Emily in Paris

 “Emily tries, but misunderstands…”

[Revised 1/2/23 after finishing watching Season 3.  Season 4 is supposedly on its way down the Autoroute.  Season 3 updates at the bottom.]

More TV show reviews.  This show recently released its second season on Netflix, the prior season being released in October 2020.  The star is Lily Collins, the daughter of Genesis drummer/singer Phil Collins and his second wife Jill Tavelman.  She bears a remarkable resemblance to Alison Brie, an actress I have a major crush on; Annie Edison on “Community” is her prominent role.  She (Brie) was also in “GLOW” (about women’s professional wrestling) and “Mad Men”, which is about angry, insane males in the advertising industry.  I watched the first season when it came out, then conveniently wiped 90% of it from my memory – including who all these people were, except Emily herself – and watched season 2 when it recently came out.  I had to watch season 1 again to reacquaint myself with the prior background.  Also, many of the points the show wants to make comparing Paris to the US are made in the first season. 

The show itself is a bit of a lightweight, and I derive far more benefit from the scenery, especially the rooftop and aerial view, than the interaction of the characters themselves or the plot.  Oh, and refreshing my French by listening when it’s spoken instead of English.  So instead of focusing on the modest story line, I’d rather address other issues.  I don’t care about fashion, about influencers, about social media, or any of the topics which Emily is involved with in the show.  So I don’t care how accurate the show is about any of that.  And if it gives a fairly light and fluffy, cluelessly optimistic and clean view of Paris, well, that’s the intent of the show.  It’s like eating a Whopper or Big Mac and complaining that it isn’t a steak.  I’d call that an unfair criticism. 

Anyhow.  Emily works for a marketing firm in Chicago, Illinois, USA.  Her firm gets a French client, Savoir (“knowledge”) but her boss, Madeline, got pregnant immediately at that time and decided to send Emily instead of going herself.  Emily speaks almost no French, and what little she does she speaks with a grotesquely annoying American accent.  “Bone-jour”, is how she pronounces the French word for “Hello”.  As she’s obviously a lightweight, her French boss, Sylvie – played by Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, who hasn’t been in any US/UK shows and looks remarkably like Jill Clayburgh - treats her accordingly.  If there’s anything the French love to sprinkle around generously, it’s contempt and arrogance.  [Mindy: “Chinese are rude behind your back, French are rude to your face.”] Season 2 picks up immediately where Season 1 left off, and Madeline herself comes to Paris and proves to be extremely disruptive.  Beaucoup drama.  I don’t recall Madeline ever disclosing which of her three Mama Mia potential fathers is actually the one who put the bun in her oven.  Not that I care. 

Romance.  Emily’s relationship with her American boyfriend back in Chicago (Doug) predictably goes south, giving her free rein to consider local talent, at least 4 different men, albeit on different nights and separate occasions, none of which become serious relationships.  Come on – if Doug wasn’t a jerk and made a decent effort to make the temporary situation work, how else would Emily be free to date locally? 

Office.  Emily’s co-workers at Savoir are Luc, tall, kind of an oddball but very friendly, whereas Julien is the Black Gay Guy.  Initially they treat her like merde, calling her “la plouc” (the Hick).  Apparently Chicago is a tiny village somewhere in Illinois.  Fortunately she wins them over fairly quickly.  Sylvie is a harder nut to crack, essentially being a bitch as a matter of principle, especially since she suspects Emily is going to try to steal Antoine, her lover, from her – and she’s not even his wife, but his mistress.  Later events show that Antoine’s wife is not nearly as sanguine about his affair with Sylvie as she pretends to be, snagging the place alongside him for his trip to St. Bart's that Sylvie considered hers.   Oh, by the way: leaving aside wars, which disproportionately wipe out the male side of the population who actually fight them, roughly 50% of the population is going to be male, and 50% female.  But if certain men not only get a wife but also a mistress, that's going to leave alot of men without female companions - not a sustainable model.  

Camille. French chick, blonde.  Emily describes her as her French BFF.  Her family, which owns a vineyard (how French, Maynard!) is a client of Savoir. Her boyfriend is Gabriel, a cook – he looks like Joel Kinnaman’s younger self.  Gabriel lives literally one floor down from Emily in the same building, which is how they met.  Ross & Rachel: “We were on break!”

Mindy.  Chinese chick, from Shanghai of all places, close friends with Emily.  Apparently Mindy’s family back in China is super rich.  Rich people in a communist dictatorship?  No, not bourgeois, just CCP connected.  Observe the “distinction”.   I had to watch S1 again to figure out who she was.  Mindy bombed on “Chinese Idol” – in front of trillions of Chinese – and moved to Paris to hide out and start something of a new life.  She does not want to live in China, even in Shanghai.  Maybe she should try New York.

Autre Merde.  As noted, I don’t really care to go into the plot or characters.  As an American who lived in Paris, although from age 10 to 21, I wasn’t in Emily’s situation of living there briefly for a job.  However, I do have a similar perspective of Paris, and here’s my observations about the show.

Pas d’Ascenseur.  No elevator?  Most of the buildings in Paris date from the nineteenth century and earlier.  Although all have been upgraded with electricity (though not necessarily A/C, see below) – not all of them have elevators.  Most buildings are the same height, about five stories.  Our building on Blvd. Malesherbes had an elevator, inside the stairwell, plus there was a service elevator in the back I took to my au pair apartment on the sixth floor.  Our guitar teacher, Joel, did not have an elevator – and he lived on the top floor.  That made schlepping amplifiers a bit of a hassle, though I was only carrying a guitar for my lessons.  In these buildings, the elevator goes inside the stairwell, so if the stairwell is a large square box, you've got room for an elevator.  If it's a narrow building with a compact stairwell, then there's no room for an elevator.  Thus the difference between our building and Joel's.

