11.30.06
Mystery Film
Grey day. Not bad. Off to see Mystery Film. Shall report.
11.29.06
The Squeaky Wheel
Goodness, it’s great to discover that you have part of a cookie left.
Here’s a funny reponse from Merujo The Dolby Fan Also:
Every single time I hear the words “Anaheim House of Blues,” I think of They Might Be Giants and their bizarrely funny “venue song” about said location…
“So put away the crackpipe, the pornography, and the booze/ cuz’ tonight we’re goin’ to the Anaheim House of Blues!”
Ah yes…
Indeed. If that had been my only opportunity ever to see and hear Thomas Dolby play live, I probably would have compromised my well-ordered existence and dutifully attended — but, Friends, Neighbours & Concertgoers: The Venue Matters.
As for the new song, I know without any doubt whatsoever that I have written many songs with better titles than “Your Karma Hit My Dogma.” (This is not to judge the material, only its title.)
So missing it was okay.
The first and only time I have experienced a TMBG show was in 1988 (I think). It was a blisteringly hot afternoon performance (sponsored by KROQ, who used to be cool), and a British semi-punk band with mafia suits called The Godfathers opened the show (in support of their eternally amusingly-titled L.P.: Birth, School, Work, Death). I recall that we somehow made it to The John Anson Ford Amphitheatre by bus (tantamount to hitting “Hyperspace” back then), and that The Godfathers were okay. They Might Be Giants, thereafter, astounded me, as: A. Hardly anyone had heard of them yet, and thus they had that “Our Special Band” status going on; B. I had actually found their first, self-titled CD at the now bye-bye-cakes Penny Lane Records in pre-murder Westwood, and cheerfully waved it about like a treasure-map during the show (to the disgruntlement and sneering of an associate, whose specialty seemed to be disgruntlement and sneering); C. I was still high on “Don’t Let’s Start” (single and video), the lyrics to which my fave hometown band never got right but they otherwise rocked it; and D. John and John sang about the chemical properties of the sun and also wore very tall fezzes without seeming at all pretentious about it.
Afterward, I got a photo with Flansy (I think Linnell actually snapped it), and they both signed my CD, onstage, while they were packing up their gear. At the time, I had no idea where “Hoboken” or “Brooklyn” actually were, so this experience was somewhat like meeting a Yanomami tribe or Horshack.
As far as TMBG’s constant musical output, I used to be amused, but now I am disgusted. Not at them, but because there’s no way a mortal can keep up. (Although as I told my awesome nephew recently, their Dial-A-Song motto has always delighted me: “Free if you call from work.”) Thus the lyrical tidbit brings a smile, thanks.
And HOB — yeah, whatever. Years ago, during one of the times I saw Billy Bragg at the Sunset Strip House of Blues, he and I spoke afterward (I got to carry his prized Burns upstairs), and he mentioned (I don’t think this quite qualifies as a breach of confidence) that he enjoys playing L.A., but isn’t particularly fond of House of Blues, because “it’s like playin’ in Disneyland.”
Well, bingo. (And at the time, the Disneyland Branch of The World Famous House Of Blues Which Brings Together All Of The World’s Faiths In The Name Of Pop-Music Promotion And Sales, Help Ever Hurt Never, Amen did not actually exist yet.)
Hey, here are some more Not Really Old But The Kids Think They Are guys I like:
http://www.mikescottwaterboys.com
all of whom I have seen at House of Blues (even though I’d rather have a crummy view at the Troubadour).
Two of my favourite musical artists in the whole world I saw at the Troubadour, incidentally — with separate groups on different occasions and before they got married and had a son (congratulations!) — and before I even knew they knew each other. Someday I’ll tell you a bit about them. I kind of mention them peripherally anyway.
And while we’re on the subject of popular music (fancy that!), I must offer great thanks to my also-awesome niece, who recently sent me a package which I received today. Goodness gracious! Lemme count…
There are ten CDs in here! All new performers, all new music.
So that’s what I get for grumbling non-stop about how much the radio and supermarket programmers suck!
