a thought about an upcoming play

I just learned that a stage adaptation of the 1993 movie, Groundhog Day, is in the works. It will open in London this year, and hit Broadway next year.

It reminds me that I often wonder how actors feel about going through the same actions and the same dialog supporting the same story over and over over...

exactly who is going where?

One song that I like from the 1980s is "Bitchin' Camaro" by the Dead Milkmen (from the Big Lizard in My Backyard album.

One feature of the song is the fact that it starts with a conversation about driving down to the shore. Interestingly, that conversation goes on for more than half the length of the track.

But what's always gotten me -- "bothered" is too strong a word, but it does offend my sense of aesthetics -- is the way the two characters who are speaking switch roles.

Listen carefully. For lack of better names, I will say that the conversation is between Steve and Joe. Steve starts. Fifteen seconds in, Joe says that he's going down to the shore. But at about 1:35 Steve says it's important that Joe ask him how he's going down to the shore.

This has been on my mind since 1985.

new monkees record is out. meh.

Good Times!, the Monkees' 50th anniversary reunion album is out. My thoughts can be summed up as "meh."

You can read my review on Amazon, along with the comments by others, or below without other people's comments.  It's the first serious review I've written on Amazon, and the first review of any sort in ten years. I write my reviews under the name Hobart DelFoogy. Long story. Don't ask.

As of now, there are 38 reviews on Amazon. 34 of them are five-star. Three are four-star. One -- mine -- is three-stars. And, apparently I touched some nerves. People love "Me & Magdalena," which I think is incredibly boring. And, of course, the other reviews are full of comments about how this album is just perfect! Wonderful! They still have it! I kind of get it -- the album was released today, so the reviews that are up are, by and large, written by fans. They all want to love this album, just like I do. And there's enough here for fans to hang their hats on. It is, indisputably better than Justus or Pool It!, which were the Monkees prior two reunion albums. But it's not as good as Dolenz Jones Boyce and Hart (the 1976 abortive reunion) or "That Was Then, This is Now," the 1986 single.

And, while it's not a bad album, it's not particularly memorable.

Anyway, following is the text of my Amazon review:

I want to like this. I really do. But it's really just kind of meh. The best track, "Whatever's Right" by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, has all the hallmarks of a Boyce and Hart song, except it's just not as good as the sum of its parts. Just as "Teardrop City" sounded like a second rate retread of "Last Train to Clarksville," this is a second-rate retread of "Teardrop City." Now, that makes for a good track (which is a tribute to how good Boyce and Hart were as a songwriting team), but not great. Similarly, the title track sounds good at first, but is just not memorable. 

And that's the good stuff. The album has plenty of mediocre material, including "She Makes Me Laugh," "You Bring the Summer" and "Wasn't Born to Follow" which have some pleasant melodies and decent harmonies, but are more Archies than Monkees. Add a star or a star and a half to my assessment if that's a good thing. 

In order to make this a complete Monkees album, they went to the vaults and found a track ("Love to Love" with Davy Jones' vocals, did some remixing and additions (or whatever) and put it on here. It's kind of reminiscent of how the Beatles put "Free As a Bird" and "Real Love" on the Anthology albums in order to include Lennon. This is better because, well, "Love to Love," doesn't suck the way those Beatle tracks did. But on the downside, this isn't actually a new song. "Love to Love," or at least some versions of it, already appear on various compilations. I guess it's true that they made some tweaks so this is a new version. But listening casually, nothing new pops out at me. I guess someone more devoted can step in and tell me what I'm missing. 

Finally, there are a couple of really bad tracks -- ""Me & Magdalena," for example, is simply sleep inducing. 

Bottom line? There's some stuff that's pretty decent but nothing really memorable. I suspect that, within a week, this will be fading from my mind. 

EDIT: In the review above I said that "You Make Me Laugh" and "You Bring the Summer" were mediocre. In retrospect, that was unfair. They're both good tracks. But they're not great. They have catchy melodies and harmonies. But what they lack is a memorable hook like what we heard on "Last Train to Clarksville" or "Pleasant Valley Sunday." That's arguably an impossibly high bar to set. Take it for what it's worth.

I should note that the edit is a good representation of one aspect of my evolving relationship with this disc. When I first heard "She Makes Me Laugh," I was really optimistic. Then I kind of soured on it, realizing that it doesn't have a truly great hook. Now I'm kind of really liking it. I think I nailed it in the edit. Good track, but not great.

a mutant in the film class

In the cinema history class, last night, we finished up our section on Alien ripoffs with the 1982 Roger Corman production, Mutant, which is better known by the title, Forbidden World.

