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I had to get some stuff out of a box on the top shelf of my closet the other day and accidentally knocked over another box. It damn near hit me on its way to the floor, and when it popped open two things fell out: a pair of t-shirts. T-shirts that are well past their shelf-life. Their designs are either faded or completely gone. They are threadbare and worn, and I can see my hand through the fabric when I hold it up inside the shirt. I’ve hung on to them for purely sentimental reasons. Though from two different eras of my youth, both of them were incredibly important to me in their day.
The first shirt, my John Lennon shirt, was purchased for me by the girl I dated my senior year of high school. She was the one who really pushed my limits creatively and expanded my horizons musically. It was a tragic and doomed relationship from the start, I suppose (as is most everything rooted in adolescence). She was a year older than me and had attended a different high school, but we met at work and it grew from there. The summer after my senior year, she moved to San Francisco to be with her old boyfriend, and I moved into a dorm on the campus of Bowling Green State University with my buddy John. The shirt I wore thin, yet saved, celebrated the release of Imagine. The front image of the shirt is mostly gone, but there are hints of color that was the logo from the John Lennon biopic. The back is completely empty now, with just the ghosts of what was the lengthy movie description: “Discover John…the angry youth, the musician, the radical, the husband, the father, the lover, the idealist…through his own words and personal collection of film and music.” My love for this radical artist mixed with young love for a girl has proved to be a potent combination… one that has me holding on to a t-shirt-turned-rag 21 years later.
While I can pinpoint a specific era that the Imagine shirt was purchased and received, I can tell you the exact place, day, and year I purchased the other shirt. I became a fan of Anne Rice's work after discovering it in high school. A few years later, I was living in Central Florida, where my life was in a bit of upheaval. I was working the graveyard shift at a Disney resort, which allowed me to do some daytime events when the opportunity presented itself. This was the case on November 22, 1993, when White’s of Lake Buena Vista hosted Anne Rice on her book signing tour for Lasher. I stood in line and had my copy of the book signed, along with one of the little postcards she had. I also bought a t-shirt that day… with the cover of the new book on the front and the date and bookstore name in small print under it. I wore the shirt relentlessly (yes, relentlessly), and it was strangely important to me. It was a link between my former life in Ohio, the relative innocence of high school and my punk phase that I associate with discovering Rice’s books, and my reeling then-present life that was slightly off the rails. Seventeen years ago, the t-shirt somehow helped ground me.
(Side note: The Anne Rice book stop in Central Florida was a part of a larger, nationwide tour. I know this because my dear college friend Jen saw her at a Columbus, Ohio, book signing and sent me the postcard Rice had signed for her as a makeshift Christmas card that same year. Which I have also saved for all these years and knew right where to look to find it.)
This inexplicable link to the past, in the form of t-shirts I’ll never wear again, makes no sense to me. But in the end, I still couldn’t bring myself to ditch them. I put the two t-shirts back in the same box they fell from, and put that box back on the top shelf of my closet to be rediscovered at some future date, when I least expect it.
Monty Python’s Spamalot
09 December 2010: EJ Thomas Hall, Akron, Ohio
Along with our good friends Greg and Karen, Tracy and I are Broadway in Akron subscribers. We still see shows up at Playhouse Square regularly, but we are always happy to have and support theater a little more locally in Akron. It’s a short, four-show season at EJ Thomas Hall on the campus of the University of Akron, but the selection this year is great.
Because of work travel back in October, I missed the first show of the season, A Chorus Line, so Tracy ended up taking her mom as her date with Greg and Karen. This month, however, there was no way I would be missing the show… Monty Python’s Spamalot! Tracy and I had seen the show back in 2006 up at Playhouse Square, and the production has retained every bit of its irreverence and humor.
I know the source material backwards and forwards – it was (and still is) a staple of my everyday lexicon. But I had forgotten much of the musical in the four years since I’d last seen it. Where The Producers (another fine movie and adapted musical) is Mel Brooks’ skewering of Broadway, Spamalot is the Python’s – or, more specifically, Eric Idle’s – take on the Great White Way. Oh, sure. The roots of the movie and the parody of Arthurian legend remains, but make no mistake this musical is poking more fun at the theater than the off-the-street Python fan might be expecting walking into the show blind.
