The Old Boy Pretending To Be Nineteen Again, Part II

I arrived twenty minutes early for my first RCX rehearsal.  I mostly wanted to make sure that the drums were set up in the same format I was used to.  The studio has an in-house drum kit, and the drummers in each camp are free to arrange them any way they wish.  Worst case scenario would be having a left-handed drummer being the last guy to use the RCX kit before you.  Luckily for me, the drums were precisely how I liked them, given the equipment at hand.  The main differences between the RCX kit and the one I have in the cobwebbed basement of the Quentin Estates is that the RCX kit has one instead of two "ride" tom toms (i.e., attached to the bass drum), and there are two crash cymbals at the studio instead of one.  It did not take long to adjust to the discrepancy.

The first person I met before practice was the lead guitarist, Alex.  (Just as in Part I, I am using fictitious names here.)  He quickly informed me that this would be his sixty-second camp.  What??  I had been under the impression that RCX alums were all in 301 camps.  What was he doing here in a 201?  Also, what if the other four band members, i.e., everyone but me, were also RCX alums?  As it turned out, that was exactly the case.  I would be the only new kid on the block.  (I use the term "kid" loosely, as I was at least fifteen years older than the next oldest bandmate.)

The remaining campers arrived before 7:00, and they all knew each other, at least to varying degrees.  The second guitarist was Paul.  His day job was being a radiologist, and once or twice he showed up from work with his blue med shirt on.  He is the only bandmate whose occupation I learned.  The bass player was Kerry, a name I intentionally chose for this post because, for some reason, I inexplicably called him by that erroneous name periodically.  I guess he "looked like" a Kerry to me.  (His real name does begin with a "K.")  Tammy and Sara were the keyboardist and lead singer, respectively.  Although there had been an introductory round of emails, this was my first opportunity to meet my bandmates in person.  I found them to have the right mixture of friendliness and seriousness.  We were all there to have an enjoyable experience, but on the other hand we had each plunked down money to form a band, as it were, so there was work to be done.

Although Rock Camp had assigned a fellow named Terry to be our coach, he had a gig with his own band that first evening, so Henry, the same coach who auditioned me in April, subbed for him.  Henry enthusiastically welcomed the six of us, then had us briefly introduce ourselves to our bandmates and explain why we chose the Foreigner camp.  The first two to speak were Paul and Kerry, both probably in their early forties.  They stated that even though they were too young to remember when Foreigner was cranking out hits, they were still big fans.  Then it was my turn.  My statement was that, unfortunately, I was not too young to recall Foreigner's heyday.  In fact, I was one of their contemporaries, just three years younger than Mick Jones and three years older than Lou Gramm and Dennis Elliott.

After the intros Henry gave us a preview of what was in store for that first session and the remaining three.  The plan for the first session was to dig into the first three songs designated by RCX for this camp.  Then, in the next two succeeding weeks we'd add somewhere between three to five more Foreigner songs.  For the fourth and final session, we would rehearse the six to eight songs in our repertoire, to be followed by an in-studio performance open to the public.  Henry emphasized that even though this was advertised as a 201 camp, the music we'd be playing was closer in structure and complexity to what the 301 camps typically played.  This news didn't appear to surprise or cause consternation among any of us.  Given the fact that the Foreigner songs we'd most likely be playing were hits we’d heard before, we individually had the confidence we could "git 'er done."

The first two songs we tackled were Feels Like The First Time and Hot Blooded, two of my three favorite Foreigner songs.  Henry played each song over the sound system; then we would play it ourselves.  I quickly realized that these musicians in the room were excellent players.  Even on just the first or second time through a song, the similarity between our sound and the recorded original was surprisingly close.  This camp was going to be even better than I had  predicted.  It sure beat playing alone to the lo-fi records in my basement.

Not long into the session I realized I would have to make at least two changes.  First, the decibel level in the studio was very high, much louder than anywhere I had played before.  This was both good and bad.  The good part, obviously, was that I could easily hear the other instruments and the vocals, and always knew where we were in any given song.  (When I drummed in college we did not have monitors.  Our speakers and amplifiers were aimed out toward the crowd, making it sometimes tough for me to hear the guitars.)  The negative was that I had to hit the skins harder than what I was used to so that the percussion would not be overwhelmed.  It might sound like a minor tweak, but having to put more energy into each stroke requires more strength and stamina.  Good thing I'd been doing those twelve ounce curls all these years!

The second change was another that doesn't sound like that big a deal, but took some getting used to.  In my college bands, if the first notes of a song required more than one instrument to start simultaneously, our lead guitarist would simply count down verbally.  As an example, the most famous verbal countdown in music history is arguably the intro to the Beatles' I Saw Her Standing There, with Paul McCartney shouting, "One, two, three, four!" or "One, two, three, bomb!" right before the guitars kick in.  At RCX, the coach preferred that the drummer supply the countdown by hitting the two drumsticks together.  Seems easy enough, except that the cadence of my clashing of sticks was supposed to match the beat of the song we were about to play.  When we got to the point in the third session where we were playing seven different songs, it was not always easy, going by memory, to nail each unique beat in the countdown.

We usually took a five to ten minute break after the first hour.  On that first night, we sat around a table in the front of the building and voted on which Foreigner songs we wanted to put in our repertoire in addition to the three pre-selected by RCX, viz., the two we started with plus Urgent.  Henry stated that it was more important to try to perfect, say, six songs than it would be to play seven or eight songs merely adequately.  Based on what he'd heard so far, he thought we could learn a total of seven songs but trying for eight would be stretching it.  No argument there.

Juke Box Hero and Double Vision, the third of my three favorite Foreigner tunes, quickly garnered the most support for set list inclusion.  Sara, our lead singer and probably the band member with the best sense of humor, told us that it had always been her dream to sing Dirty White Boy in a band.  Well, why not!?  Plus, it's a great song to drum to!  DWB became our sixth song.    

As our break extended for another five to ten minutes, we bantered some more, throwing out ideas for a seventh Foreigner tune in case we made it to seven.  Alex opined that he definitely did not want us to tackle I Want To Know What Love Is, even though it was Foreigner's biggest hit.  "There is nothing for the guitars to do in that song," he pointed out.  Thinking back to my observation of the Beatles camp playing You've Got To Hide Your Love Away (a song without drums, as mentioned in Part I), I concurred.  We joked about bringing in a choir to back us up, just as Foreigner did on the original.  Toward the end of our break we all came to an agreement on a seventh song, Cold As Ice.

Back we went into the studio to have a go at Urgent.  Henry had wisely saved this song for last mainly because, of the three we were trying that night, Urgent was by far the hardest to learn.  From my perspective, it was definitely the most difficult to get into because the first notes are played by a single guitar (for this song, Paul) and then the drums come in at what, for the first several seconds, sounds offbeat.  It isn't until the fifth bar that the instruments are in synch, but yet that's how Mick Jones wrote the song.  (Note: Other examples of songs in which the drums' entrance initially sounds offbeat are I Cant Let Go by the Hollies, and Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac.)  When the band finally kicks in together at that fifth bar, it does sound pretty cool.

Our band put great effort into getting Urgent right.  We needed several "takes" of the entire song, and then there were other times when Henry would cue the original on the sound system to particular places mid-song where we had meandered a little off course.  It was during the rehearsing of Urgent that I came to appreciate fully what amazing things a talented keyboard player can do to supplement a song.  The song contains a long saxophone break which, on the original, was played by the pride of South Bend, Indiana, Junior Walker of Junior Walker & The All Stars.  (Surely you have heard their big hit, Shotgun, on oldies radio.)  During our break we had discussed with Henry the possibility of bringing in a saxophonist just to play this one song.  Henry replied that he thought it would amount to "too many moving parts," so the idea was eighty-sixed.  No problem; Tammy to the rescue.  She was able to "patch" a sax sound into her keyboards to replicate the original recording.  If someone were only hearing the audio, he'd swear there was a sax player in the band.  Amazing!  Urgent turned out to be one of our best songs.

****

I know you don't want the blow-by-blow of all the other sessions, so I shall accommodate your wish by offering a simple overview.  As we advanced into the second and third week, our playing became tighter.  Terry, the RCX coach who had to miss the first session, seemed impressed by the progress we were making. He reiterated two of the statements made by his colleague, Henry, in week one.  First, "We're not here to see how many songs you can add to your repertoire.  Our goal is to master the songs we do rehearse.  The number of songs is only of secondary concern."  Second, a refrain he repeated every week: "These songs are much more like a 301 camp than a 201."

In the second and third weeks we would first run through the songs we already had down, then added one song at a time.  I tried to practice on my own drums at least every other day, mixing it up between the Foreigner songs from before with the new ones we would be playing at the next rehearsal.  It was almost like having a homework assignment, only far more enjoyable.  I knew my bandmates were doing the same thing.  With only three sessions before our public gig, it could be no other way.  It also helped the we were covering Foreigner's original tracts, so when we were listening and practicing any particular song on our own, it was all to the same recording.

