After the Wall... K.A.O.S.

I'd like to be home with my monkey and my dog...

Breakfast and a Movie

In the mid-'90s my wife collected the Disney animated classics "Collector Series" cups from Burger King and Coca-Cola (this was before we met). There were eight total in the series, and she had them all. They are plastic, 16 ounce tumblers with a full color movie poster-type image of the movie on one side and a short description of the movie on the opposite side.

A couple years ago, my wife was going through the stuff she had stored in her parents' basement, came across these cups, and brought them into our home. Now, these aren't the kind of cups you display or put out for company. I think I'm the only one in the family who uses the cups regularly: I drink my morning glass of orange juice from one of them every day. Because of that, I've read the backs of each of these cups many, many times and -- I guess the word is "impresses" -- what impresses me about them is those movie summaries. Whoever wrote them is a master of word economy.

Reducing a 90 minute movie down to a paragraph is no mean feat. And to be able to do that and still communicate the key plot points and mention all the main characters is pretty remarkable. Take Aladdin, for example...

It's the magic carpet ride of a lifetime as Aladdin, with his pet monkey, Abu, takes to the streets of Agrabah for survival, fun and adventure. Aladdin falls in love with the free-spirited Princess Jasmine. But he believes she would never love a street rat like him. Aladdin's luck changes with one rub of a magic lamp, releasing the shape-shifting, fun-loving, wish-giving, all-powerful Genie, who turns him into a Prince. In the final battle, Aladdin must overcome the evil sorcerer, Jafar, in order to win Jasmine's heart!

I mean, they even worked the monkey into the synopsis! Double points! Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney's first masterpiece can be reduced to a mere 93 words...

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" When the Magic Mirror responded that Snow White was the fairest in the land, her jealous stepmother, the Queen, vowed to cast a spell on her. Fleeing from the castle, Snow White made her home deep in the forest with the Seven Dwarfs. But not even Snow White's seven friends could protect her from the Queen's evil curse which only true love could break. Fortunately, the Prince of her dreams awakens her with love's first kiss, and they live happily ever after.

On the other hand, perhaps the descriptions just further illustrate how vacant Disney's animated classics really are, in that they can be accurately and completely summed up in 100 words or less.

Prop 8: The Musical

Bond 22

I was a huge Clive Owen proponent -- what, three years ago, now? -- to replace Pierce Brosnan as 007. I ignorantly thought they made a colossal mistake by casting Daniel Craig, an actor I had never seen in anything prior to his Bond debut. Then I actually saw Casino Royale. Wow. What a stunning reboot of the character and film franchise.

We saw Quantum of Solace this weekend, the second Craig Bond film, and enjoyed it immensely. Where Casino Royale has striking main titles and an utterly forgettable song, Quantum of Solace has some pretty dull main titles and an amazing song by comparison. (Although neither a Jack White nor Alicia Keys fan, I love this theme song. It blends some great throwback horns and classic themes with new millennial sensibilities.) The location graphics, on the other hand, are fantastic in Quantum of Solace, stylized based on the location it's referencing and beautifully integrated into the beginning of the scene to orient the viewer.

We watched Casino Royale on the home theater the night before going to see Quantum of Solace, and we were glad we did. Quantum of Solace picks up, literally, right where Casino Royale ends, becoming more of a second act to the first film. The movie leverages many of the same characters across both films, including Jeffrey Wright's Felix Leiter, Giancarlo Giannini's René Mathis, and Jesper Christensen's Mr. White. Also, because of the direct ties to the first film, there are many references to Eva Green's Vesper Lynd and Mads Mikkelson's Le Chiffre.

The Bond Girl, Olga Kurylenko's Camille Montes, isn't nearly as strong a character as Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale. In fact, I found Gemma Arterton's brief role as a cleverly named British consulate (Strawberry Fields) more interesting a character than the female lead here. That aside, they have really gone to lengths to build Judi Dench's M in the Daniel Craig Bond movies, and with winning results. Building off of her start in the Brosnan films, Dench may have finally surpassed Bernard Lee's role-defining turn as the character.

No complaints about Mathieu Amalric as Dominic Greene, head of Quantum and an engaging Bond villain. I'd love to see the next film continue to explore and use the Quantum organization as an ongoing MI6 antagonist in the same way SPECTRE was used in the earlier films and novels.

In all, we had a great time on this fun ride. Marc Foster (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland), who takes over the director's chair from Casino Royale's Martin Campbell (Goldeneye), does a fine job with Quantum of Solace. He and Craig keep Bond moving forward and on par with the 21st century sensibilities of movies like Matt Damon's Bourne franchise.

Open Season

We've been going to the annual Lock 3 tree lighting in downtown Akron since it started five years ago. At that time we lived just around the corner on Merriman in Highland Square. Since our flight to the suburbs a couple years ago, the trip to downtown has gone from a five minute drive to a 15 or 20 minute drive, but it's worth it, because this is what Akron is all about.

