Pop Culture Lunch Box

Margin Call a Sleeper Pick for Movie of the Year

2012-01-23T23:38:00.001-05:00

The New Yorker magazine recently called Margin Call "easily the best Wall Street movie ever made." That is a fair judgement, and although I still think Wall Street is the best of the genre for pure entertainment's sake, Margin Call is much deeper and wholeheartedly gripping.

The film leaves the viewer asking questions every step of the way and serves as an analogy for how greedy the 1 percenter executives are and how helpless the 99 percent investing public.

Kevin Spacey shines as his usual unlikeable, slightly creepy, yet somehow sympathetic self as the boss of his floor of mortgage-backed traders at an investment firm patterned after the likes of Lehman Brothers. Demi Moore, Paul Bettany, Simon Baker, and Jeremy Irons as fellow executives doing their parts to cover-up a scheme that will leave potentially millions destitute are also wonderful. And Zachary Quinto (pictured) is a young star-in-the-making as the brainiac numbers-cruncher who helps his boss, played typically well by Stanley Tucci, figure out the internal crisis that is already underway at the firm. Incidentally, Quinto also has a role in one of my favorite new TV shows, American Horror Story.

This is certainly a sleeper as one of my finalists for movie of the year.

****1/2 out of ***** stars

George Clooney Shines in Layered Performance of The Descendants

2012-01-18T01:10:00.001-05:00

I went to see George Clooney in The Descendants the other night at the same time the film was named best dramatic picture at the Golden Globes. And while I'm a little surprised this is considered the year's top drama, there is no doubt that it is the study of a complex individual in a heartbreaking situation.

Clooney also won best actor in a drama. He was the reason I wanted to see the movie. Along with the always-lovely-to-see setting of Hawaii. And Clooney does not disappoint. This layered performance is one of his deepest character explorations and ranks high in his top 15 movies.

Shailene Woodley is also amazing as one of Clooney's daughters, left behind by a mother lapsed into a coma after a boating accident. She is believable and lovable all the way through her transformation from a crazy kid to a responsible and helpful adult during the short time arc of the story.

Director Alexander Payne now has a perfect trifecta of Election, Sideways, and The Descendants. He, along with Clooney, have really solidified themselves as a couple of the greats.

****1/2 out of ***** stars

Hollywood Movies Stink Up a Recent Flight for Me

2012-01-13T00:42:00.001-05:00

Being a newish dad, I don't watch the sheer amount of movies I did when I was younger. So I either make sure most of what I see is award-worthy or at the other end of the spectrum and completely brain-dead fun.

Apparently, I'm not missing much out of Hollywood these days. And unfortunately, I only hit the mark of my requirements for three of the movies I watched on a recent really long flight.

Pathetically, the film that met those requirements was Bad Teacher. And when that is the pick of your film marathon, it inspires a big "oh boy."

That said, my expectations were low, and Bad Teacher was actually pretty enjoyable. Cameron Diaz was back near her It's a Shame About Mary level of hilarity, Jason Segal (see The Muppets and Forgetting Sarah Marshall) seems to be can't-miss these days, and Justin Timberlake was sufficient. Perhaps I was delirious towards the end of said long flight, but it seemed to actually be a pretty decent statement on the quality of many of our schools and some of the superficialities of our society in general.

Where the allure of the latest film version of the classic novel Jane Eyre lies, I don't know. I just didn't get the boring BBC production of this one. I think the main problem was that leads Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender had no dramatic range whatsoever, despite the next-big-thing status of each. This is one of the few movies I've seen lately that was almost routinely adored by critics but shrugged off by me.

But the movie I was really disappointed by was Super 8. It seemed like this would be Stand By Me-like, with a bunch of unproven kids steering a Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams (of Lost) production. It starts promisingly, and then a massive train explosion that the group witnesses seems like it will take the story in interesting directions. But then it dragged so slowly towards a completely forgettable conclusion that badly wanted to be E.T. but was more like a SyFy Channel show that gets cancelled after the pilot. I can't begin to understand what Hollywood was thinking with Super 8.

Bad Teacher: *** out of ***** stars
Jane Eyre: ** out of ***** stars
Super 8: *1/2 out of ***** stars

Second City Ramps Up the Absurd at Woolly Mammoth with Spoiler Alert: Everybody Dies

2012-01-05T23:34:00.000-05:00

If you haven't been to DC's Woolly Mammoth to catch Second City's Spoiler Alert: Everybody Dies, you've got one more weekend to hop to it. Actually, it's probably sold out, so good luck.

But it's sold out for good measure. This is by far the funniest show I've ever seen at DC's best theater. While the plot gets at something to do with death, mortality, fate, and civilization's impending doom, the real point of seeing this show is that it's like a classic episode of Saturday Night Live, up close and in person.

Some audience members are more up close than others. The cast starts by pretending there is a delay and technical problems, so it engages some audience members in chit chat, some of whom then get reinserted into the action as the play unfolds.

Aaron Bliden is the funniest actor of a funny bunch, especially in his absurd vignette with a burrito. Scott Montgomery is wildly creepy as a TSA agent who details the personal statistics of several surprised audience members. Maribeth Monroe, of Comedy Central's Workaholics, is hilarious as a leathery casino patron. And James Alfred does a pitch perfect Barack Obama, and even strips a little like he might in real life.

This is a great slice of entertainment, and I hope Woolly continues to go in this direction. A Bright New Boise, which preceded Spoiler Alert, also headed down this absurdist path.

****1/2 out of ***** stars

My Top 70 Albums of 2011: What Do You Think?

2011-12-31T23:33:00.000-05:00

I've mistakenly thought, for the past few months, that 2011 may have been a stinker for music. But then I started to compile my list of favorite albums, and there was actually a lot I loved this year.

To make this list, an album needed to capture my imagination all the way through. Which means that a record with only a couple of great songs (like those of Paul Simon, Jeff Bridges, Britney Spears, or Lady Gaga, for a few examples) would have a very difficult time making my list.

What's impressive about this year is that at least the top 20 (from Girls to a supposed Amy Winehouse posthumous throwaway) are potential classics. The list goes deep with tons of promising new bands appearing as well.

Listen to my "Top 20 Albums of 2011" playlist for free at my Spotify account. And if you haven't discovered the Spotify streaming-music phenomenon, I recommend you dig in. It's my favorite online music system and has just about everything. I subscribe to the $10 monthly option, which gives me Spotify on all my laptops, desktops, and devices. But there are also free and $5 monthly option.

For my favorite 20, plus my other favorite 50 behind that, here you go:

70 - Cage the Elephant - Thank You Happy Birthday
69 - Death Cab for Cutie - Codes and Keys
68 - Brian Wilson - In the Key of Disney
67 - R.E.M. - Collapse Into Now
66 - Daryl Hall - Laughing Down Crying
65 - Ben Lee - Deeper Into Dream
64 - Boston Spaceships - Let It Beard
63 - Bill Callahan - Apocalypse
62 - Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
61 - Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
60 - Iron and Wine - Kissing Each Other Clean
59 - Garfunkel and Oates - All Over Your Face
58 - A.A. Bondy - Believers
57 - Jay-Z and Kanye West - Watch the Throne
56 - British Sea Power - Valhalla Dance Hall
55 - Robert Pollard - Space City Kicks
54 - Foo Fighters - Wasting Light
53 - F*cked Up - David Comes to Life
52 - St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
51 - Wild Flag - Wild Flag
50 - J. Mascis - Several Shades of Why
49 - Bright Eyes - The People's Key
48 - Widowspeak - Widowspeak (Shoegazer)
47 - Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit
46 - Jason Isbell and the 400 Units - How We Rest
45 - The Elected - Bury Me in My Ring
44 - Fountains of Wayne - Sky Full of Holes
43 - Ash - The Best of Ash
42 - Thurston Moore - Demolished Thoughts
41 - The Streets - Computers and Blues
40 - Veronica Falls - Veronica Falls (Power Pop)
39 - Let's Wrestle - Nursing Home
38 - Admiral Fallow - Boots Met My Face
37 - Young the Giant - Young the Giant (Power Pop)
36 - Those Darlins - Screws Get Loose
35 - Ryan Adams - Ashes & Fire
34 - The Kooks - Junk of the Heart
33 - Foster the People - Torches
32 - CSS - La Liberacion
31 - Charles Bradley - No Time for Dreaming
30 - Comet Gain - Howl of the Lonely Crowd ?
29 - Meat Puppets - Lollipop
28 - Urge Overkill - Rock and Roll Submarine (Power Pop)
27 - Big Talk - Big Talk
26 - Beirut - The Rip Tide
25 - Glen Campbell - Ghost on a Canvas
24 - The Cars - Move Like This
23 - Givers - In Light
22 - Smith Westerns - Dye It Blonde
21 - Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers - Rare Bird Alert
20 - Amy Winehouse - Lioness: Hidden Treasures
19 - My Morning Jacket - Circuital
18 - Arctic Monkeys - Suck It and See
17 - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Belong
16 - Buffalo Tom - Skins
15 - I'm From Barcelona - Forever Today
14 - Big Sean - Finally Famous
13 - Destroyer - Kaputt
12 - Deer Tick - Divine Providence
11 - Jonny - Jonny
10 - Tommy Stinson - One Man Mutiny
09 - Telekinesis! - 12 Desperate Straight Lines
08 - The Decemberists - The King is Dead
07 - Megafaun - Megafaun
06 - Architecture in Helsinki - Moment Bends
05 - Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Mirror Traffic
04 - Wilco - The Whole Love
03 - Mazes - A Thousand Heys
02 - Yuck - Yuck
01 - Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost

Tell me what you think. What did I miss? What was your favorite album(s) of the year?

Classic Reads: Of Mice and Men's Raw and Failed American Dream

2011-12-25T12:44:00.001-05:00

Find the other parts of this ongoing series of "Classic Reads" in the Books section.

It was a pleasure to reread one of my first favorite classics from young childhood, Of Mice and Men. Everyone knows this one, so there's not much to say about its legendary status.

The story takes place over three days during the Depression in Salinas Valley, California, where simple-minded giant Lenny Small walks down a dusty path with his friend and protector George Milton. They are headed towards a ranch to become barley bucks, which should be an easy job to land, as long as George does all the talking for his buddy who got "kicked in the head by a horse when he was a kid. He's alright. Just ain't bright."

Curley, the rancher's son and a former boxer who likes to intimidate the hired help, chooses the wrong person in Lenny to pick on. Lenny pummels him, breaking every bone in Curley's hand.

Next, Lenny accidently kills a little puppy who he loves too much and accidently mauls. He then accidentally does the same to Curley's wife, breaking her neck in the barn while a game of horseshoes goes on outside.

Lenny runs away and a manhunt ensues. Luckily, George finds him before anyone else does. Knowing he has no other choice, George, for one last time, recounts the story of how they would work hard and someday own a farm together, before he points a gun at Lenny's head and kills him, knowing they would never escape Curley's hatred.

This short novel is so classic because it epitomizes the everyday heroes of the time, many of whom had nowhere to go but tragically downward as they pursued the raw and elusive promise of America.

***** out of ***** stars

John Jeremiah Sullivan and the Surprising Humanity Behind the Lives of Christian Rock Fans

2011-12-25T12:19:00.000-05:00

A recent article in The New Yorker turned me on to John Jeremiah Sullivan's hilarious takes on the pop-culture landscape. I purchased his collection called Pulphead: Essays and just finished the first story, called "Upon This Rock," which is no letdown.

Sullivan decides to document the Cross-Over Festival in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri -- three days of "top Christian bands at some isolated Midwestern fairground." He decides he'll post an invitation for fair-goers to hitch a ride with him as he makes his way there from the East Coast. What he doesn't expect is that the youth experience he's hoping to document is not a bunch of twenty-somethings, but rather mostly prepubescent tweens, who soon attack him online as being some sort of pervert on a "questy missiony thing."

Soon enough, he decides to change plans and instead hit an even bigger Christian rock festival called Creation Fest in rural Pennsylvania, which happens to begin the next day.

Sullivan does a great job in this essay of not prejudging the characters he would soon meet, which would be all too easy to do, especially with this subject matter. He finds the 100,000 people in attendance, in general, "exceptionally kind" and different from the guys at sporting events who generally seem to have a dark machismo and appear to be just waiting for something bad to happen.

He meets a group of West Virginia dudes with whom, surprisingly, he becomes enamored. "They were passionate to make me see what kinds of guys they were." They were hardened by their violent lives and had given all their anger to God. But other than that, they were entirely likable and not much different from non-God-y guys.

Sullivan's take on Christian rock is funny too. He says a Christian band is one that simply has Christians in it and can be quite good, like U2. But a Christian rock band is one that has no desire to be artistic or original because it simply needs to play something "proven to please ... while praising Jesus Christ." It is fail-proof to these audiences because it automatically carries a message that they will approve of. Sullivan speaks almost not at all of the music because it doesn't matter. Either it's fine because you agree with it or "if you think it profoundly sucks, that's because your priorities are not its priorities."

This is the most thoughtful take on an extremely weird and foreign subject matter to me. I can't wait to dig into the rest of the essays in Pulphead, including ones on Axl Rose, reality TV, his brother's near-death electrocution, and more.

**** out of ***** stars

Meet Anoop Singh, Our Favorite Cab Driver in Durban

2011-12-22T10:10:00.001-05:00

I referred to him in the last blog, as the guy who took us to our safari three hours northeast of Durban, South Africa and even accompanied us on two of our three treks into thebush. But his own story is deserving in its own right.

Anoop Singh (pictured on our boat safari of the St. Lucia Estuary, with my colleague Matt Barrett) was driving some passengers in his minivan about 10years ago when he was shot in the shoulder and robbed. He lost so much bloodthat he should have died. He suffered extensive nerve damage, went on morphinefor three months, and still has limited use of his disfigured left arm andhand.

He says a preacher healed him and he was able to stop takingthe morphine. Although he never drank or smoked, he became born again andcleansed himself of any vices, including gambling. Two days after he was bornagain, he says his assailant was shot dead.

On another occasion, Anoop suffered a rare eye disease andwent blind for 10 days. At least that’s what his doctor said, but he thought itwas from straining his eyes from driving too much.

With Singh, the stories kept coming. He claims his firstancestor to immigrate to South Africa, in 1860, had two wives and worked in thesugar fields. After five years of working, the family was given the optionof going back to India or getting a piece of the land they had worked on. Theychose the latter. He said his family in South Africa now consists of 930people, and many of them work in the transport sector.

The only one I was really wary of was his claim of beingrelated to Ghandi. Isn’t it a myth that every Indian says he's related to Ghandi, or something like that?Nevertheless, he said Ghandi’s granddaughter, Ela Ghandi, was married to his“granny’s brother," which at least seems pretty feasible.

Some “Cabbie Facts” About Durban, South Africa

2011-12-15T13:01:00.002-05:00

Since my previous travel posts, there has been a lot more I've learned about the fascinating city ofDurban, most of it courtesy of our driver for our safari, Anoop Singh.

A fifth-generation Durbanite himself, Singh said the firstIndians arrived in 1860 at about the same time the English were building thecity outwards, so as not to “cram too many people in.” I reported in a previousblog that the city’s population is 6 million, but Singh said it is between 4.8and 5.2 million. He was encyclopedic, so I’ll take his work for it.

Some other interesting tidbits courtesy of Singh:

He said the government spends a lot of money onroads, and you can tell. Most U.S. cities could learn quite a bit from theSouth Africans.

And because of the port, one of the busiest inthe world, Durban is located in the most densely populated province of thecountry.

South Africa is the second-largest exporter ofsugarcane behind Brazil – some 550,000 tons each year.

Durban has a beautiful promenade (see photo of me on the promenade with a rented bicycle, and that white building in the background is my highly recommended hotel, the Southern Sun North Beach) that stretchesfor miles down the beach. The rare times I got some exercise during the climateconference, I took full advantage of it. It was completed in May 2010 in timefor the World Cup.

Playin' Those Mind Games with Black Swan and Horrible Bosses

2011-12-13T07:21:00.000-05:00

Shows you just how busy I've been at the UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa for the past two weeks: I haven't even reviewed the two movies I watched on the international red-eye over here.

One was excellent, and the other was a bit of a comedic let-down. First, the excellent.

Black Swan had been on my list for a while. Certainly not because of the ballerina plot line, but rather because two of my favorite actresses (Winona Ryder and Mila Kunis) star in it. And they don't disappoint, with Ryder as a washed-up superstar and Kunis as this generation's Winona Ryder (cute-and-dirty in the same package).