As one might expect from Roger Corman, this was a cheap production, with cheesy laser beam effects, and a monster that was at once horrifying and laughably silly. This movie was more miserable and claustrophobic than the other films we saw in this chapter, but strangely felt like an odd amalgam of Alien, Star Wars and Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century.

I rated it a 6, I think, largely because I just don't think it's at all memorable. If I find myself thinking more about it over the coming weeks, I'll revise my rating upward. Not that anyone reading this blog (assuming there is anyone reading this blog) will know, since that won't merit a post. At any rate, ratings from the rest of the class ranged from a 1 (I think Ethan can be too strict a grader) to a 9 (Joe is too generous when it comes to science fiction). So, make of it what you will.

Starting next week, we're doing werewolf movies. I suggested to Keith that we have a session on dystopias (my sister would be so pleased), so that may be coming later in the year.

Here's the trailer for Mutant (warnings: NSFW and NSFL):

new monkees album: revising my expectations down

At the risk of making this a week of Monkees overload (the new album is out tomorrow), I wanted to share some additional thoughts I had in advance of getting and listening to Good Times!

So far I've heard three of the disc's 13 tracks. And these weren't three trackls chosen at random -- they were the three tracks that Rhino (or the Monkees, or there management...whatever) chose to make available on Youtube. Conventional wisdom would indicate that these should be three of the stronger tracks on the album. That is concerning.

I was positive about two of the songs -- "She Makes Me Laugh" and "You Bring the Summer" are catchy pop, featuring Micky Dolenz' vocals (and based on them, he hasn't lost a thing), and a light, airy feel that I associate with the Monkees. But the more I think about it, the more I can't escape the fact that they're missing something -- a memorable hook. "Last Train to Clarksville" was instantly memorable. So were "I'm a Believer," "Pleasant Valley Sunday" and a whole host of other songs from the Monkees' original run. And I don't even mean just the hits. "The Girl I Knew Somewhere," "No Time." "Circle Sky." I could go on. Even "That Was Then, This is Now" (from the 1986 reunion had memorable hooks. And so did several tracks from Dolenz,, Jones, Boyce and Hart, the album from the abortive 1976 reunion. "I Remember the Feeling," "You Didn't Feel That Way Last Night (Don't You Remember)" and "Sweet Heart Attack" (as well as others)," had great hooks -- though I admit the court of the wallet may indicate otherwise, since that album failed to sell).

But these two tracks, as pleasant as they are, aren't memorable. And that's not even saying anything about the sleep inducing "Me and Magdalena." If, as now seems likely to me, the new disc is full of tracks that are pleasant enough but very forgettable then this will leave me disappointed.

"She Makes Me Laugh" -- a pleasant but not-necessarilly memorable single from the new album

"You Bring the Summer" -- ditto.

"Me and Magdalena" -- boring

":Last Train to Clarksville" from 1966 was instantly memorable.

So was "You Just May be the One"

Edits: correcting typos.

new monkees album: third time's a clunker

Only a couple days until the new Monkees album gets released, and Youtube has a third song posted:

Whereas I liked the other two songs ("She Makes Me Laugh" and "You Bring the Summer") that were previously posted, this one just brings me down. Mike and Mickey do a decent job of harmonizing, but the song is just boring. The lyrics aren't bad, but it needs a livelier melody -- or at least a faster tempo. If this is representative of the whole album, then the album will be worse than the 1987 reunion (Pool It!) and the 1996 reunion (Justus).


So, the question is, does this change my assessment? I think my last word was that I was unreservedly optimistic about the album? I guess, in a Bayesian sense this has to lower my expectations. Before this, there were two strong tracks released. I do note that, while I said they did a good job of capturing the sound of the Monkees, my wife pointed out (correctly) that they were a bit more Archies-like than I wanted to admit. But still, they were good. This dreck brings the average down. Now it' two strong tunes and a clunker.


I still, however, have hope. Youtube alo has a promotional clip in which the three surviving Monkees talk about the new album:

Snippets of the album play in the background, and on balance it's enough to keep me optimistic. Albeit reservedly so.

support the tigercats' build

Please, everyone, give a five-star rating to Sharon's team's build.

Follow this link, then go to TigerCats' build (it's the second one down), rate it five stars and then submit your vote at the bottom.

You'll be making these kids happy.

Thanks.

a plea from a pulitzer prize winner

I have to acknowledge that Frank McCourt was among the most popular teachers in my high school. That said, I was not one of his favorite students; he and I butted heads quite a bit. This video was made around four years after I graduated, before he became a famous author, and winner of a Pulitzer. I think it's clear from the video that he didn't remember me.

This was on the internet well before I met my wife, having been posted by a friend. Despite Frank's pleas, we did not invite him to our wedding. I know lots of people like having celebrities at their weddings (if they can arrange it). But the wedding should be about the couple getting married, and the presence of a celebrity only serves to distract.

lpt: how to thwart the windows 10 upgrade

I admit that I don't really understand all the hoo-hah over Windows 10. What I mean is, I don't know what issues there are with it and why a lot of people don't like it.

