Glass Shallot by Adam Baer

Garry Marshall on Hollywood (RIP)

The late Garry Marshall--creator of "Happy Days" and "Laverne & Shirley," among many other pop-culture entertainments--once told me a few funny stories for a Rolling Stone article about studio executives who give writers notes on their work. This comes from our taped conversation:

"The Odd Couple, remember the Odd Couple? Well, they told me, we need two stars. Big stars. Dean Martin and Mickey Rooney. My partner and I said, "We don't like that, we don't want to do it." They said, "Alright: Who do you want?" I said, "Jack Klugman." They said: "Who?" I said, "Jack Klugman, he did a show, 'Gypsy,' in New York." "We'll check him out, we'll check him out," they said. Then they come back: "Are you crazy? He can't do a funny show--he won an Emmy for 'The Defenders!'" "So that means he's not funny," I asked? "No, not exactly," they said. I said, "Please look at this tape, I'll get you a tape--look at him, he can be funny; he did a 'Twilight Zone,' he was funny. They said, "OK." Then they looked at him, and this was Paramount: "We looked at him and we don't like his mustache." I says, "What? He has no mustache." "Yeah, we looked at him," they said. And so then I find out who they looked at. They looked at Jack Kruschen. Who was that? 

Then one day, and this was during Vietnam, they told me that the perfect show to do would be about recruiting troops on 42nd street in New York City. An Army, Navy, and an Air Force guy. "It'll be funny," they said. So of course, I wrote a pilot. This is what we did in middle of the Vietnam War. People are burning their draft cards, and we're writing a show called "The Recruiters?!"

 

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Go to Music School -- Just Go to a Better One

A few days ago, an op-ed columnist in the New York Times wrote that he didn't think his kid should transfer into a music school. Today, Fred Bronstein, dean of the Peabody Conservatory of Music, responded in the Times. It's a strong, smart statement that takes the piece's headline literally, emphasizing "training" musicians "attuned to their communities" who should be "effective communicators, educators, entrepreneurs, audience development experts and citizen-artists." But there's more to be said on that issue.

I'm a former Peabody student, and I say that if you have the talent and determination, you should go to music school. It's one of the best things that I ever did with my life. It filled my soul and trained my brain to accomplish many other things, including serious writing projects. I'm a big believer in the humanities, and as a musician from a family of musicians, I wanted the immersion in music that they had enjoyed beyond the pre-college music conservatory. But I simultaneously attended Johns Hopkins' separate Arts & Sciences undergraduate program, and I graduated in 2000, a bad time to go to music school. Back then, the older classically oriented ones like mine (Peabody is the country's first conservatory), weren't designed yet to teach students what they really needed to know as the Internet was growing. They were experimenting. But schools that emphasized popular genres like the Berklee College of Music were leaps and bounds ahead, especially with respect to getting students fluent with digital and business.

The issue now isn't really whether or not you should go to music school. It's how strong is the school you want to attend? How well will it train you to be a musician-plus today? Sure, you can go to music school, study an instrument, composing, history, and theory--and you can learn the practical stuff on your own. But you really ought to ensure that you have your sights set on the realities of our time and that the music school you choose really does teach all of its students (maybe even as a "core") the following: business (especially entrepreneurship but also management, marketing, arts administration, contract negotiation, and financial skills); technology (app development, coding, UX, digital production for all genres [hip-hop, pop, songwriting, etc.], recording, video, engineering, music and sound editing for media/entertainment); music education; writing; arts advocacy; film/media composing; and IP/copyright law, as well as perhaps public health (!).

I have long appreciated Columbia University's "core curriculum." Music schools have always had a version of their own, consisting of theory, ear-training, lessons, etc. But now they need new ones full of required courses and skills assessments--it's not just about supplementing music classes with languages and the humanities or intros to the good things that Bronstein mentions (Peabody is lucky to have him). Courses in these subjects need to be authoritative and leave students with strong skills. They need to be practical and effective. I'm asking for a lot, but that's what the world asks of you as a musician, or as any kind of creative professional. So, schools: Please partner with media companies, music publishers, tech startups, small businesses, independent artists, more community schools. Add incentives. Stress the requirements beyond music skills. Stress that these are music skills.

I studied the violin at Peabody while attending Hopkins, but I live in Hollywood now, consult on music and work as a writer, journalist, and editorial content strategist. My first job out of college was at NPR; they hired me to be a cultural producer with a specialty in digital, but getting that gig was a bit of blind luck (although I knew how to code), based mostly on the fact that I'd published music criticism in the Washington Post. I would have benefitted so much from even a few of the aforementioned extra classes. Recording was available at my school, but it was a highly specialized degree program track. So, too, music education. These things were not stressed as necessary for everyone. But they were, and they are critically necessary now. A student at a great music school shouldn't have to learn Logic in an Apple Store.

What's great, though, is that Peabody is now poised to do this as an entity owned by Johns Hopkins University, and Bronstein says he's devoted to the cause. But it should be reiterated that I graduated from college 15 years ago, and Peabody was not moving on these things nearly quickly enough, even though it had been owned by Hopkins for a while. I have great hope for future music students, but also some words of advice: Double-degree program with a university. Or, even better, something new and singular that blends two types of schools like Hopkins and Peabody more seamlessly. That's what I tried to do with my program, and eventually I only took one degree (my Arts & Sciences B.A.). The Music School as a template for higher education needs to evolve more quickly and comprehensively for the sake of all musicians as well as those who will move into other fields while using their music skills. The great music that we love will be thankful.-- Adam Baer

 

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Jenji Kohan Has a Husband, His Name is Christopher Noxon, and We Spoke About his Stellar Novel

The congenial Christopher Noxon knows what it means to be a Plus One (something about weed, the color orange, and a talented woman called Jenji). Anyway, we talked about this subject and Chris' new novel Plus One for The Believer. You can buy the book here: http://www.amazon.com/Plus-One-Christopher-Nox…/…/1938849426 But you can read our interview by clicking here.

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"A Good Life in the Hollywood Hills"-- Holiday Magazine, April, 1970

 

An April, 1970 magazine article on life in the Hollwood Hills:

"The cliffdwellers cling precariously to the brush-covered slopes of the Hollywood hills, sharing the common perils of fire and flood. In the late fall, when the humidity drops and a warm wind whips through the canyons, the hills may suddenly explode with flame. In the rainy season, when the naked cliffs crack and slide, the mortgaged wickiups come tumbling down. But the true cliffdweller always returns to his wildlife refuge. He trades in his charred Porsche, patches his pool, rebuilds his house-with-a-view and again settles down to enjoy the comforts of his mountain lair." ...

"Laurel is Southern California’s semi-tropical version of Manhattan’s East Village. Mediter­ranean villas dating back to the first hoarse days of talking pictures are hemmed in by dilapidated shacks owned by absentee landlords. The can­yon’s natural fire hazards have been intensified of late by shaggy young nomads who turn on in the blackened ruins of burned-out mansions where Theda Bara may once have dined. The daily life of the community swirls around a small shopping center, “The Square,” which boasts the old-fashioned Canyon Country Store and a pleasant cafe, the Galleria."--1970 article from Holiday magazine on what it's like to live in the Hollywood Hills.

 

 

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The Believer Interview with a Luthier (who makes guitars for Arcade Fire, The National, Beck, Cat Power, Fred Armisen) -- by Adam Baer

A number of years ago, well before this subject was written about elsewhere, I learned about, met, and began interviewing, the Silverlake-area guitar luthier and music-shop owner Reuben Cox who uses found materials to make equisite instruments that harken back to a period of American guitarmaking that has slipped away. Reuben, a photographer with credits from The New Yorker and New York Times, had opened a place called Old Style Guitars on the eastern/southern edge of the neighborhood -- before it had become hip. Still, bands like The National would drop by and play secret shows in his driveway. And quickly, the place became a node, a scene, for some of the best elite rock musicians in the country: You could see Richard Reed Parry from Arcade Fire there, Chan Marshall, Devandra B., Bobby Womack, Beck, Sufjan Stevens, Alexi Murdoch, Andrew Bird, tons of studio players, even Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein. It was something like a micro Laurel Canyon for our time, inside a little box with lots of wires and wood. But it's hard to place significant articles about such esoteric subjects in the focused, news-oriented consumer magazines. So, I waited, and then an option to do something creative came up with one of my favorite magazines,  The Believer. Now, I have turned the piece, which at last ran in The Believer's 2014 Music Issue, into a multimedia digital thing, with videos of The National playing at the store, a fetishistic guitar slideshow, and even a video of Arcade Fire using one of Reuben's guitars in Helsinki. Check it out at this URL, where I hope that it will live for a long time. http://logger.believermag.com/post/100588053844/interview-with-a-luthier-i-e-someone-who-makes

My thanks for reading, watching, waiting, and listening.

Adam Baer

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The Day Paul Mazursky Changed My Life (RIP)

"What are you talking to me for?" asked Mel Brooks. "You need to talk to more Jews. Younger JEWS. Call Paul Mazursky."

Brooks was speaking to me for a Rolling Stone magazine piece about funny studio-executive notes. I'd heard of Mazursky's name, knew some of his movies, but had not connected that identity to the guy who had acted in recent episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, the character "Larry David" would eventually kill via stress.

