August 4

Sometimes, these blog posts generate themselves:


Good to fit in two birthday wishes, but this post is for Helen Thomas, who has sat in White House press conferences since the Kennedy Adminstration. Plus, she was born in Winchester, Kentucky (down the holler from me), so she gets some hometown love.
Here's a great encapsulation about her career, and its recent (and controversial) ending:

However you interpret her statement, she conceded the insensitivity of her remarks. (But that's kind of common for folks her age; that's why we retire them [See what I did there? Just to be clear, that's an attempt by me to offer humor through a sarcastic ageist statement... unless I'm really prejudiced against old people... or I'm trying to boost blog hits by making incendiary remarks... some of my best friends are old people...]) And because she considers herself a journalist (and not a Fox News correspondent [see what I did there? Just to- never mind.]), she retired.

I don't know if anyone is poised to pick up the torch, regarding her relentless equal-opportunity questioning of every administration of the last 50 years. And her record for crushing press secretaries' souls will likely remain unchallenged for centuries to come. (I think I might be ageist. Forgive me.)
Look at what she did to Stephen Colbert (fast forward to 04:20)

June 15

As Twilight's next movie prepares to rear its head, and the Harry Potter film series approaches its final chapter, Hollywood continues looking for the next literary gold mine. The landscape's littered with efforts in vain (Vampire's Assistant, Lemony Snicket, The Seeker, etc...) but I think I know what the next book-to-film dynasty will be: the 20-volume (so far) series of Redwall novels by Brian Jacques. It's such an easy sell these days, too: Lord of the Rings meets Alvin and the Chipmunks!
The closest this series has come is a British animated series from ten years back:

If Ralph Bakshi's Tolkein movies didn't stigmatize Peter Jackson's, this cartoon shouldn't be a problem.
So who's got the film rights? Apparently, that's been a complicated issue since the era of the animated series, so when the world of Redwall will hit the big screen is anybody's guess. Meanwhile, does this look like it would be worth the wait?

June 9

I'm working a twofer in here: first, let's throw out a Happy Birthday to Johnny Depp, who is probably the best paid character actor today. Between his collaborations with Tim Burton and his turn as Captain Jack Sparrow, he's making A-list money while being allowed to play unpredictable roles, which is an anomaly. Million-dollar actors don't get millions of dollars to deliver unpredictable product. You know who Ben Stiller's character is the moment you see his face in a movie; same with Will Smith or Robin Williams. The further the actor wanders away from that type, the more confused the audience tends to get. Johnny Depp appears to be that exception; he's developed his taste and talent over the years that enough moviegoers trust wherever he's taking them. Plus, he's got genetics on his side.
Here's one fan's top 20 Depp movies list:


While I'm at it, let's throw in a trailer for a Johnny Depp movie, directed by fellow birthday boy David Koepp (I think that rhymes!):


While I'm at it, let me shine a light on Mr Koepp, the guy I wanted to feature today. He's not a movie star, I know - he's just written some big movies (the Jurassic Park films, the first entries in the Spiderman and Mission Impossible franchises, Angels and Demons, Panic Room, Carlito's Way,...) I'm in a scriptwriting mode this month, so I'm really digesting stuff like these tidbits Koepp offers about the process.

If you've made it this far, you're probably a writer, too. So I'll tell you what I'd want someone to tell me - get back to staring at that page!

June 7

Today's another discovery for me: Harry Crews. He's a writer in the Southern Gothic style, and the impression I receive of him is that he is at least as interesting as his own characters. He has an e.e.cummings quote tattooed on his right arm; probably the most effective testimony of his literary roots. I'm hunting up his books now (half of them are out of print since the 70's, and only one of them so far is a movie: The Hawk is Dying.) I'm also hunting up Flannery O'Conner, who he frequently cites, and who may be responsible for the way I write as well (another story for another time.)
I wouldn't post a writer here unless I had some visual aid to attest: here's the first part of 'The Rough South of Harry Crews', a documentary about the man and the world his stories come from.

It's an interesting watch in general, and as an aspiring writer ('aspiring' seems more descriptive than 'struggling' or 'unpaid'), I find his story particularly stirring.
I have a feeling I will learn a lot by reading him.