Some of this appears to be from a groovy swag bag from a Def Jam party at the Mercury Lounge (including the swag bag itself) as I note the presence of a very nice promotional pen!
The musical acts include such names as Damone, Under The Influence of Giants, Girls Don’t Cry and Amelia’s Dream.
Hey, check it out! I’m cool!
Ha!
(Not that I’m going to be putting to rest the Big Country cassettes; Stuart Adamson, also, lives on with me.)
So this all balances out somewhat. Which is funny, because I’m pretty sure that my niece does not read these postings, nor even is aware of them, and yet she answered, as it were, my call.
(Perhaps this is what I get for giving her Little Earthquakes when she was about twelve. Good on ya, Niecey!)
Good to have these little circles of energy nearby as her uncle takes on a sick (yo!) amount of Cinema Criticism. Tonight was Breaking and Entering, which — despite a bombastic trailer that almost entirely turned me off to the project — ended up significantly exceeding my expectations. Plus there’s plenty more to say beyond that.
And that’s just my night job.
(P.S. I would like to thank my next-door neighbour — who was watching loud pornography an hour ago and loud football — much better than Le Football Americain, but still — up until about five minutes ago — for no longer doing either of these things, at least for the moment.)
Almost Cold but Definitely Windy
That’s the middle-of-the-night weather report.
The middle-of-the-night review report is that it took ninety minutes to travel a bit over twelve miles to see tonight’s movie.
It is always like this in this place at that time.
It occurs to me that I have done that trip hundreds of times.
A friend was driving tonight, but I still got a bit nervous from the hellishness of not being able to move! (Insert infinite cascade of profanities and obscenities here.)
(Yes, I know there are many ways to get across L.A.; but they all suck.)
The movie did not suck. The movie was The Nativity Story. It is somewhat modest and earnest in its approach, but it succeeds on the terms it sets for itself. I shall review asap.
“ASAP.” Heh! When I worked at various offices in Hollywood, that — and “Yer the man!” — were about the only things anybody knew how to say, as in:
“Hey, can you do this ASAP?”
(You nod.)
“Yer the man!”
(For further insight and much illumination into that world, check out Slaves of Hollywood by Terry Keefe and Michael Wechsler, and Swimming With Sharks by George Huang — good guys bearing astute views into a world few oblivious outsiders really comprehend!)
Jesus, those experiences sucked. But the Jesus movie doesn’t suck (Jesus — since you probably already know — only makes a brief cameo near the end; Brian, alas, does not appear.)
So yeah, Bobby and Nativity and Breaking and Entering and etc. etc., then next week The Holiday — which, frankly, I think should be spelt entirely with dollar signs. Wish I’d thought of that one!
As for traffic woes, I have long wanted a Batwing of my vewy own. For urban transport, I’m thinking now’s the time…
11.28.06
Thomas Dolby
A fellow Dolbyite responds (and quickly, too!)…
This is a person of unknown Zodiac from Bethesda, Maryland, USA:
He played a new song last night in San Francisco. 
He’s playing HOB Anaheim tonight, FYI.
He played a new song.
I found this entry via Technorati, fyi. And strangely, I’m listening to “I Live In A Suitcase” off “Sole Inhabitant” right now.
Cheers,
Merujo
Hey, thanks Merujo. Great to hear from you. I am indeed chuffed to have sussed that Dolby will be kinda nearby tonight…
…and in a perfect world…
…but, being a fan of both Whale Rider and Catherine Hardwicke (who eats cheap Chinese food near me sometimes), I am going to see The Nativity Story tonight.
Plus…Anaheim.
Egad.
HOB.
Egad.
No overt offence to these entities, but getting to see Mr. Dolby twice this year was already an enormous treat — even though he and “Lunesse” still owe me a t-shirt!
Thanks for being incalculably cool.
A battle for peace concludes:
Goodness, busy week ahead. First of all, I would like to thank the lovely people who have submitted names for my goldfish — these are under consideration and much appreciated!
http://ubercine.com/glogg/2006/11/26/contest-1/
More reviews en route. Went to Bobby again last night. Tonight The Nativity Story. Breaking and Entering on Wednesday. A Very Surprising Advance Screening Of A Movie That Won’t Be Released Until Next Summer on Thursday. Then, on Friday, I intend to have the site (and possibly even my existence) up to snuff for December.