Cleaning after your dog.  Nope, not gonna happen.  Not a good thing about Paris.  

Everyone smokes, even though the health risks are well known and understood – just ignored.  We’re all going to die someday anyway, even non-smokers, right?  Gallic shrug.   Even the women outside the gym are smoking.  As a nonsmoker from day one, I take our own nonsmoking culture for granted, but anyone from France visiting here would probably have a hard time.  Tant pis…

No air conditioning.   Not a big deal 99% of the time.  Paris rarely gets very hot and humid in the summer the way it does in much of the United States, so it’s not cost-effective to install it for the 2-3 days of the entire summer for which it might be useful.  That being the case, the rarity of A/C in Europe is not unreasonable given the circumstances. 

For that matter, it rarely snows, and I never saw any substantial accumulation, let alone a blizzard.  But I’ve seen lots of blizzards in the US in the DC area, and we’re not Michigan, Minnesota, upstate New York, areas which take lots of snow for granted in the winter. 

Bidet.  Yes, you can buy them here in the US, but the next one I see in any home here will be the first.  When we first saw one in Paris, in the temporary housing in January 1979, we were, “what the hell is that? A second toilet?”  I guess without the feminine equipment – I can wash my male equipment in the bath or shower – I’m a bit clueless as to why a bidet is necessary.  The women in my life have been perfectly satisfied and capable of keeping their hoo-ha's clean and proper in the shower or tub.  Bidets were invented before running water was common, let alone ubiquitous.  

Not speaking French.  Let me address this issue.  They give Emily “merde” for coming to Paris without speaking French.  The decision of her boss to send her, instead of going herself, was literally last minute.  She grew up in Chicago.  Was she supposed to instantaneously learn French?  “Language upgrade…uploading….”   Let’s examine this a bit.

Europe is a place with lots of countries very close together with a variety of different languages.  Going from west to east, you’ve got Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, French, English, Welsh, Dutch, German, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Romanian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Greek, Bulgarian, etc.  Just watch an HBO DVD and endure 40 different copyright warnings at the end. 

Moreover, never mind the US, England was a major power for centuries.  It was well worth mainland Europeans’ while to learn to speak English, to deal with the English.   When we visited Holland, we found almost everyone spoke English.  And a Dutch character on the show explains, “because we have no reason to expect any other country to learn to speak Dutch.”  That also makes English a convenient common language for all of Europe, as it’s not cost effective for Europeans to learn literally every different language in Europe.  Pick one language for everyone to learn, and everyone learns it.  Guess what? That language is English, not French (which used to be the common language a few centuries ago), and it’s the language we speak here in the U.S.  How convenient.

In the US, our Northern neighbor, Canada, mostly speaks English, with an accent we can barely distinguish from our own – except for stuff like “aboot” and “eh”.  Only down south do we have a non-English speaking neighbor, Mexico, and a fair amount of people in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and southern California, e.g. San Diego, are going to speak some Spanish.  

But for everyone else in the US, learning a foreign language with no reasonable expectation of working overseas and interacting with non-English speakers on a regular basis, is not worthwhile.  Even if they taught you in school, you wouldn’t have much occasion to get practical experience speaking that language. For my part, I only started learning French when my family moved to Paris permanently and I went to school there, and my Portuguese is only because I had a Brazilian girlfriend and went to Rio de Janeiro five times with her.  Oddly, my Portuguese is about as good as my French, though I’ve never lived in Portugal or Brazil.  Anyhow.  This business of Europeans giving Americans a hard time for not speaking anything other than English is bullshit.  Look at a map.

So, yes, more French are going to speak English than Americans are going to speak French.

That’s about it.  Turn off your mind and enjoy the ride. 

Update on Season 3.  Almost all the main characters are still here, with a few twists

Alfie (Lucien Laviscont).   The actor is English, but I haven't seen him in anything else.  Alfie is a British guy who acts as Emily's love interest while she dallies in the "will she?  won't she" complexity with Gabriel (Lucas Bravo), the chef looking to open his own restaurant.  All of these characters have their idiosyncrasies, but this guy annoys me the most.  First off, his overly stylish perpetual five o'clock shadow.   Then there's the business of having an annoying cockney (lower class) accent while stylishly dressed and having a financial (high class and salary) job and lifestyle.  To cap it off, he only calls Emily by "Cooper", her last name.   I have never seen anyone refer to a woman by their last name only, especially (!!!) if the couple is romantically attached.   That is just so bizarre, it's an affectation.  He's not a villain at all and really just a convenient love interest, but he still annoys me.

Emily herself can be annoying as well.  Part of that is intentional - the writers want to elicit sincere resentment of her among the French characters.   Somehow this girl miraculously solves everyone's problems and gets all the attention.  Plus her eyebrows seem to be larger and thicker than anyone else's, even the male characters.  Bottom line is she's supposed to be a clueless, lightweight American.    

 

Bridgerton Squid Game

 

Time to avoid anything Christmas-related (the timing hereof to the contrary notwithstanding) and instead review two one-season Netflix series, “Bridgerton” and “Squid Game”.

Bridgerton.  A few months ago I tuned into “Saturday Night Live” and the guest host was Rege-Jean Page, a handsome black guy.  No clue who he was.  Later I ascertained that the Netflix has a show called “Bridgerton”, set in an alternate 1813 London where Queen Charlotte – obviously of German descent – somehow became black, and likewise the most eligible bachelor, some sharp guy with an anarchronistic perpetual five o’clock shadow courtesy of modern electric razors, is likewise of African descent.  To make matters worse, almost all the white males on the show are of extremely poor ethics.   If you’re amused or offended by this recent business of turning white characters (fictional or historical) black en masse (e.g. “Foundation”) fair warning there’s more here as well.  Naturally the villains remain white. 

Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dinosaur) has just turned 15 or 16 or whatever and is now being pimped out by her family to whichever ugly, repulsive noble from a prestigious family wants to claim her as his own.  Aghast at the frontrunners, she befriends Simon Bassett, the Duke of Hastings (the aforementioned Page), who himself is trying to avoid being set up.  His “deal” is that his father was a major league asshole who mistreated him so badly, that on his father’s deathbed he swore a vow never to have children and continue his father’s bloodline.  So the two of them pretend to hook up with each other to satisfy their respective families’ crusade to marry them off.

Naturally this is originally intended purely for show and naturally – can we see it coming from the next galaxy – they wind up falling in love with each other.  Sorry to spoil it for anyone of you.  Oh, and there’s a gossip columnist, Lady Whistledown, who scoops the dirt on everyone.  Her name is an alias, causing rampant speculation as to her identity, and even the Queen herself wants to know who she is.  Plus there’s a babe who got knocked up by a British officer – down in Spain fighting Napoleon – who her family wants to marry off before her pregnancy become obvious.  And her hypothetical husband (and his entire family) is supposed to be too clueless to do the math when their first child pops out less than nine months after the wedding.

There’s some sex, as tastefully simulated as you might imagine on a show on Netflix and not Pornhub. 

Modestly enjoyable.  Season 2 is on the way for those of you who enjoyed it more than I did.

Squid Game.  South Korean miniseries about a bizarre game show on a remote island.  They manage to kidnap 456 players to participate in this thing.  It’s a series of games, some blatantly childrens’ games (e.g. red light green light) where the winners survive to the next round, and the losers wind up in gift-box designed coffins and into the crematoria.  As the games progress and the players become fewer, the pot grows larger.  Players are permitted to opt out at any point, however they will forfeit any winnings if they do so.  The staff members all wear pink jumpsuits and black masks, there’s a Front Man with a different mask – ostensibly the Manager but somehow not the person ultimately behind the whole thing. 

What’s really interesting is that after the first round, everyone is sent home.  Then they’re given invitations to return – 100% voluntary.  And sure enough, all of them do.  Each of them has some compelling reason to decide to continue, mostly because they screwed up somehow and ended up billions of noodles (whatever South Korean currency is) in debt, and might otherwise simply kill themselves in despair absent the chance of fixing everything in these lethal games.  Nominally they go by numbers, but as they get to know each other, they learn each other’s names.  Frequently the games require the players to choose teams, but they have to do so before they learn what the game is. 

A cabal of elite douchebags are also behind the scenes betting on the games, and a Seoul cop manages to infiltrate the complex, which is plausible given that all of the staff members wear the black masks. 

Some of the more colorful characters: a gangster with tattoos; a cynical older woman who briefly hooks up with him; a cute chick from North Korea trying to smuggle her family to South Korea or China; an elite business school grad who somehow managed to lose billions in noodles through incompetent trades; a Pakistani guy; and an old man no one can figure out why he’s there.  The show does a good job of making us empathize with desperate game show contestants.  You don’t need to be Korean (north or south) to relate to this whole shebang.

Warning, though: as you might imagine on a show where half the contestants die in every round, it’s fairly violent.

Document Review

 After several months of idleness, I’m finally back on the road, legally, albeit a slightly different type of legal work:  document review. 

Legal proceedings take various forms, of course.  At the lowest level is small claims court, juvenile court, and General District Court (Virginia) and District Court (Maryland).  Here you have minor civil cases, traffic, and misdemeanors.  Upstairs – both in Maryland and Virginia – is Circuit Court, although Federal circuit courts are actually appellate courts.  In Circuit Court – and Federal district courts – is where the bigger things happen.  Divorces, felonies, and larger civil matters.

At the top of civil matters is litigation between major corporations, between major corporations and the US government, or class action suits.  Class actions usually occur when an Evil Corporation hurts millions of people, but each for a fairly small amount, too small for it to be worthwhile to sue, but taken as an aggregate might mean millions of dollars.  As a class action claimant you might wait 5 years and then receive, out of nowhere, a check in the mail for $5.86, the amount some greedy corporation overcharged you.  

These huge cases involve tons of discovery.  “Discovery” is the process by which opposing parties in litigation exchange information.   “Interrogatories” are questions:  “why do you think my client is liable?”, “What are your legal defenses?” “Which witnesses do you plan to call, and what do they know?” “Who, if any, will be your expert witnesses, and what are their qualifications?”  and so forth.  “Requests for production of documents” (RPDs) simply ask for documents, usually whichever documents the party alleges supports their position or may otherwise be relevant to the proceedings.  In the context of document review, we seem to be reviewing literally every email sent since (a) the company formed or (b) email was invented, whichever came second. 

CACI/Winstar.  In May 1998 the sole proprietor for whom I was working, managed to get himself hired by a fancy divorce firm in Fairfax, which wasn’t interested in his lowly associate.  By September, looking for any work I could find, I went to Manpower.  They were filling a slot for CACI, a government contractor, which in turn was filling a DOJ contract.  It seems there was a huge Court of Federal Claims suit, actually 120 separate savings & loans suing the US government over FIRREA.   That meant tons of documents from S&Ls, the FDIC, the FSLIC, and so forth, which needed to be scanned, indexed, and then someone had to actually review them.  Our group examined privileges.

From September 1998 to March 1999 we worked at CACI on L Street, in the same building as the DOJ.  In March 1999 we moved to a satellite office in Rosslyn, Virginia, three blocks away from where I was living at the time (River Place).  Then I was advised – wrongfully, and blatantly so – that being in close proximity to DOJ would let me get hired by DOJ as an attorney, so I moved back to L Street in january 2000.  Maybe a different unit but the DOJ attorneys treated us like insignificant worms.  Finally in November 2000 I got a job working at a law firm in Woodbridge, so that ended the CACI adventure.  I can’t complain too much, as it paid the bills consistently (though by no means extravagantly) and I met my first girlfriend, Leila, working there.

