I am constantly amazed by what I choose to remember and choose to forget. The small, vital factoids that push me through a conversation drift like breath in 20-degree temperatures. The key word on the very tippity-tip of my tongue never gets out without the serious throwing of shapes and much anguish, yet I can still recall a Datsun commercial from sometime around the 1980s, featuring two Asian men calling themselves The Wong Bros. and announcing a year-end sell-a-thon. In Steve Martin-esque fashion, they shouted at the camera, shaking various degrees of late ’70s bling, “We’re the Wong Brothers! We are two party guys!” I’m dead serious about this.
Clearly this ad wouldn’t have a chance in hell if it was aired today. Even Six Flags came under fire last year for commercials with a barking Asian man rating “fun” situations – One Flag! Six Flags, more fun! This year, he was replaced by their creepy old (meaning younger person in old man prosthetics) dancing man character. If Nissan Motors resurrected those wacky Wongs, it would trigger a thermonuclear public relations implosion. This isn’t about political correctness or incorrectness, though. After several decades, the Wongs are still with me. As a piece of advertising, that means it was highly effective. As anything more than a jumping off point for this piece, though? Not so much. (more…)
You don’t remember what I was talking about last week. I’ll just move on to — what? You say you do remember? Oh. Crap.
The crux of last week’s column was my belief that there’s no solid reason to be hard on Jay Leno, no matter how bad his show might be, because NBC wouldn’t do anything innovative with the timeslot anyhow. They’d probably fill the space with more dramas about lawyers, cops and doctors. This statement was mildly controversial, spurring a light flurry of responses along the lines of, “If it’s good television, it wouldn’t matter if it is about lawyers, cops and doctors,” and on this I will agree to disagree. With all the stories television can tell, I’m still perplexed by viewers’ seemingly insatiable desire to revolve around these three occupations. This, however, was not the problem with what I wrote.
No, that would be what I said regarding the canceled series Southland. We’ll get into the whys and wherefores in a moment, but the responses (which came fast, furious and often) tended to fit into three categories:
1. “You’re stupid & dumb & stupid.” – If you’ve posted a public column and haven’t been called this at least once, check if your PC or Mac is powered up, because you certainly haven’t been writing on the Internet. Calling someone an idiot on this thing is as common as muck.
2. “You’re a liar.” – When I approach this column and write, I base it on information I have gathered, period. Fabrication serves absolutely no purpose. When I say I’ve received information, you can be sure I’m telling the truth. In the final analysis, though, my defensive pose is fatally compromised. Sure, I’m saying with my heart on my sleeve that I’m giving you the truth as I’ve heard and seen it, but that’s all blah-blah and rubbish when faced with… (more…)
I have not come to refute the claims of editor-in-chief Jeff Giles, because it would be pointless. NBC is slowly finding out just how pointless, in fact, as they proceed to take a pounding from their advertisers and affiliates for their penny wisdom. “Jay Leno is beloved,” they said. “Jay’s fans are loyal, ” they said. What NBC brass feared was losing Leno to ABC, who probably would have snapped him up right quick, dumping Jimmy Kimmel like, well, like Sarah Silverman dumped Jimmy Kimmel (What, too soon?) With the costs rising by the year for scripted programs, the nighttime dramas leading the charge with more explosions, dead body mannequins and pricier locations, the Peacock network sought to kill two birds with one formerly skunk-haired stone. Talk shows are cheap. Run one five times a week and tell David E. Kelley to take his tired crap elsewhere. And with Jay, you get an instant audience! Win-win!
Only now, NBC has to wonder if the sponsors clamoring to back out of the 10 PM timeslot, and the money they represent, is more or less than the expenditure they would have otherwise incurred. Jay Leno, it seems, has become an albatross around the network’s neck, and if you think the added pressure would have caused him to step up his game and liven up the show, you probably were thinking this was originally a pretty good idea. No, the show still sucks.
But give Jay the teeny-tiniest break here. What would they have run in that slot if they hadn’t taken the big gamble? As I’ve said many times before: lawyers, cops and doctors. If for no better reason, give the big man a pat on the back for at least momentarily derailing the same old hackneyed, worn out and blood-drained train of thought that has plagued these “wonderful” nighttime dramas lo these many, many moons. It has been a long time since St. Elsewhere, L.A. Law and Hill Street Blues and, unlike the diehard loyalists, I don’t think the last couple seasons of ER were anywhere near the level of the first three. But there’s no doubt in my mind that without Leno shoving his chin into that ten o’clock dike, the dam would burst forth with edgy cops with hearts of gold, horny doctors still adherent to the Hippocratic Oath and lawyers who’ll do anything to win, but they won’t do that (No, no, they won’t do that.) (more…)
Yeah, I’m rather shocked myself, but it seems like Herr Fuhrer is YouTube’s latest viral go-to guy. The new black is “reich,” as it were.
If you have no clue, or you’re still digesting the last of Tay Zonday mania (remember him?), then you’ve been away from the Web for a long time. On the sliding scale of the Internet time-space continuum, a long time is equal to the distance between last Wednesday and the Wednesday previous to that multiplied by the rate of your Twitter tweeting frequency, wOOt, and ROFLMFAO, and cubed at the rate of EPIC FAIL.
