Category: Music

  • ODDS and ENDS: Dr. Solomon Hughes, Tottenham End of Season, Stan Getz, and The Car

    (Get in loser, we’re going listen to me talk about stuff)

    I have been watching Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty on HBO. It’s good, a little uneven in parts, but it is catnip for Gen X males like me who lived through this stuff, and are now finding out what “really happened.” It’s embellished, and I knew that going in to it, but it is fun. Yet, the greatest accomplishment of this series is Dr. Solomon Hughes who plays Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Hughes is just “killing it” (as a friend of mine said) as the legendary NBA superstar. His portrayal of Abdul-Jabbar is nuanced, intelligent, subtle, and brimming with an intensity that is compelling to watch. Dr. Hughes is doing the most difficult acting trick there is; playing someone intelligent and also indicating the unspoken thought process that his character goes through. And this is Dr. Solomon Hughes first professional acting job. You read that right, it’s his first acting gig! As of last night, Dr. Hughes didn’t have a Wikipedia page, which made it very difficult to find out who he is. As of today, that has been rectified. If nothing else, just watch Winning Time to see this performance.

    The Premiere League is coming to an end this month, so I don’t know what I will be talking about when it comes to sports this Summer. (Cubs, yes, but that’s always a slog.) (The World Cup isn’t until November, remember?) So, basically, Tottenham has to win all of their games from now to the end of the season, and stupid-old-late-to-the-party Arsenal needs to lose at least none match. If Tottenham finishes fifth on the table, Kane is out of here. The future of the team is riding on these last matches. That’s it, I’m done. Totally not being overly dramatic.

    I have a new apparition for Stan Getz. I have been listening to him a lot, and I don’t know why I skipped him for all of these years. In the same sense, I don’t know why I ignored Roxy Music either.

    We got our car back from the shop today. Back in the middle of April, someone backed into it in the middle of the night while parked on the street. I missed the car, and I can’t believe that I am saying that. I missed sitting and doing the alt parking stuff. I am changing, to a different person that I didn’t know that I would like.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Museum of Natural History, Alice Walker’s Journals, Dallas Mavericks, and Jazz Samba

    (Stay Fresh, Cheese Bags!)

    It’s Earth Day! AND the kid is on Spring Break! So, we’re going to the Museum of Natural History today! This is low hanging fruit when it comes to doing something with the kid that she will enjoy for several hours. For most of my friends with kids, the zoo is their “go-to” place to occupy some time, but my kid never has really enjoyed going to a zoo. Now, a petting zoo, or looking at baby animals, she will go crazy over that. But your normal, run of the mill zoo; nope, my daughter ain’t having it. What she wants is a display case with rocks in it. Maybe a diorama from the 1920’s. Give us a squid and a whale!

    Yesterday, I read a piece in The New Yorker about a book of Alice Walker’s journals. I was interested because I think Walker is a great writer who I look up to, and being that I journal, I am curious what her journals are like. Two things I took away from the article are that Walker at one point thought she should smoke “less weed,” and her preoccupation with money. I admit that I haven’t read this book and am only going off what was in the article, but these two points, weed and money, humanized Alice Walker for me, and made me respect her more. The weed statement means that she feels like she should be getting high less, and doing other things, and I infer that means writing. Even someone like Alice Walker thinks she should be working harder. And there is money. It’s not surprising that Walker was thinking about money issues before she was “ALICE WALKER” and was just another writer trying to make it. Yet, to see it in her journals just proves that finances were taking up a large part of her thought process, and needed to be expressed. Yes, she was trying out new ideas that would become great stories, but she was also trying to figure out how to pay rent and eat.

    I have been enjoying watching the Dallas Mavericks vs the Utah Jazz in the NBA Playoffs. Especially, I have enjoyed the Dallas bench playing some clutch basketball.

    Today’s album that I am listening to is “Jazz Samba” by Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd.

