionate nickname for Tristram and its only after pages and pages do I remember Uncle Toby’s erstwhile lackey.  Just wondering.