CleverDonkey.com …Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel

(Note: The songs in this rant have hotlinks to pages at music sales sites (Amazon, Barnes & Nobles) that have audio samples. This does not imply endorsement of these external sites or their products, but are presented simply as a convenience for you, the reader.)

I adolesced in the ’70s, in a small, coastal Texas town. My available music selections were country (ubiquitous), rock (one fuzzy, whiny AM station from Houston), pop (2 hours a day on the local station, one station out of Victoria), and whatever records or 8-tracks I could afford to buy (or borrow from my sister). And unlike many of my peers, music was not central to my teenage years. I mean, there was music that I liked, but I didn’t live/breathe music, or worship any bands, or scrimp and save to get the money to buy tickets for concerts in far-off, exotic places like Corpus Christi and San Antonio. I listened to some music, did a little country dancing, and that was about it.

Then I went off to college, at the University of Houston. College being college, many things changed for me, including my musical tastes and perspectives. For instance, I finally matured to the point where I began to get a glimmer of an understanding of the greatness of the Beatles. I realized that I wasn’t angst-y or disaffected enough to relate to punk rock. I heard the first twangs of the nascent new-country sound, and found it repugnant. I also started getting very tired of hearing ever-more-generic disco songs.

And I also discovered something else. I found that there were some core songs and groups, labeled as disco by most, that I not only never grew tired of, but that I grew to like more and more. And as I explored this predilection, I found that while disco was the colorful, thin, wispy candy shell, the chocolate inside was nasty, groovy funk.

That Was An Epiphany
It all started one evening during my first year of college. I was in the University Center (UC, sort of a student center), and I could hear the thump-thump-thump of music being played loudly in one of the large conference halls. The beat and sound were very appealing to me, so I wandered over and found that one of the local fraternities was having a fundraising dance. I paid my $2 and went inside and found that I was the only Caucasian in the place, as far as I could see (and, being 6’5″, I could see pretty far). The dance was being put on by the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, which is a primarily African American fraternity. You may know them as the fraternity that brands (or branded, I don’t know if they still do it) their pledges on the shoulder with the Greek letter Omega.

Needless to say, I felt pretty out-of-place. I mean, I was a tall, white, 17 year old country boy come to the big city, so this was a very new experience for me, to say the least. However, my little hometown was peacefully racially diverse, and my mom had instilled in me an open mind and tolerance for others, plus the music was really grabbing at me, so I didn’t turn around and walk out. Instead I grabbed a coke, mingled, and tried to ignore the stares, which ranged from covert glances to open challenges. It was such a freaky scene.

To this point in my life my dancing experience consisted of country dancing, and then doing some boot-shuffling to the pop/disco songs that the country joints would play between blocks of country. So at the Omega dance I was resigned to being a wallflower. But I did notice some things…first of all, I wasn’t familiar with most of the songs being played, but I liked them. I wasn’t hearing anything from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, for example. Nobody was wearing a white leisure suit. Nobody was mimicking Travolta’s choreographed “disco” moves. Nobody was doing the Hustle.

But everyone was sure having a good time. I found myself moving to the beat, almost involuntarily. It was like an awakening. And I wanted to dance. But I felt out of place and out of my league, like a bottle of Ripple in a fine wine cellar. But I couldn’t bring myself to leave, so I stayed and struggled with myself to either get up the courage to dance, or to finally give up and leave.

And then I heard the opening guitar riff of a song that I knew. Knew and loved. And the crowd recognized it, too, and started flooding onto the dance floor.

It was a sign.

It was Play That Funky Music, by Wild Cherry.

It was an epiphany. I spotted the nearest likely candidate and asked her if she’d like dance, and she did, so we did. And I ended up dancing the night away, and having the time of my young life. Over the course of the evening I discovered my dancing muse, and found my voice (so to speak). And that muse was funk.

