http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Fri, 23 Jun 2006 16:37:45 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. 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Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/06/23/163745.php Roy TrakinMichael Walker, Laurel Canyon (Faber & Faber)A breezy summer page-turner that recalls those halcyon days when L.A. was the epicenter of the music industry and the counterculture, with the famed “woodsy” tumbleweed-and-eucalyptus-strewn thoroughfare from Hollywood to the Valley as its focal point. A journalist for the N.Y. Times and L.A. Times, Walker doesn’t add much to the legend, focusing as he does on sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll, charting the demise of the ’60s “peace and love and marijuana/LSD” in a torrent of cocaine-induced ’70s paranoia and the hedonistic nihilism of punk, disco and freebase.Witnesses include usual suspects like hippie photographer Henry Diltz, resident groupie muse Pamela Des Barres, wacky entrepreneur Kim Fowley, one-time Turtle Mark Volman and latter-day band-aid Morgana Welch, all of whose anecdotes seem rather arbitrary, if colorful. Walker does manage to capture the era, but his explanations of its inevitable demise -- a combination of Charles Manson, Altamont, Woodstock and, finally, the Wonderland Ave./John Holmes massacre -- is rather by-the-numbers.In the end, a handful of people got very rich and then very fucked-up, and many others didn’t survive to tell about it. This book is testament to the fascination that period still holds, even if it seems as exotic to today’s generation as the Roaring ’20s jazz age did to boomers back then.Taking the Jesus Pill @King King (6555 Hollywood Blvd., every Wednesday through Aug. 2, except July 12)Rock 'n' roll has always had quasi-religious overtones, especially the brand of southern-fried country/R&B/gospel popularized by the South’s favorite son, Elvis Presley. This multimedia “southern gothic rock opera,” combining found film clips, paintings, a rock band and a two-act play about lust, sin redemption and drinking, is the brainchild of Birmingham, AL-born musician Charlie Terrell, who released several albums in the ’90s on Warner Bros. and Pointblank/Virgin, and his wife, executive producer Polly Parsons, the only daughter of Gram Parsons, another southerner whose music combined a deep religious streak with roots-soaked country-blues and soul.It’s a simple boy-meets-girl/boy-loses-girl to her crazed preacher father, boy-regains-girl only to discover she’s his sister, complete with snake-handling, fervent sermons that borrow from John Lennon’s “God,” impossibly sexy dancers and the requisite fire-and-brimstone. Terrell serves as the top-hatted, bearded Satanic figure in shades, coolly commenting on the action with his crack Mojo Monkeys Band, performing songs that define the major characters such as “Johnny 3:16” and the Tom Waits jungle boogie of “Chicken-Shit Tina.”It’s an ambitious production, with mesmerizing performances by Michael Childers as the evil evangelist, who takes his sermons into the audience to great effect, a forthright Brandon Karrer as the heroic Johnny 3:16, Nikki McCauley as the duplicitous preacher’s virginal but provocative daughter and the wonderfully Divine - like Irene Muzzy as her alcoholic, self-immolating mother.There are shades of Rocky Horror Picture Show, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and even Romeo and Juliet in the classic tale, setting the context for Terrell’s insinuating blues-rock. These days you need more than just a band and some songs...you have to create an entire universe for your music, which Terrell and Parsons have succeeded in doing marvelously.NBA FinalsNot to say I told you so -- truth is, even after the Heat went up 3-2, I thought the Mavs might come back with two wins at home -- but almost exactly what I said would happen took place when I predicted Miami in seven .In the battle of superstars, Dwyane Wade outplayed Dirk Nowitzki, whose series went downhill after he missed a clutch free throw down the stretch that would have given Dallas a commanding three-oh lead.After a very slow start, O’Neal held his own against the array of Mav front-liners sent to hack-a-Shaq him, while in the end, the Heat got key contributions from veterans like Gary Payton, Alonzo Mourning and James Posey as well as the tenacious Udonis Haslem. Not to mention the wily Pat Riley out-coaching his game, but inexperienced, counterpart Avery Johnson.Of course, as exciting as it was, this year’s postseason was a constant reminder to this diehard Knick fan of how far we have to go to even get to the bottom rung of the playoffs, which seems even farther away than ever after owner James “Dunce” Dolan’s dunderhead move of canning Larry Brown as coach in favor of the completely overmatched Isiah Thomas. It has me dreaming of the bad old days of Richie Guerin, Jumpin’ Johnny Green and pitiful white center Darrall Imhoff, forever known as Wilt Chamberlain’s bitch. Oh well.Dave Alvin, West of the West (Yep Roc)This Downey native is an L.A. roots-rock treasure, a vastly underrated singer-songwriter who tackles a variety of California-born and/or bred tunesmiths, some well-known, like Jackson Browne (whose “Redneck Friend” here reveals its gutbucket blues sexual double-entendre origins), Merle Haggard (“Kern River”), Tom Waits (“Blind Love”), Los Lobos (“Down on the Riverbed”), John Fogerty (“Tramps and Hawkers”), Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter (a wonderfully drawling “Loser”) and Brian Wilson (taking “Surfer Girl” back to its street corner a cappella roots and plaintive melancholia).It’s to Alvin’s credit that he makes even the familiar songs his own, though he really shines on the more obscure material, like Kevin “Blackie” Farrell’s brooding, atmospheric “Sonora’s Death Row” and ex-Kingston Trio member John Stewart’s poignant “California Bloodlines,” which Alvin recalls listening to with his mother, who came from the Central California region outside of Fresno referenced by the song.By encompassing the psychedelic expansion of the NoCal Grateful Dead, the winsome hopes of the SoCal Beach Boys and the East Side blues of Richard “Louie Louie” Berry’s “I Am Bewildered,” the veteran of the Blasters, X and The Knitters creates a canvas as wide-open, varied and filled with both possibility and pain as the state that produced it.Supergroup (VH1)One more sign of the a-pop-alypse now. Surreal Life meets Rock Star and Survivor as five metal veterans move into a kitschy Las Vegas mansion to put together a band to play a show in 12 days. To say it’s a train wreck is a compliment, as aggro-egomaniac Ted Nugent rides herd on an addled Sebastian Bach, Biohazard’s tattooed love god (and paramour of porn star Tera Patrick) Evan Seinfeld sparks conflict by playing them off one another, Anthrax’s Scott Ian strokes his goatee, wondering how he got there, and Jason Bonham gamely attempts to stay out of the line of fire.Doc McGhee comes aboard as the manager, which is hilarious as he tries to organize the chaos into something resembling a plan, to little avail. Shamelessly voyeuristic, it’s still a way to give fans a peak into the process, and it could actually turn into a franchise. Imagine what would happen if they brought in Todd Rundgren, Kasim Sulton, Prairie Prince, Eliot Easton and Greg Hawkes...Whoops, it’s already been done and called the New Cars. How about a house full of American Idol losers, hosted by Brian Dunkleman? The possibilities are as endless as rock & roll itself which, come to think of it, has been pretty well exhausted if it’s come to this.Corinne Bailey Rae (Capitol)“The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same,” purrs this 27-year-old newcomer from Leeds, England, on “Put Your Records On,” the fast-riding single from her debut, already a hit in her native U.K. Compared to the likes of Norah Jones, Sade and Billie Holiday, Rae is that rare performer who could manage to crossover from Smooth Jazz and Urban A/C to the alternative crowd that’s embracing KT Tunstall’s similarly rhythmic funk of “Black Horse & the Cherry Tree.”Her high-pitched croon combines vulnerability with a sensuousness that recalls Maria Muldaur’s “Midnight at the Oasis” just as surely as it evokes Macy Gray. The horn-inflected “I’d Like To” and “Butterfly” are reminiscent of Roberta Flack’s collaborations with Donny Hathaway in the ’70s, while the surface noise of “Enchantment” and “’Till It Happens To You” mark it as an homage to old-school vinyl soul at its finest. Poised on the precipice of hip and mainstream, the lissome Rae is definitely a talent capable of joining disparate audiences, of putting the pieces back together in this hopelessly fractured music marketplace.And is there a more perfect warm-weather verse than “Summer came like cinnamon, so sweet/Little girls double-dutch on the concrete”?World Cup SoccerI’m not quite a hater... In fact, back in the glory days of the fledgling NASL, the forerunner to the current Major League Soccer from the ’60s through mid-‘80s, I was a fan of the old New York Cosmos, owned by Warner Communications and run by Ahmet’s late brother Nesuhi Ertegun, who signed such international stars as Pele and Franz Beckenbauer. That team regularly sold out the 80,000-capacity Giants Stadium.My appreciation of the sport increased after several years of watching my daughter play club and then high school soccer, but I can certainly understand America’s lack of interest. For long stretches of time, it appears that nothing happens, but if you watch closely, there is all sorts of maneuvering and strategy that leads, chess-like, to scoring chances.In fact, the 1-1 tie between U.S. and Italy featured plenty of drama, including the teams playing down a man or two and a bloody elbow that resulted in an ejection. The sport’s popularity around the world, especially in Europe, is understandable, given the more contemplative, long-view of civilization held in the old country, where events don’t necessarily reveal their significance right away, but work into something in the long run. With the U.S. kicked out of the tournament by Ghana, my interest has certainly waned. I’ll have to latch onto a favorite if I’m going to spend any time at all on this, but while at the Spanish-language Entravision offices recently, I was duly impressed when everyone gathered for an impromptu party to watch Mexico play on the flat-screens in the conference room, while ex-Pistol Steve Jones literally wrapped himself in a Union Jack bath towel to celebrate England’s advance into the Round of 16.But if the U.S. continues to flame out in international play, the sport called football by the rest of the world has two chances -- slim and “nil” -- of ever succeeding here as a major sport.The Feeling, Twelve Stops and Home (Cherry Tree/Interscope)This U.K. avant-MOR quintet has already scored a pair of hits in its homeland with “Sewn” and the current “Fill My Little World” evincing a sound that unabashedly evokes such pure pop for now people as Queen, Supertramp, the Cars, the Beach Boys and especially 10cc.The tunes from their debut, which will be released in the U.S. this fall, sound like harmless pop ditties until you dig a little below the surface to discover a song like “Sewn” is as sinister as the Police’s “Every Breath You Take,” with lines like “You’ve got my heart in a headlock/You stopped the blood and made my head soft” and a creepy-crawly video that features the bandmembers literally being sewn together, with the thread seen running through their veins. What seems like a retreat is actually an aesthetic statement, glorying in glistening, Raspberry-like harmonies and lush melodies that sound like they could be outtakes from Pet Sounds or a Wings album.The results are delivered with a po-faced seriousness that hinges on tongue-in-cheek or camp, though, as heartthrob singer Dan Gillespie puts it in “Sewn,” “Gimme the song and I’ll sing it like I mean it/Gimme the words and I’ll say them like I mean it,” which he does, elevating this from kitsch to something a whole lot more affecting. Consider this the return of the Neo-New Romantics, finally providing an answer to the question, “Whatever happened to Spandau Ballet?”Booking BandsThis was a hot email URL that features a rather interesting literary exercise where names of bands are combined with books, as in The Invisible Manfred Mann, Fleetwood Macbeth and Captain Beefheart of Darkness, the three winners cited on the website coudal.com. Others in the mix: The Who Moved My Cheese, Catch 182, Horton Hears a Hoobastank, Of Mice and Men at Work, Bare Naked Lunch Ladies, The Agony and the XTC, Ramones of the Day, SidVicioushartha, The Necronomiconway Twitty, Courtney Love in the Time of Cholera, Jane Eyre’s Addiction, Abba Karenina, Bridge Over the River Jamiroquai, The Scarlet Pimpernelly Furtado, Even Cowboy Junkies Get The Blues, The Sun Also RZA, Into Thin Lizzy Air, Everything but the Girl is Illuminated, Tesla of the D’Ubervilles, The Faster Pussycatcher in the Rye, Doctor ZhivaGoGo’s, Of Human League Bondage, The Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Animals Farm, The Thorn Yardbirds, Elvis Costello and the Rules of Attraction, Slaughterhouse Jackson Five, The Chemical Brothers Karamazov, Blackalicious Like Me...Hell, you get the idea. Now make up some yourself.Gripe of the WeekWe all know the joke about how Californians can’t merge, which is why traffic backs up for miles before intersections like the Ventura and San Diego freeways or the four-level consisting of the Hollywood, the Santa Ana, the Harbor and the Pasadena, etc.Getting onto a freeway is always an adventure, but that’s what the entry lanes are supposed to be for, speeding up so you can flow with the traffic, as the book says. What is really annoying is when someone speeds up instead of slows down while you’re trying to merge, like they’re trying to challenge you to a game of chicken, as you mutter underneath your breath, “Damn it—let me in already. I’ve got my turn signal on... What’s the effin' problem?” Ultimately, you end up slowing down and letting the a-hole in question pass, but the damage to your view of humanity is already done. Some people are just schmucks. Culture49608@blogcritics.org Fri, 23 Jun 2006 16:37:45 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/06/16/111823.php Roy TrakinEntourage (HBO)After viewing the first three episodes, I can see the series continuing to come into its own, with the zeitgeist not just catching up to this trendy Hollywood satire, but zooming right past it. Is it because the show itself has sweetened – the first episode featured Vincent, Drama, E, and Turtle flying their mothers