October 2004

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The Continuing Curse of the Return of the Monday Movie Quiz

Filed under: Imported

After the weird incident two weeks ago, where I nearly made Psycho the mystery movie on the very day Janet Leigh�s death was announced to the world, I was hopeful that my posting problems were over and that the quiz was back on the road to regularity. Alas, no, although this time the problem was a dead modem which kept me off-line for the entire day. So we�re back, but not on Monday, and continuing problems will keep the quiz from returning with a fresh round until next week. Forgiveness, please.

I�m not sure it matters anyway, since last week�s quiz had only two winning answers, out of a total of two attempts. I thought it was an easy one, myself, but was corrected in no uncertain terms by old friend TCB I (�I� as in �the first�), who closed by saying, �You�d better hope Wayne Palmer knows you�re back!� (Fortunately, he did�for old readers of this weblog, Mr. Palmer was its nearly unstumpable Movie Quiz champeen.) Anyway, last week�s movie was the immortal Modern Times, starring Charlie Chaplin, who of course also wrote and directed it, as well as composed the score (which includes his most famous song, �Smile�). To say that it�s his all-time best is to slight his other great films, but I�m not sure he ever made a better one, or stretched quite as much as a filmmaker.

I now have to go on the record with a shameful confession: while I�ve been a diehard fan of all the great comedy acts of the �30s nearly all my life and a film collector since my teens, I never really liked Charlie much. I gave him plenty of opportunities to convert me, even owning 8mm prints of The Gold Rush and several of the Mutual 3-reelers, but I just never �got� him. (Those prints may have been part of the problem, however�thanks to the wonderful DVDs of his work now out, I see how important it is to see him clearly, because you get so much from seeing everything that he does, literally from head to toe.)

But I get him now, and there has never been a better time to rediscover his work than the present, with the amazing and beautiful-looking series of two-disc sets now available of all his best features. (And hallelujah, The Gold Rush was released with Chaplin�s original uncut version intact as a �bonus� with his inferior re-edited one.) And none looks better than Modern Times; in fact, the clarity of the DVD looks better (to me) than the restored 35mm print that was re-released last summer. I never thought that I�d find a new cinematic love at my age (50), but I can watch these films over and over with fresh joy. And thanks to the DVDs, I�ll be doing just that, for months to come. Join me!

So congratulations to the quiz�s first two winners since its troubled resurrection: the mighty Wayne A. Palmer (welcome back, champ) and C. L. Lavorato. Now . . . join us again next week to see what new disaster befalls the quiz. See you then, movie trivialists!

Posted by Steve Monaco at October 19, 2004 3:52 AM

 

The Frederic Wertham Memorial Cover Gallery

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Red Seal Comics #14, from 1946-- note that both bondage and drug use (syringe) are on prominent display, making it a double helping of Seduction of the Innocent no-nos. (And you can now read Dr. Wertham's entire book on-line; it's posted here.)

Posted by Steve Monaco at October 14, 2004 3:07 AM

 

GREIL MONACO�S NO-LIFE TOP 10�The all-SMILEs list

Filed under: Imported

It�s been a long time since I plagarized Mr. Marcus�s schtick, and since he never seemed to be aware of it when people were actually reading this blog, I doubt that he�ll notice now. So here�s a list of mostly non-musical things that have popped in my mind during my re-listenings to the new recording of Brian Wilson�s real masterpiece, the magic music of Smile.

1) It will be the biggest seller in his career. It was the number one seller on amazon a full week before it came out, and three weeks after its release, it still is. This also indicates that word-of-mouth about how good it is has spread�if the CD had been the typical solo-Brian mess (like the album that came out last summer), its ranking would have dropped quickly.

2) This time, Brian gets all the money, kind of. For those who don�t know about Brian�s dad, Murry Wilson, just think of him as the most satanic stage parent of all time. Among the many sins he commited against his son, his selling of Brian�s entire songwriting ouevre to the publishing branch of A&M Records, Irving Music, for a mere $700,000 is at the top of the list. (To be fair to A&M, it was a generous offer in the late �60s, when The Beach Boys were already considered passe.) I don�t know an up-to-the-minute figure for the catalog, but last time I saw one, it was around $50-60 million. So for over three decades, Brian has gotten songwriter royalties for all his music from the golden years, but the big money that�s made in actually owning the songs has eluded him. Until now�with the exception of the previously-released tunes like �Good Vibrations� and �Heroes and Villians,� all the publishing rights belong to him (and his collaborator, Van Dyke Parks).

