Chasing the Blues

Hail to the Rangers

During my youth and early adulthood, I was a strong Yankees fan, but at some point I turned into a Yankees hater. Old man Steinbrenner grew distasteful, they kept getting who they wanted. The last straw was the demise of old Yankee Stadium. So, I'm glad that the Rangers are going to the World Series.

Memo to Joe Girardi: It's not a good idea to walk Josh Hamilton and face Vlad Guerrero. Hamilton's a great hitter, and Vlad's not the hitter he once was, but he's proven all year that he's still devastating in the clutch. It was fascinating to watch Girardi repeat the mistake. Now the plot of "Damn Yankees" has come true, if you recall that the Rangers were once the Washington Senators, at least the Senators' second incarnation. 

Now if the Giants can beat the Phils, I'll be happy. If so, I'll root for the Giants over the Rangers. In my childhood, I was a Giants fan as well, loving those great teams with Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal and Tom Haller. 

Fascinating too to see the Giants and the Rangers receive delirious fan support. Even in their great days, the Giants were a tough sell in San Francisco, and Dallas has always cared more about the Cowboys. Now baseball is hot in both those towns.

 

Call Me a Shakespeare Traditionalist

After watching a recent Shakespeare performance with tradtional Elizabethan-era costumes, I've decided I like my Shakespeare straight, without the often misguided attempts to make his plays "relevant" by cloaking characters in contemporary clothes, etc. I've seen good productions along these lines, but often the contemporary costumes detract from the play's language and action. Whatever "statement" is being made by the director is often muddled and difficult to discern.

I attended the Shakespeare play on Sunday night, forgetting all about "Mad Men" when I came home. That marks me as officially off the "Mad Men" bandwagon, although I'm sure I'll catch up with the latest episode on "on demand." Speaking of "Mad Men," has a show ever received so much hype for such low ratings?

My daughter sent me a link to a 1970 video clip of The Band doing "King Harvest Has Surely Come" in their "Big Pink" home in Woodstock, N.Y. That was one of their best songs from a period when Robbie Robertson especially was at a writing high point. Haunting to see the young Levon Helm and Robertson, along with Richard Manuel and Rick Danko, two members of the tragically hip dead. Along with Helm and Robertson, Garth Hudson is still going strong. Not to mix bands, or metaphors, but clips like this remind me of the Paul Simon lyric, from "Bookends":

Time it was and what a time it was it was,
A time of innocence, a time of confidences.
Long ago it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you
 

 

Ann-Margaret's Star Turn in "Bye-Bye Birdie"

 Recalling "Man Men" scene in which Sal inadvertently outs himself to his wife by excitedly riffing on Ann-Margret's closing scene from "Bye-Bye Birdie," I stayed up to watch the 1963 musical on Turner Classic Movies.

The young A-M's loveliness didn't quite save the movie from its cornball Middle-America take on "teen culture."  Many of the songs were lame, although "Put on a Happy Face" and "Kids Today" were strong numbers. A-M, a bit broad in the beam, sizzled in the dance number of "A Lot of Living to Do."

My favorite part was Paul Lynde, a prototype for Sal, as A-M's dad. Like many others, I during childhood thrilled to Lynde's snarky performances on "Hollywood Squares" and "Bewitched," seeing him as a blast of anarchy in brain-numbing TV land.

Also interesting in "Bye-Bye Birdie" is a brunette Janet Leigh, dancing and singing so soon after her terrifying turn in "Psycho." Dick Van Dyke, who also starred in the Broadway musical and had just begun his hit TV show "The Dick Van Dyke Show," is curiously understated, especially in comparison with Lynde's typically hammy, over-the-top performance.

Other performers of note are Bobby Rydell, and the guy who played Gilbert in "Leave It to Beaver," glimpsed as part of the kids dancing. Jesse Pearson is OK as the swaggering lout Conrad Birdie, apparently a takeoff on Conway Twitty. For some reason, Pearson's career died after the movie.

 Also playing a bit role is the kid who played the young bluecoat Rusty in "Rin-Tin-Tin." Ed Sullivan, the king of Sunday night TV, has a long cameo role. In short, the movie, with all of its cloying parts, is a baby-boomer feast.

An eerie moment comes when a Russian ballet boss salutes "Jack Kennedy," the movie came out just months before JFK's assassination brought an end to an era. In many ways, "Bye-Bye Birdie" is a relic of that era, seeking to evoke an American "innocence" that it probably never had.

