Archive Listing
December 10, 2010 - December 3, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
3rd World Olympics
Furtado
having a beer in Vancouver.
THEY'RE BA-A-A-A-CK. I had no idea -- no idea! -- there would be so much to say about the Vancouver Olympics. So this post is just getting started. Call it the Opening Ceremonies. Speaking of which, I actually watched a lot of them with Mrs. CP, and after a lot of thought I've determined that the best way to limit my scorn is to fisk one of the more succinct reviews.
Vancouver
Olympics Opening Ceremony: Best and Worst
Before we offer our usual playful take on the televised spectacular, we need to acknowledge the serious side of last night’s Olympics Opening Ceremony. It was dedicated to 21-year-old Nodar Kumaritashvili, the luger from Georgia who died Friday after a 90 mph crash at the end of his final training run. When his seven teammates entered BC Place, and the crowd stood to applaud their decision to honor him by competing, it was by far the most moving moment of the evening. For many athletes who have no hope of medaling, walking in the Parade of Nations is their podium, which made the absence of Kumaritashvili, who was ranked 44th in the world, all the more poignant. The Olympics are about nations coming together to celebrate the human spirit; watching 82 of them pay tribute to Kumaritashvili’s and his countrymen’s was reaffirming. We'll have a lot more to say about this unfortunate eventuality later. Maybe today, maybe not.
Now, the show must go on…
Ceremony mastermind David Atkins spent somewhere between $30 million and $40 million on the production, roughly a tenth of Beijing’s budget. He wanted it to feel intimate and personal as the story of Canada unfolded before our eyes, starting with a welcome from the Four Host First Nations. He succeeded. Eh? No. He didn't. There was no "story of Canada." There was a story of political correctness, beginning with the pretense that Canada's history is a function of a bunch of IndianAboriginal tribes nobody anywhere has ever heard of. Which was so weird that it almost made us forget the bizarre performance of the Canadian National Piano Bar Background Music Anthem by the girl in the red dress who knew all 42 verses (and five minutes) of a song most of us think of as the drab 38 second beer jingle sung before NHL games. Color us surprised red-faced embarrassed for our northernmost 3rd world neighbor. But we forgot all about her when we saw the endlessprotracted, made up dance rituals of the Tribes of the Colors of Benetton (although some of the feathers were clearly by Armani), who are apparently solely responsible for the cultural nonentity of a nation that has no head of state (a governor-general from Haiti?), no common language, and no national emblem more enduring than a 50-year-old placematflag named after a suburban Detroit hockey team.
Best entrance: Snowboarder Johnny Lyall, who jumped through the Olympic rings after a stunning video-taped mountain run. Wrong. Other candidates? Nellie Furtado, widest-hipped pornstar with the most mediocre vocal cords in the Americas. Those strappy stiletto heels almost but not quite distracted attention from a pelvis so expansive it could have birthed a keg of Molsen without breaking stride. But it didn't, so no Best Entrance Stanley Cup for her. Bryan Adams, stupefyingly weird in his little black suit. Who was he trying to be? The blanding of the pop vampirism fad, Canadian style? The U.S. North American rocker voice of the New World and the aboriginal drums that gave us the Inuit backbeat of Gordon Lightfoot and Neil Young? Too confusing. No prize. The tattooed acidhead version of Michael Flatley whose supporting cast of sloppy Irish step dancers were somehow supposed to suggest, in their kilts and Harley conchos, the merging of French [stet] French (?!) and British cultures in Quebec? Eh? Sorry. Donald Sutherland, who intoned forgettable Canadian poetry that had nothing whatever to do with what was occurring onstage? But "no entrance" can't qualify for Best Entrance, can it? The half-man (face and waist to neck), half-woman (face and hips to thighs) androgyne who twirled in mid-air to the lyrics of the famed Canadian Lesbian has-been Joni Mitchell? No. If he'd been the only androgyne of the evening, maybe. But we're reliably informed k d lang showed up, too, (still in suitable lower case attire) long after Morpheus blessed us with healing sleep... Was it the fat YouTube star who plagiarized a beer commercial into what now passes for a Canadian Pledge of Allegiance -- unless it's really the confession of a nation-wide Inferiority Complex so deep and disturbing that none of its 33 million sufferers realize what a jackass they are to admit preferring "zed" to "zee" and claiming to have invented "please," "thank you," and "you're welcome." Bi-lingually no less (except for the "please," "thank you," and "you're welcome" part, which are definitely not French.) Can't be sure. Can a semi-literate viral fluke make a Best Entrance on a world stage? Don't think so. Who then? Gandalf. When he showed up and stomped his staff on the stage and lit up the whole floor with his light effect. That was the Best Entrance. Now if somebody could just tell us what the hell Gandalf has to do with the history of Canada, we'd be all good with it... eh?