This conclusion to the Really Stupid Conflict Over A Peace-Wreath makes me smile (and the fact that the boyfriend of the “culprit” appears to be a cyborg plugged into an outdoor power-jack brings a grin, too):
11.27.06
Quod Erat Demonstrandum, Baby
A Brief History of Thomas Dolby ‘n’ Me:
1981: Attend second-ever rock concert, with great friend D. Is Foreigner, supporting 4 album. Is not quite Van Halen, but is good. T-shirt is black and girls like. But never really think about who played those synth lines on the hit singles…
1982 or thereabouts: Mtv begins to break into various markets; become aware of very cool sci-fi-like music video called (wait for it!) “Radio Silence.” I like. Then it seems to vanish.
Later 1982: Gradually putting two and two together in world suddenly awash with what Mark Knopfler would soon enough call (in a character’s voice), “little faggots with the earring and the make-up,” I fall head-over-heels for song called (nope, not “Head Over Heels”, but:) “She Blinded Me With Science.” Video is astoundingly astounding. Begin discussing with friends what “come-uppance” may mean. Rush out and purchase album in newfangled (for me) cassette form. (Notably, still have; still plays!) Like the little dbx encoding tinkle at beginning and end. Listen to it on summer nights on sister’s walkman-type device. Never actually get walkman-type device of own. This is okay, as sister constantly steals albums and touches the grooves and doesn’t put them back properly, then lies about ever having taken them out. But I digress.
1983: In response to English class assignment: “Who Is A Person You Would Like to Meet and Why?” — I choose Thomas Dolby. In rare instance of adult forgetfulness (I do NOT subscribe to that new agey idiocy about “forgetting being a healthy thing to do”), I forget all about this. Friend M. reminds me, via email, in 2006. He also reminds me that he chose, for the subject of his essay (and longing), Bozo the Clown. This leads to Wikipedia and other research of Bozo the Clown, followed by email campaign among friends with shared Bozo memories. I still prefer Cookie — and I really don’t remember what my essay had to say about why I wanted to meet Dolby — but it does exist somewhere. I’m sure it’s brilliant.
1983 also: I attempt to dance with girls to “She Blinded Me With Science.” They do not even feign feigning interest. Within a year, I slow-dance with E.S. to entirety of “Stairway to Heaven.” Revenge.
Also 1983: Mtv airs concert video from Thomas Dolby, entitled LIVE WIRELESS. I love this so much it hurts. I tape it — but, alas, only on audio tape. Friends and I revel to it.
1984: Girls = fully incomprehensible now; it really seems that all any of the ones I find attractive want to do is “jam” (this apparently involves bouncing around to Thriller, which quickly grows annoying; you had to be there). Relinquishing hope becomes easier though, as Thomas Dolby releases The Flat Earth. My other great friend D. buys it on vinyl, and I buy it on cassette for a change (a girl had tried to shame me for my vinyl fetish, and I figured I may as well join The Future). This other D. and I sit in his room and discuss what a “semaphore” may be: We eventually suss that it may have something to do with trains.
(The word “suss” hadn’t yet entered my vocabulary, but it’s here now, and at this point you’d have an easier time extracting a surfer’s arm from a shark.)
But all of this is by the way, for The Flat Earth is the greatest thing I have ever heard. I listen to it constantly. I have moved on a bit now, but it still remains a top fave, and the most to-which-I-have-listened album in my world. Back then, I even review it for the school newspaper; I have virtually no idea what I’m talking about, and haven’t even heard of Robyn Hitchcock yet (apart from the credits; “Keith”?) — but the thing simply amazes me.
I decide to become a Dissident.
For four years, I bounce around across North America, and nothing makes the slightest bit of sense – which is buffered considerably by a steady diet of Talking Heads — and then, finally…
1988: Thomas Dolby releases Aliens Ate My Buick.