The psychological thriller watches the also-excellent and Academy Award-winner Natalie Portman fall into a tailspin as she tries to play both the white swan and the black swan in the upcoming production. The black part gives her fits, and her forceful director (the perfectly-cast Vincent Cassel) is just the tip of the iceberg of her problems.

Portman and Kunis trained hard to do a lot of their own ballet moves in the film, despite a controversy that flaired up from one of their body doubles saying they didn't do as many of the moves as the actresses said they did. Nevertheless, this is a film on par with some of Alfred Hitchcock's best. And Hitchcock being my favorite director, that's saying quite a lot.

The second movie I watched on the plane also involved mind games, albeit of much-less-dramatic sort. The comedy Horrible Bosses doesn't always work, but it generally supplies a good time, and the cast is hard to beat.

Jason Bateman is tormented by his satanic corporate boss Kevin Spacey, who is at his ruthless best. Charlie Day plays nearly the same role he plays in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is fine, since that role is so hilarious. He is trying to keep his mind on his fiancee, but an over-the-top seductress boss by the name of Jennifer Anniston does her best to spoil his efforts. And Jason Sudeikis, who has never stood out for me on Saturday Night Live, is very solid as the good guy at a company with an uncaring, coke-snorting sleazeball of a boss.

Much as I love many of the actors here, the true star is Jamie Foxx, in a bit part as the gang's hitman they hire to off their three horrible bosses. Every line that comes out of his mouth is brilliant, and he actually saves this movie from becoming an unexpected stinker.

It took the director six years to make this film because of all types of production issues, and word is there's a sequel in the works. That may be the worst part about this movie, because this one would've probably been a good one to just let rest.

Black Swann: ****1/2 out of ***** stars
Horrible Bosses: *** out of ***** stars

Sharks, Warrior Paint, and Pedal Power Over the Weekend in Durban

2011-12-04T11:08:00.001-05:00

Durban continues to be an interesting city to be visiting for two weeks of work. After attending something called Forest Day, I had an hour or so to walk (and jog again) around the beach near my hotel.

So I snapped a few photos. The best one is of this baobab tree replica. That is my hotel in the background and the energy these fellows are generating from pedaling is lighting up the tree.

On Saturday night, my Nature Conservancy delegation celebrated the half-way point of the UN climate conference by going to Moyo, a fun touristy place on The Point a few miles down the beach from our hotel. Some of the more interesting items on the menu include sprinkbok, octopus tentacles, and snoek. That's some of their entertainment in the photo below. And there I am with my warrior paint on my face, courtesy of our waitress.

Moyo is at the end of a long outdoor shopping mall and it's next to Durban's allegedly world-famous aquarium, called uShaka Marine World. I'm hoping to get back there because I'm told the sharks swim above visitors while they walk through.

Another thing about sharks off the coast of Durban. Supposedly it is true that this city, where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic, sports the highest concentration of sharks in the world. The good thing is that there are nets offshore and they can't get to all the swimmers and surfers. Apparently there's only been one shark/human incident in the past several years, during a storm when a shark was able to get around the net.

Welcome to My World for 15 Days: Durban, South Africa

2011-12-02T17:55:00.001-05:00

So this is my fourth night in Durban, South Africa to attend the annual UN climate conference and I have yet to post a single blog post. I've been working the usual 18 hours a day and there's just no time.

I stayed in tonight to find some down time, but it's now 1 a.m. and I've finally just stopped working long enought to write this. Not that I'm complaining. It's fun and challenging work. And Durban is really interesting. Here's a little of what I've learned so far.

Durban is the third largest city in South Africa. A guy named Raj, who I met while pedaling bicylces that power up the lights on an art installation in front of my hotel, said it has a population of 6 million.

Durban has the biggest population of Indians anywhere outside of India, which probably explains why most of my meals have been Indian. In fact, Raj called in my meal for me at the delicious Jewel of India restaurant.

The Southern Sun North Beach lobby staff is the friendliest I've ever encountered at a hotel. I didn't really want to use my iPhone so Robert and Robert (their actual names) found an old phone in the lost-and-found and gave it to me to keep until I check out.

The city purports to be the busiest port in the country, which is why it's amazing that the entire beach front as far as the eye can see from my 22nd floor hotel room is so beautiful. There are restored sand dunes, an amazing skate park, a "minature things" park, and a promenade that stretches for miles along the beach.

Here's something amazing. I've jogged twice down the promenade on the beach in front of my hotel. I hate jogging. But it's nice breaking it up in the middle with some peddling on the aforementioned solar bicycles along the area in front of my hotel, which is called "The Golden Mile."

The rooftop pool, as you can see in the photo, is pretty sweet too. I filmed some interviews of my colleagues for our Planet Change blog there and took a short dip in the water as well.

Some of the bad things about Durban. The rate of HIV/AIDS is 38 percent. The air is polluted, and is especially harsh on those jogs. I'm told that it can be a violent city, and that people don't get mugged, they get mugged and then punched in the face. Luckily, I've only been affected by one of these three so far. I can't seem to get the smog-induced frog out of my throat that's been in there since my arrival.

The Muppets Transports Me to My 10-Year-Old Self

2011-11-23T23:44:00.001-05:00

I was thrilled that my first movie with Jackson was one that he stayed awake and behaved for and that I absolutely loved. I might not have laughed so much since The Hangover.

The Muppets tapped both my funny bone and my sense of nostalgia. I actually choked up during some of the classic Muppets tunes reprised here. And lead actor Jason Segal is the secret weapon as one of the creators of the story, which is textbook Muppets but also really, really funny.

Amy Adams and Chris Cooper are also cast really well respectively as Segal's girlfriend and the oil-tycoon bad guy. The price of admission is worth it based on the cameos alone. What's interesting is that the cameos complement, rather than overtake, the performances of the stars and the muppets. Some of the biggest cameos, like George Clooney and Mila Kunis, are tellingly left on the cutting-room floor.

This is a classic, at the level of the original Muppet Movie and the best of The Muppet Shows.

***** out of ***** stars

What Would Happen If a Bunch of People Disappeared? "The Leftovers" Has Your Answers

2011-11-18T23:14:00.000-05:00

With clearly great titles in his cannon (Election, The Abstinence Teacher, and Little Children), I had been meaning to read some of Harvard creative-writing professor Tom Perrotta's fiction for a while. And with the apocalyptic subject matter of his new book, The Leftovers, the time was finally right.

The story centers on various groups of loosely intertwined people in the nowhere town of Mapleton, which serves as a setting and microcosm of a world that has suddenly lost about half of its inhabitants. They all disappeared at the same moment in time - October 14 - and the book's title refers to the people who remain. Nearly all the characters have been devastatingly crushed and bewildered by the loss of loved ones.

Kevin Garvey is the town's mayor and his wife remains, but she has left him to join the Guilty Remnant, a secretive and creepy, all-white-wearing cult. His daughter remains but has become wayward and hangs around with a best friend who has a complicated relationship with Kevin. Meanwhile, Kevin has a new girlfriend whose entire family disappeared moments after an argument at the dinning-room table and his son has dropped out of college to follow a questionable guru named Holy Wayne around the country.

As weird as it sounds, the book is much, much less about science fiction or fantasy than it is about love, loss, family connections and lack thereof, and it is really a psychological study masked as a page-turner. Pretty phenomenal and impressive.

****1/2 out of ***** stars

Joseph Gordon-Levitt Fills Up My Time With a Mixed Bag of Movie Moments

2011-11-13T10:21:00.000-05:00

Somehow the last two movies I've seen have been vehicles for former 3rd Rock From the Sun child star Joseph Gordon-Levitt -- 2010's Hesher and 2011's 50/50.

Everything about 50/50 should make it no better than a Lifetime movie about living with cancer. Gordon-Levitt plays a young worker at NPR who pals around with Seth Rogen and has a jerky girlfriend. When he discovers he has the disease, he is befriended by some fellow patients at the hospital. The performances rise far above a TV melodrama, and make the movie at least worth watching.

Hesher is just weird. And slow. And pretty offensive. I guess the filmmakers were trying to show that loss can be a devastating thing. The ending (along with the middle and end) are just really ridiculous, meandering, heavy, and none of the sad-sack characters are too worthy of sympathy. Gordon-Levitt plays some sort of troubled but prophet-like Metallica-type longhair. We never really find out much about why he is the way he is. I can't think of a good reason that Natalie Portman (who co-produced it) and Rainn Wilson got involved.

It seems, at least with 50/50, that Gordon-Levitt has gotten back on track after the Hesher misstep. He was putting together a halfway decent little run before that, with Inception and (500) Days of Summer.

50/50
*** out of ***** stars

Hesher
* out of ***** stars

Classic Reads: Anna Karenina Feels Global Growing Pains

2011-11-12T13:23:00.000-05:00

Find the other parts of this ongoing series of "Classic Reads" in the Books section.

Unlike the other great 19th-century Russian author, Dostoievsky and his peasants and scallywags, Leo Tolstoy examined the elite. Anna Karenina is the tale of a Russian aristocratic class being turned upside-down by the import of Western morals.

Anna and her brother, Stepan, are both having affairs outside their marriages. Soon enough, Anna becomes pregnant with her suitor Count Vronsky's child. She tells her husband, Alexey, who coldly worries more about his social and business reputation, determining that a divorce would only disgrace him.

Vronsky, meanwhile, is desperate to be with Anna. He attempts to kill himself. Finally, Anna decides to run away from St. Petersburg to Italy with him. They birth a healthy little boy. Soon, they return to Russia, but find themselves ostracized. This causes them to fight, she accuses him of being unfaithful, and she begins to take morphine as a way to cope with her increasingly troubled life.

The sad story ends with more fighting between the two lovers, and Anna kills herself by jumping in front of a train.

Anna Karenina is almost farcically tragic, with new problems appearing for most of the characters around just about every turn. It is an early tale of the growing pains of globalization.

The Sea and Cake Plays the Perfect Show

2011-11-11T11:03:00.001-05:00

I've been a long-time, die-hard fan of Chicago jazz-pop masters The Sea and Cake since their earliest records in 1994-1995. But, somehow, I had never caught them live. And last night at D.C.'s Black Cat, the band didn't disappoint.

McEntire, Claridge, Prekop, and Prewitt

The four musicians look like average middle-aged guys, but when they started playing, they were the coolest and one of the most mesmerizing bands I've seen in a long time. The short video above of one of their classic tunes does a pretty good job of capturing some of their magic.

Sam Prekop leads the band with unusual guitar picking and strumming styles, and vocals that are gorgeous yet at the same time don't really matter much in relation to the rest of the powerful music being played. Archer Prewitt masterfully blends his wildly inventive lead guitar playing with Prekop's stylings.

Meanwhile, Eric Claridge muscles his bass into sounds that reach the most pleasurable expanses of the listener's brain and drummer John McEntire freaks out with his precise smashes and joyously weird facial expressions.

I love this band. And although I really couldn't tell you what the set list was, it just didn't matter. All the songs were so good that when they finally got around to playing "Parasol" from 1995's perfect album Nassau as the set-closer, it was simply icing on the cake to a perfect show.

***** out of ***** stars

Late-Summer Travels in Memphis, Delaware, and (October!) Ocean Swimming

2011-11-01T23:32:00.000-04:00

The family in Rehoboth

My wife Rachel impressively dashed through a 10K race around the Dogfish Head brewery in Delaware several weeks ago, and the family got to enjoy a rainy weekend at Bethany and Rehoboth beaches.

Luckily, the weather was much better (surprisingly, for late October) when we returned for another beach trip at Assateague Island in Maryland, where we biked, body surfed, camped out in the sand with our neighbors, and stood safely away from the wild horses.

Jackson at Assateague

Finally, the late summer/early fall traveling concluded with a week of work in Olive Branch, Mississippi at The Nature Conservancy's science conference, where I helped with a media training, presented on how to communicate with various audiences, sat on a panel about communicating science, and, most importantly, went out for a night on the town at B.B. King's club on Beale Street in nearby Memphis, Tennessee.

Mural in the gift shop at B.B. King's Beale Street nightclub

Me (on the left) with colleagues from Ohio

A Bright New Boise Begins An Apocalyptic Season at Woolly Mammoth

2011-10-31T23:51:00.000-04:00

Photo by Stan Barouh

The Woolly Mammoth's new season is devoted to plays about the apocalypse. As readers of this blog know, I'm a big fan of "end days" stories, so I'm happy to be a season-ticket holder right about now.

The first offering is A Bright New Boise, which takes place mostly in a Wal-Mart-like break room at a retail store in Boise named Hobby Lobby. Will, a former member of an evangelical, cult-like church is escaping his dark past by taking a job there.

His real motive is to reconnect with his long-abandoned son, who also works at the store. But, hard as he tries to build a new life and fix his past mistakes, Will finds it hard to break out of his pattern of constantly waiting for that exact moment when the world will end.

Playwright Samuel D. Hunter's story reminds me a little of Wiener Sausage: The Musical!, my own play with writing partner Dan Sullivan. The big-box setting. The philosophical musings on corporations. The misguided characters. The end of the world. These topics are competing in a crowded field these days, so the fact that Hunter and the actors in the Woolly's production do such a great job is testament to the power of this play.

**** out of ***** stars

CARDINALS

2011-10-29T01:34:00.000-04:00

I'm pretty lucky to have experienced three World Series championships so far in my lifetime. 1982. 2006. 2011.

Classic Reads: For Whom the Bell Tolls Previews World War II

2011-10-22T15:56:00.000-04:00

Find the other parts of this ongoing series of "Classic Reads" in the Books section.

I don't like 1940's For Whom the Bell Tolls as much as Ernest Hemingway's other master war story, A Farewell to Arms, but that said, this is still better than 99 percent of all other novels.

Robert Jordan is a young American fighting the Fascists, led by Francisco Franco, in the Spanish Civil War, what was a prelude to the gory World War II. He and his elderly guide Anselmo are marching through the mountains of Spain, behind Fascist enemy lines, to meet another similar band of guerrillas, led by the drunken Pablo and his fierce and commandeering wife Pilar. Their plan is to blow up a bridge along with a good amount of Fascist soldiers, who frequently cross the bridge.

Meanwhile, a young girl named Maria has been rescued from starvation, torture, rape, and the execution of her parents at the hands of a band of Fascists. She is convinced nobody will ever be able to love her again, but Jordan convinces her this isn't true and they fall in love.

Along the way, Jordan encounters the remains of another guerrilla leader, El Sordo, and his band that has been slaughtered and beheaded by the Fascists. El Sordo's team was also supposed to help with the bridge scheme, so their defeat makes the plot look even more grim and hopeless. Making matters all the more impossible, Pablo steals the detonator and blasting caps one night while Jordan sleeps, meaning they will have to try and explode the bridge with the more-dangerous method of grenades.

Pablo returns right before the mission is to begin. Jordan uses his original tools and, sure enough, the bridge blows up. But the elderly Anselmo is killed by a flying steel fragment. Jordan, Pablo, Pilar, and Maria are soon trapped by Fascist troops, who fire at them. Jordan insists on being the last of the group to cross a dangerous road, and enemy fire drops his horse right on top of him. The others are able to drag him out of the line of fire, but he knows his leg is crushed. He voices his love to Maria and the others drag her away.

As Jordan contemplates his life in its waning moments, he decides he is not dying in vain. He fought for the common people and he knows he has helped lead them on a long road to eventual victory.

For Whom the Bell Tolls features the classic battle between the hopeful and good Jordan and Anselmo and the despaired, drunken, and bad Pablo. That gives the novel its heft and global meaning, and it is certainly the best story ever told about the Spanish Civil War.

Yuck Rocks. Black Cat Sound Guys Don't Rock.

2011-10-15T03:56:00.000-04:00

Good friend Fran Chung wrote up the following review for the entertaining Yuck show the other night at the Black Cat in D.C. I'm just republishing his excellent take (which I completely agree with, and which appeared with this photo and others in DCist) rather than wallow through my own mixed emotions of seeing the show on the same night I got in my first car accident in decades (I'm fine, it wasn't my fault, and our Honda Fit didn't fare too badly). Despite that unfortunate distraction, I still give the show **** out of ***** stars. It was not as good as their recorded work, but I'm chalking that up mostly to the fact that the Black Cat sound engineers seem to be getting worse and worse every show I see there.

-------

The label "1990s revivalists" follows Yuck around inexorably, sometimes an epithet, often a term of endearment, always an apt descriptor for their retro-leaning indie-rock sound. At the Black Cat on Wednesday night, the London-based four-piece wore it as a badge of honor, putting their own youthful spin on familiar tropes from the 20th-century's musically fecund final decade.