Mazursky had directed various important films about romantic relationships, had shared my New York background. I didn't know if the magazine would use his quotes, but I'd thought they'd appreciate me trying to get some good stories from someone who had been around some amazing sets.

I went to Mazurksy's Beverly Drive office, told him that Mel Brooks had sent me.

"What does he want?" Mazursky asked. "Oh, right. You're the kid."

"I'm the kid," I said. I was in my late twenties.

Next, Mazursky asked me about my background. He wanted to know everything. He'd said that he'd read something about me, something about cancer that his assistant had showed him. He told me very funny stories about the author Isaac Singer. Oh, and did I have cancer?

I said that it was hard to answer that question: Does anyone who has been diagnosed with cancer ever stop having it? 

He laughed.

"My daughter," he said. "My daughter--"

Silence. Then tears.

Mazursky broke down in front of me. He bawled. His daughter also had a tumor, he'd said. She'd just been flown to a top hospital near us. He didn't know what to do. He was looking into "the guy who worked on Ted Kennedy at Duke." 

Did I have suggestions, connections? What could they do?

The phone rang. Mazursky answered, gestured at me to stay.

"Yes, OK, that's the guy," he said on the phone. Then to me: It's Jeff Berg, you know him?"

Mazursky was speaking with one of Hollywood's most powerful talent agents who had been helping him make contact with a specific surgeon. He kept me in the office while he spoke with him. Then we talked some more.

I gave him the best contacts that I had, including one top neurosurgeon at Cedars-Sinai who had graced the cover of Time magazine.

He asked me to stay. "Let's talk," he said. "I'm sorry--"

"Don't worry," I said.

Then I sat in Paul Mazursky's office for an hour while he asked me more about my various medical problems related to surviving multiple cancers, the people I knew, the doctors, the therapies. He was suffering.

Eventually, he got a call from the hospital doctor that the agent had recommended. He answered the phone but asked the guy to hold before thanking me, saying that I should come see him again.

"I have so much to tell you about my career," he said. 

I have this entire experience taped on one of my many old Olympus voice recorders that doesn't work with my Mac.

I shook Paul's hand, thanked him, reassured him that his daughter would be OK (as if I could know).

Then I went home and watched three Mazursky movies in the next couple of days.

I would not write about this experience until now, the day that I learned of Mazursky's death. His daughter had, in fact, died sometime after our meeting. But I am thankful that I got a chance to spend time with Paul, perhaps lend a hand in the moment, an ear, whatever. 

I should have called him back to check on him and his family, but I kept putting it off. He had help, I told myself.

I don't put things like that off now.

RIP, Paul Mazursky.

 

                    -- Adam Baer, @glassshallot

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Gandolfini, Healing, Continuance

"The morning of the day I got sick I'd been thinking... it's good to be in something from the ground floor..."

I first learned about The Sopranos at NPR's old headquarters. I was new to my job, to any office job, and people in the building were talking about the show, apparently passing around VHS tapes. I asked to be put into the queue. Two people were ahead of me. When at last I received the tapes I found myself fall ill, spend four weeks at home with a high fever. This was the first time that James Gandolfini came into my life. Every day, I had something to do while I rested, healed, that I loved. Books sat unopened, I shared the show (show? superfilm?) with my visiting father. Eventually, I got better, returned the tapes, asked for more, signed back up for HBO. Now, when I look at The Sopranos scripts -- and a better version of this comment came originally from an astute friend, Will Berson, in conversations we would have about the show -- I see that despite the show's great writing (a show about millenial America, about watching, about the now, about entropy), it was the acting that made it, especially in its early seasons when it was lighter. That acting was lead by Gandolfini, in practicality and in purity of spirit, and today, I return to watching Sopranos episodes, often just for the enveloping performances, for Gandolfini's life-affirming,selfless devotion to his art. The watching will go on.--Adam Baer, www.adambaer.com

The Future of Sheet Music, My Family's Literature (Spring '13 VQR Essay)

In 2004, when I first wrote about digital sheet music, for the New York Times, pre-iPad, new gadgets were just being sold to display it for traveling musicians like David Bowie's bandmate Mike Garson and violinist Izthak Perlman, both of whom kindly spoke to me for the story. But sheet music has always been a weirdly tense topic, full of salespeople and schemers: Back then, Harry Connick, Jr. (who, of all technologists, has a patent on a digital sheet music reader), had chosen not to comment on the topic but the way my editor had re-arranged my reporting on his lack of interest angered his representative, enough to insinuate legal threats (so, basically sheet music made friendly Harry Connick want to sue me). Then there was the CEO of one of the companies who claimed repeatedly that he had nothing to do with another, which we only found out after digging through his lies to us after the fact. The story -- its subtext, anyway -- turned into a piece about two companies suing each other. Not our intention.

Sheet music should not inspire fights and deception. Or should it?

In my new Spring 2013 VQR piece, "Sound + Vision," I argue that sheet music is literature (a method of storytelling), and I try to explain how it functioned that way for my family as well as discuss its future and some advocates' fears that fewer people seem able to and interested in reading it now more than ever. Is that true? It's hard to know, and I hope that my guess is wrong. What I do know is that a lot of people are creating innovative sheet music solutions for the digital space, and that despite music-budget cuts, plummeting keyboard instrument sales, and music store deaths, a lot of kids and adults want to play music. It's no surprise that the world is always changing, but notated music is in fact coming along for the ride. And thank Life that it is. I want more children to grow up being read to from the piano, or some kind of instrument, and being able to read that way themselves. 

Is the Guitar God Dead?

Is the Guitar God dead? I discuss and talk about it with @nicharcourt for @Playboy.

 

Quick comments: There's not always enough room to explain every issue raised in this sort of piece. 1. I'm very much in favor of people learning and buying instruments. 2. I'll likely have an interview with an amazing guitar luthier out this summer, which supports craft instrument-making. 3. This is more about the solo-guitar-driven band models changing and expanding, and there are certainly great guitarists just hitting the scene now, some obviously returning to and revising this model. 4. I love a great rock band, too.--Adam Baer

 

 

Beastie Boys' ‘Paul’s Boutique’ Remade by Cheeba, Moneyshot & Food

 

‘Paul’s Boutique’ remade  [music link].

Description: "3 years in the making, 3 DJs working with over 150 tracks to recreate one of the seminal sampling albums of all time, at last Cheeba, Moneyshot and I can reveal ‘Caught In The Middle Of A 3-Way Mix’. Our tribute to the classic Beastie Boys album ‘Paul’s Boutique’ remixed and re-imagined from all the original samples plus a cappellas, period interviews and the Beasties’ own audio commentary from the reissued release. Add to this a custom illustration from Paul’s Boutique super-fan and all-round great guy Jim Mahfood, taking time out from recent art duties on Tank Girl, and you have an alternate version of the album. The mix was over half way finished when we heard the tragic news of Adam Yauch‘s passing this May so this is also our nod to his memory, RIP MCA."

Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep) on Her Funniest "Note" [Exclusive, R-rated]

A few years ago, Rolling Stone kindly published a piece of mine about the funniest "studio notes" actors, writers, directors, and comedians have received from Hollywood producers and network execs. It was intended to be an oral history about receiving chortle-worthy criticism, a way to use these "notes" to tell some of comedy's best secret stories, and I hope we accomplished that goal, to some degree. (Note: the headline was not my first choice, but I am a team player, and I had a lot of fun working on the piece and eventual pride seeing it in RS.)

It was a dream assignment: I interviewed a score of hilarious celebs, producers and directors--from Mel Brooks and Garry Shandling to younger talents like David Wain ("Wet Hot American Summer"), Paul Scheer ("The League"), and Nick Stoller ("Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "The Five Year Engagement").

Everyone cracked me up, and the piece generated serious interest from one of the world's biggest book publishers. So I took some of the quotes from my many funny interviews that Rolling Stone had not picked for inclusion (page-space is limited at magazines), and my agent and I went out with a book proposal about how this could be a hilarious narrative project, especially given my access to so many people in the entertainment industry. Eventually, and ironically, the senior publishing exec didn't think the book would make money (I still disagree), and the project, which could now be a brilliant multimedia thing with video, great for iPads, was tabled.*

Alas, one of the many funny things Rolling Stone could not include--sadly rendering my collection of interview subjects 100% male--was my unforgettable, if short, interview with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who stars tonight in HBO's new series "Veep." I share this gem with you now. Word, for word, and I have this on tape, this is what one of the funniest actresses in comedy told me, on the record. Addendum: Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a lovely, generous woman, with guts of steel, and I don't doubt she will continue to be a hit with audiences everywhere -- and to reiterate, I would not have posted this if she had not given me the quote on the record.

FUNNIEST STUDIO NOTE: JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS

"I have only one story that comes to mind, and I leave out names because that's a better idea.

But when I was very young and had just started on “SNL”--I believe I was 20--I did a sketch in which I played John DeLorean's wife...

In that sketch, my hair was blown out straight -- because her hair is straight.

So, we did the show, and the following day, I was called into one of our producers' offices (as a side note, I should say that I have naturally curly hair), and he said to me, “Julia, I got a call from a bunch of NBC executives after last night’s show, and they said that after seeing your hair straight, they all wanna fuck you.”

