When it comes to music, I’m willing to try diverse genres. All I ask of music is that it… astonish me at its best, entertain me at its worst. 2008 I really had no musical discoveries. Unlike 2007 when quite a few artists came on my radar, among them Otis Redding, Immortal Technique, Solomon Burke, Mark Gross, and Terry Callier, as well as several local artists. (do a search to your right there, you’ll find the musical review posts I did on these guys). 2008 Found me in Cali, for the bulk of the year, and really pretty adrift as far as the musical scene was concerned. Being back on the east coast in 2009, one thing I hope to do is put more effort in going out and finding local and national acts to hear. As well as just doing the web surfing and CD buying to broaden my horizon about what is on the musical front for 2009. Brief aside, there was one musical discovery of 2008, I brought back from the West. My supervisor at the time, Dylan, turned me on to this musician, Charlie Terrell. He let me listen to his cd: ON THE WINGS OF DIRTY ANGELS. Really good stuff. Particularly ‘Right Outside’ grabbed me from the first listen. Just a fantastic song, lyrically strong, and it stays with you. Reminiscent in a good way of Everlast at his most haunting. I can listen to ‘Right Outside’ all day long. And for me, that is the definition of a masterpiece. Go to his site here, sample the music, and when you see I wasn’t steering you wrong, buy a CD from him. Support the art. Support the artists. Getting back to 2009, again I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time at Archive.org. An old site, to bring into a discussion of new music, but that site is really turning me on to musicians I would otherwise not have heard of. And i’m determined in 2009 to pick up what remains of their CDs. Currently I’m on a hunt for a lot of colored music from the 1910s, 20s and 30s, the music that grew out of the latter days of Vaudeville (Vauldeville tracing its roots from the late 1800s) that would become widely known, as Folk, Blues, Jazz, County. Vaudeville, contrary to the bigoted piece of crap that is the first sound film… THE JAZZ SINGER (if you want my rant on hollywood and racism, go back a few posts), was more than untalented white performers in black face, it was actually quite a haven for diverse groups, including colored musicians and artists. Names like Eubie Blake and Lucille Hegamin cut their teeth in the Vaudeville of a young, untamed America. Often the colored acts were the most popular acts of the day. However being successful and Black in the early days of the 20th century, is not much different than being successful and Black in the early days of the 21st century. There are wolves waiting to take it away from you. The very success of people of color in Vaudeville, was responded to with the Minstrel show. Basically it boiled down to not-that-talented white performers, who decided to parody the colored singers they could not out perform. And black face/the minstrel show was born. So Vaudeville went from what was a real talent revue show, to largely a lowest common denominator circus. With the added benefit of driving out of Vaudeville, the very musical acts that had marked its finest moments. Luckily some of these acts, such as Lucille Hegamin, landed on their feet and found their way on to the club circuit. And some, a very few, found themselves at the dawn of this newly minted century, immortalized in wax. The age of the mass-produced record, had arrived. I’m going to keep all the artists I’m discovering from the dawn of the 20th century, under wraps, as I’m still waiting on some of their CDs to arrive. They are getting scarce. But there’s this fantastic line by the great Ishmael Reed that sums up this period of time, and the musicians who bestrode it like Gods and Demons. It’s from his novel MUMBO JUMBO. ‘1920. Charlie Parker, the houngan (a word derived from n’gana gana) for whom there was no master adept enough to award him the Asson, is born. 1920-1930. That one decade which doesn’t seem so much a part of American history as the hidden After-Hours of America struggling to jam. To get through.’ If you don’t read Ishmael Reed or Charles Johnson don’t speak to me of American literature. Because your frame of reference… is lacking. Charles Johnson’s THE MIDDLE PASSAGE, comes to mind. I’ll stack it up against all contenders. THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE, etc. And the fact that that particular book isn’t required reading in schools, says a lot about why more colored kids are in prison than in school. The lies of the latter (‘the miseducation of the negro’ as it’s been termed) just prepares them for the former. Yes, I do like tangents. Okay back to music for 2009. Actually… not. We’re out of time for this installment, so catch me next time, with CATCHING UP #3. Till then, be safe. p.s. This week’s picture is from the fantastic and scarce French art book CARLOS SCHWABE. An artist of the late 19th/early 20th century who worked in a baroque fantastic style. One of the lesser known, but most fascinating artists of the Fantastic.

