Wednesday, January 28, 2004

 
BEATLE JUICE.
External link: http://www.beatles.com/

I can't possibly be the first person to think of this, but I think I've put my finger on exactly what made the Beatles so great, and why their greatness has yet to be duplicated, and how to duplicate it.

The insight comes from looking at why John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who collaborated on almost every Beatles song, were so mediocre (let's face it) after they left the band and went their separate ways.

Some of Lennon's solo stuff is very good (notably "Imagine"), but the majority of it is so dark and twisted that it almost seems like there's no melody at all to it. It doesn't pull you in and along the way a Beatle's song does. It pushes you away with its jarring, discordant twists and turns. Likewise the lyrics are often so depressing and dark that they are difficult to face.

Some of Paul McCartney's stuff with "Wings" were very catchy, but they are all so light and empty, both in the tunes and the lyrics, with no big payoff. No strange, satisfying twist, like almost all the songs on the second half of the Beatle's albums.

And that's exactly why they were so, so great together. John's stuff was so dark and meaningful and heavy and difficult, giving a huge payoff, if you'd take the time to really let it grab you and soak into you and take you, fully committed, along for the crazy ride. And Paul's stuff was so inviting and catchy and sweet and easy, and it drew you in and made the song immediately accessible and fun.

Separately they were like two parts of the same brain unable to fully function on their own. But together, the effect was so perfect and magical that nothing quite like it has been achieved before or since. But, if that's really the secret to it, then there's no reason why there can't be a thousand more Eleanor Rigbys and Lucys in the Sky and Days in the Life and Hello Goodbyes and all the rest.

Thinking on it, I think there are a few artists who do hit on this combination, and they are among my favorites. They include Elliott Smith, R.E.M., and the Cranberries. Of those, I think only R.E.M. really strikes as strong a balance between being extremely fun and accessible, and also being extremely strange and satisfying, but their version of strangeness is very different from Lennon's, and seems less deep and meaningful. But that also demonstrates how combining something strange with something sweet and familiar can take you to almost any strange place in a satisfying way. That's probably not just true about music, actually.

This is The Official Record. 12:00 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2004/01/beatle-juice.html


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LAST WEEKEND.
External link: http://www.ucbtheater.com/

On Thursday, I went out with Steve K. and Heidi H. and Maria to Happy Endings bar, which was really nice and quaint with very, very delicious cocktails, which we all let each other taste. Then we counted down the last few seconds to Heidi's Birthday at Ben's Pizza on MacDougall and West 3rd. She insists it's the best pizza in New York, but I think it's in the bottom 10% for Manhattan (which still puts it in the top 10% for the rest of the country).

On Friday, I had dinner with Rob K. on the Upper West Side. Then Bryan C. and I caught a show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. It was a pretty good sketch show by the group "Police Chief Rumble". Then we grabbed a drink at a relaxing bar in the Village that I can never remember the name of. It's on the northwest corner of Houston and Thompson. While we were there, we were talking to a bunch of really interesting people sitting at the table next to us. They were all artist-types, and one of them asked me, as his opening line, "So, what's your medium?" I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Well, I have a blog."

On Saturday, I had brunch at 44 and X with Bryan C. and Ami C. and their friends, a married couple, whose names I'm having trouble remembering. I want to say Jay and Deb? Then we went to Minamoto Kitchoan, a really cool Japanese bakery at 50th Street and Fifth Avenue, in Rockefeller Center. Then we went to Jacques Torres Chocolate a very nifty and famous chocolate shop at 66 Water Street in Brooklyn. Bryan wanted to stock up on sweets for the long trip back to Massachusetts.

Saturday night, I had dinner with Steve K. at Tribeca tavern and we went out to a club for a little while after, and then we hung out at his very nice Soho floor-through apartment.

Sunday, I went for a walk through the Upper West side in the morning and grabbed a quick lunch, and then went home and played video games and watched TV all day.

This is The Official Record. 11:23 AM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2004/01/last-weekend.html


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Friday, January 23, 2004

 
THE MEDIA'S RED-FACED RANT.
External link: http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nypost/526952891.html?did=526952891&FMT=ABS&FMTS=FT

How did this crazy idea that Howard Dean completely destroyed his campaign with his post-iowa "rant" and "screech" pass from a late-night talk-show joke into the conventional wisdom? It was a story the media almost completely missed on the first two days, but then picked up on after the Tonight Show, Late Night With David Letterman, and the Daily Show all made jokes about it the night after it happened. Then the media picked up on it, the following day, the day after the day after it happened, and now they won't let go of it.