3) Mike Love gets (practically) nothing from it. I hate Mike Love. Long ago on Usenet, I even posted a one-shot on-line fanzine called Hate That Love. If he hadn�t hitched himself to cousin Brian�s genius, he�d �still be scraping shit off the bottom of cars,� by his own admission. He�s the biggest money-grubber in rock; quite the distinction, but he deserves it. He practically invented the corporate gig, where bands kiss big-biz ass with private concerts. As for playing Vegas, well, he lives in Vegas� enough said. And as BW/Beach Boys lore has told it over the years, he couldn�t have done more to bury this music. The reason the album never came out is, in large part, because of his abhorrance of its �weirdness� and his small-minded career motto, �Don�t fuck with the formula.� He continued squelching it as recently as a few years ago, putting the kibosh on a CD set of all the original Smile sessions. Well, with the exception of a single songwriting credit (a one-third credit for �Good Vibrations,� although they don�t even use his lyrics), he doesn�t get a penny off this.

4) Mike Love also isn�t heard on a single note.

5) It has always been better than �just� an album. Even though the original Smile tracks are, as always, produced and recorded perfectly and the voices of the Boys are irreplacable, what he was making at the time�whether he knew it or not�was only the first version of it. It was meant to be performed and re-interpreted over the years like all . . . okay, I�ll say it . . . classical music has always been. It was his first major work as a serious composer (the re-recording is even done in three movements) and we�re lucky to have one last, definitive performance of it. This brings me to:

6) Enough about his voice. Some diehard, perfectionist fans are doing a lot of griping about how he sounds. They should keep in mind that we�re lucky he�s still around: he�s 62 and has smoked almost as many cigarettes in his day as his brother Carl, who died of lung cancer. Yes, he had one of the purest, greatest voices in pop music, and yeah, he�s only a shadow of it now, but he�s as good here as he�s been in decades (not the highest praise, I know). Plus, a lot of the segments sound great sung by an old man! Complain all you want about how he's sounded on other records of recent vintage, but not this one�it�s a genuine performance by a great singer, the way Johnny Cash�s last discs were. The years make it all more, not less.

Well, that�s it�I know it�s only six, but it�s a short CD.

Posted by Steve Monaco at October 13, 2004 4:38 AM

 

The Return of the Monday Movie Quiz

Filed under: Imported

It's quiz #42, if anybody's counting, and to encourage participation in its grand re-opening, I've selected a classic that is also fairly easy to identify (at least I think it is). The only clue I'll give you is that the singer at the end of the audio montage is the star of the film, and he was not known to his fans for his vocalising, for reasons that will become obvious once you know who he is. Other than that, you're on your own. If you think you know the name of the picture, send me an email by late Sunday night, and next Monday you can know the thrill of seeing your name in the mighty list of winners. Good luck!

Posted by Steve Monaco at October 11, 2004 3:08 AM

 

Harry Shearer does it again

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George Bush Jr. gets down (and out?) with Ricky Martin.

I guess I was so numbed by Dumbya's hypnotic incantation last Thursday of the phrase "mixed messages" (or "mexxed missages") that I didn't catch how often he referred to all the "hard work" he's been doing. Harry Shearer didn't miss it, though, and not only did he record every repetition, but he put it in the kind of somber musical context that gets to the very soul of our troubled and beloved Prez. So here it is for your listening enjoyment (note: filesize is large, 3.6MB).

Posted by Steve Monaco at October 7, 2004 3:51 AM

 

Rodney Dangerfield, R.I.P.

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Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Who Don't Get No Respect

He was such a great comedian, he even went out with a good one: "If [the surgery] goes well, I'll be here for about a week. If it doesn't go well, I'll be here for about an hour-and-a-half."

Posted by Steve Monaco at October 6, 2004 4:50 AM

 

An eerily prescient Monday Movie Quiz

Filed under: Imported

I�ll admit, I�m a bit spooked by what happened�or almost happened�today with my attempt at resurrecting the Monday Movie Quiz. Wanting to find a film that was both fairly easy to kick things off with, yet fun to listen to, my thoughts turned to Hitchcock, and . . . well, you guessed it, I chose Psycho. But procrastinator that I am, I decided to post it later in the day (I wasn�t quite satisfied with the audio montage I�d made, and wanted to sleep on it). And then I got up and read that Janet Leigh had passed away.