I’m always amazed how people get to this site. It is so cool, some of the people who have links to my site. Mr. Walter Koenig being the latest one. Thanks all, for the links. They are deeply appreciated. Okay onto the post: This post is some rambling notes for myself, so bear with it: I just saw REC the Spanish Horror thriller, I’m pimping a review to a paying site, so I won’t say much here except to say, I hated CLOVERFIELD and BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, all these found footage films; and REC avoids the weaknesses and pitfalls of all previous attempts at such a conceit, and manages to imbue it with real strength. The film is fantastic. And damn Hollywood for remaking it rather than just giving it a US release. People aren’t morons, at least most people; this subtitled movie would have done great in the theaters. But the suits in Hollywood are all greed and no taste. So we get watered down Americanized versions of great foreign movies. Typically inferior garbage, that only weakens the strength of the original film. I have not seen QUARANTINE. After being stupid enough to see the garbage that was THE STRANGERS rather than the French original, I’ve learned my lesson. I avoid Hollywood remakes, at least until I see the original first. So REC was worth the wait. Fantastic film. Unfortunately for those wanting to see popular foreign films, Hollywood doesn’t make it easy, because they want you to see their crappy US remake, and buy that version on DVD. So as of this writing, there are no region 1 DVDs available of great foreign films like REC. Thankfully as long as you have a region free DVD player, which you really should have, and access to a foreign DVD seller, you’re good. Because the rest of the world isn’t as crippled and locked down as the studios have the American market. In the rest of the world, they release foreign films theatrically, and release foreign DVDs. Imagine that. And that’s exactly what I did. I bought a region 3 DVD of REC, and it rocks. But realistically you shouldn’t be at the mercy of the studios regarding seeing foreign films and tv shows. It’s all greed. They take a popular foreign series, delay the release of any region 1 DVDs so instead they can feed you their crappy US remake, and their crappy DVD. THEN they release the original series on region 1 DVD! So it’s double dipping! They generate ad revenue on the broadcast of their remake. then they generate revenue on their remake’s DVDs. then they generate revenue on DVD sales of the original!!! It’s a ripoff! So I say screw em. Get yourself a multi-region Dvd, and then you’re not at the mercy of region 1 release schedules. And the funny thing about that is, even when they release foreign tv shows on region 1 dvd, often the DVD is edited and cut differently then the original series. An example of this being JEKYLL BBC series. The show as broadcast in the states was cut, and the region 1 DVD is also cut. So if you want to see this series as it was released you have to purchase the Pal DVD. And if you think the current DVD scenario is problematic, Bluray/HDDVD will further cripple your options, and put you further at the mercy of the studios. Which is why I’m in no rush to migrate away from the DVD. Hell there are enough DVD movies and tv shows I haven’t seen, that if they stopped making DVDs tomorrow, I would have enough used inventory floating around out there, to last me the rest of my life. So screw you Hollywood studios! Screw you FOX! So do your homework people, and don’t be deprived of seeing the films every other country gets to see. Take John Woo’s latest film RED CLIFF. There’s no reason that film shouldn’t have gotten a US Theatrical release. But the greedy studios again, they want to be able to double, triple, and quadruple dip. So you’re going to have to wait to see the crappy Americanized remake or edited