As I wrote in Part I, trying to emulate Foreigner's drummer, Dennis Elliott, can be an arduous task.  He is fast, energetic and creative.  It is said that Rolling Stones' drummer Charlie Watts never misses a beat.  I would say the same about Elliott.  Within a three verse song, he rarely does the same thing twice.  Some of his divergencies are subtle, but yet they are present.  Elliott uses a double-bass in his kit.  I have never played on a kit with a double bass, but I do love the sound.  If you listen to the drums at the end of the guitar intro to Double Vision, you will hear it.  To come as close as possible with a single bass on that tune, I had to improvise by using the ride tom and the floor tom.  I think it worked, but a double bass would have been cooler.

One of the many keys to Foreigner songs is the background singing.  Our band was fortunate to have not only Sara as lead singer, with the perfect personality to front the group, but also Tammy, who contributed excellent backup vocals and harmony.  Alex played lead guitar on most of the songs, but offered that responsibility to Paul if Paul wanted to take a shot.  The two played the guitar parts seamlessly.  Kerry, who positioned himself close to the drums, was a great teammate for our rhythm section.

On the evening of June 26 we gathered as usual at 7:00 for our fourth and final time.  During the first forty-five minutes we ran through the seven Foreigner songs we had been playing.  We only had time to go over each one once.  There would not be time to add another, eighth tune.  Our coach, Terry, game us a pep talk, telling us we were great and advising us to enjoy the moment.  At 7:45 the doors would be opened.  It would then be time for the Grande Finale.       

The Old Boy Pretending To Be Nineteen Again, Part I

John, what was the most interesting or fun thing you did last summer?

-  The beautiful Sister Janetina, my fourth grade teacher (September 1956)

I have had about 50 people ask me about the Rock Camp in which I participated last summer, so maybe I should write about it.  Oh, wait... Did I just type "50"?  I meant to type "05."  Not to be discouraged, I hereby plod on.

You already know most of the history of my illustrious drumming career from having read my April 30, 2014 post, The Tom Tom Thumper.  Since the days of the Dark Ages and Lemon Oil Mahogany, I had only drummed twice in public before this year.  The first time was in December 2007.  Mary and I threw a combination retirement/Christmas party at the Legion in Bloomington, and hired an oldies band, Teen King & The Princes, to play a couple of sets.  The real name of "Teen King" is Pat Fitzgerald, the husband of one of Mary's good friends and the band's lead singer.  We made the mistake of telling him beforehand that this was definitely not to be advertised or considered a birthday party for me -- I had recently turned 60 -- so, of course Pat could hardly wait to announce to the crowd more than once that this was, in fact, my birthday party and everyone should congratulate me accordingly.

At some time during his band's second set, after I had consumed several brews, Pat called me up to sit in as the drummer for a rockin’ cover of Del Shannon's # 1 hit from 1961, Runaway.  I did not want to do it, as I had not drummed with a live band in almost forty years, and obviously had not rehearsed with the Princes.  But not wanting to be called a chicken for failing to accept what amounted to a dare, I went up on the stage and got behind the kit.  Luckily, the Princes' version was almost identical to Shannon's original which I was very familiar with, and the song was and is a great one to drum to.  The thing I recall most is that Michael helped my eighty-eight year old mom, The Pook, get close to the stage so she could see me.  I will always remember the smile on her face.  It was the first and only time she had ever seen me play with a band.

Before I could make a graceful exit Pat insisted I sit in for one more song, Johnny Rivers' # 2 hit from 1964, Memphis.  That went well too, although it is not as good a song for a drummer as Runaway.

The second post-college public appearance was Jill and Luke's wedding ceremony in January 2015.  Once again, I was not crazy about the idea of drumming, but it's hard to say "no" to your baby girl's wedding request.  Jill wanted Michael and Luke's bluegrass band, Luke Warm & The Cool Hands, to play during the ceremony, and asked me to sit in with them on Stand By Be.  That song was originally sung by Ben E. King in 1961, becoming even more famous with the 2008 international music project Playing For Change.   Although it is a meaningful song, especially in a wedding context, Stand By Me does not really call for a drummer; just a little dose of percussion suits the tune just fine.  Nevertheless, I wisely remembered the old wedding day adage, "It's all about the bride."  Therefore, I set up a snare and a high hat and was good to go.  I was honored to be asked and to play behind such terrific musicians and a wonderful singer, Jill's friend Natalie Catron.

****

So now, finally, we come to my Rock Camp adventure.  The company used to be called "Rock Camp For Dads" but, partially due to the participation of a noteworthy percentage of female singers and musicians, changed to the degenderized moniker "Rock Camp Experience," sometimes abbreviated to "RCX."  For a fee, RCX puts together groups to learn several songs of a particular artist or genre as selected by the company.  The participants are mostly people who are not currently playing in a band but would like the opportunity to play or sing with other similarly situated people who share their musical taste.  The organization furnishes a coach to help the group turn into an actual, albeit temporary, band.  The coaches are accomplished musicians and are well-versed in the artist or genre being played.  Each group meets at the Rock Camp studio in St. Louis Park once a week for four weeks.  The small studio has a top notch sound system and decent equipment.  Each session lasts two and a-half hours.

RCX conducts several camps every month, with each camp falling into one of three levels: 101, which is mostly for folks who can play or sing but have never been in a band before; 301 is for RCX "alums," and 201 is for everybody else. The camp I signed up for, a 201, was Foreigner, a classic rock band from the seventies and eighties with many hit anthems to their credit.  My taking the plunge was a long time a-comin'.

I first became aware of Rock Camp about five or six years ago when I saw an advertisement for a show at Bunkers in the North Loop.  Each 301 camp typically plays a set at a bar shortly after their camp term concludes.  For years, all of these shows were at Bunkers and were open to the public for a nominal cover.  I attended a half-dozen of these shows and got on Rock Camp's mailing list.  I entertained thoughts of signing up, but in order for that to happen, three boxes have to be checked off.  First, the designated artist for the camp must play music I enjoy.  That excludes most punk, new wave, rap, electronica and head-banging tunes.  Second, the music's drum parts need not be prominent, but I want them to be integral to the songs.  To illustrate a time when that was missing, RCX once offered a Beatles camp, but one of the six songs the campers played at Bunkers was You've Got To Hide Your Love Away.  No drums there, only a tambourine.  Understandably, the drummer looked bored.

The third box is calendar clearance, and for me it was the most problematic.  When you sign up for a camp you are committing to a rehearsal on the same night of the week for four consecutive weeks.  Over the past couple of years RCX offered camps I would have joined but distant travel plans, summer sojourns at the cabin or other local commitments interfered.  For example, there was a Rolling Stones camp I wanted to try about a year ago, but my calendar was already plugged for one or two of the four nights.  (In case you're wondering, no, they were not going to play As Tears Go By, another drumless tune.)

The Foreigner camp was perfect for me.  Check, check and check, and it was designated as a 201.  When I told Momma Cuan I was thinking of "camping," one of her first questions was, "Do you think you can drum as well as the guys you've seen at Bunkers?"  Ordinarily my reply to that kind of question would be "Maybe."  But this time my response was a bold "Yes."  A drummer needs to be confident.  (Plus, it was true.)

When RCX advertises each new camp, it lists the first three songs which the campers will learn and perform.  For the Foreigner camp, those selections were Feels Like The First Time, Hot Blooded and Urgent, all songs I'd heard dozens of times and which had enough drum facets to make it worthwhile for me.  I quickly notified RCX I was down, then sent in my money.  Within a few days they called me in for an audition.  In truth, they refrained from actually calling it an audition, but that's what it was.  (They used the euphemism "camper assessment.")  I drove to the studio where I met one of the coaches, Henry (a fictitious name, as are all the remaining people identified herein), a friendly young guy who inquired about my music background.  After about fifteen minutes he said, "Well, what would you like to play?"  They want to make sure you can actually play the instrument you claim.  I had figured this might happen so I opted for Hot Blooded, the Foreigner song I had practiced the most at home beforehand.  Henry put the original Foreigner track on the powerful audio system and listened to me play along through the first couple of versus and the chorus.  Then something cool happened.  He had strapped on his electric guitar and played along with me (and the record) for the rest of the song.  Great fun!  I was pumped for the camp to begin.

****

Before I go further I should present a little information capsule about Foreigner, and why I was excited to play their music.  The band was formed in New York City in 1976.  As I have written in other music posts, this was the era when pop was giving way to rock, the music was becoming more complex, and radio stations were willing to give air time to songs running over three and a-half or even four minutes.  Foreigner, a six man band, was fronted by lead guitarist Mick Jones, an Englishman, and lead singer Lou Gramm, an American.  The nationalities of the other four members were split evenly, two Brits and two Yanks.  Hence the name "Foreigner" made a lot of sense, and besides that, it was clever.