This was apparently his way of trying to entice me into straightening my hair for the rest of season.

Needless to say: I was young and naïve, but I was so shocked that anyone would say anything like that, I just burst out laughing in a hysterical way. I didn't know what else to do.

Years later, when "Seinfeld" was becoming somewhat of a hit, I ran into the same producer at NBC again.

And he said to me, “Hey, Julia, I see they're letting you do your hair the way you want now."

That's apparently all he took away from my “Seinfeld” contribution.

The irony of it was that not only did I make my hair curly on "Seinfeld," which may have been a huge mistake now that I think about it, but I enhanced the curl and made it HUGE!

I wonder if that hair wasn't some kind of reaction.

I was saying: 'Not only is this hair going to be curly, it's going to be crazy curly. Take that, motherfucker!!'"

--as told to Adam Baer

 

*Tabled in this case means I stopped pursuing it. I'm open to pursuing it again, though, especially with a new class of today's funniest people.

Did Facebook Delete A Writer's Attempt to Use Timeline as a Narrative Tool?

Today I posted "content" in an attempt to use Facebook Timeline in a humorous, narrative way; I was kidding a little, but I thought it could be fun to really use the software to create a comedic, serialized micro-narrative made of short status updates. The post was commented on by a couple of friends, and then removed by someone other than me. I then discussed this in another status update with those same friends. That was then promptly removed by someone other than me. I then reposted the content twice, and now I do not see any of this on my page. If Facebook would like people to care about its IPO -- and that's a foregone conclusion, they do, because billions of dollars are concerned, but let's talk about regular people -- they should not delete writers' attempts to use their tools to create and engage with an audience, in jest or more serious ways. The aforementioned content (copied below) is far from genius and merely average, but I posted it here, which is less "buggy" a virtual "place" and likely watched by fewer programmers who police and react to user content. Perhaps this was all just FB software problems...but if so, who can trust FB with content you do not backup elsewhere. I mean, what if this stuff was actually good?

Here is the attempt at humor I posted, related to the ABC Show Revenge. Do you find it inappropriate?

"When I was 10, a high-school senior in my Monte Cristo-like neighborhood was hired to hang out with and shoot hoops with me before my parents returned home from work. One day, the kind young man suggested I find someone to buy me a tape of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” So, I did, and the next time he appeared, he “borrowed” it, never to return or answer our many calls again. Now, as a rational adult, I plan to use Facebook Timeline, narratively, to track down this man for a final confrontation. Would any of you care to follow this meaningful adventure? I shall call it “My Facebook ‘Revenge’ / Season One: Born to Run.”

I shall move slowly, follow clues, keep my emotions at bay, and friend anyone close to this man and his especially heinous crime, crossing each one off my list one by one. It will be sweet to one day recover this low quality recording, if it still exists, uncompressed and possibly warped. But the ultimate prize will be hearing this man sing under duress the lyrics: “The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive / Everybody's out on the run tonight but there's no place left to hide.”

 

AFTERNOON UPDATE: Facebook was briefly down this morning, and I wouldn't want to think they'd target one person, so it's quite possible that's what happened. Still, the "dangerous"  keywords used in my posts could have triggered a moderator or bot to remove them at different times (people observed their staggered removal individually), and the critique and untraditional use of Timeline the day after FB's IPO announcement is definitely something they might try to quash. 

The important issue remains: Can we trust FB to hold our original life-content as Timeline promises? I'd use a few backups, and make sure you already own the rights to anything you publish anywhere.

Leasing Los Angeles

The piece in text form, here.--Adam Baer

Medical Marijuana in LA: "Hit and Miss" in the Financial Times Magazine (FT Weekend)

 

This weekend, The Financial Times Magazine runs a hopefully informative and humorous personal essay [PDF] about my mysterious health travails and experience with LA's medical marijuana world at an crucial point in the battle to legalize cannabis in California. It's also online in web-friendly html page-format here, @ FT.com.

Naturally, I thought long and hard about what kinds of supplementary material I could offer on my blog. But we sadly only present words and stuff we can roll and/or bake into Web code  Glass Shallot. In that spirit, then let me offer a small chunk of text my editors and I had to cut at the last minute for page-space. It concerns the first dispensary I visited in Hollywood, one of the shops LA will close, where the system -- and the product -- actually worked very well. (Text below)

 

 

"More concerned with convenience than finding a boutique shop that sold Valrohna chocolate cupcakes, I first visited Druggie Christmas Tree Girl’s dispensary: a dank space above a seedy Hollywood motel, manned by a hulking Middle Eastern guy with a shaved head, wearing an elegantly dizzying Ed Hardy T-shirt. He screamed my name the way some thug had screamed at Jason Statham in an action movie I once reviewed. Naturally, I trusted him.

     “What iz dis?” the guy asked, taking my letter through a little hole in the wall that separated the real store from the waiting room.

     “It’s my doctor’s recommendation," I said.

     “I never see something like dis, yo.”

     “Well,” I said, “It’s real.”

     “I see dat, dude. But I still gotta call.”

     Yes, this sketchy drug-dealer type was calling a nationally lauded physician because of me. 

He left the window, I heard some mumbling. He reappeared minutes later.

     “You in,” he said. “He OK it.”

     “You spoke with my actual doctor, not some nurse or assistant?” I asked. 

    “Totally,” he said. “Now whaddayou want?”

     I walked into a tiny, smoky space through a cage-protected door, and he showed me some 10 canisters of fragrant weed. I asked for something to alleviate pain – nerve pain, if that meant anything?

     “Bubba Skunk,” he said. “That’s you shit.”

    “That’s my shit,” I concurred, handing over $50 for a pill bottle filled with buds.

     “How much should I use?” I asked.

    “Howev much you want, homeslice.” 

Then I left, and as I waved my new drugs around the seedy eastern side of Hollywood Boulevard, as a man in a doo-rag drove by me on a miniature bicycle powered by a tiny motor, my wife grabbed the bag and told me to hide it.

“But it’s legal,” I said.

“But this isn’t Brentwood!"

--Adam Baer

Avatar's Zoë Saldana and Chef Jose Andres: A Writer's Struggle

I struggle, like all artists, and nowhere is this more evident than in the rough-and-tumble assignments I completed last fall for publication in a variety of December magazines: a short Details magazine profile of  Zoë Saldana (above) and a Hemispheres feature on chef Jose Andres. Sometimes I must also dig ditches.

Never Byrne-d Out

In the course of interviewing David Byrne for this short piece about his design work and music in May's Departures Culturewatch section, I realized that Shallot friend Hillman Curtis had done a really cool commercial (embedded above) for Byrne's joint album with Brian Eno "Everything That Happens Will Happen Today." For people who aren't in the know (which could have been me if I had not done this piece, sadly), the album has been freely streamable on the Web for some time. For those who like to hold amazing design in your hands and play with dice, you can still buy a Sagmeister-designed Deluxe (CD) Package that includes an original Hillman Curtis film about the album as well as a full book and other goodies (watch a video that explains the contents here). 

Byrne told me the following about why the duo decided to offer the album in these different forms. "We had both been thinking about the changes the music business has been going through," he said. "There are now many more ways that musicians can get their messages across than before, though the industry typically lags behind. We decided to try some of those out for ourselves by initially selling the record exclusively through our website and allowing people to stream the whole album if they simply wanted to hear what it was like.  It just seemed obvious. I wanted to sing these songs more, so I asked my booking agents to book some tours -- so that kind of gave the project an endpoint -- and the only way to get the music out to people before the tour started was to make it available online.  That said, there are many among us who still love a physical object. A well-designed package can enhance the experience. It used to be that an eye-catching package helped sell a record: it would shout at you like a box of laundry detergent. But I don't think CD package design is meant to do that anymore. Now it's more about adding another layer to the experience. I'd worked with Stefan (Sagmeister) many times before, so he was a natural choice."

Other questions broached in my interview included prompts about the joy of performing.  "At my age and situation, I don't need to tour simply for financial reasons (though I do make money touring)," Byrne said. "Though I would love to believe otherwise, I don't think touring sells many records either. I do it for two reasons: it's immensely pleasurable these days and because I can (immodestly, I can say that I do know how to perform and put on a show). The show we've created -- the band, crew, singers, dancers, choreographers, etc. -- is like nothing I've ever done before, so though half of the show consists of older material, it's been placed in a new context. At some point, performing changed from being a thing that I psychologically had to do into something that was actually pleasurable. Some edge in my demeanor might have been lost with those changes, but songs from that period remain, so the edginess can be dredged back up."

Byrne, as the article points out, also writes the music to the HBO show Big Love (coming back soon), which actually opens with Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys's "God Only Knows," so I was curious as to how he might add music to such a thoroughly branded motion picture experience.  "It's an interesting show and doing a score like this allows one to exercise some musical muscles one doesn't always use," Byrne said. "It's good to stretch oneself sometimes, to get out of a comfort zone, which forces some kind of creative response. Initially I thought I'd try to base much of the music on Mormon hymns -- not use them but write in that style. Having seen the 1st season, I sensed that many of the characters felt that their behavior and decisions were based on deep spiritual beliefs -- as wacky and unusual as some of it might seem to us. I therefore imagined that hymn-type chord progressions and melodies would hint at this spiritual underpinning without saying it out loud. The hope was also that this music would also help one empathize with the characters, even, or maybe especially, with some of the more extreme ones. Music can hint at their motivations and justifications, where their hearts are despite what we see them doing. Well, in the end, that approach only worked a few times: it tended to draw attention to itself and to draw you out of the intimate scale of the drama. That music tended to pull you back to a God's eye view of things -- yes, music can do that. So, in the end I had to use other muscles and write some other material that was subtler, more character driven."

