See BookTV’s incredible list of best books of 2009, including links to tons of similar lists on other sites.
One reason that I love BookTV: they focus on non-fiction in three two of my favorite subject areas: history and economics. The third focus is politics, which can be interesting when it centers on policy and the results of same, or when written by humorous people like P.J. O’Rourke or Mark Twain. Otherwise … not so much.
Categories: Cites · Economics · History · Leisure · Politics · Reading
A nice mix of Christmas movies tonight at 7:00:
Categories: Leisure
Ten flat-screen TVs, nine of them 63″, with one huge screen in the middle. Comfy chairs. Dark room.
This is pretty much the ideal football-watching environment.
So let’s see, to have the John Madden setup at my house, I only need … ten more flat-screen TVs!
I guess I never fully appreciated the true writing genius that was John Hughes, who died a couple of weeks ago of a heart attack at 59.
He wasn’t just a director. In fact, he was primarily a writer, a very prolific one, who started out writing jokes for Rodney Dangerfield on the side, after working tirelessly at his day job at the Leo Burnett ad agency. Later he submitted freelance work to National Lampoon, where they eventually hired him as an editor.
There, he hung out with P.J. O’Rourke. Think for a second about the writing talent in that pairing. The back-and-forth between those two must have been pretty entertaining, I’m guessing, especially on the occasional four-hour lunch.
Eventually he moved his focus to Hollywood, and the rest is history. He wrote some of the best funny movies of the last 30 years, classic comedies including:
Most writers couldn’t come up with one movie on that list, much less all six. “Mr. Mom” and “Vacation” alone would cement his reputation as a comedy legend, and those came out in the same year, 1983.
And then there are the minor classics, like The Great Outdoors, Uncle Buck, Dutch, Weird Science, and a whole lot more.
A total of 38 movies have his name on them as screenwriter, nearly all of them in a period of just about 20 years, from 1982-2002.
How many screenwriters in the history of movies can match that track record? I don’t really know, but it can’t be very many.
And he was also, of course, a wonderful director of fun, clever, amusing movies like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles. He wrote those, too. And he produced over half of all these movies, as well.
He also loved music, and used his movies to promote it. He even says the only reason he went into writing was because he had no musical talent.
So as both writer and director, he basically invented a movie genre: quality, funny movies that are true and have characters with depth and inherent value.
Some of these may have aged a bit. But all movies from the 80s have aged, most of them quite a lot. Why is that? I’m not sure, but the silly hair and clothes sure don’t help. But we can’t blame Hughes for that, and besides, those weaknesses are overtaken by the quality of the stories, writing, and characters.
Some may dismiss his material as suburban and banal, the anti-Spike-Lee. OK, sure, it was about suburban white people. So what? Suburban white people have some compelling life stories to be told, too. Just because your Dad has a Porsche doesn’t mean you live a problem-free life, even though we like to pretend money fixes everything for us. And even if we grant that there is less true drama in those stories, the mark of a good writer is to make the everyday events interesting to us. And that’s exactly what Hughes did.
After dropping out of Hollywood to save his kids from its corrosive effects — thereby proving he respected his own kids, in addition to his movie character kids — he moved to a farm in northern Illinois and continued writing for movies under his pseudonym Edmond Dantes. He also wrote unpublished short stories for the last ten years of his life.
A true artist, both funny and endearing, who would not compromise his kids for the “advantages” of the L.A. lifestyle. Imagine that!
It’s pretty obvious to me that John Hughes was good people, who just happened to earn a living in Hollywood for a few years. For awhile, he was in Hollywood, but he was never “of” Hollywood.
And he was a prolific writer of comedy gold.
Categories: Cites · Essays · Just Plain Cool · Leisure
Brian, Drew, and Serendipity
On a lark, I switched the TV over to a movie called “My Date with Drew”, about some guy’s quest to get a date with Drew Barrymore. I figured it would be ok, but probably silly and boring, and within 5 minutes I’d flip over to Sportscenter or something.
But I got drawn in by likable people (including Drew herself), a compelling story, and a positive, life-affirming ending.