  • What Defines Us

    Some people are great at coming up with a tagline for themselves, or a witty one liner that can define who they are. I love Roxane Gay’s Twitter Profile which says, “I want a tiny baby elephant. You clap, I clap back.” Man, that shit is awesome. I feel like I now know that she is funny, and don’t fuck with her.

    In the marketing world, there is the 15 second “elevator pitch,” which I always felt I sucked at. I was never able to concisely say to someone what I was all about, so they could feel comfortable and understand who I was. I felt like I was more like a tv show; you needed to get about three episodes in before I started to get good and become worth your time.

    I say all of this because last night I looked at my Twitter profile, specifically my tagline; “Theater, Pictures, and Words… Just Not In That Order.” I mean, it’s always been a placeholder until I came up with something better… because it sucks, you know.

    But what really stuck in my craw and bothered me most was the first word, “Theatre.”

    I haven’t done a show in three years. Does that word even apply to me anymore? Also, I haven’t perused any theatre work in two years. I’m not sure that word defines me.

    Now, if my puppetry friends and colleagues were to call me up and ask me to help out on a show, I would be there is a heartbeat. Yet, I can fully admit that I would be there for them, because they are my friends, and I believe in their talent and creativity.

    I think the passion for theatre has gone out of me. For twenty years, it was that thig that burned in me, that I thought about, and wanted to experience, and know about and discover new ideas about, and meet people who are trying new things in theatre. I don’t feel that now.

    When I hear about friends in shows, I do want to go out and see them, and support them. Or I see that the show that they are working on is opening, or started rehearsal, or is casting, or whatever; I am excited for them. But, I don’t feel the desire to do that career anymore.

    In fact, when I think about a theatre career, I feel like I have broken up with it. Like, “It’s not you, theatre. It’s me.”

    To be honest, this isn’t the first time I have felt like this. I was crazy passionate about theatre from like 15 to about 20. I was a high school theatre nerd, and when I first went away to college. I wrote plays, and acted, and directed, and was way too dramatic for my own good. And then one day, when I was at the University of North Texas, I just didn’t want to do it anymore, so I dropped out of school. In the meantime, I wrote, I worked shitty jobs, tried my hand as a sort of a roadie for a friend’s band, I explored playing drums in a band, and really just farted around with my friends.

    And then one of my friends went back to college, and joined the theatre department. I made friends with his theatre friends, by drinking at the same bar. Then one day while drinking with the theatre people, they told me they had a class project and were one actor short. “You used to act; can you help us out?” they asked. And I did. And it was so much fun.

    And I went back to school, and became a theatre major again. I had a really great time, and made some amazing friends. And I moved to New York City to have a theatre career, and married my wife, and had a kid. And here I am.

    So, I don’t know. Maybe this is a phase. Maybe this feeling is my new reality. Maybe looking back at it all, theatre still does define who I am.

    I do need to come up with a better tagline, though.

  • Personal Review, The BEATLES: Get Back (Part 2)

    Having taken another day to think about the documentary “The BEATLES: Get Back” I keep returning to the same question, why do we still care so much about The BEATLES, fifty years on?

    For me, the beginning and the end of it will always be the music. I have always felt that when I listen to The BEATLES in order, From Please, Please Me to Abbey Road, I run the emotional gamut of growing up. I start with just infatuation and wanting to hold someone’s hand, to then understanding that giving love is more important that taking it.

    I also think that the overall BEATLES story still resonates because these were four nobodies in 1962, that really shouldn’t have amounted to anything given their backgrounds, and became four of the most famous people in the world, for what they created. That story makes them relatable, because they are regular people, like you and me. They weren’t born into great musical families, or had every opportunity handed to them. They liked music, did what they loved, and worked really hard at it.

    The last thing that I keep going back to is that they were really friends. The BEATLES weren’t a business arrangement, like other bands. It seems like every bio I read about other bands, there is always the line about, how the public thought that said band members were best friends, like The BEATLES, but they weren’t. I want to believe that if the music is that much fun, then it has to be due to it being created by a group of best friends.