Intriguing, especially for film music buffs (of which there are few, apparently). More au courant, perhaps, was Byrne's answer to my question about how he and Eno both influence(d) each other.  He answered: "The process of using the recording studio as a writing tool was something a few of us learned from Brian. Not that he was the only one to do it, but they way he encouraged us in Talking Heads (and myself) to start from zero and create new tracks was something we were ready for...it was the right idea, the right nudge, at the right moment. It wasn't that strange, really, as it basically was taking the writing process, which usually goes on in one's head, hidden, invisible, or little my little with a guitar in hand and some notepaper in front, and it made it all -- the creative process -- explicit, visible, and most important for potential collaborators, available for others to enter into. How did Talking Heads and myself influence Brian? I think we encouraged him to be a little more funky, more groove oriented."

Uncurbed Enthusiasm

Usher in this new Jewish year (and this is an offer  open to atheist shunners of organized religion, believe me!) with this new Salon profile of former "Curb Your Enthusiasm" director Robert B. Weide. The former documentarian sees his feature directorial debut this week, but, for "Curb" fans, his Web site, duckprods.com, offers some facts about the show you want to know.  (Incidentally, Weide won one of his Emmy awards for one of our favorite "Curb" episodes, "Crazee Eyes Killah" [related pic above]).

Rolling Shallot and Robin Williams

See the Shallot-authored "Tales from the Writers' Room" in today's Rolling Stone (RS 1061), featuring interviews with Mel Brooks, Garry Shandling, David Wain, and other comedy all-stars.

And check out the issue's thorough survey of some of the funniest mouths on issues like their big breaks and funniest jokes, as well as a telling Letterman Q&A.

An excerpt from the interview I conducted with Robin Williams for that year's Rolling Stone Comedy Issue:

My Favorite Joke:
"Guy’s having sex with his wife. All of a sudden he looks over, and there in the doorway is his son, about eight years old. Kid looks horrified, and the kid runs away. The guy says to his wife, “Well, I’d better talk to Timmy.” He puts on his clothes and goes to Timmy’s room. He opens the door, and there’s Timmy nailing Grandma. The father goes, “Oh, my God!” And the kid goes, “Not so funny when it’s your mom, is it?”--Robin Williams, RS 1061

And stay tuned for more online extras from the writer's cutting room floor.

 

Oh, My Word: Omaha's "Whatevs" Disaster. News as it Breaks.

The news is slowly creeping out of Nebraska Methodist Hospital. But apparently three ordinarily healthy septuagenarian Omaha librarians are still in critical care after suffering simultaneous cardiac arrests this morning when they were struck by news so grammatically and linguistically abominable that they could not maintain homeostasis. Margaret Dubrovic, 71, head librarian at Omaha's central library system, was reportedly enjoying a routine morning when her latest copy of The New Yorker magazine arrived in the mail. Allegedly, Dubrovic looked forward with great verve to the arrival of her private subscription copy and had been rumored to read half of the entire periodical well before the end of morning on delivery days with friends and co-librarians Betsy O'Neill, 74, and Edith Cooper, 76, both of whom also suffered cardiac arrests. But this morning the group happened upon what junior librarian Thomas DeBouef, 23, could only call "literary blasphemy of the highest proportions." The insidious word "whatevs," a slang term for "whatever" used by the so-called Britney Generation and the blog whatevs.org, apparently found its way into music critic Sasha Frere-Jones's recent review of the latest Coldplay album. And while the estimable writer had likely used the term in the most tongue-in-cheek manner, it even appeared as a one-word sentence--capitalized, of course. "He didn't have to go that far," said DeBouef, whose grandfather Eli, 89, also works in the library as a volunteer and suffered minor whiplash from today's events. "There's no doubt in my mind that the act of literally seeing such a word, if you can call it that, printed in the magazine these ladies have held so dear to their literary hearts for so many years caused their simultaneous tragedies. It's a damn shame." Of course, one Generation X reporter cannot help but wonder, in the words of character Carrie Bradshaw from the HBO show "Sex and the City," what septuagenarian librarians were hoping for from a review of a Coldplay album in the first place. "They weren't as shocked as many of their friends were that The New Yorker had taken to reviewing popular music so substantively over the last few years," added Debouef.  "They rather liked Coldplay, and as the article said, they often played the album 'Parachutes' during their afternoon tea sessions as a means to relax from the stress of their jobs." For now, however, the implicit danger posed by a simple unsubstantiated slang term such as "whatevs" is all an entire community can cling to for some explanation as to why their best librarians are on leave from the city's hottest reading room. More news as it breaks. In the meantime, get better, girls.

aclu does it for the thrill of privacy

[Cross-published at The Huffington Post ]

Today the AP reports the ACLU is arguing that all those adventuresome spirits who have sex in public bathrooms have an expectation of privacy. Public Bathrooms! And this is the ACLU fighting on behalf of Sen. Larry Craig. Call me crazy--or just a politician: But it's not like this wacko news is coming from the Scientology Celebrity Centre or Dr. Phil. It's coming from the ACLU. (While I know the organization isn't officially a Democratic one, c'mon.) Larry Craig needs the ACLU's help? Who's steering the ship these days?

The last time I had sex in a public bathroom—be nice, and allow a humble writer this wet-and-wild, oh-so-sanitary dream—I had no belief that my act was private. That's why I had sex in the bathroom. It's the trill of the public space that drives me and my multiple random partners. I can't speak for Craig, though. As if trying to withdraw a guilty plea in a case like this isn't silly enough? I hardly think public sex is disorderly conduct as defined by the American legal system. It's straight-up disorderly but in the more attractive, entropic kind of way. Still, them's the rules in this here country.

The point concerns privacy. Privacy isn't provided where we need it most: in the HIPAA-protected halls of our finest hospitals as doctors and nurses and health workers speak patients' names and diagnoses aloud before they render it incredibly difficult for you to get your own records—all due to "privacy." When I log onto my e-mail account, I see adds related to the subjects I've written about; I know bots aren't human—though I do suspect they're more human than some of us. Still, it's nice to know there's no privacy in e-mail. Or snail mail: More than a few letters in the past few months have arrived at my home opened and clearly fondled. I know it's exciting to read about what I owe my dentist's office--or to see a paltry check from a low-paying magazine--if not to steal one!--but at least have the decency to seal the thing back up empty.

Furthermore, I can't so much as go somewhere without the GPS chip in my cellphone—I bought it thinking it'd help me get somewhere quicker and easier—telling some large governmental agency where I am. (I guess it will save me if I go into the wild--but it will also tell them when I'm in public bathrooms having my sex.) Even this blog post will refer to an IP address that will let all of you know I'm sitting on my couch in Southern California. Thankfully, there's no record of what I'm watching on cable--wait, wrong again.

But fortunately, what I had for breakfast *is* private. It's my personal business if I should choose to eat three whole eggs and cheese when the men's magazine I write for tells me under my byline to eat egg whites. But if I buy those egg whites in a restaurant, where they take my credit card number—some still exist where they leave the full number on your receipt, as we all know—I've clearly given up my right to privacy.

And let me just tell you: sometimes I eat naughtier food than just three eggs. Sometimes I get fries. And sausage. And shakes. So why in [insert divine being here]'s name should a senator—or anyone—get a right to privacy in a bathroom where they have chosen to have sex? And why should the ACLU lobby on this person's behalf when he contrasts so clearly to the issues for which they used to stand?

I don't have the answers. But I will not stop asking the questions. Unlike Tom Cruise in his recent Scientology video, I don't "know." In fact, it seems I just know less and less every day. And I'm proud to admit that in public.

there will be...cheap narrative and musical climaxes

I admire Daniel Day Lewis as much as any dedicated film fan--the idea of seeing a film with him even scares me a little in the good way. But I was never big on P.T. Anderson-- even though I liked Magnolia and Boogie Nights some, I never felt the director made important narrative decisions that felt earned. His work seemed to crave hipness--to steal it--instead of achieving it with truly innovative and genuine narrative work.

Oddly, I thought this concern would dissolve upon seeing the massively hyped "There Will Be Blood." I thought the film would be, as it has been publicized, an epic interpretation of Upton Sinclair--replete with fantastic acting; an admirable score in the old sense; and big ideas about oil, humanity, industrialism, America, Manifest Destiny, evil. But most important, a script worth drooling over. I believed in DDL that much.

But I was wrong, and despite all the universal praise for the film--yes, the main performance is admirable--I have to wonder why so very few people have come out to say this movie is even smaller--and malignantly so--in some ways than Anderson's "small" indies. There is so much obsession over detail, so much amazing cinematography and early buildup. But it doesn't come together when the film jumps down into a hole and narrows in on a petty if entertaining climax that could have been performed on a cheap stage--never mind the expanded issues this climax could have symbolized (that the director probably thinks it does symbolize) with better developmental screenwriting.