The specific scene used in these YouTube videos comes from a 2004 German film called Der Untergang, or Downfall, as it’s known in English-speaking countries. Hitler is portrayed by Bruno Ganz in a bit of foam-frothing scenery munching, and in the specifically co-opted scene, he’s being debriefed by his staff. Much to his chagrin, bad news has been delivered. He summons all but his inner circle to leave the war room and, upon their exit, goes absolutely apeshit.
I attempted to find a word that’s more becoming of a respected writer. Something less crude. Something with more imagination and depth. But it can’t be done. Hitler goes apeshit, and that’s all there is to it. And therein lies the fun — I couldn’t find a better word, but because everyone in the film is speaking German, anyone with a video graphics program can find their own words, plop them on-screen as subtitles, and make Adolf into whatever they please.
The outburst heard ’round the nation, at least until Kanye West co-opted the mike: South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson’s interjection during President Obama’s health care pitch to Congress. A million would-be pundits and chat show hosts have ruminated on it, the masses have reviled him as well as lauded him, backing their positions up with donations to electoral funds, and even former President Jimmy Carter has weighed in. Carter’s belief that “You lie!” was racially motivated seems genuine but, at the same time, heavily influenced by Maureen Dowd’s column on the subject, titled “Boy Oh Boy.”
I’m split down the middle on the racism of the comment. Standing alone, it bears zero indication of racial prejudice. It can be interpreted in a thousand ways, and has, but itself is not inflammatory. It’s all in how the listener interprets it that gives it the bulk of the controversy, and so there’s no way of crying racism beyond a shadow of doubt. As two words stitched together, intention is loaded with nothing but doubt. At the same time, though, the fact that the very white Congressman Wilson felt he could just blurt this out while the very black President was giving a speech, a disrespect he might not have shown were it a good-ol’-boy fellow in Obama’s stead, is one that would cause people to see prejudice.
I could go on for several more paragraphs about how George W. Bush was soundly boo’ed at the last few congressional speeches he made, but then I would have to weigh the emotional impact of the sound ‘boo’ versus implying the President is a liar. For some, they’re equally insulting; for others, the two hardly compare. I speculate that your take on it will depend on what side of the aisle you choose to sit on (and perhaps your willingness to reach across said aisle would play into the equation as well.) (more…)
I think you’ve gotten us all wrong, and it’s time to set the record straight.
I’m not going to say there isn’t a contingent of malcontents in the field of criticism, because that would be a lie. There are plenty of people who got into the game because of a grudge against that which they’ve chosen to review. I once knew a movie critic, a local guy for a local newspaper, who frequently and regularly savaged the films he saw. It didn’t matter what it was — comedy, drama, animation, universally lauded, universally panned, the danger money was on him trashing the subject. In the meantime, he shopped spec scripts to agents and sent off treatments to studios. The more he sent, the more he was rejected. The more he was rejected, the nastier his criticism became. His reportage was venomous, like hate notes from a spurned lover.
That, right there, is the underlying truth. Even though that writer was an exception to the rule, approaching everything with aforethought disappointment, most of us critics don’t and it is because we’re still in love, if not with the media of our choosing then with the promise that’s always there. Somewhere in our adolescent lives, we stumbled into a movie theater and saw something that set our eyes on fire, made the blood flow a little faster, gave us something we hadn’t experienced up to that point. For me, it was music and I can’t very well say when it first caught on. Was it my mother’s records of The Coasters Greatest Hits, or The Fifth Dimension or even “Cathy’s Clown” by The Everly Brothers? Was it Dad crooning along to Sinatra and Perry Como on those long, languid summer drives? Was it when we lived in that rental house and I played the 45 RPM record of E.L.O.’s “Can’t Get It Out Of My Head” until the sunset, and I stared at that beige United Artists record label spin ’round and ’round? Was it that weird, unsteady feeling I got when the right chords were strung along, exploding into a surprising and pleasant direction? There is a love there that is almost impossible to adequately describe, but is there in most critics. (more…)
This week, I’m taking a cue from Popdose’s own Uncle Donnie (and not from my cousin Donnie, thank you very much) to offer up a little pre-emptive career advice. It was made known recently that Kiss would be releasing a three-disc, brand new album soon, it would be an exclusive to WalMart, and it should have the Lazarus-like qualities found in Journey’s last album, Revelations. Oh, I had something to say about it, but only after its release, as one of the curious benefits of being a WalMart exclusive is that you don’t have to market your band to the critics – meaning you critics are probably not getting promotional copies with which to skewer the provider. You’ll buy your review copy like everybody else.