The guy is a 20-something filmmaker named Brian Herzlinger who gives himself 30 days to get the date with her, and especially all the various hijinks and crazy schemes cooked up by Brian and his merry band of assistants to make this happen.
I found it impossible not to like Brian. He’s energetic, positive, funny, self-deprecating, yet he thinks he’s a complete loser and will have nothing to say to her, if he can even get the date.
Which requires, of course, that he even gets to talk to her. Here we have the true challenge.
Spoiler alert! Stop reading now if you don’t want to know what happens.
Categories: Encounters · Just Plain Cool · Leisure
Those who want to re-discover the musical catalog of Michael Jackson might want to skip right over the “Thriller” era and head back to 1969-1973, the height of the Jackson 5 and the beginning of Michael’s solo career
The Jackson 5 was quite simply one of the greatest soul/R&B/pop music acts in the history of popular music.
And so I generally agree with these thoughts by Jim DeRogatis on Jackson’s recorded output:
For that matter, more moving than anything on “Thriller” is the 1972 ballad “Ben,” another No. 1 hit and a song that Jackson, right at the start of his solo career, invested with so much emotion that it instantly transcended its origins as a love song to a killer rat from a B-grade horror film.
And, of course, there are the irrepressible, irresistible, unrelentingly upbeat songs of the Jackson Five, the family group that featured Michael and four of his eight siblings. Dismissed as bubblegum pop by some critics during their hit-making prime from 1969 through 1971, in retrospect, they stand as one of the most heartfelt and enduring acts that the legendary Motown Records ever produced. Michael’s vocals in particular shine through, with the prepubescent star somehow singing in a voice wise and soulful beyond its years.
Pop music just doesn’t get any better than the best of the Jackson 5, from “I Want You Back” to “The Love You Save” to ballads like “I’ll Be There”. At least, not in my world. That kid could sing, and the band was great too. Quality material and the full power of the Motown production powerhouse. What more do you need?
The opening guitar riff from “I Want You Back” still sounds as fresh and energetic today as it did forty years ago.
“The Love You Save” sounds a lot like the best of the Sly Stone output. “Never Can Say Goodbye” is still the best-ever version of that song. I forgot how much I liked “Maybe Tomorrow” until just now, after listening to it again. “Mama’s Pearl”, even though I don’t much like the chorus, is a pretty inventive piece of music, especially the instrumental breaks and vocal interplay.
And like Jim says above, “Ben” is a classic ballad. You just have to forget that it’s about a rat.
Even some of the more pedestrian material, like “Sugar Daddy” and “Little Bitty Pretty One”, is a cut above pretty much everything else that was going on with AM radio at the time.
Numerous other songs showcase their unique, youthful vitality, the kind of “it” factor that comes along once every generation. They stand frozen in time with that youth and energy, and who doesn’t gravitate to that?
His later solo output got progressively worse from a music perspective. Of course, these are just opinions, and others may disagree. But those of us that like music for listening rather than dancing tended to not like the influences that the disco era had on popular music. And that seems to apply here as well.
“Off the Wall” was largely a disco record during the height of the disco years. And that was just not the kind of music I was into at that point in my life. But I always did like “Rock with You”. And the song “Off the Wall” wasn’t bad either. Smooth R&B with killer harmonies has always been a favorite of mine.
“Thriller” had lots of energy and volume and rhythmic stuff going on, and sold gazillions of copies, but is far less musical than much of the best of the Jackson 5. It wasn’t so much music as it was an event, larger than life. I do get why some folks would like “Thriller”, but it did little for me. Too many vocal hicks and tricks and breathy weirdness: hey, how about if you just knock all that off, and sing? Is that possible?
In fact, the more I heard “Billie Jean”, which was on the radio about 45 times a day back then, the more I started to believe her side of the story over his: she is too your lover, dammit! And the kid is your son! Come on, admit it!
At home I have my old Jackson 5 anthology album with the black cover and the familiar Motown blue and silver label on the records that I bought in, maybe 1979? Maybe tonight I’ll play it to remove all traces of “Beat It” from my brain, and give my kids an example of what Michael Jackson could do with a song before he turned into a psychotic freak-show.