Worst entrance: The fourth leg of the indoor cauldron that failed to rise. Nobody saw it. We were all asleep by then.
Best effect: More than 100 projectors were used to create the ceremony’s “landscape of dreams” theme. The orcas spouting across the ocean after the ice broke up = the night’s first rewind. Honorable mention: The faux precipitation that made Matt Lauer feel like he was sitting in a 60,000-seat snow globe. Noteworthy: The rising bear constellation that deserves its own Coke commercial. OOOOOH. That was the ice breaking up. WE thought it was the continents getting devoured by rising sea levels caused by Global Warming and the greedy planet-killing Americans not euthanizing their citizens with bad government healthcare. And we thought the bear was an endangered-- oh, never mind. We understand now. That's not so bad. We liked the orca effects too. But we've always liked whales. Never thought whale avatars swimming under faux snow would be the highlight of anybody's evening... until we remembered it's Canada we're talking about. Sure. Best Effect. Whatever.
Worst effect: The collective groan heard throughout living rooms in America when we found out we were about to hear spoken word. But slam poet Shane Koyczan’s Canada-defining, stereotype-defying “We are More” was better than expected. You felt the pride, and suddenly wanted to say “zed.” The transcript. Honorable mention: The disappointment at seeing the Mounties not on horseback. It would have sped up their walk with the Canadian flag, but I suppose they couldn’t risk a horse going potty on the floor, which was such an integral part of the show. Shane Kyczan? That was his name? At any rate, there is NO time when we'll ever want to say "zed." Sorry. You can call it "pride" if you want. We call it horseshit caribou merde. As for the Mounties, have to admit we didn't notice the no horses. What we noticed was the politically correct representation of the sexes. Not that female Mounties aren't an interesting idea. But they do beg the question of what sort of mounting is going on. Come to think of it, maybe some horses would have clarified things a bit. Still, does anyone really think that half of all mounties are smallish women with aquiline noses? Hardly the Worst Effect of the evening, regardless.
Best less-is-more performance: Proving the quality of the song was more important than the presence of a singer, Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” was the perfect soundtrack for the prairie tribute, which featured aerialist and Ècole nationale de cirque student Thomas Saulgrain walking, running, then soaring through fields of gold. Honorable mention: k.d. lang, who captivated the arena singing Leonard Cohen’s ”Hallelujah” barefooted, as the audience lit up the stadium. Noteworthy: Donald Sutherland’s voiceover. uh, still waiting for some mention of "best" candidates in this list. That tapping sound you hear is our foot, tapping. As we wait.
Worst less-is-more performance: Nelly Furtado and Bryan Adams, who failed to pop, even on a bare white stage, during their duet of “Bang Your Drum.” (Sarah McLachlan’s necklace saved her.) Honorable mention: The dancers in all white who lined the tunnel for the athletes’ entrance. Aside from the guy who kept doing the Molly Ringwald Breakfast Club move — he was at peak form during Spain and Tajikistan — their enthusiasm had a certain ebb and flow. Covered most of this already. Except for Sarah MacLachlan. Her necklace saved her? Hell. We thought it was a miracle she could sit upright at the piano wearing that series of quartz boulders around her neck. Of course, we've probably made it obvious to sophisticates that we are completely lacking in what Canadians would call "taste." Grace a Dieu.
Best trivia shared by Bob Costas and Matt Lauer during the Parade of Nations: It really is one of our favorite parts of the ceremony. They’re good when they’re sharing vaguely relevant information, like the fact that in 1964, a group of Mongolian cross-country skiers showed up unexpectedly at the Innsbruck Olympics but were allowed to compete anyway, or that Poland’s flag bearer has a museum in his hometown where he charges $2 admission to see his skis and bibs. They’re better when they’re riffing on the fact that Finland hosts the World Sauna Championships. We agree about the Mongolians. Everything else mentioned here seemed belittling and, well, trivial.
Worst trivia shared by Bob Costas and Matt Lauer during the Parade of Nations: New Zealand was largely responsible for the visual effects in Avatar. Reaching! You want "reaching"? How aboot this: That anything Bob COstas and Matt Lauer might choose to observe about anything is worth subjecting us to their self-satisfied voices.
Best outfit: Italy. Sleek and stylish jackets, but the athletes still looked comfortable and sporty. Honorable mention: Bermuda, which opted for Bermuda shorts. uh, the Italians looked like they were tuning up for the return of Mussolini. The Bermuda shorts won in a walk.
Worst outfit: Azerbaijan. Loud, loud pants, which caused Costas to joke that as president of the country’s figure skating federation, their flag bearer was allowed to make whatever sartorial decision he wanted. Honorable mention: The pants on the Czech Republic. Full agreement on the Azerbaijan excrecence. Don't remember the Czech Republic duds. Which suggests: see Italy above.