During its eleven year reign on the charts, Foreigner had sixteen Top 40 hits, nine of which breached the Top 10.  Their very first release, Feels Like The First Time, was a smash, hitting number 4 and staying on the Billboard list for over five months.  In fact their first eight singles, covering a thirty-two month span, all reached the Top 40.  They instantly became international superstars.

Finally, here is an ironic nugget.  Although the group is known as a high energy, hard rockin' band, their two biggest commercial successes were ballads, Waiting For A Girl Like You, a number 2 hit from 1981, and 1984's I Want To Know What Love Is, their only single to ever reach number 1.

For the better part of two months, May and June, I did not listen to any music other than Foreigner, nor did I practice drumming to any music other than Foreigner.  I came to appreciate what a great drummer Dennis Elliott is.  I was challenged to try to come close to some of the amazing things he could do with two sticks in his mitts, things I never noticed until I played the music through head phones on my numerous walks.  Lou Gramm is a tremendous singer, no matter the tempo or style.  Mick Jones is downright filthy on his electric guitar.  The keyboards, manned mostly by Al Greenwood, were essential on many of their tunes.  Every such listening or practice confirmed that I had made a wise move in selecting the Foreigner camp.

Movie Review: "Knives Out"

"Knives Out": A.  If you are a devotee of Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes or the game Clue, the film Knives Out is for you.  As a fan of all three, I loved this movie.  Save for one quibble, it might be the best one I have seen this year.  As a bonus, mix in a brilliantly curated set of songs, a Barney Fifesque police detective, and an ensemble cast comprised of familiar and new faces delivering a blend of humor and sophistication.  As is true with almost any Christie or Holmes mystery, there are foreshadowings, red herrings, clues, disguises, thumps in the dark, creaky staircases and lethal weapons galore, as the title suggests.  The old mansion where much of the action takes place is almost a character in and of itself.   The result of all this is a delight that you may just have to see twice to make sure you didn't miss anything.

The patriarch of the Thrombey family is Harlan (the inestimable Christopher Plummer), who has made his multi-million dollar fortune writing crime novels.  Harlan is no doddering fool; in fact, just the opposite.  Most importantly, he uncannily knows what's going on behind his back.  He has invited his two married children, their spouses and his widowed daughter-in-law to his estate to celebrate his eighty-fifth birthday.  Also present for the festivities are his mother, his two grandchildren, his omni-present personal nurse and the housekeeper.  Before the evening is over, Harlan turns up dead.

It looks like a suicide, but wait.  The body is practically still warm when Dectective Benoit Blanc (former James Bond actor Daniel Craig) and his unintentionally goofy assistant Wagner (Noah Segan) arrive.  Who hired them?  No one seems to know. Pretty soon Blanc has a crime scene on his hands.  At first he stays in the background, making mental notes on each of the guests who attended the party.  We learn that, if truth be told, a majority of them were selfishly waiting for Harlan to pass, thus opening the door to their respective cuts of his estate.  Some held more solid motives to cause Harlan's demise, all of which come to light during a flashback of the birthday party.

Harlan had caught on to an embezzlement scheme orchestrated by widowed daughter-in-law, Joni (Toni Collett), whereby she had been "double-dipping" from the funds he'd provided to pay for her daughter Meg's (Katherine Langford) college education.  Harlan fired his youngest offspring, Walt (Michael Shannon), from his position of operating the publishing side of Harlan's works.  Perhaps Walt's habit of referring to his father's works as "our books" was too much for the old man.  Although oldest child Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis) is sharp and astute -- she had insisted that her husband Richard (Don Johnson) sign a prenup -- she was unaware that Richard and Harlan's young nurse, Marta (Ana de Armas), were having an affair.  Harlan, however, was aware, and threatened to expose Richard's infidelity.  Also during the party, Harlan rebukes his ne'er-do-well adult grandson, Hugh (Chris Evans), for his laziness and terrible attitude, informing the young man that he is now cut off from the will's inheritance.  Thus, there is no shortage of suspects or motives.

In addition to the party flashback, we also witness several re-enactments (via flashback) of Harlan's last moments and the events immediately preceding them.  Three possibilities exist: suicide, accidental death, or cold-blooded murder.  The story does not end when we think it will end.  Toward the end of Christie's Murder On The Orient Express, Detective Hercule Poirot explains to the astonishment of the passengers how he solved the crime.  In similar fashion, many Sherlock Holmes stories wrap up when the master detective, Holmes, pieces together the clues for the benefit of his bewildered colleague, Dr. Watson.  In Knives Out we have Detective Blanc doing much the same.  The majority of his conclusions make sense, but for several of his suppositions we wonder, "How in the world did he figure that out?"  It's all great fun, except for the dearly departed Harlan Thrombey.

Writer-director Ryan Johnson adds splashes of humor and various oddities to keep things light.  Marta the nurse vomits when she lies, an idiosyncrasy which can and does work both for and against her. When various characters refer to her, they do so by naming the South American country from which they think she immigrated: “the Brazilian nurse,” “the Peruvian nurse,” “the nurse from Paraguay,” etc.  This works not as knee-slapping humor but as kind of a subtle inside joke for the viewers. One character refers to the detectives as “CSI: KFC.”  The nearly catatonic grandmother, Great Nana Thrombey (K Callan), is accused of eating all the salmon spread before dinner. The jaunty tunes which often accompany the scene shifting complement the mostly campy atmosphere.  Who ever knew a murder investigation could be anything but drama?

The reading of Harlan’s will in the mansion’s library by family attorney Alan Stevens (Frank Oz), with all members present, is a highlight which comes with a surprise. But it is followed by a restaurant scene where two key characters have a game-changing conversation during which certain admissions are made. That conversation requires the viewers to overlook a credibility gap, because the two characters have had no direct dialogue between themselves, and the admissions seem to be rendered too casually given what's at stake.  That gap temporarily had me lowering my grade to an A-, but the more I thought about the level of entertainment provided by the film as a whole, I decided to stick with my original assessment, A.

Movie Review: "The Lighthouse"

"The Lighthouse": B+.  A small film which defies genre labeling, The Lighthouse might be short on action but makes up for it with killer acting, thick atmosphere and psychological gamesmanship.  Set on a godforsaken New England island in the late nineteenth century, it is the story of two men whose profession is to man the creepy lighthouse while facing sometimes terrifying dangers presented by mother nature and each other's company.  Willem Dafoe is Thomas Wake, the senior member of the duo who obviously has many secrets which he is not willing to share with his newly arrived younger partner, Efraim Winslow.  Winslow is played by English actor Robert Pattinson.

Wake has been on the job for years, and is set in his ways.  In general, he insists on his subordinate, Winslow, doing the heavy lifting and the odorous housekeeping duties.  Those tasks include lugging kerosene drums up the winding staircase, making repairs on the building's exterior, and emptying the bathroom receptacles.  Most suspiciously, Wake cuts Winslow off short when the younger man proposes switching shifts so that he can attend to the beacon.  "No, the lantern is mine," insists the crotchety Wake.

Director Robert Eggers fills the story with many smoke screens, sinister suggestions, eerie sound effects and a haunting score.  The two most notable effects are the usage of black and white 35mm film, and the reduction of the screen via a narrow aspect ratio.  The latter technical devise is particularly appropriate for the many scenes shot in the cramped quarters of the claustrophobic rooms.  We regularly hear the deep bass bellow of a distant fog horn, but there is never a ship in sight.  Perhaps the beam from the lighthouse, warning sailors of the rocky shores, has caused them to steer away.  The constant wind, rain, thunder and lightning adds to the intensity.

At times Wake appears civil, such as trading tales with Winslow as they share  a meal and quaff hard liquor.  But more often than not he is intimidating, even to the point of being dangerous.  The old man reveals a mean streak, like threatening Winslow with a bad job review and docking his hard-earned pay.  He furtively makes entries in a log book which he keeps under lock and key, just as he does the gate which leads to the beacon.  What is it that he doesn't want Winslow to see?  And, why does Wake hide a knife?  Where is all this going to lead?

Some commentators have described The Lighthouse as a psychological horror story in which the two characters lose their minds.  Eggers gives us a heavy dose of sequences for which we are not sure what we're witnessing.  Swimming mermaids, white-haired men on the beaches, the sea swirling and then parting, sea gulls taking on human characteristics.  Are these mid-sleep dreams, hallucinations, or neither?  Is either character seeing what we're seeing, or is Eggers yanking our chain?  We wonder, what was the fate of the junior light keeper who preceded Winslow to this remote outpost?  Does the same fate await Winslow?

On a recent late night talk show, Pattinson recounted that the movie was shot on a distant shore of Nova Scotia, where the closest civilization was a tiny lobster fishing village.  For over a month the cast and crew fought boredom when they were not working, with little to do except prepare for the next day's shoot.  The uncooperative weather was a constant challenge as well.  Pattinson made it sound like coping with such real life conditions made it easier for him and Dafoe to act like they were ready to kill each other.