It’s kind of Python-lite. Sure, there’s a little something to offend everyone in there, but it’s designed for mass consumption. And Python has always been an acquired taste, particularly in the States. Act 1’s “Knights of the Round Table” features a monk and a nun in a seductive dance counterbalanced by act 2’s “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway” roast of Jews. But by and large, it plays broad.
New this tour is the insertion of local references into the show based on the city the performance is taking place in. Falling somewhere between your favorite band shouting “Thank you, [insert city name]! Good night!” and Bono referencing a long-gone dive bar the band played in your town 30 years ago, it’s still a nice touch that makes the show unique to each city the tour hits.
I enjoyed Spamalot and the night out with Tracy and friends, but I definitely felt a different sensibility about the production compared with what I remembered feeling last time. Maybe it’s too much of the “Mel Brooks Effect” – the penchant for movie property owners to turn their product into musical theater – that is coloring my response this time around.
One thing that struck me over and over watching the first brilliant season of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire was the music. Not the Brian Jonestown Massacre tune used in the opening title sequence (which is gorgeous and epic in and of itself), but the use of music within the show.
Boardwalk Empire is a fictionalized exploration of prohibition era Atlantic City based on the lives of some of the real people who controlled and affected that world. Music was everywhere in the initial 12 episodes, and it was tied to the period. This brought two thoughts to mind repeatedly throughout the season: First, I know nothing about hot 1920s jazz, vaudeville, and nickelodeons. Second, it was a challenge to get my head around the idea that modern music – rock and roll – simply didn’t exist at the time.
The music of the period is gorgeous, and completely foreign to me. But the up-side to a show like this on a guy like me is that I willingly search and explore. And now I know who Sophie Tucker and Eddie Cantor were, and am beginning to appreciate their impact on popular culture. Credit HBO for including music credits for each episode on their site, giving the curious a starting point for digging deeper into the musical archeology of the early 20th century.
As engrossing as the show itself is, when the music stepped to the fore (and music is most definitely a character in and of itself in this show!) I often found myself stopping and thinking how amazing it is that rock and roll as I know it was decades away from even beginning to grow. I love music. Modern music. The result of fifty years of evolution and experimentation. And to conceive of a world where that music doesn’t exist is mind-boggling to me.
And these two notions come crashing in on one another when I realize that the music of the speakeasies was the modern music of the era, the pop music of a generation.
My friend Andy posed this question earlier today:
Should artists sell their original art? Should it be more precious, or it’s just ink and paper, dude?
Andy’s question seems to imply that the act of selling original works devalues its status as art, its “precious”-ness.
I’m sure the reasons artists decide to sell or not to sell their original art is as varied as the artists themselves. Some may feel it’s a personal connection between themselves and the creation, where others may feel it’s simply a job they got paid for. The artist has every right to decide whether or not they sell their original art. Am I disappointed when I discover a favorite artist of mine doesn’t sell his original art? Sure, but I certainly can’t be upset about it. That’s the artist’s prerogative.
On the other end of that transaction, as someone who purchases original art (and has purchased original art from Andy), I would argue that selling it doesn’t inherently negate its value as art. I wouldn’t purchase a piece of original art if it didn’t have value to me – value that warrants me seeking out the art, paying for it, and displaying it.
I may be reading too much into Andy’s question, but I think what he’s truly struggling with is a something only he can answer. And, like much of life, it’s not simply black or white, elevated art or crass commerce. I think Andy's real question to himself is “Can I sell my original art and still feel like both the piece and I still have value beyond the dollar amount attached to it, dude?”
This week we watched the season finales of both HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and AMC’s The Walking Dead. Both were short-season shows – Boardwalk Empire at 12 episodes and The Walking Dead at just six.
There is still a delta between premium cable and basic cable channels. Boardwalk Empire was sweeping and lush. Similar to Deadwood (a show I am admittedly biased about because I consider it the best television show ever produced), Boardwalk Empire takes historical figures and plays with them a bit, providing a fictionalized version of them and their world. Steve Buscemi is genius in his main character role, surrounded by a brilliant cast and held up by an engaging story. Although spread over a dozen episodes, they still wrought tension from every episode… not a clunker in the bunch.