"Bye-Bye Birdie," part of Robert Osborne's night of '50s and '60s teen music flicks, followed "Rock Around the Clock," featuring performances by the groundbreaking Bill Haley and the Comets. The Comets' numbers sizzle with energy and passion, compared with the pallid would-be rock numbers in "Bye-Bye Birdie."

Although "Bye-Bye Birdie" was made seven years after "Rock Around the Clock," the Comets' performances still feel revolutionary. "Birdie" is more accomplished, stylized and polished, its music pleasant and unthreatening, archetypes of the fading popular Broadway musical. The Comets' wails are the true sound of youth rebellion.

Representing the R&B tradition are numbers by the Platters, with their spin-tingling tenor Tony Williams and the intriguing female backup singer Zola Taylor, who appeared with four male voices. The Platters' vocals on songs like "The Great Pretender" provided the lead for backup music which was essentially rhythm guitar and rhythm piano, both playing a simple three-chord progression.

Too bad it was too late for me to stay up to catch Elvis in "Jail House Rock." That scene when he and the prisoners do "Jailhouse Rock," with the screen cut into several recangular cellblocks through which Elvis moves with jungle-cat grace, is one of the best in movie history.  

 

   

From Boston to Oxford to Memphis

Back at my desk in Atlanta after an interlude in Boston and Oxford, Miss. Those are two distinct worlds bathed in history and literary tradition, where the "past is not even past," as Mr. Faulkner said. Of course, the two worlds collide in Mr. Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury."

I was in Oxford and Ole Miss for the "Faulkner and Film Conference." At Oxford, scenes from Faulkner's works come vividly alive. The charming university town boasts a lively square, with buzzing bars, a fine bookstore and a gracious old-fashioned men's store, where I purchased two Perlis shirts with their distinctive crawfish insignia. As I told the proprieter, an old-school gentleman although quite young, I'd bought several Perlis shirts about 15 years before in New Orleans and was still wearing them. That seems a long-distant time, before Katrina, the oil spill, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Leaving the gracious University Inn, I got into a van driven by a young man with long electric hair and a voice that if I closed my eyes made me believe I was being driven by Seth Rogen. I was bemoaning the fact that I'd missed a tour to Clarkesdale, the home of the famous Robert Johnson crossroads and the place where Bessie Smith died, and he with a refreshing candor said I wouldnt' be missing much. He said he grew up there and that the town, despite its blues museum, was in serious decline. On I-55 to Memphis, we crossed the Tallahatchie River bridge, too new, I assume, to be the one Billy Joe McAlister jumped from. I knew better than to mention this to the driver and my fellow passengers, knowing the cultural reference would be either too old, or too obscure. I couldn't remember the woman who sang the song, her only hit, if I remember correctly. Wait: Bobbie Gentry, wasn't it?

Dropped off at the Memphis airport, I quickly abandoned plans to try to catch a shuttle to downtown and see the civil rights museum at the Lorraine Hotel, where MLK was assassinated. I'd had enough of the heat in Oxford. Instead, I hunkered down for a long afternoon at the air conditioned Memphis Airport, where folks are friendly and entertaining, exhibiting a natural showmanship, or show-womanship. As with New Orleans, how sad that such great spirit co-exists with devastating poverty and violence. Again, I found this difficult to reconcile.

I picked up the alternative newspaper "Memphis Flyer," and was struck by how professional and serious it was compared with our similar products in Atlanta. I almost bought a Memphis Commercial Appeal, but decided not to, since it seemed to have the exact same news as the Jackson Clarion-Ledger I'd perused back at the hotel. I couldn't take another account of Mississippi State's quarterback prospects, from a report on the SEC's media days. I was also impressed by the fall lineup of Memphis' theater company, with plays like "Superior Donuts" and "August, Osage County" and others. Again, Atlanta seemed curiously short in comparison: The Memphis company's lineup seemed more inviting than what I'd seen for Atlanta's Alliance Theater, which seems adrift.

An exuberant young woman at the Hudson News Stand cash register proved herself a great saleswoman when I was buying some Breath Savers. She asked "would you like a water," and I immediately knew that yes, I would love a water. She hustled off to the cooler and pulled out an ice-cold bottled water for me, and returned to the register. If I'd been the head of sales for some company, I would have offered her a job on the spot. Before I left with my mints and newly purchased bottle of water, I commended her, and she smiled and shook it off. As I departed for Gate B-27, I heard her energetic voice warmly welcome the fellow behind me in line. In fact, the black and white women all across the airport were vivacious and helpful, whether waitresses, hostesses, Delta representatives or TSA officers on the security line. Good for them for bringing their best to their jobs.