World Series 2019: Highs And Lows

I'm always a little sad when the final out of the last World Series game is recorded.  Baseball is, after all, the best team sport.  This year I watched many baseball games from late March until the end of October, and not once did an umpire throw a penalty flag on the field.  Contrast that with your typical football game, where it is not uncommon to have several flags thrown on every possession and most special teams plays.  Nor does baseball suffer from an endless succession of time outs in the last three minutes, a la your standard basketball game.  I won't bother to pick on hockey, except to say that it's a lot easier for a fan, especially one watching on television, to see a baseball than a puck.

The 2019 baseball season ended last night, with the Washington Nationals defying the odds and taking down the favored Houston Astros in the seventh and deciding game.  While the Fall Classic remains fresh in my little brain, I must memorialize some of the things which stood out in the Series.

1. The Astros' Assistant GM.  Except for those fans living in the Houston or Washington metropolitan areas, it's probably accurate to say that most baseball viewers were neutral, or at least would not be too upset if the team they preferred ended up losing the Series.  That neutrality ended October 21 when it was revealed by Sports Illustrated that two days before, during the Astros' pennant-clinching victory celebration over the Yankees, Astros Assistant General Manager Brandon Taubman went on a crude rant directed at three female reporters in the clubhouse .  "Thank God we got Osuna,  I'm so [expletive] glad we got Osuna."  Taubman was referring to Roberto Osuna, a relief pitcher who played a prominent role in the playoffs.  Osuna had recently come off an MLB-mandated seventy-five game suspension for his part in a domestic battery case.  The Astros front office at first said nothing, then defended the thirty-four year old executive's behavior, claiming his comments were misconstrued, and even going so far as to claim one of the three women fabricated the story.  It was only after news of Taubman's boorish behavior went viral that the team finally fired him and the team owner publicly apologized.  In the meantime, fans who previously cared little became Nats fans.

2.  Bat Transport.  I can't think of any sport which has more unwritten rules than baseball.  Many if not most of those rules pertain to sportsmanship, particularly taking care not to show up an opponent or an umpire.  For example, it is poor form to attempt base stealing if your team is ahead by seven or more runs in the last two innings.  It is also a no no for a catcher to turn around to face a home plate ump if the catcher feels an obvious strike was called a ball.  A third example: when you hit a home run, don't stand in the batters' box to admire your feat; start trotting around the bases.

Game # 6 of the World Series featured another taboo.  When 'Stros third baseman Alex Bregman hit a first inning home run (his third of the Series and second off Nats starter Stephen Strasburg), he carried his bat to first base!  He made a half-hearted attempt to hand the stick to first base coach Don Kelly, but the handoff failed.  Baseball purists, including old fogies like me, simply shook their heads.  Not only was Bregman showing up Strasburg, he was disrespecting the game.  Then along came the Nats' rookie phenom, twenty year old Juan Soto, in the fifth inning.  Perhaps in an effort to show he and his mates would not be intimidated by the Stros' brashness, he, too, carried his bat down the first base line as he watched his blast sail over the outfield wall.  I can't believe antics such as those displayed by Bregman and Soto would have been chanced if someone from the old days like the Cardinals' Bob Gibson or the Dodgers' Don Drysdale was the opposing pitcher.  (Yep, I am dating myself!)  Those two fireballers, and other pitchers from that era, would have thrown a beanball at the offender the next time he came up to bat.  But nowadays, in this era of ejection warnings, suspensions and heavy fines, batters who break an unwritten rule need not fear retaliation.

3. Base Path Transgression.  The Series’ most controversial play between the lines took place in Game 6.  But first, let me ask you a question.  Did you ever notice that the entire first base bag is in fair territory?  (By the way, the same is true for second base, third base and home plate.)  This means, by virtue of the laws of physics, that at some point, a batter running toward first base is required to glide into fair territory in order to step on the bag.

In the top of the seventh inning of the game in question, the Nationals' Trea Turner weakly nubbed a ball toward third base.  The Astros' pitcher, Brad Peacock, sprang off the mound to field the ball and wildly threw to first baseman Yuli Gurriel.  A good throw would have been aimed to the second base side of Gurriel, but instead Gurriel had to stretch toward foul territory in an attempt to catch Peacock's throw to complete the play.  The ball and Turner arrived at the same time.  Turner inadvertently knocked Gurriel's mitt off his left hand, enabling Turner to reach second and his teammate Yan Gomes to advance from first to third as the ball rolled down the right field line.  Home plate umpire Sam Hollbrook called Turner out for running inside the first base line.  Thus, instead of having runners at second and third with nobody out, the Nationals now had only their slow-footed catcher, Gomes, at first with one out.

The entire Nationals' bench went apoplectic.  Most concerning to the viewing audience was enraged manager Dave Martinez, a heart patient whose cardiologist probably couldn't believe his eyes, envisioning his celebrity patient being dashed to the nearest hospital emergency room.  Martinez had to be restrained by two of his coaches from assaulting Holbrook.

The purpose of the rule requiring the batter to run outside the first base foul line as he nears the bag was intended to provide a fielder (usually the catcher, sometimes the pitcher) a clear shot at throwing a batter out when the ball is hit either in front of the plate or near the first base line.  The rule is not intended to be applied when the ball is fielded to the third base side of the infield, as was the case here.  The Nationals played the rest of the game under protest, which was never adjudicated thanks to all-star hitter Anthony Rendon smacking a game-breaking home run two batters later.

4. Hinch's Hunch.  The manager of the Astros is A.J. Hinch.  He ain't no dummy, either on or off the field.  He led the Astros to the 2017 World Series championship over the favored Dodgers, and he holds a psychology degree from Stanford University.  Hinch, like many managers, leans more toward following a script than going with their gut instinct.  With this background, let's review the fateful move A.J. made in Game 7 of the World Series, the outcome of which would determine the championship.

Going into the top of the seventh inning, the Astros were leading the Nationals 2-0.  The 'Stros were just nine outs away from claiming their second world championship in three years, what some might call the beginning of a dynasty.  On the mound was starter Zach Greinke, one of the best pitchers in Major League Baseball, as evidenced by his current six year contract, signed before the 2016 season, which pays him over $206 million.  Greinke had used only seventy pitches to shut out the Nats over the first six innings, and he got Adam Eaton to tap out to shortstop to start the seventh.  Then, trouble.  The Nats' number 3 hitter, Anthony Rendon, walloped Greinke's next offering over the left field wall to trim the Nationals' deficit to a single run at 2-1.  Next up was the Nats' phenomenal clean-up hitter, Juan Soto, who drew a five pitch walk.  To this point, some managers would have stuck with Greinke, counting on his sixteen years of MLB experience as a starting pitcher and the fact that he still had only thrown eighty pitches.  A.J. is not one of those managers.  His script and cyber stats called for him to go to his bullpen and get a fresh arm to face the bottom half of the Nationals' order.  Out went Greinke, in came reliever Will Harris.  The rest is history.

Howie Kendrick, the Nats' designated hitter and the hero of his team's NLCS victory over the Dodgers, hit the very first pitch he saw from Harris over the right field wall.  Soto scored in front of him and quicker than you can say "gimme a mulligan," the Nationals had a lead they'd never relinquish.  The Nats went on to score three more runs in the last two innings while the Nats' bullpen shut out the Astros, giving up only one single as they protected the lead.  Final score: Washington 6, Houston 2.  The city of Washington gets its first World Series championship since 1924.  That team was the old Washington Senators, which in 1961 moved to Minnesota to become the Twins.

5. Former Twins.  I always watch the World Series but am seldom emotionally tied to either team.  All other things being equal, I'll usually pull for the American League squad for no reason other than that's where the Twins reside.  I have made exceptions over the years, such as rooting for my two favorite NL teams, the Brewers and the Cubs, on the rare occasions (1982 and 2016, respectively) they got that far.  I also find it hard to ever pull for the Yankees or the Red Sox, simply because MLB's "soft" salary cap allows those two franchises to attempt to buy their way to the brass ring.  A notable deviation for me was in 1996, when the Yanks played the Atlanta Braves.  I was not about to cheer for the Braves whose owner, Ted Turner, was married to Hanoi Jane.

The 2019 Series featured two teams, the Astros and Nationals, which I had not paid much attention to this summer.  As stated above, ordinarily I would have hoped the 'Stros would prevail, as they were representing the American League, but this time I just had to pull for the Nats.  It was a question of simple math: the Nats had four former Twins on their twenty-five man roster, while the Astros had but one, relief pitcher Ryan Pressly.  What's more, two of those Nationals players, catcher Kurt Suzuki and second baseman Brian Dozier, are players I've always admired.  (The other two former Twins were the tilted cap-wearing Fernando Rodney, a relief pitcher, and Anibal Sanchez, who was on the Twins spring training roster last year.)  I have been a fan of Suzuki since he made his MLB debut in 2007.  He impressed me as a solid asset to his team, and one who was underrated.  His career batting average of .259 is higher than most teams' catchers are able to achieve.  In their interviews, both he and Dozier are well-spoken and seem like normal, stand-up guys.  Congratulations to them on their first world championship.