For me, I guess it comes down to this: he was a better, more compelling artist when he had a melody to work with, and some harmonizing from a deeper voice like older brother Jermaine, and a band that stretched out musically a little bit, and a producer that forced him to focus on creating small works of art rather than giant masterpieces.
Has it really been 25 years since This is Spinal Tap was released?
Yes. Yes it has.
But it’s still funny, and true.
I’ve been in a rut the last few months with wine. Many of the wines I used to enjoy now taste like grape juice with alcohol, and the ones I do still really enjoy are slightly more $$$ than I’m willing to spend with any regularity.
So when I stumbled upon a wine blog called Dr. Vino, and one of the first posts I saw was about the relative scarcity of decent American wines under $10-12, I welcomed some new ideas.
Categories: Food and Wine · Leisure
Pretty cool … the new Wilco record can be streamed here.
It’s called “Wilco (The Album)”. Just in case you forgot the name of the band.
The cover shows a funky picture of a camel on a patio. With a party hat on.
Kids today don’t know how lucky they are. Why, back in my day, we had to drive to Korvette’s and spend $3.99 of our hard-earned money on a new record! In the snow!
I don’t write reviews very often, but I just have to let you in on a fabulous secret: this new cartoon “Penguins of Madagascar” on Nickelodeon is fantastic.
Hilarious, clever, with excellent quality animation, it’s all about the silly hijinks that a bunch of zoo animals get into on a regular basis. But as funny as that can be, it isn’t what really makes this cartoon must see TV.
It’s the voices, and the writing, which are both really well-executed and absolutely hilarious. Easily some of the funniest I’ve ever seen in animation, going back to the classic Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner days.
There are some great characters too. My favorite is King Julien, the self-anointed King of the Lemurs. He has some kind of broken English accent and says silly things like “this is how a king is to be rolling” and “stop with the telling me things I don’t want to hear!”.
Another favorite is Skipper, the lead penguin who treats his gang like an elite Special Forces crew. He sounds a little bit like John Wayne (spit this line out staccato with emphasis on the bolded letters): “he thinks he can bribe us with his pinata promises”.
My kids and I quote King Julian and Skipper all the time. Then we all laugh like loons. What could be better than that?
I could go on and on, but that would be wasting your time and mine. Just watch it and see what you think. It’s a big hit around our house. And I would even watch it when the kids aren’t around, it really is that entertaining. Think “Sponge Bob” with less annoying voices and more characters, many of them very funny.
Here is a review in the L.A. Times.
The premiere in March was the most watched show in Nickelodeon history.
Categories: Fun · Kids, Family · Leisure
Let’s see, today is April 15, and the season opener is September 13, so … only 15+31+30+31+31+12 days to go until the season opener! Whatever that works out to … 150 days if my old-fogey brain is still working. Call it 5 months.
Week 1: Sun, Sept. 13 at Green Bay Packers NBC 7:20 p.m.
Week 2: Sun, Sept. 20 vs. Pittsburgh Steelers CBS 3:15 p.m.
Week 3: Sun, Sept. 27 at Seattle Seahawks FOX 3:05 p.m.
Week 4: Sun, Oct. 4 vs. Detroit Lions FOX noon
Week 5: Bye Week
Week 6: Sun, Oct. 18 at Atlanta Falcons NBC 7:20 p.m.
Week 7: Sun, Oct. 25 at Cincinnati Bengals FOX noon
Week 8: Sun, Nov. 1 vs. Cleveland Browns CBS noon
Week 9: Sun, Nov. 8 vs. Arizona Cardinals FOX noon.
Week 10: Thu, Nov. 12 at San Francisco 49ers NFLN 7:20 p.m.
Week 11: Sun, Nov. 22 vs. Philadelphia Eagles NBC 7:20 p.m.
Week 12: Sun, Nov. 29 at Minnesota Vikings FOX noon.