I Can’t Define Funk, But I Know It When I Hear It
Now, I’m no musicologist…in fact, I can’t even play an instrument…but I’m going to try and define funk for you. Funk has a nasty, relentless, hypnotic rhythm. Most funk songs are not very complex, lyrically, but they are dense, musically. There are exceptions, like Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) by Sly and the Family Stone, which has a simple guitar hook, a few horns, and a lot of funk. And then there’s You Haven’t Done Nothin’ by Stevie Wonder, which is both musically dense and lyrically powerful. In fact, if you want to want a crash course in funk, listen to these three songs, all by Stevie Wonder:

Maybe Your Baby
I Wish
You Haven’t Done Nothin’

If all you know about Stevie is his later work (like Ebony and Ivory), these three songs will be eye-openers (as well as leg-twitchers, if you have any funk in your soul). But if you listen to those three Stevie songs, you will know the definition of funk. If those three songs don’t move you, or they sound like “disco” to you, then you should probably resign yourself to being a funk philistine, and stop reading. (The links are just to samples on various music sites, so for the full effect I suggest you legally acquire copies of these songs to which to listen.)

I could write a whole separate rant (and probably will someday) on Stevie Wonder, whom I consider to be a certain genius, a probable brother from another planet, and even a possible time traveler.

Everybody Move
The three Stevie songs above, although 200 proof funk, are just the tip of the iceberg. Here, according to this ranter, are some of the rest of the funkiest songs out there:

Body Movers
Jungle Boogie (Kool & the Gang)
Burn Rubber (The Gap Band)
Brick House (The Commodores)
Love Rollercoaster (The Ohio Players)
Too Hot to Stop (Bar-Kays)

Meat and Potatoes
It’s Your Thing (The Isley Brothers)
Let It Whip (The Dazz Band)
Fire (The Ohio Players)
Flash Light (Parliament)
Dazz (Brick)
Fight the Power (The Isley Brothers)
Atomic Dog (George Clinton)

Slow Grooves
Strawberry Letter 23 (The Brothers Johnson)
Use Me (Bill Withers)
Got To Give It Up, Part 1 (Marvin Gaye)
Groove Me (King Floyd)

Instrumentals
Rockit (Herbie Hancock)
Pick Up the Pieces (Average White Band)
Outa Space (Billy Preston)

Neo Funk
Give It Away (The Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Paul’s Boutique (most of the album, The Beastie Boys)

Give a listen to some or all of those songs, and you will “get” funk. If you find that it’s moving your body and making you want to dance, go out and find some of it, because the best way to experience funk is with your whole body. If you live around Houston, you may want to try The Mercury Room [editor’s note: this club has since gone out of business]. Some of their regular bands (like Soul Circus) lay down some slick, funky grooves. But remember, you can always just slip in the disk, crank up the volume, and jam right there in your car during rush hour. Funk is good for what ails you, no matter what it may be. Remember, it’s your thing, do what you wanna do.

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First of all, after seeing this movie I think that it would be great for its two stars (Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler) to make more movies together. This movie has an interesting story, an uneven script, workmanlike direction, and solid lead performances. In fact, Sandler and Nicholson fully inhabit their roles and play off one another with humorous edginess.

Without revealing too much, the storyline progresses a bit differently than I expected given what was shown in the trailers, but it’s not wildly different. Plus, this is a light comedy, so the story is just the framework for the humor, for the most part. The script ranges from hilarious and witty to juvenile and weak, but there’s a touch more hilarious wittiness than there is juvenile weakness, and overall I enjoyed the film.

But the weak, juvenile parts of the script make me want to know which of these is true:

1. Artless studio executives force crude, tasteless “humor” into otherwise witty, intelligent scripts because they think it adds an “edge” that will bring in some highly coveted demographic.

2. Pragmatic screenwriters know that their script won’t sell (or will be butchered by artless studio executives) if it doesn’t contain some crudeness, so they add it themselves in an attempt to control the awfulness of it.

3. Times and tastes have changed, and I’m now entering my “cantankerous old fart” phase.

My guess is that it’s a combination of all three. From my viewpoint, if you were to take out the anatomical and bodily-function “humor”, and were to make the ending just a bit more believable (I’m not asking for realistic, just as believable as the rest of the movie), this movie would have rated 3 to 3.5 stars. As it stands, though, it’s sort of a Frankenstein’s monster with parts from Waterboy, Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer, and As Good As It Gets. And not just the good parts.