I'll try not to spoil the journey for you should you care to take it on the half hour as many theaters have scheduled it. But not only does Anderson choose to focus on what should just be one small conflict in a potentially epic story--and then choose to skip through time and tell us about it as opposed to showing a lot of foundational material needed to care this much about said conflict as the movie's most obvious struggle. The rapscallion--oh, P.T., you're sly--mischievously doesn't follow through on the promise of the film about big ideas, and he sadly doesn't completely flesh out his "oil man." His history or his relationships--say, with his son. Such that when they fall on hard times, it's nearly impossible to care. That is, if you can detach yourself from DDL's performance--and it's hard, but try.

Sure, it's fun to see bowling pins used in new American ways (I'm not a spoiler). But the whole show shouldn't have been so comedic or surprisingly focused on such a lame tangent when it seemed like so much could have happened. There was a lot of laughter in the theater--and it wasn't the dark, twisted laughter for which the filmmaker may hope. But don't worry if you liked it: I'm sure the Academy's already sealed this film's destiny.

After all, it's an acting triumph for DDL. But is it really? Didn't we know he could do this stuff? Did we need to see it again? Some of it was very enjoyable but it seemed like wasted effort. Pair the genius actor up with someone who thinks bigger--and better. To make a movie this long that gives us this little is really a feat--but not one we should endorse.

Even more offensive to Shallot central is the musical side of the equation. The filmmakers hired a potentially strong composer--Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood--to write what sounded like an intriguing score made of pitch-bending dissonances and anxiety provoking rhythms.

But the movie tries too hard, shallowly, in this department too. Instead of letting Greenwood follow through on what could have been a start-to-finish symphonic score--something you'd want to listen to on its own, say--Anderson shares with us the novel third movement of Brahms's Violin Concerto to interrupt it and accompany one of the film's most triumphant and tragic plot points. Then, when matters turn mysterious, the music supervisor throws in a cello ensemble version of Arvo Pärt's Fratres. Too easy and disrespectful. To the film, the older music, and new film composer.

I love both of these pieces--and there's definitely something in the barren setting of the film and the character's wayward morality apropos of Pärt if not this one movement of Brahms. But both of these musical insertions undermine Greenwood's work. The film feels musically disjunct because of them, especially when the credits role to the victorious Brahms conclusion.The real Independent thing to do here--you're P.T. Anderson, right?--would have been to let Greenwood score the film in its entirety, not use pre-recorded hits known to conjure narrative power in the middle of the story.

This type of music-supervisory decision isn't always the supervisor's fault. And I'm usually a fan of using great music in a movie--but not so cheaply. It could just be--and seemingly is--the director's too-self-conscious "I'm not as good as I sell myself to be so I better throw in everything but the kitchen sink" mentality. It's hard to find this problem under the thick veil of all that tarry oil and DDL glory acting. But it's there. Believe me.

In fact, such a musical strategy--to say nothing of flaunting DDL and all the detail and epic cinematographic talent the movie employs--renders this truth shockingly obvious when you realize how petty the film's main narrative turns out to be.

And I'm not alone. So many people--including friends I disagree with very often--left my showing at the Arclight disappointed. This movie could have been so much more than it was. But by producers giving free reign to an "indie" filmmaker who shouldn't have been given so much freedom to begin with--then again: hell, I'd give money to anything involving DDL, too--that's what you get.

Frankly, I prefer it when Steve Martin gets small.

oh, please offer us some...intelligent variety

I had a funny discussion the other day with another New Yorker living in LA. He said he felt like an "expat" here: a "big fish living in a small pond," in his telling--at least when it comes to meeting people who think beyond headlines. I didn't exactly agree or make the statement, but it wasn't the first time I heard it. Luckily, I've met tons of brilliant people in my new fair city. But I've sought a lot of them out. You don't always converse with new ones in line at El Pollo Loco. But my tales of serendipitous philosophical chicken-joint communion will have to wait.

Funnily, another friend just pointed out that Variety, Hollywood's glory trade mag (Ari Gold once called it the "school paper" on Entourage), linked to my Sweeney Todd piece earlier in December. The blog's quote? "Adam Baer claims that 'Tim Burton "re-invents the movie musical" with 'Sweeney Todd.' Really?'"

I had to laugh when I saw that. Did the blogger even realize that the actual subhead of the article--written by someone other than me--made it very clear that "re-inventing the movie musical" is what the filmmakers claim, and that I simply reported what they had to say? Probably not, because short-order blogs and especially movie-trade blogs meant for D-people aren't exactly the most accurate places to get your news.

Read the story that I wrote carefully. There's hardly any criticism in the piece, save for a very careful statement that reads: " [Sweeney's] as entertaining, artistic and efficient as anyone could make a 'Sweeney Todd' film that might appeal to a broad swath of moviegoers." While I believe the movie is entertaining and a great shot at creating a Hollywood movie version of Sweeney, save for a lot of the singing, I don't go beyond that point. I'm not hired to be a critic here. And I'm actually pleased with that fact.  So argue away with each other. I'm not jumping into the fray as a film or music critic on this one.

And that's the way it was supposed to be. I was paid to tell other peoples' stories in this case. Additionally, I write that:  "The key, therefore, was not to produce a performance film like Ingmar Bergman's "The Magic Flute" but to create an original movie genre: a consciously present-day spoke-sung music-film with younger actors, no traditional singers and a cinema-grotesquerie style, full of viscous slashes of blood." But this isn't my opinion. It's implied that the "key" belongs to the filmmakers.  This is the opinion of those interviewed--see forthcoming Steven Sondheim quote. It's factual reportage.

In Sondheim's words: "You can't just adapt stage musicals for the screen. You have to re-create them."

If I had been hired to critique the film, I might have printed all kinds of comments that discuss this recreation of genre and what Sweeney means to music and film. But I wasn't. And I'm not going to do it here and undermine my story. I stand by it. And if its sub-headline should read that the filmmakers' claim they've created a new genre--and if I should go on to give you those opinions--well, that doesn't mean I'm making the critical statement.

Frankly, after a childhood of conservatory composition, mainstream movie-loving, and a decade of criticism, I don't think Sweeney re-invents the movie musical; I think it adds new elements to it as filmic entertainment.  As I wrote: " Sweeney's new Burtonesque world is a visceral, inflated experience only film can provide."

But please, Variety blog, read between the lines before misquoting reporters on critical statements they, personally, haven't made. This sort of reaction to a story about Sweeney Todd is exactly what worried me when I learned such a meaningful and complex piece of music-theater was going to be fed to the multiplex crowd--and those who blog for those who feed them. Perhaps I should have asked the producers if they were worried about how the insider movie press would handle the movie and the primary press it might inspire--as opposed to how audiences across America would handle it. Happily, I left a midwestern theater the other day after seeing the movie in its completed version to find goth teenagers singing "Nothing's Gonna Harm You..." Sondheim doesn't need anyone's help connecting to any brand of audience.

Depp + Burton + Sondheim = Sweeney Todd 2007Demons will charm you with a smile, for a while...

Burton Reinvents the Movie Musical, Los Angeles Times, December 18, 2007 (Click title for online version of article)

For behind-the-scenes extras, see yesterday's look at the writer's quote book.

For a text version of the article, click on "continue"

A New Definition of Eco-Conscious

There was a time when Umberto Eco meant the world to me. I was a young college student, flooded with the "brilliance" of the postmodernists, and eager to lap it up. But I always found it sort of funny, all this meta-thinking about meta-thinking, all these linguistic symbolisms and academizing of pop culture. I even remember a friend and I mocking the titles of our new university classes: "Towards realizing deconstructionist comprehensions of the French fry's representation in popular culture as a symbol of both deliciousness and death." '"The Popular Semiotics of "Is": "To be" in our political theater." You get the idea.

At any rate, Umberto Eco was often our voice of reason. He took the postmodern movement somewhere sensible. He made us laugh, he laughed at himself, told great tales, and he qualified what soon became a rampant nonsense-parade.

So I wanted to like his new book: "Turning Back the Clock: Hot wars and Media Populism." That's why I reviewed it in today's S.F. Chronicle Book Review. But things didn't go exactly as planned.

Have a read:  "Eco takes critical look at war, Mel Gibson in 'Turning Back'," San Francisco Chronicle, December 16, 2007

margot at the wedding -- and in the sun

So, the main subject of this story,  submitted to the Sun before this weekend, offered similar quotes to another paper that got the scoop over the smaller kids yesterday (the result? some fast omissions by a great editor -- this isn't a unique problem). Still, I think the story's worth reading if you're interested in films about borderline writers and their brethren--though I won't blame you if you're not!

Noah Baumbach On Family Island, New York Sun, 11/12/07

positively dylan

After spending some recent time with some very lovely Canadians, I recently took on an assignment from Toronto-based Sir magazine (available with your Globe and Mail). It was to discuss in brief Bob Dylan's impact on style and attitude in celebration of the forthcoming November biopic, "I'm Not There." I like writing for the back pages of magazines. While this is by far not anyone's last word on Dylan, it's mine, at least for November.

Positively Dylan, Sir, November 2007.

Why Glass Shallot?