Week 13: Sun, Dec. 6 vs. St. Louis Rams FOX noon
Week 14: Sun, Dec. 13 vs. Green Bay Packers FOX noon.
Week 15: Sun, Dec. 20 at Baltimore Ravens FOX noon
Week 16: Mon, Dec. 28 vs. Minnesota Vikings ESPN 7:20 p.m.
Week 17: Sun, Jan. 3 at Detroit Lions FOX noon.
Breakdown: besides the usual six games against their division rivals, they play the AFC Central … oh yay … Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Cleveland, plus Seattle, Atlanta, Arizona, S.F., Philadelphia, and St. Louis.
This looks like a tough schedule. Thank God for the Lions, Bengals and Rams! Oh my!
Via Chicagoist.
So … I guess I took a week-long break last week. Didn’t really plan it, it just sort of happened.
Not sure why. Maybe it’s because the news is b-o-r-i-n-g these days. Oh, so a Democratic president is pushing through $800B worth of pork within 3 weeks of taking office? And the media thinks this is a great idea? And yet, polling tells us that the more people read about the “stimulus”, the less they like it?
Wow, sure couldn’t see that coming!
Or maybe it’s because I’ve been spending more time chilling in our living room, listening to my middle son Jacob play his new guitar. We just bought him an Epiphone Les Paul “Special II”. It’s amazing what you can get for $169 at Sam Ash these days. I’ll post a pic later.
Now we just need a decent amp; the cheap 12 watt Kustom is not really cutting it. He’s going to play at school next week, to audition for a talent show, with his friend Ethan; they’re going to play “Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi. Yes, our house sounds a lot like 1985 radio lately.
I’ve been very impressed with Jacob’s commitment to learning how to play. He picks it up multiple times per day, and also plays our other guitars. We have four of them now (2 electric, 2 acoustic). We should start a string band.
Let’s see, what other reasons do I have for not blogging much? I haven’t been surfing the ‘net as much either, for some of the same reasons. And since blogging is primarily reactive, I don’t write as much, either. Although, I have been writing for The Love of Sports, and had three pieces published lately: a lamentation about The Saga of Chief Illinwek, and a piece about Tiger Woods and his Dad, And the Son Becomes a Father, and a silly list of Top Twelve Fun Facts about the IFAF. Please, click and read. Here’s my author page.
Plus, blogging is getting boring. Yet again. Let’s see, going back to the Spring of ‘03, this has to be, what, the 5th or 6th time I’ve gone through something like that? Yeeesh. I don’t know how people do it, day after day, year after year. It’s like having your brains, and your life, sucked out through a Silly Straw. In fact, this long 3 day weekend, I hardly touched a computer at all. Didn’t really miss it, either. That’ll change, though.
All I can say is, thank God above for Turner Classic Movies.
Oh, and BookTV, where over the weekend, I saw George Friedman, who wrote “America’s Secret War”, talk about his latest book “The Next Hundred Years”. Which I ordered today, in fact.
All you folks out there who think you know what is going on in the world, because you listen dutifully to NPR or read the Washington Post? Might want to read Friedman’s “America’s Secret War”. You may find your world view altered slightly. I’m just sayin’.
Categories: Encounters · Essays · Geopolitics · Internet Makes Us (Choose One): Dumber | Smarter · Kids, Family · Leisure · Stupid
Just one of many great songs from the classic album “Bare Trees”, when the masterful and mercurial Danny Kirwan was the main musical influence in the band.
Kirwan’s “Sunny Side of Heaven” is instrumental, melodic, and positively hypnotic. If you’ve never heard any Fleetwood Mac from before Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the band, you ought to check into this song, and the rest of “Bare Trees”. Musically, there is a lot going on here; I first heard it back in 1977-8, and it still sounds fresh each time I listen to it today, 30 years later.
Last night I went running, and chose “Bare Trees” as my listening companion. I found it to be perfect for running or working out, because it is that rare combination: equal parts musical power and energy, beautiful melody, grunge guitar workout, calm peaceful interludes, and solid songwriting. It sounds good on earphones, too.