version of RED CLIFF, a year after the original has made the rounds. Then they are going to sell you the crappy American DVDs of RED CLIFF. And only after they’ve raked in all this money on feeding you two years of crap, are they finally going to release the original “director’s cut” Region1 DVD of John Woo’s RED CLIFF. So you can wait two years for the Studios to feed you piecemeal John Woo’s vision. Or you know what, you can decide you want to have the same rights to see this film as someone in Thailand or London, and buy the DVD today. It makes me insane, how for such a supposedly free country, we are increasingly at the mercy of greedy fuckers. And I understand profit. I have no problem with profit. I have a problem when profit becomes a juggernaut of greed. A beast that eats away at the consumer, rather than just filling the needs of the consumer. And it’s even worse if the country producing the film, is not a western puppet. One of the best films I saw last year was the Cuban bio-pic EL BENNY. I raved about it in my review last year. This is a film that should be seen by everyone. Especially Americans. Because it shows the world as something beyond the sound-bites of our nightly propaganda. Unfortunately that’s the very reason many foreign films don’t get US releases, and don’t get DVD distribution. Which means some of the vital filmmakers of our age, Diop Mambety, Sembene Oursmane, their best films do not make it onto our shores. Are seen once, in a film festival, and then relegated to molding away in someone’s closet. The move to all digital cinemas, will further marginalize such filmmakers. It’s all part and parcel of the same beast. It’s really, to a fine level, policing the content of what each region is exposed to. This even goes to the concept of having alternate endings and versions of films, a fad that i wholeheartedly despise. It pisses in the face of cinema. Why is CITIZEN KANE a classic? Or why is the THIRD MAN a classic? Or High Noon or JAWS or BRAVEHEART or DO THE RIGHT THING or BLOOD SIMPLE? Because these films offer a singular vision. A shared and shareable vision. An iconic and unwavering vision. The fantastic ending of DOUBLE INDEMNITY comes to mind (and yes I know DI had an epilogue that was excised from the final version of this film. But the point is we did have a final version, and it is that one, singular version we saw, and those hard decisions that define a classic film). And because of this, if you are 9 or if you are 90, and you have seen a great movie, you’ve largely seen the same movie. And you can share the memories, the conversation or the wow factor of that movie. It makes you part of a singular conversation. You gasp at the same moments at the end, you wow to the same scenes. It is a cultural connectivity that is very important, and unites the viewers, even if you didn’t see that film in the same theater, or in the same time, or in the same country, it is still the same film, its beats are the same, and you have that in common. That frame of reference. In a world increasingly spinning itself apart, this shared cinematic conversation is a tiny way to keep ourselves together. Cinema then, as that shared endless place in time where all our rosebuds are lost, and all our rosebuds are found. As opposed to today with the move toward multiple endings. Which in the short term may seem an easy way for studios to triple dip as far as revenues, but in the long term it robs that film of its singular vision, its cultural connectivity. In the long term… it hurts film. Because suddenly two people can have seen the same movie, but each remembers different endings. And the film rather than being a unique statement, that is memorable for the very fact it has the balls to lock itself in stone, and lock you, the viewers together, instead suddenly is something ephemeral, and transitory, and… forgettable.