Crowell & Moring.  In April 2000 I took on a second project, for about 6 weeks.  This concerned litigation about DSL, which was then becoming the state of the art in Internet technology.  The law firm set us up in a small office in Rosslyn – yet again – and I worked every night from 6 to 11.  Mind you, this was in addition to CACI, so I had to get up early, take the Metro to L Street, then immediately take it back at 5 p.m. to be in Rosslyn for the second project.  Fortunately the substance of the projects was completely different so there was no conflict. 

We were mainly reviewing for relevance.  99.9% of the emails we reviewed had nothing to do with the subject matter of the litigation.  However, I did find ONE email where the subject matter actually touched upon the litigation. 

Responsive vs. Privilege.  Sometimes the document is reviewed for responsiveness.  The most basic form of responsiveness is substantive relevance to the subject matter of the litigation.  However, most of these emails have nothing to do with the litigation.  But the opposing firm will have its own reviewers.  You don’t want to miss the ONE “smoking gun” document where someone admits doing something evil, or knows someone else – who is professing ignorance of said evil – in fact is very much aware of it. 

Privilege seems to be more the more common review item.  Communications between attorneys and their clients are protected by attorney-client privilege.  Work product means documents prepared in preparation for litigation.  And there’s common interest/joint defense – ACP/WP between parties on the same side of legal dispute. 

Current Project.  Since it’s ongoing, I will not mention the parties, the nature of the litigation, and certainly nothing of substance, except to say that it’s document review. 

This time around it’s remote.  Not sure if it’s COVID or logistics, but this project is remote, meaning I sign in on my own computer at home, albeit through some appropriately secure portals to avoid hacking.  That saves me the business of driving or taking the Metro.  Theoretically I could do this naked, but I even though I live alone, I still don’t walk around naked outside the shower.  TMI, huh?  Anyhow, you get up, make breakfast, shower, log in to the website, and spend the next few hours deciding whether emails are protected by privilege or not. 

As lawyering goes, it’s extremely easy but also extremely dull.   I will say that private practice can be extremely stressful.  Showing up at court on time, wearing a suit and tie.  You have to meet deadlines, satisfy discovery requests, haggle with opposing counsel, satisfy clients who often have unrealistic expectations or change their stories or forget how to speak English when it’s “showtime”, and of course, appear in front of judges.  The client may or may not pay you, even if you do everything perfectly.  There’s all sorts of “manure occurs” issues which make it more interesting but also more stressful. Apparently being paid top dollar at a huge law firm – not that I’ve ever been in that situation, just going off of what I’ve heard – means the standards are that much higher.  Burp or fart at the wrong partner, or make any mistakes (because lawyers aren’t really human, are we?) and out you go.  And judges sometimes have a habit of ruling however the hell they want to, but fortunately it seems most of the time they behave like they belong on the bench.  So the very things which make an active legal practice interesting also make it that much more stressful – as I noted above.  But it pays, and it keeps me busy as an attorney, so I will not complain.

Does anyone actually go to law school and pass the bar exam with the express expectation of doing document review?  I doubt.  Then again, my goal in law school was to be a corporate lawyer, and the closest I got to that was forming LLCs and C corps for small businesses.  I never imagined doing divorce law, but I have to say that it’s not that bad.  Again, so long as I’m paid for document review I will remain satisfied.   

All Them REZNs

 

Yet again my self-imposed blog assignment was made simpler by having two concerts I could comment upon, both occurring within the same week between the last blog entry and this one.  Here you go.

On Saturday, December 4, 2021, I attended a concert at the Baltimore Soundstage, of a Nashville, Tennessee band, All Them Witches (Bassist/singer Charles Michael Parks; guitarist Ben McLeod; drummer Robby Staebler).

This show had originally been scheduled in spring 2020 at the Ottobar (also in Baltimore), postponed several times due to COVID, and transferred to this venue.   My initial ticket was will call (as my preference is for non-electronic tickets) and the box office had my name on a list.  No problems there. 

Arriving at the venue was simple:  395 North up past the Pentagon, the GW Parkway to the Beltway, around to I-95 near College Park, then up I-95 to the Inner Harbor.  Right on Pratt, left on Gay, right on Water, and I was at the parking garage at 55 Market Street, next to the Power Plant, literally across the street from the venue.  Far too close to complain.  Final price paid upon leaving, $15.   Not bad.   My travel soundtrack northbound was Camel’s first album, which tacks on some live bonus tracks on the deluxe CD version. 

The band had a modest merch table, at which I purchased a yellow t-shirt.  Autographed drum heads for $250?  No thanks – the only non-apparel item of note.  Since most bands have merch available online, what we’re looking for is tour-specific items you won’t see on the website – so you check the website before the show.  Or – here’s looking at you, Blue Oyster Cult – a spectacularly unimaginative selection, with the “square image of most recent album cover on a black t-shirt” being the supreme cop-out.   We’re long past the days where we felt compelled to buy at least ONE shirt at the merch table, no matter how lame.  For a band which tours so diligently as BOC – it seems they’ll play any show, no matter how bizarre the venue (e.g. opening for a puppet show at a theme park) – has such an unimpressive array of merch, and the days of tour-specific shirts are long gone.  Fortunately the ATW yellow t-shirt as mentioned before qualified as a special item. 

L.A. Witch was the opening act: another all-girl stoner rock band, they sounded like a close copy of Portland’s Blackwater Holylight (which is supporting ATW on other dates on this tour, nowhere close to Baltimore).