I like it; I really do; but I begin to form a hypothesis that moving to L.A. makes people’s music suck a bit. For Flat Earth to have been the sophomore effort that beat the odds, Aliens, at the time, feels a little…off. Again, I like it; I really do; and I even send a letter to the absolutely horrendously terrible local “pop” radio station (endless Whitney Houston, and she’s probably the best thing they ever played) suggesting — wink-wink — that they add “Pulp Culture” to their playlist (no offense to Ms. Houston, but after one million plays, Elton John & Kiki Dee’s “Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart” will kill the average human). A friend of a friend looks great in a swimsuit, and I frequently contemplate the notion of her grooving with me to “Pulp Culture” — but nothing ever comes of this, and I doubt very strongly that she’s ever even heard the song.
The phrase “short’n'curlies” should be in more pop songs, though. I would have loved an Andrews Sisters song called “Short’n'Curlies.”
But I digress again.
1988, a bit later: My friend C. (up until then often called “Bean,” “Beaner,” “Beandip” and even “Beanshit”) opines that he isn’t entirely impressed with Aliens. Nor am I. At the time, I concur with C. that “My Brain Is Like a Sieve” is a mildly embarrassing misstep. Mr. Dolby, rather than being himself (which is a rather luminous presence, particularly in the headphones) seems to be putting on goofy airs that aren’t fully working. I like Aliens; I really do (the grooves are impeccable, the hypnotic “Budapest By Blimp” truly involving) — but I feel that it is a minor fumble from the triumph of The Flat Earth. I’m still very much in the Dolby fold — but the last thing I wanted from this “exotic” performer was goofy American shit: I can walk down any street and get that!
And then…
I wander around the world a whole lot, get my heart broken constantly, and somehow succeed in Higher Education (I’m nowhere near as well-off as the star of this entry — if you own or lease-with-an-option-to-buy a cell-phone/mobile-thingy, you’re probably holding technology from Dolby’s company, Beatnik – but I do have the education and degree; we all need something).
For a while there I listen to Lou Reed a lot. Then, one day, I wake up and realise that Lou Reed is tone-deaf and really kind of irritating, and that all we really need from him is “Perfect Day,” thank you and goodnight.
1992: Somehow I have moved to Washington State, and am working in a record store owned by a ghastly, tyrannical Boomer (is there any other kind?). There is one extremely nerdy little Electronica-Goth slave-employee who puts The Golden Age of Wireless as one of his “Employee Picks” (I’m all about Jane Siberry and Mike Scott at the time.) His pick seems like ancient history — but much beloved ancient history. Otherwise, the “pop” music of that place and time sucks so bad it’s like constantly ingesting poison. Add to this that I have fallen in “love” with an idiotic graphic artist girl who will waste three years of my life amidst absolutely zero satisfaction, but with plenty of selfish tugs on the strings. Sigh. But, hey, Thomas Dolby releases a new album!
The new album is called Astronauts and Heretics. It has a “mysterious” cover. It has a vaguely “Gothic” photo of Dolby looking…wait…is he bald?
Of course I buy the thing — with discount, but new, on CD — and I listen to it a lot. I want to love it, but…
I can’t.
I like it, though.
I just don’t understand why the hell Thomas Dolby would ever want to be Bruce Hornsby!
The album confuses me. Its giggles are too cutesy (”Silk Pyjamas”), its ballads too sappy (”Cruel”), its “fun” songs too…borrowed (”Eastern Bloc” — the sequel to the out-of-this-world amazing “Europa and the Pirate Twins,” actually grabs the rhythm of Bow Wow Wow’s “I Want Candy” and smooshes it with…an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo?). I hear “I Live In a Suitcase” and go, Well, Boo-hoo, Thomas — The Police already did this, and made it fun! I hear “I Love You Goodbye” (which should perhaps have a comma in it) and I wonder why the hell some Creole-sounding guy is yelling “Accordion!!!” in the background, as if it’s declaration of bayou passion or something. In short, it all sounds forced. I like it because I simply like Thomas Dolby and probably always will — but…whereas Golden Age and Flat Earth jumped up as timeless classics, and Aliens blended very confident kitsch with some leftovers from Gothic (one of the coolest movies, and soundtracks, of that decade) and moments of surprising sincerity…
I feel that with Astronauts and Heretics, Mr. Dolby has done the unthinkable: He has made an average album!