After not being able to get on two earlier flights to Atlanta, I at last hit the jackpot and was able to get on one an hour earlier. I could have driven home in the time I'd spent at the airport. Oh well, at least I know that the airport's Blue Note Cafe welcomes smokers. Barbecue, beer and cigarettes: Memphis, I salute you.

The Invasion of the Mimosas, and Stephen Strasburg

 I confess: I'm a tree-killer. Each day, I pluck tiny mimosas out of the ground. The perfect replicas of adult trees sprout everywhere, even popping up in the patio's cement cracks. Of course, my inclincation is to let them live. Yet, if I didn't pull them out, we'd  have our own mimosa forest. It's pretty good exercise to keep bending over and pulling them out. Today, I resorted to the use of the old hoe to uproot a patch of them.

Mimosa: one of the loveliest words in the English language. Recently in Brooklyn, brunch was served with unlimited mimosas. If given the choice, I'd rather sip mimosas than pluck them out of the ground.

The adult mimosa is not that appealing. That multi-branched leaf loses the aesthetic appeal of your common oak or maple. Years ago, a mimosa grew up along a fence in our backyard, and it's not a beautiful tree. Perhaps it is the parent of all of the tiny mimosas that keep sprouting in profusion. Or perhaps the seeds come from far away.

When not pulling up mimosas, I've been watching the Braves. The arrival of the Washington Nationals phenom pitcher Stephen Strasburg was the big news this week. The big kid sparked a huge sale of tickets, almost a Monday night sellout at Turner Field. All of the hoopla about Strasburg reminded me of "Damn Yankees," except Washington's now in the National League, not the American League. And it wasn't the devil who represents him, but Scott Boras. Same difference.

However, I watched on something called Peach TV, where Ernie Johnson Jr., another son of old Braves announcers, now does the play by play.  I don't know what happened to Chip Caray, but color man Joe Simpson is a constant. Despite a propsensity for mindless chatter, Ernie Jr.'s an OK announcer.

I don't know what I expected from Strasburg, but he didn't strike me as that extraordinary. Sure, he throws hard, and I'll believe the testimony from baseball folks about how good his changeup is. Yet, he didn't possess the glower and menace of a Roger Clemens, the showmanship of a Mark "The Bird" Fidrych or the over-the-top dominance of a Sandy Koufax. I'm sure he'll be a fine pitcher, but I remained skeptical. According to Simpson, the kid will pitch only 150 innings this year, and then "they'll shut him down." Nice pay for part-time work. Too bad the Washington Post's Shirley Povich is no longer around; he could opine about how Strasburg compares to the Senators' Walter "Big Train" Johnson. As far as I know, the Senators never shut down the Big Train after 150 innings.  

It was amusing that Little League tactics work well in the Major Leagues. Chipper Jones running to third base distracted the Nationals shortstop, who booted a ground ball, allowing Chipper to score and begin a big Braves inning that won the ball game.

The Nationals appear to have a strong offensive lineup, yet they have sunk to the bottom of the National League East. Some things never change; the old Senators were "first in war, first in peace and last in the American League." The Nationals are learning it's hard to win with one kid pitcher, a few hitters and a bad defense.

Old Braves exec Stan Kasten, now the mastermind of the Nationals, was in the Turner Field stands. When that ball climbed up the shortstop's arm, Stan probably thought about all of that money being paid to Strasburg, and how it could have bought an infielder or two.

 

 

 

 

Khandi Alexander Takes "Treme" to Deeper Level

"Treme" at last reached the true depths of Louisiana's despair following Hurricane Katrina with Khandi Alexander's anguished performance as Ladonna Batiste Williams discovering the body of her dead brother, lost and murdered in the state's broken prison sytem.

The scene when Toni (Melissa Leo) and Ladonna discover the ravaged body was horrifying and heart-rending. The corpse-bearing tanker trucks parked side by side, the unzipping of the body bag, the brother's ruined face and Alexander's overpowering grief intensified the dramatic power. The temprorary morgue truck lot was like something from Franz Kafka, channeled by James Lee Burke. The last scene of Alexander not telling her mother about the discovery, and pouring herself a strong drink, was worthy of great moments in the theater or film.

Overall, the show achieved a strong balance of stories. Wendell Pierce subtly conveys Antoine Batiste's growth as a human being. Batiste increasingly is the emotional center of the show, a character depicted as irresponsible and bitter at the start now discovering the ability to reach out to and support other people. Batiste embodiesthe best parts of New Orleans, its generosity and community spirit. The character of Davis is also displaying personal growth.