This year was the best yet. As usual, the Cleveland NBC affiliate simulcast the festivities and Santa arrived by train, sang, and lit up the Akron U. Polsky Building and the Christmas Tree by shooting sparks across downtown, then started the fireworks display the same way!

The fireworks launched from the art deco YMCA building were spectacular this year, lighting up the sky with reds and greens and whites. It's this feeling of small town mixed with city that keeps us here in Akron -- a part of the community.

We wandered the Chriskindl Market, our senses assaulted by the smells of fresh waffles, roasted almonds, hot chocolate, brightly colored ornaments and finely detailed clocks and carvings, and holiday music in the air. And we watched the ice rink fill up with skaters and families crowd into the heated German food tent. Across the street, the Peanut Shoppe, an Akron landmark, was jammed with holiday revelers and had a line out the door.

And as we were walking from our car to Main Street when we arrived, they were playing "Deck the Halls" in what my wife and I swear was the version played over the opening credits of A Christmas Story. Another perfect day after Thanksgiving in northeast Ohio.

So Much To Be Thankful For

Photograph courtesy of El Dave. Check out all the cool stuff on his photoblog and Flickr.

Ten Thousand Watts of Holy Light

Boston is one of those classic rock groups I've always dug. And, after being out of my collection for far too long, I recently reacquired the first three albums: Boston, Don't Look Back, and Third Stage. Solid albums with some great songs. And something struck me while listening to their self-titled debut from August 1976: Both Boston and the Michael Stanley Band both have industry-insider, autobiographical songs, "Rock and Roll Band" and "Midwest Midnight", respectively. Hardly a life-altering revelation, but interesting when you consider the points of view each songwriter takes.

Tom Scholz's song, "Rock and Roll Band", is a decidedly positive take on the music biz. Scholz writes about being "just another band out of Boston", getting better while gigging around the Northeast, "Livin' on rock-n-roll music / Never worry 'bout the things we were missing." Then finally getting their big break when a Cadillac-driving, cigar-smoking music industry man offers them a contract. I assume the man Scholz is describing there at the end is Steve Popovich, who was the Vice President of A&R with Epic Records at from 1974 to 1976.

Stanley, who was also on the Epic label at the time, takes a decidedly anti-music biz approach to his ode to the road and success. The leadoff track from MSB's Stagepass live album, "Midwest Midnight" is about playing "six sets of glory a night in some bar," and lamenting songs that meet a "slow death of silence" at the hands of the music biz machine. The bridge puts the listener on the receiving end of the music industry's arrogance and Stanley's frustration when he says:

I hear 'em callin':
"Boy, you should be grateful
To get your foot inside the door.
You know there's thousands out there
Who would take your place...
This attitude of yours, my son,
Well, it lacks the due respect...
You bite the hand that feeds you --
Even if you're never fed."

Stanley cynically tells us that "Chasing the fame keeps 'em all in the game / But money's still the way they keep score." His irritation finally boils over when "New York's calling just to see if you've heard / 'Bout the great English band / They just signed." But despite all this, he can't resist the lure of his muse and the promise of hearing his own songs transcend into "ten thousand watts of holy light" on the radio.

This compare-and-contrast between Scholz's Boston hit and Stanley's MSB staple is interesting enough, I suppose, on its own. But I think what adds a new dimension to the discussion is the back-story on that line about "the great English band."

I had numerous conversations with many people associated with Michael Stanley's career while researching my Pop Conference paper a few years ago -- everyone from Hank LoConti (the owner of the Cleveland Agora where Stagepass was recorded) to David Spero (Stanley's first manager) to Michael himself, and everyone in-between I could track down. In my first conversation with Spero, a riveting marathon discussion that lasted for many entertaining hours, he relayed the following story:

While Michael and I were up there [in NYC] at a previous meeting with Popovich, he was playing us this, we were in this meeting talking about our careers, you know. And he'd go, "Aw, I gotta play you something!" And he puts on this record. Turned out it was really a Boston record, although Michael referred to it as "that great English band we just signed" -- it worked better for the song. This was all [Popovich] wanted us to hear was this Boston record, and we don't really care. I mean, it's nice. Cool record. I bet it sells... That's what it was like at those times.

And out of that came "Midwest Midnight", a song Spero describes as "a real positive song in a negative way" expressing the conviction that "all these things that are keeping us down, that dream of 'doing Elvis in front of the mirror,' that's stronger than anything this label can throw at us."

So Michael Stanley might not have made it as big as a lot of Northeast Ohioans would have predicted, but he did pen one of the greatest rock songs ever recorded: "Midwest Midnight". And I'll take that over "Rock and Roll Band" any day of the week.