in on a private jet to the premiere of Aquaman – or has the world seemed to have gotten a lot crueler in the interim?Even Jeremy Piven’s shameless Ari Gold is revealing a softer side, as he’s forced to dip into Mrs. Ari’s trust fund and settle for the $13 Gigi salad at the Palm instead of the lobster. The appearance of an old high school friend in episode three, who shows up unannounced after a prison stint, promises some darker times ahead, but for the most part, the boys are enjoying the box office success of James Cameron’s first movie since Titanic. Their interest suddenly turns from sex to power, which is what enables you to get the former in the first place.Cameo of the year so far: Jimmy Woods playing himself as the tough guy who tries to get back the Aquaman premiere tickets that Ari’s assistant Lloyd accidentally gave to Drama and E to pick up hot chicks. Still a great show, even if it is turning out to be the testosterone-driven version of Sex and the City transplanted to Hollywood.NBA FinalsFor a moment there, I thought my Miami-in-seven prediction was going the way of the Heat. But Dwyane Wade came out of nowhere to assert some Jordan-esque carry-the-team-on-his-back heroics to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. He put his beleaguered batch back into the hunt with the Mavericks, followed by a Nowitzki meltdown last night that tied the series back up.I was right on in recognizing that Dampier and Diop would need to control Shaq, which they did in the winning games. But O’Neal finally came through in Game 3 with two clutch free throws and Game 4 with some domination around the paint, something he’ll have to continue to do.Like I said, a Miami veteran would have to represent come crunch time and one did in Gary Payton. A lot more are going to have to step up (Alonzo Mourning seemed to come alive in Game 4) for the Heat to make my pre-series pick come true.David Ford, I Sincerely Apologise for the Trouble I’ve Caused (Independiente/Columbia)Even before the Brits came into power at Columbia, this scruffy U.K. singer/songwriter/one-man band was being touted for big things as the most intriguing troubadour to come along since Damien Rice and Conor Oberst, but with even more of a feel for solid bursts of melodic rock.He’s kind of like Chris Martin meets Bob Dylan, with a little CSN-era Neil Young thrown in for good measure. It’s an arty affair, but never strays from accessibility, as exemplified in the home-made videos for the self-lacerating “I Don’t Care What You Call Me,” and the corrosive socio-political critique of “State of the Union,” which wouldn’t be out of place on either Young’s own Living With War or Dylan’s Highway 61. It can be viewed on David Ford's website.On the black-and-white “Union,” Ford plays each part in turn as they feed back on endless loops, a single take that ends with him walking out the door of his one-room studio into the bleached-out sunlight. Don’t know if this will translate to the Colonies, but it’s undeniably powerful, with expletives not deleted.Elan, Together As One (Kingsbury/Interscope)Who would have thought that two of the great-white-hope reggae toasters would be a pair of Jews? The Hasidic, Ashkenazi, East Coast Matisyahu now has his Orthodox Sephardic equivalent in an L.A. graduate from Beverly Hills High of Moroccan and Israeli descent. Recording for No Doubt member Tony Kanal’s Kingsbury imprint, Elan Atlas is, like his landsman, evocative of Bob Marley, even fronting a version of the legendary Wailers on tour in the mid-‘90s.In fact, “Nothing is Worth Losing You,” driven by its ska horns, Sly & Robbie backbeat and chants for “Yerushalayim” (Hebrew for Jerusalem), recalls “No Woman, No Cry,” while “I Wanna Yell” and the hip-hop beat of “We Won’t Stand For This” are Marley-esque songs of social injustice and rebellion. “Feel My Pressure” boasts a bass-driven dub sound, while “AllNighter,” a duet with Gwen Stefani, provides the requisite pop sheen. Aside from executive producing the project, Kanal co-wrote five of the songs and provides the keyboard programming that combines roots-rocks with the most up-to-date studio polish.New York MetsAs a long-suffering fan, I know what it’s like to be the second team in town, like the Clippers, doomed to front office incompetence every year, like the Cubs, or simply the recipient of inordinate bad luck, like the baseball Giants. We won it all in 1969 and 1986, the former an unexpected pinch-me-I’m-dreaming second-to-last-to-first odyssey, the latter, a wire-to-wire run that almost ended in despair if not for doomed Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner and a slow, bouncing groundball that kicked off his glove into short right-field hit by the improbably named Mookie Wilson.I started off this year in typical skeptical fashion, watching as the team began to take shape. They got off to a good start, but are still subject to inopportune injuries, streaky hitting, and untimely slumps. This last week, during a dreaded June West Coast trip no less, the Amazins’ have picked up steam and started to pull away, with a line-up that challenges the ’86 squad, which won 108 games and the World Series.It’s a blend of young superstars feeling their oats (Jose Reyes, David Wright, Lastings Milledge), peaking veterans (Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, Paul Lo Duca, Billy Wagner), future Hall of Famers (Pedro Martinez, Tom Glavine), and unlikely role players (Endy Chavez, Jose Valentin, Chris Woodward) meshing at one time. There is no more joy than seeing a team win day after day. In baseball, there’s a game every day, and a chance for that feeling of fulfillment.For a game based on individual skills, momentum is the key. Single at-bats lead to better at-bats lead to confidence in the field and pitchers suddenly given leads to work with. It’s a beautiful platonic ideal and I’m living it. Please don’t wake me up.Deadwood (HBO)This down-and-dirty western for highbrows is The Sopranos plopped down into a late-19th century gold rush town in the Dakotas, headed by a malevolent tavern owner who tries to manipulate all those around him to survive the transition from barbarous to civilized. Like all great epics, it concentrates on the end of one world and the beginning of another.It reminds me of Heaven’s Gate in that way, revealing the brutality and violence hidden behind the inevitability of law. It’s been compared to Shakespeare, and it’s true. The colloquial language, so obviously artificial and constructed, runs trippingly off the tongue in grand fashion, especially the soliloquies of star Ian McShane, a remarkably outsized performance of blow-you-away resonance.It’s hard to pick up all the nuances. I just enjoy letting the verbiage flow over me in a torrent, while marveling (and laughing out loud) at some of the arcane phraseology. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but if you let it work its magic, a visit to Deadwood is a truly singular experience.www.419eater.comStands for the number of different Nigerian Internet scams this site has succeeded in reverse-scamming. They do so by providing full details on how to engage these grifters in an endless series of counter-moves, one step ahead of being detected. Stuff like, have them hold up a sign that says, “My Semen Stains,” or tattoo themselves “An Idiot,” and e-mail you the JPEG. Don’t know if I want to take up too much time indulging requests for my bank account number so I can have $36 million placed in it, but the idea that someone is making life miserable for these shameless con men is comforting.What’s less comforting is knowing that there are people out there still falling for this stuff. I knew of one woman who had to retrieve her grandfather from traveling over to Africa after being taken in. A sucker truly is born every minute, but if you want to fight back, this is the place to start.Artie Lange Roast on The Howard Stern ShowThe Sirius drop-offs still piss me off, but it’s worth it to hear unbridled Howard and his stock company these days. While one wag correctly suggested Stern’s satellite audience is the only thing smaller than his penis, he devoted almost five full hours to the roast of the affable Lange, its preamble and its aftermath, a mesmerizing blend of scabrous insults and scurrilous racial, ethnic, and sexual put-downs. Nothing was sacred, with political correctness and social taboos blasted away, as well as any restrictions on language, topic, observation, or opinion.Isn’t this what we fight wars for – freedom of expression and language, the ability to express our deepest fears and darkest desires in public without shame, recrimination or legal action? (Fuck the FCC.) All Lenny Bruce did was die for our sins on the toilet with a needle in his arm. Howard Stern gets to make Robin cackle all the way to the bank for the next five years, to the tune of $125 million, while we guffaw along with them. He’s living the American dream for all of us.Maggiano’sYeah, I know it’s like Steve Carell taking a business trip to New York in The Office and talking about getting the best pizza while standing in front of a Sbarros. Or going to the Olive Garden for an Italian meal. Actually, though, the national chain Maggiano’s is a pleasant surprise, a reasonably priced family-style place that is a fond reminder of Mama Leone’s, another old-school restaurant for tourists I used to eat at in the middle of Manhattan’s Broadway theater district on special occasions like birthdays.I had my first antipasto there, developing a lifelong taste for black olives, provolone cheese, and genoa salami. I like the bruschetta appetizer, all vinegar-and-oil-soaked tomatoes and cloves of garlic on toast, and the medallions of beef, garnished with garlic mashed potatoes and onion ring slivers. We went for my son’s graduation with 11 people and I picked up the bill, which was $275 with tax, $25 per person for basically all we could eat, a bottle of wine, coffee, and a dessert.It might sound like sacrilege for someone who used to frequent Patsy’s and some of the great Little Italy haunts in Mean Streets territory, but for a chain Italian restaurant, it beats Buca di Beppo hands-down, even without a Pope Room and its serving plate on a swivel.Gripe of the WeekEven I do it on the occasional lazy, hazy, crazy summer day in the ultra-casual Valley, slipping on my flip-flops to pick up orange juice at Von’s or return a video to Blockbuster. And, of course, I don’t mind seeing a pretty woman’s feet – as long as her second toe isn’t larger than her first, but I draw the line at men wearing rubber sandals in public. Not that I stare at men’s feet, but the very idea kinda gives me the willies.I used to think it was endemic to the SoCal laid-back lifestyle, but now when I go to New York, I see lotsa people of both sexes wearing shower thongs, and it freaks me out to think just a thin slab of rubber is all that’s between that person’s feet and the collected grime and dirt that accrues on a Manhattan sidewalk. Maybe I’m being neurotic, but it just makes me cringe. Tastes49330@blogcritics.org Fri, 16 Jun 2006 11:18:23 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/06/08/133224.php Roy TrakinDixie Chicks, Taking the Long Way (Open Wide/Columbia)“It turned my whole world around,” sings Natalie Maines in “Not Ready to Make Nice,” the Texas trio’s defiant anthem about the backlash following her anti-Bush jibe in London. “And I kind of like it.” Indeed, what’s not to like, especially when ace producer Rick Rubin enlists an all-star cast, including John Mayer, Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, the Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith, Keb' Mo’, and Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench, to help smooth your transition from Red State country to Blue State alt-roots.Indeed, the only hint of Nashville is in fellow Chicks Martie Maguire’s sawing fiddle and Emily Robison’s plucked banjo, along with Maines’ legendary country performer dad Lloyd’s pedal steel and mandolin. The Dixie Chicks may have paid the ultimate price by alienating their conservative fan base, but what the group may have lost in sheer numbers, they’ve more than made up for in hip credibility by appearing on such unlikely outlets as the cover of Time, 60 Minutes, and even the Howard Stern Show. All of which would mean nothing if the music wasn’t up to the makeover. But, thanks to songwriting collaborators like alt mainstays Dan Wilson of Semisonic and the Jayhawks’ Gary Louris, it surely is.The Chicks evoke classic Laurel/Topanga folk-rock on “The Long Way Around,” which is as much an homage to Fleetwood Mac as their cover of Stevie Nicks’ “Landslide” on "Home", vintage Tom Petty on “Not Ready to Make Nice,” a thematic cross between “I Won’t Back Down” and “The Waiting,” and their nod to the ethereal harmonies of Ladies of the Canyon Joni Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt on “Everybody Knows,” their wry observations on the isolation of fame.And while the rollicking, tongue-in-cheek blast at small-town hypocrisy, “Lubbock or Leave It” -- which pokes fun at Buddy Holly’s birthplace (“I hear they hate me now/Like they hated you”) -- and the gospel-tinged, call-and-response of “I Hope” both touch on the unpleasant aftermath of what they now call “the incident,” the album also broaches such relevant daytime talk show topics as caring for someone with Alzheimer’s Disease (“Silent House”), infertility (“So Hard”), giving up a child for adoption (“Voice Inside My Head”), and renewing the passion in a marriage (“Baby Hold On”). The trip may not have been easy for the Dixie Chicks, but Taking the Long Way more than justifies that circuitous journey.Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stadium Arcadium (Warner Bros.)Of all their L.A. post-punk-funk-metal contemporaries, from Guns N’ Roses, Jane’s Addiction, and N.W.A. to Rage Against the Machine and Beck, who would think that the Chili Peppers would be the last ones standing? For a band that had to cover Stevie Wonder (“Higher Ground”) for their first semblance of a song, thanks to very busy producer Rick Rubin, RHCP has mined a melodic streak since '91’s smash “Under the Bridge” through such hits as “Californication” and “Scar Tissue,” which serves them well on this nearly two-hour, 28-track, double-CD opus, even if they’ve been accused of copping riffs from Tom Petty’s “Mary’s Jane’s Last Dance” on the undeniably catchy “Dani California.”And while most two-disc sets would be better as a single record, Stadium Arcadium is never boring, thanks to group MVP, guitarist John Frusciante. The axeman proves as good as Steve Nash at making his bandmates better, with an array of styles from the Hendrixian psychedelia of “Dani” and the wah-wah funkadelia of “Hump de Bump” and “Warlocks” to the delicate acoustic Frippertronics of “Slow Cheetah,” the Cream-styled blues jam of “Torture Me” and the tuneful wall of sound on “Especially in Michigan,” which pinpoints him as the American version of The Edge. And that’s just the first disc.Flea’s bass helps carve out the tunes like a latter-day Macca, while Anthony Kiedis, though his range is still lacking, nevertheless manages to underline the vocal hooks, etched in stone by Chad Smith’s array of tribal percussion. Almost too much to absorb in one sitting, the album firmly established the Chili Peppers as heirs to a Calipop tradition that stretches back to ‘60s groups like Gary Puckett and the Union Gap and the early surf bands. And while their days as groundbreaking iconoclasts are way behind them, the progenitors of SoCal hedonism are aging gracefully into their role as elder statesmen, as much a tribute to their savvy management team Q-Prime’s long-term strategy of building them as a global attraction as to their own impressive survival.Enron: The Smartest Guys in the RoomBased on the best seller by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, who originally helped grease the Houston energy giant’s downfall by simply questioning the company’s numbers in terms of its explosive stock valuation, Alex Gibney’s documentary is an entertaining layman’s analysis of this country’s largest-scale bankruptcy ever, particularly timely given last week’s convictions of principals Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling. Describing the situation as a “house of cards” above a burning tank of gasoline, Gibney gleefully documents the demise with pop culture references to It’s a Wonderful Life and The Simpsons, capturing the hubris of Enron execs and traders alike, turning their swift collapse into a cathartic conclusion.It’s not hard, in a Michael Moore-like way, to draw conspiracy conclusions from Lay’s strong ties to George Dubya and his father, while the film leaves open-ended the suggestion that the same book-cooking is probably going on at any number of major companies who manipulate Wall Street to their own ends. The real question is, how did our economy survive the massive effects of Enron’s duplicitous boondoggle without plunging into a depression itself?United 93Like Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, U.K. filmmaker Paul Greengrass’ documentary-like look at the events of 9/11 is way too intense to qualify as entertainment, but it does offer the outsider’s view of evil’s banality and how an everyday, mundane airline flight can turn into Armageddon.Opening with one of the terrorists murmuring a silent prayer as he reads from the Koran in preparation for his suicide mission, the movie juxtaposes the beliefs of the hijackers with those of the passengers, interspersing scenes from the Air Traffic Control units and the military featuring, in many cases, the actual officials from that day as themselves that play like a scene out of 24. The confusion and disbelief that registers on the faces of those involved, as it quickly dawns on them what’s happening, is belied by their calm under pressure, the idea that each one is just doing their everyday job, albeit under the most extreme circumstances imaginable.The footage inside United 93, the only plane not to reach its intended target (the Capitol building), is almost too much to bear, but the ability of ordinary people to rise to feats of heroism, on both sides of the equation, make this a film worth seeing with lessons that are timeless.Seymour CasselLong before John C. Reilly and Steve Buscemi (whom he co-starred with in ‘92’s In The Soup), this character actor, who made his debut as an associate producer and performer for John Cassavetes’ groundbreaking 1959 neo-realist Shadows, was the king of indie actors. You may not have heard the name, but you’ll never forget his face. The Harlem-born performer earned an Oscar nomination for his role in Cassavetes’ 1968 breakthrough Faces and turned in an incredible performance opposite the director’s wife Gena Rowlands in the 1971 comedy Minnie and Moskowitz, as well as his later films The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Opening Night, and Love Streams.More recently, he’s appeared in three Wes Anderson movies, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, in addition to his role as demented agent Morty O’Reilly in the Farrelly Brothers’ Stuck on You. Still a presence at 71, with an omnipresent cigar and a twinkle in his eye, Cassell’s bemused presence in a movie invariably elevates it to another level.DumaNow available on demand, this modest feature about a boy and his cheetah from director Carroll Ballard (The Black Stallion, Never Cry Wolf, Fly Away Home) was given short shrift by Warner Bros., despite a concerted press campaign to keep it alive. It is that rare wildlife movie in which the humans, including a remarkable turn by Alexander Michaeletos as the youngster who goes through the rites of adulthood taking his pet cheetah back to his wild African homeland, are just as finely drawn as the animals.Campbell Scott and Hope Davis are his parents, but the movie isn’t about them as much as it is about the kid, the pet he’s had since it was a cub, and the relationship with a fellow traveler, played by Eamonn Walker, he meets along the way. The scenes of the cheetah are stunning and will have you wondering how they did it, but the emotional payoff -- the realization that to love something, you must eventually set it free -- is a universal one for all living things.Steve CarellI’m not a huge fan of Jon Stewart, where he got his start, nor did I think that the BBC version of The Office could be topped, but Carell has won me over as the hilariously inappropriate boss Michael Scott on the NBC series, which has the potential to be the network’s next Seinfeld, with a wonderfully wacky cast of characters, including Six Feet Under’s marvelous Rainn Wilson as the obsequiously squirm-inducing and aptly named Dwight Schrute.Carell’s performance in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy as dimwitted weatherman Brick Tamland brings a mute pathos to the part that has to be relished to be believed, as I have done on countless cable viewings.The distracted look in Carell’s eyes, involuntarily darting back and forth, makes his characterizations at once side-splittingly funny and unspeakably sad, kind of like a combination Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton for our own modern times.'80s Hits Stripped (Sidewinder Records)Everything old is new again, or ‘80s pop stars reinvent themselves by playing “unplugged” versions of their hits. And while new renditions of Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl,” Howard Jones’ “No One Is to Blame” or John Waite’s “Missing You” don’t sound particularly promising, what does stand out is the ability of certain songs to rise above their genre-trapped arrangements in naked form to reveal their status as worthy compositions.And while The Outfield’s “Your Love” and Heart’s “These Dreams” are exposed as the pop schlock they are apart from their rocking origins, the approach works just fine with Berlin’s “The Metro,” re-thought as a flamenco guitar workout, the Billy Idol live workout on “Rebel Yell” and Men at Work’s “Down Under,” given a spooky, ambient do-over by a re-born Colin Hay, fresh from his low-key contributions to the Garden State soundtrack. On the other hand, Tommy Tutone’s classic use of a telephone number as a hook in his hit “867-5309/Jenny” doesn’t survive the transition from amplification to acoustic nearly as well.Nelly Furtado, “Promiscuous” (Geffen)Sometimes desperation pays off. A newly sexed-up ingénue takes up with rap auteur Timbaland for a stylistic transformation that is just so out there, it works, especially the shout-out to her alleged main squeeze. "Is that the truth or are you talkin' trash, is your game MVP like Steve Nash?" I did an aural double-take when I saw her perform the song on the final Saturday Night Live of the season and eagerly await Eva Longoria’s answer version to her man Tony Parker. Or how about, “I’m digging my man Dwyane Wade/Wonder when he’s getting paid.”Gripe of the WeekNot a complaint in the usual sense, but the general feeling of bittersweet sorrow as you realize your teenage kids have one foot out the door. It reminds me of the scene in Lawrence Kasden’s Grand Canyon when Mary McDonnell sees her son comforting a girl as he returns from summer camp and flashes back on the first time she strapped him into a car seat, which had me welling up with tears even then, when my kids were just infants. The moral is, life goes by so fast, as does the time you spend at home with your kids, which is over in a blink of the eye in the scheme of things. So enjoy them while you can. And you better have something to talk about with your wife when they’re gone and you’re suddenly alone together. Culture48979@blogcritics.org Thu, 8 Jun 2006 13:32:24 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/05/26/133045.php Roy TrakinSteve NashAfter dismantling both the hometown Lakers and Clippers in two consecutive series, the league's reigning two-time MVP is persona non grata with my family, the kind of player you hate when he's on the opposing team and love when he's on yours. White and Canadian to boot, with floppy hair and a kind of Energizer bunny perpetual motion that makes him seem in several places on the court at once, Nash has emerged as the star of this year's playoffs, a guy, who in the lieu of any big, bad opposition (although the specter of Shaq now looms large), could be the one to spring an upset in this year's seemingly wide-open race for the crown.And it would be doubly fun to see him pull the plug on the Mavericks of Mark Cuban, who let him get out of town a couple of years ago as a free agent, the reasons of which he revealed in his online blog here. That Nash thrives in the NBA by virtue of his guile and quickness among players a lot bigger than he is, and the fact, as a point guard, he fulfills the basic principle of making his teammates better, is reason enough for me to be pulling for him. Hey, anyone who can make Knicks bust Tim Thomas look like Amare Stoudemire is a true hoops alchemist. Just call him the anti-Marbury.The New Cars and Blondie at Gibson AmphitheatreDon't know why this show should have a stigma attached to it, other than the fact the former are performing without Ric Ocasek and the latter have been hounded by the appearance of ex-members trying to horn in on their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. The idea is decent enough - put together a pair of '80s new wave icons into one hit-based package for the summer shed season and hope there are enough thirty- and fortysomethings willing to relive their youth to make it worthwhile.That said, the New Cars -- with Todd Rundgren, Tubes drummer Prairie Prince and bassist Kasim Sulton joining original members Elliot Easton on guitar and keyboardist Greg Hawkes -- are a better live band than its predecessor ever was, with Easton and Hawkes providing the patented, precision art-pop hooks that produced a string of radio hits like "Just What I Needed" and "Let the Good Times Roll."With Rundgren adding in his own material like "I Saw the Light," "Black Maria," "Bang the Drum All Day" and even the Nazz's "Open Your Eyes," it was more than a little like Ringo Starr and his All-Star Band, but I still don't see anything wrong with that. If rock & roll is about constantly being able to redefine and repackage yourself, you can't hold it against any of these guys for wanting to share their legacy, Ocasek or not.As for Hall of Famers Blondie, their career has been marred by several instances of shooting themselves in the foot, but this purported last go-around is a chance for Deborah Harry to solidify her standing as one of rock 'n' roll's great female frontpersons, even as she finds herself an opening act while Madonna, who followed her blueprint, headlined the Forum across town.Of course, like the Cars, Blondie was never the most dynamic live performing act, but Debbie, awkwardly clad in a lime-green track suit that looked left over from the Elvis Vegas collection, was more effusive and emotive than she's been in years, and while that's not saying much, there's always the wildly athletic Clem Burke, channeling Keith Moon, to provide the onstage focus.The hits were all there, from "Call Me" and a wildly received "Rapture" to "One Way or Another," as well as covers of Roxy Music's "More Than This" and the Ramones' "Havana Affair" (for the late Joey's birthday) to remind you of the group's high pop IQ. That there was a slight whiff of bittersweet sadness to the festivities was more the fault of rock's insatiable thirst for the next big thing, and the fact it never forgets... even when it's sometimes painful to remember.Secret Machines, Ten Silver Drops (Reprise)Is it just my drug-addled mind, or should this trio of Oklahoma-by-way-of-Brooklyn psychedelic rockers fronted by brothers Brandon and Ben Curtis be packing the arenas their music seems to aim for? Don't answer that. With an edgy feel for brooding melodies that could be dubbed prog-emo, the band's sophomore album chooses to remain relatively earthbound in its choice of topics - mostly doomed romance in the self-explanatory "Alone, Jealous and Stoned," the look-back-in-sorrow "All at Once (It's Not Important)" and the heightened state of "Lightning Blue Eyes," which takes the band's Pink Floyd acid-rock and fuses it with '80s influences like the Cure's foreboding and the shiny techno of the Cars.There's also the requisite drug-fueled paranoia of the Dark Side of the Moon-ish "Daddy's in the Doldrums" and the dealing scenario of "I Hate Pretending." Throw in an accordion solo by the Band's Garth Hudson on "I Want To Know If It's Still Possible" and you have a classic-modern hybrid of dance-trance pop-rock that stays tethered to terra firma, thanks in no small part to drummer Josh Garza's tribal stomp anchoring the Curtis' space-age dreamscapes.Allen Ginsberg, Kaddish (Water)A reissue of the original Jerry Wexler-inspired Atlantic Records 1965 release documenting the famed poet's historic Nov. 24, 1964, performance of his epic work at Brandeis University, an extended eulogy and tribute to his beloved mother Naomi, who died in 1956. The hour-long piece incorporates elements of the Jewish Mourner's Prayer while documenting his family life growing up in Paterson, NJ, against the backdrop of World War II, coming to terms with his homosexuality.Legendarily inspired by hearing Ray Charles, Ginsberg wrote it in 1958 over 40 straight hours in the Lower East Side apartment at 