What I do know is that Microsoft keeps trying to get (one might even say force) everyone to upgrade, Many people don't like that -- though it's unclear to me whether that's because Windows 10 actually sucks, because a lot of computers still being used aren't capable of running it efficiently, or because people just don't like being told what to do.

At any rate, all of our computers are running either Windows 7 or 8. I like 7, and have fortunately never been forced to try 8, which seems to be a more-radical change than a lot of the others have been. I probably won't switch until my work computers (i.e., the ones my employer provides, and which I actually use for my job) are replaced. No one in the house wants to upgrade, but the computers keep trying.

Fortunately, I have found a reasonably simple way to thwart the upgrades. I've done this twice. In both instances the computers began the upgrade process without human permission (though in one case I think the computer had feline permission -- another story). I don't shut off or unplug the computer. I don't throw bricks at it. I let it go through the process, and wait for the Terms of Service window to pop up. Then I simply decline. Another window, this one slightly more pleading, pops up. When I still decline, the computer reverts to the prior version of Windows.

Disclaimer: This worked for me. Don't blame me if it doesn't work for you. Also, if at some point Microsoft ends support for older versions and starts charging for the upgrade, don't get angry at me. Finally, if you get and upset stomach, it's not my fault.

third time's a charm?

FWIW, this is not my first stab at blogging. It's my third.

The first blog I tried grew out of a joke. You know what goes better on French Fries than ketchup? Tartar sauce. I know you're all skeptical out there, but try it. It's really good. Anyway, back in the mid 1990s, before blogs were a thing, my then-friend Angry Bob (see acting reel below) noted that whenever we went for lunch I asked for a side of tartar sauce. By way of background, we went antiquing a lot, and my standard lunch was a burger, fries, and a side of tartar sauce.

Anyway, Bob thought it was the funniest thing, and suggested that I build a website around it. "The Tartar Sauce Report," as we started calling it, would basically be my reviews of tartar sauce. I would make sure to ask for Tartar Sauce every time I ate out. And I would write reviews. Bob came up with an approach that was pretty much what blogs would be. We joked about it, and laughed. But I didn't act on it until years later, when blogspot made it easy. In 2005 I started my first blog -- the Tartar Sauce Report. Friends at work made suggestions, including a rating system for tartar sauce. My father-in-law, who hardly ever laughed at anything, thought it was hysterical. But I got bored with it after a few weeks. Afterall, there's only so many times you can write "Went to the cafeteria for lunch today. The tartar sauce was OK."

My next attempt was MoishMusic. Hey, I like music. I collect CDS, I used to dabble in music journalism. I do some songwriting on the side, and I play guitar (albeit not particularly well). So it seemed like a natural. And I stayed at it for a while. But almost from the beginning I was chafing under the self-imposed limitations. I stayed at it for a few years, but it's been a while.

So that brings me to this. I don't know where it will go.

wreckless eric collection complete. or is it?

Somehow, during the mid 1980's, despite being really interested in music, I kind of lost track of some of my favorite artists. Especially if they were recording for small labels.

Case in point: Wreckless Eric.

Despite being a big fan of his (on the strength of his recordings for Stiff Records. But in the years when I did all of my record shopping at record stores (and didn't know to look at the internet to see what was out there), I often missed things that would have interested me. So, when Eric released solo albums on small labels, and when a band he played with released albums on small labels, I totally missed it. Well, not quite. I remember hearing about it when he put out Le Beat Group Electrique. And somehow I heard about At the Shop. But until I started looking things up on the internet I kind of assumed that that was the extent of his post-Stiff albums.

But I was wrong. There was the album he did with the Hitsville House Band, the two albums with the Len Bright Combo. and some other solo work, including one album released under his given name, Eric Goulden. It wasn't easy to track down the albums, but I managed to find them all on CD* except for one. That one is A Roomful of Monkeys, which was the only album released by Captains of Industry (Eric, Norman Watt-Roy, Dick Adland and Mickey Gallagher).

Of course, my quest to get all of Eric's albums on CD was aided by various rereleases that seemed fortuitously timed.

But there was that nagging issue of that Captains of Industry album. Eventually, I found out -- at a concert a few years ago, Eric explained to me that Go! Discs, the company that released the album, had gone out of business and at this point no one knows who owns the rights to the recordings. So, with  no CD forthcoming, I set out to get the next best thing -- the record. And that was difficult -- frequent searches on Amazon (the UK version) eventually rewarded me with a very highly-priced used copy. And some years after that, I paid someone to copy it onto CD. Yeah, in theory I could have transferred it myself. But I never did, so WTH. I just got the CD a couple days ago.