On the set-opening "The Base of a Dream is Empty", the guitars of Daniel Blumberg and Max Bloom trailed feedback before the band built up a creamy wall of sound that instantly called My Bloody Valentine to mind. A few songs later, Blumberg affected a J Mascis-like drawl during "The Wall", while "Suicide Policeman" came off as a strummy, mid-tempo ballad reminiscent of early Belle & Sebastian, complete with tender boy-girl harmonies. Bassist Mariko Doi took a lead-vocal turn on the appropriately-titled "Georgia", which sounded like it could have been a lost outtake from one of Yo La Tengo's classic early-'90s albums.

At the heart of the set came "Get Away", Yuck's finest song, and the one that best crystallizes their highly referential, yet distinctly appealing musical aesthetic. Bloom's bright lead guitar melodies sliced through the fuzzed-out mix on top of a throbbing, Pixies-esque bassline that propelled the song forward until Blumberg launched it into the stratosphere with his soaringly anthemic Sparklehorse-meets-Weezer hook. "Summer sun says get out more," Blumberg sang, "I need you, I want you, but I can't get this feeling off my mind." These were trite, jejune sentiments that have been expressed in a thousand tunes, but rarely with as much infectious verve.

By the end of their brisk, hour-long performance, Yuck had run through much of their self-titled debut LP, adding the bonus cut "Soothe Me" and the B-side "Milkshake". As the band capped their set with another Kevin Shields homage, "Rubber", it seemed fair to wonder what the quartet could do for a second act. As fertile a trove of musical resources as the '90s are, surely they are not inexhaustible, and one hopes the band's next record will explore some different territories. For now, though, it's probably best to just go along and enjoy the nostalgic ride.

Lemonheads Return With a Glimpse into a 1992 Classic Album

2011-10-12T01:03:00.001-04:00

Coming up on 20 years since the release of The Lemonheads' indie-pop 1992 classic, It's a Shame About Ray, it was moving to relive that year the other night at the Black Cat in D.C., with leader Evan Dando and his gang rollicking through a lengthy set with the full album serving as the first part of the evening.

Other than some sound problems for the first three or so songs, with Evan's guitar being too low in the mix, the music sounded great and Evan, who has had his ups and downs over the years, seemed to be in pretty good shape and form. (Apparently this wasn't the case two nights later in New York.)

Some people disagree that he was in fine form. And maybe I'm just too much of a sucker for the dozens of classic songs he and his three-piece band played. (Incidentally, the drummer and bassist were very strong and looked quite a bit like Ray-era bandmates David Ryan and Nic Dalton.) Still, I will admit that this band is by no means anywhere near the prime it was in throughout the early 90s. (I mean, check out this performance on Letterman. They could really throw down, and I even remember talking to Evan one time after a Soul Asylum/Lemonheads show at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis while he was wearing that ridiculous red jacket.)

I spoke with Evan briefly after Friday night's show and he was personable, in good spirits, remembered hanging out with me last year at Iota and letting me play his guitar, and spent some time seriously making out with one of his merch girls (while a line waited to buy shirts, open-mouthed and gawking). He also was very open to taking photos with his fans, as pictured here with some guy (and his favorite merch girl).

**** out of ***** stars

Bike Tour Atlanta, Part 3: Pop Culture Edition

2011-10-02T23:36:00.000-04:00

Finishing up my series on the great bike ride I recently enjoyed from Bicycle Tours of Atlanta (here are parts 1 and 2), this installment looks at some great entertainment options that happened to be in town while we rode.

First up, courtesy of my guide Robyn, is me taking a photo of a theater called the Variety Playhouse in the hipster neighborhood of Little Five Points, where my favorite new band, Girls, was playing. Unfortunately, my flight was leaving for home in a few hours. I would go on to miss Girls play in D.C. a few nights later for some similarly lame excuse.

Next, we wound our way downtown, where we had lunch and wheeled past the famed "fabulous" Fox Theater, where one of my son's favorite kids groups was set to perform. If you aren't yet familiar with Yo Gabba Gabba!, watch this bit with Jack Black.

And finishing out my blog bike tour, we stopped by the Martin Luther King National Historic Site, which is a large complex not far from the spot where the bike tour leaves from, in the Old Fourth Ward. Two highlights were seeing the wooden wagon MLK's coffin was carried in as part of his funeral march, and the gentleman in the photo who serenaded Robyn and I with a song of faith.

Bike Tour Atlanta, Part 2

2011-09-30T22:31:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned in the first part of this series about my excellent bike tour of Atlanta, Georgia, biking was the perfect way to experience all the best parts of the city.

My personal guide Robyn was kind enough to send me this set of photos that she took. The first one is me riding towards the state capitol, then a couple of me in front of some of the city's impressive pop-culture graffiti art.

Atlanta Rocks: A Personal Bike Tour, Part 1

2011-09-24T11:09:00.000-04:00

I attended a conference of about 170 marketers from The Nature Conservancy (of which I am one) a couple of weeks ago. The conference was really interesting and fun, and I made lots of connections to people in my network. It was held at Chateau Elan Winery (made famous in this video and lampooned on Family Guy) about 40 miles northeast of Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia, a town that Kim Basinger once invested in with a since-failed plan to turn it into a movie-making locale.

Anyway, I intended to do more networking with a four-hour bike ride organized as part of the conference. But when I arrived downtown at the funky Bicycle Tours of Atlanta (pictured above to the left), I was the only one to show, which made for a great personal tour by my guide Robyn.

I'll take us through several sites of Atlanta, which I always thought of as a cold-hard batch of skyscrapers plopped down along Interstate 95 somewhere between North Carolina, New Orleans, and Florida, over the course of my next several blog posts.

One of my favorite stops was Oakland Cemetary, where legendary golfer Bobby Jones is buried. My favorite site there, however, was Margaret Mitchell's grave (pictured to the right). She basically supplied me with everything I've ever known about Atlanta through her classic novel Gone With the Wind. We also later biked past the spot downtown where her life was cut tragically short by a car that hit her as she crossed the street.

Finally, for now, we stopped in the lovely Central Park-like Piedmont Park, with its wide expanses of recreation areas and beautiful views of the skyline (pictured to the right).

Exploring cities I've never been to on bike is by far the best way to experience them. Why more people haven't discovered this travel trick is beyond me, and I wish my 20 or so colleagues who had signed up for this trip would have joined me. Then again, because they didn't show, I got to see many more sites.

Classic Reads: A Farewell to Arms Introduces Us to Hemingway's "Lost Generation"

2011-09-19T23:46:00.000-04:00

The is the second in a series of posts about classic books that I, as an English literature undergrad major, really need to read or re-read to make my life complete.

A beautifully described story combined with a depressing ending is pretty much par for the course for the nearly unmatchable Ernest Hemingway. And A Farewell to Arms, described by his mentor Gertrude Stein as his best novel, is no exception.

The story, at its essence, is about how war, and really society in general, "kills you in the end." This is especially true of the World War I generation of which Hemingway writes about, and he argues that those who fought in it became a generation of cynics. Hemingway, having served as an ambulance driver in the Italian army, bases a lot of the social commentary on his own wartime experiences, including the nearly-unheard-of-at-the-time unmarried love affair between American Frederic Henry and British nurse Catherine Barkley.

While serving on ambulance duty in the Italian army, Frederic is caught in the line of mortar shrapnel, which turns his legs to "hamburger." While he recovers in Catherine's care in Milan, they take carriage rides in the park, attend horse races, and dine in street-side cafes. Right before he leaves to return to duty, Catherine informs Frederic she's pregnant but refuses to marry him.

With morale sinking and a once-winnable battle looking more hopeless, Frederic's best friend Rinaldi contracts syphilis. And it gets worse. Retreating, their vehicle gets stuck and they have to hide in barns, dodge Austrian patrols, and even avoid trigger-happy Italian sentries on their own side. Finally, Frederic is grabbed by an italian military policeman and accused of being a spy. Sitting in prison and awaiting execution, he determines the war is over for him and he should say his "farewell to arms."

While the guards are busy executing another prisoner, Frederic is able to escape and swim down an icy river. He can't find Catherine in Milan but eventually reunites with her and they escape to the mountains of Montreux, Switzerland. They play chess, cards, go skiing, and take long walks, discussing what they will do at the end of the war. But then the baby is delivered dead and Catherine soon dies as well, in Frederic's arms. The story ends with him walking through the streets, aimless and broken.

This is clearly one of the greatest novels of all time. However, it's only my second-favorite of Hemingway's "lost generation" novels. The Sun Also Rises is in my top three novels, along with The Great Gatsby and On the Road.

Will the Pittsburgh Steelers Win the Super Bowl This Time?

2011-09-10T11:55:00.000-04:00

It was a heartbreaking ending last year, losing to the Packers in a thrilling Super Bowl. But good things appear to be on the horizon for my Pittsburgh Steelers, who are picked as the team to beat by one of my favorite sports opinion blogs, ESPN's Grantland. It all starts in about 24 hours, with Game 1 against the fierce rival Baltimore Ravens.

You know, the team that always manages to be in the playoff hunt every year? Them? They're our favorites. The Steelers were 12-4 with a Pythagorean expectation of 12.1 wins despite missing Ben Roethlisberger for the first four games and an offensive line for the entire season. They made it to the Super Bowl with Troy Polamalu at 60 percent and even less of an offensive line, and while they got outplayed by the Packers, they were competitive in the process.

We can keep this very brief: If you want to know why they're our Super Bowl pick, look at the schedule that the gods have gifted these Pittsburgh Steelers. The Ravens will be a weaker team, so the division won't be as tough. They get four games against the NFC West and four more against the AFC South, which looks weaker by the day. (Peyton Manning might be back in time for their Week 3 matchup, but he certainly won't be 100 percent.) And while they have to play the Patriots at home, their other first-place matchup comes against the Chiefs. That has 13 wins written all over it, and if the Steelers win 13 games, they're going to have the no. 1 seed in the AFC. That gives them a better shot of making it to the Super Bowl than any other team in football. And that's why they're the favorites.

Love and Other Drugs Takes Gyllenhaal High, Hathaway Low

2011-09-09T22:40:00.004-04:00

Love and Other Drugs comes at you in waves. There are parts that are funny, parts that are unbelievably cheesy, parts that are questionably written and acted, and parts that are really powerful.

I was won over particularly by the strong (the "powerful part") ending. But it was sometimes a struggle to get there over the course of this off-and-on relationship between Jake Gyllenhaal (whose previous highlights are pretty high in Donnie Darko, Brokeback Mountain, and Jarhead) and Anne Hathaway.

The film is definitely one of the better ones ever made as far as exposing the way the pharmaceutical industry works. It's also probably the best one to ever educate an audience about the very-serious Parkinson's disease. So those are both pretty noble traits.

On the flip side, the fact that it required a lead actress who would be naked a lot of time probably narrowed the candidate field down quite a bit. Hathaway is annoying and really kind of unlikeable most of the time. Someone you could build up sympathy for might have made this an Academy Award-type contender.

Gyllenhaal is his usual excellent, whip-smart, and handsome self as a man making his way up Pfizer's corporate ladder. He masquerades as a shallow drug salesman before being uncovered as an actual human being, and a good one at that. Oliver Platt as a fellow drug salesman and Hank Azaria as a Viagra-gobbling big-time doctor are also just right for their roles.

I think the fact that I'm so torn between liking this movie and hating it means it gets a perfectly mediocre rating of ...

**1/2 out of ***** stars

J. Mascis Rocks the Kennedy Center

2011-09-07T22:41:00.005-04:00

Dinosaur Jr.'s guitar master J. Mascis stumbled into the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage tonight for a free, after-work, hour-long "acoustic" solo set that relied on a nice dose of effects that ratcheted up the sound to almost-daring levels for such an august locale.

The show was composed of classic songs from the 80s and 90s, with the best bits of Mascis' 2000s output. Max, Fran, and I and the other attendees (hipsters, art supporters, and intrigued but ultimately confused and sometimes-sleeping tourists) were treated to upbeat tunes almost the whole way through. That was until J. had to throw in the extended proggy "Alone" that featured a mix of sweet pickings and amazing tones out of his guitar that sounded like thunder and creepy door squeakings.

And then he walked out, simply saying that was all the time he had. The setlist:

The Wagon (Green Mind - 1991)
Missed It (Several Shades of Why - 2011)
Circle (Edie Brickell cover)
Crumble (Beyond - 2007)
"There's an Ocean" ?
Get Me (Where You Been - 1993)
Not the Same (Where You Been - 1993)
Listen to Me (Several Shades of Why - 2011)
Not Enough (Several Shades of Why - 2011)
A song that was, I think, from 2007's Beyond
Quest (Dinosaur - 1985)
A classic from maybe Green Mind that I can't remember the name of
Little Fury Things (You're Living All Over Me - 1987)
Alone (The John Peel Sessions - 2003)

****1/2 out of ***** stars

Tribes and Soldiers Weave a Thrilling Story in Lost in Shangri-La

2011-09-05T17:38:00.008-04:00

I recently was convinced to read Lost in Shangri-La after seeing author Mitchell Zuckoff eloquently explain the story's true WWII adventure as a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Apparently I'm not the only one impressed. Amazon has named it the top book of 2011. I don't often read war books, but this one really captured my imagination. Twenty-four officers went on a joy ride in 1945 on a plane called the Gremlin Special into an area named Shangri-La, on the island of Dutch New Guinea in Indonesia, to bear witness to reports of cannibalistic tribes living in a nearly inaccessible valley untouched by modernity.

Only three survive the eventual crash, and one happens to be a gorgeous movie-star-like WAC named Margaret Hastings (pictured above), from Owego, New York. Hastings, John McCollom, and Kenneth Decker trek through treacherous terrain from the mountaintop crash with life-threatening injuries, until they make it to an open clearing, where they are in plain sight of warring tribes who spare the strange white visitors only because they think they are gods of some sort.

The sometimes treacherous, but more often touching, dynamics of the warriors, dressed in penis gourdes, and the American crew develop over the seven weeks of the story. They finally leave the valley after military medics and other rescuers parachute in to dress their wounds, get them food, and develop a wild plan to airlift them out by having a plane fly past and grab a separate glider plan by a hook and a rope.

Many years later, interviews with the natives reveal that they remember their visitors from back in the spring of '45 through stories passed down from generations. Shangri-La was soon commercialized to a small degree after the media exposure to the adventure. Missionaries went in, and a town of about 10,000 people sprung up. It is described now as littered with trash and filled with tribe members often wandering around lost begging the few tourists for cigarettes.

This is a quick read and well worth any time invested, especially for anyone interested in the few pockets of primitive people still remaining in the world. Zuckoff probably could have added a little more of the story of the tribes, but there is a lot here. And his reporter-like accounting and structure display a natural storyteller's talent.

**** out of ***** stars

Classic Reads: The Scarlet Letter Explores Sin in 1800s New England

2011-09-04T10:28:00.006-04:00

The is the first in a (hopefully) long series of posts about classic books that I, as an English literature undergrad major, really need to read or re-read to make my life complete.

One of the things about Nathaniel Hawthorne, like with other authors such as William Faulkner and James Joyce and David Foster Wallace, is that it never feels like there's enough time in life. Ernest Hemingway is short and to the point. So is F. Scott Fitzgerald.

But Hawthorne fills his writing with diversions into the deep thoughts of his characters and interruptions in story flow for his own speculations on motives and the narrator's interactions with the reader, like an 1800s version of TV's The Office.

But beneath all of Hawthorne's quirks, The Scarlet Letter is one heck of a story, especially considering he wrote it in Salem, Massachusetts (amazingly over the course of a few short months). Home to the Salem Witch Trials a century-and-a-half earlier, this feels like the reflection of a past that still haunts the town and the Boston region at the time of publication in 1850.

Hester Prynne is condemned to wear a bright red "A" on her breast at all times for being convicted of adultery for having a daughter in her husband's long absence. Minister Arthur Dimmesdale, one of the Puritan leaders prosecuting her, is the secret father of her illegitimate child.

Also in the public square watching Hester admit her sins that day is Roger Chillingsworth, the old man married to Hester who has been away exploring the western wilderness for years. Exacerbating the townfolk's impressions of her as a witch, her daughter Pearl is a wild and undisciplined child who appears to be an evil spirit unfit for Christian society.

Chillingsworth follows the proceedings from afar until he intentionally becomes Dimmesdale's roommate, suspecting the priest of being his wife's lover. Dimmesdale, meanwhile, becomes weaker and weaker with guilt over the situation, oddly appearing stronger and stronger in his fervent sermons to his congregation.