170 E. Second St. he shared with fellow writer Peter Orlovsky, fueled by Dexedrine and a "tiny hit of LSD 25," as revealed in HITS contributor Harvey Kubernik's comprehensive liner notes. Dubbed "a 20th century American ecstatic narrative poem," Kaddish, published by San Francisco's famed City Lights in 1960, was the follow-up to his groundbreaking 1956 piece, "Howl," an attempt to create a singular voice carved out of a common language, with the subjectivity of a very particular life experience.The recording illustrates how language can carry the cadences of music, and the earthy, conversational performance, belying its lofty goals, was a precursor of Dionysian rock poets from Jim Morrison and Bob Dylan to Patti Smith. By digging beneath the conformity of '50s America to unearth the yearning self that would consume us through the '60s to the present, still thirsting for elusive transcendence and meaning, this fascinating artifact is every bit as enthralling and rapturous as the day it was created.N.Y. Times Mets ForumThis New York Times discussion board located in their online Readers' Opinion section is a gathering place for disgruntled, disgusted, despairing, distraught, dyspeptic Mets fans, who love to kvetch even in the rare occasions when their team is ensconced in first place, as they are as of this writing. I enjoy logging on during the course of a game to catch the diehards reacting to every twist and turn with anguish, joy (plenty of exclamation points and cap letters) and just plain wonderment at our Amazin's.It's a veritable MySpace of Mets rooters, with monikers like tlagee, ethrich, pamiam, lisametsfan, reyogold, skatz12, rbloomclu and dimaliv, all arguing their points with the passion and belief that can only come from followers of a team that has always managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It's a lot more fun when they're losing, and you get to read the sniping and calls to fire manager Willie Randolph and trade off half the team, but these days, the incredulous euphoria of fans suddenly awakening to the fact they might actually have a contender to follow is no small pleasure for this long-suffering Metsaholic.Kulak's Woodshed (5230 1/2 Laurel Canyon Blvd.)Tucked away on a nondescript corner north of Magnolia Blvd. in what is now known as Valley Village, this storefront is run by Paul Kulak as a free performance space, which he's equipped with six cameras to beam out digital webcasts of the shows that take place there. Inside, it looks like someone's den right out of the '60s, festooned with old blues album covers, DVDs and fortune cookie - like aphorisms like "Everyone has a story to tell...but not every story is worth hearing" while patrons lounge with their pets on sofas, folding chairs and a large twin bed right in the middle of the room.The night we were there, veteran session man Freebo played a two-hour set, interspersing songs by answering instant messages from all over the country flashed on an overhanging monitor, joined by a shifting group of musicians, including longtime local session guitarist Shane Fontayne, who has played with Marc Cohn, Bruce Springsteen, Shania Twain and Maria McKee, among others. With no admission charged, an actual bucket is passed around for suggested contributions, and the whole thing seems a hippie anachronism in these increasingly materialist, profit-driven times. Musicians making music just for the love of it... Imagine that.T-Pain, "I'm N Luv (Wit a Stripper)" (Jive)The title of this Tallahassee (the T in T-Pain) native's recently gold-certified debut, Rappa Ternt Sanga, says it all. A 21-year-old veteran who got his start as a teen in the regional rap group Nappy Headz, T-Pain certainly utilizes hip-hop iconography in his image and sound, but his solo debut finds him more a traditional R&B crooner with a ladies' man touch that recalls the likes of Marvin Gaye.Following up his first breakout hit, "I'm Sprung," an ode to his wife, with what's certain to be a pole-dancing perennial, the youngun' turns his romanticism to a most unlikely object of affection... or not, considering how many Urban hits are breaking out of strip clubs these days. It's pure fantasy, delivered with a straight face and a tongue firmly in, unh, cheeks, just another smash that has seemingly come from nowhere, but is soon to be everywhere. Go figger.City Sleeps, Walker's Ridge (Maverick)They don't call music biz vet Jim Del Balzo "Rocky" for nothing. He knows what Rock radio likes, and they're undoubtedly gonna like this Atlanta-based quintet, whose debut is slated for an August release, a lot. Led by vocalist Elliott Sharp and gun-slinging guitarist Adriel Garcia, the group is poised at the nexus of emo ("Ordinary High"), Police-style new wave world beat ("Just Another Day"), Queen prog-rock (the first single, "Prototype") and even Metallica-like grunge ("Bones"), with a dash of classic British Invasion pop ("I Can't Make You Love Me") thrown in for historical measure, all given stylistic congruity by producer John Feldmann of Goldfinger, who performed similar duties for Story of the Year and The Used and got the band signed to Maverick.Think Loverboy meets Fall Out Boy, all big arena-rock gestures, angular guitars and muscular harmonies, with some cheeky lyrics to boot ("If looks could kill, you'd be a murderer" goes the refrain in "Andrea"). If Rock radio is to still be relevant, this band of Dixie dynamos should be right at home next to fellow southeasterners like Blue October, Big 10-4 and 10 Years.Blooming IdeasBlog site of one-time High Times Editor and all-around music, sports and pot pundit Steve Bloom, a fellow Knicks/Mets fan and James Brown confidant whom I've known since our days together at the old Soho Weekly News, the Avis to the Village Voice's Hertz back in the day. Bloom intersperses daily coverage of our beloved Metsies with idiosyncratic discussions on a variety of hot-buzz topics, including The Sopranos' "Gay Problem," his travails trying to get press tickets to cover a local Black Crowes concert, a New Riders of the Purple Sage live review and answering Yippie Dana Beal's complaint about High Times' supposed lack of support for this year's Global Marijuana March in New York.Gripe of the WeekTo paraphrase an old Woody Allen line, it's not a dog-eat-dog world, it's more like dog-doesn't-respond-to-the-other-dog's-IM. A record company publicist recently lamented to me, "I tried to pitch a writer on a band and I was told to email him instead." For a business that once prided itself on people-to-people communication, it sure seems like I have less and less contact with actual people and more and more with voicemails, cellphones and BlackBerries.Actually, that should please me, being a writer, because expressing oneself in words has taken on increasing importance in the digital age - that and an ability to type quickly could save the world, if you believe 24. At any rate, I must admit to missing the old days when publicists actually used to call to tell you something they were passionate about -- or that they were simply promoting -- rather than just sending out mass emails into cyberspace like a message in a bottle, hoping one sticks. Culture48361@blogcritics.org Fri, 26 May 2006 13:30:45 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/05/24/103642.php Roy TrakinNeil Young, Living With War(Reprise)/Freebo, Before the Separation (Poppabo Music)One thing you can say about the Boomers: succeeding generations will have to rip pop culture from their cold dead fingers. Neil Young's fierce antiwar missive strives to be, like hip-hop, the CNN of its culture. But if, just post-9/11, he was urging everyone, "Let's Roll," that's known as the kind of "flip-flop" he so self-righteously attributes to Dubya in the notorious "Let's Impeach the President." And how is a Canadian dictating what the U.S. should do, even one so intimately wrapped up in our country? That said, you don't have to dig Neil's politics to appreciate the garage-rock fury of the title track, a 2006 version of Talking Heads' "Life During Wartime," a plea for "Peace" that quotes the "Star-Spangled Banner," no less. More effective still is Young's blast at "The Restless Consumer," a barrage that draws an unbroken line between the lies of Madison Avenue and those of our government.Much more gentle is the third solo effort from longtime Bonnie Raitt fretless bass sideman Freebo, not coincidentally part of the 100-person vocal choir providing the wall of sound on Young's album. Songs like "Stand Up," "A Soldier at War", and "The Freedom Wall" take America to task, but not harshly, for forsaking its original ideals. It's all delivered in a sing-song James Taylor-style croon that is as comfortable as a well-worn La-Z-Boy recliner. Still, it's the personal songs, like "It Goes By Fast," "The Beauty of Life", and "Soul Mates", that strike the strongest chords, offering a glimpse into a time when music could change the world, but only by affecting the individual first.Paul Simon, Surprise (Warner Bros.)In his own miniaturist way, Paul Simon examines the current zeitgeist by zeroing in on the micro to capture the macro. With Brian Eno, who is credited with "Electronics" and "Sonic Landscapes", as a collaborator, Simon places his wistful melodies inside a framework of swirling ambience that at first sounds grafted on extraneously, but over time, begins to feel of a piece. The lyrics read like diary entries, though songs like the wistful "How Can You Live in the Northeast?" and "I Don't Believe," which touch on the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and "Wartime Prayers," the celebrated plea for peace, try to connect the personal to the political like "Sounds of Silence" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water" once did so effortlessly.By the time he gets to "Once Upon a Time There Was an Ocean," "That's Me", and "Father and Daughter", Simon faces his own mortality with the kind of humility that makes him question why he's "painting my hair the color of mud" and to declare "I'm an ordinary player in the key of C/And my will was broken by my pride and my vanity." That kind of naked vulnerability, rather than any Eno-esque veneer, is what makes this Simon's most relevant album in years.Art School ConfidentialDirector Terry Zwigoff and graphic novelist screenwriter Daniel Clowes' follow-up to the wonderful Ghost World is at once more embittered, darker, and yet broader than its predecessor, a biting satire masquerading as a '60s-style exploitation flick that skewers just about everyone while hiding a romantic heart-of-gold at its center. Delicately handsome Max Minghella (Bee Season, Syriana), son of Cold Mountain and The English Patient director Anthony, plays the earnest art school freshman who idolizes Picasso, only to come up against the thwarted artistic ambitions (and sexual come-ons) of drawing teacher John Malkovich.There's a classic scene with a nude male model flapping in the wind as he chats "up" one of the female students, and wonderful turns by My Name Is Earl's Kevin Smith protege Ethan Suplee, an aspiring filmmaker bankrolled by his grandfather, and a grizzly Jim Broadbent as an alcoholic graduate who grudgingly imparts his cynicism about having to suck up to succeed in the art world in exchange for a bottle of booze.The seemingly superfluous subplot about a serial killer around campus results in a final plot twist linking notoriety to commercial success, which wraps the story up a little too easily. But Zwigoff and Clowes' vision is as close as you can get to R. Crumb's Zap Comix on the screen, with plenty of laughs for those who enjoy the kind of twisted humor the film revels in.Mission: Impossible: IIIWith all due respect to director J.J. Abrams, who has proven his mettle with TV's Felicity and Lost, which I've loved, as well as Alias, inspired by the original Mission Impossible TV series, this is, first and foremost, executive producer/star/stuntman Tom Cruise's show. With his off-camera exploits making it impossible to suspend your disbelief, Cruise's film seems to mirror the star's tabloid travails in its hokey plot as well as the choice of co-stars in Felicity's Keri Russell, a doomed agent who eerily resembles Nicole Kidman, and Michelle Monaghan, a seeming dead ringer for his latest paramour, Katie Holmes.The first part of the movie revolves around Cruise's attempts to keep his return to the field secret from Monaghan, and the second is about saving her from villain Philip Seymour Hoffman by retrieving the so-called rabbit's foot, a doomsday weapon that serves as the ultimate Hitchcockian maguffin in that its true nature is never identified.The scene-stealing Hoffman is woefully underutilized as the leering psychopath he played in The Talented Mr. Ripley, and there are at least two major set-pieces, including a fiercely pitched battle over a bridge that features cars spinning around in mid-air along with one in which Cruise swings from roof to roof among the skyscrapers of Shanghai. But the final result, while never boring, leaves you feeling pretty hungry again an hour later.If you're as fascinated by The Sopranos' Vito Spatafore as we are, you'll be equally intrigued by actor Joey G.'s personal website, in which he hawks his cooking book, A Meal to Die For, and his pasta "Sauce to Die For"; it also features pictures of him with wife Diana and as a guest on the Jimmy Kimmel show.And while there's plenty of carping in the blogosphere about this year's plotline, the emergence of a seemingly minor character like Vito into a full-blown narrative development just goes to prove how deep and Shakespearian this series has become. All I can say is, when Vito has that fender-bender with the guy in the New England woods and offers to settle for $600, I found myself yelling at the screen, "Just take the cash and walk away, dude... Please," before the poor sucker gets blown away. Unreal.BMI Pop AwardsThis annual songwriting/publishing shindig is always a great schmooze, with the behind-the-scenes talent given its chance to stand front and center for their own kudos. This year's edition honored Crosby, Stills & Nash with its Icons award and gathered some interesting guests for a musical tribute.I dug Gavin DeGraw's amiable medley of "Carry On", "Almost Cut My Hair", and "Teach Your Children", and Adam Levine and Maroon5 bandmate Jesse Carmichael's version of "Our House", while the audience responded with a standing ovation for Alison Krauss and Jerry Douglas' "Long Time Gone". But it was a clear-eyed and revitalized Gregg Allman, leaning into "Southern Cross" for all he was worth, that was the evening's true highlight. The fun is in seeing the honorees hear their music interpreted by others, a veritable torch-passing