The Walking Dead, from the comic book series by Robert Kirkman, was ambitious from the beginning. To bring a zombie tale to the small screen and do it justice is a challenge. The Walking Dead comic series is one of my all-time favorites (and that of a lot of other comic fans I know). It is incredibly well-written and perfectly presented. Just basing a show on this series was enough to get me to watch.
Tracy enjoyed the first six episodes, and I’ve heard the same from others who have no familiarity with the comics. I am able to divorce myself from the source material (particularly comic books) and just enjoy a television show or movie if well done. They are different animals with different audiences and sensibilities. But it was surprising just how far The Walking Dead show chose to depart from the source. It wasn’t that deviation so much as the general meandering of the story that seemed to detract for me. The first season seemed to shamble along like of the undead walkers the protagonists are trying to avoid. The characters didn’t really develop much outside of some rather broad strokes, but I’m willing to give this another season (perhaps the gutting of the writing staff for the second season will help with things?) and see where it goes.
Pink Martini
18 November 2010: Palace Theatre at Playhouse Square, Cleveland, Ohio
Driving up to Playhouse Square Thursday night listening to Pink Martini’s Splendor in the Grass album, Tracy said to me, “I wish they would do a Christmas album.”
Walking in to the lobby of the Palace Theatre for our second Pink Martini concert in eight months, Tracy wandered over to the merch table and returned with a copy of the just-released-two-days-earlier Pink Martini holiday CD, Joy to the World.
We knew this show would be different from the Severance Hall concert in March – for starters, this one wouldn’t be with the Cleveland Orchestra, but we expected it would be largely the same – so it was a great surprise to be treated to not only a setlist of their standards, but also ring in the holiday season with some world-spanning Christmas music!
The little orchestra from Portland, Oregon opened with “Bolero”, which seems to have taken its place as their regular set opener these days (and without complaint – I love that song!). And they hit all the high points: “Sympathique”, “Hey Eugene”, “Hang on Little Tomato”, “Amada Mio”, “Donde Estas, Yolanda?”, and “Over the Valley”. Making room for the holiday tunes, “Verionique” was notably absent, and as much as I enjoy the one-two fun of “And Then You’re Gone”/“But Now I’m Back” off last year’s Splendor – and they were fun live earlier this year – I’m glad they excised them from the setlist this time around. As amusing as those two are, I’d hate to see two spots on the setlist taken up by them when there are so many other options in their rich catalog.
Joy to the World offered some beautiful holiday color to the program. Lead singer China Forbes transformed and owned both “Shchedryk” (a song Americans know as “Carol of the Bells”) in its original Ukrainian and “Little Drummer Boy”. Bandleader/pianist Thomas Lauderdale and the rest of Pink Martini had a good time with “Auld Lang Syne” and “Congratulations – A Happy New Year Song”.
Lauderdale, serving as ringmaster as much as bandleader, was in a particularly playful mood. He rode bandmate Dan Faehnle relentlessly on his Ohio roots. The former Diana Krall guitarist from Toledo was ribbed and quizzed and embarrassed by Lauderdale in the most playful and good-natured way. And when the band came out for their encore, they opened it with a rag-tag version of “Beautiful Ohio”, the state song.
Like in March, the band came out after the performance and signed autographs and posed for pictures in the lobby of the stately theater. While I maintain that House of Blues was the best venue to enjoy the band, the atmosphere of Playhouse Square suits Pink Martini just fine.
If you follow me on Twitter or frequent the PKD Media site, then you probably saw the announcement yesterday that I’m the new writer on Exo-1 and the Rock Solid Steelbots! I am so thrilled to be even a small part of the PKD Media Universe. I have a lot of respect for Shawn Pryor – the mastermind behind PKD, and the creator and original writer of Exo-1 (along with Mercury and the Murd, Agents of C.O.L.T., and the PKD Black Box Podcast) – and what he’s done.