Seven years after her public condemnation, Hester and Pearl are walking through the woods when they come upon Dimmesdale. The priest says, "Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter on your bosom! Mine burns in secret!" Hester informs him that Chillingsworth, his roommate, is her estranged husband, and is cruelly making Dimmesdale's living hell far worse. She convinces him to make one more sermon and then escape to Europe to live with her and Pearl.

Dimmesdale admits his adultery to his congregation, exposes Chillingsworth's sinister nature, then collapses to his death. Chillingsworth dies a hunched and shriveled man within the year, leaving a fortune to Pearl, who takes her mother to Europe. Hester lives the rest of her life in better stead, but never does remove the "A" from her chest and is buried back in Salem with a gravestone labeled only with a red "A."

Date Night Not a Match with Funny

2011-09-03T23:42:00.005-04:00

Well, I just keep seeing really bad movies lately. Does Netflix have any good new releases?

You would think Tina Fey and Steve Carell would have a pretty difficult time making a stinker. Especially when they also lure Marky Mark Wahlberg, Mark Ruffalo, Kristen Wiig, Common, Ray Liotta, Mila Kunis, James Franco, and Leighton Meester.

Somehow Date Night raked in some pretty good box-office cash and critics didn't totally blast it. I guess the action side of the movie made a lot of people happy. Action isn't my forte, and when this movie is funny, it's really only kinda funny.

Carell and Fey play an accountant and a real-estate agent who lead a typical married life in the Jersey suburbs. When they decide to go out into Manhattan for a date, Carell steals somebody's reservation at a hot restaurant called Claw (where they answer the phones: "Claw. You're welcome"). Then a case of mistaken identity sets in and the couple has to replicate Carell's spy-action performance in Get Smart.

This could have been so much more than a big payday for two of TV's biggest laugh makers.

** out of ***** stars

Does Anyone Really Like Final Destination and Going the Distance?

2011-08-29T23:20:00.008-04:00

Somehow I've recently watched a record number of awful flicks. I'll review the last two turkeys I've seen, and then we can all move quickly along with our lives.

I'm assuming 2000's Final Destination is somebody's favorite movie because there have been four ... four!!!??? ... sequels. I don't think that the first installment is in the torture horror-movie genre, but it sure tortured me. There's really nothing redeeming. The characters are played by no-name, C-list actors (except for a pathetically bad Seann William Scott, of American Pie fame), the suspense is non-existent, and there are no scares. In fact, I'm not really sure what this is supposed to be. Is this truly considered part of the horror genre? Whatever happened to the good old days, with Friday the 13th, Halloween, Phantasm II, Jeepers Creepers, and even Drag Me to Hell, to name a few. One reviewer noted that this is something "aimed at the teen dating crowd," so maybe that explains my disconnect from the lame and tame scare tactics going on here.

Next up is something I can't believe I stooped to renting. Even though it looked like a movie I was almost sure I had seen before (I hadn't), I rented Drew Barrymore and Justin Long as long-distance lovers trying to make it work in Going the Distance. How bad could it be with those two cute and adorable lovebirds, not to mention It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Charlie Day and Married ... with Children's Christina Applegate? Well, put it this way: It's no wonder Barrymore and Long's real-life love affair ended. They have zero chemistry, Barrymore looks oddly rough throughout the film, and it's painful watching everyone try to make these jokes work.

With Final Destination, it's a matter of people without talent displaying it for all the world to see. With Going the Distance, it's a matter of people with loads of talent making a huge mistake. Great soundtrack though.

Final Destination
* out of ***** stars

Going the Distance
* out of ***** stars

My First Real Earthquake

2011-08-23T14:07:00.003-04:00

Just felt my first substantial earthquake. Computer monitors were shaking on desks in office in Ballston, Virginia. Rumbled for about 15 seconds. The earthquake was 5.8, between Charlottesville and Richmond.

I remember ducking under desks when practicing in grade school for tornadoes. I've even messed around pretty close to the eye of a tornado. That was frightening. This was just sort of creepy. Especially since my office is right over the metro, which is always a potential terrorism hot spot.

A Whole List of Stupid Movies: Some for the Better, Some Not

2011-08-17T21:35:00.009-04:00

I saw a handful of movies recently (rare with a three-year-old son) that I (horrors) forgot to review here. Let's start at the top and make our way to the bottom.

1.) Crazy, Stupid, Love is a movie that had skipped under my radar until Rachel's sister, Mandy, suggested we see it. I suspect she was interested because of one beefcake so-named Ryan Gosling. Well, sure, he's got great abs, but he's also funny and perfect for the role of a stud who takes a sad-sack divorcee (Steve Carell) under his wing. He dresses him up, teaches him how to talk to women, and unleashes him onto the singles scene. It's a scary and wonderful transformation to behold. There's just one problem, Steve is still in love with his wife (Julianne Moore), but there are all kinds of crazy, stupid complications to resolve that problem. This is no mere chick flick. It's one of the best and deepest films you'll find this year. **** out of ***** stars

2.) Adam Sandler movies get the full spectrum of reviews from movie critics. While it's true that his first few films are classics, it's not like he's exactly suffered a Chevy Chase-type fall (by the way, why is Chase still part of the cast of the otherwise-funny Community on NBC?). Grown Ups, Funny People, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, 50 First Dates, and Punch-Drunk Love would be considered a pretty good run over the past decade for any actor. While Just Go With It, with Jennifer Aniston as the friend he never knew was hot until he sees her in a swimsuit, has plenty of eye-rollingly-bad moments, one would have to be a loveless zombie not to be warmed and won over by the conclusion within a patented Sandler story structure. All of that is true here. Just go with it. *** out of ***** stars

3.) How can the formula perfected so amazingly in School of Rock (my 16th funniest movie of all time) go so wrong? Somehow I suckered myself into watching Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny one recent late night. This premise had so much stupid promise, but the music just isn't that good, it's too long, and even Dave Grohl (who plays Satan in the film and drums on the full soundtrack) can't provide any spark. This was a major misstep for the brilliant Jack Black, who I love in the afore-mentioned School of Rock, High Fidelity (#41 on my list), Shallow Hal, Anchorman (#34), Margot at the Wedding, Walk Hard, and Tropic Thunder. And how about that classic episode of Yo Gabba Gabba, not to mention Laser Fart? ** out of ***** stars

New Song Sunday: "Paul McCartney's Leftovers"

2011-08-14T20:17:00.003-04:00

Sometimes you've just got to write a song with somebody else's words. I wrote "Paul McCartney's Leftovers" today with my own composition, but with many of the words from one of his post-Beatles tunes.

Can you guess which one?

Uh Oh! Here Comes the Apes

2011-08-13T18:03:00.005-04:00

In keeping with the monkey theme of my last post, the new Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an suspenseful and riveting movie that makes all the right steps, unlike the awful Markey Mark Apes' remake of 10 years ago.

Rupert Wyatt is a newcomer director who offers deft touches, primarily the slow buildup of emerging emotions and human-like understanding of Caesar and the other apes held captive by ruthless (and stupid) animal-control officers. I actually think this method may not sit very well with many audience members in the ADD era, as seemed evident in the theater where Dan and I saw this. One person even inappropriately laughed when the life drained out of one of the key ape's eyes.

The music (not nearly as great as that of the 1968 original, but still really effective), the homage to Charleston Heston that one must be quick to catch, and the human and deep humanity of the monkeys are just a few of the elements that make this a very worthy introduction to a series of movies set for release as prequels to the '68 classic.

James Franco also does a good job as a driven San Francisco scientist who has committed his life to finding a cure for Alzheimer's disease, which has ravaged his father, played by John Lithgow. His story, and that of Slumdog Millionaire's Freida Pinto, is established strongly in the movie's first half, before the second half becomes devoted to the apes.

And I also like that the beginning of what appears to be a long-term war for supremacy between the two species does not dominate the movie and does not threaten to dampen the excellent character-building and socio-political setup that is sure to be a focus of future installments in this series. It will be interesting to see how the series creators will reconcile how Rise of the Planet of the Apes ends with how 1968's Planet of the Apes begins, when a nuclear bomb has killed off most humans.

There is already talk that Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and plays Caesar here, could be up for an Academy Award. That should tell you just how touching and vital the revolutionary ape's performance is, whether he is nominated or not.

**** out of ***** stars

Will Self Finds a Rock of Crack as Big as the Ritz

2011-08-10T22:37:00.004-04:00

I would consider Will Self one of my favorite contemporary authors. And that's saying quite a bit, since I've only read one of his books. But that book, Great Apes, is a blast of everything Self is about: shocking people, telling tales of English life, and a little bit of science fiction and fantasy to tell a tale in which chimps and humans switch places.

So it seems high time I read more Self. I bought his collection, The Undivided Self: Selected Stories, and dove right into the first of what will surely be several wild stories: "The Rock of Crack as Big as the Ritz."

The story opens with a guy named Tembe saying he's smoking the rock of the aforementioned title. Around this time, his older brother Danny is coming home from Desert Storm to take care of his old uncle in south London. But while living with Tembe in squalor, Danny comes upon an unexpected find. He locates some crack cocaine in one of the walls. The he locates some more. Then more. Then more. Nearly every wall is packed full. He doesn't do the stuff himself, so he decides to keep the source secret and have Tembe do the dirty dealing to make them both money.

Not much really happens in this story, but it's still a pretty poignant glimpse of how sordid, sad, and delusional the crack scene is, and it bodes well for the rest of this story collection.

***1/2 out of ***** stars

Blogwatch: Shakespeare Gets a New Representative From the Wilds of the Web

2011-07-29T22:32:00.004-04:00

Because there are so many great blogs out there like Pop Culture Lunch Box, this is a regular feature that will give these unheralded journalism enterprises a little love.

My great friend, fellow playwright, excellent comedian, and heroic everyman superhero Dan Sullivan, I'm thrilled to report, has started a blog called Fighting Sullivan. This is the perfect medium for such a kind of person (in the center of the picture). He is brimming with creativity and I fear that, with him now unleashing his wild ramblings upon the world, the Internet is reaching its next stage of awesomeness.

Fear for us all.

All that said, I'm awfully glad he reported on another friend's latest theatrical performance. Tim Getman recently wrapped in a production of Merchant of Venice at the Shakespeare Theater in DC and I missed it. I would normally report on such a production in the form of a review. Dan approaches it differently. This video he posted on his blog is just weird. And I can't stop watching it.

Sarah Silverman Finally Finds a Way to be As Unfunny as Possible

2011-07-27T21:31:00.005-04:00

Sarah Silverman. Rainn Wilson. Lewis Black. Cast members of Parks and Recreation, Dexter, and The Karate Kid.

That's can't miss, right? Wrong. Peep World is the worst movie I've seen all year. It's about a young writer who becomes the voice of his generation based on his tell-all about his family. The movie reaches its wretched climax when the who family gets together for a dinner. Their unlikable father dies, which brings his unlikable, hateful, and disturbingly unfunny children together in a way that they never did when he was alive.

Ugh. Just forget you ever saw this review, and consider yourself lucky if you never waste an hour-and-a-half of your life on Peep Show.

* out of ***** stars

July is For Family Fun

2011-07-24T21:57:00.006-04:00

July has been filled with some nice family time. The month started off in the Adirondacks at Rachel's grandmother's lake house. The picture to the left is Jackson (wearing devil's horns) and his cousin Julia ganging up on their older cousin Hannah.

We also went to Fairfield, Connecticut last weekend for our cousin Stanton's 60th birthday. The party was on the beach there and we stayed at our cousins James and Ellen's beautiful house in Pound Ridge, New York. This is an area we could really live. It's got the more mountainous feeling area around James and Ellen's place (which Rachel would like) and the beach (which is more my style).

This was also a chance for me to narrow down the number of states I need to get to. Connecticut was a new one for me. So now the list is five: North Dakota, Hawaii, Alaska, New Mexico, and Rhode Island.

While in Connecticut, we took Jackson to his first amusement park, Rye Playland in Westchester. He gave it thumb's up, as you can see in the photo. And it was a good warmup for me, as the little rollercoaters hopefully got me back into shape for the big ones that are sure to be headed my way as soon as Jackson gets a little taller.

Music Reviews In 3 Words or Less: Volume 22

2011-07-20T22:40:00.003-04:00

A sampling of what I've been listening to lately:

Yuck - Yuck (2011)
Best '90s-indie now
Touchstones: Dinosaur Jr. meets Teenage Fanclub
***** out of ***** stars

Velocity Girl - Simpatico (1994)
Melodic, bubblegrunging SilverSpring-ers
Touchstones: R.E.M. meets Juliana Hatfield
****1/2 out of ***** stars

World Party - Goodbye Jumbo (1990)
Psychedelic undergrad fave
Touchstones: The Beatles meet XTC
****1/2 out of ***** stars

Urge Overkill - Rock & Roll Submarine (2011)
'90s swagger remains
Touchstones: Frank Black meets Cheap Trick
***** out of ***** stars

Ween - The Mollusk (1997)
Bubbly, outrageous prog-pop
Touchstones: Meat Puppets meet King Missile
*** out of ***** stars

Cedar Falls, Iowa Lures Ed Helms for an Insurance Conference

2011-07-20T20:16:00.000-04:00

If one things can be said about Ed Helms, he plays his type well. Basically the same square-dweeb turned party animal that he played in The Hangover and The Hangover II, Helms is Tim Lippe (pronounced Lip-y) in Cedar Falls, the name of this movie and also the location of the annual insurance conference that serves as the center of the action.

This is actually a brilliant concept for a movie. An insurance conference? The comedic possibilities seem endless. And while there could have been more fall-out-of-your-seat-laughing moments, the characters are so lovable that it's impossible to not get caught up cheering for them.

Lippe has never been on an airplane before, so the run-of-the-mill chain hotel seems like a wonderland to him. This is clear from the moment he arrives and hesitates to give the desk person his credit card for incidentals to the Chevy Chase-like moment when he and the gang break into the indoor pool in the center of all the rooms in the middle of the night.

He rooms with a seemingly slimy, but actually much deeper, John C. Reilly and straight man Isiah Whitlock Jr. And he gets in all kinds of situations with a winning trifecta of ladies, Anne Heche, Sigourney Weaver, and Alia Shawkat (from Arrested Development).

An interesting tidbit: Iowa, where the real Cedar Rapids is located, failed to secure the film a tax credit, so the whole movie was actually done in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Although Helms' never seems funny to me in late-night talk show interviews, his winning streak with The Daily Show, The Office, The Hangovers, and this movie is a thing of beauty.

***1/2 out of ***** stars

Don't Read This Post About Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

2011-07-11T23:12:00.006-04:00

"Harrison Bergeron" is one of the 10 best short stories ever written. And it magically takes about 10 minutes to read. I revisit it every few years, usually along with several other stories from Kurt Vonnegut's masterpiece 1961 collection, Welcome to the Monkey House.

Because I'm going to spoil "Harrison Bergeron" (I won't vouch for the 1995 Showtime film, which couldn't possibly be any good), I would highly recommend you go read the story instead of this blog post.

The year is 2081 and the government has been able to successfully place handicaps on everyone to make them all equal. The U.S. Handicapper General, Diana Moon Clampers, has taken 14-year-old Harrison Bergeron away from his parents, George and Hazel because he is a genius whose handicaps are not working well enough.

But it only takes a few pages before Harrison breaks out of jail. A newswoman says "he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under-handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous." The handicappers had never been able to keep pace with Harrison's intelligence, despite his large earphones and glasses that made him half-blind and gave him "whanging headaches." To offset his good looks, he had to wear a rubber ball on his nose, shave his eyebrows, and wear black caps on his teeth.

Harrison bursts into the news studio and smashes all his handicaps on screen. He is revealed to be "a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder." And he plucks up a ballerina standing nearby to be his "empress."

Barely a moment later, Diana Moon Glampers enters the studio and mows Harrison down with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. George and Hazel, watching the whole thing on their TV, forget seeing their son's execution after a minute or two.

Pure brilliance. I feel like consumerism and the fact that every town has a McDonalds and a Wal-Mart is one way everyone's become equal, or at least the same. However, the endless choices we have on TV (not to mention the web) compared to when Vonnegut wrote this, when everyone watched the exact same shows and had much more similar frames of reference, has gone in the opposite direction from what the author envisioned.

***** out of ***** stars

What F. Scott Fitzgerald Had Against Jelly Beans

2011-07-10T22:46:00.006-04:00

An odd thing: Over the years, I've read hundreds of short stories by a handful of my favorite authors (Poe, Vonnegut, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Capote). But, other than a few select classics, I rarely remember them.

One of the reasons I started Pop Culture Lunch Box was to jot down things I should remember from the things I read, watch, or see. Kind of like an, uh, journal. So my next endeavor is to reread F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tales of the Jazz Age and try to remember it so I never have to read any of its lesser short stories. (As a bonus, the Kindle edition is free at Amazon, even though the Library Journal review there curiously calls the collection "nice if you can afford it.")