that seems to represent what the art of songwriting is all about.Huff (Showtime)This series gets deeper and more brooding as it goes along, and it's just a shame that it hasn't attracted more of a following. Even fans of the show seem to dislike the subplot about Hank Azaria's schizophrenic brother, but the thin line between sanity and insanity, health and sickness and reality and fantasy has never been so finely drawn. Oliver Platt's downward-spiraling lawyer-addict is so real it must hit a little close to home for people who think their breadwinning skills forgive all their recreational transgressions.Love MonkeyIt's not perfect, and the dialogue is a little too flippant to be believed, but this music biz series has found a perfect home on VH1. I wish it mixed in reality a little more rather than relying on fiction, but Tom Cavanagh's A&R exec is a pretty dead-on characterization of those for whom music is not just a living but a way of life. At the very least, the series depicts a world where people care so much it hurts, and the various stereotypes are at least enlivened by a knowledge of the milieu.One recent episode, in which a pizza maker is tempted to give up the successful restaurant he inherited after his father's death for a musical career, dealt fairly realistically with the risks inherent in such a choice. And while the ending was a little too pat -- the guy decides to stick with the pizzeria, while continuing as a songwriter rather than a performer -- it still offered the conflict resolution with surprising insight. Like I said, it's not 24 Hour Party People, but it's no Throb, the short-lived '80s series with Diana Canova and a pre-Frazier Jane Leeves, either. And you can't beat the Odds' great theme song, the perfectly named "Someone Who's Cool."Gripe of the WeekEven though I've toiled in front of a computer screen for nearly 20 years, I've never worn glasses, except for that brief period as a high school senior when I purposely flunked my eye exam so I could wear round wire-rim spectacles like John Lennon. So, imagine how I felt when my arms suddenly became too short to read the newspaper, and I was forced to don drugstore-variety reading glasses.Relying on an appendage for something as elemental as seeing the fine print is just one more sign of one's encroaching mortality. And, it's especially annoying if you leave them home and have to borrow your wife's rhinestone-studded pair just to read the menu. Culture48235@blogcritics.org Wed, 24 May 2006 10:36:42 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/05/12/144232.php Roy TrakinGnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere (Downtown/Atlantic)From the very opening, where a film projector starts to unspool into a vibrant Middle European hora that sounds like Gogol Bordello doing "Hava Nagilah," only to segue into a Danger Mouse mash-up techno jam, with preacher Cee-Lo leading the charge, this hipster record of the moment makes you feel cool just listening to it.Argue all you want whether it's alternative or hip-hop; it's that rare album that straddles genres like a tightrope walker, seguing from the Marvin Gaye-like plaints of the one-listen "Crazy" to a spot-on rendition of Violent Femmes' "Gone Daddy Gone" that evokes the spirit of '80s new wave pop in all its hook-happy glory. "The Boogie Monster" is just a 21st century update of Screamin' Jay Hawkins, while the closing "The Last Time" plugs into the sheer hedonism of great dance music, abandoning the head to seize the gut with "All work and no play that's the way it is, ain't it/There's a rhythm deep inside of you and you must get reacquainted."No larger truths or big messages, just an admonition that pop music can be a comfort in an age where nothing else seems to go right. Finishing off with a flapping reel, it's all a movie of the mind, with the remarkable Cee-Lo playing as many roles as Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove, and Danger Mouse providing the musical mise en scene a la Kubrick - at once threatening, seducing, haranguing, kibbitzing and cajoling, but never less than entertaining as they summon up the Id and give it a welcome workout.The Raconteurs, Broken Boy Soldiers (V2)Be careful what you wish for. All those who wanted to hear what Jack White would sound like sans the stringent aesthetic he applies to his work with the White Stripes now have their answer, and while this is truly a collaborative effort, it lacks the visceral thrills of our man at his best... or worst, as the case may be. The album starts off promisingly enough with "Steady as She Goes," a Motown-by-way-of-Elvis-Costello bass beat, followed by the line, "Find yourself a girl and settle down/Lead a simple life in a quiet town."And if that seems to echo Jack's own current marriage to supermodel Karen Elson and subsequent move from Detroit to Nashville, it was originally written by partner Brendan Benson, who provides the McCartney to White's Lennon on several songs, including "Hands," the tender ballad "Together" and the Move-meets-"I Am the Walrus" psychedelia of "Intimate Secretary," with their voices coming out of either speaker.White is truly just a member of this band, like Eric Clapton in Derek & the Dominos, with the Zeppish title track the only nod towards his patented vocal wail and screaming guitar solos. Recorded and mixed in just three weeks, it has a shambling, laid-back feel and a comfort level brought out in Benson's seemingly shiny, happy ode to the '60s, "Yellow Sun," though it ends with White intoning, "It's not sunny anymore." Let's just hope Jack's not mellowing too much, with a wife and now a baby on the way. His neuroses are precisely what make him so fascinating in the first place.Rebel Meets Rebel (Big Vin Records)Talk about your genre mash-ups, this collaboration between outlaw country singer David Allan Coe, the late Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell and his brother, drummer Vinnie Paul, is a raucous good time and not as unlikely as it might seem when you consider the Akron, OH-born Coe got his start as a performer opening for Grand Funk Railroad.It's all about drinking ("No Compromise"), drugging ("Cowboys Do More Dope") and sex ("One Nite Stands"), but also loss of innocence ("Arizona Rivers") and even Native American rights ("Cherokee Cry"), where Coe belies the charges of racism that have followed him around since his notorious 1982 song "N*gger F*cker," which he always denied.The title track adds in a mean sawing fiddle and some pumping keyboards, while "Get Outta My Life" features a cameo by yet another genre-buster in Hank Williams III. It's a posthumous showcase for ace axe man Dimebag's snake-winding riffs, which wrap themselves around Coe's hell-bent persona, as the one-time Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy is right at home with the metallic crunch at the heart of his rebel country yell, as the contemplative "N.Y.C. Streets" adds a somber expletive-laced epitaph to a left-field project that turns out to be right over the middle of the plate.Drive-By Truckers and Son Volt at House of BluesI certainly like the idea of both these bands, taking the harder end of the alt-country sound, blending the twin- (and in DBT's case, triple-) guitar interplay of southern boogie bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allmans and grafting it onto the buzzing acid-washed garage-thrash of the Byrds and Neil Young's Crazy Horse.Son Volt remain an interesting case, as many would have picked former Uncle Tupelo Jay Farrar's band to succeed before ex-partner Jeff Tweedy's Wilco, and that was the case until the latter took a left-hand stylistic turn to become America's answer to Radiohead, while the former are now seen as bearers of a No Depression neo-roots tradition that has lost momentum and cred over the last few years.In fact, Son Volt now veers perilously close to the jam-band genre, though they still work up a fine maelstrom of electrified country-blues live. Atlanta's four-men-and-one-woman bassist Truckers sport a front line featuring a trio of singer-guitarist-songwriters, the most riveting being the bearded Patterson Hood (Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell are the others), who brings a Band-style down-home Americana to the group's metier.And while the extended forays tweak the clichés of the genre and defy expectations, they bury the hooks and melodies in the process. The live shows use the songs as blueprints for the instrumental interplay, which is suitably raucous but precise in a Replacements kind of way - it's no wonder that the Mats' original mentor, New West A&R exec Peter Jesperson, signed 'em. It's hard to resist, but DBT's enthusiastic following remains a cult at a time when rock bands like this seem positively quaint. Unorthodox, What I Like About Jew (WILAJ)Mickey Katz and Allan Sherman, meet Rob Tannenbaum and Sean Altman, who drag the concept of good old-fashioned Borscht Belt shtick into the present, where it belongs, rhyming tuchus with Succos in "Hot Jewish Chicks" alongside the rocking "JDate" ("Did you know that there's a website for lonely Jews?/It's easy to remember and it's easy to use") and the finger-snapping barber shop joo-wop harmonies of "Hanukah With Monica" ("She put that age-old myth to bed/About Jewish girls not giving head").In "Jews for Jesus," they croon, "I never was the most observant Jew/After my bar mitzvah, I was through." But hidden beneath the Jackie Mason paeans to circumcision ("A Little Off the Top") and bar mitzvahs (the Beach Boys-like "Today I Am a Man") is a hebe-pop version of the B-52s ("Taller Than Jesus") with sprightly Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band melodies and hooks laced in Randy Newman irony put to the service of middle-class white Jewish pride as they tackle the goyishe majority on songs like "Reuben the Hook-Nosed Reindeer" ("It's a bitch to finagle lox and a bagel at the North Pole") and their own answer to Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby, "(It's Good To Be) a Jew at Christmas." Who said vaudeville was dead? Not these Jews.Rolling Stone 1000th IssueRather on the self-congratulatory tip, Jann Wenner's tribute to his journalistic institution sports a 3-D cover of cover subjects based on the famous Sgt. Pepper portrait - and just to illustrate the chasm between the '60s and now, neither of my teenage kids got the reference. Still, you have to admire how Stone has continuously managed to reinvent itself, just like MTV, as the Time cum Newsweek for the eternally, if self-consciously, hip, even if the sex, drugs and rock & roll credo it was built on has gone the way of patchouli oil.There's plenty to admire in this look back at how far we've come, especially Greil Marcus' reminiscence of the magazine's start and early days in San Francisco, as well as tales behind some of the most memorable covers. Sure, they've traveled a long and winding road from the revolutionary zeal of Ralph J. Gleason and Hunter Thompson -- one need only look at the 3-D Target ad on the back cover to measure the distance -- but there's nothing wrong with taking stock of where you've been.The true test comes in where you're going, and with Wenner insisting he's not retiring soon, it will be fascinating to see how Rolling Stone continues to chronicle the times as its Boomer legacy fades into mortality.ShopgirlA deadpan Steve Martin tries to reach for the quietly desperate midlife crisis angst of Bill Murray in Lost in Translation and Broken Flowers in this adaptation of his novella by Thai TV director Anand Tucker (Hilary and Jackie), but ends up merely bemused.The problem is with the nature of first-person narrative, so effective on paper in conveying a character's interior monologue, but incredibly difficult to pull off on the screen. The entire film could be read as taking place in Martin's head, which leaves the characterizations by the lovely Claire Danes and the effectively empathetic Jason Schwartzman (basically reprising his slacker role in I [Heart] Huckabies) as frustratingly opaque.That's not to say the movie fails to capture the anomie of finding a real connection in a city as diffuse as Los Angeles, nor the difference between material comfort and true need; it's just that a film like Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know does it so much better. There are a number of effective moments, but they never coalesce into the transcendent experience this slight film promises, but never quite delivers.Behind the Music: Ratt (VH1)If ever there was a band made for this revived series' well-worn formula of bands coming out of nowhere to explode, burn out and fade away, it is Ratt, one of the last of the Sunset Strip hair bands to get signed - by Doug Morris to Atlantic Records, no less. The typical excesses rear their heads, given poignancy by interviews with guitarist Robbin Crosby, who died of a drug overdose in 2002 after being diagnosed with AIDS, which he contracted from using a dirty needle.Crosby holds no anger toward the group, which basically abandoned him when he was no longer able to play, while the rest of Ratt, including a non-repentant Stephen Pearcy, muse about where it all went wrong. There's remarkable live footage of a concert in Japan where Crosby picks up the wrong guitar and plays out of tune as everyone in the audience, as well as his bandmates, stare on in utter disbelief, shortly after which he splits the group.What makes BTM so fascinating is the fact that every picture tells a story, one that ends tragically more often than it does happily ever after, leaving you to wonder why anyone would take the risk in the first place. As the band's first manager Marshall Berle puts it, rock and roll's a dangerous profession, with its own trail of casualties, some of them on display here.mlb.com GamedayCrank up the live audio from your hometown station (available for the whole season for just $14.95 plus a free Sports Illustrated subscription), pull up the simulated game and it's almost as good as being at the ballpark. In some ways, it's even better as you can constantly check batting averages, ERAs, number of pitches thrown and lifetime statistics with a click of the mouse. I actually prefer the simpler GameDay to ESPN.com's more three-dimensional GameCast, which can be a tad confusing when it shows balls going into the outfield as to whether they're hits or not. I find myself sitting raptly waiting for the tell-all "In play, no out recorded," "In play, run-scoring play" or the dreaded "In play, out(s) recorded," like a high-tech version of the old cigar stores back in the pre-TV days which used to hang up large placards with the scores every half-inning.Gripe of the WeekYeah, I know I should be concerned about