6. Bits And Pieces.  Here are a few other nuggets and moments which made an impression from this year's World Series.  a. It is the first time in a seven game series that the home team failed to win a single game.  b. Howie Kendrick and teammate Adam Eaton sitting next to each other in the dugout, pretending to be shifting gears at high speed in a race car and grinning from ear to ear following the most recent big play.  c. The many times throughout the seven games when the home plate ump's strike zone was well off the FOX network's rectangular graphic.  How far away are we from a new era of robots making those calls?  d.  Juan Soto, the Nats' left fielder and clean-up hitter, had his 21st birthday during the Series.  He is well on his way toward being one of the best players in MLB.  He has a plan every time he steps in the batter's box, and never gives the opposition an easy out.  Soto's approach reminds me a lot of the Twins' rookie second baseman, twenty-two year old Luis Arraez.   e. Game 7 of the World Series ended on October 30.  Thirty-one year old Stephen Strasburg, a key starter in the Nationals' rotation and the Series MVP, had until November 2 to decide whether to opt out of the final four years of his seven year $175 million contract.  He was faced with two choices, opt in for the $100 million which he would be paid over those next four years, or leave the $100 million on the table and become a free agent.  Most of the baseball gurus opined that he could make at least twice as much money by opting out of his current contract and signing a new one.                

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXXVII

Once Hollywood is blessed with what it sees as a potential blockbuster franchise, it is loath to let go.  Since the turn of the twenty-first century, we can count on the arrival every year of at least a few sequels of original mega-hits at our favorite theater.  Some of those franchises include Toy Story, Harry Potter, X-Men, Pirates Of The Caribbean, Batman and other Marvel Comic characters.  Each of those films has reaped multi-million dollar profits at the box office.  Even the Rocky franchise, which began forty-three years ago, is still making its presence felt with two sequels in the last four years.  Life has been good for the now-seventy-three year old Rocky creator, Sylvester Stallone.  With some production budgets exceeding hundreds of millions of dollars, studios turning to a previously successful franchise is a prudent gamble compared to taking a chance on new, untested fictional characters.

The movie business didn't always take this conservative approach.  It is generally accepted that the James Bond movies, which began in 1962 with Dr. No, comprised the first modern era franchise.  Those films were based on the exploits of the suave secret agent 007 featured in English author Ian Fleming's spy novels.  Just before the American movie-going public was being introduced to Bond, American readers were gobbling up copies of Mario Puzo's crime syndicate novel, The Godfather.  In a two year span in the early seventies, over nine million copies were sold.  Paramount Studios had been fortunate enough to buy the rights for a mere $80,000 to convert the novel into a full length feature film of the same name.  The Godfather, released in 1972, became one of the most important and highest grossing films of all time.  In my July 26, 2019 post I detailed many of the reasons for its success.

Following the strategy adopted by Eon Productions, the English studio behind the Bond films, Paramount decided to back another film project which would continue the saga of the Corleone family.  That film became The Godfather Part II.  Wisely, Paramount once again joined forces with Francis Ford Coppola, who had directed The Godfather.  This time Coppola was given more latitude, a stewardship rightfully earned by the overwhelming success of the 1972 film.

Of the many challenges facing the production of The Godfather Part II, two merit special mention.  Coppola and Puzo worked together to develop the screenplay for the new film.  When the story shown in the first Godfather movie ended, Michael (Al Pacino) had taken over as the successor to the late Vito Corleone, the character played by Marlon Brando.  Naturally, the sequel would continue the saga of the family under this new leadership.  It was mostly Coppola's idea to combine the sequel with a prequel.  How did Vito Corleone, a poor orphan in a remote Italian village, get to be the powerful New York mob figure shown in the first Godfather?  There are many films which resort to flashbacks and fractured chronologies, with the result being a product that is too gimmicky.  In The Godfather Part II, just the opposite is true.  Coppola masterfully blends the past (the first twenty or so years of the 1900's) and present (roughly 1945-1958) in a fascinating, easy-to-follow story.  It does not hurt that the young Vito Corleone is played by Robert DeNiro, one of the greatest actors of his era.  He was only thirty years old when The Godfather Part II was filmed.

The second major challenge to making The Godfather Part II is the casting of the principal characters.  A studio can advertise a film as a sequel, but unless most if not all of the actors from the prior film reprise their role in the second, the public will probably have a hard time buying into the concept of the latter film being a bona fide sequel.  Coppola had to deal with more than the typical amount of egos to get this accomplished.  Brando refused to work on the project because he felt mistreated by Paramount.  Pacino was in a foul mood because, unlike Brando, his Oscar nomination for the first film was in the "Best Supporting Actor" category, notwithstanding the fact that Pacino had more on-screen time than Brando, who was nominated for, and won, Best Actor.  For his participation in one flashback scene which took only a single day to shoot, James Caan insisted on being paid the same amount he had been paid for playing Sonny in the first film.  (Paramount caved to this request.)  Richard Castellano would not reprise his role of Clemenza unless he could write his own dialogue.  (Paramount did not cave to this request, so Clemenza does not make an appearance in The Godfather Part II.)  What headaches!  It is a small wonder The Godfather Part II was ever produced.

But, produced it was, and the result was a tremendous film which, even to this day, is often labeled the greatest sequel of all time.

****

Here is the handful of films I watched on the tube during the third quarter of 2019:      

1. Death Wish (1974 drama; after his wife, Hope Lange, is brutally murdered, peace loving New York City architect Charles Bronson becomes a one man vigilante force which the cops, led by Vincent Gardenia, don't know whether to salute or stop.)  B

2. The Emmigrants (1971 drama; Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullmann, hard luck nineteenth century Swedish farmers, decide to take their growing family across the perilous Atlantic to America.)  B-

3. The Godfather Part II (1974 drama; in this dual thread narrative, (i) Robert DeNiro is young man Vito Corleone who manages to escape the mafia in 1901, fleeing from Sicily to the United States, and (ii) moving ahead to 1958, Al Pacino has taken over from his late father as the syndicate family's leader.)  A

4. Heidi (1937 drama; eight year old Shirley Temple is kidnapped by her evil aunt Mary Christians from the mountain home of her beloved grandfather Jean Hersholt, and forced to be a companion to a kind, slightly older invalid, Marcia Mae Jones.) B+

5. Laura (1944 detective drama; NYPD police detective Dana Andrews becomes obsessed with the victim as he investigates the murder of executive Gene Tierney.)  B+

6. Ninotchka (1939 comedy; Greta Garbo is a humorless Russian special envoy sent to Paris to retrieve jewelry stolen from the mother country, but she gets distracted when Parisian playboy Melvin Douglas shows her what life in a free nation has to offer.)  A-

7. Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (1961 drama; in gritty industrial Nottingham, England, angry young factory worker Albert Finney impregnates a co-worker's wife, Rachel Roberts, and dates Shirley Anne Field, with whom he's possibly met his match.)   B

8. Thunderball (1965 drama; Sean Connery needs to thwart Adolfo Celi and his evil SPECTRE cronies from holding two stolen hydrogen bombs as ransom against NATO.)  C+

Movie Review: "Linda Ronstadt: The Sound Of My Voice"

[This film] will make you fall in love [with Linda] all over again.
- Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter (2019)

"Linda Ronstadt: The Sound Of My Voice": A.  This year we have witnessed a run of music-related movies, including narrative films and documentaries, in which the focus has been on famous artists who became stars during the sixties and seventies.  On that list are Bohemian Rhapsody (Freddie Mercury), The Quiet One (Bill Wyman) and Rocket Man (Elton John), all films I have reviewed here.*  Four other recent films which I have not yet decided on viewing are (i) the documentary David Crosby: Remember My Name, covering the life of the former Byrds and CS&N member, (ii) Echo In The Canyon, a documentary examining the influence in the mid-sixties of the LA music scene, where Laurel Canyon was the hotbed of creativity for the likes of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson and Michelle Phillips of The Mamas And The Papas, (iii) Yesterday, a comedy whose premise is a scenario in which no one except for the protagonist is familiar with the music of the Beatles, and (iv) Blinded By The Light, the fictionalized story of a Pakistani teenager who senses a connection between his life's challenging circumstances and the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen's songs.

The music film which sets the bar almost unattainably high is the one I just watched, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound Of My Voice.  Ronstadt is the perfect specimen for a biographical documentary.  I am very surprised it took this long for a filmmaker to recognize the practically can't-miss potential and jump into the project.  Congratulations to co-directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman for the excellence of their finished product.