Honestly, I don’t think about it too much.
1994 or thereabouts: I’m very in “love” with the aforementioned idiot girl by this point, and when I tell her that I have just gone to a music trade-show and met Thomas Dolby, and he even gave me his card (he judiciously gave his card to several people), she is utterly unimpressed. I could put my own penis through both ears and she would be unimpressed. I have no idea what I’m doing up there. But at least I met Thomas Dolby.
(Psychologists and law-enforcement agents: Kindly note that I haven’t had, do not have, and will not have any interest in meeting Thomas Dolby outside of professional and public interaction.)
(”Hey! Hey! Thomas Dolby ovah heah!“)
The Rest of That Hideous Decade: Total suckfest. Notably, Thomas Dolby essentially retires from music. Thanks. I hear that the Kajagoogoo guy is working in a hat shop. Things are grim.
Oh yeah: Sometime around 1994, Thomas Dolby makes a Mind’s Eye soundtrack album. But I want The Flat Earth II.
Every Year Or Two: Somebody makes a joke about Howard the Duck. Usually, the somebody is me. But I kinda like it, too. I made a high school girlfriend sit through it until the end credits. Revenge.
A Decade Passes: Suddenly it is difficult to get through airport security, the “leader” of the free world is one of the most wretched things ever to exist, I toil ceaselessly for scumbags and then am fired by scumbags, I keep going to movies as if it’s going to save my life, most of my friends vanish and some actually turn into outrageous arseholes (Hi, Liz!), and still…nothing from the world of Dolby. At least, nothing hitting my radar.
2005: In a pinch for website filler, I put “WHY, MISS SAKAMOTO, YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL!” in big red letters on my homepage. This causes me to wonder: Am I dead but only think I’m still alive? Why would I do such a thing?
(I enjoy a large, loud laugh at a girl-woman I dated briefly, who surmised that when Caucasian men turn their interest to Japanese women, it really means that they’re only one step away from becoming gay. This theory still astounds and entertains me.)
Later 2005: I am on a train bound for San Diego to see friend C. (non-Beanshit edition) and his post-divorce sweetheart (What the HELL is going on???) and I am writing in my notebook, and some bitch-boy sitting near me is blasting “Gangsta” through his very loud headphones, and suddenly I write:
THOMAS DOLBY,
PLEASE COME BACK!
Hm.
Early 2006: I start surfing to see what’s new with Dolby (if anything), and I discover that his website is basically an archive site — filled with little anecdotes about meeting Michael Jackson (and sleepover friends) on a rainy L.A. night, smallish non-bandwidth-snarfing versions of many of his videos, thoughts, reflections and the reason he probably won’t tour much anymore (it’s pricey and a pain).
Hm. I relegate Thomas Dolby to the past.
I still love The Flat Earth.
Then…
Something really weird happens.
Thomas Dolby defrosts himself and rejoins the world of popular music and personality.
It’s hard to believe what I’m seeing: The guy suddenly not only has a live website, he’s actually “blogging,” too.
He’s alive?
He cares about the fans who cared?
Hm!
Well, to make a long story short, I go to see him at Key Club in Los Angeles. I walk in just as he’s starting “Leipzig.” The show is much like LIVE WIRELESS, only totally solo (but for crew) and he’s doing “that trenchcoat thing.”
It is a wonderful show.
Afterward, I am fortunate enough to join a small gaggle of fans and chat with him. Again.
He is very gracious, despite having just accidentally cast the wheel of a rolling chair into a crewmember’s eyeball.
Everyone survives.
I get a copy of The Flat Earth signed for D. #2, with a happy birthday message — and then I miss his birthday.
Brilliant.