My biggest issue was standing.  The venue is pretty much standing room only, which after awhile made my 1969 model year back hurt.  I stood up in the crowd for the first few songs in the set of ATW themselves, then found a remote corner out of the way to sit down.  By the end of the set I was OK to get up and walk around again.  The venue was full enough that getting anywhere close to the stage was impossible at the time I arrived (yet I’d done so for Monster Magnet and Texas Hippie Coalition in the past at this venue).  Oddly, falling asleep was NOT an issue here.  The encore included my favorite, “Blood And Sand/Milk and Endless Waters”.  Some of ATW’s material reminds me of the Allman Brothers Band at the Fillmore East, whereas this song evokes “Stranglehold” by Ted Nugent.  

Oh, I don’t expect the band to be 100% perfect, note-for-note.  If I wanted that I’d stay home and listen to the CDs, confident that a CD will play the same every time you play it.  Falling down drunk, botched solos, completely useless?  Well, that might be a problem, but I’ve yet to see a band perform that badly.  The two notable exceptions were Leslie West, i.e. Mountain (opening for Deep Purple, Paris 1985), and the only show I ever walked out on, the Mars Volta.  The latter I left because a band whose studio material was 50% prog and 50% screaming in your face nonstop appeared to limit their live set to the latter 50%, which even the band itself (!!!) has acknowledged is not what people want to see.  Then again, there’s another possibility, which transpired at the next concert – see below.

The audience was well behaved.  The most prominent non-ATW band represented was Clutch, as you might imagine in Baltimore.   Unlike a sporting event, which has two mutually antagonistic groups of fans varying from friendly rivalry to outright hostility, presumably everyone at a concert is rooting for the same “team”, and not about to heckle the band – aside from Flair-like “WOOO” of appreciation.  This crowd was enthusiastic without being boorish or unlikeable, a well behaved audience you can’t assume as a matter of course.  Overall an extremely pleasant experience. 

REZN. A few days later I saw this band, on December 8, 2021, at the DC9 Club in DC.  From Chicago, Illinois, and no array of rescheduled concerts. Guitarist/vocalist Rob McWilliams; bassist Phil Cangelosi; keyboardist/sax player Spencer Oulette; and drummer Patrick Dunn.  The sax adds a Nik Turner ingredient to the mix which works well.   

Logistically, this was a simpler concert, as DC is far closer to me in Bailey’s Crossroads than Baltimore:  just shoot up 395 and find my way close to the 930 Club.  Street parking was fine so long as I was willing to walk a few blocks north on Ninth Street.  The venue itself is one of these narrow slices of a city block so slim you walk right past it without even seeing it.  But at least this place, far smaller than the Baltimore Soundstage, had tables and stools to rest my weary back and ass during the generic stoner rock opening acts.  You like to believe that you’re seeing “the next big thing” when they’re an opening act in some tiny club, but somehow I doubt Slomo Sapiens (??) or Dirt Woman will make it big – they’re not even at the Richmond show the next evening.  Then again, both opening acts finished their short and modest sets without a problem.

Merch was sparse:  CDs, vinyl, patches I already had, and an underwhelming t-shirt less impressive than the ones I already had.  So make that ZERO purchases this time around. 

REZN are a band like Elder and Weedpecker who blend doom with prog in a nice blend which avoids being too oppressive or too mellow.  And I was happy, upon re-listening to their three albums, Let It Burn, Calm Black Water, and Chaotic Divine, that the most recent album was the best, showing the band is progressing rather than regressing.   I had seen them a few years back at the Sidebar in Baltimore, on the tour for the second album, so it was good to see them again.  Here I was able to get literally right up to the stage, the room being only about a third full.  Not quite “KISS in 1973 playing through fake speaker cabinets to ten people in the Popcorn Club in Queens”, but nowhere near capacity. 

I suppose after just under 300 concerts, you’re bound to see something different happen, and this was it. 

About halfway through the show, McWilliams wound up having his effects pedal board, something like 20 pedals, crap out on him.  A heroic attempt by him and Dunn to fix the problem failed, causing the show to be prematurely ended. The sad thing was that I was enjoying the set up until that point.  Hopefully they’ll fix the issue and come back to DC to finish what they started. 

Recently I posted a vid on Facebook about the famous Rickenbacker 4000/4001/4003 bass guitar.   I’m not a bassist and never have been, and probably never will be.  These basses are iconic and associated with Geddy Lee, Lemmy, Chris Squire, Cliff Burton, and many others.   A Facebook comrade noted that this particular bass is extremely difficult to maintain properly, notwithstanding its unique sound.  Professional musicians usually have a full-time tech who takes care of their instruments.  However, I didn’t see any roadies working for REZN and the band members set up their own instruments and equipment – and when something did go wrong, it was up to them to fix it.  I suggested going straight through the amp, to which Cangelosi noted that the guitar really needs all those effects.  In this case, going straight through the amp would be REZN’s equivalent of an acoustic show. Maybe bands need a “shit happens” boot camp, but I’m guessing that’s called “touring”. 

Better luck next time…. 

Get Back

 

I finished watching “Get Back”, the three episode documentary miniseries by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, broadcast on Disney+ Channel over the Thanksgiving weekend.  I followed that up with listening to Let It Be…Naked and watching my pirate DVD copy of ”Let It Be”, the movie. 

First, a timeline of the End of the Beatles, 1968-1970.

November 22, 1968, saw release of the self-titled double album, better known as the White Album.  Beyond Sgt Pepper, the White Album is my favorite Beatles album, which I’ve already blogged about.  But the Beatles weren’t done yet: they had not one but TWO more albums in store for us. 

December 11-12, 1968.  Rolling Stones Rock N’Roll Circus.  Recorded then but not commercially released until 1996.  The story is the Stones were upset that their performance was exceeded by the other bands.  Jethro Tull performed "A Song For Jeffrey”, with Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi wearing a hat and playing a left handed Stratocaster.  The Who performed “A Quick One”.  Then the Stones themselves, still with Brian Jones, playing a set heavily laden with songs from Beggars’ Banquet, the last Stones album with Brian Jones.  Set:  Jumping Jack Flash; Parachute Woman; No Expectations; You Can’t Always Get What You Want; Sympathy For the Devil, plus Salt of the Earth as the outro music.   My subjective impression is that the Stones held their own with everyone, including The Who.