    Watching The BEATLES: Get Back, I felt like I was having those points confirmed. I was watching how my favorite songs came into being. How they were taking from what was going on around them and tying to express it in music. How it was hard work, but relatable work; playing around, trying out ideas, leaving the song, working on another song, and then coming back to the song. Listening to each other and hearing the suggestions, and trying them out. It was work, but man, didn’t it look like the most fun work? And when they did get up on that roof, and got about three songs in, the excitement, the joy on their faces; It did look like they were those nobody kids at The Cavern club, just rocking out.

    With fifty year on now, The BEATLES still make me feel good, about myself, about the world, about love, and about being optimistic. After all this time, they still make me feel included in the party.

  • Personal Review, The BEATLES: Get Back (Part 1)

    There were many things I was looking forward to this Thanksgiving, and one of the biggest was watching, The BEATLES: Get Back. As a stupidly huge BEATLES fan, I had known for some time about Peter Jackson’s documentary about the LET IT BE documentary. I had been waiting and waiting, and then I got very excited when it changed from a single movie to a three-part series that would be on Disney+. And yes, I made my family watch it on Thanksgiving night…

    Or at least tried to…

    When I pulled up the first episode, and saw that it was two and a half hours long, I knew my wife and daughter weren’t going to make it. I was right. About thirty minutes in, they were like, maybe this is something dad should watch alone. And they weren’t wrong.

    Even though other critics have been saying that this eight-hour mini-series is for serious and casual fans, I have to disagree. This is a deep dive for huge fans, and there is no shame in that. Making an album is kind’a boring. They play the song over and over, and then spend a lot of time talking about what they should do, and then they play the song over and over. Boom! That’s how albums are made, and it is long, hard work.

    Now, for us stupidly obsessive fans… This thing is like heaven. Watching them work, and try out ideas, and then fart around for a while, and then try the song again. John, Paul and George had been playing together over ten years, and with Ringo for at least seven, so the ease in which they could just pick up a song, shout out chord changes and go, was stupefying. They are only in their late 20’s, and they are that good. I think the other aspect I really enjoyed having confirmed was seeing that they were an actual good band. Not just recording artists, but a band that could play.

    As for the arch of the episodes, the first one is a bit tough to get through. Even though Jackson and the PR for this show had spun the story that footage of The BEATLES shows that they weren’t actually on the verge of breaking up, and there was so much fun and love between them. I respectfully have to disagree. The first part shows that they all weren’t hip on being in this band anymore. I mean, George walked out. What I will agree with is that when they are playing music together, they do look like they are having a blast. But once they stop and start talking about managers and anything other than songs, the tension starts to show.

    In the second episode, when George brought Billy Preston in, it changed everything for the better. Preston had an ease and cool confidence, so when joined them at the Apple Recording Studio, man, he just brought an energy to the band that they all feed off of. People start showing up on time, and happy. The songs start clicking, and it is really exciting to watch all of them work.

    When we get to the final episode, and the rooftop concert, it’s a blast, and so heartbreaking. It’s great because once they get going, you can just see that the four of them love it. Love the songs, playing together, being out there, just being together. It’s heartbreaking because, the band only has about a year left, and if they could have got their shit together, they could have toured for Abbey Road, but in the end, it’s the last time they played together as a band.

    There are so many deep dives I could do on these three parts, especially how awesome and great Mal Evans was. (Seriously, is there a bio on Mal, or a movie or anything on that guy? He is the greatest behind the scenes guy of all time.) For that, Peter Jackson did a great job. I have a feeling in a year or two a “Director’s Cut” of this will come out which will be like fifteen hours long with more songs and outtakes. And yes, I will line up to see that as well.

    For me, I got what I wanted. What I wanted to see was that four friends, who really did love and care for each other, would get together and do something really cool, and have a lot of fun doing it. I was not disappointed.