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Where to begin with this one. First of all, I was a faithful viewer of The Gong Show, created by Chuck Barris. I thought it was hilarious. For those of you who don’t know the show, the shtick was that rather ordinary people of (usually) limited talent would come onstage and perform their act, which could be anything from eating a popsicle in a lascivious manner to performing some (quite good) jug band music, and anything in between (and beyond) that you can think of. Picture Letterman’s Stupid Human Tricks extended to a half-hour show (coincidentally Letterman was a Gong Show judge at one point). Chuck Barris (Chuckie Baby) was the emcee, and there was a panel of three minor celebrities who would either a) “gong” the contestant, which indicated that their act was no longer bearable or b) give the act a score. At the end of the show the contestant with the most points won a few bucks.

There are those who felt that The Gong Show mocked or humiliated the contestants, but unless you lived under a rock you knew that it was quid pro quo…you did your stupid/embarrassing/pathetic “act” and Chuckie Baby would put you on the air for your 37 seconds of fame. It was win-win and was done with such enthusiasm and self-awareness that it reached surreal comedic proportions. I’ll stop talking about The Gong Show after you read this quote which sums up everything I loved about the show and Chuck Barris…this is Chuckie Baby introducing some random act:

“And our next act says he’s only semi-professional…which is great…because we’re only quasi-interested.”

Now to the movie — Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is George Clooney’s directorial debut. Yes, *that* George Clooney. The George Clooney. My respect for his talent and intelligence keeps growing. Selecting this movie for his first shot at directing was dangerous and brilliant. This concept is NOT a guaranteed winner. Chuck Barris and The Gong Show are, at best, a distant memory to today’s movie viewers, remembered with fondness by some and disdain by others, if even remembered. The script is adapted from Barris’ autobiography, in which…

********** SPOILERS AHEAD **********

…he claims that, along with being the inventor/producer of The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and The Gong Show, he was also a hitman for the CIA, and killed 33 people, using his trips around the world as ‘chaperone’ to show winners as cover. Well, that’s just bizarre. Whether or not it’s true, it’s just weird and bizarre and absurd. And unbelievable. Sort of. But, why did they send their contestants to places like West Berlin and Helsinki as prizes? Why would Barris, the high-powered producer of multiple TV shows, take time out of his schedule to chaperone these schlubs on their trips? I do not know the answers to these questions but I do find them interesting.

And so, apparently, did Clooney. His first great move as a director was insisting that Sam Rockwell play Chuck Barris. I first saw Rockwell as Guy Fleegman, the unknown, hilarious, and constantly-imperiled crew member in Galaxy Quest, and next saw him as the head bad guy in Charlie’s Angels, where his chameleon-like shift from good guy to bad guy was astonishing. In COADM he plays Barris to perfection. The recreated scenes on the set of The Gong Show are uncannily and excruciatingly realistic representations of the real show. Rockwell also conveys the emotions of a semi-reluctant hitman in a moving and plausible way.

Drew Barrymore does an excellent job as Barris’ ongoing love interest, and Clooney plays his role (as Barris’ CIA handler) with understated non-George-Clooney-ness, and does not detract from Rockwell/Barris as the star and focus of the movie.

The story is as described above – one thread of the movie chronicles the well-known and true story of Chuckie Baby’s beginnings as a network page, through the creation of his game shows and on to their ultimate cancellations. A separate thread chronicles the possibly true/possibly fictional/definitely strange story of his recruitment and activities as a globe-trotting CIA hitman. Both stories are dramatic, funny, well-told, and well acted.