The Beatles angle is that John Lennon and Yoko Ono participated in this, teaming up with Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and Mitch Mitchell for a one-off band called Dirty Mac, playing “Yer Blues” – for which Clapton doesn’t come close to the impressive studio solo - and “Whole Lotta Yoko”, quickly forgotten.  Moreover, the entire premise inspired the “Let It Be” project.  Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who directed this, also directed the “Let It Be” project the following month. 

January 13, 1969.  Yellow Submarine soundtrack album came out the month later.  The first side was simply outtakes, (“Only A Northern Song”, “All Together Now”, “Hey Bulldog” and “It’s All Too Much”) combined with the title track, which had originally appeared on Revolver (1966).   The second side was George Martin’s classical music soundtrack to the movie.  As a result, no recording sessions existed (or were necessary) for this album. 

January 8-30, 1969.  Let It Be recording sessions, ending in the rooftop concert on January 30.  The plan was for the band to rehearse and write the next album on film, under the looking glass, and perform the finished album live somewhere. 

Part 1.  Twickenham.  The first attempt was made on a soundstage at Twickenham film studios.  This was a large, cold and bleak room - and not a recording studio.  The band was surrounded by cameras and didn’t appear comfortable, though surprisingly they did get some work done.

Part 2.  Apple studio.  George Harrison quit the band abruptly, only persuaded to return by the collective agreement to move the whole business to the Apple recording studio - in the basement of the Apple offices, in downtown London - where it belonged, albeit still being filmed.  Billy Preston stopped by and helped out on keyboards, his presence truly bringing a smile to everyone and supercharging their productivity.  Overall the band seemed to work much better in the studio.  As before, they had the benefit of George Martin's assistance, although by this time the band was far more accomplished, and the intentionally bare bones recording effort made his expertise less crucial than it had been earlier.  

Part 3. Rooftop concert.  As to where the final concert would occur, different ideas – some more practical than others – were discussed.  An outdoor show in Libya seemed to be the most ambitious choice, but we all know the band eventually wound up performing on the roof of the building itself on January 30.  They didn’t play the entire album, from start to finish, and repeated some songs more than once.   As such it's more a live rehearsal of mostly finished songs than a true concert, especially since the only "audience" on the roof itself, aside from the band and their associates, were the handful of London policemen there to shut the whole thing down....eventually. Setlist:  Get Back (First Take), Get Back (Second Take), Don’t Let Me Down (First Take), I’ve Got A Feeling (First Take), One After 909, Dig A Pony, I've Got A Feeling (Second Take), Don’t Let Me Down (Second Take), Get Back (Third Take).  Of these, “I’ve Got A Feeling” (first take), “One After 909” and “Dig A Pony” as performed and recorded on this occasion wound up on the Let It Be album. 

July 2 – August 20, 1969.  Abbey Road studio sessions.  Much of the material was developed while working on Let It Be in January.  In late February and early May, more work was done, with the final sessions occurring between July 2 and August 20, 1969.  Those were at Abbey Road Studio, also in London, and not the Apple Studio.  In fact, that studio was somewhat hastily put together, and in 1971 it was refurbished to more modern specifications by Geoff Emerick.  As for Abbey Road Studio itself, formerly EMI Studio, it was where not only Abbey Road (after which it was renamed) was recorded in summer 1969, but also Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and both Piper At the Gates of Dawn (recorded at the same time as Sgt Pepper) but also Dark Side of the Moon, by Pink Floyd, of course, and can thus be seen during the studio sequences of “Live at Pompeii”.   For that matter, Alan Parsons worked on Let It Be, Abbey Road, and Dark Side of the Moon  [Another little fact:  McCartney’s long time girlfriend Jane Asher married Gerald Scarfe, who did the animation for “Pink Floyd The Wall”]. 

August 22, 1969.  Tittenhurst park photo session, two days after the album’s recording was completed.  By this time Lennon has a full beard, George and Ringo have beards instead of mustaches, and Paul, the only one in January 1969 with a beard, is clean shaven.  The pictures from this session wound up on Hey Jude, a Capital records collection of the later B-sides which eventually wound up on Past Masters Vol 2. 

September 14-16, 1969.  Last meeting of the Beatles together.  They bickered back and forth.  On September 20, they met again, minus George, who was out of town.  John announced he was leaving the band, effectively disbanding the Beatles.

September 26, 1969.  Abbey Road released.

January 3, 1970.   Paul, George and Ringo had one last recording session, working on “I Me Mine”.  John was in Denmark with Yoko.  This marks the final end to the band. 

May 1970.  Let It Be released.   Phil Spector took the tapes and gave us the album as we know it, doing so without any input from the band, after it had effectively disbanded.  Until Let It Be…Naked came out much later, this was our main way of thinking of these last songs. 

In addition to the album, the movie documentary was also released at the same time.  It comes in at around an hour and a half.  It was released on VHS in the 80s, but never officially released on DVD – so my copy in that format is a bootleg.  After watching all three episodes of “Get Back”, I watched this again.  An hour and 20 minutes, it starts with the Twickenham sessions (January 8) and ends with the rooftop concert (January 30).  The time period of the movie (January 8-30, 1969) is covered again in the “Get Back” documentary.   

November 2003.  Let It Be…Naked is released.   This stripped off the Phil Spector overproduction, removed “Dig It” and “Maggie Mae”, added “Don’t Let Me Down” (recorded during the Let It Be sesssions but omitted by Spector from the final product – it wound up as a B-side to “Get Back”), and changed the running order of the songs.  The CD has a second disc which strings together audio portions, both music and dialogue. 