Best discovery: Split decision: Newfoundland’s punk tap dancing fiddlers or this rum they call Screech? uh, no. We liked it better (a LOT better) when the elf of Celtic Woman did it years ago -- without the poisonous Canadian moonshine.
Worst discovery: Jamaica did not send a bobsled team. Agreed.
Best reaction shot: Honestly, any one of Shaun White, but we’ll go with him and Louie Vito enjoying the aerial snowboarders during the tribute to the Rockies. Please. Just quit it with the Shaun White crap. He needs a haircut. Women who think a man with a Rita Hayworth hairdo is sexy are wrong. Period.
Worst reaction shot: Wayne Gretzky couldn’t hide the worry on his face during the mechanical malfunction. Fortunately, we’ll remember a different image of him: Riding on the bed of a truck through the streets of Vancouver to light the outdoor cauldron with people spontaneously running behind him. It was like a scene from Rocky. Didn't see it. As we said, we were compelled to give up when the Molsen beer commercial took center stage. If Gretsky was worried, he was almost certainly right to be. He's the only Canadian we like.
Your turn! How nice of you. In our humble opinion, the whole thing was a laughable, ludicrous bore, except where it was positively offensive in terms of its oafish political correctness ("aborigines," Lesbians, etc) and even more oafish Canadian resentfulousness of Big Brother U.S.A. We're sorry they have so little to boast of -- no female singers who like sleeping with men, no poets anyone's ever heard of, no history that doesn't require a mile of half-apologetic explanations there's no time for in a $30 million pageant (Dominion Day, the Queen who's too busy with her Corgis to show up, the flag(s), etc), no visible proof, even theatrically, that the French-British schism which will eventually destroy the nation has ever produced a blend capable of creating a distinct cultural identity that transcends beer, hockey, and forgettable TV stars. But there are things we were thankful for. Celine Dion didn't perform. (Vegas commitments? Or Branson?) Helen Reddy didn't either. Or Neil Young or Gordon Lightfoot. Don't ever accuse us of being ungrateful for small favors. Here's the best one of all. The Canadians who make their money down here in the U.S. go back to Canada when they have the opportunity to boast to the world how much better Canada is than we are. This was such an opportunity. Now -- if they would only stay there...
Before we offer our usual playful take on the televised spectacular, we need to acknowledge the serious side of last night’s Olympics Opening Ceremony. It was dedicated to 21-year-old Nodar Kumaritashvili, the luger from Georgia who died Friday after a 90 mph crash at the end of his final training run. When his seven teammates entered BC Place, and the crowd stood to applaud their decision to honor him by competing, it was by far the most moving moment of the evening. For many athletes who have no hope of medaling, walking in the Parade of Nations is their podium, which made the absence of Kumaritashvili, who was ranked 44th in the world, all the more poignant. The Olympics are about nations coming together to celebrate the human spirit; watching 82 of them pay tribute to Kumaritashvili’s and his countrymen’s was reaffirming. We'll have a lot more to say about this unfortunate eventuality later. Maybe today, maybe not.
Now, the show must go on…
Ceremony mastermind David Atkins spent somewhere between $30 million and $40 million on the production, roughly a tenth of Beijing’s budget. He wanted it to feel intimate and personal as the story of Canada unfolded before our eyes, starting with a welcome from the Four Host First Nations. He succeeded. Eh? No. He didn't. There was no "story of Canada." There was a story of political correctness, beginning with the pretense that Canada's history is a function of a bunch of IndianAboriginal tribes nobody anywhere has ever heard of. Which was so weird that it almost made us forget the bizarre performance of the Canadian National Piano Bar Background Music Anthem by the girl in the red dress who knew all 42 verses (and five minutes) of a song most of us think of as the drab 38 second beer jingle sung before NHL games. Color us surprised red-faced embarrassed for our northernmost 3rd world neighbor. But we forgot all about her when we saw the endlessprotracted, made up dance rituals of the Tribes of the Colors of Benetton (although some of the feathers were clearly by Armani), who are apparently solely responsible for the cultural nonentity of a nation that has no head of state (a governor-general from Haiti?), no common language, and no national emblem more enduring than a 50-year-old placematflag named after a suburban Detroit hockey team.