What makes Linda Ronstadt such a foolproof candidate for a full length documentary?  Let's start with her commercial success.  During her multi-decade career spanning 1967 when she was just twenty-one years old until 1990, she managed to place thirty-five singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.  Think about that number for a moment.  That is truly rarefied air.  Twenty-one of those offerings hit the top forty, with ten climbing into the top ten.  When you consider that the seventies marked the beginning of an era when music tastes were changing, with more emphasis being placed on albums, her achievement on the singles chart was remarkable.  Ronstadt was no less successful with album sales, releasing one gold or platinum platter after another.

The second reason flows from the first: Her voice is perfectly clear, evocative and wide ranging.  There was no genre which she was afraid to tackle.  If she came across a song that moved her, she felt a need to record it herself, but in her own manner.  Her recordings cover the gamut, from pop, rock, Motown, country, classical and even Spanish.  In one of the film's segments, Ronstadt reveals the story of how she boldly informed an Asylum Records exec that she was going to record an entire album of songs in Spanish.  The exec thought her idea would result in a financial disaster, but Linda reminded him that she had always been willing to follow the label's guidance.  This time, however, she needed to do a recording for herself.  Her motive and inspiration were to honor her recently deceased father, who was Mexican.  The label acquiesced, and the album, 1987's Canciones de Mi Padre (which translates to Songs Of My Father), soared up the charts.

Another example of Ronstadt's fearlessness was accepting the challenge of performing the leading soprano role in Gilbert and Sullivan's opera, The Pirates Of Penzance, at a point in her singing career when she could have rested on her numerous laurels.  The production ran for almost two full years, 1981-1982, on Broadway.

Despite the fact that Ronstadt did not write her own material, I find it easy to take the position that her covers more than do justice to the original versions.  Some examples, all of which are contained in the documentary, are: Silver Threads And Golden Needles (originally by the Springfields), When Will I be Loved (originally by the Everly Brothers), Heat Wave (originally by Martha & The Vandellas), Blue Bayou (originally by Roy Orbison) and It's So Easy (originally by Buddy Holly).

In contrast to many of the music industry's female singers, Ronstadt was humble, even insecure.  She was the antithesis of a diva.  For example, she insisted that she not be handed the Pirates role until she passed an audition.  When she first saw Emmy Lou Harris in concert, she hoped someday the two would be able to perform together, but she hesitated to suggest it because she felt Emmy Lou was the better singer.  (Most people would call it a draw.)  The two of them, together with icon Dolly Parton, created Trio, one of the best albums of 1987.  A very similar situation involved Aaron Neville, whom Ronstadt greatly admired but balked at approaching for a music partnership.  She thought he was out of her league.  In an on-camera interview, Neville scoffed at the idea that Ronstadt had anything to fear.  Their duet, 1989's Don't Know Much, is silky smooth.  (Note: It's a tossup which of Linda's duets is better, Don't Know Much with Neville, or 1986's Somewhere Out There with James Ingram.  I could listen to those two melodies all day.  Coincidentally, they each attained # 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.)  Linda loved Frank Sinatra's renditions of songs from the forties and fifties, and wanted to cover them herself.  In 1983 she told a New York music insider that in order to do so, she needed an arranger "like Nelson Riddle," who was Sinatra's arranger.  The insider replied, "Why don't you ask Nelson Riddle?"  Ronstadt felt he'd turn her down, but she was wrong.  The three albums resulting from their collaboration (What's New?, Lush Life and For Sentimental Reasons) were masterpieces.

Ronstadt retired in 2011 at age sixty-five.  The following year she was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease.  Many celebrities would never agree to go on camera while fighting such debilitation, but Linda, ever the modest optimist, was game.  She explained to the filmmakers that her speaking voice has changed little, but her illness prevents her from being able to control her singing voice.  Nevertheless, she did perform a short song with two relatives while sitting on her living room sofa.

Besides the sublime subject matter which Linda Ronstadt herself provides in terms of her voice, her alluring charm and her candor, two other key attributes account for the movie's lofty rating in my eyes.  First, as is true with most successful documentaries, the concert footage is exciting and plentiful.  Secondly, don't overlook the fact that not only is Rondstadt alive at age seventy-three, and healthy enough to contribute to this documentary, but so are most of the key people during her long career, such as collaborating singers, producers, band mates, record label honchos and music journalists.  Her contacts list, which in the old days used to be kept on a Rolodex, would include Peter Asher, Ry Cooder, Cameron Crowe, David Geffen, J.D. Souther, all of the original Eagles, and almost all of the other folks mentioned in this post.  The filmmakers interview all of them in the course of the documentary.

My favorite observation comes from Jackson Browne, paired with Ronstadt on an early seventies North American tour.  Because they were both merely starting their careers, they took turns as opening act and headliner.  Browne, who himself became a rock star, admitted that he soon realized it was better for him psychologically to be the opener.  He asked rhetorically, "How would you like to take the stage after Linda every night?"  

____________

* Bohemian Rhapsody reviewed here January 29, 2019; B-.
  The Quiet One reviewed here July 30, 2019; B.
  Rocket Man reviewed here August 24, 2019; B.

The Chinese Grandmother

I have verbally recited the following little story so many times that it has become part of my oral history.  It seems fitting fodder for this blog which, at times, serves as my written history.

I worked in downtown Minneapolis from June 1980 to September 2007.  During the middle third of that twenty-seven year span, I developed the following, rather loosely constructed weekly lunch schedule to which I adhered more often than not:

Mondays: Pizza at Ginelli's, located in the TCF Tower.
Tuesdays: Chicken chow mein at Bamboo Garden, located in the Northstar Center.
Wednesdays: Chili at The Loon (First Ave & 5th Street) if I was flush, otherwise at the Park Cafe located in the Hennepin County Government Center.
Thursdays: Italian meat loaf at Sorrento, located in the Northstar Center.
Fridays: Wild Card, i.e., pick somewhere different each week.

Tuesday lunches at the Bamboo Garden were a special treat for me, because there I would have a ninety second encounter with one of my all-time favorite restaurant people, who is the title character of this post.  Ironically and sadly, I can no longer remember her name.  For this post I'm going to call her "Liu."

One would think it would not be all that difficult to find good chow mein in a major city's downtown, but that was the case in Minneapolis back in the nineties.  I guess we are too far from the west coast to be afforded a large number of choices. In any event, after sampling chicken chow mein at the handful of places serving it within a reasonable walking distance, Bamboo Garden, right across Marquette Avenue from my office, was the winner.  Still operating today in the same Northstar Center location, Bamboo Garden is a Chinese restaurant where the customers, immediately upon entering, go through a cafeteria style line.  The routine calls for picking up a tray, moving from right to left while looking through the glass at the tempting offerings, and communicating selections to an employee behind the glass.  As alluded to above, I did not spend any time mulling over my choice of lunch; it was going to be chicken chow mein, no matter what else was on display.

The employee at the start of the line was Liu, always ready with a smile which would momentarily allow you to forget the stress, politics and mayhem of the office you just left.  Her diminutive stature and winning personality reminded me of my Italian grandma.  Seeing and speaking with Liu was always the highlight of my weekly Bamboo Garden visits, to be immediately followed by the lowlight (explained shortly).  Although I am terrible at guessing a person's age, it's safe to say that Liu was in her seventies, probably a grandmother and perhaps even a great grandmother.  I'm also fairly confident in guessing that she was related to and likely the mother of the much younger woman, whom I'll refer to as "Zhi," at the end of the line.  Zhi multi-tasked behind the counter as the manager and cashier.

Liu's most charming aspect was that she appeared to speak almost no English.  In fact, in all the years I went through her line at the Bamboo Garden, I only heard her say three quasi-sentences, which were interrogatories:

"Here to go?"  Did I plan to eat my lunch in the adjoining dining room, or was this going to be a take-out order?  I always opted for the former.

"Fwie wie, wie wie?"  (Each rhyming with "rye.")  Did I want fried rice or white rice with my chow mein?  Again, I always opted for the former.

Her third question was the one I cherished the most: "Ah pah tie zah?"  Did I want an appetizer, such as an egg roll?  I usually declined.  What I really wanted was for Liu to repeat that third question, but of course I never asked her to do so.  I counted on hearing it every Tuesday afternoon, and she never let me down!

A few months after I started eating at the Bamboo Garden, I told my kids about Liu's marvelous third question.  Her unique pronunciation of "appetizer" thereupon became a staple of the family lexicon.  No one at our dining room table -- well, except for Momma Cuandito -- ever pronounced the word other than in the fashion originated by Liu.  It is an established tradition at the Quentin Estates.

Unfortunately, but understandably, Zhi did not share the enduring charisma of Liu.  Zhi was all business and at times even stern.  She kept the line moving and simultaneously oversaw the dining room, making sure tables were cleared and the bus boys were doing their job.  The lunch business downtown is highly competitive, and I'm sure Zhi felt the burden.  Still, in her apparent quest to turn a profit, she had one practice which was annoying and ridiculous.

