--OK, stress is a mother. I have never handled stress well. I'm a person who likes to focus on one project at a time. I can go beginning to end, wrap that up, and then on to the next. But life is rarely like that. When I have to juggle three or four or six different projects or situations all at once, I start to feel like I have a 100-pound pack on my back, like Sisyphus rolling the rock up the hill on the daily, I feel like I will never see the light at the end of the tunnel. My eyes get a little wild, my breathing gets a little on the hyper side, and the timbre of my voice starts to rise into Minnie Mouse territory, squeezed by my escalating anxiety. (People can always tell my mood when I answer the phone by the level of my voice). Oh -- and my back goes out. I have a nasty crick in my neck right now. Of course, having a crick in the neck or kink in the back goes a long way toward easing the already troublesome flow -- NOT!
I'm not going to get into all that has me taking shallow breaths these days. It's all so minuscule in the scope of a world where Lebanon and Israel are exchanging bombs, soldiers are falling in Iraq every day, residents of the Gulf Coast are still sifting through the rubble almost a year later, and gas prices are rocketing into the stratosphere. Some people would count my little work and home dilemmas as blessings compared to what they have going on. So I need to CHILL.
I know I should be calm. Life IS problems, as an old boyfriend used to say. But I was raised to expect things to be smooth sailing with no surprises by a mother who seemed in shock whenever things went awry. Which was basically all the time. I am trying to unlearn the example of her responses, but it's hard. I mean, why SHOULDN'T things be smooth as glass all the time, dammit???
It's hard to keep all the balls in the air when I take time out of my busy schedule to blog. I guess whatever crushing pressure develops from my ongoing procrastination is only my just desserts. Pass me a spoon and some whipped topping. As a character in one of my favorite novels says, You just hungry, chile, that's why you carrying on this way.
So in addition to snacking my way happy, what improves the mood? Music.
--MMMmmm, that new Beyonce track is Hot Hot HOT! Deja Vu has a great sound, it's like an event record, the same way Crazy In Love sounded BIG coming through the speakers. I think it's the horns and the percussion that take it there. Very few R&B/pop records these days have big, brassy horn lines in them, sampled or otherwise. The single has that uncanny feeling of something you've heard before, though you know you haven't. I'm anxious to see more of the all-girl band, too. I'm not mad at Miss B at all.
I got to interview Beyonce just once, at a photo shoot for a magazine about six or seven years ago when Destiny's Child had just dumped LeToya (who's now rising to the top with her own single) and LeTavia and taken on Michelle and a fourth girl who didn't last long, Farrah. I was just completely charmed by Beyonce, she was like this polite, well-bred Southern girl. It seemed like an act at first, like something put on for journalists, the Houston accent and all. But I finally got that it's her way. Sweet on the outside, tough on the inside. Tough, but not ... rough. Maybe I just want to relate to her because I'm also a Virgo with big mama thighs. Ha!
An addendum: Writing that story was among the most unpleasant journalism experiences I've had. In trying to run down the inside facts of why the other half of DC got dumped, I later tried to press some of the group's entourage for details, and got cussed out and hung up on by hair, makeup, and security people and read the riot act by Papa Matt. Hey -- I was just doing my job, though I felt a little icky about it. I didn't ask them anything outrageous, just if they had any factual tidbits that they could even supply anonymously. This was before news of the lawsuits came out. I'm sure their loyalty was well rewarded over time.
Will I ever get to interview Miss B again? Time will tell.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Superman Recycled
Hollywood's got nerve. We knew this, but still. Ripoffs abound. Bad enough theaters show you a half hour of bad commercials and charge you a grip to get in, then the big studios fail to deliver half the time. Now they serve leftovers.
On Saturday night, the Man wanted to go to the movies, which was fine. It was hot as all heck in the San Fernando Valley, a theater was the best spot to literally chill in. The Man also wanted to check out Superman Returns. Fine with me. I'm not a comic book fan by any stretch of the imagination (I had to be restrained from getting my money back within the first five minutes of Unbreakable, when that overrated Shyamalan character posted some superhero mythology gobbledygook onscreen at the top of the flick), but the first two X-Men movies were cool, and I dug Spiderman. OK.
Again, within the first five minutes of Superman Returns I smelled a rat. Starting with the opening credit sequence. Uh, that music sounds darned familiar. And the swooping blue holographic screen credits seem awfully been-there-done-that. Wake me, shake me, is it 1978? Why does director Bryan Singer recycle the same exact elements, John Williams score and all, from the 1978 Christopher Reeve flick? I know it was great the first time around, no question, but no updates, no add-ons, no remixes? I mean, that's just CHEAP. Like watching the TV movie version. As an audience member I already felt insulted and swindled, like a professor whose student grinningly turns in a plagiarized paper. Perhaps he meant it as an homage, but it felt more like frommage (uh, cheese). I guess that's what I get for being old enough to have experienced the first Superman in an actual movie theater. I wouldn't even have known if I was 20 years younger.