You can have your 23 minute Grateful Dead jams; I’ll take a beautiful, perfectly constructed 3+ minute instrumental like “Sunny Side of Heaven”, thanks.
As I’ve learned over the years, the trick is knowing where to leave the spaces between the notes.
Yes, I Know, It’s “Pop”, So It’s Kinda Lame, But I Don’t Care
This song is actually kind of an inside joke about the engagement between group members Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. This wikipedia page says that when the song was recorded in 1969, they were actually engaged, but had yet to set a date. Their producer, Bones Howe, therefore thought it would be funny to record the song, which was written by Laura Nyro three years earlier. When performing this song on TV, as you can see in the video above, they would ham it up, her reaching out to him and pulling him closer, him giving the “uh oh, how can I get out of this” looks.
The song actually wasn’t released as a single until after a disc jockey in San Diego started playing it from the album, and once released, it went to #1 in the US for 3 straight weeks in October 1969.
The main reason I like it is McCoo’s voice: a lyrical, lovely combination of smoothness and power. Not real hard on the eyes, either.
Later, they formed a duo and had some hits of their own, like “You Don’t Have to Be a Star”, which is another song I should hate, but actually like.
And you gotta love this: Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. are still married today, and even wrote a book in 2004 called “Up, Up and Away: How We Found Love, Faith and Lasting Marriage in the Entertainment World“.
Ever since I discovered turkey brining a few years ago, it’s the only way we make our Thanksgiving turkey.
It’s very simple: you need a 5 gallon bucket, a turkey, and some kind of brine to soak it in for 12 hours or more.
The brine I use is very simple and makes the turkey very moist, even the white meat. Just mix 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of salt (kosher, regular, whatever) into about 1/2 gallon of cool water, and mix it very well. Put the turkey in the bucket. Add water to top it off, and put the bucket into a cold space like a garage or outside. Or, you can put lots of ice in the bucket with some water, and keep it in your house, but then you have to be careful about not letting the water get warm. I like the garage method myself.
If using a frozen turkey, thaw it out first; I’m not sure how well brining works if the meat is frozen.
After cooking, the dark meat will fall off the drumstick, it is so moist. The white meat tastes moist even cold in a sandwich. Plus the sugar and salt add a little extra flavor. It’s simply delicious.
There are all kinds of brining recipes you can use, just Google it and do some experimenting. I wouldn’t mind something that adds a little more spice to the white meat, myself.
Categories: Food and Wine · How To · Leisure
The changing face of Chicago blues:
Today, the Chicago blues scene is in stark transition. Younger blacks are failing to see the music as anything but a relic, leaving an entire tradition largely up for adoption by foreign-born players traveling halfway around the world to learn from the source. Their enthusiasm is helping move the blues from isolated neighborhoods to the global stage, evidenced by Chicago bands that very recently have come to resemble a United Nations portfolio.
This cultural exchange is expanding the music’s songbook with stories it never addressed before and is helping create sophisticated players schooled as much in Van Halen and Led Zeppelin as they are in Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. But advocates worry that the flashy guitar tones and studied technique threaten to replace the personal expression that has long made the music profound.
In Chicago, blues music has always lived, not through television documentaries or books, but primarily through people – the Southerners who populated the city’s South and West sides and who helped pass the music’s foundation on to the next generation. For this reason, the blues has always been a collaborative pact between fathers and sons, uncles and nephews, the grizzled mentors and the eager young followers who sought them out, either from the other side of town or from as far away as Japan.
Well worth reading, for fans of Chicago Blues.
(NOTE: Recently I updated my “Notable Page” with this item, and I thought it good for a blog post, too, after I found the afterword (and the entire book) published online.)
The Biker Read Hegel – Eddie Dean, online.wsj.com, 09-08-2008 – A review of Zen and Now, by Mark Richardson, about the true story behind Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig, the bestselling philosophy book of the 1970s, which I bought in college and read twice before I understood it.
Underlying the plot and ideas of the book is a constant level of desperate melancholy and sadness, brought to life by the relationship between Pirsig and his (then) 11 year old son Chris. The reader was never sure how much of this was real, and how much was fictionalized for dramatic effect. Unfortunately, it was true, and things got worse for the family after the book was published.