As the food plate made its way from Liu's end to Zhi, Zhi would closely examine the portion, making sure that Liu had not been too generous with her ladle full of food.  If Liu had put too much chicken in the chow mein, Zhi would take a pair of tongs, pick the excess chicken off and place it back in the pot.  Keep in mind that what we're talking about here is not ribeye or lobster; it's chicken!  The pieces of chicken were usually tiny, no bigger than the surface area on the nail of a person's little finger.  It would be rare for me to get through the line without Zhi removing four or five of the infinitesimally small nuggets.  If I didn't like Liu so much, Zhi's absurd frugality would have been a show stopper.

I patronized Bamboo Garden for many years.  Then for a string of three or four consecutive weeks  I noticed Liu was no longer there.  I don't know why, but hopefully it was a voluntary retirement in good health.  For a short time afterward I even peeked in the restaurant's window facing 7th Street whenever I happened to be walking by, but there was no sign of her.  Liu's absence opened the door for me to satisfy my Chinese food craving on Tuesdays at a different restaurant called Canton Village, located in the Soo Line Building.  The specialty there was kung pao chicken.  I ate at Canton Village on Tuesdays for at least five years until the owners lost their lease.  Not once did the manager remove any excess chicken from my plate.        

Movie Review: "After The Wedding"

"After The Wedding": C.  A couple of weeks ago Momma Cuandito's sister, The Great Aunt Margaret, explained to her why she had given up watching the television mini-series Yellowstone. "To get into a show I need there to be at least one character I like."   From what I've heard, the Kevin Costner western drama does not meet that minimal requirement.  I thought about Margaret's statement about half-way through After The Wedding.  It was then I realized I was in the same boat as she.  At least with respect to the three female leads, I did not like any of them.  However, I did not walk out; I fulfilled my blogger responsibilities and took one for the team (the "team" being my plethora (?) of readers).  You're welcome.  (Note: Since the turn of the century I have walked out on only one movie, 2001's Moulin Rouge.)

The dialogue in After The Wedding is particularly hard to accept.  There are too many times when a conversation will be taking place in normal fashion, only to be turned upside down by a totally incongruous remark, some taking the form of an outcry.  This is a film with lots of face-to-face meetings, often when a simple phone call would have sufficed.  More meetings result in more dialogue.  Ordinarily I don't mind an above-average quantity of dialogue, provided the script is well-written.  But, the dialogue must flow, not end in a blow up coming out of the blue.

Isabell (Michelle Williams) runs a small orphanage in India.  She has dedicated her life to this mission.  Included among the children is a boy about eight years old named Jai (Vir Pachisia).  Later we learn that Isabell rescued Jai from the streets and has considered him her adopted son.  One day the orphanage learns that it is being considered for a six figure donation from a corporation headquartered in New York City.  This is beyond the wildest dreams of Isabell and her small, grossly underpaid staff.  Up to that point the movie's set up sounds promising.  Then a series of odd circumstances begins to unfold.

The CEO of the prospective benefactor is Theresa Young (Julianne Moore).  By phone, Young insists that Isabell, whom she's never met, fly to New York to discuss the details of the gift.  Young will not consider the orphanage's preference of sending Isabell's top assistant in her stead.  Isabell's absence will be very disruptive, but Young is adamant.  A few days later, when Isabell shows up for her appointment, Young is totally unprepared.  This is unheard of for an executive who runs a huge, highly profitable company.  Young only gives Isabell a couple of minutes of her time, then invites Isabell to her daughter's wedding which is to take place the very next day.  "We can talk more then."  Really?  At her daughter's wedding?

Isabell arrives late for the outdoor wedding.  It's there she spots Oscar (Billy Crudup), Young's husband and the father of Grace, the bride (Abby Quinn).  Isabell had no desire to go to the wedding in the first place, but felt she had to for the sake of keeping the prospective gift to her orphanage in play.  Now, having seen Oscar from the back row, she really does not want to be there.  The two share a history, and it involves Grace.

In the second half of the movie there is a revelation which makes some of the preceding oddities somewhat fathomable, but much of what transpires is still illogical.  In an attempt to avoid a spoiler, I will simply state that the big controversial event from the past which now stirs the pot does not rise to the level of justifying most of the behavior of the three female leads.

Moore is a talented actress, and almost all the super-dramatic moments in After The Wedding are allotted to her character.  Crudup doesn't have that much to do relative to the the females, but he is solid.  Knew You For A Moment, performed by Quinn, is a great song which airs during the closing credits.  I wish I enjoyed her acting as much as her singing.  As for Williams, this is the first of her many screen appearances which left me disappointed.  I still look upon her as a skilled artist, but I must score her work on this one a swing and a miss.

Movie Review: "Rocket Man"

"Rocket Man": B.  The year 1970 was one of the most interesting and important in the history of pop and rock music.  Of course, it was the year that the bickering Beatles officially dissolved.  It was the beginning of the period when songs getting radio play were more likely to be four and a-half minutes long instead of two and a-half.  People seemed to start paying more attention to lyrics.  That impression is supported by the popularity of such singer-songwriters as Joni Mitchell and James Taylor, who each made their Billboard debut in 1970 with Big Yellow Taxi and Fire And Rain, respectively.  Cat Stevens just missed the "cutoff" with Wild World, which hit the charts in mid-February, 1971.  The ensuing decade saw the emergence of what, today, we call "classic rock" bands, such as Journey, Styx, Heart, Boston and Foreigner.

Another singer-songwriter who came along in 1970 was Elton John, whose Border Song and Your Song both appeared on the Billboard charts that year.  The film Rocket Man is his story, taking us through most of the '70's by which time he was an international star.  Even though the movie is about a musician, I did not know beforehand that it was a musical.  Thus I was taken by surprise when the opening scene segues from a support group conversation, not unlike an AA meeting, into a full-fledged song and dance extravaganza to the tune The Bitch Is Back.  As it turns out, virtually all the characters with speaking parts are called upon to sing.

Twenty-nine year old British actor Taron Egerton, an Elton lookalike who does his own singing, plays the troubled entertainer.  In addition to vocal talent, the role calls for a display of a variety of emotions, mannerisms and oddities.  Egerton nails each challenge.  In fact, as I shall attempt to explain below, it is the performance of Egerton that justifies my grade of B for this film, which otherwise merits a B-.

Much of the story takes place via flashback, beginning with the sad childhood of Reginald Dwight, the real name of Elton John.  His mother, Sheila (Bryce Dallas Howard), is practically a floozy, while his father, Stanley (Steven Mackintosh), is as psychologically abusive as they come.  (Since director Dexter Fletcher takes great pains to match the sound track's many hits to the context of the respective scenes during which they are played, I wish the Foreigner song Cold As Ice had been an Elton song.  It would have fit perfectly when Stanley was on-screen.)  Were it not for little Reginad's kind-hearted paternal grandmother, Ivy (Gemma Jones), he may have run away from home.  It was Ivy who encouraged his musical gift and saw to it that her grandson found his way to London's Royal Academy Of Music.  In a predictable but still tender scene, Reggie astonishes an academy instructor who is auditioning him by performing a short complicated piano piece from memory.  Nine year old actor Matthew Illesley is adorably cute playing the part of young Reggie.

Once Reggie is on his own he changes his name to Elton John, a metaphorical act to put his childhood behind.  According to the film, he chooses "John" as his new surname on the spur of the moment while glancing at a picture of John Lennon.  I do not know if that snippet of information is fact or fiction, but it does beg the question of what name he would have chosen had a picture of Ringo instead of John been on the wall.

The film delves into Elton's sexual orientation without leaving much to the imagination, at least for a mainstream musical.  Early in his career Elton is outed by a member of a singing group for which he'd been hired as a sideman.  But it isn't until he crosses paths with manipulative manager John Reid (Richard Madden) that his private life turns in a decidedly different direction.  How will his relationship with Reid affect his acceptance with music fans, disc jockeys and record label execs?

Apparently it's standard that a story about a rock celebrity should include a manager who is either deranged, diabolical, disapproving or dishonest.  Examples include Brian Wilson's manager, Eugene Landy, in Love & Mercy (reviewed here June 20, 2015; B),  and Freddie Mercury's manager, Paul Prenter, in Bohemian Rhapsody (reviewed here January 29, 2019; B-) .  In Rocket Man we get a double dose with Reid, whose unethical professional practices contribute to Elton's drug addiction, and record label exec Dick James (Stephen Graham), who for the longest time fails to see the musical brilliance of his prospective client.  To give credit where it's due, however, James is responsible for setting up Elton with a gig at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, the gateway to success in America.  (Note: The film's most ludicrous episode shows Elton taking the stage for the most important moment of his career without rehearsing even one song with the house band which will be backing him up.)  

Among the shortcomings of Rocket Man is the short shrift given to two female characters.  The marriage of Elton to Renate Blauel (Celinde Schoenmaker) is possibly the low point of the movie. Who is this bride, what is her background, and how did Elton meet her?  None of these questions is answered.  My guess is that director Fletcher thought he needed to check that particular box, heterosexual marriage, to make the biopic complete.  I don't believe Schoenmaker is on the screen more than ninety seconds.  Secondly, I was dismayed by the failure of the movie to give any information whatsoever regarding Elton's duet partner, Kiki Dee (Rachel Muldoon), who teamed up with him on the hit Don't Go Breaking My Heart, one of my three favorite Elton songs.