Best entrance: Snowboarder Johnny Lyall, who jumped through the Olympic rings after a stunning video-taped mountain run. Wrong. Other candidates? Nellie Furtado, widest-hipped pornstar with the most mediocre vocal cords in the Americas. Those strappy stiletto heels almost but not quite distracted attention from a pelvis so expansive it could have birthed a keg of Molsen without breaking stride. But it didn't, so no Best Entrance Stanley Cup for her. Bryan Adams, stupefyingly weird in his little black suit. Who was he trying to be? The blanding of the pop vampirism fad, Canadian style? The U.S. North American rocker voice of the New World and the aboriginal drums that gave us the Inuit backbeat of Gordon Lightfoot and Neil Young? Too confusing. No prize. The tattooed acidhead version of Michael Flatley whose supporting cast of sloppy Irish step dancers were somehow supposed to suggest, in their kilts and Harley conchos, the merging of French [stet] French (?!) and British cultures in Quebec? Eh? Sorry. Donald Sutherland, who intoned forgettable Canadian poetry that had nothing whatever to do with what was occurring onstage? But "no entrance" can't qualify for Best Entrance, can it? The half-man (face and waist to neck), half-woman (face and hips to thighs) androgyne who twirled in mid-air to the lyrics of the famed Canadian Lesbian has-been Joni Mitchell? No. If he'd been the only androgyne of the evening, maybe. But we're reliably informed k d lang showed up, too, (still in suitable lower case attire) long after Morpheus blessed us with healing sleep... Was it the fat YouTube star who plagiarized a beer commercial into what now passes for a Canadian Pledge of Allegiance -- unless it's really the confession of a nation-wide Inferiority Complex so deep and disturbing that none of its 33 million sufferers realize what a jackass they are to admit preferring "zed" to "zee" and claiming to have invented "please," "thank you," and "you're welcome." Bi-lingually no less (except for the "please," "thank you," and "you're welcome" part, which are definitely not French.) Can't be sure. Can a semi-literate viral fluke make a Best Entrance on a world stage? Don't think so. Who then? Gandalf. When he showed up and stomped his staff on the stage and lit up the whole floor with his light effect. That was the Best Entrance. Now if somebody could just tell us what the hell Gandalf has to do with the history of Canada, we'd be all good with it... eh?
Worst entrance: The fourth leg of the indoor cauldron that failed to rise. Nobody saw it. We were all asleep by then.
Best effect: More than 100 projectors were used to create the ceremony’s “landscape of dreams” theme. The orcas spouting across the ocean after the ice broke up = the night’s first rewind. Honorable mention: The faux precipitation that made Matt Lauer feel like he was sitting in a 60,000-seat snow globe. Noteworthy: The rising bear constellation that deserves its own Coke commercial. OOOOOH. That was the ice breaking up. WE thought it was the continents getting devoured by rising sea levels caused by Global Warming and the greedy planet-killing Americans not euthanizing their citizens with bad government healthcare. And we thought the bear was an endangered-- oh, never mind. We understand now. That's not so bad. We liked the orca effects too. But we've always liked whales. Never thought whale avatars swimming under faux snow would be the highlight of anybody's evening... until we remembered it's Canada we're talking about. Sure. Best Effect. Whatever.
Worst effect: The collective groan heard throughout living rooms in America when we found out we were about to hear spoken word. But slam poet Shane Koyczan’s Canada-defining, stereotype-defying “We are More” was better than expected. You felt the pride, and suddenly wanted to say “zed.” The transcript. Honorable mention: The disappointment at seeing the Mounties not on horseback. It would have sped up their walk with the Canadian flag, but I suppose they couldn’t risk a horse going potty on the floor, which was such an integral part of the show. Shane Kyczan? That was his name? At any rate, there is NO time when we'll ever want to say "zed." Sorry. You can call it "pride" if you want. We call it horseshit caribou merde. As for the Mounties, have to admit we didn't notice the no horses. What we noticed was the politically correct representation of the sexes. Not that female Mounties aren't an interesting idea. But they do beg the question of what sort of mounting is going on. Come to think of it, maybe some horses would have clarified things a bit. Still, does anyone really think that half of all mounties are smallish women with aquiline noses? Hardly the Worst Effect of the evening, regardless.
Best less-is-more performance: Proving the quality of the song was more important than the presence of a singer, Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” was the perfect soundtrack for the prairie tribute, which featured aerialist and Ècole nationale de cirque student Thomas Saulgrain walking, running, then soaring through fields of gold. Honorable mention: k.d. lang, who captivated the arena singing Leonard Cohen’s ”Hallelujah” barefooted, as the audience lit up the stadium. Noteworthy: Donald Sutherland’s voiceover. uh, still waiting for some mention of "best" candidates in this list. That tapping sound you hear is our foot, tapping. As we wait.
