Saturday, April 30, 2016

DANIEL BERRIGAN R.I.P.

Wanna know what Jesus would have done if he were alive in the 20th century? What Father Daniel Berrigan did in his activism for social justice and an end to war. He lived a long, full, compassionate life of service, an example to us all.

Friday, April 29, 2016

MILES AHEAD

First of all I'm pissed that the name of one of Miles Davis's innovative albums (and tunes) will now always be associated with this movie. Not that Don Cheadle doesn't do a good job of portraying Miles Davis, he does his usual brilliant job, especially in the scenes of Miles in later years.

But as the sole director Cheadle should have fired himself as co-screenwriter, and fired his co-screenwriter Steven Baigelman (who was hired I guess because he wrote GET ON UP, which should have been a clue not to hire him in my book).

The story attempts to distill the essence of Miles's musical genius and his multi-faceted personality and extraordinary life into a totally invented story (with only a few quick scenes based on actual events) of a mostly irascible Miles (which no denying he could be) and an imaginary friend (complimented by a group of imaginary adversaries) in a melodramatic macguffin chase that even Hitchocok could not have made watchable.

There's of course some great music, and a couple of great scenes, and the gorgeous Emayatzy Corinealdi as Miles' first wife Frances Taylor (who we all had a crush on, or at least I did, after her lovely visage appeared on the cover of Miles' LP SOME DAY MY PRINCE WILL COME and even more attractively on the cover of a later LP: E.S. P.) who okayed this flick.

Which may explain why his last wife, Cicely Tyson is not portrayed at all, but is replaced by Ewan McGregor playing some nonexistent Brit journalist who somehow becomes Miles' equal for no apparent reason except, as Cheadle explains, the financial backers wouldn't put up the money without a white co-star.

What a missed opportunity. Cheadle kills it as the older Miles, but he could have just adapted Quincy Troupe's great bio of Miles without any fabrications and had a truly insightful masterpiece instead of this incredibly confused attempt to capture Miles's uniqueness with a bad seventies movie plot.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

INTERNATIONAL JAZZ DAY

That little loving cup on the piano is for "best comedy act" (for singing "Gimme That Wine" among other comic tunes) after I lost the trophy for best jazz act, in 1964, on Fairchild Air Force base outside Spokane, Washington (and after the photographer asked me to remove my shades).

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

ANOTHER EVERY MONTH IS POETRY MONTH TO ME QUOTE


"When I write my only concern is accuracy. I try to write accurately from the poise of mind which lets us see that things are exactly what they seem. I never worry about beauty, if it is accurate there is always beauty. I never worry about form, if it is accurate there is always form."

—Lew Welch (from the Preface to Ring of Bone)

Monday, April 25, 2016

RICKI AND THE FLASH

Meant to see this last year when it came out, because it's written by Diablo Cody, directed by Joanathan Demme and has an amazing cast that includes Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Rick Springfield (yep), Charlotte Rae, Audre McDonald (double yep), and more. How could it miss? Well, the actors are great at doing what's written but what's written is pretty weak, a lot like the title.

The parts that have to do with being a bar band, that mostly plays covers, struck me as pretty realistic (especially the love of making music under no matter what circumstances), and even at times moving. Maybe because the musicians are all real. Not only Springfield (playing great guitar licks, and doing a good job keeping up with Streep's master class in acting, as she does a good job keeping up with him and the other musicians) but also the late Rick Rosas, Bernie Worrell and Joe Vitale.

Demme even gets Bill Irwin to do a cameo that is as unrealistic as some of the other contrivances Cody has come up with. But despite the weakness of the script (and one casting choice, Mammie Gummer, who plays Streep's daughter and is her daughter in real life, but was miscast, like Sofia Coppola in GODFATHER III), I still found my eyes tearing up at the incredibly contrived last scene. Must be cause I'm so feckin old now.

Friday, April 22, 2016

LONNIE MACK R.I.P.

