Acoustica

On the way back from Fort Lee, I stopped by the Park City Mall in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and picked up Grateful Dead’s Reckoning album, the acoustic live album paired up with Dead Set – which I’d bought a few years ago mainly because it has “Brokedown Palace”, a great tune from American Beauty. 

This was my second attempt to listen to this album, the first was in high school in Paris in the early 1980s.  At that time I plunked down the vinyl, preparing to hear some totally bad-ass music.   I mean, with a name like Grateful Dead and a skull and crossbones on the cover, and an album called Reckoning, we’re talking melting your face off like “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, right?

WRONG.   I couldn’t even get through “Dire Wolf”, the first song, before I took it off in disgust.  What the hell is this???   I gave the album to my buddy Sean C, and that was it for the Dead for a long, long time.   It wasn’t until Anthem of the Sun, which sounds Duane Allmann-y, that I could finally digest the acid country of the Dead.   This must have been in the early 00’s.   Yet I even saw GD w/Jerry Garcia in 1992 and 1995, so go figure.

This time around?  Well, I survived all the way to the last track, “Ripple” (also from American Beauty), though the “Bird Song” on here is underwhelming compared to the Fillmore East show in 1971 with the Beach Boys.  “Dire Wolf” is still not my favorite: “please….don’t murder me!”  Hardly a good theme song for the Stark family. 

As of right now, I have several electric guitars and no acoustics, not even a 12 string.  I really don’t like playing acoustic guitars.  A bulky body and super high action?  No thanks.  I can select clean channel on the Marshall and the neck pickup on an electric, turn on the chorus pedal, and that’s the sound I need.  Authentic?  Maybe not.  But it’s right.  And face-melting distortion is a footswitch away.  Acoustic guitars became mostly obsolete when Fender brought out the Broadcaster/No-Caster/Telecaster in 1948. 

I really do not like acoustic sets.  Let me articulate further with some examples.

Scorpions.  They did an acoustic album, Acoustica, AND an unplugged show in Athens, Greece fairly recently for MTV.   No sign of Michael or Uli, but Rudy pulled out his acoustic Flying V.  The highlight was “Born To Touch Your Feelings”, from Taken By Force.  Boring? No.  Tolerable?  Sure.  Exciting – and as good as the Wacken show with Uli Roth?  No way in Hell. 

Tesla.  Their Five Man Acoustical Jam (1990) started this nonsense way back when.  A few songs, like “Signs” and “Truckin” were OK, but mostly they butchered their awesome electric songs by making them acoustic.  Which is even more baffling because they’re named after Mr. Electric himself, Nikola Tesla.  Brian Wheat claims they resisted the idea, but apparently someone prevailed.  Fortunately they’ve been 100% electric since then, so Tesla himself can stop spinning in his grave, providing alternating current somehow.

Led Zeppelin III.  Tolerable.  The songs are… OK.  My favorite on here is “Since I’ve Been Loving You” – electric – and of the other two electrics, “Out on the Tiles” sucks a whole herd of donkeys, whereas “Immigrant Song” is …OK.  I like the Viking theme.  Granted, Page’s acoustic stuff is what makes Zeppelin so well-rounded, but I can take it in small doses only: the intro to “Stairway”, “Ten Years Gone”, etc., not a barrage of folk songs like III.

Alice In Chains.  Jerry Cantrell has some rare skill:  he can write original acoustic stuff that doesn’t suck.  SAP and Jar of Flies are both albums (EPs, sorry) which I listen to as often as any of their electric stuff.

Ultimately I find acoustic guitars boring and pretentious.   Remember that scene in the movie “Animal House”, where the guy on stairs sings, “I gave my love a cherry, that had…no…pit…” and Bluto (Belushi) comes by and smashes his guitar?  To me anyone with an acoustic guitar is “that guy”, and my inclination is the same as Bluto’s.  Don’t be “that guy”.

Death to Smoochy

With Robin Williams’ untimely demise due to self-inflicted asphyxiation, naturally his name comes up as a topic for discussion.   He has too many movies out there – and several seasons of “Mork & Mindy” – to allow an exhaustive “tribute” via marathon viewing or even movie reviewing.  Rather than attempt the impossible, I picked one film to focus on.   At some later point I’ll watch stuff like “Good Will Hunting” which I never got around to watching before.