Worst less-is-more performance: Nelly Furtado and Bryan Adams, who failed to pop, even on a bare white stage, during their duet of “Bang Your Drum.” (Sarah McLachlan’s necklace saved her.) Honorable mention: The dancers in all white who lined the tunnel for the athletes’ entrance. Aside from the guy who kept doing the Molly Ringwald Breakfast Club move — he was at peak form during Spain and Tajikistan — their enthusiasm had a certain ebb and flow. Covered most of this already. Except for Sarah MacLachlan. Her necklace saved her? Hell. We thought it was a miracle she could sit upright at the piano wearing that series of quartz boulders around her neck. Of course, we've probably made it obvious to sophisticates that we are completely lacking in what Canadians would call "taste." Grace a Dieu.
Best trivia shared by Bob Costas and Matt Lauer during the Parade of Nations: It really is one of our favorite parts of the ceremony. They’re good when they’re sharing vaguely relevant information, like the fact that in 1964, a group of Mongolian cross-country skiers showed up unexpectedly at the Innsbruck Olympics but were allowed to compete anyway, or that Poland’s flag bearer has a museum in his hometown where he charges $2 admission to see his skis and bibs. They’re better when they’re riffing on the fact that Finland hosts the World Sauna Championships. We agree about the Mongolians. Everything else mentioned here seemed belittling and, well, trivial.
Worst trivia shared by Bob Costas and Matt Lauer during the Parade of Nations: New Zealand was largely responsible for the visual effects in Avatar. Reaching! You want "reaching"? How aboot this: That anything Bob COstas and Matt Lauer might choose to observe about anything is worth subjecting us to their self-satisfied voices.
Best outfit: Italy. Sleek and stylish jackets, but the athletes still looked comfortable and sporty. Honorable mention: Bermuda, which opted for Bermuda shorts. uh, the Italians looked like they were tuning up for the return of Mussolini. The Bermuda shorts won in a walk.
Worst outfit: Azerbaijan. Loud, loud pants, which caused Costas to joke that as president of the country’s figure skating federation, their flag bearer was allowed to make whatever sartorial decision he wanted. Honorable mention: The pants on the Czech Republic. Full agreement on the Azerbaijan excrecence. Don't remember the Czech Republic duds. Which suggests: see Italy above.
Best discovery: Split decision: Newfoundland’s punk tap dancing fiddlers or this rum they call Screech? uh, no. We liked it better (a LOT better) when the elf of Celtic Woman did it years ago -- without the poisonous Canadian moonshine.
Worst discovery: Jamaica did not send a bobsled team. Agreed.
Best reaction shot: Honestly, any one of Shaun White, but we’ll go with him and Louie Vito enjoying the aerial snowboarders during the tribute to the Rockies. Please. Just quit it with the Shaun White crap. He needs a haircut. Women who think a man with a Rita Hayworth hairdo is sexy are wrong. Period.
Worst reaction shot: Wayne Gretzky couldn’t hide the worry on his face during the mechanical malfunction. Fortunately, we’ll remember a different image of him: Riding on the bed of a truck through the streets of Vancouver to light the outdoor cauldron with people spontaneously running behind him. It was like a scene from Rocky. Didn't see it. As we said, we were compelled to give up when the Molsen beer commercial took center stage. If Gretsky was worried, he was almost certainly right to be. He's the only Canadian we like.
Your turn! How nice of you. In our humble opinion, the whole thing was a laughable, ludicrous bore, except where it was positively offensive in terms of its oafish political correctness ("aborigines," Lesbians, etc) and even more oafish Canadian resentfulousness of Big Brother U.S.A. We're sorry they have so little to boast of -- no female singers who like sleeping with men, no poets anyone's ever heard of, no history that doesn't require a mile of half-apologetic explanations there's no time for in a $30 million pageant (Dominion Day, the Queen who's too busy with her Corgis to show up, the flag(s), etc), no visible proof, even theatrically, that the French-British schism which will eventually destroy the nation has ever produced a blend capable of creating a distinct cultural identity that transcends beer, hockey, and forgettable TV stars. But there are things we were thankful for. Celine Dion didn't perform. (Vegas commitments? Or Branson?) Helen Reddy didn't either. Or Neil Young or Gordon Lightfoot. Don't ever accuse us of being ungrateful for small favors. Here's the best one of all. The Canadians who make their money down here in the U.S. go back to Canada when they have the opportunity to boast to the world how much better Canada is than we are. This was such an opportunity. Now -- if they would only stay there...
We'll get to the sports part later. And the NBC part. Count on it.
posted at
5:50 pm
by
CountryPunk
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Nobody Move
NOT GUILTY. Our whole staff has been snowed in, besieged by illness and computer failures, and generally downed by winter in this wintriest of global warming stepping stones to disaster. But the queue builds nonetheless, things we have to say and will.
This post is a placeholder only. However. At the moment I write it, there are 22 comments on the first post CP wrote about Guilty Pleasures. And 22 comments on his second post about Guilty Pleasures.