The first story, "The Jellybean," takes place in small-town Georgia and was apparently co-written by Fitzgerald's wife Zelda. The Jelly Bean is 21-year-old Jim Powell, who is immediately described as an unappealing character coming home from the war in trousers that are too short and too tight.

He is invited to a party with his childhood friend Clark Darrow. Clark has lived a full social life and is a sought-after commodity by the ladies, while Jim is completely stunted and detests girls just as he had as a boy before the war. At the party, Clark asks Jim if he thinks Nancy Lamar, a girl who does "crazy stunts" and is dating the son of the owner of a safety-razor company, looks beautiful.

Somehow, Jim and Nancy end up sharing some strong drinks and a chat later in the evening. It's not long before she kicks aside her chair and stands up to announce her devoted love to Jim Powell - whom she calls King of the Jelly Beans - to the entire party.

Well, Nancy is obviously very drunk and that's pretty much where her night ends. But Jelly Bean leaves the party and walks the streets thinking about a successful woman Nancy had told him about and how unmotivated he'd been so far in life. He later tells Clark that he has decided to stop being a bum, go fix up his aunt's farm, and start a family.

But just a little while later, Jim the Jelly Bean turns into a pool hall on Jackson Street "where he was sure to find a congenial crowd who would make all the old jokes - the ones he knew."

This is a pretty depressing story, but at the same time, it's a brilliant look into how delusional we can be. Moments of brilliance and great ideas often flash past us, but only the truly motivated people turn those moments into something substantial. The other people are, well, jelly beans, which I guess in Fitzgerald's world means the ordinary people who don't stand out in a crowd in any way and float through life as just another jelly bean in the jar.

**** out of ***** stars

Midnight in Paris a Literary and Artistic Delight

2011-07-03T22:43:00.007-04:00

Midnight in Paris would land somewhere in the middle of my list of the best Woody Allen films. The famed director is clearly still at the top of his game, with the only difference from his work of the 1970s being that other people besides him play the "Woody Allen role."

This time it's Owen Wilson as the neurotic protagonist. He does a great job navigating an era (1920s Flapper expat Paris) that has been fascinating to me ever since my two favorite novels became F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.

And the performances of the actors who play the legends of that time are wonderful. When Owen Wilson, playing an L.A. screenwriter on an extended vacation to the City of Lights with his non-supportive fiancee and her lousy rich parents, slips into a time warp each night, he comes alive befriending the likes of a respectively sensitive and crazy F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, a surreal Salvador Dali, an unthoughtful Pablo Picasso, an artistic guru Gertrude Stein, and a rowdy Hemingway (with this movie released in a timely way, close to the 50th anniversary of Hemingway's Idaho suicide).

Allen's brilliance balances on his humor (Side Effects and Without Feathers are still two of the greatest comedy essay collections ever known to mankind) and his insight into how the times we live in never seem as interesting as other historical periods. We're disillusioned, and that's a big part of what makes Midnight in Paris so timeless.

Not to mention, the opening sequence is almost as good as a round-trip ticket to Paris. All the sights are included.

**** out of ***** stars

Bridesmaids Fits Easily Into Best Comedy Movies of All-Time

2011-06-28T23:58:00.004-04:00

Bridesmaids fits easily into my list of "top 60 funniest movies" of all time, all of which are five-star classics.

The thing that stands out about it is that a buddy-girl film like this has never been attempted, or at least has never worked. Kristen Wiig shines with all the promise she has displayed in recent years on Saturday Night Live, but never fully captured at the box office.

Wiig plays the maid of honor who just isn't very good at wedding planning. The best scenes happen when the girls disgustingly pick out their wedding dresses, take a messy flight to their Vegas bachelorette party, and are entertained at Maya Rudolph's wedding by a certain female trio from the 90s.

Melissa McCarthy as Megan is a highlight as the chunky and spunky sister of the groom. She's full of bad ideas, like when she flirts in flight with an air marshall (played by her real-life husband). Jon Hamm, Mad Men's Don Draper, is also delectable in a different kind of sleazy way from his TV character.

***** out of ***** stars

The Beginning of Summer in Photos

2011-06-24T00:20:00.008-04:00

I haven't been blogging as much as normal. And since a picture tells a few words, perhaps it's easiest to give you an update of how my summer is starting off with a few shots.

It's already somehow been three weeks since the family returned from our annual pilgrimage to Emerald Isle in the Outer Banks, North Carolina. Jackson had a great time this year getting to meet his cousins from Nashville: 3-year-old Andrew (pictured, watching Jackson ride his bike in front of our beach house, the same one we've rented out for the past three years) and 5-year-old Alexander.

Last week featured a lot of America's Pastime. My St. Louis Cardinals were in town. Unfortunately, the Washington Nationals were in the midst of a rare hot streak and swept the three-game series. Good thing I'm a Nats' fan as well. The Tuesday night game I saw with my friend Jeff included the return of Ryan Zimmerman to the Nationals' lineup after a lengthy injury. It didn't seem like it was going to make much a difference when the Cardinals were up 6-1 after homers from Albert Pujols and Lance Berkman. But the Nats rallied for an 8-6 win. It was one of the most exciting games I've ever seen. Luckily I skipped Wednesday's 10-0 game. I returned with Jeff again, as well as Rachel, Jackson, Theo, and others from Rachel's work crowd, for a thrilling walk-off win by the Nationals. And, as you can see in this photo, Jackson was happy to have met Screech and try his first cotton candy, which gave him plenty of energy to stay up well past the time when we got home, after 11 p.m.

And finally, I just returned from a quick trip to the Ohio office of The Nature Conservancy in Dublin, outside of Columbus. I didn't have time to explore the city (Ohio's largest), but did have some pretty good pad thai and ice cream in the 'burbs. We're exploring starting a public-education campaign on climate change in that state, which is experiencing more extreme drought conditions around its crown jewel, Lake Erie.

Hope everyone is having an equally busy and entertaining start to your summers.

Jackson's First Song: "Scorpions on the Farm"

2011-06-24T00:08:00.003-04:00

Well, Jackson is 3-and-a-half. So it's time he starts writing songs, right?

He supplied me with these lyrics. Perhaps he's a burgeoning Flaming Lips fan. I combined that surreal-ness with the pep of an '80s TV sitcom theme.

Perhaps this will be a song that makes our first Hall and Oates-like album of duet soft rock ...

Top 10 List: The Best Monkees Songs

2011-06-17T23:50:00.005-04:00

Although I would strongly and vulnerably offer that the Monkees music is nowhere near as strong across the board as the Archies, but these two are definitely kings of the bubblegum genre. And they harken back to a time that set the pop-culture template for much of what would follow.

By recently exploring more deeply into their library than I did when I was kid, I found that the Monkees have tons of mediocre-at-best tunes, but they definitely have enough great songs to make up a 5-star collection. My top 10:

10. Hard to Believe
9. Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)
8. A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You
7. She
6. I Wanna Be Free
5. Last Train to Clarksville
4. Pleasant Valley Sunday
3. Daydream Believer
2. I'm a Believer (see the perfect video above)
1. (Theme From) The Monkees

What do you think about the Monkees? Do you agree with me that they were very influential and have a handful of pure-pop-perfection gems? Are you going to catch them on their reunion tour this summer?

Hey Hey We're the Monkees: Some Music Purists Missing Boat on Made-for-TV Band

2011-06-17T23:00:00.011-04:00

In Monkey Business: The Revolutionary Made-for-TV Band, the Monkees are described just as I remember from all the after-school TV-watching of my youth: "a kind of visual LSD for the Kool-Aid set."

The author, Eric Lefcowitz, interestingly describes how he forgot about the band throughout the 1970s. But at the start of the next decade, he heard "a bizarre cover" of "(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone" by the Sex Pistols. Despite being a fan of dark and political acts like Joy Division, The Clash, Dead Kennedys, and Black Flag, Lefcowitz found himself a few days later buying a Monkees album.

I similarly feel that there will always be some "music purists who never get the Monkees, who don't care that the Beatles, themselves, were fans." Or that some of the Monkees' songs were penned by legends like Harry Nilsson, Neil Diamond, and Carole King. Or that their TV show used "cutting-edge techniques" and band member Michael Nesmith, "for all intents and purposes [along with the Beatles' movie A Hard Day's Night], invented the revolutionary music video format that would later become MTV."

Other interesting tidbids from this book about a space in time that endlessly fascinates me:
- Urban legend has it that mass-murderer Charles Manson auditioned for the band, but that was later proven false.
- Stephen Stills, later of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, actually did audition, but he lost out "due to a receding hairline and a recessed tooth."

Now This is Americana! The World's Largest Catsup Bottle

2011-06-15T23:42:00.004-04:00

This 5-minute video is awesome, especially for those of us who spent our youth passing from my hometown of Edwardsville, Illinois through Collinsville, and into Fairview Heights, where the mall was located.

The World's Largest Catsup Bottle rested along that path. It was always completely natural to the landscape. It never seemed out of place and we never questioned it. Who knew there wasn't one of these creative and colorful water towers every 50 miles or so along the highways and byways of America?

I kind of feel the same way about Edwardsville as alt-country rocker Chris Mills feels about his hometown of Collinsville. This is what he said at one of my favorite music sites, Magnet.

Mills: I used to talk a lot of trash about my hometown. But Collinsville, Ill., isn’t actually all that bad. It’s relatively safe. The friends I still have there and people I still know are all pretty awesome. The school system wasn’t that great, but it got me where I am today. I’m sure that its proportion of less-than-progressive gun-toters is not that far above or below the national average for towns of its size and general geographic location. But regardless of my feelings about growing up there, Collinsville does have one amazing, magical thing that no place else in the world has: The World’s Largest Catsup Bottle. It was built in 1949 as a water tower for the Brooks Catsup factory, and for the majority of my youth, it was just a rusty, dilapidated shadow of what I imagined it once might have been. But in 1995, the local community rallied together to stave off the tower’s impending demolition and managed to restore the giant condiment container to its former glory. I think it has even been declared a historic landmark or something.

My Wiener Sausage Co-Writer "Comes Out"

2011-06-10T22:01:00.005-04:00

My Wiener Sausage: The Musical! co-creator Dan Sullivan made his Woolly Mammoth stage premiere last week in SpeakeasyDC's excellent production of Don't Ask, Do Tell (Stories About Coming Out, Coming Clean, and Just Plain Coming).

It was basically a stand-up, improv show, with 12 individuals telling their own stories of the process of becoming openly gay, lesbian, or trans-gendered.

Dan (in the center on the photo to the right) of course stole the show, with his dry wit and all-around loveable-ness and impossible-to-not-like-ness. He was 19 and working his job as a flagpole-raiser at the U.S. Capitol (a job that entails a complete fabrication by the U.S. government upon clueless patriotic flag-buyers everywhere). His straight, pink-haired buddy Charlie protected Dan's Private Idaho every step of the way from their redneck co-worker Larry, who fumed all summer that someone had left an issue of the Washington Blade in the Capitol break room.

Other standout storytellers in the show included Andrew Korfhage (telling perhaps the dirtiest tale of the night about his education on sex words in sign language and how he was busted using such language by his boss at the non-profit Co-op America), Regie Cabico (a manic poetry slammer who is big in Canada and had some wild times in his college dorm room) and MC and co-director John Kevin Boggs. All the other performers were either funny or at least had compelling stories to share, which was a pretty impressive feat for the production.

**** out of ***** stars

Is Jonathan Franzen Truly the Great American Novelist?

2011-06-09T22:00:00.009-04:00

I always wanted to like famed author Jonathan Franzen, but something about his upturned-nose style of writing has bugged me. He, like I, is from St. Louis, so I kind of enjoyed his first novel, 1988's The Twenty-Seventh City. It's about people from India in that city, the corrupt police force, and St. Louis' fall from having been the country's "fourth city" in the 1870s.

But I progressively liked his writings for The New Yorker less and less over the years, so much so that I refused to even read his much-acclaimed novel, The Corrections. Franzen drew me back in when I heard his latest, Freedom, featured a protagonist employed by The Nature Conservancy, where I've now worked for the past 11 months.

Walter Berglund is that character. Walter loves birds so much that it eventually drives him significantly cuckoo. It doesn't necessarily paint TNC in the greatest of lights, in that Walter seems to truly love animals more than people, not something the Conservancy seeks as its image. Luckily, there is enough love of people (mainly his wife Patty and his eventual mistress Lalitha) in Walter's life, that the animal part arguably doesn't win out. But it's close, and much of the novel's suspense teeters upon that line in the sand between bliss and madness. The Economist even calls the book a modern-day Paradise Lost.

Walter and Patty have two kids. Joey is a handsome wealthy young Republican, which drives Walter batty. Jessica is a good kid who tries to help her parents from killing each other. The wildcard in the novel is Richard Katz, a rock star who learned quite a bit of what he knows from Walter when the two were college roommates. Patty learns a lot from Richard too, and it drives a wedge into their marriage.

The scope of the novel is epic, and Franzen really nails it. His ability to build character and compelling dialogue nearly matches one of my favorite (yet less heralded) writers, Ethan Canin. It's a true page-turner, understandably an Oprah-endorsed modern classic, and there isn't a boring part within the tome (although the section in which Patty tries to help divide her father's estate between her spoiled siblings seems to get in the way a bit at the end).

I don't know if Franzen quite lives up to Time Magazine's claim as "the great American novelist," but he's close enough and I'm going to try to like him more after reading Freedom. His tone is still a little condescending and cloyingly intellectual, but he has definitely worked hard to improve himself in that category over the years.

****1/2 out of ***** stars

United Airlines Offers a Great Example of How NOT to Do PR

2011-06-04T12:58:00.004-04:00

When Canadian musician Dave Carroll looked out the window of his United jet to see the workers flinging his guitar across the tarmac, he knew there was going to be some damage. Sure enough there was. But after months of being given the runaround, he realized his only weapon would be to write a song about it.

"United Breaks Guitars" was the result and, even better, the video went viral on You Tube. But even that wasn't enough to get the lumbering behemoth of United's PR department moving into action.

The excellent book, Real-Time Marketing and PR, details Dave's situation, commending him for his PR knack. He eventually got real-world results when United changed its customer-service policies, but not before the company's stock fell 10 percent in the week after the song was released.

Further, Carroll owned a Taylor Guitar, and the owner of that company gave Carroll two new guitars. The company was adept at jumping in when the iron was hot to get a little positive PR of its own.

The song hit number 1 in the iTunes store. Carroll went on to become a hot item on the public-speaking circuit about customer service. (On one of his trips, United lost his luggage.)

The whole point of the book, by David Meerman Scott, is that, in today's world, companies need to be ready at any moment to seize positive PR opportunities. Crisis communications can truly be the difference between a relevant operation, like Dave Carroll himself and Taylor Guitars, and one that seems to be fading, like United.

Meat Party Capped Off With The Hangover Part II

2011-05-30T22:57:00.006-04:00

Apparently The Hangover Part II never had a fighting chance.

With a 35 percent score of critical reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, this is surely a pretty worthless movie. Except, by any other standards of comparison other than the first installment, this sequel would actually be bordering on riotous.

The beginning and the end are nearly as good as The Hangover, which is saying a lot, considering I ranked it the greatest comedy of all time. Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong, and a capuchin monkey are particularly over-the-top funny.

However, the middle section in a nightclub, a tattoo parlor, and a Buddhist monk sanctuary are each lacking in inspiration and very slow. The producers could have done so much more. And the critics' complaints about how this is basically The Hangover Part I only in Thailand are certainly correct.

All that said, I certainly don't need my 90 minutes back. And reliving the original Hangover with my friends Gordie, Zak, and Brian for a Fogo de Chao Brazilian meat party really put Friday evening over the top.

**** out of ***** stars

James Franco Cuts Off Arm, Thrills Us With Delusions in 127 Hours

2011-05-24T02:05:00.005-04:00

James Franco may have bombed as host of the Academy Awards, but he added to his impressive movie-character resume with his Academy-nominated performance in 127 Hours as outdoor adventure seeker Aron Ralston.

Much like his roles in Pineapple Express, Knocked Up, and Milk, he nails the laid-back and delusional persona. And it only gets better for Franco, who stars in what looks to be a tremendous upcoming Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

127 Hours is a beautifully filmed exploration of Canyonlands National Park in Utah as well as a very likable mountaineer's mind and thought process through the very difficult decision to cut off his lower arm to dislodge himself after a harrowing 127 hours caught by a fallen and unmovable rock.