I struggled with myself about writing this next part, because it seems self-serving, but it is nonetheless accurate. When I used to watch The Gong Show, I noticed that there were times when Barris seemed transfixed as if having an out-of-body experience. And times when he would look down at the floor and stare with a look of such sadness that I remember it to this day. And times when he would stare out at the camera with what can only be described as a thousand-yard-stare. These would be momentary flashes, and then his face would light up with his trademark grin, and the band would signal a flourish, and the show would go on. But I always remembered these aspects of his hosting persona, and had always harbored a minor curiosity about the man, and a curiosity about these un-game-show-host-like behaviors. I’m not implying that these remembered behaviors support his being a hit man, but they were certainly noteworthy and possibly relevant.

All in all, this is a solid debut for Clooney, and a very entertaining movie. I attended the film with three other people, none of whom were Gong Show enthusiasts, and they all also loved the film. It is surreal and funny, well acted and well directed. I can’t wait to see what Clooney and/or Rockwell and/or Barris do next.

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Narc has all the ingredients of a four star movie. As it stands, it’s almost a three star movie, but not quite. Ray Liotta is pitch perfect as the large, menacing cop, and Jason Patric is solid as his partner-come-lately. The story was compelling, and I did not see the ending coming at all, even though it flowed and fit perfectly with the storyline (it wasn’t some jarring twist out of left field). It is difficult to find movies where the ending is unforeseen and satisfying, but not ridiculous nor done for shock value, but this one was smoothly and skillfully done. Joe Carnahan, the writer/director, definitely seems to have a future, and I’ll be very interested to see his next film.

But there were some parts of this film that didn’t work for me. There one or two overlong declamations, one or two too many flashbacks/flashforwards/flashsideways/flashthroughblurrylenses, and one or two too many dilapidated tenements peopled with one or two too many drug addicts/dealers.

But there is also some good stuff here. Carnahan does not underestimate the audience, and you have to pay attention to pick up on certain things. If you wait for the movie to go back and explain what just happened, well, you’re out of luck if you missed it or didn’t get it the first time. I like that in a movie – don’t hide stuff from the audience, but also don’t zoom in on it with the melodramatic music playing to make sure we know “this is important”. Play it the way it should play within the story and let the audience figure out what’s important. I love that. And this movie does it right.

Also, the scenes of family and home life ring painfully true, and the interactions of Liotta’s and Patric’s characters don’t blindly follow the cop/partner/gritty/action/buddy script that we all know so well.

Overall this movie was very close to 3 stars for me, but not quite. Still, Narc is a very solid 2.5 stars, and I feel it was worth the price of admission and investment of time.

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It’s Christmas Day, and we’re watching TNT’s Christmas Story marathon (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0085334), and I am again (as I am every year) amazed at the wonderfully crafted, perfectly told, exquisitely cast, and fabulously created story that is this movie.

I’d seen it as a child but didn’t really remember it. Scott re-introduced me to it two years ago, and I was absolutely blown over! The movie is nostalgic without being one bit smarmy, hilarious without being smart-ass, and wonderfully narrated without being distracting (as a matter of fact, the adult voice-over is so well done, it’s almost the star of the movie). The characters are richly told — Ralphie is believable throughout, whether he’s hopeful, sad, fearful, or angry. Ralphie’s mother and father are both wonderfully imagined, fitting within their early 50’s archetypes without being caricatures. The scene where the father attempts to repair the “Major Award” while the mother tries not to laugh in the background is pure genius.

If you’ve never seen this movie, I really recommend it. In my all-time top list of movies, it is absolutely perfect from beginning to end. I resisted it for years because if you haven’t seen it, it looks like so much pseudo-sentimental Christmastime dreck. However, if it looks silly and smarmy from the outside, it’s just as amazing and wonderful on the inside.

*Tiny plot spoiler*

As an aside, Scott and I both love this movie so much we decided to order Chinese food last night (Christmas Eve) instead of our planned Christmas Eve home-cooked feast. I think we’ve decided to have that as our annual tradition, now. (He even tried to order the Peking duck!)

*End spoiler*

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I hadn’t watched It’s A Wonderful Life in a number of years, at least not all the way through from beginning to end. Well, we watched it last night, and I have to say that this movie deserves its legendary status. I know the whole story, inside and out, having seen it many, many times, but I was still caught up in the film, still cared about the characters, still marvelled at the darkness of the tribulations in this supposedly sweet holiday film, still got choked up at the end, and still loved it. LOVED it!