What does all this have to do with Mick Jones? Well, aside from the fact that the Clash’s Mick Jones gets all the love while Foreigner’s Mick Jones has to keep reminding folks he’s not the Clash’s Mick Jones, Kiss just pooped on his band’s parade ground, for only a week or so prior to Kiss’ announcement for the upcoming Sonic Boom, Jones was lightly basking in the pale, lukewarm glow of his band’s own impending WalMart release, Can’t Slow Down. He has a few handicaps already doing the exact opposite of his CD’s title. First of all, Lou Gramm is not the vocalist on the album. Since his conversion to Christianity, his bouts with cancer and the plain old truth that he doesn’t sound much like Lou Gramm anymore, Foreigner has necessarily had to employ the services of former Hurricane vocalist Kelly Hansen. I refuse to take shots at this situation because, for all I know, Hansen might be a great addition. I’ve never heard him sing, so he’s getting a pass. However, he’s not the only addition to the group. Mick Jones is the sole original member of Foreigner now. But these things happen to bands after 30 or so years. At any rate, this new album was getting a fair amount of write-up on the rock blogs and such until, whap, Gene Simmons went and barfed Karo syrup and red dye #5 all over Can’t Slow Down. Those same blogs are now inundated with Kiss blurbs on a daily basis. (more…)
One of the nicest things about writing for Popdose is that I’m surrounded by people that do stuff. Among our ranks are actual musicians, actors, dancers, screenwriters, and filmmakers, as well as accomplished writers. It’s not like some sites (that taste precludes me from mentioning) where the staff is filled by people whose dreams and talents crashed and burned, so they spend their digital days ragging on those who have succeeded.
Shortly after our very own Arend Anton previewed a trailer he made for a project he was working on, Red Gold, I sent him some audio files. I started in earnest on a new instrumental recording, going a little more ambient and a lot more ‘filmic’ and thought, just maybe, Arend could create a video for these two tracks. I wasn’t going to hold my breath, though. After all, creative types are known for a perpetual lack of fundage, he might be needing a few bucks for his efforts and, not coincidentally, I had none to offer. (more…)
I was over a friend’s house recently when his son burst into the living room proclaiming he was going to start a rock band with his friends. It was a scene I participated in many times during my youth, the thrill of the larger-than-life expectations undiminished yet by that dreaded “real world.” Being a supportive “uncle” I offered to show him some guitar chords and a few tricks he could probably get by with. Lord knows how some of these golden fakes served me.
The young boy looked at me with the most quizzical eyes, as if I had just recited The Iliad in Esperanto while standing on my head. “What are chords?” he asked.
“He’s talking about forming a ‘Rock Band’ band, not a real band,” his father confided to me. The boy gnashed his teeth and spun out of the room, infuriated by his father’s distinction. Yes, this kid was talking about forming a digital equivalent of a band with his friends through his X-Box, not the actual process of writing and performing songs but, in his mind, the two were one and the same. “Don’t be offended. He gets like that lately.”
I found the whole concept depressing. A few generations ago, the story went that The Velvet Underground weren’t huge but everyone who saw them play formed their own band. Although Nirvana was a lot more successful, they too spawned a legion of guitar slingers with this notion that it could be done. The thought that those days were past us and now the act of creativity was relegated to just as much vector spaceships spinning to blast ‘asteroids’ weighed heavily on me for a good long while. I’m not alone in this either. By doing a little reaseach – well, okay, more like a little web-surfing – I’ve found an undercurrent voicing this same opinion, that creative, artistic expression is slowly being co-opted by facsimile. Some go as far as dubbing it “art porn” though that may be too harsh. (more…)
May is the unofficial start of the summer concert season, so to unofficially celebrate the shows of 2009, Popdose.com and internet radio station The Penguin have teamed up for Penguimania 2009. Tune in each Wednesday at 9:00 EST for Radioshow With Dw. Dunphy to hear the live performance megamix in full. Then each week we’ll present a downloadable MP3 of a set from the “concert.”
Starting off this, the final set of Penguimania 2009, is King’s X with a breakout track from the Ear Candy album. “Mississippi Moon” features guitarist Ty Tabor on vocals.
From their eponymous “Island Album,” known as such as it was their sole release on the Island label, The 77’s tear through their original “Pearls Before Swine.” The live version was the first recording of the tune, and subsequent studio recordings were put to tape with the command, “Play it like you did live.”
Technically the last Pink Floyd song being it was the final track of The Division Bell, the last studio Floyd album (we can dispense with the Roger Waters/not Roger Waters argument on another day,) “High Hopes” represents the band at its most ornate and orchestral.
Recorded during the tour of his hugely popular album The Stranger, Billy Joel closes it all out with “Say Goodbye to Hollywood,” in part a tribute to the Phil Spector/Ronettes pop sound.
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That’s it! Thanks for enjoying Penguimania 2009 and don’t forget: you can enjoy the entire mix over at The Penguin, Wednesday nights starting at 9:00 PM EST: find it at www.thepenguinrocks.com. Popdose and The Penguin wish you your best concert experiences this summer. I’ll be back next week when we return to Dw. Dunphy On…
, L.A. Law and 
and, unlike the diehard loyalists, I don’t think the last couple seasons of 
were anywhere near the level of the first three. But there’s no doubt in my mind that without Leno shoving his chin into that ten o’clock dike, the dam would burst forth with edgy cops with hearts of gold, horny doctors still adherent to the Hippocratic Oath and lawyers who’ll do anything to win, but they won’t do that (No, no, they won’t do that.) 