The internet is an amazing thing – especially for a geek niche community like comics. Growing up, the only friend I had who was into comics was Mark. Mark and I are still friends (and comics are still very much a part of our lives – I wrote a book about comics and he teaches a graphic novel course at George Mason University), but now I also have friends all over the world who are into comics thanks to forums and social networking sites. My friendship with Shawn is a perfect example. I met Shawn through Twitter, then in-person at the Pittsburgh Comicon earlier this year. In late spring, mutual friend, comic creator, and con organizer Zack Kruse invited both Shawn and me to be a part of the first Summit City Comic Con in Fort Wayne. It was there at the pre- and post-show parties that Shawn and I really had the opportunity to hang out and talk about writing and comics and all of the things that get us excited about the culture.
I knew I wanted to try my hand at scripting a comic. It seemed like a perfect challenge to step outside of the non-fiction, pop culture-based, and often nostalgia fueled writing I have done up to this point. In getting to know Shawn, I realized he is just such a genuine good guy. He makes comics because he loves them, and that comes through in everything he has done with PKD Media and I’m certain that is what we’ll see from Action Lab Entertainment. The problem is that Shawn never stops working, and he was stretched far too thin. So that perfect storm of our friendship, my desire to push myself creatively, and Shawn’s need to lighten his workload resulted in this opportunity.
I’m having a lot of fun writing these characters and am enjoying the challenges of finding their voices while making sure I stay true to the characters as Shawn intended, along with plotting and orchestrating scenes. I am looking forward to finishing this story and ultimately seeing it realized through Daniel J. Logan’s art. I am forever grateful to Shawn for giving me this chance. I couldn’t be more proud to be associated with Shawn and hope I do justice to these characters and this world he created.
The first shirt, my John Lennon shirt, was purchased for me by the girl I dated my senior year of high school. She was the one who really pushed my limits creatively and expanded my horizons musically. It was a tragic and doomed relationship from the start, I suppose (as is most everything rooted in adolescence). She was a year older than me and had attended a different high school, but we met at work and it grew from there. The summer after my senior year, she moved to San Francisco to be with her old boyfriend, and I moved into a dorm on the campus of Bowling Green State University with my buddy John. The shirt I wore thin, yet saved, celebrated the release of Imagine. The front image of the shirt is mostly gone, but there are hints of color that was the logo from the John Lennon biopic. The back is completely empty now, with just the ghosts of what was the lengthy movie description: “Discover John…the angry youth, the musician, the radical, the husband, the father, the lover, the idealist…through his own words and personal collection of film and music.” My love for this radical artist mixed with young love for a girl has proved to be a potent combination… one that has me holding on to a t-shirt-turned-rag 21 years later.
While I can pinpoint a specific era that the Imagine shirt was purchased and received, I can tell you the exact place, day, and year I purchased the other shirt. I became a fan of Anne Rice's work after discovering it in high school. A few years later, I was living in Central Florida, where my life was in a bit of upheaval. I was working the graveyard shift at a Disney resort, which allowed me to do some daytime events when the opportunity presented itself. This was the case on November 22, 1993, when White’s of Lake Buena Vista hosted Anne Rice on her book signing tour for Lasher. I stood in line and had my copy of the book signed, along with one of the little postcards she had. I also bought a t-shirt that day… with the cover of the new book on the front and the date and bookstore name in small print under it. I wore the shirt relentlessly (yes, relentlessly), and it was strangely important to me. It was a link between my former life in Ohio, the relative innocence of high school and my punk phase that I associate with discovering Rice’s books, and my reeling then-present life that was slightly off the rails. Seventeen years ago, the t-shirt somehow helped ground me.
(Side note: The Anne Rice book stop in Central Florida was a part of a larger, nationwide tour. I know this because my dear college friend Jen saw her at a Columbus, Ohio, book signing and sent me the postcard Rice had signed for her as a makeshift Christmas card that same year. Which I have also saved for all these years and knew right where to look to find it.)
This inexplicable link to the past, in the form of t-shirts I’ll never wear again, makes no sense to me. But in the end, I still couldn’t bring myself to ditch them. I put the two t-shirts back in the same box they fell from, and put that box back on the top shelf of my closet to be rediscovered at some future date, when I least expect it.
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