It's pretty impressive how gripping this film is, especially considering that the only dramatization added to what is essentially a documentary was the scene in which he shows two female hikers how to jump into a deep pool beneath the rocks.

**** out of ***** stars

Beatles Action Figures Help Relive Childhood

2011-05-22T22:16:00.007-04:00

The great thing about having a kid is that you can still find ways to be selfish. Or at least still find ways to spend money on consumer goods that serve no real utility.

Jackson (pictured left) loves the Beatles and R.E.M. and I think action figures are pretty sweet. Well, I have yet to find a Michael Stipe figure, but The Beatles' Yellow Submarine figures became a necessity.

I had originally planned just to get my favorite Beatle, Paul. But Jackson had other plans. Once he got that, and saw on the box that there were figures of the other three Beatles as well as the Blue Meanie, Jeremy Hilary Boob PhD (aka The Nowhere Man), Fred the Submarine Captain, the Glovey Lovey, and the submarine itself, it was all over.

As you can see behind him in his room, we now have the entire set (a couple of hundred dollars later). Jackson has progressed to the next stage of wanting doubles of all of them, and also the Lord Mayor. But the company inexplicably didn't make a figure of him (Jackson knows him from the bedtime book we have of the Yellow Submarine).

Luckily I can sidetrack him with the box of baseball cards I just bought him.

Alma Tropicalia Hits a High Note

2011-05-19T23:10:00.008-04:00

Word on the street has it that Saturday night's show at the funky Artisphere space in Arlington, Virginia was the last gig for the current lineup of Alma Tropicalia (pictured to the left). That's too bad because it seemed like most of the pieces were coming together for DC to have an excellent Brazilian tropicalia rock band firmly entrenched.

Nevertheless, it was a strong show in the long room in the Rosslyn neighborhood just across the Potomac River from Georgetown. The latin flavor was heightened by the 50-piece female drum band that opened and came on at the end of Alma Tropicalia's show as well. There was a lot of fun new music in the set, a killer background projection of Mad Men-like 1950s films, and all kinds of good vibes.

Too bad Alma Tropicalia, featuring my good friend Gordie (formerly in my last band, The Sprogs), seems to be making some changes to a pretty solid lineup.

Perhaps Gordie and I should reform The Sprogs or start a new band. I know I often say it, but I'm starting to get itchy to be motivated to writing lots of songs again. I've been on hiatus a little too long. With that thought, here is one of my favorite self-penned tunes that has yet to formally go into the recording studio. What do you think? Should I get a band to "rock it up," write a b-side to go with it, and release a new single?

Phantasm II Adds to Strong Horror Library of 1980s

2011-05-14T00:53:00.005-04:00

Deadly silver balls. That creepy mortuary dude. Bad attempts at tough-guy humor from bald men.

Yes, 1979's Phantasm had it all. And I finally got around to - in honor of Friday the 13th - watching Phantasm II.

The horrendous acting and sometimes-slow pace make this arguably painful. But if you loved the first installment, you'll be pretty happy with this one. And, in all honesty, its Evil Dead 2-like stylings help it stack up well against the best movies of an incredible decade of horror flicks. (Released in 1988, with a budget of $3 million, it is supposedly the lowest-budget Universal production of the 1980s.)

Young Mike gets out of the mental ward where he landed at the end of the first film, realizes the "Tall Man" (pictured) and his Jawa-like creatures are still terrorizing his loved ones, and sets out on his personal quest to eradicate the bad guys.

Phantasm II takes a while to get going, but the second half is filled with (if not a discernible plot) wildly creative horror vignettes.

*** out of ***** stars

Sicko Indie Rockers Get Loud at Rock and Roll Hotel

2011-05-11T22:45:00.001-04:00

West Palm Beach's Surfer Blood (pictured) visited the Rock and Roll Hotel last night and put on a great show. The Washington City Paper has great photos here.

The band got onstage and looked all of about 18 years old each. Which made it all the more surprising when they proceeded to manhandle their guitars into a mesmerizing combination of screeching and melodic feedback. With pounding, rapid-fire drums chugging away and impressively loud vocals, Surfer Blood was like a combination of The Smiths, Vampire Weekend, and The Pixies.

"Floating Vibes" kicked off the set and Pitchfork's Number 37 song of 2010 "Swim" near the end highlighted the hour-long performance.

**** out of ***** stars

Surfer Blood pranced and sang through the jubilant crowd during its set. Meanwhile, Austin headliners ... And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead did the same during their mind-poundingly loud part of the show. The only difference was that the Trail of Dead were much darker and gothic, and the crowd seemed totally different up near the front of the stage. For Surfer Blood, it had been harmless college indie hipsters. Now it was transformed into a slam-dancing pit of metal lunkheads.

While I love all of the Trail of Dead's album, I was underwhelmed by the lack of hooks in their live show. The four-piece was exceedingly tight, but much of their material consisted of unenjoyable jams. The songs that worked best were the very short ones, even when they were no more than two minutes of guitar wankery. At least they were more to the point.

** out of ***** stars

Funny Email Chain: Worst Movie Sequels

2011-05-08T14:44:00.005-04:00

I don't drag my friends and family onto my blog too often, but this little conversation between some of my oldest friends is noteworthy. What do you think are the worst movie sequels?

Dewey: My list of worst sequels of all time…….feel free to add your own…..i know it's endless, but these came to me quickly.

1. Caddyshack 2………..awful
2. Transformers 2…….first was good, this was way bad
3. Godfather 3…….maybe only cuz the first 2 are PHENOMENAL, and nothing could live up to those
4. Young guns 2……..just had fun typing it
5. Blair witch 2 ……..hard to follow the premise of #1
6. Honorable mention: Halloween 3, only cuz it has nothing to do with first 2, but I still kind of like it, and I know Mackie does too.

ET: Caddyshack 2 is horrible. Agree with your list and add the following:

Pet Semetary 2

Star Wars episode 1

All Jaws sequels

Weekend at Bernies 2

Scoots: Coal Miner’s Daughter part deux.

Dewey: Is that actually true, there was a 2….?

Scoots: The second “Hooper” was pretty bad, not to mention “Smoky and the Bandit” III.

Me: I can't really add anything to this list. Maybe Godfather 2 (or was it 3 that was really bad?), Basic Instinct 2, Weekend at Bernies 2 (should there have even been a 1?). Porky's 2 was pretty disposable if I recall correctly. I can't confirm that there actually was a coal miner's daughter 2, from a quick internet search. Don't mess with Halloween 3, Mathews!

Dewey: Porky’s was great……….Porky’s two was like retelling the story of Porky’s 1 to a friend who wasn’t there, and he just doesn’t get how funny it was to be there……

ET: Godfather 2 was awesome - 3 sucked.

Also, predator 2 and while most of the Friday the 13ths were bad, part 8 (Jason takes Manhattan) stands out - kills an entire river boat of high school kids and then dies in the NY sewers after toxic waste runs through it and turns him back into a child.

Bedroom Recordings: 60s Soft Rock Surfer Girl

2011-05-02T22:15:00.006-04:00

I've been in a holding pattern for a little while on writing music. And I rarely play other people's songs. So I thought I'd push myself to learn some good cover tunes to play this summer around the campfire.

First up: "Surfer Girl" by The Beach Boys. This was one of my favorite songs to sing at bedtime to Jackson when he was a baby. My version is nowhere near as good as the music of my two favorite new bands of the moment, Telekinesis and Yuck. And it certainly is a little embarrassing in light of the perfect and un-improvable Brian Wilson-led version.

But you've gotta start somewhere ...

It Took Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged to Finally Make Humanitarians Look Bad in Hollywood

2011-04-29T20:44:00.006-04:00

The lack of any stars in the movie adaptation of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged was a pretty good sign, only a few minutes in, that this movie would stink. But the lack of stars probably had more to do with the fact that 95 percent of Hollywood wouldn't want to touch this film, released on Tax Day and heavily promoted by Dick Armey's Tea Party-affiliated anti-tax organization Freedom Works.

Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron, Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe, and Brad Pitt were among the stars who dropped out along the way. Surprisingly, the no-name actors don't do a horrible job. It's more like it's not directed well and is just kind of laughable in a Lifetime mini-series sort of way. OK if you got sucked into it while on the couch, but a little insulting to have been subjected to in a public movie theater.

Making this movie part one of a trilogy only adds to the painfully anti-climactic ending. That said, I'll definitely Netflix the next two parts. As an admitted fan of Rand's The Fountainhead (I've never read Atlas Shrugged), the author's brand of "objectivism" and libertarianism is fascinating.

Not that her writing has a lot of nuance, but it has great characters. And the movie clearly has strong characters. The problem is the nuance is mostly lost. But Rand's mind tricks, like the best science fiction, bring interesting and creative twists to reality. With Atlas Shrugged, it appears that railroad owner Dagny Taggert and metal industrialist Hank Reardon are able to keep their ambitions on course because they won't give up. They are fulfilling their objectivist, individual passion. Meanwhile, other top CEOs "shrugg" and fall by the wayside. They are letting the world down. The story, set in the future, shows sympathy for rich people, disdains poor people (although not enough to ever physically hurt them), and shows how crummy the world would be if rich people weren't so rich.

I'll give it this: you don't see humanitarians made to look evil in Hollywood too often. I wish I could give Atlas Shrugged a better review so that it doesn't look like I'm making a partisan attack, but ...

** out of ***** stars

My National Geographic Gig: If Only I Had a Yard to Mow

2011-04-28T23:18:00.005-04:00

I just got paid for some freelance blogging I did for National Geographic last year, and it reminded me that I never noted that at Pop Culture Lunch Box.

And which article would be better to excerpt, as the weather warms up and people are heading outside to mow their lawns, than one about which mower you should purchase.

Shopping Tips

There are basically three kinds of mowers: reel, rotary, and riding.

Reel mowers: Patterned after the scythe, a hand tool used to whack grass, the reel push mower is manual and creates zero air pollution. As more people become environmentally conscious, there has been a steady increase in the sale of push mowers.
Rotary mowers: These have internal combustion engines that usually run on gasoline. They have the benefit of more power than reel mowers, but the disadvantages of requiring much more regular maintenance and creating pollutants like carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides.
Riding mowers: Riding mowers are often more appropriate for large lawns and are the most expensive option.
Going electric: For those who need a power boost to get the job done, electric models are available, with or without a cord, for both reel and riding mowers. These are sort of the Toyota Prius hybrids of the mower world, and more environmentally friendly than rotary models. The degree to which they pollute depends on the energy efficiency of the power plant from which the battery charge originated. Interestingly, electric riding mowers are becoming more common and they can usually cut about a half an acre before needing to be recharged.

Which mower you pick largely determines the cost to the environment. Consumer Reports and Clean Air Gardening provide nice resources to help you choose an environmentally friendly lawn mower.

------

It was an honor to write for National Geographic and it would be great to continue the relationship sometime.

Charlie Sheen's Tiger Blood Influences Generations of Wall Street Crooks

2011-04-28T00:28:00.008-04:00

Cliches permeate Oliver Stone's 1987 film Wall Street. But then again, many classic movie lines like "greed is good" do the same.

Slicked-back, only-in-the-80s hair for Michael Douglas as financial king Gordon Gekko. But then again, this was probably the best decade of my life and I can't help but feel tons of nostalgia.

Like in another Stone classic, Platoon, young Charlie Sheen is the centerpiece as Bud Fox and there might not be a scene in which he doesn't appear. It's a brilliant performance by him. Douglas, who won the Academy Award for best actor, and Martin Sheen as Charlie's do-gooder dad come in a close second.

Daryl Hannah, a highly idealistic actress (see the video I made with her last December in which she asks us all to stop eating fish for the good of the planet), is an odd choice as the materialistic interior designer who plays everyone's girlfriend and doesn't seem to be having much fun with her role. She even won a Razzie as worst actress that year. Sean Young, who was amazing in another 80s-excess flick called The Boost, apparently lobbied to fire Hannah throughout production so that she could play the role with the right amount of 80s unethical flair.

Stone was inspired to make the movie by the memory of his father, a stock broker during the Great Depression. Wall Street is subsequently said to be hugely influential in building a generation of insider-trading-minded business workers. We might never have had Enron and Bernie Madoff if not for this glamorization of heroic corruption.

****1/2 out of ***** stars

Morning Glories Takes the Teen Mystery Graphic Novel Genre to a New Level

2011-04-26T23:38:00.007-04:00

As I mentioned recently, I've discovered that graphic novels are the perfect answer for a person who doesn't have as much time to enjoy reading as many great stories as he used to (you know, parenthood).

Speaking of great stories, the last graphic novel I finished was Morning Glories Volume One: For a Better Future, from Image Comics. One of the first things I look for in a graphic novel is compelling cover art. This one, at first glance, looks like a simple prep-school story for adults, which in itself can often be a winning formula.

But what really got me more interested was that the characters looked slightly off, mysterious, and puzzling. The lack of description about what this story is all about added to the intrigue.

As one reviewer at Amazon notes, this is Lost meets The Breakfast Club. Six celebrated kids, who happen to all have the same birthday, arrive at a prestigious prep school. On the first day, the teachers and students set about trying to kill them and generally make their lives hell. There is also a monster that sweeps in with no rhyme or reason to stick his hands through the brains of random people at random times.

The interesting thing is that this doesn't appear to be yet-another teenage vampire tale. Through the first volume, I have no idea what it's about. But it's a page turner, and the characters are built so strongly and with just the right of scheming against each other that I'll definitely return to read subsequent volumes of this mysterious thrill ride.

**** out of ***** stars (with the right to give this more or fewer stars based on how the next chapters pan out)

Win Win is Early Best-Picture Candidate

2011-04-20T00:04:00.002-04:00

Tom McCarthy, who directed The Station Agent and The Visitor, is back with a phenomenal little film about a small-time New Jersey lawyer who gets himself into a lot of trouble with his decisions to play God to an old man and his dysfunctional family. Win Win is about how complicated life really is even though it seems so simple.

But all his moves make us completely sympathetic to him. And it helps that the lawyer is played by Paul Giamatti of Sideways fame. He still plays the same lovable schlump here, but instead of wine tasting, he is fixated on keeping his family afloat amid hard economic times. The characters around him are also lovable, if somewhat buffoonish: his Bon Jovi-loving wife (played excellently by Amy Ryan, who was Michael Scott's voice-impression-doing love interest in The Office) and Bobby Cannavale as an assistant wrestling coach who just needs a distraction and seems to want to relive his high-school days.

Alex Shaffer is Kyle, the talented wrestler who serves as the center of Win Win's galaxy. He does a great job, and this should be an early front-runner for best picture.

****1/2 out of ***** stars

Time to Take a "Stand" With Graphic Novels

2011-04-17T22:33:00.005-04:00

Being a former English-lit undergrad and a voracious reader of novels, I never thought the day would come when it would take multiple months to get through a simple Oprah Book Club book (I may never get through Jonathan Franzen's Freedom!).

But such is fatherhood. In fact, I just canceled my New Yorker subscription after a strong 16-year run. I'll still read what I can of that magazine online. But I've really discovered the perfect format for great stories for the free-time challenged: graphic novels.

I bought a few recently. The first one I finished was one based on the first part of Stephen King's The Stand, which was probably the best novel I read before turning 16.

The Stand: Captain Trips, from the famed Marvel company, tells the tale of several Americans who mysteriously survive a killer virus, popularly referred to as "Captain Trips." While everyone else dies, they try to make sense of what is happening. The premise provides perfect drama, and I just ordered the next parts of this series.

Anyone half-way interested in a killer apocalypse tale should find this exquisitely drawn book. Better yet, read the 1,000-page-plus novel first, then read the comic (1,000 pages! That would take this proud papa half-a-year to get through).

***** out of ***** stars

Got an iPad? Get These Apps

2011-04-13T15:45:00.005-04:00

A friend asked me how I like my iPad, and which apps he should get when he buys his own. I've had this magical device, which I didn't actually know that I needed until I bought it, for about six months now. And this is what I like:

If you read magazines, get Zinio. You can subscribe to magazines on it. Sporting News Today is awesome. I also subscribe to Rolling Stone and Spin on it.

Reeder is perfect if you have a Google Reader account, which is an RSS feeder that allows you to bring all your web sites to one page so you don't have to try and remember checking them all the time. Reeder also allows you to bypass the New York Times' new paywall, because there's a "Readability" button that brings up the entire article within the Reeder app without having to go to the Times website.

Kindle is obviously key for reading books. It's much better on iPad than on the actual Kindle.

I checked out The Daily for a bit. I believe there's still a 14-day free trial available. It's a cool iPad only daily newspaper, but it's published by Rupurt Murdock and I just eventually couldn't take its dumb and slightly conservative leanings. Great idea though.