I'd just like to point out that if there is one magic number in The Boomer Bible, it is 22. The Number of Harry. Which, to my biased mind, means that everything you have all had to say adds up to an indispensable part of the sum, including Helen Reddy and Karen Carpenter.
Think about that.
Then we'll be back. Sorry for the silence. Much to say about the Olympics, and what's really going on with the Obama administration, guest posts, and, uh, the nature of life itself.
See you soon.
posted at
8:20 am
by
InstaPunk
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Guilty Pleasures 2
THE SELF-FLAGELLATION CONTINUES. Freezing rain has just turned to snow and we're battened down for our second great blizzard within the week. As usual, serendicity has just played another card from its enormous deck, reminding me that I've always had a silly crush on Esther Williams, who (as my mother used to say) couldn't act her way out of a paper bag. But at this very moment TCM is showing a celluloid souffle called "Neptune's Daughter," featuring Esther in some of the most gorgeous duds any woman ever had the privilege of wearing. (Mrs. CP is exclaiming over her wardrobe in each unfolding scene as I write this. Edith Head, she muses? Has to be.) Interestingly, her love interest in the pic is Ricardo Montalban, a man whom most people still confuse with her real husband, Fernando Lamas. Sigh. I guess that means she'd never have fallen for a charmless Scot who's about as far from "tall, dark, and handsome" as it's possible to get without being formally listed as an exemplary antonym in Roget's Thesaurus.
It's easy and acceptable to have a crush on Rita Hayworth (which I do). So why is it faintly ridiculous to have a crush on Esther Williams? Don't know. But it is. And I don't care. Which reminds me of two other female movie stars I'm embarrassed to love. One is virtually forgotten, and the other is, well, I'll get to that in good time...
June Allyson
You know. Jimmy Stewart's on-screen wife. No neck, awful hair-sprayed-to-death hair, and a collection of shirtdresses that would have made June Lockhart expire of envy in Lassie's paws. This woman:
After
the credits, she makes her first appearance 6:30 in.
What about her then? Her voice. That husky murmur. Her voice and her eyes. Demure but absolutely resolute. She's the "good woman" of the adage about what a great man always has behind him. For many years I wondered, "Why was this plain Jane a movie star?" As I've grown older I've learned why. The world has grown full to bursting with Megan Foxes. But the June Allysons are a vanishing breed. Faithful, loving, invincible, and beautiful from the soul out. And how about this completely accidental YouTube find?
Judy Garland
Yup. I'm also carrying a torch for Judy Garland. And, no, I'm not even gay. As with June Allyson, it took me a long long time to appreciate Judy Garland -- at least the Judy who matured away from the adolescent prodigy who sang so heartbreakingly in the Wizard of Oz. A lot like June. No neck, perpetually bad hair, and weirdly frumpy clothes the whole time. I always thought her adult voice was harsh. And whatever anyone says, she was never a good-looking woman. But looks matter less and less as you get older. I began to understand that she wasn't really the victim her biographers seek to make her. She had a gift and she knew it. She kept on going, no matter how, to keep sharing that gift. A different kind of love but one I admire without even the slightest trace of pity. Like June. Vulnerability as strength. Who do we have today? Lady Gaga.
I rest my case.
Donald Barthelme
Another writer I've repeatedly slammed. Because he so completely disdained meaning. But lawdy lawdy, what a writer. One of the very few I can always enjoy reading out loud (along with Cynewulf, Swinburne, Verlaine, and some of Poe's poetry). Every single piece in City Life I've declaimed to my private ceiling, just wishing I had that touch with words. He systematically, immorally even, uncouples words from their meanings and finds new meanings inside the empty space he creates thereby. At his best he's just plain gorgeous under a mask of plain. My objections are all philosophical, which can and probably should be translated as "second rate." On the other hand, like Eliot, Joyce, and Hemingway before him, he's flung the door wide open for talentless imitators. I'm content to be the stolid sentinel at the door, saying, "No. You haven't earned the right to rewrite the scripture of genius."
Tijuana Brass
From the sublime to the ridiculous? Yes. That's what self-revelation consists of. There's no excuse whatever for liking Tijuana Brass. But hearing their songs make me happy. I don't care that Herb Alpert had no more talent as a trumpet player than the average high school band member. I. Just. Don't. Care.
You got a problem with that?
Patsy Kline
You're flying over the world in all your omniscient super-sophistication. Then you spy an Aborigine village where the natives, or their shaman, seem to know as much somehow about the universe as you do. But without your hubris. That's Patsy Kline. Even Johnny Cash put on some airs from time to time. Patsy never did. She lived in the dreamtime for sure, but she did the earthbound thing better than all her dimwit contemporaries. Why she had to die young.