            Anyhow, RW plays Rainbow Randolph, a kiddie TV show host who abruptly loses his show after a sordid bribery scandal.  Along comes Sheldon Mopes (Edward Norton) as Smoochy, an annoyingly saccharine rhino, obviously based on Barney.  Mopes is hopelessly idealistic and truly clueless about life in general and show business in particular but takes over RR’s place, much to RR’s anger and resentment.  Jon Stewart plays the network executive, and Keener – Carell’s love interest in “40 Year Old Virgin” – is another network exec.  The Mob gets involved, things get violent and complicated, but always remain hilarious despite the often dark subject matter and body count.  This is a film which bathes in its cynicism but is so damn funny anyway.  There’s even a VERY oblique tie-in to “American History X”; see if you can catch it. 

            What I loved about this film is how Williams could be both funny and sleazy at the same time.  After a while all his “heartwarming” films get so damn tiresome and tedious, and also a bit self-serving.

Having reviewed this particular film, allow me to return to a basic tribute to Williams.

Mork & Mindy.  This was the show that started it for him.  The charmingly naïve and good-natured alien from Ork, lands in Boulder, Colorado of all places, and lives with Mindy (Pam Dawber).  The music store she works in is in downtown Boulder.  It seems Williams had a huge talent for improvisation, and the oddball character really let him bring it out.  Even Morgan Fairchild is hot.  This is a show I’ve never gotten tired of even after all these years.

Depression.   Gene Simmons clearly put his foot in his mouth.  Judging by his prompt retraction it seems someone gave him a basic primer in mental illness, preceded by a slap in the face and a kick in the ass, well deserved.  Fortunately, I’ve never been depressed, although I have been heavily discouraged in the past when life wasn’t going as well it could.  So when it comes to describing depression, I have to really stretch my imagination to try to ascertain what it’s all about. 

            Highly successful people, like Robin Williams, suffer from depression.  Not only are these people rich and famous, they also have ample resources such as therapists and professionals who can treat the problem, in theory.  Logic suggests that someone like Robin Williams would prefer not to feel suicidal 24/7 and would take whatever drug or therapy might be effective at making his daily life bearable.  Naturally, the rest of us who aren’t as rich and successful as Williams may shake our heads and wonder what the hell he has to be suicidal about.  That suggests to me that despite drugs and therapy, we haven’t quite reached the point where we can say we’ve succeeded at taming the depression demon. 

General Impressions.  I don’t know Williams personally and never met him.  Nor do I know anyone who has.  Like the general population I have to gauge his true off-screen personality by an aggregate of his movie roles – because no matter how great an actor you may be, some part of you always shines through in your acting.  Also he was politically active and did lots of charity work.  The latter often strikes me as insincere or intended for public relations purposes.  Was that the case with Williams?  Probably not.  God forbid any actor have any true compassion for those around him or the less fortunate.  My impression is that he was a genuinely nice guy and a lovable person, as flawed as he might have been.  This is why movies like “Death to Smoochy” are illuminating:  they allow the actor to channel his darker impulses into a role and act them out without killing anyone in real life: depravity by proxy.  I haven’t seen “One Hour Photo”, but I have seen “Insomnia”.   Williams strikes me as more weird and depraved than homicidal maniac, so “Death to Smoochy” may be the off-color movie which best illustrates the worst of Robin Williams, the actor.

Spielberg’s recent biopic on Lincoln, with Daniel Day Lewis as the famous President, gave a very different but entertaining depiction of the man.  In the process of trying to get the thirteenth Amendment ratified before the war ended, Lincoln had to do some somewhat unsavory political maneuvering behind the scenes.  Spielberg shows us that behind the folksy wit and wisdom we usually associate with Lincoln, was a very savvy political genius.  But even when the dust clears and we see him with all his flaws, he still comes off as a giant man, a hero. 

And this is what “Death to Smoochy” does for Robin Williams.  Rest in peace.  Mork calling Orson!

House of Cards

I finally finished the second of two seasons of this Netflix Original show.  It’s based on a British show I have no patience or inclination to watch, as someday – like all other mortals – I won’t be alive any longer.  In fact, I’m not getting any younger.  Is anyone?  Anyhow.

It’s January 20, and US President Garrett Walker (Michael Gill) is being sworn in.   Behind the scenes, House Majority Whip (D-SC) Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) eagerly awaits the post of Secretary of State, his reward for doing so much to get Walker into the Oval Office.

Not so fast, Frank.  It seems the President has other plans.  Nope, no cabinet posts at all.  “We think you’ll do better right where you are.”  Huh?   Naturally, Frank is not happy.  Naturally, Frank plots his revenge.  Naturally, Frank does not tell the President about these plans.