But I don't know one person whose opinion is effected one way or the other by that speech. It's just the media completely making up a story, and then repeating it so often that it becomes the conventional wisdom, and later becomes recorded as history. I agree that Dean didn't help himself with that performances, but Dean's campaign has a lot of problems, and that speech is, at most, the very least of them.

Dean's campaign is faltering because of his poorly-worded statement that "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks" alienated almost the entire liberal wing of the party and many moderates. And then his extremely impolitic and poorly timed remark that "the capture of Saddam has not made America safer" alienated almost the entire moderate wing of the party, and many liberals, despite the fact that it is obviously true. Furthermore, as the front runner, he has had to face countless attacks by almost every other opponent in the race, which have born a heavy toll. And then he came in a distant third in Iowa to the candidate who probably has the best chance of beating Bush.

Those are Dean's problems, and they are probably insurmountable. But one overly-impassioned speech to re-rouse the troops after a big loss doesn't bother anybody except, I believe, political pundits who seem obviously to be using their positions to try to affect the outcome of the election in a way that is taking the focus off of the issues.

This is The Official Record. 11:14 AM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2004/01/medias-red-faced-rant.html


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Tuesday, January 20, 2004

 
ALWAYS.
External link:

Remember, no matter how bad things are--no matter how horrible life seems--things can always get worse.

This is The Official Record. 8:49 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2004/01/always.html


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Friday, January 16, 2004

 
BOOK REVIEW: GROWING UP REPUBLICAN (1996) * (1 star out of 4).
External link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060183616/qid=1074273045/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-6150483-5904864?v=glance&s=books

This biography of former New Jersey governor Christie Whitman starts out promising, with author Patricia Beard marveling at the fact that she was given such unfettered access to Whitman's private records. But the book Beard wrote is so fawning and one-sided, that it really fails to convey any insight into her life or character. I have no problem with the ideology expressed in this book or the way it is expressed, and my review has nothing to do with that at all. In fact, I like Governor Whitman, and even when I don't agree with her, I generally find her to be both reasonable and moderate. But in this book, all her successes were against the odds, and all her failures were somebody else's fault. By going so over the top to try to make Whitman seem sympathetic, Beard managed to make her subject come off even more unsympatheticly than she would have if the book were a scathing attack on her.

This is The Official Record. 12:19 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2004/01/book-review-growing-up-republican-1996.html


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MOVIE REVIEW: BIG FISH (2003) * * 1/2 (2 and a half stars out of 4).
External link: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/bigfish/

Tim Burton is probably my favorite living director, but his latest movie, about a man who tells hard-to-believe "fish stories," is not one of his best. Big Fish tries to walk a line that keeps it both outlandishly creative and also straightforwardly charming. But it ends up missing both targets. And while it is often very visually creative, it lacks much of the creepy-cool imagery that characterizes Burton's best films, such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Batman, and even Pee-wee's Big Adventure. I think that if Big Fish had been more outrageous and over the top, it would have been more satisfying on that level, and also more charming and touching at the same time. Also, at two hours and five minutes, the movie definitely felt a little too long. It would have been very easy to take 20 minutes out of that movie, and the result would have been a better, more entertaining film.

This is The Official Record. 12:08 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2004/01/movie-review-big-fish-2003-12-2-and.html


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Monday, January 12, 2004

 
ATTACKING DEAN.
External link:

Why are all the Democratic presidential candidates piling on Howard Dean? Does, say, Joe Lieberman think that if he can erode Dean's support a little bit, then all those people will vote for Lieberman instead? Does Al Sharpton think that? I just don't get that strategy at all.

This is The Official Record. 5:38 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2004/01/attacking-dean.html


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RAPE ROOMS?
External link: http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/dec/17iraq.htm

Bush keeps going on about how the Iraqi military had "rape rooms." What's a rape room? Don't get me wrong-- I am totally against rape, okay? And I don't mean to be in any way dismissive or disrespectful toward anybody who's been raped, whether or not that happened in a rape room. But I just don't understand what a rape room is supposed to be. Is it just any room where a rape occurs? Is it any room that is specifically dedicated to the purpose of raping people in that particular room? Or is it a special room with special features (such as soundproofing, for example) that make it especially suited to the task of raping someone?