You can look up his great guitar licks and hits, but a probably now forgotten song he recorded in 1971 perfectly expressed my state of mind and heart when under the influence of the burgeoning feminist and gay pride movements I was struggling with letting go of thirty years of straight male macho posturing in early 1972: his singing "Lay It Down" from his lp THE HILLS OF INDIANA, a song he didn't even write (I think it was Gene Thomas) but nonetheless sang so expressively, for me, when I put it on the turntable and then began to climb the stairs in the commune I lived in at the time I felt he was singing directly to me and suddenly was so overwhelmed from my own long struggle to "lay it down" I collapsed on a step sobbing, first time I'd cried in twenty-three years, since I was seven...and now big Mack has laid it down...

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

ANOTHER LIST

My lifelong compulsive list making that was removed with the foreign body they took out of my brain a little over six years ago is still mostly missing, but I still like the idea of lists, just can't, or rarely, make one out of my head like I did all day and night for the pre-op sixty-five years, and one of my favorite devices were little trinities or triplets, so with the help of the internet I recently made this one for a change of pace from politics:

HOLLYWOOD MOVIE TRIPLETS

ANATOMY OF A MURDER
THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY
ANNIE HALL

THE BIG SLEEP
THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES
BLADE RUNNER

CASABLANCA
THE COMMITMENTS
THE CRYING GAME

DINNER AT EIGHT
DEAD END
DOUBLE INDEMNITY

EDGE OF THE CITY
ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ
ERASERHEAD 

FOOTLIGHT PARADE
THE FARMER’S DAUGHTER
FLIRTING WITH DISASTER

THE GRAPES OF WRATH
THE GODFATHER
GROSSE POINTE BLANK

HIGH NOON
A HARD DAY’S NIGHT
HANNAH AND HER SISTERS

THE INFORMER
IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE
IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT

JAILHOUSE ROCK
JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG
THE JERK

THE KILLERS
KEY LARGO
KING CREOLE

THE LADY EVE
LAURA
L. A. CONFIDENTIAL

THE MALTESE FALCON
MARTY
MIDNIGHT COWBOY

NINOTCHKA
NATIONAL VELVET
NORTH BY NORTHWEST

OUT OF THE PAST
ON THE WATERFRONT
OKLAHOMA!

THE PUBLIC ENEMY
THE PALM BEACH STORY
THE PHILADELPHIA STORY

QUEEN CHRISTINA
THE QUIET MAN
QUIZ SHOW

RED RIVER
REAR WINDOW
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK

SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS
THE SEARCHERS
SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

12 ANGRY MEN
TOOTSIE
TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE

UNFORGIVEN
THE USUAL SUSPECTS
THE UPSIDE OF ANGER

VIVA ZAPATA!
VERITGO
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA

THE WIZARD OF OZ
WEST SIDE STORY
THE WAY WE WERE

X-MEN
X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE
X-MEN FIRST CLASS

YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE
YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU
YANKEE DOODLE DANDY

ZIEGFELD GIRL
Z
ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

LATE NIGHT MINI-RANT: TIME FOR SOME SANITY

It looks like Hilary took the New York Democratic primary, and is on her way to probably taking the nomination. I will vote for Bernie in the Jersey primary, but I will totally support Hilary if she does in fact win the nomination.

The accusations and vitriol I've seen from both Bernie supporters and Hilary supporters among friends of mine on Facebook is as close to a surrender to rightwing saboteurs as I've seen in my lifetime.

Back in the '60s and '70s in the anti-war and Civil Rights movements, the most extreme accusations were always planted and fostered by provocateurs in the ranks. That was a big part of the disintegration of The Black Panthers and SDS and other radical and progressive groups.

I knew from the cops in my family that the one who provokes the most vitriol and calls for ousters of members who disagree, or worse, calls for violence, were plants, undercover cops or agents whose job it was to create havoc and the disarray that followed.

I've read posts with memes and articles accusing Hilary of the most egregious crimes and violations of basic humanity, and I've seen similarly outrageous attacks on Bernie and his character (and wife in some cases) that could only have been dug up or invented by rightwing agents.

And many people I know have gotten so riled up by these often false, or at least distorted, versions of reality that they have sworn to never vote for whoever isn't their candidate, a defeatist strategy if ever there was one.