Read It Later is good, and allows you to save any long articles online for later so you can read them offline whenever you like (which is especially good for long-form journalism in magazines like Vanity Fair and The New Yorker).

Twitter and Friended are good for social media. StumbleUpon is fun for discovering interesting corners of the Internet. Netflix is amazing for streaming movies instantly if you have an account.

Remote is really nice, as it turns your iPad into a remote control for your iTunes account and stereos.

Ultimate Guitar allows you to see and save the guitar tabs and lyrics to just about any song. I've actually been learning other people's songs (instead of alwasy just writing my own songs) for the first time because of this app.

And, finally, I haven't checked it out yet, but apparently all the old Atari games are available now through one, single app. Whenever I find some downtime, I'm going to be all over that.

Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Supplies Solid Populist Suspense

2011-04-12T23:39:00.004-04:00

I've been meaning to see what all the hype about The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is about for quite a while. I bought the hardback novel for $1 at a thrift store a couple of years ago but never read it. I think I may have even purchased it on Kindle, but never got to that version either.

I even recently read the long New Yorker feature on dead author Stieg Larsson. So enough was enough. It was finally time for me to watch the 2009 Swedish movie on Netflix Instant (Daniel Craig is pegged to star in an upcoming Hollywood remake).

And if there's one thing the Larsson/Tattoo phenomenon confirms, it's that Americans (and indeed, most pop-culture lovers the world over) go wild for shock, awe, and taking things one step further than they've ever gone before.

A cynic might say this movie is simply a ripoff of The Silence of the Lambs. The two movies do have similarities, but a gripping, suspenseful murder mystery is pretty tough to argue against. Mikael Blomkvist is an investigative journalist who is being trailed by Lisbeth Salander, the title character, who is undergoing a string of highly troubling events.

The two eventually work through their disagreements and team up to get lost in a web of intrigue that includes industrialists, Nazis, sadistic rapists, and a general collection of puzzle pieces scattered all over the world. What more could you really ask for? This is a highly entertaining and complex (without actually making your brain hurt like, say, Lost does) populist tromp.

**** out of ***** stars

The Pretty Hotspots of Austin

2011-04-11T23:31:00.009-04:00

I didn't get nearly enough time to explore Austin, Texas on my four-day work trip there last week, but I did take a couple of hours to rent a bike and see the city.

That's me in front of the University of Texas clock tower. I rode around the campus, past a workers-rights protest at the state capital, and down along South Congress Avenue and the river-like lake, which has nice jogging and biking paths on both sides.

The last photo here is from the lovely sculpture garden where we had our climate-adaptation team retreat. The bus ride on the way to the conference dinner at a Nature Conservancy reserve through the rolling hills west of Austin was also nice.

Honky Tonkin' Through Austin Rock City

2011-04-09T00:31:00.009-04:00

Just returned from Austin, and it's a great town where they do things quite a bit differently.

I would never be crazy about living in Texas, but this is a place where I could really stand to spend some more time. There is live music being played everywhere, from the airport to bar rooftops at night to a guy playing a piano under the columns of a corporate skyscraper.

Here are a handful of images that represent Austin's feel. From top left then clockwise: a display in a shop on famed East 6th Street called Crazy About Music, Austin legend Willie Nelson's street with my Raddison hotel in the background, and famed Emo's rock club with some interestingly named artists soon coming to town.

Stubb's BBQ is First Stop on Austin 3-Day Work Trip

2011-04-05T01:04:00.009-04:00

I finally landed in Austin, Texas today after significant weather delays on American Airlines. But the weather is beautiful here and there was just enough time to stroll around town before the NCAA championship game between UConn and Butler started.

My destination: the legendary music club/meat joint known as Stubb's BBQ. I saddled up to the bar and got one of the best beef briskets ever, along with mashed sweet potatoes and walnuts, a side salad, and a couple of Real Ales from Texas Hill Country.

Stubb's is a rustic, roadhouse-like place with two levels. There is a stage inside but there is also a huge backyard that stretches out and allows some of the biggest names in music to perform. It would be a fun place to see a show, espially if I ever make it back here for the SXSW festival.

It's good to be here and I'm looking forward to leading a messaging workshop for The Nature Conservancy's "climate adaptation team" and attending a conference on "freshwater" as well.

Here Comes the Jennifer Aniston Double Feature

2011-04-01T23:56:00.006-04:00

I'm a chick-flick guy, but this may have been over the line.

Somehow, two Jennifer Aniston movies landed at the top of our Netflix queue, which happened to be a pretty sure-fire way of pushing our luck.

We watched the first one a few nights ago when we were in Tahoe City, California and, I have to admit, I've already quickly forgotten most everything about The Switch. But I do remember liking it. Quite a bit. Jason Bateman can almost do no wrong for me. The former Arrested Development star plays Aniston's best friend and, one drunken night, he switches the donor's sperm with his own. Several years pass before he realizes her child is his as well.

This movie, based on a Jeffrey Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides, Middlesex) short story is, somehow, funny. It works.

***1/2 out of ***** stars

Back home, Love Happens is the "pushing our luck" part. At least we didn't pay movie-theater prices.

While Aaron Eckhart and Aniston try to make us care, the Hallmark-Channel script drags these actors to new lows.

Eckhart, who was so good in Thank You for Smoking, plays a self-help guru who helps people deal with loss. But he is slow to let Aniston into his own world.

It's not funny. It's really condescending to our emotions. And it's one of the least original plots imaginable. Two writers even sued the filmmakers, claiming the script was stolen. Hopefully the worst movie I'll see in 2011.

1/2 out of ***** stars (and it only gets that 1/2 star because of a couple of good Rogue Wave and Eels songs on the soundtrack)

Jackson Brings the Funny as Tahoe Trip Winds Down

2011-03-31T23:53:00.007-04:00

Again, I still can't believe how much snow there was on our trip to Lake Tahoe. Check out the drift on our rental house in the photo to the right, and that was on our last day there after the snow had already done some serious melting. You could barely see our house from the road.

After our blizzard-like day of skiing at Homewood on Day 1, we had a brutally windy Day 2 at Alpine Meadows.

But then, as you see in the rest of these photos, Day 3 at Heavenly on the south side of the lake was probably the most perfect day I've ever had for hitting the slopes. Heavenly looks down on the brown valley of Nevada on one side, the lush forestry of California on the other, and the crisp blue lake in the middle.

Jackson was a trooper. He didn't ski at Heavenly, but had fun hanging out in the lodge, climbing the snow banks (pictured), and riding up the massive Gondola. He was great on the flights as well, entertaining everyone who was interested. (He is becoming quite the cheeseball entertainer, and took full advantage of the stage at Alpine Meadows to put on a show for me with his plastic toys and makeshift puppet gloves and socks.)

On the way back, we had a layover in Phoenix so Rachel asked a Southwest attendant if she could have a 24-hour stay so Jackson could see her grandmommy's Scottsdale house for the first time. I had to get back to work, but it worked out well for them. I'm told Jackson was very good, checked out everything in the house, asked nicely for a jellybean, and held grandmommy's hand everywhere they went.

They went to Target and bought clothes and bathing suits, since it was not anything close to Tahoe and DC weather there. Grandmommy wanted to buy Jackson a $50 bike, but he instead wanted some tiny toy hammock with a bear in it for $3. Grandmommy and Jackson were up till 11:30 in the kitchen together and she was very impressed by his utensil-sorting skills and engineer-like mind. He walked throught the whole house with a flashlight finding new things to look at.

When Rachel told him she was tired, he said, "You can' t sleep, you'll miss all the fun things I'm going to do tonight."

Snow, Snow, Snow at Lake Tahoe

2011-03-29T17:40:00.005-04:00

This is amazing! As I said in my last post, I've never seen this much snow anywhere. In some places, there were 40 to 50 foot drifts. Not sure where all this is going to melt off to, but Jackson sure is appreciating getting to make snow angels. He may not be much of a skier yet (after all, he just turned three in November), but the boy can climb just about everything, and he's getting some good practice in while we're here.

Skiing Is So Much More Fun Than Airline Travel

2011-03-27T10:30:00.006-04:00

After an horrendous day of Delta Airlines travel on Friday, yesterday's first of three days of skiing made up for it. We went to Homewood, right near our house in Tahoe City, California. It's a great little resort with three lifts and not many people, and it's known as a place for locals rather than tourists.

Normally there are great views of Lake Tahoe, but not with all this snow swirling around. At one point, the wind actually pushed me backwards on my skis for several feet.

Jackson slept in the car for the first two hours, so it was easier for Rachel and I to swap off taking turns up the mountain with a happy little boy playing in the snow at the bottom.

Our house and everything here is covered in a down-right scary amount of snow. There are 30 or 40 foot drifts along just about every roadway and piled up above first- and even second-floor windows of all buildings. I've never seen this much snow. Not even close! (see the video below for some proof)

All this snow is making skiing phenomenal. The trip out, as I mentioned, was another story. We had a one-hour layover in a busy Salt Lake City airport that turned into six hours because the toilet broke on our second plane, and an additional hour after they decided to de-ice the plane after we taxied out to the tarmac. By now, of course, I was missing all of the North Carolina Sweet 16 game against Marquette.

Finally, we arrived at our rental house and there were a bunch of ladies drinking Bud Light and watching TV. They had it rented for three months. So the rental person came and met us and took us to a different property of hers. It's OK and will do.

Do Large Pigs Have the Ability to Control Us All?

2011-03-20T14:47:00.005-04:00

As noted here previously, I've begun reading a collection of Phillip K. Dick's classic sci-fi short stories.

"Beyond Lies the Wub," from 1952, is one of his most famous. And surely one of his most pointed.

A spaceship crew captures a large pig-like beast called a "wub" who has the power of sophisticated conversation. The wub even alludes to a possible talent for mind-control. One crew member protests when the captain disregards this nonsense and demands that they kill and eat the wub.

After the captain takes some bites, he asks the horrified crew member to continue the conversation they were having about the travels of Odysseus. The only thing? The crew member had been having that conversation with the wub, not the captain.

I haven't researched what points Dick was attempting to make, but there are several ways to look at it. Ambiguity is always my favorite trait of the best science fiction. It makes you stop and think. In this case, it makes you think about how easily others can take control of our minds and may even be a statement on the pig-headedness of some humans insisting in conquering other species and being closed-minded to the obvious signs of their needs.

If these stories continue in this direction, I'll be adding Phillip K. Dick to my shelf of favorite sci-fi authors, alongside Robert A. Heinlein, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, and Douglas Adams.

****1/2 out of ***** stars

Winter's Bone Opens Door on Meth World of the Ozarks

2011-03-19T23:50:00.005-04:00

Winter's Bone was a darling of the awards season, but apparently not for the depth of the thin plot.

However, the inside look at how patches of Heartland America are being torn apart by meth labs, dealers, and addicts was certainly the eye-opener for elite Academy voters, who nominated it for best picture.

Life is tough for Ree Dolly, played with genuine Ozark-Mountains wherewithal by relative-unknown Jennifer Lawrence. At 17, she takes care of her two younger siblings while her mother dwells in their shack, no help and staring blankly into the ether. We don't learn what happened to her, but it obviously had something to do with her no-good missing husband.

Ree needs to find her father to keep a bail bondsman from taking the family's property. So this leads her to have to deal with her father's meth-world associates. Not a pretty or nice bunch.

Well worth enjoying, but, at the same time, a little painfully slow and uneventful. Not as fun as all those canoe rides I took down Missouri's Current River in my youth.

***1/2 out of ***** stars

Scott Pilgrim More a Video Game Than a Movie

2011-03-08T23:19:00.003-05:00

The first half hour of Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World is as good as any rom-com you'll find. But the last hour is likely to test the patience of rom or com fans who like their doses of action and video-game fantasy in small doses.

Shaggy-haired Canadian rocker Michael Cera is very funny revising every role he's ever had since his brilliant run as young George Michael in Arrested Development. He falls for a multi-color-haired American wanderer named Ramona (played by the mesmerizing Mary Elizabeth Winstead). That part is endearing. Then the movie gets weird and tiresome as Scott learns he has to fight all seven of Ramona's exes before he can truly win his love. Something seems missing from Ramona's character, and I'm not sure we ever learn just why these exes need to be fought off.

Some of the famous bit players also don't measure up to the standards of Cera and Winstead. Jason Schwartzman lacks humor in his role as the mastermind of the evil-exes plot. And Kieran Culkin and Anna Kendrick are underutilized.

*** out of ***** stars

Phillip K. Dick Uses a Cuckoo Clock as a Metaphor for Psychotic Murder

2011-03-08T02:31:00.005-05:00

I've read a good amount of science fiction over the years, but somehow missed the works of Phillip K. Dick. And after enjoying so many of the movies based on his stories (Minority Report, Total Recall, and Blade Runner, not to mention the new The Adjustment Bureau, which is high on my list of must-sees), I figured it was time to start with some of his short stories.

The first one I read in a $1.99 Kindle edition of The Best of Phillip K. Dick is a curious and simple little tale called "Beyond the Door."

In the story, Larry Thomas buys his wife Doris a cuckoo clock, but she holds it against him in a way that leads us to believe that she doesn't like her husband at all. She seems to build a relationship with the clock, essentially replacing her husband with the cuckoo.

Then one morning, while Larry is working, Bob Chambers visits Doris. But when Larry arrives home, he kicks Bob and his wife out. With Doris out of the house, the cuckoo oddly never announces the time anymore. But when Larry finally gets around to trying to fix the evil little thing, it bursts out of the box and pecks him right in the eye. He falls off the chair he's working on, breaks his neck, and dies.

Very simple and short story, but effective imagery of a seemingly psychotic wife who, indeed, may be considerably "cuckoo." And murderous.

**** out of ***** stars

Ugly Stars Dot Georgtown Hoya Universe

2011-03-01T22:33:00.004-05:00

Another year of season tickets ended Saturday with a great time had with seat-mates Peter and Justin. Unfortunately, it was a pretty sour note to watch our Georgetown Hoyas lose our last two home games. The first loss was to Cincinnati that included an ugly broken hand for star Chris Wright. The last loss was to the always-despised Syracuse Orangemen and their rabidly annoying fans.

The only redeeming part of the Syracuse game was the star power in the Verizon Center. Georgetown grad Bill Clinton sat near the Hoya cheerleaders and got his photo taken with them. Former NBA and Hoya great Alonzo Mourning received an award at halftime and also chatted for a bit on the sidelines with Clinton.

And ugly was in the house. Although he actually didn't seem like a bad-looking guy at all, Sam Cassell, voted "Ugliest NBA Player of All Time," sat next to us in the scout section (see photo above).

Another proud member of that list was in the house. The seventh ugliest NBAer, big man Gheorghe Muresan, sat alongside the truly primitive Geico Caveman.

Speaking of ugly, it was pretty rough having to sit through home defeats this year to Cincinnati, Syracuse, West Virginia, and Pittsburgh. Let's hope the Big East and NCAA tourneys, as well as next year, look a little better.

How to Pitch Story Ideas to ABC News

2011-02-23T14:51:00.004-05:00

Sat in today on a very interesting, off-the-record "reporter roundtable" at one of my favorite DC PR firms. The guest reporter was a correspondent for ABC News who is mostly a TV reporter with Diane Sawyer's ABC World News Tonight. But in this day and age of 24/7 news, she also reports for ABC radio and ABC.com. Some of her insights into how the PR industry can effectively pitch journalists include:

- Networks want exclusives, health and new technology stories, real people, heartstrings, opinions, and video video video (or at least stories with great imagery).
- Mass transit and infrastructure stories, to a name a couple, are very tough sells.
- Pocket cameras are now what correspondents carry into the field all over the world.
- Media companies have no money for bureau reporters, so they're happy to run phone interviews, and use many stories on radio and the web. Stories about mass transit, for example, will never get on TV but are great for other company holdings like the web and radio.
- Providing the media with B-roll of lengthy shots, with good sound, shot digitally in 16x9, is a great service companies can offer. Interviews within that B-roll won't be used at the network level, but some regional and local media may use them.

As for whether to pitch Good Morning America versus World News Tonight, here are a few other tips:
- GMA used to be touchy feelie, but it's trying to be harder now. The show will run consumer-friendly stories with a news edge in "segment 6." It is mostly all about exclusives. As GMA moves into its later hours, softer stories come into play with lots of live guests. World News Tonight is more enterprising and also focuses on top news. ABC will not cover "process" stories like Hill policy; CBS will though. Nightline has hard news when necessary, but has been leaning more lately to hip, sign-of-the-times stories.