third-world debt, global warming, AIDS in Africa and a cure for cancer, but this week I'm more worried about my increasing addiction to technology. I'm beginning to feel like Julie Christie in Demon Seed, with my appliances turning against me. When the Internet went down in the office last week, we all stared at one another and wondered what to do with ourselves until the boss took us out to a long lunch, prompting the thought that the Online Age is a little over 10 years old.Earlier this week, getting set to hunker down for some channel-flipping between David Blaine, 24 and the Clippers' playoff game against the Suns, my Adelphia cable went down for the night at 7 p.m. -- as it did for the entire Tarzana-Woodland Hills area -- and didn't return until the next morning, leaving us to haul out the tiny emergency TV with its 6" black-and-white screen and antenna, which needed readjusting every few minutes.Throw in the annoyance at the constant drop-offs from Sirius Satellite as I try to listen to Howard (a complaint echoed by a number of fellow subscribers I've talked to,) and you can see why our reliance on high-tech devices and modern-day conveniences has me not only frustrated but anxious. Maybe I should just unplug for awhile. Culture47666@blogcritics.org Fri, 12 May 2006 14:42:32 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/05/05/133738.php Roy TrakinAlthough it's been much maligned, and pointedly ignored by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame until now, heavy metal is a remarkably resilient genre, both commercially and artistically, its appeal spanning the ages, exemplified by these two albums, made by guys in their 40s and 20s, respectively. Although headed by the increasingly visible Sully Erna, Godsmack has been virtually faceless, flying below the radar through their almost decade-long career, despite two straight #1 album chart debuts and more Rock radio hits than anyone this side of Metallica.Their latest finds them trying to satisfy their loyal following at the same time as they attempt to tweak out the sound - the wailing harmonica on "Shine Down," the acoustic guitar, mandolin and female vocal on "Hollow," and the aural ambience of "One Rainy Day" are all unmistakable signs of a veteran band expressing its maturity, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. And while Sully explores personal demons on songs of infidelity like the first single, "Speak," "Livin' in Sin" and "Temptation," the self-proclaimed pagan isn't afraid to express his faith in both the divine father ("Shine Down") and mother ("Mama").Meanwhile, critically acclaimed Aussie power trio Wolfmother, fronted by Afro'ed vocalist/guitarist Andrew Stockdale, flex the muscles of youth, with a glorious updating of the psychedelic tradition of Zeppelin, Sabbath and Hendrix by way of Detroit grunge progenitors Grand Funk and the MC5.You could almost imagine them performing at Bill Graham's Fillmore back in the day. What makes the band so special is the songs, stupid, which are anything but, from the sensual "Stairway to Heaven" build of "Mind's Eye" and the jaunty White Stripes garage-rock exuberance of "Joker & the Thief" to the Jethro Tull flute blasts of "Witchcraft" and the Zep-meets-Doors-meets-Sabs acid flashback of "White Unicorn" and its biblical hippie refrain, "And I know it's on your mind/We've been drinking on the wine/That we drank from the serpent's vine/Now we live in another time/We could live together."Better than neo-revivalists The Darkness and Jet because their tongues aren't planted firmly in cheek, Wolfmother are serious but playful... which is why they're so much fun. It almost makes me wanna trip again.Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents' Association DinnerThe Daily Show faux commentator's controversial performance before Dubya and the Washington press corps gets off to a promising start, as he sarcastically skewers the Prez with the unctuousness that apparently characterizes what I have to guess is his onstage persona, since I am a devout non-fan of Jon Stewart and company's brand of dry political satire.The rest of the routine peters out quickly enough, leading into what is apparently an interminable filmed comic bit about a presidential press conference presided over by Colbert featuring real-life correspondent Helen Thomas. On the ABC News footage of Colbert's bit streamed on AOL here, the camera focuses entirely on Bush watching the segment, as the President's face starts to tighten and his lips curl in an incredible display of annoyance, disgust and, then, seemingly blank incomprehension, the same look Michael Moore captured so well as George sits in front of that classroom after hearing about the World Trade Center attacks in Fahrenheit 9/11. It is at once more chilling and darkly humorous than anything in Colbert's routine could ever be.Gnarls Barkley, "Crazy" videoA remarkable song and an even more amazing video, this Rorschach blot of a clip perfectly captures the fluid, elusive soul of the music, melting and changing shape before your eyes, with Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse's visages forming in and out of the drops on the screen. Irresistibly psychedelic, watching this piece of eye candy is almost like getting high and gazing at that picture which can appear as a skull or two ladies facing each other at a table, depending on your perspective. Does that make me crazy? Possibleee... Check it out here. Ghostface Killah, Fishscale (Def Jam/IDJ)If you need any more proof as to how hip-hop has trumped rock & roll as a cultural phenomenon, look no further than this full-length epic by one Dennis Coles, better known as Wu Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah. As Christopher's movie pal tells Ben Kingsley in The Sopranos, it's all about the "specificities," and this densely packed narrative is full of them.Childhood bed-wetting ("Whip You With a Strap"), watching Larry King Live ("Crack Spot"), male-pattern baldness and the quality of the Knicks' jump shots ("Barbershop"), Fat Albert ("Big Girl") and Spongebob Squarepants ("Underwater") might not seem to fit into the gangsta rap mold, but for Ghostface, it's all part of a seamless whole with drug dealing and Glocks. Highlights include a Wu Tang reunion on "9 Milli Bros." and several classic soul samples, including Freda Payne on the Sopranos-meets-Shaft noir "Crack Spot," Marvin Gaye ("Jellyfish") and Sly & the Family Stone's "Family Affair" ("Dogs of War").And the Killah is not nearly as misogynist as many of his peers. Though he comes down on his mother for being an alcoholic and beating him on "Whip You With a Strap," he forgives her on "Momma," while also singing the praises of women on "Beauty Jackson" and "Big Girl," pausing long enough to appreciate a beauty mark, the way she smokes a cigarette and her penchant for Louis Vuitton and Versace. And you wonder why rock is dead.Peggy Lee Sings Leiber & Stoller (Hip-O Select/A&M)A reworking of the classic songwriting team's 1975 album Mirrors by sons Jed Leiber and Peter Stoller, this is the belated follow-up to their unlikely 1969 hit with the chanteuse, "Is That All There Is?," certainly one of the strangest songs ever to crack the Top 40.And if you thought that tale of ennui shot through with Brecht-Weil irony was weird, wait until you hear this collection, which has the great Miss Lee crooning her way through such unlikely choices as "Kansas City," along with hard-to-categorize nuggets as "Some Cats Know," "I'm a Woman" and "Professor Hauptmann's Performing Dogs," which has more than a passing resemblance to the under the big top theatricality of Sgt. Pepper's "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite."The album's love of Americana is reminiscent of Brian Wilson's Smile or Van Dyke Parks' Song Cycle, but the arch arrangements can't disguise the pain of Leiber's Freudian self-analysis in songs like "The Case of M.J.," an oblique reference to the time he almost fell into his father's grave when he was five. It's a far cry from the Leiber & Stoller of "Hound Dog," "Yakety Yak" and "Charlie Brown," more Broadway than the raucous R&B that fueled their best work, but no less passionate or committed to expanding the popular musical form and its ability to express our innermost fear and doubts.Lakers vs. ClippersIf you listen to conspiracy theorists, this is the match-up the NBA is hoping for when the Phoenix Suns' Steve Nash seemingly got jobbed (and fouled) trying to call a time-out at the close of Game 4, right before Kobe Bryant made like Michael Jordan with a pair of buzzer beaters that put things into overdrive. The beauty of this first-ever all-L.A. battle -- if and when the Lakes get past the Suns -- is that the entire series will be played in one arena, which has never happened before, meaning the so-called home court advantage will be reduced to whichever team's fan base has tickets for that game.As a longtime underdog Met and Jet fan from a city where those two teams are second-class citizens to the Yankees and Giants, I'll be pulling for the Clips, who should actually be favored, while my wife and son will be pulling for the Lakers, so it should be fun. At least it'll somewhat alleviate the misery from suffering with my pathetic Knicks all season.Linda Ronstadt with Ann Savoy, "Walk Away Renee" (Vanguard)A guilty pleasure back from my Top 40 days, The Left Banke's winsome ode to lost love always stood out as a sharp departure from most of the disposable fare that surrounded it, at once dark, brooding and wistful. This version, recorded by Ronstadt with Cajun music historian and performer Ann Savoy, is from the pair's upcoming Adieu False Heart album.It captures the original's romantic feel in the joined harmonies of Ronstadt's soprano and Savoy's alto, turning the song into an intimate expression of female longing only hinted at in the original, its mournful strings a stirring fusion of the American folk and Euro chamber music traditions.Death of Rock CriticismThe Voice's Chuck Eddy, L.A. Times' Robert Hilburn, Boston Globe's Steve Morse and Jim Sullivan, Cleveland Plain-Dealer's Jane Scott... And now even the self-proclaimed Dean of American Rock Critics Robert Christgau is under siege as the Voice is taken over by philistine New Times publisher Michael Lacy. Then there's the rise of bottom-up, everyone-has-an-opinion blogs like Blogcritics.org and Amazon.com, in which quantity trumps quality. And it's not just the beleaguered boomers jumping ship, but even a thirtysomething scribe like ex-Washington Post writer David Segal admits he's growing tired of judging music meant for those 10-20 years younger. Still, to look on the bright side, some of the best and smartest writing about music is taking place online at sites like the Velvet Rope and www.rockcritics.com and countless MP3 blogs that allow you to sample what's being written about, not to mention semi-autobiographical tomes by brash iconoclasts like Chuck Klosterman, Jonathan Lethem and Marc Spitz. Gripe of the WeekListening to Howard Stern on Sirius has me more pissed than ever at the FCC's ever-increasing vigilance over so-called obscenity on the airwaves, culminating in Senate Majority Leader/Tennessee Republican Bill Frist's current bill that would increase the fine for broadcasting "obscene, indecent or profane material" to a maximum of $500k from the previous $32,500.Observers think the legislation has a good chance of passing, especially with conservative and parents groups pushing for its approval. Personally, I'm sick and tired of the government telling me what I can and can't hear, and at this point, I'm willing to fork over subscriptions for satellite radio and cable TV so that I'll be treated as the consenting adult I am. I mean, isn't that what the on-off switches on your radio, television and computer terminal are for?Do you really want to relinquish your right of free speech to a political agenda? Isn't the First Amendment what America is supposed to be all about; what we're fighting for in Iraq? Thank God for Stern and The Sopranos. Culture47314@blogcritics.org Fri, 5 May 2006 13:37:38 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/05/02/152507.php Roy TrakinThe Sopranos/Big Love/HuffThe three best hours on television, and a whole lot better than anything you might see in your local multiplex these days, too. HBO's bellwether series, in its sixth and final season, had its best episode yet last week, touching on such hot-button topics as Hollywood pitch meetings, celebrity entitlement, award show gift baskets and how to prepare a rabbit old-world style, featuring no less than Doogie Howser buddy Vinnie Delpino (Max Cassella) as a sleazy low-level mobster pulling credit card fraud at the expense of John Ventimiglia's hilariously put-upon restaurateur Artie Bucco.The horrified look on Ben Kingsley's face when Chris accosts him in the elevator about getting into the Luxury Lounge as the Sexy Beast realizes he's up against the real thing and Lauren Bacall cursing after getting mugged for her gift basket outside the Beverly Hilton are alone worth the price of a subscription.Big Love is also picking up steam, as its dark Twin Peaks-like secrets begin to unfold, with the much-hassled Bill Paxton admitting that things are spinning out of control, which isn't a surprise when you consider the man answers to three rather idiosyncratic wives - one of whom he's having an "affair" with. It's not quite the sexual paradise you might think, even with the ravishing Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwin in the house(s).Some fans are complaining that Showtime's Huff has jumped the shark, but I don't agree. Oliver Platt is still a wonderfully alive character, with all his contradictions, and I'm intrigued by Hank Azaria's schizophrenic brother played by Andy Comeau, though not everyone else apparently is. It's another searing epater le bourgeois examination of upper-middle-class foibles, impeccably acted and not afraid to wear a heart on its sleeve, even if it is sometimes misplaced.Bruce Springsteen, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (Columbia)Everything old is new again. Reminiscent of Dylan's early-'90s covers albums Good As I Been to You and World Gone Wrong as much as Bob's work with The Band on The Basement Tapes, the Boss' tribute to traditional songs associated with Pete Seeger as well as his roots in folk, country and gospel-blues might seems like a reaction against the major philosophical statements of The Rising and Devils and Dust, or just a chance to recharge his creative batteries.Indeed, the half-hour DVD that accompanies this DualDisc features the Boss singing the praises of making good-time music with friends and family in the