Soundwise, I have no preference between the two, and actually like the so-called “overproduction” on some of these songs, even if it does betray the original intent of the band to keep it simple and straightforward.  In terms of song selection, I prefer the Naked version. 

When the dust clears, we find the ultimate result of the Let It Be Project turned out to be the following:  A free rooftop concert in London on January 30, 1969; the Abbey Road album, released in September 1969; the Let it Be album, released in May 1970; the “Let It Be” movie, released decades later on VHS; Let It Be…Naked, released in 2003; and this “Get Back” documentary, albeit not by the band itself. 

Peter Jackson Get Back documentary.  Here are my observations on that.

Far better visual quality than the “Let It Be” movie, though that’s not surprising – my basis for comparison was a DVD copied from VHS.  But here we can see all four of them, the instruments they’re playing, the skin on their faces, the hair on their heads, etc.  It’s like night and day.

Of course, it’s much longer, each of three episodes far longer than the 1.5 hours of the original film:  a total of 468 minutes – 4 hours and 48 minutes, just short of 5 hours.  But the captions explain what’s going on, tracking progress on a day by day basis, from January 8 through January 31 (a brief wrap up after the rooftop concert) whereas the 1970 movie simply transitions from soundstage to studio abruptly – and back again, really just compiling everything together in a continuous array of sequences with no captions or explanations.  The linear structure is yet another major benefit of the “Get Back” documentary.

Dig It.  Part of a much longer jam session in the studio with Billy Preston.  The part which wound up on the album was the least interesting part of the whole thing. 

Yoko not a problem.  From what I could see, she simply sat next to John and kept her mouth shut.  If this was modern day she would be on her cell phone nonstop Twittering away.  I didn’t see her telling John or the others what to do, though obviously we’re not privy to their private conversations.  Moreover, Yoko’s permission was required to make this whole thing work, and there were more than 50 hours which were not included. 

Heather & Linda.  American accents!  Amusing to hear them speak.  Heather was very cute – especially surprising Ringo on the drums. 

Paul.  Mainly he’s using his Hofner bass (left handed, of course).  When he’s on the piano, bass is handled on a (right handed) Fender Bass VI by John or George.  I was surprised to see John and George on the piano, instead of just Paul.  John seems to play his Epiphone Casino (white) exclusively. 

George’s guitars.   Red 1957 Gibson Les Paul Standard ("Lucy").   Rosewood Fender Telecaster.  MMT-painted 1961 Fender Stratocaster.  No sign of his 1964 Gibson SG. 

Amps.  All Fender, including some Twin Reverbs.  Since they were new amps, they are the late 60s CBS era silverface.  There’s also the hammer and anvil for “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”.

Fifth Beatle.  This has been going on for ages.  Billy Preston (guest keyboardist on Let It Be) and George Martin (longtime producer) have strong advocates for the position.  My own take is that only Stuart Sutcliffe, bassist back in the Hamburg days, has a compelling case for being the “fifth” Beatle, as reluctant as he may have been.  John’s explicit assertion to the contrary notwithstanding, although Preston did play with them in the studio AND upstairs on the roof, and he was part of the Abbey road sessions in July and August for “Something” and “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”, the band broke up in September anyway.  He’s as much a “fifth Beatle” as Admiral Karl Donitz was the Fuhrer of the Third Reich.   George Martin has as strong a case, but he was the producer.  Was Terry Brown the “Fourth Rush”?  Sandy Pearlman the Sixth Blue Oyster Cultist?  Martin Birch the Sixth Maiden?  Including a producer as a band member, no matter how important, seems a stretch.  For that matter, make Brian Epstein the Fifth Beatle, or Peter Grant the Fifth Zeppelin.  Enough already. 

Rooftop show.   During normal business hours, so the stock brokers and solicitors on the street below could hear and complain.  Note:  we take all these songs for granted, but since Let It Be wasn’t released until May 1970, this was the first anyone outside the band would have heard these songs.  It’s remarkable how many people down on the street, hearing but not seeing could still recognize it as the Beatles making this music/noise.  Noise complaints from Stones fans below brought the police on the scene, but to Ringo's dismay, no one was arrested.

Much of Abbey Road written during these sessions, albeit initial versions, fleshed out more during the later sessions in July and August.  It looks like they wound up with multiple recordings of the different Let It Be songs, plus the live recording of the rooftop show. 

The band was splitting apart but still able to operate together, albeit more so when shifted over to the recording studio instead of the Twickenham soundstage.   They screw around fairly often but still manage to get work done. 

Speculation.  I don’t care to discuss why the band broke up, an issue which became moot when John was shot in New York City in December 1980.  Same deal with “what if they continued,” “what if they just took a break and got back later”, etc. etc.  As for their solo careers, I’ve only heard All Things Must Pass, “Imagine” & “Give Peace A Chance”, and the first disc of McCartney’s recent Citifield show (Good Evening New York City) (2009), which is 90% solo material, presumably the strongest of his work from McCartney (first solo album) through Memory Almost Full (2007).  None of that comes close to the Beatles’ material together as a band.  Lennon & McCartney, as well as George and Ringo, no longer enjoyed the benefit of each other’s input and assistance when writing their solo material.  This was one band where the “whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. 

Dream Car Garage

 

Last year, Rush drummer Neil Peart died of cancer.  He was a car buff, and his estate took care of disposing of his car collection, almost all silver cars, none of which appealed to my preferences:  mostly sports cars.  As I’m unlikely to earn Peart’s stash of money in my lifetime, absent a level of fortune I have no reason to expect, I can still dream.  And if I did come across enough money to be able to assemble such a garage of my own, here’s what it would include.

First off:  NO sports cars.  No Ferraris, no Porsches, no Lambourghinis, no fancy cars.  Exotic muscle cars, sure, but nothing with two seats.  And no silver cars. 