Because if the times didn't change, we'd go rotten.

i knew i was in the doghouse with corddry

Among other brilliant (and oh-so-interesting) nuggets of private information Rob Corddry offered the Times Magazine this past week (such as the fact that he drives an entry-level Acura and rents a house in Los Angeles--what an eccentric...), one of the things he's not too fond of is...the year I was born!

"Prized possession: A framed New York subway map circa 1972. It hangs in the kitchen. It was the most unsuccessful map in New York history. It isn’t to scale. It is impossible to read. I love the 1970s in New York; it fascinates and terrifies me, especially 1977."

Guess what, Rob? I'm pretty sure 1977 in NYC terrified my Mom and Dad a little too (and I'm pretty sure the terror continued well on through the '90s). The question is, what the hell, other than worrying about  Son of Sam, happened to you, that year?

UPDATE: THE REAL CORDDRY RESPONDS. He writes: " Jesus. Is it hard to reach your keyboard from way up there?"--Rob "Google Alert" Corddry.

Obviously, as some sort of celebrated deity (I thought L. Ron held more sway, at least in my 'hood these days), I am left speechless.

[Note to self: Become Google Alert whore--it may lead to genuine insights about my identity!]

lindsay's wonderland in the sky

I'm not always one for celebrity gossip--at least not at the pace it's delivered in US Weekly--but I couldn't help but laugh when I learned that Lindsay Lohan had checked herself into rehab at the Wonderland Center in Laurel Canyon. It's the location that's ironic. Laurel Canyon, for all its rustic beauty, was the historic home of drug-gorging rockers--from Mama Cass to Joni Mitchell and Jim Morrison--among other good-doers, and remains an industry weed-and-beer-and-coke-and-acid-and-God-knows-what-else node. I, personally, love the area--dig hitting the open architectural homes and attending New Year's parties in B-celebrity treehouses while the stilts shake, the Imogen Heap howls, and the Porsches zoom up the hill. Still, anyone who's ever hung--or lived--near Wonderland Ave. knows the hallowed ground has powers, and they ain't healing vibes.  From the Wonderland Center's own Web site: "In 1981, Wonderland Avenue was the scene of a drug related murder; the suspects porn star John Holmes and notorious drug dealer Eddie Nash influenced the stories for the movies Wonderland and Boogie Nights." Talk about kick-ass rehab-center marketing!

new york times glosses up crazy david lynch

If enlightenment and, well, Bliss, overtook you as you read this weekend's New York Times story on David Lynch and his "shockingly peaceful" life as a proponent of Transcendental Meditation, I'm sorry to say that the puff piece completely missed the mark on this extraordinarily creepy marriage. Instead, it chose to gloss over the Absolutely Cultyclimate of Mr. Lynch's attempt to snatch the brains of  young people--especially those with means--who just perpetually want to learn a little about their favorite movies. Want a trustworthy first-person account of Inland Empire's finest and the cool buddies he's mind-melded with over at the Maharishi's? If world peace is the only thing driving David Lynch, Tom Cruise is, in fact, my long lost alien Messiah.

You read it here first:  Lynch Mob.

prickly little children

I try not to review too many films on this blog, but I find myself needing to discuss certain aspects of Todd Field's "Little Children." I found his first hit film "In the Bedroom" quite overrated--it seemed absolutely appropriate for ABC Sunday Night Movie programming but not for Oscar consideration (and neither Tom Wilkinson's stoicism or Sissy Spacek's melodrama helped that cause). I felt differently about "Little Children," though. Kate Winslet's portrayal of a woman learning how to become the woman she'd like to be--to say nothing of Jackie Earle Haley's return to cinema as a sex offender one can actually feel for--absolutely keep the narrative churning at high octanes. I wasn't so much a fan of how the movie began with a third-person voice-over--though the opening sentences weren't terribly disturbing, the film's closing commentary, which tells one how to think about the story that has just been told, isn't necessary--but it did lead me to explore a section of the novel by Tom Perrotta on which the film is based. And guess what? I found the book absolutely unremarkable. In the first few pages, Perrotta quickly goes dime-store-meta and references both the Farelly Brothers and the film American Beauty. Which shouldn't be necessary in a book that roasts suburban disillusionment. And let's be honest: How many readers are going to understand those references in fifty to a hundred years. I liked a comment Ian Parker recently made about Christopher Hitchens in a recent New Yorker article. He reminded us that everything Hitchens writes, regardless of its pro-war buffoonery, is written to be read after the writer has passed. I appreciate a writer who thinks about his words this way (let's forget I'm speaking about Hitchens specifically). I say if you're going to make literature, why not take that approach? Usually I find that movies made from books fail the narratives they adapt. In this case (and yes, Tom Perrotta played a hand in "Little Children's" script), I think the movie is far more eloquent. Without the voice-overs.

when eddie was

After wife swapping, how could exchanging races not shock our numbed American senses as the next thoroughly original and "Extreme" reality TV challenge? At least that's what F/X is striving to have us believe - the fact that Ice Cube's new show is pioneering. Guess he's betting on the fact that we won't remember White Like Me. Or that Eddie Murphy won't mind him riding his coattails to some sweet cable development deal blingo.

hyperlink movies

In today's edition of Kottke.org there's a bit about how Roger Ebert calls Syriana a "hyperlink movie" (a concept allegedly founded on Mark Bernstein's blog in 2003). I wholeheartedly agree, but don't believe Ebert is the only critic now making these connections in print. In David Denby's review of the film, the New Yorker critic writes: "[Gaghan is] a Web-era filmmaker—distance is just a form of connection." I took this idea as a jumping off point in December to discuss how the film's form is emblematic of its message, but that I didn't feel like it worked. Certainly not as well as Traffic. In fact, I simply found it a way to manipulate people bred on this system of information-linking. This is, after all, the easiest way to incite anxiety in a viewer like me who had the Internet at age 17 and often has to flood my mind with linear methods of storytelling just to remain a clear writer. To understand hyperlink films, however, it might be best to take a trip to the source: hypertext. In this article for the NY Times about e-mail fiction, I scratched the surface, though did manage to bring in some thoughts by hypertext scholar Noah Wardrip-Fruin. Get into this world, I tell you, and you might not find a way out. But hey, maybe it will help you feel more comfortable viewing Syriana. Such that you may actually enjoy the thing.

favorite tv theme song meme

Ken Levine got in on the TV theme song meme, and I must add my two cents, given that I come from the younger generation and that I'm not, I hope, a moron. My one addition is that I'm going to include TV theme music, which sometimes isn't a song but just absolute instrumental sound. (Keep in mind, this isn't exclusively TV score music, so the sounds from "Lost" won't be on this list.)

Alas, my 10 picks for TV music openers:

1. Magnum, P.I.
2. The Sopranos
3. Curb Your Enthusiasm (not available online, but this bad ringtone is funny)
4. Diff'rent Strokes
5. Knight Rider
6. Nip/Tuck
7. Love Boat
8. Bewitched
9. Baretta
10. The Jeffersons

Honorable Mention: Taxi, Welcome Back Kotter, Moonlighting, Northern Exposure, Adam-12 (How could I resist?), CHiPs

jolie's charity bump

It's true: I am sort of out of important things to blog about today. But what the hell: Has anyone else in this sphere  heard about how Angelina Jolie arranged for People magazine to get a shot of her "bump" if only they would pay $600,000 to Wyclef Jean's charity devoted to empower the Haitian diaspora? Are other  shots we see in celebrity magazines sold on similar conditions? If not, perhaps they should be. Talk about a new star-fucking gawk mag paradigm. Just think: In three to five months, after this strategy becomes the rage, US Weekly could turn out to be the most charitable organization we know. And you thought laughing at Lindsay Lohan's latest crash-and-burn escape was a "guilty" pleasure.

[via Defamer]

getting sirius (or xm)

Not that long ago, satellite radio seemed like a solution in search of a problem: why get it for free when you can pay? But, with names like Stern, Snoop, and Dylan now available only via satellite -- not to mention the slow death of quality broadcast radio, thanks to behemoths like Clear Channel—$13 a month is pretty damn reasonable. If you're interested in trying to make a decision about which network is right for you -- or if you're curious about how set up your new satellite radio life -- I've got a casual guide up at the GQ/Details site, Men.style.com. Check out the FAQ (sadly, it contains  references to bodily functions I didn't write), and then take a look at the radios you may want to invest in. My one tip is to forget the entire enterprise if you're interested in finding quality classical music that rivals what terrestrial has to offer. Both networks are sadly behind the curve (unless, of course, you can't get NPR where you live) mostly because they're invested in trying to make money and gain more subscribers from different pools of people. Sad but true.

scoring, not settling:jan kaczmarek in an l.a. times discussion with adam baer

Meeting film composer Jan A.P. Kaczmarek, who won the Oscar for "Finding Neverland" and is building Poland's equivalent of Sundance, it became evident to me just how much personality has to do with success in a creative endeavor. You can be the most inventive, pioneering artist, but if you don't like to breathe, look at the world, play, improvise, jump into situations and see how you can fit into them, you're definitely missing something. Jan's interview was also unique for me, because there was no hurry. I've conducted interviews with other people in which both parties enjoy the conversation and it doesn't feel rushed. But this conversation was perhaps one of the most natural and limitless. If, in fact, I hadn't had to run home and write the piece, we might have spoken longer. Jan's directors  echo this sentiment. They told me they like to work with him because he's always happy to open another door and see where it takes him. Read the LA Times profile from this Sunday's Calendar section--it's copied as text after the jump if the LAT link doesn't work--and see how a talented film composer can weather Hollywood politicking and actually stay true to the vision that brought him here.