It looks like Trump will be the Republican candidate, but if it's Cruz that would be even worse. Either way the Republicans must be defeated, not only in the race for the White House, but in the races for Senators and Representatives as well.

If Hilary gets the nomination and Bernie supporters refuse to vote for her, as many are swearing they will do, and the Republicans win the presidency and keep the Senate and Congress, the devastation to our country and political system will be even worse than that caused by Reagan/Bush and Bush/Cheney. From which we have yet to fully recover.

And the resulting rightwing Supreme Court appointees could be with us for decades to come, overturning even more laws and regulations that help working people, women, and the poor and minorities. And making corporations and the wealthiest even more powerful and unaccountable.

Monday, April 18, 2016

APRIL POETRY MONTH QUOTE


If beauty does not return
In all cases to the same objects, we must simply be alert and
Find it where it has gone.

—Kenneth Koch (from "On Beauty")

Friday, April 15, 2016

EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!!

I wasn't that interested in seeing this movie after I saw the trailer, but then I heard director/writer Richard Linklater in a radio interview talk about how he meant it to be a spiritual experience and I remembered that I loved his movies—e.g. DAZED AND CONFUSED, BEFORE SUNRISE, BEFORE SUNSET, SCHOOL OF ROCK, and especially BOYHOOD—so I went to see it and was glad I did.

It's an ensemble piece with a group of young actors and actresses I'm mostly not familiar with but who all give great performances, with a few giving brilliant ones, in what seems at first a typical youthful comedy, but with only a few dick jokes and almost no bathroom humor, as opposed to most movies with young ensembles these days. Instead, it's actually about some deep stuff, including what it means to become your own person.

But it's not heavy in any way, though it is talky, like all Linklater's movies, too much so for some (I saw it at the nearby theater with the bulletin board and little forms you can write your opinion about, and grade, the movie you saw, and except for the friend I saw it with who gave it an A, the other grades were F's and one zero!), but not for me. I actually found myself laughing in the shower this morning thinking about one of the character's lines about being a good father (you'll have to look for it).

It's set in the Fall of 1980 and covers three days in the lives of college students, including some incoming freshman, just before classes start. It gets some things so perfectly right it feels like deja vu, and other stuff a little off but close enough to work. A period comedy that centers on male baseball scholarship students (and one female theater major) might come across as a little sexist, and it has its moments, but over all it's a great take on entering  a new arena where the competition is tougher but the rewards greater than anything you've experienced before.

Check it out and let me know what you think. And make sure you stay for the final credits, revelatory and well worth the wait.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

THE WAY THEY WERE

I love old photographs, even of people I don't know. Maybe you do too.  This is one of my favorite photographs. It's from the early 1930s of my father and three oldest siblings on the porch of his father-and-mother-in-law's house in Belmar NJ.

I like the way my father's hair, despite the widow's peak, is still middle parted a la F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1920s' do, and the ways all three of my brothers, Tommy, Jimmy and Robert, despite being children reflect the personalities I knew them as when I came along a decade later, after a few others, and as they remained for the rest of their lives.

Tommy became Father Campion, Jimmy was known in the family as "Buddy," and Robert was his middle name, first name William, with no one ever able to give any reason why he was known by his middle name, but his tough guy personality is there in the two or three-year-old between his father's legs. They've all been gone for a long time now, but they live on in my memories and heart.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

NOTHING LEFT UNSAID

You, or I, might think a documentary about Gloria Vanderbilt and her son, Anderson Cooper, is just more celebrity-slash-1% attention grabbing. But actually, this is a pretty moving and unique documentary. Everybody's, and  every family's, story is unique in some ways and usually worth telling and hearing or witnessing, but this mother and son have a hell of a tale.

I knew all about Gloria being "the poor little rich girl" of the late 1930s, several years before I was born, because as a boy the story was still popular and known, and the moniker was still applied every time there was a news story about her. And of course I knew about the 1970s designer jean craze she practically invented and made another fortune on, beyond the one she inherited as a girl after a long court fight over her custody between her mother, who seemed not to care about her or spend much time with her, and an aunt who seemed to have little Gloria's best interest at heart but lacked the ability or interest to actually demonstrate that in a motherly way.