A tenth-anniversary version of “Zen” includes an afterword by the author explaining what happened, and how he learned to deal with. It’s a must-read for fans of the book.
From the CD One Woman Man (1989).
Why I Like It
It’s George Jones, singing poetry. Any questions?
Read the refrain out loud (awesome lyrics by Hazel Marie Houser):
Hold back the rushing minutes, make the wind lie still
Don’t let the moonlight shine across the lonely hill
Dry all the raindrops, then hold back the sun
My world has ended, my baby’s gone
“Hold back the rushing minutes, make the wind lie still”. That’s gold, right there. And George Jones knows how to wring every drop of emotion out of a lyric like that.
Background
I’ve had this CD a long time, since it came out; I bought it partly because it has a drinking song featuring George pouring bourbon out of a bottle shaped like Elvis, into a Flintstones jelly glass, and downing a series of toasts, all by himself, with the refrain “Yabba dabba doo, the King is gone, and so are you”. You gotta love a goofy song like that.
Lately I’ve been listening to it when I’m on one of my 90 minute bike rides, or working out at the Y, and have found it to be a great CD for that. And every time, this song just kills me when it comes on.
The whole CD is pretty good, and worth getting, if you like traditional country music at all.
Well, I Prefer Mine Black, Hot, With One Ice Cube, But That’s Just Me
John Kass says “History could have helped Starbucks foresee revolt”.
Starbucks is in the process of closing 600 stores nationwide, while Dunkin’ Donuts — that oh-so-unhip place where you can pay less money, get good coffee, much less attitude, and even a sinful doughnut if you dare — is opening 500 stores. Draw your own conclusions; I’ll go out on a limb and say that the demand for expensive coffee doesn’t go above the price of a gallon of gas. Who knew these things were tied together economically?
And then go read about this goofiness, where a hoity-toity coffee house in Washington, D.C. has a set of policies about just exactly how their customers are allowed to order their coffee. One of them is “no ice with espresso”. A customer got kinda P.O.’d, and blogged about it. Hilarity ensued.
Links to this ridiculousness can be found in the story; I’m not going to bother reading any more about this than I already have, because those are precious minutes of my life I can never get back. But I basically agree with the customer in this case.
This is the explanation given by the owner:
At his cafe, Cho explained the policy: “The way we do espresso is different than what people are used to. It’s a very exacting technique. … When you pour it over ice, it creates a certain acidic reaction that makes the drink sour.”
In his letter on Murky’s site, Cho wrote: “To others reading this I will say that if you don’t like the policies, I respectfully recommend that you find some other place that will give you what you want, or select something that we can offer you.”
Maybe some customers like it sour. People have different tastes; you can still take their money. In fact, as somebody running a business, the whole idea is to think up more ways to take their money. I just don’t see the problem here.
But, of course, the problem is obvious: it isn’t just coffee for these people, it’s a quasi-religion. There are coffee beliefs, and Thou Shalt Not Disobey Them.
Yes, even if you fork over your hard-earned $4.50, you are still too stupid to make decisions about what you like, so just bend over and take it, and learn to like it! Oh, and come back soon!
The Chicago Tribune Magazine from Sunday, April 13, was devoted to golf.
Some of the interesting items there:
Reckless Driving, a memoir about a love/hate relationship with golf. Most golfers can probably relate.
Trivia time: the first 18 hole golf course in the U.S. was the Chicago Golf Club, originally in Downers Grove (about 6 miles from here) now in Wheaton (where I live). It was built by Charles Blair Macdonald (1855-1939), who was also a founder of the USGA. I’ve never played there, but go past it often. A curiosity: the sign at the street is about 18 inches wide, in a font no bigger than 4 or 5 inches for the capital “C”, and partially hidden by a big tree. If you didn’t happen to stare right at it, you’d never notice it.
Tribune columnist Rick Kogan — who is one of the better writers in Chicago media — weighs in on golf here.
And finally, some advice on buying clubs.
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