Jimmy Stewart is one of my favorite actors, and my admiration of him grows with each film of his I view. We recently watched the excellent “Anatomy of a Murder”, which (like Wonderful Life) allowed Jimmy Stewart to play light comedy while also exploring deep, almost dark, themes. His wit, intelligence, and everyman-ness make him charming, but not cloying, and powerful, but not twisted. That’s it — take the charm of Cary Grant (minus smarm), the power and menace of Marlon Brando (minus psychoses), and the looks of Howdy Doody, put them all together and you’d get something close to Jimmy Stewart.

In the years since It’s A Wonderful Life was released, many films with similar themes have been made, and have been referred to as Capra-esque (after Wonderful Life’s director Frank Capra). The genre has been done and redone so many times that many recent “Capra-esque” films seem to border on parody. Do yourself a favor and go back to the source, get the DVD or tape to avoid commercial interruptions, and watch this great film from beginning to end again. It is well worth the investment of your time.

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Bravo has started showing The Larry Sanders Show in rerun. I used to watch it sporadically during its inital run on HBO, and really liked it, but was not a regular viewer.

Bravo shows it twice a night, and with TiVo I am now a regular viewer, and I have to say that this show is one of the best pieces of entertainment it has been my pleasure to experience. Just for kicks I checked it out at IMDB and found that The Larry Sanders Show was nominated for over 50 Emmy’s during its six year run! And most people I talk to have never even heard of it, much less seen it.

For those unfamiliar, the star of the show is Garry Shandling, and he plays a character named Larry Sanders. In the show, Larry Sanders has a talk show that competes with Leno and Letterman, complete with real guests playing themselves as if they were on a talk show. For example, on the final show of the series, the following people appeared as themselves: Ellen DeGeneres, Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Carrey, Clint Black, Tim Allen, Warren Beatty, Carol Burnett, David Duchovny, Greg Kinnear, Jon Stewart, Bruno Kirby, Sean Penn, and Tom Petty.

I’ve also seen episodes that included segments taped by Jay Leno, as if doing the Tonight Show, where he refers to ‘The Larry Sanders Show’. Also, the guest stars are not treated with kid gloves, and are not always portrayed sympathetically. Some of them even gamely play into the most unappealing aspects of their own public personas.

All of this has the effect of blurring the lines of reality. I mean, at some points in the show, you’re watching Larry doing his show (the show within the show), and then other times you are watching the backstage/offstage stuff. And sometimes you’re seeing a view from offstage of the show as it’s being taped. They even shoot the show-within-a-show on tape, and the backstage/offstage stuff on film, so the distinction is always very clear, further enhancing the effect.

But all of the guest stars and filming techniques are simply the gravy…the meat and potatoes are the excellent writing and acting by the ensemble cast. Both the show and the show-within-a-show are well-written, funny, and engaging.

One note about content…since this was originally a cable series, the characters (when offstage) use profanity and make sexual innuendos, and Bravo only bleeps (not cuts) the very worst parts (they bleep the eff word, but not the ess word, for example). If you’re offended by profanity, even in context, you may want to skip this show altogether.

That being said, I highly recommend ‘The Larry Sanders Show’. Tune in for a couple of episodes to get a feel for the characters and the situation, and I think you’ll be hooked. Seeing this show also makes me wonder why nobody is syndicating Garry Shandling’s first series, “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show”, which had similar reality-blurring situations (and also had one of the catchiest theme songs in television history…my wife and daughter have never seen the show, but know all the words, and we often sing it spontaneously, that’s how good it is).

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What an idiotic show. These are supposed to be the crime scene investigators, but they end up questioning witnesses, pursuing suspects, making arrests, etc, none of which is their job. There was an episode with a private plane crash in the Everglades, and the CSI team handled the entire case. No local police. No feds. No FAA. Nothing. Ridiculous.