Spoiler Alert: (although how much of a spoiler could it be if you've already seen the weekend box office numbers?) Things did not, as they say, get better from there. The flick was just OK. The director banked on the audience already knowing the Superman story inside and out. And while he felt it necessary to waste a lot of time on fancy flashbacks with old Brando footage and a childhood cornfield sequence, he spent too little time on character development. We liked Superman once, hey -- we'll like him again! But that doesn't always work with a new actor (Kilmer, Clooney as Batman, anyone?)
Brandon Routh fills out his tights quite nicely (seems the suit is one of the things they spent money to update) but doesn't have much to say that's new or original or interesting and spends most of the flick imitating the dearly departed Chris Reeve or posing like cells from the original DC comic. And Kate Bosworth? Sweet girl, badly miscast. Lois Lane should have been played by Parker Posey, who livens up any flick, and who gamely injects humor and pathos into the minimal character of Lex Luthor's moll. Kevin Spacey strikes the right note of nastiness as Luthor and he has some great lines. I'd also throw a few Oscar nominations at the set designers and set dressers--nice art deco touches--but the costumes are a weird mix of 2006 and 1946. But the movie is looooooooong. Just when you think it's over, there's ... more. And more. And more.
Well, don't listen to me. I'm the ancient chick who went to the original Superman in a theater on 34th Street in New York where mice ran up and down the rows to get fallen candy. My screams should have summoned all the residents of Krypton.
On Saturday night, the Man wanted to go to the movies, which was fine. It was hot as all heck in the San Fernando Valley, a theater was the best spot to literally chill in. The Man also wanted to check out Superman Returns. Fine with me. I'm not a comic book fan by any stretch of the imagination (I had to be restrained from getting my money back within the first five minutes of Unbreakable, when that overrated Shyamalan character posted some superhero mythology gobbledygook onscreen at the top of the flick), but the first two X-Men movies were cool, and I dug Spiderman. OK.
Again, within the first five minutes of Superman Returns I smelled a rat. Starting with the opening credit sequence. Uh, that music sounds darned familiar. And the swooping blue holographic screen credits seem awfully been-there-done-that. Wake me, shake me, is it 1978? Why does director Bryan Singer recycle the same exact elements, John Williams score and all, from the 1978 Christopher Reeve flick? I know it was great the first time around, no question, but no updates, no add-ons, no remixes? I mean, that's just CHEAP. Like watching the TV movie version. As an audience member I already felt insulted and swindled, like a professor whose student grinningly turns in a plagiarized paper. Perhaps he meant it as an homage, but it felt more like frommage (uh, cheese). I guess that's what I get for being old enough to have experienced the first Superman in an actual movie theater. I wouldn't even have known if I was 20 years younger.
Spoiler Alert: (although how much of a spoiler could it be if you've already seen the weekend box office numbers?) Things did not, as they say, get better from there. The flick was just OK. The director banked on the audience already knowing the Superman story inside and out. And while he felt it necessary to waste a lot of time on fancy flashbacks with old Brando footage and a childhood cornfield sequence, he spent too little time on character development. We liked Superman once, hey -- we'll like him again! But that doesn't always work with a new actor (Kilmer, Clooney as Batman, anyone?)
Brandon Routh fills out his tights quite nicely (seems the suit is one of the things they spent money to update) but doesn't have much to say that's new or original or interesting and spends most of the flick imitating the dearly departed Chris Reeve or posing like cells from the original DC comic. And Kate Bosworth? Sweet girl, badly miscast. Lois Lane should have been played by Parker Posey, who livens up any flick, and who gamely injects humor and pathos into the minimal character of Lex Luthor's moll. Kevin Spacey strikes the right note of nastiness as Luthor and he has some great lines. I'd also throw a few Oscar nominations at the set designers and set dressers--nice art deco touches--but the costumes are a weird mix of 2006 and 1946. But the movie is looooooooong. Just when you think it's over, there's ... more. And more. And more.
Well, don't listen to me. I'm the ancient chick who went to the original Superman in a theater on 34th Street in New York where mice ran up and down the rows to get fallen candy. My screams should have summoned all the residents of Krypton.
Friday, July 07, 2006
Welcome to the Blog
Welcome to the blog.
Why does this phrase make me think of Blue Magic's "Welcome To The Club"? For two reasons: I just got back from Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love (true true) "and Sisterly Affection," as one of my girlfriends is known to say. Philly is where Blue Magic got its start, blah blah bah. Philly is a happening spot these days... more on that later.