The very act of having multiple endings, negates the ability of a film to be a classic. Period.

It negates the very ability of it to be a film, as far as I’m concerned.

It’s the act of a lazy filmmaker.

Multiple endings are great for “choose your own adventure” books and video games, but cinema has always been the domain of men and women, directors, who have something lasting to say to the world. Multiple endings negates the lasting voice of cinema.

DO you sense I really fing hate Hollywood suits?

And the only reason is because I love Hollywood. I grew up on cinema. I love Cinema enough to defend it perpetually and criticize, perpetually, the small minded, fing trolls, who temporarily, find themselves in positions they are not worthy of, interfering with the course of a medium, that was here long before them, and will be here long after they and their works have turned to dust.

Okay, that ends my rant. I’m jumped all over the place, but in summation…

Screw Hollywood. Get an ALL-REGION Dvd player. Screw Bluray. Support International sellers, and international filmmakers and generally screw Hollywood.

Oh and pick up REC, great movie.

My first post of 2009. It’s still the 4th of January as of this writing. Just barely, the clock is ready to click over to the 5th. Some random odds and ends running through my brain: Everyone is aware that Hollywood, for the last few years has been bankrupt of ideas, devoid of the brilliance or the bravery to bring new visions to the big screen. Instead relying on pandering to the lowest common denominator or exploiting pre-existing properties, such as video games, formerly successful movies, or comic books for their big screen adaptations. Indeed the comic book adaptations have proved to be the cash cows for the Studios in 2008. And thankfully the adaptations have been for the most part pretty good. But one genre of film, will ultimately burn itself out. Hollywood needs to concentrate on making good movies again, rather than simply regurgitating old properties or copying the movies from other countries. In short Hollywood has gone remake crazy, and I think it’s to the industries detriment. The creators involved with remaking BLACK CHRISTMAS, DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, PLANET OF THE APES, WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, HALLOWEEN, THE HAUNTING, should be ashamed. Remaking great movies, with very few exceptions, is the sign of a lazy industry and lazy filmmakers. If you have to remake something, remake something that didn’t work. But no!!! That would indicate effort and thought and perhaps even some courage. So if you thought 2008 was remake heavy, you ain’t seen nothing yet. 2009 with remakes of CHUCKY, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, FRIDAY THE 13TH, THE EVIL DEAD, CONAN, THEY LIVE (utter sacrilege), DEATH WISH. TAKING OF PELHAM 1,2,3, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, HELLRAISER, THE BIRDS, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, STRAW DOGS, THE THING, NEAR DARK, and THE BIRDS. You have to be a moron to remake a perfect film like Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS or Carpenter’s THEY LIVE. But unfortunately in Hollywood the terms producer and moron seem to be interchangeable concepts. At least with junk like FRIDAY THE 13TH and CHUCKY you’re remaking films that weren’t that good to begin with, so you have the potential on improving on the original. But the negative is you’re still wasting valuable screen time remaking 1980s films, that were specific reflections of their time, rather than creating films for 2009 that are a valid reflection of our current time. It’s as if American cinema culture stopped in 2000, and hollywood has been marking time ever since. Which says bad things about Hollywood, and perhaps worse things about the cultural gestalt and maturity of America. We’re raising a generation on garbage, and torture porn, raising a generation on a desensitizing and cynical and hero-less view of themselves, that perhaps serves the needs of an increasingly oppressive, cynical, and unheroic nation. That said there are films coming out in 2009 that buck that trend, and we’ll discuss them next installment. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) X-Men Origins: Magneto (2009)- While I see the Wolverine film being successful, I don’t see the Magneto character being able to carry a film. Whiteout (2009) The Witchblade (2009)- I don’t see this one making any splash at the box office, and possibly going direct to DVD The Hands of Shang-Chi (2009) The Expendable One (2009)- Great graphic novel, whether they can translate that into a great film, remains to be seen Sherlock Holmes (2009)-based on an UNPUBLISHED comic book script (how desperate is Hollywood?) but with Robert Downey Jr attached and directed by Guy Ritchie, it’ll fill theater seats Red Sonja (2009) Preacher (2009)- Luke Cage (2009) Kick Ass (2009) Hack/Slash (2009) G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra (2009) Surrogates (2009) The Wolf Man (2009) The Birds (Are you insane?!) Nottingham- Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe’s latest. Ridley Scott is very hit and miss with me. His latest films (with the exception of AMERICAN GANGSTER) being miss. Nottingham, which sounds like Robin Hood meets the Man in the Iron Mask. Ehh, doesn’t fill me with confidence. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (no release date announced)- A Terry Gilliam film, and Heath Ledger’s last role

GOD TV sucks.

As you know if you follow this blog I watch TV rarely. And generally I stick to TCM, or sporting events. But every couple years or so I’ll peak my head out and sample what people are going on about. In the last couple of days I’ve tried BIONIC WOMAN, DR. WHO, and SMALLVILLE.

First we’ll start with Smallville. A show I was completely on board with the first couple of seasons. But pretty much when they dissed the Pete Ross character, played by Sam Jones III (who I admit was an odd casting choice to begin with), the show’s star… began to dim for me.

And while an odd casting choice, the 5′8″ Sam Jones was a good actor. And his departure from the show at the end of the third season, seemed to signal a downward spiral in the quality of the shows, a loss of the tight knit family essence that made the first three seasons work. And beyond that the thing is, when you side with a man you stick with him, and if you can’t do that you’re like some kind of animal. To quote THE WILD BUNCH.

A great movie by the way.

Anyhow, I can’t stand for people to use Black characters just to disrespect and denigrate them (keep that in mind for when I get to DR. WHO). And beyond the poor treatment of Sam Jones, the Smallville stories really got fing crappy, with the kungfu witch Lana, and the absolutely annoying Lois character.

