THE NY TIMES STILL COUNTS

Mad for the NYT masses



Even here in the chilled, Godforsaken wilds of Kanuckistan, the famous New York Times is available.
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And for the past 30 odd-yes they have been very odd-years, I have braved 22 feet of snow and freezing rain to buy the paper that says right on it, "All the news that's fit to print."
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Yet despite all the above, I was just this week whining to my newspaper dealer that the Times-my God, even on Sunday!-is getting mighty light, compared to the good olde daze. Sometimes the Sunday edition is almost the size of the old Friday edition, which has lost several sections through the year.
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But damn them cost-per torpedoes and just appreciate the goodies this
paper delivers, usually better than most others.
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Today's paper has a superb Arts section look at the 1950s, wild man cartoon artist, Basil Wolverton, better known to most of us Boomers as
the guy who used to make our parents hate Mad mag.
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The Times writes Basil up as "the van Gogh of the gross-out," and then digs deep, describing Wolverton's Mad stuff as "an assaultive from of anarchy, rising, like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, out of who-knew-what murky and psychological depths." Whew, a good one!
(Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/arts/design/23basil.html?_r=1&ref=arts)
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Anyway, without the resources and journalistic skills that are employed at the Times, such nuggets of pop culture like Basil may go unnoticed by the lumpen proletariat, let alone anyone else that reads.
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Yes, Times, long may your ink run, and your pulp not get any smaller!

BRUNO NO BORAT

Bruno most likely won't have legs

In last week's New York Times review of Sacha Baron Cohen's mad, bad, sad and GLAAD

Bruno, I thought that journo AO Scott was a tad wankerish with his take on 83 celluiod minutes with Austria's faux fashion queen.

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And while Scott's lukewarmer was perhaps more due to some of the racist humour in Bruno than anything else, the fact of the matter is that Bruno was always the weakest of Cohen's three TV HBO Ali G Show characters, more of a chuckle than the roars that Borat elicited.

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Despite Bruno's limitations, there are still some good 20 to 30 guffaws and laughs in the film, although straight men may find themselves squirming a bit in their seats as (real) swinging dicks fill the screen, and (fake) anal props deflower various Bruno boyfriends.

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The premise of the movie-Bruno wants to be famous-and will go to extraordinary lengths to do so, is somewhat of a Borat rerun, as most of the shenanigans take place in the United States where various schmucks are ambushed by Cohen as they display their prejudices and stupidities.

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Especially telling is a segment wherein Bruno is interviewing-for real-showbiz "mothers" who whore their children for just about any movie job available-

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One (very) vacuous mom even agrees to have her child submit to liposuction and wear a full Nazi SS uniform whilst pushing a wheelbarrow containing a Jewish child into an oven.

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Get the point?

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In any event, the movies infamous finale, a cage match down in Alabama with rednecks screaming for blood when Bruno reunites with his (lover) assistant after a failed attempt at going straight is, I think, a metaphor for what the world needs now is love, sweet love. That's the only thing there's far too little of.

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Still, can't wait for the DVD!

BLUE BOLLOCKS

Wow, who does she think she is?








Normally, I would be giving this book a full review at http://www.boomermediareview.com/ but since I generally review things I find worthwhile, I'm gonna pass on this tome for the site.
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But, I will say here that when an author builds an entire book around the premise that a pop singer-Joni Mitchell-made one of the "greatest albums" of the genre by "confessing" her private life and thoughts, then that writer has one hell of a lot of splainin' about it, to do.
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And even though Michelle Mercer gives it the old college try, I could not help but feel that she
really does not have that much to say, or explain, about Mitchell, other than she thinks the singer/songwriter was/is a genius, etc., etc., etc.
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In fact, Mercer's thesis that Mitchell is at her best a "confessional" writer is not even fully endorsed by the singer herself, and it ends up seeming like Mercer is obsessed with Mitchell's "Blue Period," of which Blue is bluest.
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In fact, I was reminded of John Lennon explaining over and over-and over-again that just because the listener had felt, or believed certain things about a certain song he had written or performed did not translate directly to the writer/singers original intent.
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And Mercer spends a good many pages apologizing for Mitchell's notoriously quirky relationship with the press, and closes the book with pages of "positive" utterances from Joni, collected through the years.
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But that is after Mercer quotes Mitchell as calling Jackson Browne a "phony," who doesn't really care about all the deep emoting he writes (about).
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Joni Mitchell wrote and sang some fine songs-Woodstock among the best-yet I'd wager Browne, on balance, would be viewed as the superior artist, "phony," or whatever.
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Because in the end-and this is what many rock critics/analyzers fail to appreciate, the music is the thing, and the rest is just really nothing. Or at best, nothing much.

BEWARE OF ABKCO

Another one bites the dust...





Oh man, there I was yesterday claiming the 60s never died, but now another "big one" from the decade has departed this earth, although at a pretty ripe age.
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Allen Klein, the man that John Lennon wanted to manage the Beatles and Apple Corps affairs has died at 77.
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Klein was of such stature in the Beatle world that he was even parodied in The Rutles as Ron Decline, who Nasty (John) adored because, "his left hand never knew who his right hand was doing."
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Yes, brilliant stuff. As was noted, Ron was "a man after his own wallet."
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But now, we won't have Ron to kick around anymore, nor will the
Rolling Stones who in 1969 somehow gave up the master tapes of all of their 1963 to 1970 material to Klein, in exchange for what was then a good sum, 1 million $.
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Of course Klein's ABKCO entertainment company made that mill and many more back over the years with vinyl and CD sales of the early Stones' albums and singles.
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I have always found it ironic that after working so hard to "make it" in the music biz, even the best of the bands like the Beatles and Stones always seemed to team up with "managers" who, how shall I put this gently, at least appeared to have ripped them off.
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Perhaps Mick and boys will now buy back all their material from the Klein estate.
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And perhaps not.

IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR....

Amazing!





After the body politic intestinal uproar of 1968, the last year of the 1960s was a short, slight reprieve back into some of the idyllic folly of the early and mid part of the decade, and maybe the last, real hopeful year in American life.
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And so of course the media must remind us of that time, for those lucky enough to be old enough at the time to appreciate it, and for those now who were not yet born in '69, a through the looking glass (darkly) at what it was like.
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Or, sort of.
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The new Life mag 40th anny dose of 1969 is a worthy one, yet from one who lived through that year, it is hard to see how old Charlie Manson makes the lead header, along with Woodstock, and the moon landings.
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Maybe because the the Manson Family murderous freak-out was the only real ugliness carried over from '68, or maybe because editorial thought it would catch the eye?
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In any eventuality, 1969 was so filled with positive wonder that unlike other writing soothsayers I do not believe that the fiasco at Altamont in December of the year
was actually the "end of the 60s."
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Rather, it is doubtful that the "60s" died at all.
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For the popular culture seems to (still) dine out on that decade, and will most
likely do so until the last 60s warrior Baby Boomer is no longer with us.
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Want some tangible proof?
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The Beatles defined the decade not only in music, but in style and attitude.
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And in a couple of months, the Fab's 60s musical output will be re-released on remastered CD and I'd bet that like the 1960s, the releases will fly off the what's left of the record shoppes shelves.
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With out the 60s still being with us, how could that be?