Some people know everything. I do. That's how I can recognize the others.
Miami Vice
Don Johnson couldn't act and the fellow who played Tubbs was even worse. But the best series television episode in history was the pilot of Miami Vice. I'll listen politely to your rebuttals, but you're wrong. This was the absolute apogee of dramatic TV in America.
Jeez. Still not done with this confessional torrent. uh, did somebody mention Glenn Miller?
Glenn Miller
I'll end with the self-immolating admission that I loved the big band my own father dismissed as the closest thing to Lawrence Welk his generation ever produced (apart from Kay Kyser, that is). But I can't help it. I like Glenn Miller. I like the sound. Despite the extensive training I've received in jazz from people who know, I still feel a bump of optimism when I hear the unmistakeable timbre of the band whose leader perished without a trace in the second war to end all wars. And isn't that an irony even Alanis Morissette could recognize?
Sheesh.
Worse, it looks like there'll be a Part 3 before this blizzard concludes. My most obsequious apologies. How much confession can any audience be expected to endure?
UPDATE. By popular demand -- who'd a thunk it? -- Instapunk commenters love ABBA. A movie I'd never have put on my list without this nudge is Muriel's Wedding. A chick flick even a guy could like. Anyway, here you go:
Hey! Here we all are. Naked as jaybirds, just like that ABBA album cover. Is it great? Not here it isn't. The blizzard is ubiquitous and cold. Brrrrr.
UPDATE 2. Just for those who haven't heard of him, here is Roger Whittaker:
And one of his gigantic hits you could get on one of his reasonably priced CDs.
There. Duty done. He has many fans. You could be one too.
posted at
6:10 pm
by
CountryPunk
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Guilty Pleasures
DEPRESSINGNESS? Things have reached a fairly apocalyptic pitch here in South Jersey. There's been flu, a blizzard, a lengthy power outage that may have cost me all first drafts and image files of my entire contribution to InstaPunk (plus my antique versions of PhotoShop and AnimationShop), and another blizzard on the way tonight. Perhaps that's why I was moved by the act of courage represented by BigHollywood's John Nolte and his piece today revealing his "Uncool" favorites. He lists a bunch of movies he loves and watches that conventional wisdom would laugh at him for loving and watching.
It amounts to a kind of defiant confession. Well, confession goes with apocalypse, does it not? And by serendicity, Mrs. CP and I had also had a confessional moment just a couple of days ago, when in response to a TV promo for The Bodyguard we both admitted -- me more reluctantly than she -- that we secretly loved Whitney Houston's recording of "I Will Always Love You."
A saccharine, sentimental, monotonal mess of a song written and first performed by Dolly Parton, who also happens to be one of my other Guilty Pleasures, a sweet and beguiling woman who cheerfully compares her own singing to the vocalizations of a nanny goat. She's right but I admire her anyway. She's an incorporated powerhouse with her own theme park, but she's still sweet. That buys her a pass on her ridiculous hair and chest balloons in my book. And I will "always" listen to the Whitney Houston version of Dolly's song when it plays on the radio or in the movie because there is something pure and wistful and stirring about it. It's an anthem of women's capacity for love that if you've ever been on the receiving end of it can bring you to your knees.
So. Without image-editing capability and staring into the teeth of another two feet of snow, I'm determined to confess my own bunch of Guilty Pleasures. They're not all critically scorned things, though most are. They're songs and movies and TV shows and books and authors and performers I've either jeered at in the past or never admitted liking because it was, yes, not cool to like them. In other words, they're things I like but find embarrassing to admit I like. Some of them are very embarrassing, fuel for future commenter cheap shots for, well, ever. You're all welcome to share your own Guilty Pleasures, as well as heap scorn upon me for mine.
My only defense here is that I'm not going to organize the entries. You'll have to do some work of your own to synthesize and summarize the weaknesses of my poorest taste in various media. Other than that, have at it and do your worst.
The Confessions:
Paul Gallico
As a writer, I think first of my guiltiest pleasure of all, two works by Paul Gallico, the most gushingly sentimental writer in all my reading who, for me at least, gets away with it by the brazen nakedness of his technique. Tops on the list is a story called "Thicker than Water," which when I still owned the book it appeared in (can't find it for you) I couldn't stop rereading. An awful story. Execrable in every critical regard, except that I just loved reading it. Got me every time. More like a song than a story. Now I find that it's included in a book of the 36 greatest boxing stories ever written. I'll never buy that book. I don't want to find out just how diseased my powers of discrimination are when the subject is boxing.