Second reason: I'm a product of the early disco years in New York, when "Welcome To The Club" was a dancefloor "hustle" record. Guess I'm giving away my age. But believe me when I say that I was a mere slip of a girl when I was sneaking into Nell Gwynne's, the Loft, the Buttermilk Bottom, and later going to Impanema's, Pegasus, the Colli Bron, Leviticus, Justine's, and the mecca of the Paradise Garage, among others.
As a South Bronx chica, I wanted to be slick and worldly, hip and happening at 15 and 16, and I just wanted to dance. Nobody I knew talked about going to the gym, doing yoga, or lifting weights back then. It was just putting on your disco purse with your lipgloss and your mad money and dancing for five hours straight, with or without a partner. And if I had to navigate the subways, the pre-sexual harrassment law negroes trying to cop a feel, the fascinating world of homosexual culture, the drugs in the bathrooms and the acid in the punch to get my dance on, that's what I did. And I have great memories. They're embedded with the music.
I've been re-living those years recently by reading this book "Love Saves The Day: A History Of American Dance Music Culture 1970 - 1979" by Tim Lawrence. It's a fascinating look back at New York's club culture after the '60s, and how "disco" grew and then died. The book is written from a mostly white gay male perspective, but it mentions many of the DJs, the clubs, and the records that I remember. It's the first book that I've read about dance music that really and truly captures the joy and abandon of the dancing itself, the power of the music to liberate people from their everyday selves and allow them to revel physically in the melody and the rhythm. For many people discos were about drinking or finding sex partners--only if you were a true dancer did you understand why Larry Levan of the Paradise Garage is still so revered.
Growing up in the Bronx meant I witnessed the birth of hip-hop as well, but it seemed to me a mostly male aggressive phenomenon that didn't capture my imagination as much as the orchestral romance of Philly International, the drama of Ecstasy Passion & Pain, the wisdom of Loleatta Holloway, the soulful pleading and breakdown of Eddie Kendricks' "Girl You Need A Change Of Mind." I heard Kool Herc spin, Grandmaster Flowers, and others. Rollerskated at the Empire Ballroom. Went to hip-hop parties. But I was about the dance, now known as disco. As usual, what began as a hip, underground, black/gay thang got co-opted for mass consumption with bad records, gimmicks, and tourists. Then the headbangers of the rock world--who couldn't snap their fingers to a beat if they wanted to--got together and shot disco dead.
Now it's 25 years later and I haven't danced as long, as creatively, or with as much sense of liberation or celebration as I did back then. I'll admit it: I miss the Nightlife, I miss the Boogie. It's so unfashionable to say so.
Anyway, was in Philly to witness the first Rhythm & Blues Foundation Pioneer Awards in three years. Very nice event, honoring the legendary artists who made great music, toured the country during times when segregation was still the law of the land, and many times did not get the royalties or the accolades their artistry deserved. Frankie Beverly & Maze -- who doesn't know or like their music? They had never really received any real honors, but Frankie was on stage to get his Pioneer Award. Barbara "Yes I'm Ready" Mason, still adorable, still in good voice, also honored. Chubby Checker, whose "The Twist" permanently altered dance floor dynamics; Bettye Lavette, who watched all her Detroit friends sign to Motown and become stars as she struggled for years to have her earthy R&B style heard; the brilliant songwriter and arranger Thom Bell whose astounding orchestrations made the Delfonics, Stylistics, and others sound so lush and multilayered; and the Delfonics themselves, La La means I Love YOU, my brothers.
Berry Gordy, looking like an aging rock star (clean! clean!) received a lifetime achievement award, and Philadelphia International's Gamble & Huff nearly swooned as they presented it, being as Gordy's Motown operation inspired them to soar with their own legendary musical imprint. Smokey Robinson and Patti LaBelle co-hosted; and as usual, Miss Patti was doing things her way, going off the script at the top of the show while Smokey tried to endure. I won't get all into her shenanigans--too much respect for her pipes (and LaBelle in their silver spacesuits dominated my imagination during the Disco Years)--but really. Someone needs to invent a pill for Diva Syndrome.
There are plans afoot for a major National Center For Rhythm & Blues to be established within Philadelphia within the next few years. As Gamble says, Not the home OF rhythm & blues, because many cities can lay claim to the title, but a home FOR rhythm & blues, a place where the music and its history can be cradled and nurtured and promoted. Love it. Maybe with more visibility for the music as its own distinct style (not under rock, as its listed in the All Music Guide, or as an offshoot of the blues) it can grow again. It's already starting, thanks to a bunch of artists who don't want to be known as "neo soul." Come to think of it, many of them came from Philly.
Stay tuned.
Why does this phrase make me think of Blue Magic's "Welcome To The Club"? For two reasons: I just got back from Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love (true true) "and Sisterly Affection," as one of my girlfriends is known to say. Philly is where Blue Magic got its start, blah blah bah. Philly is a happening spot these days... more on that later.