The hero of the story is Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell).  Introduced to Elton by Dick James, Bernie was the guy who furnished the lyrics to Elton's music.  Bernie stood by Elton through all the ups and numerous downs.  In one memorable early scene, Elton makes a romantic pass at Bernie, who by this time knew Elton was gay.  Bernie, a heterosexual, smoothly and without insult, tells Elton, "I love you, but not in that way."  Message delivered.  Leave it to the man who makes his living with words to come up with the right language to say, in effect, "no" without severing the friendship and partnership.  Without Bernie's relatively unheralded contributions, we may never have heard of Elton John.

Fast-Tracked

Nobody likes a long sermon, or "homily" if you prefer that euphemism.  It follows that no one wants to read a lengthly piece about a sermon.  With that in mind I will keep this post on the short side.

This past Monday, August 5, the Catholic Church celebrated the feast of the Transfiguration.  As church holidays go, the Transfiguration gets scant attention.  For example, it is not a holy day of obligation, so attendance at Mass is not mandatory.  In 2002 Pope John Paul II decided that the three traditional sets of mysteries of the rosary (Joyful Mysteries, Sorrowful Mysteries and Glorious Mysteries) which had been in place for decades did not suffice, and he therefore added the Luminous Mysteries.  Until that proclamation the Transfiguration was not a mystery of the rosary at all.  There are not as many parishes named in honor of the Transfiguration as there are for other other mysteries such as the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Resurrection or the Ascension.  According to my crack research team, the number of parishes named for the Incarnation easily surpasses the number for the Transfiguration, even though most Catholics view the two events as commemorating the same thing, i.e., the human nature of God.

In all honesty, when I attended Mass at Our Lady Of Lourdes last Monday, I did not know it was the feast of the Transfiguration until the celebrant, Father David Haschka, S.J., who is the parish's senior associate pastor, announced it at the start of his five minute sermon.  I'm often guilty of tuning out sermons, but his intro caught my attention and it turned out to be five minutes well spent.  Any time a priest or minister has a personal experience to tie into a scripture reading, that's a plus.  Father Haschka's little talk has stuck in my mind all week, so I want to memorialize it here before I forget.

He started by stating he wanted to tell us a short story going back to his days as a young student at the Jesuit seminary in St. Louis.  At the beginning of spring break he made a cardboard sign that indicated his home destination, Omaha, and went out to the highway to thumb a ride.  "In those days you could do that sort of thing," he wistfully lamented.  As one who hitchhiked hundreds of miles in the sixties, I had to agree.  It certainly was a different time, in many ways.

Young Haschka wasn't standing on the side of the road long before a car picked him up.  The driver told him he was headed to Des Moines.  This was great news for Haschka, as Des Moines, 340 miles from St. Louis, was only 130 miles from Omaha.  Thus, a good chunk of his odyssey would be taken care of in one ride!  But about fifteen minutes into the trip, the driver pulled into the St. Louis airport.  "I thought you said we were going to Des Moines," the seminarian protested.

"We are," came the reply.  It turned out the driver owned a private jet and sure enough, he flew Haschka to Des Moines.  It took less than forty-five minutes!

"I guess you could say my journey home was fast-tracked," recalled Father Haschka from the pulpit.

He then recounted the story of the Transfiguration.  In a nutshell, the Transfiguration occurred when Jesus took three of his apostles, Peter, James and John, to the top of an unnamed mountain, ostensibly to pray.  While there, the face of Jesus changed brilliantly, his clothes became dazzling white, and two Old Testament figures, Moses and Elijah, stood next to him and conversed with him.  Shortly thereafter, a voice from an overhanging cloud proclaimed, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.  Listen to Him."

Keeping in mind that these three apostles were simple fishermen, you can imagine how astonished and terrified they were.  Up until that point they had witnessed a few miracles, but those were performed by Jesus, not to Jesus.  He had spoken of his Father, but this episode on the mountain was a first-hand experience for the three hand-picked followers.  They were seeing something previously unseen by any other human.  The Church considers this event, the Transfiguration, as a key to establishing two of its principles, the dual nature of Christ, human yet divine, and the existence of "God the Father."

The twelve apostles were selected by Jesus to spread his word.  To do that effectively, they had to believe in their hearts and minds that Jesus was truly the son of God.  Although all of the apostles (excluding Judas) and many other disciples were willing to follow Christ, the degree to which their faith was steadfast probably varied.  But for Peter, James and John, having been present for the Transfiguration and seeing it first hand, the challenge of acquiring the requisite faith was made easy.  As Father Haschka put it, "Their faith was fast-tracked."

Movie Review: "The Quiet One"

Would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone?

- Anonymous (1964)

"The Quiet One": B.  When the Rolling Stones first came to the U.S. in 1964, and for many years thereafter, Bill Wyman was their bass player. One of the band's founders, Wyman preferred to avoid the limelight, standing off to the side or in the back while Mick Jagger was shaking and baking in front. The Beatles and the Stones each had a member dubbed "The Quiet One." For the Beatles it was George Harrison; for the Stones it was Wyman.

The Stones first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show on October 25, 1964, eight and a-half months after the Beatles' first appearance on that all-important Sunday evening variety show.  We teenagers had been listening to Stones' music on the radio for months, but never got to see them until their national television debut.  When the time finally arrived, most fans were devoting their collective attention to lead singer Jagger and lead guitarist Keith Richards.  But I was more intrigued by rhythm guitarist Brian Jones, probably because he had the greatest hair in the rock world, and by bass player Wyman.  There was something about the latter's stoicism which set him apart.  He held the neck of his instrument cocked upward at an 80 degree angle instead of parallel to the floor like other guitarists.  He appeared aloof, even while performing in front of hundreds of screaming girls.  Was he being cool, or was he disinterested?

The Stones seemed darker with more of an edge than their fellow countrymen like the Beatles, the Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits or Gerry & The Pacemakers.  Their first top ten hit in the States, peaking at number 6 on the Billboard charts, was Time Is On My Side, of which the band actually recorded two versions.  The version which got less airplay was my favorite because of its spooky falsetto fadeout.  Contributing to the eeriness was Wyman's Prince Valiant hair style, an accurate description for which I must credit Star Tribune critic Jon Bream.  Ed Sullivan made room for just two Stones' songs that memorable October night, a cover of Chuck Berry's Around And Around, a strange choice given the fact that the Stones never released that tune as a single, and Time Is On My Side to close the show.

The Quiet One is a documentary which relies almost exclusively on Wyman's comprehensive, invaluable and historic stockpile of Rolling Stones memorabilia which he has painstakingly curated over the last six decades.  Wyman explains that he felt an obligation to make a written record of events which transpired during his days with the Stones.  We are the beneficiaries of Wyman's sense of duty.  It ironically turns out that this quiet, almost reclusive performer has a lot to say, and a personality belied by his on-stage persona.  Some of his ideas are expressed through his photography.  Additionally, Wyman has amassed a huge collection of tape recordings and videos, complete with a variety of compatible devices on which to play them, plus posters, buttons, costumes, instruments, charts, set lists, and all things apropos to Rolling Stones.  This bounty is securely stored in a home library, with complete inventory lists on file.  It is a safe bet that an accounting of anything Stones-related since the band's 1963 formation is contained in Wyman's archives.  Undoubtedly referring to his days of heavy drug usage, Richards has said, "If I want to know what went on in those years, I have to ask Bill Wyman."

The documentary could use a little more -- in fact a lot more -- concert footage.  In spots it suffers from too many slow horizontal pans, reminiscent of most of Ken Burns' offerings.  One clever production gimmick is the use of shots from a camera positioned at a distance directly behind a man with a full head of gray hair.  The silent subject is sitting at a desk.  Sometimes the camera gets closer, but it isn't until the end of the movie that we see his face.  Is it Bill?

It is likely that The Quiet One will be appealing only to rock music fans and historians.  Still, for those of us who fall into one of those broad categories, it does furnish insight and behind-the-scenes snippets of the band which is in its seventh decade of existence.  What was once unofficially a sextet and officially a quintet is now a quartet.  From the original lineup, Jagger, Richards and drummer Charlie Watts are still touring.  Wyman, who is almost seven years older than Jagger and had a brief career in the British air force as a teenager, retired from the band in 1993.  Some of the documentary takes us up to the present day, as Wyman has kept busy with his own band, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings.  But as one would expect, the main focus is on his days as a Stone.

Wyman tells filmmaker Oliver Murray that in his view, the job of the bassist is to complement the music without drawing attention to himself.  Wyman is the personification of this approach.  Wyman and drummer Watts, another understated musician, will go down in history as one of rock's best rhythm section duos.