1967-68 Pontiac Firebird 400.  GM put out its first generation F-bodies (Camaro and Firebird) for three model years, 1967, 1968, and 1969.  The current fifth generation Camaro is based on the 1969 model body style.  As Pontiac was killed in 2009, there is no Firebird equivalent, although aftermarket companies have been making bizarre “Trans Am” models which graft second generation (1970-81) styling cues, like the shaker hood and Screaming Chicken, on what is essentially a remake of a first generation car.  Ideally they should simply make a white car with two blue stripes, which is how the Trans Am first came in 1969.  Anyhow.

I love the first generation Firebirds, especially since the Camaros of these years get all the attention.  Unlike the Camaros, the Firebirds got a chrome bumper, Pontiac V8s, and the entry level inline six was overhead cam.  There was even a souped up OHC model, the Sprint, which gave the otherwise mundane six a four barrel carburetor and the car itself a better suspension.  The intermediate models got a smaller V8 – 326 in 1967, 350 in 1968-69.

 And the top model, the 400, with its twin hood scoops, definitely is my favorite.  It used the same 400 cubic inch (6.6L) V8 as the GTO.  My own quest to purchase one in fall 1995 went nowhere, except Flint, Michigan.  I’d prefer a hardtop to a convertible, and a TH400 automatic to a manual.  Rather than insist on one of 2 or 3 surviving Ram Air II models, I’d just as soon get a regular 400 and upgrade it with Edelbrock heads.  Nothing too fancy.  Rally II wheels are mandatory.

1974 Trans Am SD 455.  Of course I’d have to have a Trans Am, but not the ’77-78 Special Edition, better known as the Bandit model (black & gold).  In fact, I had a 1980 S/E, back in 2000, but had to sell it when after removing the 301, the guy next door with a running 455 in a Bonneville or Catalina sold off the car to someone else, leaving me with an engineless T/A.  I’d take a Super Duty model, the last pre-emissions model, and 1974, so I’d be able to get Nocturne Blue (dark blue) with the Screaming Chicken.  Wheelwise it would be Rally IIs, not honeycomb. 

1968-69 GTO. The GTO began in 1964 when Pontiac engineers discovered that the big car 389 V8 would fit in the same space the smaller car 326 V8 did in the Lemans.  They added a triple two barrel carburetor setup, aka “Tripower”.  The 1964 model has horizontally stacked headlights, the 1965 has vertically stacked headlights, and the 1966 and 1967 models got a coke bottle body shape redesign, the 1966s keeping the 389 Tripower, the 1967 getting the new 400 V8 with the new four barrel carburetor, the Rochester Quadrajet.  This 400 also found its way into top of the line Firebirds, the 400 model, as noted above. 

For 1968, the A bodies – Chevrolet Chevelle, Pontiac Lemans/GTO, Oldsmobile Cutlass, and Buick Skylark -got new bodies, and the GTO got the first body color Endura front bumper, replacing the chrome bumper which the Lemans had – winning Motor Trend’s Car of the Year award in 1968 and beating the redesigned Dodge Charger.   It doesn’t have to be a Judge.  It does need the TH400 automatic with the Hurst Dual Gate shifter.  Again, not a convertible. 

1974 GTO.  In addition to the ’68-69, I’d take this one, another oddball choice.  For GTOs most would prefer the ’64-65, 66-67, or 68-69s, or a Judge.  But the 1974 model took the Ventura – Pontiac’s version of the Nova – and put a Pontiac 350 under the shaker hood.  I’ve seen someone put the Trans Am’s SD455 in a 74, and it actually looks pretty cool, especially with Rally II (five spoke) wheels. 

1991-92 Firebird Formula.  My own 1992 went up in flames in 2012, but I still have the Tuned Port 350 (L98), now balanced and blueprinted with AFR aluminum cylinder heads and an aftermarket camshaft.  It just needs a home.  Not a Z28 or IROC, not a Trans Am, but another Formula.  We’ll see about that.  Of all my dream cars, this is probably the most practical, and the only one I actually had before, from 1995-2012. 

1967-68 Camaro RS/SS 350.  I prefer the Firebirds, of course.  But the first generation Camaro SS is a nice model.  The Z/28 was a special model with the 302 V8, rated for high RPM HP with a four speed manual.  The regular performance model was the Super Sport, available with either the small block 350 or the big block 396.  The Rally Sport package mainly consisted of hideaway headlights, and could be combined with the base (non-SS) Camaro (simply called a Rally Sport), the SS (for an RS/SS), or the Z/28 itself.  In 1967-68 the headlight doors were black, in 1969 they had clear horizontal slits (“you still couldn’t see out of them, but at least other drivers could see you”).

1969 Camaro ZL1.  The only other Camaro I’d care for:  the aluminum block 427 model.  The car cost $3000, the engine cost $4000, roughly $70,000 in today’s money.  The funny thing is, back then the insurance companies refused to insure these cars, so no one could drive them even if they wanted to pay that money.  So Chevy wound up with 30 Camaros they couldn’t even sell. 

1968-70 Dodge Charger.  Of the MOPARS, this would be the classic model.  Yes, it’s the Dukes of Hazzard body style only for those three years, but I can do without orange or Confederate flags – or doors that don’t open.  426 Hemi or 440 Six Pack?  Not sure. 

Dodge Charger Hellcat.  The current, four door model, with the supercharged EFI Hemi V8 putting out 700+ HP.  My 2009 Charger R/T is gone, too.  Replacing it with a 2011-12 R/T might be doable.  But if money allows, I’d prefer the Hellcat.  Given that Dodge is discontinuing this model, I may have to buy it used – if ever. 

1969-70 Mustang Mach I 428 CJ.  To cover the bases, a Ford model would be nice.  Forget the 65-66 Mustangs, too boring.  Not a fan of Shelbys.  And not a fan of 302s.  And why get a 351 if you can have the 428 Cobra Jet? It was the optimal Ford street V8 of that era.