And the latest season premiere shows me the show is solidly still taking on water. I mean while special effects are always fun, the fing stupid dialog and plot… is seriously mind numbing.

First… evil clark?? Again with fucking evil clark?!! That crap was old in the first season!!

But fine you have an evil clark, who fries people alive and punches holes in people, but when Lois slaps him in response to his ass squeezing advances, this evil clark does what? He says…. “uh… later” or something to that effect, and walks away. WTF????

Are we paying someone to write this crap?!! And then this evil clark/phantom guy, talks the whole show about how he wants to kill Clark, so what does he do when he knocks Clark down and has him vulnerable… HE WALKS AWAY! WTF?!!! Just a stupid fucking show. Seriously how do you fuck up SMALLVILLE this badly? And don’t get me started on the fing music montages. So in a nutshell, SMALLVILLE… great argument for radio.

Now BIONIC WOMAN.

Fuck I hate this trend of Hollywood and the Networks mining the gems of the 70s and 80s, to produce their inferior modern take.

And now BIONIC WOMAN?! Fine if you’re going to do it, do it well.

Don’t do this utter maudlin, navel gazing crap!

What kind of moron do you have to be to try and replace Lindsey Wagner with this girl power crap?

You know what Lindsey Wagner had going for her, she had a face and a presence that captivated. She had and has, something not unlike grace. This new show? Actors in the first episode have no presence, no core to them. Whatever that quality is, that comes out of the eyes, and makes you interested and enamored, that star quality… I didn’t get from any of the cast.

These characters are whiny and irritating. “Dad left us, and I have to take care of you, and I’m pregnant” All in like the first 15 minutes, Damn!

Is this BIONIC WOMAN or Peyton’s Place? Retarded reality tv generation crap! Show is Abysmal. And the fact that starving, bombed countries could be rebuilt and stabilized for a fraction of the cost networks are paying to produce this garbage… is not lost on me.

This is why I stay away from TV, because I get irritated when I see nonsense like this. And life is far too short to wade in other peoples garbage.

And don’t get me started on the CW network as a whole. When I was growing up we had great shows like SANFORD AND SON, now we have denigrating crap like EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS. Am I the only person who sees that TV has grown more bigoted and detrimental to people of color, not less.

And That brings me to DR. WHO. If you’re white you probably didn’t see the same first episode I saw.

With the black boyfriend playing a, as the british say… cunt, of legendary proportions. Dude might as well be fucking step and fetchit. Spending the whole episode on his knees, cowering behind his white girlfriends legs. Seriously, it might as well be 1920 and this dude might as well be rolling his eyes and going “yessir boss. Me been a bad negro.” . Seriously, talk to me! How much do they have to fucking pay you to castrate yourself like that? And Noel Coward, the young actor in question is a 2003 Lawrence Olivier Award Winning actor. Seriously, fucking sad… that this is the kind of role such a promising actor takes/can get.

Without that absolutely unnecessary punking, I would have dug the show. But to introduce a character of color just to misuse them/abuse them… I tune out. Game over man! Game over!

And you who have lived with lies so long, that you can see nothing beyond those lies… may not understand why a couple isolated incidents of defamation to Black characters is a big deal… I’ll try and explain briefly and give it up.

First it’s not isolated incidents. It’s a pervasive pattern of defamation. A lot of it can be put into context with the Dave Chappell REAL WORLD sketch, where using comedy he kind of flips the script and shows you the detrimental nature of the media portraying you as always THE Minority. You get one slot on virtually any mainsteam movie or television show that is not a comedy. Take the casting annoucement for the new JLA movie. “Casting for Caucasian actors take precedence with a role available for one Black actor. But please concentrate on casting the Caucasian actors.” Translation: “We want a majority of white actors and we want them to be great, good looking actors. As far as the Black actor just get us anybody who’ll roll their eyes when we tell them too.”

That’s not acceptable. Particularly when you have no strong leading man images in television or movies or music, to counteract the image of the buffoon or criminal or deviant.