critical condition

So I made the mistake of landing on the Critics' Choice Awards last night, after more than a week of non-blogging (and hence not giving much attention to the side of my brain that critiques stuff). Yet after landing on the frighteningly intimate show--like the Globes, it had some of the biggest stars sitting close together at cocktail tables--I couldn't quite change the channel. It was sort of fascinating to watch the stars take everything so nonchalantly. To be sure, it's exciting to be given an award from the people who critique your work all year. But let we forget, Anthony Lane, J. Hoberman, and Andrew Sarris aren't exactly the reviewers doling out the prizes. The Critics' Choice Awards, as one might have surmised by morning show lightweight Joel Siegel enjoying the honor of presenting the Best Picture award, is governed by the Broadcast Film Critics Association. Which means, essentially, that Joel Siegel was likely the most adept critical mind on the panel, as anyone who has ever watched a review of a movie on their local TV news will agree. It was pretty funny to watch, in fact: One could sense Mr. Siegel's awareness that everyone really knows he's a mental lightweight--with Spielberg, Clooney, Ang Lee, Paul Haggis, and Jim Mangold in the room, it was finally the star's chance to feel intellectually superior. And as each accepted his or her award, it was as if he or she was acting excited--if not terribly casual. Clooney's speech--he received some sort of Freedom Award for the important work he's contributed over the last year--was strikingly articulate, humble, and off-the-cuff (and he's the son of a newsman). Of course, as Mssr. Siegel reminded his audience, five of the past six winners of the Critics' Choice award for best picture have won the Best Picture Oscar. (Does that mean the Academy watches their local news reports too much?) Still, it was hard to escape sensations that the stars knew the broadcast critics only matter insofar as they promote ticket sales. "I love critics!" exclaimed Reese Witherspoon, who then went on to qualify her statement saying that that's at least how she felt this year--well, one half of this year. I just wish the camerapeople would have cut-away from the stage more. It would have been interesting to see Clooney and Spielberg chatting about an  NYT Op-Ed one of them was reading on his smartphone. Next year, how about the real critics get together to dole out awards? Then we might get to see how Hollywood creatives feel about the critical voices that matter.

so jewtastic

So, surprise, Bar Mitzvah Disco fans: Jews are "hip," as well as "creative, neurotic and brainy." And oh yeah, they play heavy metal, and Rrrap. Or so the latest VH1 list show would have it. Remember that one week, many years ago, when "I Love the '80s" was actually comedic? Remember when it was so, so shameful to be a Jew that everyone thought all the studio heads and top writers were "goyim"? Get the lowdown on VH1's most tired attempt at pop cultural classification yet from THR's Andrew Wallenstein. And Happy Hanukkah.

the games we play

Bleary-eyed as a flu victim can be, I recently found interest in how Radosh takes compelling issue with James Suroweicki's Slate piece about the dangers of videogame graphics that skew too real, and I'm with him. But I did write a piece for The New Republic over a year ago, pegged to the release of the first Atari Flashback, that made a few claims fairly pertinent to the argument. My take?

[A]s game-developers create more sophisticated real-life-like titles, it becomes harder and harder to simply "play" a game. What emerges instead is a highly corrupting and advanced form of intriguingly retro Dungeons-and-Dragons role-playing: The game, which on the surface practically begs for you to play with a buddy in your living room, is so complex, so enveloping, so escapist, you become a part of it yourself, and hence lose any ability to socialize honestly. In the latest version of John Madden's football game, for example, there are so many mind-numbing plays and customizations for you as coach to choose from, you may as well be playing yourself (in fact one option is to simply call a play and let the thing unfold in front of your eyes without manipulating the control pad). Faced with the broad cultural proliferation of such games, network football telecasts have even begun to emulate a 2004 video game's camera perspectives, creating for TV-watchers a violent reality flip-flop and hence coloring real sport trivial and fake (if not oppressively real) on the tube.

Dumbed down, have you not noticed how all football telecasts look like Madden these days? For that reason, I'm down with Radosh on how zombie-ish the players look in Top Spin tennis. It's when the characters don't look zombie-ish but realish that we have a problem. Interpretations of reality are always fun things to escape the real with, true attempts to reproduce reality are what give me the heebie-jeebies.

working class hero

As if you don't read the local newspaper, let us remind you that John Lennon was killed 25 years ago today. BBC's Radio 4 has a well-balanced Internet tribute with lots of audio, including Lennon's 1970 interview with Jann Wenner. Speaking of JSW, Rolling Stone's "Lennon Lives Forever" site features the same file as a podcast, as well as an interview with Pete Hamill and lovely writings by Mikhal Gilmore. NPR's Steve Inskeep has a Morning Edition remembrance of a Lennon Dick Cavett show appearance (eh). My peeps  over at GQ's Men.Style.com choose to remember JL for his "delightful acerbic-bastardness" (cool, but I'm not diggin' y'all calling his music "spotty"). You can see video of live performances of "Imagine" and "Jealous Guy" at MTV.com. Fordham's WFUV has special Lennon-audio features online all day. And I'll just offer my tribute with a reposting of the following words:

There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be

the anxiety pipeline

For me, taking in "Syriana," wasn't a pleasant experience. That's not because I don't support George Clooney and his film's message (I do). That's not because I found the film weak (I didn't: I agree wholeheartedly with David Denby's assertion that it's "outrageously complicated" and feel as if the scenes are nastily curt and the product of an Internet-age screenwriter but that in the end, things come together, the camerawork and acting impresses, and I buy the simultaneity.) Nor was the movie unpleasant simply for broaching subject matter I don't like to think about (I think about this subject matter often, which, I hope, explains my need for comedy). "Syriana" was unpleasant, though not in the redemptive way, because I felt as if its form, while impressively emblematic of the blogosphere and current media landscape, was too manipulative for a viewer raised on multi-tasking, Web site links, and too many cable channels. In "Traffic," Stephen Gaghan's multiple drug-trade stories seemed better connected and fleshed out. The threads were strong, they didn't reek of anomie or seek to cause chest pains in its viewers. In "Syriana," the stories and scenes felt more than nastily curt; they felt random and explosive like dirty bombs that explode in distant locations killing innocent people. To be sure, I'm a fan of using form to communicate messages in a narrative. And this technique, of jumping from one semi-related story to another in a film over the expanse of oceans and cultures, gets right to the perimeter, if not to the heart, of many problems plaguing our world. But  "Syriana" left me with free-floating anxiety lacking specific cause when it should have left me with concern for its subject matter. It might have worked differently, of course, for someone who isn't already concerned with its subject matter, and it should, certainly, be seen by people who don't delve into pop culture for reasons of fun and escape. Still, I felt like the script needed better connections, more shape and depth to its individual stories, and less of a suicide bomber's  technique. Hence, the most gripping portion of the movie for me: 10 seconds of Clooney driving across the desert, while Alexandre Desplat's minimalist score sang; the music of the moment--playing urgently repetitive cells beneath long, searching melodic cries--speaking to the historic, conflicted pain pulsing in the ground. Music that tied together much more than a script that, for all its ambition, drama, and responsible urgency, could.

P.S. Desplat also wrote the music for "The Beat That My Heart Skipped" -- my favorite crazy pianist film of the year.
P.P.S. The line I stood in at L.A.'s Grove mall to get into the movie was impressively long. This as Range Rover after Range Rover dumped more happy buyers into the outdoor consumer paradise than I had ever seen at the site.
P.P.P.S. In response to numerous queries, I am not related to Robert Baer or Max Baer, for that matter.

Unabomber Chic

A Radar Magazine Q&A with Zach Galifianakis, a true Comedian of Comedy. I wish I could have posted the whole transcript (maybe later). Until then, I quote Nicholas Cage on the oh-so-Bergmanesque Hollywood action director John Woo: "He makes me feel free." Text follows after the jump.

interviewsonic

So I just had the distinct pleasure of interviewing comedian Zach Galifianakis, who you may know from VH1's expectedly cancelled "Late World with Zach" (expectedly because it was, you know, funny) or from many Conan appearances. Or from the Dogma-annihilating high-art show/film "The Comedians of Comedy." Stay tuned for the officially published text. In the meantime, though, let me tell you something most people don't know about Zach. He doesn't just tickle the ivories, he sings (visit this page and click on the image to the left of the "Week 1" text) .

i'd like to teach the world how to publicize (but i actually haven't sold my soul to a flak job - yet)

So in the course of trying to arrange an interview with an awfully tan, spiky haired, and newly famous descendant of one of Our Thing's biggest kingpins, I ran up against some questions from a publicist. When asked what I might like to question the young rising star about, I responded with something like: his celebrity and the new success he and his family enjoy.

To this I received a question asking me to clarify what "type" of success I meant. When I responded with yet another clarification -- a polite comment stating my interest in his "pop culture" success (which should, you would think, alert these people that I'm not conducting a RICO trial), I got yet another e-mail asking me to send print copies of the publication for whom I will conduct a Web interview to a specific address.