More of 2006: The year rolls along, and I’m not sure at all where the line between faking it and actually caring is. Big Cosmic Joke. Some good people waft through. I check up on Dolby as his (initially-named) “Sick Individual” tour morphs into his “Soul Inhabitant” tour – which makes many fans happy and makes some new people into fans. In the spring I constantly offer to make him a concert tourfilm. His assistant is lazy. Eventually he gets back to me personally and politely explains that he doesn’t want a tourfilm, just a document of the performance, which he and his people have well in hand. I do not press the issue, but I think that the fans of Thomas Dolby are worthy of a film in and of themselves!
15 November, 2006: A friend takes me to Cerritos (Cerritos???) to see Thomas Dolby perform at their very weird (and very ’80s!) Cerritos Center for Performing Arts. The photo above was snapped very hastily at the end of his performance. Here it is again:
(I like that it’s slightly blurry, befitting the strangeness of the occasion.)
The show is opened by Naked Eyes. Mr. Dolby opts not to mention this on his website — perchance to distance himself from the stench of Nostalgia. I don’t blame him. I don’t really know anything about Naked Eyes, but apparently that outfit is really about the original lead singer and a new drummer and a very patient synth player. The lead singer is fit and bounces around a lot and seems somewhat delusional. His two hits sound great and his other songs are solid (the option to cover “Paint It Black” as a Depeche Mode-style cover is questionable, but not lethal) — but the guy seems stuck, trying to force something that ain’t gonna budge. He’d be better off going quiet and intimate rather than getting even bouncier (and begging for girls to come dance in front of the stage, which never happens) — but again, he is fit and means well, and despite his mild insanity never quite earns my ultimately respectfully withheld shout of “SAFETY DANCE!!!”
Then Mr. Dolby goes on.
Some woman in one of the countless balconies shouts, “I LOVE YOU!”
I respond, “WE ALL LOVE HIM!”
The show we behold is almost exactly the same show I beheld earlier in the year — right down to the patter. But that’s fine. It’s an excellent show. And guess what?
Suddenly “I Live in a Suitcase” sounds (and looks) really great!
I could probably tell you the entire setlist in order if I pondered it long enough, but basically it was Leipzig and One of Our Submarines and I Live in a Suitcase and Europa and the Pirate Twins and The Flat Earth and Windpower and Flying North and Budapest By Blimp and She Blinded Me With Science and Hyperactive! and Airhead.
The thing is, though, Thomas Morgan “Dolby” Robertson could sit up there making weird faces and honking a kazoo and it would still be a pretty groovy show. The fellow is a fun and inspiring entertainer. It’s a bonus that he happens to have concocted several sonic gems.
Welcome back, Thomas.
Tonight is the first night of Dolby’s new tour, and I cheerfully recommend his performance.
Check him out at:
Merry Sickening:
It takes a lot for an AOL “news” blurb to get my attention, but this really is indicative of a national problem (and I certainly don’t mean peace).
This yokel with “authority” reminds me of my driver’s ed instructor. We were tooling around some similar subdivision, and he asked me if I planned to serve in the military. Very respectfully, I replied that I did not believe that I would be of any use in fighting among nations (quite the contrary!) “What about the Russians!?” he asked me. “Well,” I replied, “what about them?” To this the instructor — who had been blasting a baseball game over the car’s AM radio during my entire “course” –shouted: “DO YOU WANT ‘EM COMING OVER HERE, TAKING OUR LAND AND RAPING OUR WOMEN???!!!”
I’m not kidding. That really happened.
With no offense to people who are serving and doing their best, why are some other people so stupid?
P.S. Love the “symbol of Satan” bit!
11.26.06
Contest #1 (!)
Yes, I know that the world is in a dismal state, we are depleting resources at a terrifying rate, people are killing each other over really stupid things, and Patricia Arquette has weird teeth — but the thing is, I have these two goldfish here:
Contrary to the contemplative repose suggested by this photo, they are swimming around in their freshly cleaned bowl like crazy.
I note that their most salient characteristic is that they blink even less than movie actors.
But they haven’t got names!