The arrest  of Albert Lambreaux (Clark Peters) is symbolic of the bureaucratic attempts to crush the old New Orleans following the storm. The brutal arrest of Lambreaux aptly showed the racism of New Orleans that exists beneath the surface of the city's live and let live, happy go lucky exterior. While Lambreaux's attempt to reopen the housing projects is seen as heroic, many who know New Orleans would agree with the police community affairs sergeant who visits Lambreaux that few if any people in the city would mourn the loss of the projects. Like the Baltimore projects so exhaustively portrayed in David Simon's "The Wire," the New Orleans projects were notorious for generating crime and misery. That the projects are shown as cultural treasures gives a distorted view of their history. With Lambreaux in jail, will his savage beating of the young copper thief in the first episode now return to worsen his criminal problems? The beating angle has been pretty much ignored since that first episode.

Meanwhile, Lucia Micarelli's Annie continues to send darts into my heart, dredging up memories of old loves and passions and misspent youth in the old city. Sonny, that passive-aggressive whiner, should consider himself lucky to find himself in bed with the lovely Annie. The audition with the Pine Leaf Boys made me want to take her away from Sonny; obviously she has the talent to join the Cajun band. We can only hope that the wonderful Steve Earle, playing the Cajun musician, or someone, can bring Annie out from Sonny's co-dependent power. I loved seeing the Pine Leaf Boys, especially their leader, Wilson Savoy, the son of the outstanding singer and musician Ann.

Speaking of music, the show keeps broadening its look at the city's roots. Last night, when Batiste visits his sick friend in the hospital, he shares with him Jelly Roll Morton's recording of "Buddy Bolden's Blues." The tune is that of what is believed to be the jazz pioneer Bolden's signature tune.

The evocation of late 19th century cornettist Bolden, who spent the last 30 years of his life in the Louisiana insane asylum at Jackson, matches that of Creighton Burnette's look at the landmark 19th century writer Lafcadio Hearn. The Hearn passage cited by Burnette was evidence that the city has surived a number of floods and disasters in its history, along with a tradition of corruption.

Now, relentless, unstoppable oil is destroying Louisiana's marshlands, only 30 or so miles from New Orleans. The new tragedy is joined with that of Katrina, magnifying and mirroring each other.   

Women in Transition on "Treme"

"Treme's" latest episode, "Shallow Water, Oh Mama" revolved around the theme of women in transition. The strong female crew showed their acting skills in varied scenes of despair and triumph.

The dominant story was the closure of Desautel's restaurant, with Kim Dickens as Janette Desautel a bit too emotive in displaying her anger, sorrow and disappointment over the restaurant's financial difficulties. In the scene in which Janette breaks the bad news to the staff, Dickens showed impressive emotional control. One false note: she says she'll ask the staff to work for a week without pay; wouldn't the waiters and waitresses depend more on tips for their income rather than a salary from the restuarant? Another curious note: the black Cajun chef is portrayed as having more culinary talent than Janette, yet she keeps taking the credit for the restaurant's success, such as the feeding of the big time chefs from New York. Despite these discordant pieces, Dickens overall carried the show well. When "Treme" began, I was glad to see Dickens, after liking her portrayal of the brothel madam Joanie Stubbs in the operatically profane HBO Western "Deadwood."

While Dickens at times carried her emotive gestures too far, Lucia Miracelli continued to heat up the screen as the troubled street musician Annie. Her relationship with the drug addled Sonny (Michiel Huisman) reached a crisis, with Sonny cowardly finishing a fight by slapping her. Annie hurries away; disapointingly, she returns at the end of the show.

Her dependency was heartbreaking; obviously Annie has immensely more talent and drive than Sonny and could easily achieve success as a musician without him. Yet, she comes back: out of a lingering attraction, we assume. The scene where Sonny and Annie play "Basin Street Blues" was loaded with significance. Miracelli's searing violin work on the New Orleans chestnut strikingly contrasts with Sonny's mumbling, druggy performance. The lyric "Basin Street, where the black and the white folk meet," is drenched in irony, especially when later in the show Davis' mother makes a racist comment about how the loss of blacks from New Orleans would allow "us to change New Orleans." There's very little mixing of the races in the show, a reflection of reality in New Orleans, despite its history of easy relations between blacks and whites.