So, how does it sound?

Generally, it's a good new wave album. Despite being from 1975, it has an early new wave sound, propelled by guitars rather than synthesizers. The sound is reminiscent of Eric's Big Smash! album, though it's not as highly commercial in its sound. Highlights are "Food Factory" and "The Lucky Ones." The weakness is in the production which sounds a bit muddy, and I would have preferred it if they had mixed the vocals a bit more prominently. Eric's unique rasp is a strong part of his recordings, and this would have been better if it had been easier to hear that rasp.

The video below is all I could find on Youtube for the Captains. The song is "Julie," which is from the album.

*Or did I? In looking things up to write this blogpost, I see reference to an album, The Sound of Your Living Room, by Southern Domestic. Does such a thing exist? If so, how do I find it?

inseminoid? disappointmenoid.

Our cinema history class continued its month of Alien ripoffs. Lat night's showing, Inseminoid (AKA Horror Planet), was the third in the series, though I missed one for vacation. Two weeks ago I enjoyed Contamination, perhaps more than it deserves. But, as much as I wanted to enjoy Inseminoid, I just couldn't.

The opening builds a great sense of tension and thereby does a great job of drawing the viewer in. But from there it goes downhill. There's a sterility to this film that reminds me of the TV show, Space 1999, which had promise but was just too boring to like. The pacing is too slow, and the characters were too wooden for me to really care about any of them.

I will acknowledge that there were a few sequences that had genuine suspense. But they were too few and far between. And, of course, they were in support of characters that were largely interchangeable and unsympathetic.

Let me also note that the ever-present and overbearing sythesizer soundtrack was a huge distraction, and detracted greatly from the experience.

I gave it a 3 or 4 out of 10.

EDIT: Just to be clear, the fact that I didn't think a movie was good doesn't mean that I didn't like the class. This isn't just about getting together to watch movies. We're trying to get an understanding of the genre, its history and personalities. Also, we are trying to get an appreciation for what makes a good movie. To do that, we also have to sere what makes a bad movie.

a totally unnecessary reboot

A remake of the Rocky Horror Picture Show? As a made-for-TV movie? I shall be brief in summing up my reaction:

Why?

unreservedly anticipating the new monkees album

Earlier this month I wrote a post in which I expresseed my cautious optimism about the forthcoming Monkees album, Good Times!. That optimism was based on the strength of the single, "She Makes Me Laugh," which was made available via Youtube.

Now they've put another song, "You Bring the Summer," on Youtube.

It's not quite as good as "She Makes Me Smile," but it does have the right type of pop sensibility that I was hoping for, and that was missing from the past Monkees reunions. In short, this sounds like a classic Monkees song.

That said, I note that it was written by XTC's Andy Partridge and it does sound a bit like a bubblegum version of XTC. Which kind of makes sense, I guess.

The bottom line, though, is that I am no longer cautious in my optimism. I am unreservedly anticipating the new album.

my award-winning letter.

A silly conversation at work brought back memories. In the meeting, someone said something along the lines of "well, that was just hooey." Someone else was unfamiliar with the word "hooey," and I had to define it.


And that reminded me of a letter I wrote to the Ann Arbor News back in 1988. Back then, I was a grad student, and my hobby (such as it was) was writing letters to the "Letters" sections of publications. Some of these letters were serious. Some...less so. At any rate, around that time the nation saw a spate of supposed Elvis sightings. There was a book about them. And the News ran a tongue-in-cheek article about how Elvis was often visiting Ann Arbor.


So I wrote a letter. And it got published. This one stands among my favorites. Not so much for itself and its own merits, but because at the end of the year the News ran a little piece in which the editors they selected their favorite letters. And mine was chosen as one of the honorees.


And that, gentle readers, is how I became a writer of award-winning letters.

why didn't they just write it down?

Does anyone remember the episode of Seinfeld where Kramer and Newman were playing a game of Risk? They had to store the board at Jerry's place because neither one trusted the other not to cheat if left alone with it.

There's a lot that I understand about the episode. As board games go, Risk can feel intense in a way that Candyland can't. Risk can bring out the worst in friends more efficiently than any other board game. I get that.

But there's one thing I don't get. There are 42 countries on the board. Couldn't they have simply written down a list of countries and indicated, for each one, who owned it and how many armies were on it,

Problem solved! I'm a genius!


EDIT: While we're at it, why would you play a board game with someone if you can't trust him not to cheat?

my flowery midlife crisis

Santa's Little Helper was the first cultivar I bought

I don't remember exactly when my interest in daylilies started. About four years ago, maybe? But I do remember exactly how.