More to the point, is "rape room" a real term, or is it a term that the Bush administration just made up to justify invading Iraq? I'm not saying that nobody in Iraq ever raped anybody-- I'm sure that they did, and I'm sure that it sometimes happened in some room or other. But what is a "rape room" exactly? I can't find anything about it on the Internet, except for quotes from Bush, other people with the same question I have, and (from what I can tell from reading the little google description) lots and lots of pornographers selling rape-fetish pornography.

This is The Official Record. 5:33 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2004/01/rape-rooms.html


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LAST WEEKEND.
External link:

On Thursday, I went to Beauty Bar with Steve K. and Heidi H. and Evan. Then Steve and I had a late dinner at Coffee Bar in Union Square.

On Friday, I had Spanish food with Manny F. and Mai X., and then we all saw The Revolution Will Not be Televised.

On Saturday, I went to La Mela with Jessica D. and her uncle and her sister and her sister's boyfriend in Little Italy. We talked about doing something else afterwards, but the single digit temperatures put everyone in the mood to just go home and curl up under the sheets.

This is The Official Record. 5:20 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2004/01/last-weekend_12.html


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I'M BACK.
External link:

I got back from Florida last week, where I grew up. I had a great time with my family and my old friends who still live there, or who have moved around the country, and came back to visit for the holidays, too. We threw a huge New Year's party, and played a lot of family games of poker.

This is The Official Record. 5:14 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2004/01/im-back.html


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Sunday, January 11, 2004

 
NYC RESTAURANT REVIEW: LA MELA * * * (3 stars out of 4).
External link: http://www.lamelarestaurant.com/

La Mela is in Little Italy on 167 Mulberry Street, between Broome and Grand. The food, which is served family style on huge platters for the table to share, were very good, even by the high standards to which I hold Little Italy. The atmosphere on Saturday Night was festive, without being intrusive, and I think it speaks well of the place that there were four different tables in the dining room I was in (one of 3) celebrating birthdays there that night. My only complaint is that the room was quite cramped, and I was pressed against the table with no room to move my chair, and I had to keep stepping aside while putting on my coat.

This is The Official Record. 8:47 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2004/01/nyc-restaurant-review-la-mela-3-stars.html


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MOVIE REVIEW: THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED (2003) * * * (3 stars out of 4).
External link: http://www.chavezthefilm.com/

This pro-Hugo Chavez documentary would have been a very boring and one-sided look at the leader of Venezuela, except that there was a coup while the filmmakers were making the film, which turned the documentary into something absolutely extraordinary. While it is clear that the filmmakers are unabashed in their pro-Chavez bias, it is equally clear that what occurred was a violent coup overthrowing a democratically elected leader, which coup was endorsed (if not assisted) by the Bush administration and which was deliberately and knowingly lied about by the oil company-owned Venezuelan television stations. The inside look at the other side of the story is an invaluable historical resource, as well as a helpful reminder that our own media in the US, which is mostly owned by giant corporations, some of which are or were owned by defense contractors, might not always be telling the whole story about American events, either.

This is The Official Record. 8:33 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2004/01/movie-review-revolution-will-not-be.html


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MOVIE REVIEW: THE HAUNTED MANSION (2003) * 1/2 (1 and a half stars out of 4).
External link: http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/hauntedmansion/main.html

This mindless Eddie Murphy comedy, passes the time well enough, but there's not much to it. It gives the backstory to the wonderful Disney ride of the same name. But the two-dimensional characters and thin story make for a very unmemorable movie.

This is The Official Record. 8:20 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2004/01/movie-review-haunted-mansion-2003-12-1.html


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Monday, January 05, 2004

 
WELL, UH, DON'T PANIC, I GUESS?
External link: http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=757

DEBKAfile (which I never heard of before) reports that the Italian newspaper Il Giornale (which I never heard of before) reports that an Internet Web site that DEBKA doesn't even say the name of, and which is said to be associated with al Qaeda, says that al Qaeda threatens to detonate a nuclear device in New York on February 2.

A google search finds several other news organizations and Web sites picking up this story, but none that I've ever heard of.

I'm a little troubled that the major news organizations are ignoring this story. I'll grant you it's not the most credible thing I've ever heard, but it's absurd to suggest that it isn't newsworthy. I assume that the primary reason for ignoring the story is the desire not to create a panic. But it seems to me that this desire, which essentially amounts to a desire to make it seem that the war on terrorism is perceived as successful, intentionally or not comes to yet another example of conservative, pro-Bush-administration bias in the news, possibly at the cost of people's lives.

This is The Official Record. 5:43 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2004/01/well-uh-dont-panic-i-guess.html


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