relaxed, Music From Big Pink-like setting of his New Jersey farmhouse. Many of these songs reflect Springsteen's own leftist political leanings, from the outlaw blues of "Old Man Tucker" and "Jesse James" and the pro-labor anthems "John Henry" and "My Oklahoma Home" to the 1815 anti-war ballad "Mrs. McGrath," whose words are startlingly similar to those of activist Cindy Sheehan.Thanks to Charles Giordano's accordion and the funereal trumpet of Mark Pender, the Dixieland music pays homage to its birthplace in the Mississippi delta and New Orleans. And while it might seem like Springsteen is catching his breath on this retro tangent, the sheer joy and commitment of the playing infuses even old warhorses like "We Shall Overcome" and "Froggie Went a Courtin'" with modern relevance.David Gilmour at Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal City WalkThe Pink Floyd guitarist manages to have his cake and eat it, too, as do fans, playing the whole of his new Columbia album On an Island in order during the first part of the show (after teasing the audience with the Dark Side of the Moon medley "Breathe in the Air/Time"). And indeed, the title track and "The Blue," with guest crooners David Crosby and Graham Nash, effortlessly evoked the languid pace and those patented elongated Gilmour leads, masterfully backed by Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright and the subtle but effective fills of woefully underrated Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera. The warm response of the crowd led me to believe Columbia missed out on marketing the new album to a captive audience by pulling a Prince and including it with the price of admission, though the real pyrotechnics were saved for the 90-minute, laser-driven second act, book ended by a pair of Syd Barrett nods in "Shine On" and "Wish You Were Here."The highlights included extended versions of three early-'70s psychedelic nuggets, "Fat Old Sun" from Atom Heart Mother, "Wot's...the Deal" from Obscured by Clouds and "Echoes" from Meddle, but the true revelation was a Bowie-ish Pin-Ups take on "Arnold Layne," a '60s Britpop hit that even pre-dated Gilmour. Despite the space-age trappings, Gilmour makes you realize the music is made up basically of extended blues riffs, distorted and twisted with effects, but still pretty elemental.By the time "Comfortably Numb" hit, I was just that, the performance's lugubrious pacing approaching stasis in a haze of druggy smoke and acid flashback. And that was just the audience. I mean, who needs Roger Waters, anyway? This show once and for all answered the age-old question, which one's Pink?Matthew Sweet, Girlfriend: Legacy Edition (Volcano/Legacy)This two-disc reissue combines the classic 1991 Zoo Records album and its '92 companion piece Goodfriend -- originally A&R'd by HITS' own Grammy-nominated Bud Scoppa, who provides the new edition's very informative liner notes -- with bonus tracks thrown in. Sweet had already been through a pair of failed label deals at Columbia and A&M, when A&R exec (now poker player) Scott Byron and Scoppa convinced the label's President Lou Maglia to release the album after everyone else in the industry had passed.Sweet had enlisted New York punk guitar legends Richard Lloyd of Television and the late Bob Quine, the Void-Oids' and Lou Reed cohort, who provided their patented crunchy blues leads and gnarled arpeggios, respectively, to an album of Rubber Soul-like wistful love songs as played by Crazy Horse, recorded in the wake of the singer/songwriter's breakup with a girlfriend and subsequent meeting of his wife-to-be."Divine Intervention" and "Girlfriend" establish the palette, the latter mixing and matching Greg Leisz's bluesy lap steel guitar, '60s-styled, high-pitched harmonies and Quine's jagged, gnarled Velvets riffs. The only thing more amazing than realizing how an album this smart could be a commercial success back then is the prescience of "Holy War," written at the time of the Kuwait invasion, but uncannily relevant today. Then again, so is the rest of Girlfriend, some 15 years after the fact, an album that prefigured musical styles from alt-roots to emo, and sounds just as vital today.Little ManhattanIt's not surprising to learn this sleeper's first-time director, screenwriter Mark Levin, was once a co-producer for TV's The Wonder Years, because his idealized, first-person ode to first love in New York City is an adolescent version of Annie Hall meets Madeleine, as affecting but never too cloying leads Josh Hutcherson and Charlie Ray play the Woody Allen-Diane Keaton parts by meeting cute at karate class, only hinting at the neuroses bound to come.The film's Upper West Side turf is lovingly portrayed as a danger-free playground bounded by Central and Riverside Parks, as Hutcherson's Gabe traverses the not-so-mean streets via Razor scooter, an animated overlaid map defining his universe. Our hero's lessons in amour are a little too neatly underscored by his estranged-but-still-living-under-the-same-roof parents -- Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon and The West Wing's Bradley Whitford -- but the depiction of class distinctions in the otherwise melting pot of Manhattan is a far more sophisticated theme than its kid-film veneer would have you believe.A fun little DVD to rent that you can watch without embarrassment alongside either your children or even just your significant other. It's sunny, modest optimism and belief in the power of romance captures the allure of the Apple as a collection of small neighborhoods exhibiting their own rituals and social castes better than films with a lot more pretension.Andrew "Dice" ClayJust as satellite radio has enabled Howard Stern second banana Artie Lange to come into his own, it's also resurrected the career of the defrocked funny man, who climbed to the top of the comedy world in the late '80s and early '90s with his raunchy nursery rhymes and cartoon misogyny, which got him a lifetime ban from MTV (for using obscenity on their New Year's Eve show) and had both Nora Dunn and Sinead O'Connor famously boycotting his May 1990 stint guest-hosting Saturday Night Live.Neither of those two incidents arguably hurt him as much as his long-running feud with his one-time pal Howard, who never ceased to badmouth the comic over some now-forgotten slight. The two made up after Stern's move to Sirius, and the Diceman has been on the show a couple of times since, each appearance showing he's a true comedy original, a foul-mouthed, truculent street version of Don Rickles, his one-beat, three-chord rants the comedic equivalent of his leather-jacketed bruddas-in-spirit da Ramones.The unrestricted satellite radio is the perfect place for Clay's brand of bawdy bravado, his rapid-fire macho man forcing even such febrile comic wise guys as Howard and Artie into stunned submission. A most welcome, if thoroughly rude, comeback... Hickery dickery dock indeed.The Friars of Beverly HillsHow could I not love a place with full-scale painted portraits of Dick Shawn, Shecky Green, Frank Sinatra, Henny Youngman and Bob Hope? And a parking garage with a permanent spot for Larry King?Not to mention an upstairs room with a floor covered in sand on which sits Milton Berle's pool table, where George Burns would smoke cigars and toss the butts while comics would spirit their girlfriends through the secret passages leading down to the valet. Thanks to old pals at Luck Media, Steve Levesque and Guy McCain, for making my own Borscht Belt dreams come true by nabbing me a membership.Last weekend, I marked my own admission to old Hollywood by getting an onstage shout-out -- along with fellow attendees Dick Van Patten and Mel Brooks -- from Kathryn Crosby, who has been appearing at the club performing a one-woman tribute to her late husband. Imagine my surprise when the demure Mrs. Crosby offered thanks for having her as a guest on what she apologized for referring to as "your 'Media Hos' radio show." Bing must be turning over in his grave.Warner Drive at the Viper RoomMy first hint was when the doorman asked if I was one of the parents. Well, close... Actually, I'm a childhood friend of drummer Matt Shapiro's father Dave, proudly beaming that his son's band could actually pack the famed Hollywood venue with a sea of female admirers, many of whom appeared far younger than the supposed 21 age limit.With all the doom and gloom going on in the record business, it's amazing that the children of the privileged would still set their sites on making it in a rock band, committing to the grueling life of the road and the lottery-like chances of success. That said, this rocking foursome proved all that hard work pays off... at least in a set of tighter-than-tight, high-energy, fun post-punk rock & roll, highlighted by mohawked bass guitarist Peter Crowner mugging up a storm, guitarist Chris Koushayan's speedball leads, Shapiro's muscular beats and bare-chested, headband-clad lead singer Jonathan Jonah's frequent dives into the moshing minions.The band intersperses memorable originals like "Life," "Livin' It Up" and "Shocker" from their soon-to-be-released album, produced by Guns N' Roses dial-twister Mike Clink, with cool covers such as Golden Earring's "Radar Love" and "Rebel Yell," featuring Crowner's perfect Elvis-meets-Billy Idol sneer. It sure looks a lot more fun than going to college, but do they have something to fall back on?Rock & roll means never having to say you're sorry, and these Valley guys are anything but... Someone sign them up while they're still burning with ambition, and supported by dad.Gripes of the WeekIf you read my "Gripe" a few weeks back, you know I've had my issues with unequal traffic enforcement, but, except for the occasional California roll through a stop sign, I generally obey these laws to the letter, always erring on the side of caution. I'm not one who is prone to road rage, either, but I do get pissed off when a car jumps the so-called "right of way" protocol at a four-way stop sign.I also don't like it when a car in the lane I'm trying to merge into speeds up rather than slows down to let me in. And when an automobile not making a right turn ends up in the right-hand lane at a red light. Also, when somebody is tailing me too closely. It's enough to make you flip the bird. Culture47175@blogcritics.org Tue, 2 May 2006 15:25:07 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/04/25/173143.php Roy TrakinVillage VoiceAll things must change, sooner or later, and this venerable granddaddy of alt-weeklies, founded in the mid-'50s by no less than novelist Norman Mailer, has consistently managed to reinvent itself through the years. As a teen growing up on un-hip Long Island, I read and devoured critics like Andrew Sarris -- whom I ended up having as a professor at Columbia Film School -- Richard Goldstein and, of course, the so-called Dean of American Rock Critics Robert Christgau himself, whose painfully twisted boho-leftist analyses of pop music practically defined the genre.My first full-time journalism gig was at the old Soho Weekly News, the feisty Avis to the Voice's Hertz back then, championing the emerging New York new wave of Patti Smith, the Ramones, Talking Heads, Blondie, Television, et al. So, it's with no small degree of irony that I view the current tumult, as the New Times begins cleaning house after acquiring controlling interest in both the Voice and its L.A. counterpart, the Weekly.I've never been a huge Chuck Eddy fan -- whom I've often viewed as contrary for contrary's sake -- but there should always be a place for Christgau's ravings. Maybe the N.Y. Observer, current home of a doddering, but still absorbing Sarris, may have room for him.New editorial chief Michael Lacey has made it clear he wants "investigative reporting" and local stories, not "think" pieces or national coverage, which still doesn't explain him getting rid of James Ridgeway. Still, the place for "analysis" and "opinion" may well be the traditional mainstream hard-copy dailies, whose breaking news function has basically been co-opted by the Net-driven 24/7 information cycle. Still, it's a sad day indeed when both rock critic Bobs -- Christgau and Hilburn -- are deemed expendable.XM vs. SiriusSo I made the switch and I've been listening to Howard Stern around the clock - that is when I can hear him between the alarmingly frequent drop-offs, a lot more than XM, which is troubling.As I've said, Stern's new unfettered-by-the-FCC show takes a while to get used to, though Artie Lange, for one, has been let loose without the constraints, and the other Howard-related programming, which includes a surprisingly straight-forward news department, a daily round-up and an intern show, is pretty good, even if a mite heavy on the self-indulgent naval-gazing. Haven't quite cottoned to either Bubba the Love Sponge or Scott Farrell, both of whom seem to have died and gone to heaven on satellite, but Howard's also been given new life, and that's enough for me.I just don't understand how CBS could've let the King get away, even as a beleaguered Joel Hollander tweaks his ex-meal ticket by picking up a simulcast of Opie & Anthony from XM to replace Stern's short-lived successor David Lee Roth.That said, I was a big fan of XM's music channels, particularly the alternative stations Ethel and Fred, Mike Marrone's The Loft and even the prog-rocking Music Lab, which was just dropped in a curious move considering programmer Lee Abrams was the original avatar of the genre as producer of Gentle Giant, a man Christgau once said "was to the '70s what Mitch Miller was to the '50s." My prediction? Ultimately, you will be able to get both satellite services from one receiver, and traditional radio, with its HD options, will also be part of the mix. In other words, I don't think we've heard the last of Howard Stern for "free."David Gilmour, On an Island (Columbia)As Donald Fagen's recent solo effort is to Steely Dan, Gilmour's new album is a Pink Floyd album in all but name, his characteristic languid blues guitar and mournful vocals attached to songs of domestic bliss instead of anomie and alienation, which could be all the difference.Still, since last summer's Live 8 reunion in London, there's renewed interest in the legendary psychedelic space cowboys, with Gilmour's recent solo concerts divided into two parts, the first featuring songs from this album, the second a virtual Floyd show that goes back to early, rarely performed material, complete with laser pyrotechnics.With the likes of guitarist Phil Manzanera, Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright and legendary producer Chris Thomas on board, the result is state-of-the-art-rock, with the title track evoking the atmosphere of Dark Side of the Moon's "Speak to Me/Breathe In the Air" and "This Heaven" recalling the sardonic "Money," where Gilmour makes even his marital idyll sound ominous. The problem is the lyrics, half of them written with wife Polly Samson, which come off more like the sentiments from a Hallmark greeting card, while the music veers perilously close to the empty shell of The Division Bell. That means the album's most effective tracks are instrumentals like "Then I Close My Eyes," which segues from a Stephen Foster-style "Dixie" ode to an Erik Satie-like chamber orchestra into an Eno-esque Oriental flavor that crystallizes Floyd's unique ability to turn avant-garde designs into mass-appeal pop music.The Hold Steady, Separation Sunday (French Kiss/Vagrant)These indie-rockers from Brooklyn-by-way-of-Boston-and-Minneapolis, led by singer/songwriter/guitarist Craig Finn, was a left-field surprise, landing at #8 in this year's prestigious Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll, though they have encountered more than their share of detractors for their throwback populist rock, equally parts Born to Run and Street Hassle. Finn's Catholic background informs his blend of sex, drugs and religion, filled with mythologized Springsteen-esque characters like Charlemagne and the Hoodrat Girl, recurring places like Penetration Park and literary references to Nabokov, Nelson Algren and Yeats."Hornets! Hornets!" starts off like Black Crowes fronted by Suicidal Tendencies' Mike Muir crossed with the late, lamented Screaming Blue Messiahs' Bill Carter, while "Stevie Nix" intersperses a piano part before ending with a double-guitar solo straight out of the Allmans or Lynyrd Skynyrd. It's a postmodern view of classic-rock, juxtaposing the sacred and the profane, summed up in a single line from "Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night": "And if you don't get born again/Then at least you'll be high as hell."Vito SpataforeAs played by Joseph Gannascoli, this Sopranos character has taken on an amazing depth after we catch him in a gay bar, along with a pair of goombahs, dressed like the cowboy from the Village People, and now on the lam from the mob. As last week's episode closed, he was praised by the sexually ambiguous proprietor of a New Hampshire antique shop for admiring a particular vase after briefly contemplating suicide by a waterfall.This intriguing subplot has given us a chance to reflect upon our own homophobia, or as a gradually mellowing Tony reflects, "It's 2006. There's pillow biters in the Special Forces." Gannascoli mines the pathos in the role to the hilt, indulging in a secret passion fully aware it will bring his real life crumbling down around him, or as Michael Imperioli's Chris puts it disgustedly: "Human frailty ... makes me sick sometimes." What more can you say?Kathryn Crosby, My First Years With Bing (Collage Books, Inc.)First of a two-book set penned by Bing Crosby's second wife Kathryn, whom the singer met on the Paramount lot in Hollywood when he was 50 and she was but 19 years old straight out of a small town in Texas as a contract player for the studio.The pair spent 24 years together before Bing passed away in 1977, but more than half of that saw him on the road, golfing, fishing and hunting, his exploits revealed in long, handwritten letters home to his wife, busy raising three children, including his only daughter, Mary Frances, the woman who shot J.R. in Dallas.The May-December marriage was a strange one from the start, a three-year courtship filled with plenty of frustration and misunderstandings, exacerbated by the author's lack of self-confidence and experience. And while she expresses jealousy over Bing's various co-stars, including Grace Kelly and Inger Stevens, she won't come right out and say he was unfaithful, though he was often quite distant and could be rather biting in his comments to his young wife.But, as befits a woman who spent her entire adult life with one husband, she remains devoted to the end, using the nursing skills she went to school for to take care of her man. Ironically, the book reveals very little of Bing as a performer and artist, and not a whole lot as a mate, either. It's an inside view of an intensely private man, who at the end, remains just as elusive in print as in life.When Do We Eat?Advertised with the tagline, "Sex, drugs and matzoh ball soup," marvelously named director Salvatore Litvak's ethnic indie comedy might well be dubbed My Big Fat Psychedelic Passover, as it brings together several generations and Jewish stereotypes under one tent roof to celebrate the holiday. There's the overbearing patriarch (veteran character actor Michael Lerner), his befuddled second wife (Lesley Ann Warren), his survivor father (a painfully hoarse Jack Klugman), a nymphomaniac celebrity publicist cousin, a pair of daughters, one a sexual surrogate, the other lesbian and two sons, a born-again Hasid and a drug-addled teenager who doses dad with a hit of Ecstasy in his Maalox.The film veers uneasily between broad belly laughs and cosmically trippy philosophical revelations, with plenty of shtick along the way. The soundtrack, which is being released by David McLeese's Jewish Music Group, features some great updated music, many written by the legendary Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach , along with tracks from Emmy-winning composer Mark Adler and novelties like the Latin-Hebro Hip-Hop Hoodios. Just another sign of a proud Judaism rearing its head in a popular culture that has finally found room for the likes of Matisyahu and Larry David, if not M.O.T.Buckcherry, Fifteen (Eleven Seven/ADA)There must've been a lot of people doing double takes when this band of regenerate Sunset Strip rockers entered the HITS Top 50 at #44, outselling the Beatles. That had to be an eye-opener for the rest of the industry, most of whom turned down the chance to release the L.A. band's third album after a pair on DreamWorks, including their debut, which went platinum, thanks to the ode to the joys of cocaine, "Lit Up."Songs like the salacious first single, the Stone-sy "Crazy Bitch" and their raison d'etre "So Far" ("I didn't do it for money, I did it all for free/I did it all to fill the fucking hole inside of me") prove that sleazy, blues-pumping rock & roll will always have an audience, as long as there are testosterone-driven teenage boys and hormonal teen girls, though the acoustic "Brooklyn" and the Marti Frederickson co-written power ballad "Sorry" show a softer side. A true triumph of grassroots and Internet marketing.Gripe of the WeekWith gas up to $3 a goddamn gallon, maybe 24's evil President Logan has the right idea. Certainly Dubya's plan to invade Iraq hasn't yielded any returns at the pump, and isn't that why we're there in the first place? Or is it merely to line Haliburton's pockets? I'm sensing the American public is getting just as sick of George W. as Al Franken and Michael Moore are, and it's not going to be improved by him firing his press secretary or stripping Karl Rove of his duties. All that's left is to find a Democratic candidate who can defeat whatever the GOPs put up next time, and that's a lot easier said than done, if, as most people believe, Hillary Clinton isn't capable of being elected. Culture46860@blogcritics.org Tue, 25 Apr 2006 17:31:43 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/04/17/162608.php Roy TrakinThe "Page Six" ScandalFor anyone who saw Sweet Smell of Success, with Tony Curtis as sniveling flack Sidney Falco trying to curry favor with Burt Lancaster's curmudgeonly J. J. Hunsecker, it's no secret that there's a fascinatingly symbiotic relationship between gossip columnists and their sources.All sorts of "scratch and be scratched" deals go on behind closed doors, and in this day of "fair and balanced" journalism, one realizes there's no such thing as objective reporting, up to and including the great gray lady, The New York Times itself. William Hearst may have coined the phrase "yellow journalism," but there's a long and less-than-noble tradition of press barons using their vehicles to promote their own self-interest.The N.Y. Post's Jared Paul Stern did nothing wrong telling Ron Burkle he could help him with his coverage at "Page Six," and while he appeared rather unseemly asking for $100k upfront and $10k a month for a year to do it, it seems to me a clear case of a sting. Certainly, if Burkle is offering the money, you wouldn't expect a freelance gossip journalist to turn it down, would you? Especially when publicists-turned-high-priced "media consultants" command about the same monthly stipend to do something very similar. It's no wonder that the case hasn't raised any eyebrows out here in L.A., where this sort of quid pro quo is considered the price of doing business.The Streets, The Hardest Way to Make An Easy Living (Vice/Atlantic)This long-awaited third album from the Cockney version of Eminem starts off with Mike Skinner on the verge of a nervous breakdown, chanting, "I'm about to do something stupid," but the jam-packed confessional that follows offers more insight, advice, observations, and confessions in its 37 minutes than a week's worth of Dr. Phil or Oprah.Skinner tackles a variety of issues prompted by his incipient pop stardom, including a nasty gambling habit ("Pranging Out"), relationships in the post-feminist world ("War of the Sexes"), the no-win finances of the music business (the title track), his fixation with materialism ("Memento Mori"), the British tabloids ("When You Wasn't Famous"), the death of his father ("Never Went to Church"), the loneliness of the road ("Hotel Expressionism"), the difference between England and America ("Two Nations"), and being alienated from your own fans ("Fake Street Hats").It's all accompanied by a characteristic sing-song storytelling, equal parts Johnny Rotten and My Fair Lady's Stanley Holloway ("With a Little Bit of Luck"), containing elements of soulful divas ("Pranging"), nursery rhymes ("Hardest Way..."), gospel-soul choirs ("Never Went to Church"), and even a Latin American samba ("Famous"). And while The Streets' parochial viewpoint might remain too narrow for the kind of American breakthrough Skinner wishes for in lamenting, "Two nations divided by a common language/And 200 years of new songs and dances," when he sings "If you don't like what's going down/You need to change something' round" in "Fake Street Hats," you realize, by describing a very particular state of music biz anomie, he also manages to touch on the universal.Pete WentzSay what you will about Fall Out Boy -- and to my mind, "Sugar, We're Goin' Down" is the best pop-punk song on the radio this side of Green Day -- its bassist leader is a savvy businessman with an impressively encyclopedic knowledge of rock history and a healthy respect for elders like Neil Young, Bob Marley, and U2.Toss in the fact Wentz signed Panic! at the Disco to his own label Decaydance (an imprint on the influential Chicago indie Fueled by Ramen) after hearing just three songs on the Internet, and you begin to realize rock & roll is in pretty good hands if he's any indication of the new post-emo generation. After having him participate with me and Scoppa for our Sony Connect Music Snobs chat (shameless plug), we came away carrying a newfound respect and mind-blown admiration. If any band is capable of an American Idiot move with their next album, I'd put my money on FOB, even if Wentz insists their Insomniac is next.Taylor HicksI'm not an American Idol fanatic, but I do sneak a peek every now and then just to see what some 30 million weekly viewers find riveting... and to be able to carry on a water cooler conversation. What has attracts my attention are the oddball contestants who end up capturing the public's attention. Not the William Hungs, but the ones who actually think they have a shot at the top prize, even with images that go against the usual notions of stardom.I'm talking Clay Aiken, whose ruffle-haired, sexually ambiguous "nice guy" crooner was something I spotted early on as being different enough to grab attention. This year, there was Kevin Covais, the so-called Chicken Little from Long Island whose feisty, pugnacious spirit (he famously told off Simon Cowell during one critique) and self-deprecating shtick led him into the final dozen or so before his lack of vocal chops in comparison to the competition led to him being voted off.The latest anomaly is 29-year-old Taylor Hicks, one of the seven remaining finalists, whose premature gray hair has turned into the show's newest fixation. Hicks' specialty is a Tom Jones-style blues rant that Cowell has compared to someone getting drunk at a wedding and grabbing the microphone. Could he be the Next Big Thing? In a time when Barry Manilow can top the album chart, anything is possible...as long as the stix don't nix Hicks' lix.The Ice HarvestThrough films like Caddyshack, Groundhog Day, and Analyze This, actor/director Harold Ramis is one of the more underrated comic auteurs, and his latest, which came and went in the blink of an eye last Christmas, was obviously his attempt to duplicate the anti-holiday, feel-bad success of Bad Santa, which also starred Billy Bob Thornton.This faux noir tries to duplicate the black comedy of Coen Brothers films like Blood Simple and Fargo, but never manages to strike the right balance between slapstick and violence, despite effective performances by John Cusack as a mob lawyer who tries to embezzle $2 million from his boss (Randy Quaid), who runs a bunch of strip joints and a massage parlor in Wichita, of all places, and Oliver Platt, basically doing a less lovable version of his Huff character, as a wise-cracking, obnoxious drunk.Like John Landis' Into the Night and Martin Scorsese's After Hours, though not as good, the movie takes place over the course of a single night, in this case Christmas Eve, and while there are some laughs, especially during a family dinner crashed by Cusack and Platt, who has married the former's ex-wife, the enforced whimsy and potential mayhem never quite gel into a coherent whole, despite the sometimes-witty repartee.The Dying GaulCall it Brokeback Screenplay. I'm not quite sure if this rather strange indie film ever got a theatrical release, though I did see the trailers several times at my local art theater. Written and directed by Craig Lucas in his theatrical debut after making his mark as a playwright of dramas with gay themes, the movie starts promisingly enough, with Peter Sarsgaard as a struggling screenwriter who sells his film about the death of his lover from AIDS to predatory studio exec Campbell Scott for a cool $1 million, but only after agreeing to change the protagonists into heterosexuals.Scott then begins a torrid affair with Sarsgaard