I'd been in this house for over ten years, and had yet to figure out what to do about the yard and gardens. I'd gotten rid of the plants I didn't like -- the evergreen bushes and box trees, that awful, awful pachysandra -- did I mention that I hate pachysandra? But I was left with lots of empty planting space and no coherent idea of what I wanted. Every spring and summer I'd by shrubs of one sort or another. Some would live and some would die. And I had a ragged looking garden.

One day, during the summer, I was talking to my neighbor (who knows a lot more about plants and gardens than I do) as I was dealing with a patch of ground. I noted how so much of what I planted died, but the wild daylilies kept thriving no matter how many times I pulled them out of the ground. "That's it!" I declared, "I'm replacing everything with daylilies. If they live this well, then that's what I need!"

Of course, I wasn't serious. At least not in the sense of wanting to literally get rid of all my plants and replace them with daylilies. fact is, I didn't even know that daylilies come in varieties other than the ugly wild orange ones that are so prevalent in this area. But my neighbor took that as an opening. She pointed out that she's a member of the Long Island Daylily Society (LIDS), that LIDS was having an auction that coming Tuesday, and that I should go. I was hesitant. But it was something that I could do with my daughter. And it's a really nice group of people. And there would be free refreshments. What the heck.

Blazing Cannons never really "took" in my garden.

So, I went to an auction. It was interesting. The plants that are auctioned off aren't in bloom. They're fans, either potted or bare root clumps. But you're told what kind it is, and given some information about it -- how high it will grow, how big the blooms are, how many blooms it's likely to produce, etc... -- and they display a picture of what the blooms should look like. I hadn't expected to actually bid on anything. But Sharon was taken with the picture of Santa's Little Helper. "Abba, can we buy that?" How could I not? As an aside, I'll note that when Santa's Little Helper was in bloom, and I was admiring it every day, my younger son wanted to show it to my mom. He pulled her by the hand and pointed to it. "That's Santa's Little Helper." Then he pointed to a slightly taller scape on the same plant and said "That's Santa." I didn't have the heart to correct him.

That was the beginning. I joined LIDS and the American Hemerocalis Society (AHS). I won't bore you with the blow by blow of it all, but I go to most LIDS meetings. I clerked at LIDS' annual flower show last year, and will do so again this year. I'm hoping to take the certification class to be a judge for future shows. I have helped out in the daylily garden that LIDS maintains at a local arboretum.

I'm by no means an expert. But I'm learning. And this has gotten me to spend a lot of time in the garden these past few years. I am still working with other types of flowers -- I particularly like hostas and creeping flox. But daylilys have a special place in my heart. I have lots of different kinds, but I honestly can name only a few of them because I don't keep them labelled -- unlike the true enthusiast, I just like the pretty flowers.

A lone Spider Man bloom on Spiderman's grave

Daylilies have also come in quite handy. A year and a half ago, my younger son's kitten, Spiderman, dies unexpectedly. We buried him in the yard. A clump of "Spider Man" daylilies, given to us by fellow LIDS members and planted on the kitten's grave, helped to assuage the grief.

Last year, we were catsitting for a boy whose life had been torn upside down. One of the cats -- the 25-year-old named Dexter -- died in our care. We held a funeral (a whole story in and of itself), and the promise to find appropriately-named daylilies for the grave went a long way toward helping him deal with things.

I joke that the garden (and daylilies in particular) is my mid-life crisis. Is it really? I don't know. But if it is, than it sure beats the cliches -- expensive cars and young lovers -- that people talk about as typical midlife crisis activities.

jet blue helps and the girls get fan art

I've already had a bunch of posts about Sharon and her MineCraft activities, including both her competitive play and the videos that she and Yunhee post on Youtube (as Team Meowsome),

Well, they're getting some love back from the viewing community, The graphics accompanying this post are samples of fan art that their subscribers have been emailing them. This is awesome beyond words.

As for the competition, it's hard for me to know how it's going. I asked Sharon, today, how it went and she, in disappointment, said that her team came in second in one of the games. As in, they came in first in the rest. And this was a letdown

I was actually kind of expecting a disappointing performance today. We were away for nthe past week, and only got home early this morning (via a redeye flight from Reno). The plan was to take a cab directly from the airport to the theatre. Under the best of circumstances, that's not exactly a plan for bringing out the best in a person.

And it was made worse by our flight leaving Reno an hour late. That meant cutting it really close. It was interesting to see Blair talking to the Jet Blue staff at the gate.She kept it light and conversational.

"We're really hoping that it'll be possible to pick up time. Our daughter has a competition in the morning, and she's a leader of the team, so she really has to be there."

"

Well, we'll certainly try. What does she compete in?"

"Minecraft. It's amazing. There are teams from all over the US and Canada in theatres..."