 In the "Basin Street Blues" number, we also see Sonny's dissolution and Annie's growth far beyond him. The heckling of onlookers brings an air of menace, an ominous premonition of Sonny's self-destruction eventually ending violently. With her soulful eyes and lovely lips, conveying depths of hurt, ambition and, brokenhearted love, Macrelli again sizzles with instinctive acting talent. We want Annie to leave Sonny behind and move on to join a higher level of musicians, where she belongs.

Melissa Leo's attorney Toni Bennette (homage to the singer?) made some welcome advancement in the search for the falsely imprisoned young black man. Her conversation in Port Arthur, Texas, with the former New Orleans police officer who had arrested the young man before Hurricane Katrina struck was loaed with dramatic interest. Her encounter with the Lake Charles police was amusing.

Another fine actress showed her range: Elizabeth Ashley, a Baton Rouge native, appeared as Davis' boozy, flamboyant aunt. The character veered close to a Southern stereotype, but the outstanding Ashley gave the character depth, with a dollop of sadness at the base of her wanton humor. I loved her think syrupy accent when she asked for another martini from Davis' father and purred "Don't be vulgar." Seeing Ashley on "Treme" took me back all of those years ago when I made my first trip to New York City and saw her on Broadway as Maggie the Cat in a revival of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." I remember her on the stage in her white slip, her beautiful dark hair flowing down upon her shoulders, a vision of feminine beauty I'll always carry with me. Keir Dullea was Brick, and Big Daddy was Fred Gwynne, fresh from playing Herman Munster.

Well, back to "Treme." All in all, "Shallow Water" displayed more focus and integration of the musical and dramatic pieces than other episodes. The scene ended with a comic and haphazard Mardi Gras parade, and Davis' building campaign for city council. David Simon and company are on the right path for a strong conclusion to "Treme's" season.   

From One Master to Another: John Lahr Profiles Neil Simon

One of my favorite New Yorker writers, John Lahr, contributed a fond profile of Neil Simon in the May 3 issue of the magazine. Lahr delved into the discussion about whether Simon is really a "serious" artist, since his plays have been so popular and have always been comedies rather than serious drama. Lahr convincingly makes the case that the criticism of Simon is dubious, especially since he is such a serious craftsman, conscientiously revising his work. Any writer who creates memorable characters that audiences find mirrors their experience is an important artist.

Lahr relates an interesting anecdote: that a character in Simon's "Sunshine Boys" was modeled after his father, Bert Lahr, the great vaudevillian who so memorably played the Cowardly Lion in the movie "The Wizard of Oz." The droopy-eyed and baleful looking Bert also performed in the first American production of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot." Again, as he did in his fine book "Notes on a Cowardly Lion," Lahr notes his father's tortured feelings toward his craft. If Lahr were meant to enjoy it, he said, he would be among those buying tickets.  Funny for such a great performener, the bit about Bert Lahr that Simon echoes in "The Sunshine Boys" concerns a potato chip commercial in which Lahr performed.

The piece is full of theater, and writing, lore. Lahr talks a bit about Simon, and his brother Danny, writing for Sid Caesar on "The Show of Shows." Caesar's hit show had some of the best comic writers, including Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbert and the young Woody Allen. Allen eventually wrote comic material with Danny, also was even more of an exhaustive rewriter than his brother. One observation from Allen. He says that he learned from Danny that the most important part of a joke is not the punch line, but the straight line.

With vivid portrayals of Neil Simon and his brother, along with Bert Lahr, Allen and actors like Jack Klugman and Walter Matthau, the piece evokes the magic of Amercian performance, whether in the theater, movies or television. The Lahrs, the Simonses, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks: New York's Jewish culture incubated legends who drew upon their often painful childhoods to make us laugh, if only to keep from crying.   

A Brief Encounter With My Fair Lady

I happened upon the final part of Lerner and Lowe's "My Fair Lady" on TCM, catching the final bit of Freddy's "On the Street Where You Live." Too bad I missed wonderful songs like "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "Wouldn't It Be Loverly," although the latter was featured in a reprise when Audrey Hepburn's Eliza Doolittle, now dressed as a refined lady, returns to Covent Garden, where she had been a Cockney flower girl. But I did catch the great English song-and-dance man Stanley Holloway doing "I'm Getting Married in the Morning" and Rex Harrison's poignant "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face."

My enjoyment of "Danced" and "Loverly" likely would have been hampered by the knowledge that Hepburn wasn't really singing them, but that a backup vocalist had to be brought in to cover for Audrey's lack of singing talent. I guess Audrey couldn't have half-talked the numbers, a la Harrison, a bit weathered as Henry Higgins. But she's a lovely Eliza, especially in the re-colorized version shown on TCM.