May 23

Never mind Raymond; it seems everybody loves Mitch Albom. As a sportswriter, he's been the Associated Press's sports columnist of the year a record 13 times; nobody else has won it more than once. As a novelist, he wrote Oprah favorite "Tuesdays with Morrie", the most printed memoir of all time. He was Ted Koppel's choice as the final guest on Nightline. He founded several charities for the Detroit area, targeting illiteracy, homelessness, and the deterioration of Detroit's neighborhoods.
And I'm writing about him because of a song about hockey. He wrote "Hit Somebody(The Hockey Song)" with Warren Zevon, for Zevon's 2002 album, "My Ride's Here". It's an ode to one of those rarified creatures, the hockey goon, and it's a bittersweet and hilarious song, even without David Letterman's contribution. Of course, the song's getting turned into a movie, and Kevin Smith's going to direct. Smith and Albom are writing the script together, so it's already shaping up to be Kevin Smith's best movie ever.
For this reason alone, I want to wish Mitch Albom a happy birthday and a thank you. I think you'll feel the same after you listen to this song:

(I'm not even a hockey fan. Have to admit, tho, it's the Flyers' year...)

May 14

I showcase a larger proportion of singers and actors than I like in this column; it's easier to find videos, easier to give you something else to look at beside my bumbling testimonials and second-hand research. The people that are really shaping our world to come - the doctors, scientists, and philosophers that our children will study about - these are the kind of people I want to recognize and imbue, in some small way, some distinction in our pop culture-saturated attention spans.
A great example is Professor Frederik Kruger, world expert in particle discharge and DC current systems. Since the early 60's, he's invented several high voltage containment systems and components that have become global standards. His laboratory in Delft, Holland is considered the centre of knowledge in direct current research. He wrote the textbook on particle discharge, literally.
That's not all Professor Krueger writes about, however. He's published several studies of a fellow local boy done good, 17th century painter Johannes Vermeer, and the painter's use of pre-photographic technology in his art. He also identified several presumed Vermeers as forgeries, particularly by the expert forger Han Van Meegeren.
Krueger became an expert on Van Meegeren himself, writing several novels and biographies about Van Meegeren's work, his frustration as a legitimate artist, and his abilities to fool the critics and the Nazis. (You can read some of Kruger's research at this Van Meegeren website.)
When he's not playing with high voltage or identifying great art forgeries, Krueger plays out with his band, the Siperkov Ensemble, who keep alive the traditional sounds of Romany (Gypsy) music.

Of course, he's written a book about Romany music, too.

But who am I kidding? If I say it's Fred Krueger's birthday, you're probably expecting something like this:


I'm sorry, Professor...

May 13

Today was a scary day to research, but I found Koji Suzuki, the Japanese author who gave us the novel that began the Ring (Ringu) phenomenon. I first saw Ringu online, in the days of Kazaa; after watching the story about a movie that kills you, I kept my computer online for seven days, just to make sure somebody - anybody - would upload it and assume the curse for himself.
The story's become more supernatural as it's been re-interpreted from movie to movie; the South Korean adaptation, titled "Ring Virus", might be closer than any version yet to the original text. I might have to revisit the film; there may be a lot more to the story I'm missing, if this trailer is any indication:

May 7

This is my son's birthday, but he's not my feature of the day; that's too much pressure. I just shared that fact to help explain why I picked children's author Michael Rosen for today's column. Since his first collection of poems were published in 1974, Rosen has been critically acclaimed for his works; in 2007, he was appointed the Children's Laureate in Great Britain. So far, he's published over 140 books
Honestly, we need more writers like Rosen. The nursery rhymes we inherited have lost their relevance; when's the last time any of you internet citizens had to fetch a pail of water? What's a tuffet, and what does whey taste like? When's the last time you heard "Old King Cole" and didn't think about bong hits? But enough perversions of childhood memories...
I found this recitation of Rosen's 1989 work "We're Going on a Bear Hunt," as performed by the author, and was so glad to post up anything besides another musician this week. And because I have two children under two, I'm perfectly excused to keep chanting this repeatedly. If you're at work, you might want to turn the volume down:

March 5

So why was Piero Paulo Pasolini murdered? He frustrated the powers that be in Italy for his pro-communist, anti-consumerist views, he frustrated the church for his athiest and homosexual artistic works, he frustrated the communists for his sympathies with the policemen (who were, in his view, lower-class soldiers fighting battles they didn't understand against upper-class-bred intellectual communists; see why he might consider that a contradiction?) and he frustrated certain political elements with his implications about the prevalence of organized crime in national politics (his final, unfinished novel is a story about a 'white coup')
So he had plenty of enemies, and he didn't run himself over with his own car several times. But he had enough supporters who didn't believe that Pasolini was killed because of a badly negotiated sex transaction, even before the hustler's confession was retracted. But who? The mob? The Vatican? The government? Really pro-active film critics?
Actually, it's his films that I know, his films that have the most global reknown. On one end of the spectrum, there's his Gospel According to St Matthew, nominated for three Academy Awards and still considered one of the most best cinematic tellings of Christ's life ever made (yes, he was an atheist at the time of production.) On the other end of the spectrum, his final film, an extremely vivid and politicized adaption of the Marquis De Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, is still banned several countries to this day. In fact, Pasolini's murder happened before the global release of Salo, implicating the film as another possible motive for his murder.
While I'm not about to post Salo on here, I found a short film (music video, kinda) he directed for a collection, about the discarding of two marrionettes. It has all the Pasolini strengths: arresting images, bizzare juxtapositions, fanfare for the common man, ending that's 90% bummer, 10% uplift:


And now for something completely different: here's some English intellectuals, distilling the peculiarities of Pasolini in their own medium:

February 27

Another birthday reminiscence for the late David Ackles, a songwriter's songwriter. From 1968 to 1973, he only released four albums, but his lyrics inspired a generation of songwriters, including Elvis Costello, Elton John, Bernie Taupin, and Phil Collins. I found this fan video for Ackles' 1968 song "Road to Cario"; the music holds up pretty well, I think. I'm hearing Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave...

February 24

I thought I was going to offer up a video of "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" in observance of Rupert Holmes birthday, but I just can't. Not because of the song; it's such a great, witty-yet-schmaltzy song that I just can't leave it off my playlist. It's a karaoke must. I assumed that "Escape" was all there was to Rupert's story. Boy, was I wrong.
That's because he's not a mere musician in a cardigan; he's a writer. He wrote songs for all kinds of musical acts in the 70's and 80's (remember that song "You Got It All" by the Jets? Britney Spears?) He won an armful of Tony awards for his first musical, based on the final and unfinished novel of Charles Dickens, which started his playwright career that's still in high gear 25 years later. He's also an Edgar-award winning mystery novelist, and the movie based on his first novel("Where the Truth Lies") won the Canadian Oscar. He even created an Emmy-award winning series, "Remember WENN".
Meanwhile, he's got a love-hate relationship with the song that consumed his recording career. (He doesn't even like pina coladas; says they taste like Kaopectate.) After "Escape" became the only song to go to #1 in the 70's and the 80's, people stopped paying attention to his Randy Newman-esque lyrics, and kept waiting for another round of songs about mixed drinks or something. This frustrated Rupert to the point that he quit making records to concentrate on theater and everything else.
No, the song that best encapsulates Rupert Holmes' career is "Timothy," a one-hit wonder recorded by the Buoys in 1971, and a Stephen King fave. The Buoys were an up-and-coming band who managed to sign a record contract - for one single, with no budget for publicity. Holmes figured a song so controversial that radio stations would start banning it would be great publicity, and he wrote the song "Timothy" for just that purpose.
The song was a slow starter. Then, like clockwork, people started figuring out the song's subject matter, and clamored for it; radio stations started banning it; competing radio stations would play it; the song made its way to #17 on the charts; the label signed the band to a full-album contract.

The Buoys never recovered from the success of "Timothy"; besides a song that got big in Europe, they never hit the charts again until their breakup in 1985. "Timothy", meanwhile, was the lightning bolt that began Rupert Holmes' recording career, until it was eclipsed by "Escape."
A final thought: does Tarantino know about this song?

February 9

Now it's time to pass some knowledge, so let's observe the birthday of Brian Greene, physicist and advocate of the "string theory" that just might tie every law of physics together. It's the idea that all the particles of the universe have frequencies, and - well, how about we hear him explain it to David Letterman...

February 4

I haven't taken much time with these posts lately, but I'm glad I did with this one. On my rush days, I usually pick some semi-obscure guy that I at least know I'll get a cool video to post for. But the more I read about David Newman, the more he felt like the kind of guy I'm looking to feature on this blog.
For example, why does a guy born in New York City (and died in New York City) go to school at the University of Michigan? I didn't find the information that explains that. But I did find out that he co-wrote the book for "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman", Broadway's attempt to bring Superman to the stage. The play didn't exactly fly with the public, but Newman and co-writer Robert Benton had better luck with the screenplay that became the film classic "Bonnie and Clyde"
Newman got another crack at Superman, writing the 70's film version. He ended up co-writing Superman I, II, and III; his writing partner for the films was his wife Leslie. They met at the University of Michigan, and were married for 38 years, until his death. Besides the Superman screenplays, they also produced two kids.
See, that's the life I want.
Besides Superman, he also wrote a few cult classics (Santa Claus: The Movie, Sheena, Michael Jackson's Moonwalker). But I decided to go with this clip from the documentary of the Richard Donner cut of Superman II; jump to about 5:05 to skip the behind-the-scenes talk and see some Newman-written dialogue left on the cutting room floor.

The man wrote the lines, "Come to me, Son of Jor-El! Kneel before Zod!" That's good enough for a slice of cake to me...