It sounds almost crazy, but it helped. There were two empty seats in the front row of the plane,

and as we descended the flight attendents told Blair and Sharon to take those seats so they could be the first off the plane. And we landed with enough time to spare, so they made it.

As a related aside, I will note that I have had really good experience with Jet Blue.

EDIT: Sharon's and Yunhee's Youtube channel is here.

countability and an overheard conversation

I was on the subway, going to work. groggy in my pre-coffee state, And then I hear my fellow riders talking about what it means for a set to be countable...

By way of background for the uninitiated, "countability" is a concept related to set theory. At first blush it may seem that some sets are finite and some are infinite, and all infinite sets are the same size. But it can be shown that that last assertion isn't true. Some infinite sets are bigger than others. An infinite set is "countable" if it is the same size as the set of counting numbers (1,2,3, etc). Another way of looking at it is that a countable set can be lined up and counted off -- "The first one, the second one," etc. You'll never finish counting them off because the set is infinite. But no matter what element I think of, you will get to it eventually. Relating that last description to the counting numbers, we can line up the counting numbers in order (first 1, then 2, then 3...) and count them off. We'll never finish. But you can pick any number (say, 153,472) and we will get to it eventually. The counting numbers are countable. The rational numbers (numbers that can be expressed as one integer divided by another) are countable. The real numbers aren't countable.


Anyway, the person who was explaining this was correct in what he said. But the other one was just not getting it. He kept saying things along the lines of "but you'll never get done" and "But how can it be countable if you can't finish counting it?" I realized what his hangup was. He was focused on what he felt the definition of "countable" should be, based on his real world understanding of the word. But in math, the definitions are precise. They are often motivated be real world perceptions, but that desn't mean that they fully align. And this is an example. You may not be able to finish counting the rationals (or the counting numbers for that matter), but they are countable.

I wanted to interrupt them to say, "don't think about what counting means to you. Think about what the definition says."


But I didn't. I just shook my head and kept on playing Trivia Crack.

one kind of man who tells the truth -- a theory

"There's one kind of man who tells the truth, that's a dead man.
Or a Gringo like me."

That's a couplet from "A Gringo like me," from the movie Gunfight at Red Sands. I haven't seen the movie, but I love the song. I first heard it when I was at a Spaghetti Western festival at the Film Forum in Manhattan. The Film Forum was playing it between movies. So I heard it over and over and over again. I, for course loved it. Still do. It's a damn catchy tune. You can hear it below. Of course, the fact is that a dead man doesn't tell the truth. Dead men generally don't talk much at all.

So I have a theory. Gunfight was an Italian/Spanish coproduction. Is it possible that the line was supposed to be "There's one kind of man who doesn't lie, that's a dead man" but got mistranslated or something?

Or maybe whoever wrote it thought it was a catchy line.

Anyone out there know?

fun facts and stupid stats about the presidency

UPDATE: I corrected a typo, in which I said that Johnson failed to run in 1988. I meant 1968.

With the presidential election season getting into full swing (OK, I know I could have said that a week ago or a month ago, and I will be able to say it in a few weeks from now as well. Bear with me anyway), I figure it's a good time for some fun facts and stupid statistics about the US presidency. Not that anyone really cares about any of the following, but:

• When President Obama leaves office next January, he will have been the third president in a row to have served two full terms. The only other time that happened was at the beginning of the 19th century -- Jefferson, Madison, Monroe.
• Other than the two triples (cited above), we have never had two presidents in a row who each got elected twice.
• Of all the presidents who served a full term (but only one term), John Adams (the father) served for the least amount of time. The others served for 1,461 days, while he only served 1,460 days. That's because his term included the year 1800, which wasn't a leap year.
• Eighteen of the 26 letters have been the last initial of a president. Those that haven't? D, I, Q, S, U, X, Y, Z.
• Q and Z are the only letters that have never appeared in a President's last name.
• Z is the only letters that have never appeared in a Vice President's last name.
• The last time the Republican party won the Presidency without a Nixon or a Bush on the ticket was 1928.
• Since the passge of the 22nd Amendment (limiting the number of times a person can be elected President to two), there have been two times that an incumbent President was eligible for reelection but did not run -- Truman in 1952 and Johnson in 1968.
• Four years ago I was at a New York Libertarian Party luncheon, seated next to candidate Gary Johnson for the meal. To make small talk, I noted that we have had several pairs of Presidents with the same last name -- Adams, Harrison, Johnson, Cleveland, Roosevelt and Bush. If he were to get elected (spoiler: he didn't), he would complete the first triple.He suggested that that must be a good omen. I disagreed, noting three facts:
• Each prior Johnsons succeeded to the Presidency because of the death of his predecessor
• the first Johnson got impeached and the second dropped out of the race for reelection when it became clear he couldn't win the nomination
• Between the two, they won one presidential election

Clearly, I need to work on my people skills.

excitement in a game i don't understand

I am at the theatre while Sharon competes in the second week of this season of Competitive Minecraft. It's exciting. It's heartstopping. Even though I don't understand the game.