Now, y’know, I’m a writer. I’m such a writer that I can go all the way to Really Pretentious Pet Names (Tiberius, Condoleezza) and come all the way back again and use names like “Chris” and “Tina” (as I’m listening to that live Tom Tom Club CD again)…but…
Wouldn’t it be more fun if YOU named my goldfish?
Indeed, I have no faith whatsoever in internet dating or any of that shit — but using this technology to garner my new friends some cool handles, I can get into that.
Can you?
If you would like to name my goldfish, simply comment on this post within the next week or so, offering the best two names of which you can think. The names needn’t be cinematically-inspired (although that’s perfectly good too); they need only be awesome.
Please specify Top Fish and Bottom Fish.
Employees and representatives of Pepperidge Farm, and their families, are ineligible for this contest.
Final judgment of names will be handled by an official panel of me. And if I decide that all offerings lack the nous-ne-savons-quoi these creatures deserve, the contest will be overridden. But, again, much more fun if YOU name them. The winner’s name will be announced if he or she or it would like, and then I’ll send the winner something amusing, and sign it if that adds to the amusement.
Bonne chance!
No sushi jokes, please (I’m sensitive, and I’d like to stay that way.)
11.25.06
Singin’ in the Rain
The first film I viewed upon my arrival in California for film school (a while back), was Singin’ in the Rain. My mother well recalls my enthusiasm when I called her that evening, as I expressed my joy at having seen the film on the big screen (with thanks to Drew Casper, and of course USC).
Some time has passed.
It bugs me that Donald O’Connor died only three years ago, and that he lived relatively nearby; I would have loved to see him perform, or even meet him. Alas.
See what happens when you’re busy?
Anyway, tonight was the first time since oh-so-long-ago that I viewed Singin’ in the Rain on the big screen (or, fully through, at all). It is a rough world, and revisiting such a happy gift usually seems trivial, even ridiculous.
I sat in the centre of the front row.
It was great.
Mind, I’m also a Xanadu fan, and yet…I noticed this before, and I noticed it again: Gene Kelly looks almost insane. That grin, that eye-shadow, that intense self-adulation, that scar. Truly, there is something a bit weird about him.
But it’s great fun, and fifty-four years later (its release, not my start in film school; ha!) the film is still enormously amusing. Awesome prattle.
I had a tear in my eye for “Good Morning.” Debbie Reynolds really holds those guys together.
Here are two comments I heard from within the satisfied crowd as we departed:
An ~eight-year-old boy to his father: “Audacious performances throughout.”
A mid-20s blonde to another mid-20s blonde: “I so wanna be Lina Lamont!”
(Shudder.)
Me, I think the Broadway Melody sequence is a bit excessive without really fitting into the movie particularly well, and I was surprised at how quickly the title song zips past.
But what fun, what fun.
This may seem a bit silly, but I sincerely wonder if finally seeing this movie again marks a closure for me.
The Evening I Traded My Evening for Two Goldfish
I was trying to do Too Much tonight, went over to catch another movie (rarely a passive activity for me), missed it by five minutes, and on the way back, in a grimy, dimly-lit parking area, discovered a fishbowl sitting on a kerb.
Distracted, I paid it little mind on the first pass: Fishbowl. Dirty. Don’t need that.
The second pass came about three paces later: Wait. Fish food canister. Um. And did I just see movement?…
Indeed, I have just adopted two orphaned goldfish.
Why?
Well, they’re not much bother. And they’re quiet. And their current habitat is remarkably similar to the one I had as a child (not for me, but for the goldfish I then had).
My bowl was never so skanky, incidentally — but then, mine never had pretty-coloured fake rocks on the bottom along with the tiny shells.
The main reason for this insta-adoption, however, is this: The goldfish are from a third-world nation, and I want to be cool too!
Um, no.
The main reason is that the goldfish were sitting in what could be called the exact opposite of a nice place, and I calculated the odds of their being kicked over onto the asphalt by some unhappy person to be high enough to merit intervention.
Not to mention all the cats!
So I now have two goldfish, in a smelly bowl, and I fed them and they ate, so we’ll see how this goes.
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