To prove how bad it is I can tell you the gist in about a hundred words. In World War II, Joey, the younger brother of a champion boxer who died in the war is prizefighting to keep his family afloat, but despite great technique, he consistently loses because he's yellow. The first time he gets hit a real shot, he folds and gets knocked out. Because of this he finds it harder and harder to get fights until he gets a chance to be a stepping stone (designated victim) in the surging career of a slugger who's working his way to a title shot. Oh. The thing that we, and Joey, never knew before the climactic round of the fight? Joey once got a blood transfusion from his now departed brother.
You see? I cringe just telling you about it. Maybe Paul Gallico could write. That's all I can hope for. People who remember such things still remember his novella, The Snow Goose. Which I can also reread at a moment's notice. I'm pretty sure it's a character defect of mine.
Jimmy Rodgers
Yeah. The yodeller.
I could make excuses. He essentially began the country music industry by recording his songs at Victor records in Camden, NJ. He also had a compelling life story, a railroad man who became a singing star only to die young of tuberculosis, about which he sang honestly and humorously. Thing is, I actually like his music. Something simple and vital and affecting about it. Sorry.
Independence Day, the Fourth of July
I could write a whole essay about everything that's wrong with this movie. The fighter pilot president who refuses to use nukes even against alien invaders. The mysterious compatibility between Apple computers and alien technology. The increasingly annoying Yiddish affect of Judd Hirsch in his post-Taxi roles. And the inclusion of every possible clichee of both soap opera and Irwin Allen disaster movies in a single monstrously absurd blockbuster. The first time I saw it was in the company of wits who would make the Mystery Science Theater crowd look lame, and we laughed ourselves sick late into the night. It was a veritable tsunami of scorn.
Only problem -- I like watching this movie. It's fun. The clichees are well played. The climax and the denouement are satisfying. It's Hollywood doing what Hollywood does best when it's not posturing but entertaining.
Kanye West
I've tired people out making a case for Eminem. Along the way I've dissed most hip hop recording artists. And I particularly dislike Kanye West for his loony-toon narcissism and his politics. But I like this cut.
Ernest Hemingway
I've written a bunch about this guy over the years. I've called him the end of fiction, the ego-bloated pied piper who led even his fiercest critics off the cliff of transforming imagination into personal reportage. I've ridiculed his concepts of "the one true sentence" and the "one thing" that lies at the heart of any true experience.
What I keep leaving out is that despite the fact that he was a poseur and a prick, he was also a spectacularly gifted writer. "The Sun Also Rises," amputated of its initial anti-semitic chapters, is still one of the ten best novels of the twentieth century.
And, worse for me personally, this isn't simply an intellectual assessment. The Truth: my pick for a book to read on an airplane, when you're above the clouds in the clear blue miles above the earth, is Hemingway. Anything Hemingway. That's his domain. That's where it all clicks. Clean and clear and blue. The meaning streams.
I just wish he'd kept his mouth shut about what writing "is." Like Picasso learned to keep quiet about what painting "is." I love them both for what they did. Hate them both for what they said.
Haddaway
Love it. No apologies. Iconic. Fun, funny, and sexy. If you can survive parody, you're the real thing. Everybody starts dancing when this starts playing. That's the real joke behind the parodies. It's so good it can't be reduced even by ridicule.
Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet
So he cut 30 or 40 percent of the play out of his script. And junked it all up with syrupy music. I was an English major. These things matter. But I'm still in love with Olivia Hussey in this movie. All these years later. Embarrassingly.
I wouldn't tell this to most English majors, but I'm thinking Shakespeare would have regarded this as the best of a very long line of pretentious movies made of his plays. That's just me, though. Most other Shakespeare critics wouldn't put much credence in a movie's power to give an adolescent a hard-on. Much better to wax lyrical about Olivier's Hamlet. (Yawn.)
Neil Diamond
This is one I'd never have admitted without Mrs. CP, who is always unabashed about what she likes and doesn't. She makes total strangers watch "M" and "Alexander Nevsky" because it's good for them, and she's equally forthright about wanting, when she discovered I had a zillion inherited LPs and a turntable, to hear this guy. She likes him. So do I. Only I have to peel away all my dismissive knowledge first -- his virtual illiteracy, his mountainous hair, his lack of genre identity (country? pop? Vegas pimp?) Sometimes you just have to let go and respond. He's dramatic, sincere, unique, lyrical, and operatic without knowing what opera even is. I'm persuadedconverted. Shut up.
uuuh. Have to break off here. Deals to be made about plowing in anticipation of future plowing. So let me know if you like this post and want more humiliating confessions. Of which there are many to come.
UPDATE. Another checks in. A critically hated film someone likes. I dimly remember it. But it's someone's Guilty Pleasure. Admire his passion:
Maybe it's better than I thought. Read his comment. I'm impressed. [You, too, can be enshrined here, for your courage and vision.]