The kids are in rows at their computers. They're animatedly shouting as they manipulate the images on their screen. And I watch the big screen, trying to follow the action. But I can't. The images look like a bunch of Leggos; I can't tell who is whom, or who's doing what. Some of the games show scoreboards, so I can see how they're doing. And sometimes there's a mesage indicating that this one killed that one or this team won (or lost) a capture point. Or something.

And yet the exvitement is infectious. So I'm on edge in a way that sports used to get me.
I gotta go. The next round is "Domination"

contamination of the film class

In our cinema history class, we started a month of Alien ripoffs. That is, movies that were churned out to cash in on the success of the 1979 blockbuster. Last night, we started off with Contamination, an Italian-made film from 1980, starring Ian McCulloch.

The bottom line? Contamination is a better movie than it has any right to be. It rips off Alien, and it rips off Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Psycho, and it rips off a dozen other sources. But it's suspenseful and fun. There are some scenes with truly great camera work, and the music (by either "Goblin" or "The Goblin," depending on what you think is correct) was the perfect complement. Interestingly, while it was a ripoff, I can think of several later bits of popculture that may have been influenced by it. Scarface and Little Shop of Horrors (the 1980s version) come to mind. And Kand and Kodos (the aliens from The Simpsons) look like they may have been  influenced by the design of the Alien Cyclops (yes, you read that right). Assuming, of course, that the producers of The Simpsons saw this and it's not just a coincidence.

As far as these classes go, this four-week session is a bit of an anomaly. We have generally focused on fare from the 1950s and 1960s, though we have gone back to the 1920s. Keith, who runs the show, tends not to be interested in material from the 1980s and later. But as this session covers ripoffs of Alien, we're kind of forced into material from 1980 and later.

I think I gave it a 7.2. Which is about 6.2 higher than I expected I would.

horseshoe crab census: a new season starts

Last night was our first horseshoe crab count for the season. We've been doing this every year for a while. In the spring, we go out to the Waterfront Center in Oyster Bay and count horseshoe crabs. We count the lone males, lone females, mating pairs, and mating groups (generally a female with more than one male), and lone females (though there are rarely any of those). It's sort of like a Star Trek convention for arthropods. We adjust for visibility conditions, and somehow the good folks at the Cornell University Cooperative Extension take our numbers as part of a pool of data to determine...I'm not sure what. How many horseshoe crabs there are?

It was a slow night. We saw fewer than half a dozen. But later in the season is bound to be better, and we'll be seeing several dozen in an evening. Well, it is a chance to walk on the beach at night.

For information: Go here.

three thoughts from phantom

Ethan and I saw Phantom of the Opera  on Broadwaylast night. Thanks, mom, for the tickets.

I'm not going to attempt to review it here, since m,any people who are more eloquent and more experienced have reviewed it already. But I do have three comments to make.

1) I have seen a bunch of Broadway shows before. I'm not a regular at the theatres, but I've seen enough that I'd have trouble trying to list all of them on the spot. I have never seen such spectacle at a Broadway show. The pyrotechnics, the moving set pieces. This is an extremely creative production. I remember feeling that Miss Saigon had amazing spectacle. But this easily topped it.

2) Before the show, the woman two seats over from me turned to the women behind her and warned them about an effect they should be aware of and prepared for, sitting where they were. I had been unaware, and her warning ruined the surprise for me. I think I would have enjoyed that moment a lot more had I not known it was coming. It's sort of like telling movie-goers the plot twist to The Crying Game or The Sixth Sense. Well, maybe not quite that extreme. But ou get the idea. Incidentally, I am not saying what the effect was, in case anyone reading this is unaware of the effect and plans to see Phantom. That said, when I mentioned it to Blair she told me that it's a well-known thing. Sort of like throwing toast at The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

3) During the number, "Music of the Night," I couldn't help but thinking that it sounded like a duet from a Meat Loaf album.

the one thing i don't like about the good, the bad and the ugly

It would be hard to pin down one movie as my favorite. Things like that are likely tochange from day to day with my mood. But one of the candidates is the quintessential spaghetti Western, The Goo, the Bad and the Ugly.

GB&U is a film of wide scope, following three gunslingers as they chase down a cache of Confederate gold during the Civil War. It's got humor, it's got pathos. It has one of the most haunting soundtracks in movie history. Every time I watch it I notice something that I hadn't noticed before. Oh, also, it's got a great early reference to "monologing." I love Tuco's line in this clip:

But there is one thing I don't like. In the beginning, as the three main characters are introduced, we see script writing appear on screen to tell us which one is the good, which one is the bad, and which one is the ugly.I can't help thinking that the movie would have been better without spelling that out. Let the audience decide. Better yet, let them debate.

a new monkees album -- dare i get my hopes up?