Some of the forensic stuff is interesting, but they dumb it wayyy down for the audience, and the characters spend a lot of time saying things like, “I think I’ll use the mike-row-scope now, which is a device that will let me be able to see tiny things as if they were slightly larger.”

And (my apologies to Marie) *what* is the appeal of David Caruso? He looks as translucent and fragile as a newborn baby bird (see http://us.imdb.com/Name?Caruso,+David), he arrogantly left his first-and-only hit TV show (NYPD Blue) for a film career that flopped, while boldly predicting that NYPD Blue would fail without him (it’s still going strong), has made a string of deplorable movies, and just doesn’t seem to have any charisma at all, to me. I guess he falls into the category of Things Scott Doesn’t Understand About Women. He’ll be entry number 165,145,798,643,654,134. Approximately.

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If you took 24, La Femme Nikita, Dawson’s Creek, and the Matrix, mixed them all up, kept in all the mediocre parts, and took out all the really good and really bad stuff, you’d end up with something a lot like Alias. This series is okay, bordering on good, with the potential to be really good, meaning that the ingredients are there, but they just need to be tweaked, in my opinion.

The basic storyline is that there is a father/daughter team who are good guys working for the CIA, but they also work as double agents infiltrating an organization called SD-6. SD-6 is part of a global conspiracy to…take over the world, I guess…but they tell all of their staffers that they’re working for the CIA. So, our main characters work for the *actual* CIA while also working undercover as double agents at an agency that *isn’t* the CIA but tells their people that they are. It’s actually not as confusing as it sounds.

Throw into that mix the fact that the lady who is the wife of the father and the mother of the daughter is also a KGB agent who has surrendered to the CIA and may actually be helping them against SD-6, but might also be playing Machiavillian games with them.

The premise actually works for me, and the actors do a good job. Unfortunately, though, for me the writing is already starting to get a little repetitive, and the plot is not moving along very quickly, and the scenes where they dip into personal-life-angst are a little heavy-handed, and the action sequences are well-staged, but unexciting.

I’m sticking with it, however, because it’s just good and interesting enough to keep me involved, and I want to see where they go with it. My hope is that they pick up the pace and drop some of the syrup.

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The last TV drama I watched with any regularity was probably…L.A. Law, maybe? That was a long time ago. Since then I’ve never been able to ‘get into’ any of the drama series. Part of the reason is that I found it increasingly difficult to commit to an hour a week at a fixed time. But the major reason was that they just didn’t do it for me. I tried to watch ER, but didn’t care for it. I tried to watch Law and Order, didn’t care for it. I tried to watch some of the family dramas, but I not only didn’t care for them, their treacly contrivances actually offended me, artistically (even though I was allowing for the fact that it was television in the first place).

Then last year I saw the first couple episodes of the first season of 24, at Marie’s request. It was very interesting, well-acted, gripping stuff, and I really liked it, but I still drifted in my viewership habits, and once you miss an episode of 24, you’re really stuck, because each season is one day (24 hours) in real time.

But now I have TiVo (why did I wait!!???), so I don’t have to worry about being home at a certain time, or missing an episode, and I have seen every episode so far this season (2nd season). I look forward to each episode with great anticipation, but also some dread, because the series builds up incredible amounts of tension and suspense, and I find that watching it is a draining experience. For reference, I’m no lightweight entertainment consumer, and regularly watch such tense/suspenseful fare as Apocalypse Now, Clockwork Orange, Eraserhead, etc, all of which are life-changingly intense, so I have a tolerance for that type of thing.

But 24 still manages to get under my skin and make me squirm. It’s not gross or ultra-violent, but it uses the story and the characters to build incredible amounts of tension and anticipation, all while telling a tight, believable story. I’m not going to give any of the plot away, because this series is *very* plot-driven, but suffice it to say that it involves things of global importance as well as things that are of paramount importance to the individual characters as people.

I highly recommend this series. If you’ve missed part of this season, I suggest you wait until it comes out on DVD and/or in reruns. I’m also thinking about getting all of last season on DVD, even though I know how it turned out. That’s how much I like this show.

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