TCM hit upon the interesting, at least in theory, idea of playing the musical version of a script, followed by the nonmusical version. So, following "My Fair Lady," the 1938 production of George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion" aired. "My Fair Lady" derived from Bernard Shaw's Edwardian warhorse.

The all-talk (and it's quite talky, but still moves quickly) version of the story stars Leslie Howard as Higgins, and Wendy Hiller as Eliza. While the color version of "My Fair Lady," despite the Victorian era period costumes, cannot escape being a relic of the 1960s, the black-and-white "Pygmalion" retains a deep Victorian tone, an artifact from a vanished time. I was surprised to see that the screenplay was written by Bernard Shaw; the original play was first produced at the turn of the century, the height of British, and Shaw's power. "Pygmalion" was probably the once Fascist-admiring Shaw's grand farewell.

The sepia London scenes carry a melancholy retrospective awareness that soon the great old city would be destroyed by German bombs. I don't know how geographically accurate the movie's scenes are, but that prewar London pictured is unrecognizable when compared with today's transformed city. 

Another interesting tidbit: the film editor of "Pygmalion" is David Lean, who would make his mark as the director of such movies as "Lawrence of Arabia."

In regard to Howard, also the co-director of "Pygmalion," he would the very next year star as "Ashley Wilkes" in "Gone With the Wind."  Another great British star, Vivien Leigh, is, of course, Scarlett O'Hara, and Clark Gable plays Rhett Butler, more virile than Howard's weak-willed Wilkes. (While we're dropping names, George "Superman" Reeves also makes an appearance in "Gone With The Wind.").  

Speaking of David Lean, I was under the impression that Leslie Howard was in Lean's "Brief Encounter." But an Internet search gave me me information that Howard died in 1943 over Biscay Bay in a World War II mission, while "Brief Encounter" was made in 1946. That was Trevor Howard in the lead role of the heart-breaking film about a couple's unconsummated love affair, taken from a Noel Coward play.

Well, if I care to hear "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "Wouldn't It be Loverly," I have the CD of the original cast recording, in which Julie Andrews memorably plays Eliza Doolittle to Harrison's Higgins. In contrast to Audrey Hepburn, Julie Andrews brought her magnificent singing voice to the role, and her performances on the record are spine-tingling. Alas, an operation in recent years ruined her voice, although I read recently that her singing ability is gradually returning.

The original vinyl 33 album of "My Fair Lady" was a mainstay of my parents' record collection, and I spent many happy boyhood minutes listening to it.  In those days, my father made frequent business trips to New York City, and his seeing "My Fair Lady" was a highlight of his life. How happy was I when a remastered version came out on CD, and I was able to relive my boyhood introduction to the magic of the theater.

 The old RCA hi-fi on which I used to lower the needle to the black vinyl grooves still sits in our den. I keep thinking that one day I'll acquire a new needle for it, and again play some of my vinyl records from the '60s. But most of my records I've replaced with CDs, now also obsolete, of course.

 

Waking Up After Midnight

After falling asleep watching the not so funny "Funny People," I awoke to catch the end of the HBO Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame Concert. I'd avoided the concert previously, not wanting to see the rockers of my youth creak and wheeze across the stage. However, the songs were fairly entertaining, although David Crosby looked ghastly. Then I had a welcome boost of young talent: catching the Unplugged performance of Katy Perry. I loved her songs and her singing, and the nutty monlogues she gave between songs, sort of Gracie Allen meets Mary Tyler Moore, in her "Dick Van Dyke Show" days.

...I caught the pilot of "Men of A Certain Age," and was a bit underwhelmed. The Ray Romano vehicle tries a bit too hard to be quirky and existential. Ray, go watch a few John Cassevetes movies. I missed some of the key plot turns because I kept switching back and forth to the Chris Berman-Tom Jackson halftime show on Monday night football to see what they'd say about the Saints' crazy win over the Redskins. That Robert Meachem touchdown after stripping the ball from a Redskins defensive back who'd just had an interception might be the best play of the year. And to think that Meachem had a disappointing rookie season, when he came in out of shape and not mentally ready for the NFL. Now Meacham, like the rest of the Saints, plays to win.

...Unusual weather we're having, ain't it? as Bert Lahr's Cowardly Lion said in the Wizard of Oz. After a day of incessant rain, today is gorgeous, more like March or April than December. Or perhaps I'm already ready for spring.