It carries a disproportionate amount of weight when you introduce image after image of Black males simply to set them up for a fall or or castigation or comedy relief, ala BUFFY (build up the love interest only to punk him out in a fight against Spike)

The 6′3″ D.B. Woodside like most Black actors in Hollywood is criminally underused. The 38 year old, Yale educated actor’s star is on the rise with talk of him being considered for several leading man roles, including talk of an upcoming Green Lantern movie.

or ANDROMEDA or ENTERPRISE (all of them with the exception of DEEP SPACE NINE) or SMALLVILLE or BLADE (tv series not the first two movies) or PULP FICTION (why the Black guy got be the one to be sodomized, what the fuck is that Quentin Tarantino?) or fucking DR. WHO. (Or the fucking REAPER! Which I actually kinda dug the first episode, but what the fuck is up with the networks trying to pair up every fat, slacker white dude with the hot black chick. Let’s come back to earth people. I call a miscegenation foul! And of course who is the first victim on the show, the ethnic dude! I swear I’m going to find a clocktower!!)

The 6′4″ Keith Hamilton Cobb gave effective performances in ANDROMEDA even though being horrendously written, to the point where he had to quit the show. A phenomenal actor, who should be a major big screen heroic actor. However there is discussion of him for several upcoming feature films.

I mean I’m not saying every Black character has to be a great, strong, Avery Brooks HAWK character, but what I am saying is to make virtually every single Black male character introduced in movies or tv or comics, a shoe waiting to drop, a victim waiting to happen… is bullshit.

It is racist mass media. And more than that… it’s predictable, boring mass media.

I would rather these shows not introduce Black characters, rather than introduce them and fuck them over. It really is a very, very obvious case of 21st century media, being used to revamp early 20th century minstrel shows. Black actors but very much white messages.

This has to be recognized, called out, and opposed. Much the same way the proliferation by media conglomerates (not owned by Black people, BET is not Black owned) of hateful, genocidal gangsta music, and mentalities and mores have to be recognized and opposed.

Maybe the Sony exec paying you to shake your ass or roll your eyes or say bitch and ho, is no different then the italian or the irish or the columbian drug czar paying you to sell crack to your own. Maybe both have your denigration and your defilement as their ultimate goal.

TV’s just another drug, man. And a drug can either heal you or hurt you. And today it’s definitely being used to portray the Black man as villian and fool, and the Black woman as hor.

Like fucking SIN CITY. Most racist piece of garbage I’ve ever seen.

And Michael Vick fucking dominating the news! There are people fighting for independence, all over the globe, countries getting overthrown, people getting assassinated, and what is the number one news in America for months?? Michael Vick and alleged dogfighting, And now OJ being back in the news.

FUCK!!!!

Does no one see any of this being a little bit sleight of hand? You bring up bullshit to discuss, to ignore the fact that a lot of the positive, doing the right thing young men, many of them Black young men (the ones you’re supposedly waving those flags to support), are coming home missing limbs, and in fucking body bags, fighting a rich man’s war.

But no let’s not talk about that. Let’s spend weeks trying to give a black eye to some fucking football player. Did he arrange dog fights? Did he not? WHO FUCKING CARES?!! People are dying! People are fucking dying, and this is what you’re wasting tv time covering?!!

Seriously every newscaster should be dragged behind a truck till they fing fall apart, maybe it’ll give em a perspective on what’s news and what’s not.

Dog fighting. Yeah we’re fighting covert and not so covert wars in 29 countries, an endless war; but don’t discuss that, instead let’s spend weeks pontficating about how evil this Black man is for running a dog fighting ring. Seriously fucked up sense of priorities.

WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!!

How fucking stupid do you have to be to listen to fox news, and think you’re getting news. You’re getting propaganda, you’re getting a world view, you’re getting programming.

You’re getting lies, that they (they media, they advertisers, they sponsors, they enron, and they Shell, and they Sony and they Time Warner, and they Disney, and they who get rich, selling you the terror of war… THEY) want you to lie down for.

Fuck the media, and fuck their lies.

Remember that with every show you watch, it’s part of a world view… and it may not be the best world view for you.

Just look with better eyes at what they are selling you.