Second reason: I'm a product of the early disco years in New York, when "Welcome To The Club" was a dancefloor "hustle" record. Guess I'm giving away my age. But believe me when I say that I was a mere slip of a girl when I was sneaking into Nell Gwynne's, the Loft, the Buttermilk Bottom, and later going to Impanema's, Pegasus, the Colli Bron, Leviticus, Justine's, and the mecca of the Paradise Garage, among others.
As a South Bronx chica, I wanted to be slick and worldly, hip and happening at 15 and 16, and I just wanted to dance. Nobody I knew talked about going to the gym, doing yoga, or lifting weights back then. It was just putting on your disco purse with your lipgloss and your mad money and dancing for five hours straight, with or without a partner. And if I had to navigate the subways, the pre-sexual harrassment law negroes trying to cop a feel, the fascinating world of homosexual culture, the drugs in the bathrooms and the acid in the punch to get my dance on, that's what I did. And I have great memories. They're embedded with the music.
I've been re-living those years recently by reading this book "Love Saves The Day: A History Of American Dance Music Culture 1970 - 1979" by Tim Lawrence. It's a fascinating look back at New York's club culture after the '60s, and how "disco" grew and then died. The book is written from a mostly white gay male perspective, but it mentions many of the DJs, the clubs, and the records that I remember. It's the first book that I've read about dance music that really and truly captures the joy and abandon of the dancing itself, the power of the music to liberate people from their everyday selves and allow them to revel physically in the melody and the rhythm. For many people discos were about drinking or finding sex partners--only if you were a true dancer did you understand why Larry Levan of the Paradise Garage is still so revered.
Growing up in the Bronx meant I witnessed the birth of hip-hop as well, but it seemed to me a mostly male aggressive phenomenon that didn't capture my imagination as much as the orchestral romance of Philly International, the drama of Ecstasy Passion & Pain, the wisdom of Loleatta Holloway, the soulful pleading and breakdown of Eddie Kendricks' "Girl You Need A Change Of Mind." I heard Kool Herc spin, Grandmaster Flowers, and others. Rollerskated at the Empire Ballroom. Went to hip-hop parties. But I was about the dance, now known as disco. As usual, what began as a hip, underground, black/gay thang got co-opted for mass consumption with bad records, gimmicks, and tourists. Then the headbangers of the rock world--who couldn't snap their fingers to a beat if they wanted to--got together and shot disco dead.
Now it's 25 years later and I haven't danced as long, as creatively, or with as much sense of liberation or celebration as I did back then. I'll admit it: I miss the Nightlife, I miss the Boogie. It's so unfashionable to say so.
Anyway, was in Philly to witness the first Rhythm & Blues Foundation Pioneer Awards in three years. Very nice event, honoring the legendary artists who made great music, toured the country during times when segregation was still the law of the land, and many times did not get the royalties or the accolades their artistry deserved. Frankie Beverly & Maze -- who doesn't know or like their music? They had never really received any real honors, but Frankie was on stage to get his Pioneer Award. Barbara "Yes I'm Ready" Mason, still adorable, still in good voice, also honored. Chubby Checker, whose "The Twist" permanently altered dance floor dynamics; Bettye Lavette, who watched all her Detroit friends sign to Motown and become stars as she struggled for years to have her earthy R&B style heard; the brilliant songwriter and arranger Thom Bell whose astounding orchestrations made the Delfonics, Stylistics, and others sound so lush and multilayered; and the Delfonics themselves, La La means I Love YOU, my brothers.
Berry Gordy, looking like an aging rock star (clean! clean!) received a lifetime achievement award, and Philadelphia International's Gamble & Huff nearly swooned as they presented it, being as Gordy's Motown operation inspired them to soar with their own legendary musical imprint. Smokey Robinson and Patti LaBelle co-hosted; and as usual, Miss Patti was doing things her way, going off the script at the top of the show while Smokey tried to endure. I won't get all into her shenanigans--too much respect for her pipes (and LaBelle in their silver spacesuits dominated my imagination during the Disco Years)--but really. Someone needs to invent a pill for Diva Syndrome.
There are plans afoot for a major National Center For Rhythm & Blues to be established within Philadelphia within the next few years. As Gamble says, Not the home OF rhythm & blues, because many cities can lay claim to the title, but a home FOR rhythm & blues, a place where the music and its history can be cradled and nurtured and promoted. Love it. Maybe with more visibility for the music as its own distinct style (not under rock, as its listed in the All Music Guide, or as an offshoot of the blues) it can grow again. It's already starting, thanks to a bunch of artists who don't want to be known as "neo soul." Come to think of it, many of them came from Philly.
Stay tuned.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)