The address I received is that of the young man's home, where his mother lives and tapes her show somewhere on Long Island. So now I have this address and still no confirmation I will get the interview. Which would in fact simply help this young man's "success."

You know,  since the career he's embarking on -- and how can a publicist working such a case not know this? -- clearly involves hoping the media finds his attempts at celebrity at least mildly entertaining. At least enough to get him some solo press. So you tell me what it's more useful to give a stranger via e-mail: your home address or 20 minutes with your son on the phone so he can get more famous and maybe even segue out of reality TV?

observation

I just walked past Tyra Banks at Runyon Canyon. She is very tall and not terribly athletic-looking.

Lynch Mob

David Lynch has frightened the living hell out of me again. This time, though, his tool isn’t a crazed movie monster-man living behind a Hollywood dumpster. No, David Lynch is terrifying in real life. Possibly simple and a lot less interesting than any of us ever thought, or possibly maniacal and as up to no good as those on the good ship Sea Org. Or so his appearance at USC last night made clear.

David Lynch has started his own foundation dedicated to raising $7 billion so he can make transcendental meditation (TM) available for students, and help build in Washington, D.C. a university for world peace. Sounds pretty evil, right? Well, that’s the point. On the surface it sounds completely beautiful, if the work of a wackadoo -- something only a right-wing conservative would have the guts to criticize (God forbid there exist some sensible, conformity hating democrats who feel raped by any organization that tries to control their minds).

Surprise: There is nothing wrong with meditation, yoga, expanding one’s consciousness, and promoting peace. There is nothing wrong with emphasizing our global connections to each other (except for the fact that all that lack of hate will result in movies that bore us to death). And Lynch is clearly as right as ever, as he said to a hall full of cultish filmschool followers: George Bush could stand to do a little meditation. For all of the institutions we have erected to explicitly produce soldiers, we should devote some to creating peacemakers. Um, ok.

But David Lynch, and his colleagues, including this man and this man (and please visit the Web site for their Maharishi University of Management to listen to their unusually creepy podcasts), aren’t exactly going about their agenda the way qualitative yogis or emotionally mature and centered cultural leaders with smart political ideas should. No, the team--which is traveling around the country’s richest universities and hoodwinking students with bad neurological science to promote the TM practiced by the same Maharishi who both taught and swindled the Beatles (according to the Beatles!)--is using Lynch's already cultish following to build what seems like plans for a cult. A band of calm young meditators with money who will do (and fund) anything he wants. Like, for instance, sending Mssr. Hagelin (linked to above) to the White House as a devoted instrument of the Maharishi. I know that would never happen (and that it would still probably be an improvement), but still.

Last night’s event went like this: David Lynch, in all his black-suited glory, appeared with the caveat that he doesn’t like to speak in public (a fact that proved completely untrue as the night wore on), and then proceeded to solicit questions from the audience for a presentation that on paper should have been meticulously planned out. Well, guess what? It was meticulously planned out. People seemed to be stationed in the audience to ask the man specific questions (the first one, on his feeling about the “light in Los Angeles”).

He then went on to construct numerous circular sentences that didn’t answer specific questions about how to meditate, or why money is required to do so. Terms and phrases he threw out over and over without further clarification included: “diving in,” “pure consciousness,” “bliss consciousness,” “being,” etc. It was like speaking to my yoga teacher in Topanga Canyon. Which is fine. Bring on the creativity-enhancing Bodi Tree bliss. The problem, though, is that all this nonsense didn’t elucidate Lynch's intentions: it didn’t explain his exact plans for the $7 billion (why is meditation so expensive to provide?), or why he was organizing a presentation that felt like a first date at the Scientology Celebrity Center, or how he met these “scientists” (including Hagelin, the super-string theorist) he works with, or anything about ayurvedic medicine, or how he came to partner with all these other “doctors,” or, or. OR!

Lest we forget, the event was also obviously being filmed and photographed by people who could have been Lynch’s staff, smiling stage-bound onlookers who looked like they had focused on numerous audience members for large amounts of time as the man spoke (images of Ingmar Bergman's Magic Flute, in which audience shots cut from one to another, were impossible to ignore).

Was this all a stunt? Part of a forthcoming film? A giant performance art project Lynch will continue to perform until the purple box known as his life is closed for good?

The next segment of the evening nearly (just nearly) convinced me of that conjecture. I default to Aaron Swartz’s blog for a more detailed explanation of the “scientific” portion of the presentation, in which Hagelin described modern physics and jumped abruptly into how meditation can be used to keep stress and crime levels down (again, surprise). This before Dr. Fred Travis did an EEG on a “student’s” brain on stage – where this student came from wasn’t discussed, but the one doctor did note how he had been doing TM since the age of five (highly probable, no?). The point of the EEG was to show how brain waves calm down and align themselves during TM, but there was no way to prove 100% that an actual EEG was happening on stage, and there was obviously no true science to prove that the kid was doing TM.   

More disappointing, Lynch wouldn’t really answer any questions about his films or filmmaking except for offering superficial comments--he did admit to being excited about creating a virtual-world video game, and he did flaunt bliss about new giant flatscreens with perfect resolution. But whenever someone asked a scientific question, he either deferred to his doctor friends or spoke in Vedic code. When asked what the monster-man behind the dumpster in Mulholland Drive symbolizes, he said very little. He explained how opening up his consciousness brings him ideas, which baits other ideas and strings them together. His belief about why film matters? It allows us to tell stories. His answer for why he includes so much disturbing matter in his films despite being a peace-loving TM devotee? If there's struggle, let it be in your films, not your life.

Is Lynch just an ex-hippie who’s tired, as he said (and I paraphrase), of $7 billion going to the production of three-and-a-half B1 bombers that can’t even protect us on a day like 9/11? Is he just a yoga-toting Hollywood creative who got hooked on TM, and let the Maharishi's men convince him it is his duty to change the world? Is he a live-action Abstract Illusionist who's laughing at us right now (doubtful)? Is he Ringo Starr?

Watch the show he’s touring with from an appearance at Emerson College and decide for yourself. All I know is that no one in last night’s audience (including me) had the guts to get up and ask this man anything sensible, and the whole thing felt so violating I couldn’t sleep last night. If Lynch is really just trying to spread relaxation and peace among students who he worries are bound for lives devoid of creativity and rife with tension and war-making and right-wing politics, then fine.

But why the cultish presentation? Why the secrets? Why the pseudoscience to prove something everyone already knows about the benefits of meditating? Why the pyramid-scheme-style manipulation? Why the desire for the princely sum of $7 billion if not for a plan to try to amass national power and build a society of followers? And why ask for it from impressionable young people who attend ritzy colleges? What in God’s name is going on here?! And why hasn't Katie Couric [editors note in December 06: This was written awhile ago], the Serious Journalist Du Jour interested in getting some Real Hard Facts about the country's kookiest religions, lined up an interview with Mr. Elephant Man?

David Lynch Bliss Resources created after this initial post:

Beliefnet interview: http://www.beliefnet.com/story/184/story_18457_1.html

SF Chron: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/06/LVG9MFIG9L1.DTL&hw=David+Lynch&sn=001&sc=1000

the minimal squid squirm

In Noah Baumbach's "The Squid and the Whale," the younger sibling, Frank, played with deft expressionism by the rising star Owen Kline (the son of Kevin and Phoebe Cates), there are numerous sexually uncomfortable scenes underscored by a minimalist piece of music, presumably written by the film's composers, Luna's Britta Philips and Dean Wareham. To me, the music sounded like an inescapable homage to a few minimalist anthems, the stuff of Terry Riley and Steve Reich. I'm still unsure of the actual piece of music I'm speaking about, but details aren't terribly important here, for the issue at hand is not who wrote these pop-hypnotic musical cells but how well they help one feel uncomfortable when faced with a child's distress. I came to listen to this form of music -- in both its original and popified variety -- when I was in college, and for me it was always soothing -- not in the way that a boomer might find Hadyn soothing on the drive home -- but in the philosophical sense. After seeing Baumbach's film, which I respect but can't seem to write about for various reasons, I listened to Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, and realized just how jarring some of this music can be. I worry that I might now associate something with a form of music that never carried with it any clear associations before. This too shall pass, I imagine. But for now, Terry Riley makes me want to squirm.

i can't get this brilliant tv theme song out of my head

Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds (sung here by the composer, not Pete Seeger)

BTW, the show is "Weeds," and unlike multicamera sitcoms on CBS that star '80s B movie actors, it's getting better with each episode  because someone, somewhere took a chance on something "risky."

mel's malibu passion

Who would have guessed that the real "Passion of the Christ" was beachfront real estate?

A very swaggerific new year

I don't know what's funnier: That, along with fellow displaced (and plenty of freaky) new Angelenos, I attended free Yom Kippur services at the Laugh Factory yesterday* -- only to emerge on Sunset and be told by a cop while crossing the street to stay put before a stunt car comes screeching around the corner. Or how about Jonathan Kiefer's newest Film Flaneur column: a hilarious open letter to movie industry marketeers.

*A sincere thanks to the club, actually: As you probably read in my Larry David post, there aren't too many other places for a casually observant Jew to rock the High Holidays for free.