When I first heard that the Monkees were going to be putting out a new album this year (to celebrate 50 years since their inception), I was...less than optimistic. I pre-ordered the album, but in a sense it was more out of duty then genuine excitement.

Before going on, let me note that I am now cautiously optimistic -- based on the strength of the first single, "She Makes Me Laugh." I'll explain below.

"She Makes Me Laugh" from the forthcoming album

Now, to continue where I left off: Since Changes, which was the last of the Monkees' "original" albums, there have been occasional attempts at reunions. For the purposes of this discussion I'm largely limiting myself to recordings of new material.

The first such attempt was in the mid '70s. But Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork wouldn't sign on, So Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart (who had written much of the material for the original albums, got on board. Then, legal issues prevented them from being "The Monkees." So they were Dolenz, Jones, Boyce and Hart. The album they recorded was actually a pretty decent bit of pop music, but it didn't do well.

"Sweet Heart Attack" from Dolenz Jones Boyce and Hart

Ten years later, amid MTV-fueled nostalgia, they tried it again. This time, Tork was onboard, making it a ¾ reunion. They recorded three new tracks to tack onto a compilation album. Two of them -- including a cover of "Kicks," which had been a hit for Paul Revere and the Raiders -- were forgettable, though "That Was Then, This is Now" was pretty good and actually hit #20 on Billboard.

"That Was Then, This Is Now" from Then and Now...The Best of the Monkees

But it never got that good again. In 1987 they went for a full album. Pool It featured an updated sound, and had some very strong elements. But it was very forgettable. That was a huge disappointment for me, personally. I was in grad school, trying to become a mathematician, but also maintaining an interest in music journalism. I got Tower Records Pulse! to let me do a kind of preview article about the upcoming album. The trick was that I had to write about it as if I had heard the album. Which I hadn't. To help, Pulse arranged for me to talk to producer Roger Bechirian. That was a thrill, since he had worked with many of the New Wave/Post-Pub Rock acts that I had loved since high school. As an aside, I'll note that that article contained one of the most cringeworthy mistakes of my writing career. Anyway, I was stoked for te album -- a new album of new Monkees recordings, including a cover of Wreckless Eric's "(I'd Go the) Whole Wide World." But the attempt to make the Monkees sound contemporary just didn't work. It was cheesy pop music -- while not truly bad, it wasn't really good either.

"Heart and Soul" from Pool It!

1996 saw the next real attempt. Somehow they got Mike Nesmith on board, so there was a full reunion, and an album of new recordings, featuring all four Monkees acting like a band. Once again, I was waiting in anticpation -- this time for Justus. I tried to like the album. I really tried. But I never really warmed up to it.

"You and I" from Justus

So now, here we are, twenty years after that atrocity. In that time there have been lots of Monkees tours with one or another nonempty subset of the group.. And there have been lots of stories of one or another being kicked out of the group, or being reinstated, or whatever. I haven;t had the energy to follow the saga. But Davy Jones died four years ago, which kind of puts him permanently out of the group (at least for the purposes of touring). I'd kind of come to accept the idea that there wouldn't be new material, though Rhino Records does seem to keep finding ways to repackage the existing stuff or add previously unreleased tracks or alternate takes.

And that's where I was when I first heard that there would be a new album (called Good Times!) of all new material. I didn't like the last two attempts, and there'll be no Davy. So it can't be good. Then I heard that there will be Davy. They found old ("vintage") Monkees recordings from the 1960s. Sounds great! But then I remembered those awful tracks with John Lennon that made their way onto the Beatles'  Anthology albums. And I shuddered. This can't go well, I told myself. They'll update the hell out of the group. Like Justus, it won't sound like the Monkees. And they'll have some crappy archival recording of Davy singing a crappy song that was never released for a very good reason. But, perhaps against my best judgement, I pre-ordered the album. And the release date was moved up, so bitter dissapointment loomed larger and larger.

So, this weekend I saw an email from Rhino records that I could hear the first single, "She Makes Me Laugh" (the video is at the top of this post). In my apprehension, I thought of "Laugh," from the group's second album, and worried that this will be a disaster. But I am pleased to have been proven wrong. "She Makes Me Laugh" is a catchy song. And they made it sound like vintage Monkees. If you had tyold me that it was an outtake from the 1966 recordings, I wouldn't have a hard time believing it. And Micky Dolenz' vocals sound like they did fifty years ago.

Will I be disappointed again? Maybe. But maybe not?