Early on, he befriends an ambitious-but-cute Washington Post reporter, Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara), feeding her inside stories in between naughty time in her cramped and decrepit DC apartment, much to the jealousy of fellow reporter Lucas Goodwin (Sebastian Arcelus).  Did I mention that the NY bitch from “Boston Legal”, Constance Zimmer, is here too?  She is.  Sorry, no transvestite Uncle Ruckus here.

His wife Claire (Robin Wright, Forrest Gump’s slutty GF) does a good Lady MacBeth here, sharing his intrigue.  Short of sleeping with her twin brother – does she even have one? – she’s just shy of Cersei Lannister for sheer evil, the perfect companion for Frank.  And while he’s nailing Zoe, she’s got her own action with pretentious B&W artsy photographer Adam Galloway (Ben Daniels). 

Season 1 focuses mainly on Frank’s attempt to get a messed up, alcoholic cokehead Rep. from PA, Peter Russo (Corey Stoll, who will be in TWO new movies coming out, but looking exactly the same) elected governor of Pennsylvania.   Predictably, that goes down in flames, but it gets the VP to slide in as the PA Governor and Frank can thus take over as VP, just an embarrassing resignation-to-avoid-impeachment away from the top spot.

Season 2 focuses on an old chum of the President’s, Raymond Tusk (Gerald McRaney), a wealthy businessman from Missouri with big business in China - he even speaks Mandarin.  Never quite friends, it doesn’t take long for Tusk and Frank to start bumping ugly and pissing at each other.  After receiving a nonstop barrage of horrendous advice from Frank, which gets him impeached, the President finally suspects that Frank is up to something – too late.  D’oh!

Not since Iago from Shakespeare’s Othello do we have a villain so deliciously evil as Frank Underwood – yes, that includes Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish (Aiden Gillen) from “Game of Cards”, err… “House of Thrones”….err… “Game of Thrones.” 

Fourth Wall.   Here’s the real brilliance of this show:  Frank likes to talk to the audience.  He faces the camera and shares secrets with us.   It’s even better than Michael Weston’s (Jeffrey Donovan) voice-over narration in “Burn Notice”.   No one else does this, mind you, just Frank.  (Freddy faces the camera: “if they only knew I just went around to Safeway and bought these ribs, then sell them as my own.”)   No matter how evil Frank is, because we’re in on it with him, how can we help but like him?  We’re part of the conspiracy!  D’oh! 

Someone commented on the Net that the series was implausible, as Frank is a little TOO competent.  Even Reagan wasn’t this diabolical, was he?  Nixon?  Clinton?  Can we think of ANY of our Presidents who can compare with him?  Hmm, perhaps not.  Maybe that's a good thing...

But does it really matter?  We know dragons don’t exist, and that doesn’t stop us from watching “Game of Thrones”.  So sink your teeth into it and enjoy.   And wait for Season 3…. 

Dallas Buyers' Club

Months after the Oscars, if I haven’t seen the top films already, I may deign to put them on my Netflix queue and watch them at my leisure.  The Academy has a tendency to favor artsy-pretentious films (“The Artist”, “The English Patient”, “Life of Pi”), politically charged films which advance a Blue State agenda, and of course the old fall-back, any films highly favorable to the GLBS community or its agenda.  

Is there good acting here?   Should we be impressed that Matthew McConaughey and Jared Jeto dropped upteen pounds for these roles?  Should Leto’s transformation into uber-drag-queen Rayon go unnoticed or ignored?  All valid questions, and perhaps we shouldn’t dismiss this film out of hand simply because we’re uncomfortable with the subject matter: AIDS.  On the other hand, “just because you tolerate something doesn’t mean you have to like it.”  So when we strip away the “drama”, what are we dealing with here?

Ron Woodruff (McConaughey) discovers he has AIDS – this was in 1985, when the disease first started becoming known.  According to the film, he caught it from unprotected sex with a female heroin user, possibly a prostitute.  The person who gave it to him is never identified (possibly he never found out), and neither his straight friend who shared his female lovers, nor those lovers, are portrayed as contracting the disease themselves.  In any case he was careless about his sexual partners and very promiscuous – plus he used drugs.  You know, the biblical “Prodigal Son” lifestyle. 