But the film reveals that there was much more tragedy and drama in Gloria's life, and therefore partly in Anderson's, than I knew. And some of it moved me to feel a deep sympathy for a woman who seems to have had and still have so much of what most people think they want, but only fleetingly what actually matters to most of us. NOTHING LEFT UNSAID, by the great documentarian (look her up) Liz Garbus, is fascinating most of all because an epically wealthy but emotionally deprived young girl survived so impressively, still able to paint and draw and collage and make accomplished art at 91 despite all the losses and deep sadnesses of a lifetime of them.

In the end, the film documents how much more than any media highlights could ever capture there was and is to this mother and son's story. I highly recommend checking it out.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

POETRY MONTH PART TWO (or EVERY MONTH IS POETRY MONTH TO ME)

Here's an old list I made in 2007 a couple of years before my brain operation ceased my obsessive list-making, it's an alphabet list of some favorite poems that still holds true (though I have many more):

Sunday, April 10, 2016

DEMOLITION


The title of this movie seems to be missing something, like "MAN" or "DERBY"—and as a result didn't attract me to it at all. I saw it last night because a friend wanted to. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal, a movie star many people, especially women, find wonderful. I find him competent, and yes his brooding dark eyes are compelling no matter what he's in, and sometimes his acting is brilliant, I admit.

He does his usual competent job in DEMOLITION, a movie in which he's in almost every scene, if not every, and has moments of sheer brilliance as well. But the script is a mixed bag of contrivance and manipulation balanced by unexpected originality and discovery. And two of the supporting actors are always worth watching: Chris Cooper and Naomi Watts.

But the real revelation and the reason I find this movie worth seeing is the young newcomer Judah Lewis. Every scene he's in he draws all the focus because his presence and performance is so completely compelling. It's like watching the young River Pheonix, an actor I still constantly miss.

So, I recommend checking DEMOLITION out.

Friday, April 8, 2016

THE SUMMIT

That's what they're calling a series of concerts going on right now featuring MANHATTAN TRANSFER and TAKE SIX. I got to see one tonight in Morristown NJ, which may have been the first in the series, and it was full of so many high points I couldn't begin to describe them.

It's enough to say that large numbers of folks (in a full house that I estimate contains over a thousand seats) were spontaneously jumping up for standing ovations after individual songs before the entire house stood up at the end, and others were just popping up explosively during high lights of performances mid-song.

I had to wipe tears from my face, not just my eyes, at a couple of numbers that were so spectacular I was that moved (like when two guys from TAKE SIX replaced the two guys from TRANSFER to sing with the two ladies "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" or when the two groups together sang "Like Someone in Love" with amazing harmonies and feeling)...

...to be still alive at my age and to see groups that have been around since the '70s (TRANSFER) and '80s (TAKE SIX) hit notes most twenty-year-olds can't, overwhelmed me with gratitude to just bear witness to such talent and stamina. You go boys and girls. Too late to stop now.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

DAVID LEHMAN'S SINATRA'S CENTURY

David Lehman's tribute to what would have been Sinatra's 100th birthday last year, is a genuine fan's offering. I was born into Sinatra's world at the beginning of World War Two when he was known as "The Voice" in his first period of mass adulation (by then teenage girls). And growing up not far from where he came from, seeing his ambition and talent transcend his origins, he was a beacon of not just ambition realized (by honing your talent and persevering), but of being true to the people and place you came from despite how far you went.

I was fortunate enough, in an interview years ago on NPR, to have interviewer Michael Silverblatt compare my poetry and life favorably to Sinatra's. Made not just my day but my decade. I didn't like some things about Sinatra, especially his late conversion to rightwing Republicanism (a la Reagan) a move made mostly in reaction to being snubbed by JFK who Sinatra arguably helped get elected. But I still loved the man's musical genius, Jersey authenticity and cool fashion sense.

Lehman's book consists of, as the subtitle says, "One Hundred Notes On The Man And His World." That includes concise but deep analyzes of Sinatra's vocal techniques and the seminal musical innovations he came up with that impacted popular music then and still. As well as biographical insights into his personality and persona.