So I think I�ll wait another week to start the quiz, and in the interim I�ll try to come up with a film where all the cast members are already dead. I don�t want the quiz to become a blog version of I Bury the Living, after all. And while I like the above photo, for those who might think it in bad taste, at least today, be cheered that I didn�t use the photo I�d planned for next week�s answer: the famous close-up eyes-open shot of Leigh dead in the shower!

Too weird.

Posted by Steve Monaco at October 4, 2004 6:00 PM

 

I saw Brian Wilson SMILE last night

Filed under: Imported

Actually, it was Thursday, the first night of the U.S. tour that Brian�s doing this fall, after performing all year in Europe. Anyway, I was there, and I saw the show I�d dreamed of almost all my life, but . . . I don�t want to talk about it.

A bad position for a blogger to be in, but I can�t help it. The new recording is even harder for me to talk about, because while the show was a one-time event, I keep listening to the recording, and the more I do, the heavier it gets for me. Not just the music, although I doubt I�m ever going to come up with the words to express how great it really is or how much it means to me. But just as the existence of this single work has evoked painful memories over the years for the guy who made it, Brian and his music have been such a big part of my life � sometimes too big, the way fans sometimes get�that I can�t help bring all kinds of other things about myself into every listening session, and when you�re 50, that can be a lot of stuff to include.

I will say this about the concert: to see Brian, who for years could barely get through a single song without fucking it up, hold center stage for almost three hours with confidence and genuine joy was so amazing that I wondered if it really wasn't a dream. And after giving a re-listen to a recording from one of the London shows last February, there�s no doubt that he�s improved substantially in just this past year. And it�s not because his band does all the heavy lifting, although their devotion to him and the work shines through and can�t help but make him feel safe. Maybe it�s because after countless standing ovations over the past few years, Brian actually feels that he�s good again. That he is.

There�s so much more to say about the concert, the recordings new and old, and-- for better or worse�myself, and every time I give another listen, I think of even more. I wonder if I�ll get to the bottom of it all (�How deep is the ocean?� BW asked in my all-time favorite of his songs, �Til I Die�). I plan on trying as the days go on. But for now, I don�t want to talk about it.

* * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * *

Who needs me, though? Fortunately, the internet is bursting right now with wonderful reviews and reactions, and from some of the very Brian-friendly writers that I read 30 or more years ago. For starters, Paul Williams, founder of Crawdaddy and long-time BW chronicler, has a piece here (scroll down), Tom Smucker, who wrote CREEM�s great two-part piece on the Beach Boys in the early �70s (complete with quiz, including Q: Who is the Jewish Beach Boy? With A: You must be kidding!), has a Village Voice review, and even Robert Christgau gives it five stars in Rolling Stone.

Posted by Steve Monaco at October 2, 2004 6:30 PM

 

Terrible Commercials of the Past

Filed under: Imported

I�ve just read Leonard Maltin�s The Great American Broadcast: A Celebration of Radio�s Golden Age, and I recommend it to any fan of OTR (Old Time Radio). It�s a very well-researched book-- his chapter on sound-effects and the men who made them is especially enlightening-- and Maltin was able to talk to many of the medium�s best writers, directors and actors before most of them passed away.

While I share many of Maltin�s enthusiasms for these old shows, we part company when it comes to the commercials of yesteryear. If anything, they were even more loathsome than their television counterparts, and they are unequalled when it comes to the hard sell. For years, I�ve routinely hit fast-forward every time one intruded on a show I was listening to. (About 20 years ago, I read a statistic that shook me: by the age of 50, the average American will have spent two years� worth of his or her life soaking in commercials! I haven�t sat through one willingly since.) But now, thanks to Maltin�s book, I�ve been inspired to let them play. Amazingly, they�re even worse than I remembered.

Here�s an especially wretched one for Kix breakfast cereal, from an early �50s show called Defence Attorney. Keep in mind when you listen that all of the instruments and musicians producing this nonsense were in the studio only for this one spot-- since shows were done live, the ads were, too. After you listen, I think you�ll agree with me: what a waste!

Posted by Steve Monaco at October 1, 2004 3:44 AM

 

Greetings from the reupholstered Couch Pundit

Filed under: Imported

Steve Monaco here, re-opening the ol� weblog after a seven-month hiatus. As time goes on, I hope to get back to the near-daily posting of the blog in its heyday, with the movie quiz and other regular features back in place, but it may take awhile to get back up to speed. Anyway, it�s good to be back.

Posted by Steve Monaco at October 1, 2004 3:31 AM

 

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