Ok, so what does he do now?  The first major drug was AZT, but due to FDA regulations it had to be “tested” first, which meant double blinds and placebos to the control group.  Woodruff initially procures AZT from a hospital worker until the hospital tightens things up.  Then he goes to Mexico and finds a doctor, Vass (Griffin Dunn) who knows that AZT – at least in the existing dosages – is garbage and has better results with a cocktail featuring vitamin supplements (totally legal in the US), an “unapproved” drug, DDC, and a protein which the FDA knows is safe.  In other words, leave it to a rogue doctor in Mexico to come up with a better treatment than the fancy rich folks in the US. 

In addition to setting up the framework of a smuggling operation, Woodruff-as-Walter-White finds his “Jesse Pinkman” – the marketing genius – in Rayon (Jared Leto), a transvestite drag queen.  They form the Dallas Buyer’s Club, a $400/month “club” which distributes “free” AIDS pharmaceuticals out of a motel room.  He also befriends Dr. Eve (Jennifer Affleck) who can see for herself that the clinical trials of AZT are obviously flawed.

In addition to Mexican sources, Woodruff travels to Europe and Japan to find alternative sources – whatever he can find, however he can do it.   This itself takes some ingenuity, persistence, and diligence.

Naturally, the FDA wasn’t asleep at the switch.  After some cat-and-mouse business, eventually the FDA succeeds at shutting down Woodruff’s operation, and an appeal to the US District Court in California eventually fails when a sympathetic judge, able to see the forest for the trees, nonetheless has to acknowledge that he has no authority to grant the relief requested:  victory for the FDA.  Bravo, Mr. Peck, you’ve shut down the containment field.  (Yes, I know, different agency.)

Interestingly enough, the FDA doesn’t come off as homophobic here.  Rather, it’s an entrenched bureaucracy trying to defend its turf and its “way of doing business”, plus it has a vested interest in remaining cozy with the pharmaceutical industry.  Even without any homophobic bias, however, the FDA is still hidebound, inflexible, and utterly devoid of imagination and compassion.  This is the government, remember, protecting us from snake oil salesmen, patent medicines, and other harmful quackeries from the early twentieth century - just doing its job, right?  The private sector would penetrate us six ways to Sunday were it not for good old Uncle Sam, right?  If nothing else, this movie should get the liberals who love the GLBS community rethinking their blind faith in the infallible government and its superiority over the wild, untamed private sector – you know, that unscrupulous doctor down in Mexico doing who-knows-what with the lives of AIDS victims.

What about Woodruff’s motives?  Since he himself had full-blown AIDS, clearly he had a personal interest in establishing a working “cocktail” of treatment, whether the FDA approved of it or not.  Sometimes he comes off as money-motivated, which perhaps he was; though if he was truly out to fleece his fellow AIDS victims, somehow I doubt this film would have seen the light of day.  Most likely he was simply trying to cure himself and others and possibly turn the operation into a self-sustaining enterprise, and maybe even reform the FDA’s regulatory procedures in the process (scant luck with that, though).  Ultimately he died of AIDS in 1992, seven years after an initial prognosis of 30 days to live (in 1985). 

However, there’s another angle I wasn’t keen on.  My “gaydar” suggested that Woodruff, although portrayed as a heterosexual throughout the film, was probably bisexual, if not gay.  I’m led to understand that in fact he was.  But how sympathetic to him would we be, as straights watching the film, if they were honest about his lifestyle?   Outside the US, off in Africa where married men consort with prostitutes as a matter of course, AIDS hits the straight community pretty hard.  But here in the US, aside from outliers like Magic Johnson, the AIDS problem is almost entirely that of gays & heroin addicts.  If the film was honest about Woodruff, chances are most straights would write this whole thing off as, “what do we care if gays and junkies die of AIDS?”  Even without joining the Westboro Baptist Church and barking and braying that “God Hates Fags”, our tolerance hardly stretches far enough to warrant throwing our time, money, and efforts at an issue which primarily concerns a disfavored minority of our society. 

Again, the GLBS community has a right to ask for tolerance, forbearance, and perhaps a little compassion.  But beyond that, it can’t expect the rest of society to shoulder the cross and jump into the fray.  We’ll remain neutral, we won’t put up obstacles, we won’t fight you.  But it’s up to us to determine exactly how much help we feel comfortable giving.  That, I maintain, is not homophobic.

Finally, even allowing for a pro-GLBS bias in Hollywood, McConaughey and Leto did achieve remarkable transformations.  Leto’s was just short of the Andy Serkis-as-CGI-Gollum, but in live action.  Bravo!