The ABC journalist added that the editor/correspondent relationship has rapidly changed. Five years ago, about half the stories were assigned by the editors. Now, correspondents have to pitch constantly. She said about half her story ideas are personally generated with the other half coming from pitches from PR agencies and other media-relations experts and sources. Pitching both her and her producers is never a bad idea because they all receive so much email that at least one of them is liable to miss the pitch altogether.

The journalist, finally, added that Twitter and blogs are both extremely important sources for people in her profession. Facebook, on the other hand, at least in her experience, is too much work for journalists because by the time they get home, the last thing they want to check is, essentially, more email.

A Vermont Skiing President's Day Weekend

2011-02-22T22:02:00.004-05:00

Vermont was a fun place to get away from the city for the President's Day long weekend. The main plan was to get some skiing in, and we went to Magic Mountain near our bed and breakfast in Chester.

The Stone Hearth Inn & Tavern was where Rachel, Jackson, and I set up shop for the past three nights. With the temperature down into the single digits at night, it was a cozy place to get quality beer like Dogfish Head, Magic Hat Vinyl, and others on draft while Jackson ran around the drunken singing snowmobile crowd that was hanging out and playing pool, air hockey, and Pac Man.

Jackson lasted about 30 minutes in ski school, which we were actually pretty happy with for a little guy who just turned three. Maybe by age five he'll have the hang of it. Rachel's really nice co-workers Lou and Kris helped take care of him in the lodge and we all rotated skiing the slopes. It was my first time skiing anywhere in the Eastern U.S. The snow was definitely hard and crackly, unlike the powder out west, but that was mostly because there hadn't been any fresh snow lately.

More of Rachel's co-workers Nelson, Emily, Doug, and Gary also joined us at various haunts in the region, including a delicious dinner at Emily's, pizza at Pizza Stone, sandwiches at the Moon Dog Cafe, and lunch at Millie's Tavern in Manchester, New Hampshire. We also hiked, sledded, and snowshoed. And Jackson loved playing in a big kids' funhouse in Manchester, while I got to see Rachel's Student Conservation Association headquarters for the first time.

MacGruber Takes Down the 80s One Celery Stick at a Time

2011-02-08T23:05:00.007-05:00

I can't believe Lorne Michaels would turn a semi-unfunny Saturday Night Live 5-minute skit into a 90-minute film.

I can't believe serious actors Val Kilmer and Ryan Phillippe would offer their services to a movie like this.

I can't believe how hard I laughed at numerous parts of this movie.

MacGruber is surprisingly hilarious, and Will Forte and Kristen Wiig turn in lovable performances as the lead characters. The story has something to do with mullet-wielding, soft-80s-rock-loving MacGruber, some sort of explosives specialist, sets out to seek revenge on Dieter van Cunth, played wonderfully as an oddball creep by Kilmer, for killing his wife.

The complete and unending social awkwardness of MacGruber (celery-stick defense moves and all) is what turns this into the kind of movie that can compete with the likes of Anchorman for completely-useless-but-brilliant cult comedies.

"Classic MacGruber."

***1/2 out of ***** stars

Steelers Shoot for Number 7 Today ... 6:30 P.M. Seems Like Days Away

2011-02-06T11:18:00.005-05:00

I'm too superstitious to write anything other than ... Go Stillers!!!

And maybe post a roundup of past Pop Culture Lunch Box blogs about the best sports team in the world.

The history of the Pittsburgh Steelers and "mob football."

Roundup of the failed 2009-2010 season.

Steelers win record sixth Super Bowl!

A look back at why I'm a Steelers fan who grew up in St. Louis.

My favorite NFL teams, ranked 1 to 32.

Movies that take place in Pittsburgh.

No Strings Attached Gets Ashton Kutcher, Natalie Portman's Quirks On

2011-02-05T22:46:00.005-05:00

No Strings Attached is a quirky little chick flick that falls a little flat sometimes, but like its lead actor Ashton Kutcher, has a mostly good heart that ultimately is a winner.

The movie's plot seems to be drawn somewhat from Kutcher's own life. When he was a student at the University of Iowa, he woke up many times not knowing what he had done the night before.

It's a little raunchy and sometimes tries too hard to be quirky, but Kutcher and Natalie Portman have nice chemistry. So while supporting players like Kevin Kline see their talent a little wasted, the fact that we always get to come back to the leads is comforting. Good soundtrack too, including Bishop Allen, Elvis, and Color Me Badd.

*** out of ***** stars

iPad Gets Serious for News Junkies with The Daily

2011-02-04T01:04:00.005-05:00

After some technical glitches for the past day (I didn't have the latest and necessary iPad update), I finally spent about 90 minutes late tonight getting to know The Daily, the much-hyped Rupert Murdoch-owned first full daily newspaper made explicitly for the iPad.

The early returns?: Could be a game-changer.

Despite being owned by FOX News and tabloid magnate Murdoch, the 100-page (or so) app so far seems bipartisan, which is a smart strategy. If he can get Wall Street Journal and New York Times' readers to convert, we are looking at the future of news consumption.

And why not? There are videos that are easy to watch while reading other news, a slew of amazing graphics and photos, and really all the content any news junkie could want.

Some of the content is derived from the wires, like AP and Reuters. But most of it is original. The features I enjoyed in today's edition (the app's content is updated more than once a day) included one about Amish and Mennonite farmers smuggling illegal raw milk into New York City and one about whether cell-phone use really affects airplane controls. There were great videos of Gabrielle Giffords last interview before being shot (it's all about her love of the iPad) and Egyptian kids discussing the protests and riots in their country. Interactive maps, polls, and statistics are also a lot of fun on The Daily. As are the movie reviews, with previews.

Gossip, opinions, and technology seem to be pretty solid sections, although I'm not entirely sold on the depth of sports coverage. A positive is that it lets you pick your favorite sports teams, but only for pro sports. And time will tell how well this intensive app will work when being used outside of a wireless area.

I have pretty high hopes at the moment. And if it helps me junk my subscriptions to The Week, Slatest, Sporting News Daily (on the iPad), and some of the myriad sites I have aggregated in my Google Reader, this could become the main source of my daily news.

Hunter S. Thompson Took Cues from Hemingway and Fitzgerald

2011-02-02T21:57:00.008-05:00

This is the eleventh installment in a series about a book I'm reading called Stories Done, which is a great collection of tales of excess from counter-culture leaders.

While Hunter S. Thompson was drunkenly stumbling his way through his sophomore year in high school, he became an active and respected member of the local Athenaeum Literary Society, in which he professed his love for Ernest Hemingway and how he had "toughened up twentieth-century American literature."

Thompson also loved the way F. Scott Fitzgerald's "best characters exemplified something vital in the American spirit. Even if they worked within [society], it was their dark willfulness, their vision of social doom, that placed them apart."

A few years later, as a newspaperman in the military being honorably discharged, he filed a final article that seemed to capture a little Hemingway and Fitzgerald. It "described a fictional drunken nighttime riot at the base, resulting in the explosions of airplanes and and the rape of female cadets - none of which ever happened."

He also wrote a press release about his discharge, quoting a nonexistent captain saying Thompson was "one of the most savage and unnatural airmen I've ever come up against," and explaining that his "escape" from the military included "barreling his car out the gates, hurling a Molotov cocktail."

From there, of course, he went on to write one of the greatest American books, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. That fear and loathing was "a dread of both interior demons and the psychic landscape of the nation around him" and a realization by his high-minded generation that the walls of American reality were crashing.

If Evan Dando Ever Needs a Backup Guitarist ...

2011-01-23T16:00:00.004-05:00

Had a great time seeing Evan Dando (of Lemonheads fame) and Juliana Hatfield's sold-out show last night at Iota in Arlington, Virginia.

As an added bonus, Fran and Rachel and I bumped into Evan outside and hung out with him awhile. He's such a nice and down-to-earth guy and, as you can see in the photo, even let me strum his "bass heavy" acoustic guitar for a bit.

He talked to us about how his best friend is Keith Richards' son and how he's the godfather of Keith's grandchildren (he has their photos stuck on his guitar). I told him I had put The Lemonheads' "Outdoor Type" on the first mixed-tape I ever made for outdoorsy Rachel.

Throughout their show, Dando and Hatfield's voices matched up beautifully as always, with choice selections including the Velvet Underground's "Pale Blue Eyes," "Somebody is Waiting for Me," "Ride with Me," Teenage Fanclub's "Cells," "Brain Damage," "Evan," and many tunes off the most-classic Lemonheads' album It's a Shame About Ray. A pretty similar set list is here.

Great idea for Dando to have encouraged the "semi-retired" Hatfield to get back out on the road. Hopefully they tour together more than just this brief trip.

***** out of ***** stars

Shaking Off the Skating Rust in Silver Spring

2011-01-17T12:20:00.004-05:00

As the family hopefully gets ready for a couple of spring skiing vacations, we thought we'd hit the ice yesterday for a quick tune-up on skates at the nice new Silver Spring downtown outdoor rink.

Jackson got his first taste of ice skates and did well. No falls! (And even able to mug for the camera, see the photo to the left.) Ski school should be a little more difficult, but it's good to know he looks like a natural with winter sports.

It was the first time I'd been on skates since one trip to a rink in Baltimore about 5 years ago. Before that, it had been since my days growing up on Dunlap Lake in Edwardsville, Illinois. I got to be a pretty good skater in those days, but have definitely acquired significant rust since then.

Brad Pitt Misses a Primo Rile in The Fighter

2011-01-09T16:00:00.005-05:00

Not that I would usually recommend replacing Brad Pitt in any movie role, but the stroke of genius in The Fighter is the casting of Christian Bale. He plays real-life Lowell, Massachusetts boxing great Dicky "The Pride of Lowell" Eklund, known for knocking down the legendary Sugar Ray Leonard in 1978.

Pitt was originally cast in the role that Bale nails, thanks to his perfect ability to play a lanky, unhinged, drug-addicted creep. He luckily becomes sympathetic as the film progresses. And his little brother, Micky, played By "Marky" Mark Wahlberg and Micky's girlfriend, played by Amy Adams, show enough individuality from their mom and all the big-haired weirdo ladies hanging around their family house that you have to come to cheer for them.

Fittingly, Wahlberg (in his best performance since 2006's The Departed), Bale, and Adams are each up for Golden Globe Awards. All three are deserving of awards, although Bale is probably the only one who's a lock to win.

The fight scenes are all great as well, even though the pattern of "losing then suddenly coming back to win" is now beyond trite in the boxing genre.

***1/2 out of ***** stars

Bad Boy of Belleville, Illinois Gets An Education

2011-01-07T23:47:00.004-05:00

Considering An Education was nominated for three Academy Awards last year, it flew a little under the radar. But Peter Sarsgaard and Carey Mulligan turn in a powerful portrait of an older man seducing a 16-year-old school girl in the beatnik-dandy England of 1961.

As Mulligan and her parents fall under the seemingly suspicious spell of Sarsgaard's character, viewers begin to feel less creepy about the inappropriate age difference of the couple. The complexity of their relationship draws us in and we forget (at least somewhat) about the political incorrectness (less so, I guess, by the standards of 1961) of what's happening.

An Education also has captivating messages about the importance and necessity of both formal academia and "the school of life."

Mulligan was nominated for the best actress Oscar and the film itself for best picture. Sarsgaard couldn't quite break through the fierce male competition, but his performance is every bit as great as anyone else's last year. I may be somewhat biased, however, since he grew up a few miles from me (and was born one year later) at Scott Air Force Base near Belleville, Illinois (also former home of Jimmy Connors and Jeff Tweedy).

Sarsgaard is putting together quite a resume, with highlight roles in Boys Don't Cry, Shattered Glass, Garden State, Kinsey, and The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.

**** out of ***** stars

Beach Time in Isla Mujeres, Mexico

2011-01-06T21:08:00.010-05:00

OK, this is ridiculous. I haven't been blogging here nearly enough. In fact, I never even mentioned the four days of R&R I took with Rachel and Jackson after a hard two weeks of work at the UN climate conference in Mexico.

Just a 30-minute ferry ride off the coast of Cancun, which I wouldn't recommend to anyone other than people who love going to other countries and staying at resorts without absorbing any local culture, was a beautiful little fun island called Isla Mujeres ("Island of Women").

Although the weather was too cold to ever let us dip into the acclaimed beautiful beaches of the island, and the winds were fierce from time to time, there was plenty to do. We rented a golf cart (which Jackson absolutely loved, except when we had to return it!) and cruised the five-mile length of the island from our nice little hut of a hotel (quite a change from the swanky Hilton in Cancun) on the north end to the picturesque sculpture garden, rocky-cliff trails, and crashing waves at the south end. We stopped at a turtle reserve along the way.

The rest of the time we wandered the streets, where there were lots of great $1 tiny toys that Jackson loves and thankfully-not-Hilton food to enjoy.

Highly recommend Isla Mujeres if you're ever in the neighborhood.

Here are a couple of decent photos pulled from my iPhone.

Led Zeppelin Warms to the Media, Becomes Legends

2010-12-29T23:24:00.005-05:00

Journalists were often downright hostile to Led Zeppelin when the legendary rockers were starting out. And the band reciprocated, rarely ever letting reporters close to them.

This changed a bit in 1975. Zeppelin carefully selected a handful of writers, editors, and photographers from the mainstream media and even courted the hated Rolling Stone Magazine.

They had plenty to cover on this tour too. When the box office failed to open in Boston, fans caused $50,000 in vandalism. And a Bruins hockey game had to be canceled because the rink was damaged.

These tales are told in the new book LZ-'75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin's 1975 American Tour by Stephen Davis. It's a good read, but for anyone who wants the definitive account of Zeppelin, Davis' Hammer of the Gods is the really essential launching point, and perhaps the best rock biography of all time.

Keith Richards' Life in a Flash

2010-12-25T00:25:00.005-05:00

The Rolling Stones' lawyer Bill Carter had warned them not to drive through Arkansas. They should have flown to the next gig. After all, he reasoned, the state had recently tried to "outlaw rock and roll."

And although the band was nearly thrown in the slammer for an outrageous trail of behavior across the state on their 1973 tour, the fact that Carter traveled with them and had friends in very high places all the way up to Capitol Hill was the only reason no charges were ever filed.

In fact, you may recall that when Mike Huckabee was Arkansas governor 30 years later, he pardoned guitarist Keith Richards. What was less reported at the time was that Richards had never been charged with anything. But Huckabee pardoned him anyway. I guess it seemed like a pretty good PR move for Huckabee's presidential campaign.

In his wonderful new autobiography called Life, Richards says: "For many years I slept, on average, twice a week. This means that I have been conscious for at least three lifetimes."

The book starts with an hilarious photo of his mother walking him through town on a leash. It then goes on to describe his hometown, a miserable place called Dartford, England which was dotted with smallpox hospitals, leper colonies, gunpowder factories, and lunatic asylums.

There was also the Wells fireworks factory, which produced "jumping jacks" and exploded in a flash one day. Not exactly what I had envisioned for what surely must have been the origination of the masterful Stones' tune "Jumping Jack Flash."

The History of the Pittsburgh Steelers and "Mob Football"

2010-12-24T23:55:00.004-05:00

My favorite NFL team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, were purchased during the Depression for $2,500, money earned by Art Rooney's betting on horses and promotion of local prize fighters. They got their name because the "Steelers" was chosen by fans in a contest.

This was the beginning of many years of a hard-working but pathetic football team. One of many low-lights was when Johnny Unitas, who went on to become perhaps the greatest quarterback ever, was cut. But when "The Chief," long-time beloved owner Art Rooney (who sometimes treated the Steelers as an amusing hobby), stepped aside to let his son Dan take over in 1969, the team would slowly take a path to becoming the greatest football franchise.

Although Dan Rooney wanted to hire Joe Paterno of Penn State, Paterno wanted to stay in college. So the next choice was Chuck Noll, a former assistant at San Diego under West Coast Offense creator Sid Gillman and defensive assistant under Don Shula in Baltimore. Noll was a master of precision, detail, and studying the game.

This is one of the stories in a book I'm reading called The Ones Who Hit the Hardest: The Steelers, the Cowboys, the '70s, and the Fight for America's Soul, by Chad Millman and Shawn Coyne. Another story is about how football is "as old as community." Villages in medieval times had bloody battles in which a pig's bladder served as the ball and with no rules beyond "no murder and no manslaughter." The game was called "Mob Football" and it evolved across Europe, with working men typically playing it on one of the few days off they had each year, on the day before Ash Wednesday.

In the mid-nineteenth century, "American football rose from this primal tradition and took hold at eastern college campuses." Then the first professional player took the field in November 1892, in Pittsburgh, of course.