All I can say is, if you are a fan of Sinatra's singing, like I am, you'll love this book. The hundred notes are mostly no more than a page or two, and in some instances only a paragraph, sometimes a very short one, like note number 52:

"After Sinatra died, I overheard someone say scornfully that he was overrated: 'Without his voice he would have been nothing.' There must be a rhetorical term for such a statement."

[PS: If SINATRA'S CENTURY whets your appetite for more, the second volume of James Kaplan's biography: SINATRA: The Chairman (the first was FRANK: The Voice) also came out last year and is twice or more as thick a tome as SINATRA'S CENTURY, with much more minute detail on the events in Sinatra's life, but not as insightful about Sinatra's talent and the ways he cultivated it and expressed it throughout the many phases of his life and career.]

Sunday, April 3, 2016

BORN TO BE BLUE

Like good translations of poetry, sometimes the most literal version of someone's life doesn't convey the true meaning of it as well as a freer interpretation might. BORN TO BE BLUE, about a few significant years (mostly) in the life of jazz icon Chet Baker, doesn't get all the facts and details correctly, but it captures the poetic essence of Baker's mystique and reality in a totally artful way.

When I was a young "jazz musician" in the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was a rivalry between West Coast and East Coast jazz, much like the later rap coastal rivalry. Whether manufactured or not, as an East Coaster whose jazz icons were representative of the best the East Coast scene had to offer—Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Bill Evans et. al.—I murder-mouthed Chet Baker regularly, as just a pretty face with limited musical abilities.

It wasn't until I got older that I began to appreciate Baker's unique musical contribution, both as a trumpeter and singer. By then Baker was a wreck of his former self, having indulged his heroin habit beyond what might seem possible, yet he could still on occasion pull off a compelling performance, both live and recorded.

Despite the liberties taken by the Canadian writer/director Robert Budreu (Baker's heirs sued him for it), like Baker himself, BORN TO BE BLUE transcends its limitations to create not just an engaging and heartfelt film, but an insightful glimpse into the contradictions of creativity. The movie doesn't show Baker at his worst (he's presented more as victim than protagonist, i.e. no scenes of his well reported physical abuse of wives and lovers), but it does give an authentic picture of heroin addiction (according to friends who have gone through similar experiences) and it captures the sometimes unexpected moments of awe-inspiring creativity that can occur despite shortcomings and limitations.

And Ethan Hawke is mostly the reason why. The script is so contrived at times that it seems almost ludicrous for anyone who knows Baker's story, and yet it expertly distills the essence of that story into an almost perfect film, with Hawke making it all believable. When I heard his version of Baker's singing on an NPR show before I saw the film, I thought: That sounds like Ethan Hawke doing a bad imitation of Chet Baker. But when I saw Hawke singing in BORN TO BE BLUE, I was totally captured by the scenes, accepting completely that this was the real artist being represented and not an actor (who I had actually worked with, on WHITE FANG, the first movie Hawke was the main lead in—and on the set of which he was the least diva-like star I ever worked with).

It is such an amazing performance, I can't believe he didn't win some awards for it. I gave him a bunch in my head when the movie was over. And his fictional love interest in the flick, played by the extraordinarily beautiful and talented Carmen Ejogo, worked so perfectly with his performance it bought to mind Baker and Gerry Mulligan's collaboration in the brief time they played together, the highlight of both their early music careers (Gerry said Baker was like a musical idiot savant, that he didn't understand lot of basic musical concepts, sometimes not ever aware of what key he was playing in or at least unable to communicate it to others, and yet he intuitively could duet with Mulligan in ways no one was doing at that time).

BORN TO BE BLUE is, for my taste, not just one of the best biopics of recent years (and there have been a lot) but just a lovely little work of art.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

DYLAN AND ELIOT

Here's a trippy post (by Josh Jones?) to start off "poetry month" (every day is poetry month to me), Bob Dylan reading the opening lines of T. S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" with  links to Eliot reading his own work and a pretty concise and perceptive analysis of what the two have in common...