THE FAUX11

Pianos, Pop, & Pathos

2011-10-17T22:12:00.001-04:00

I've wanted to write an ode to the pop pianists in my library for a while now, but didn't feel like I could express just how I feel about them until I found the right key... (puns always go down like a lead balloon, so there'll be no more of those here). Granted, there are many piano wizards out there to choose from, old and new, here today, gone tomorrow. With the unending list of singer/songwriter/pianists, I've decided to narrow the scope to a few female pianists that I feel have elevated pop music to something more than the tripe trash of today's Billboard Charts.

There will be no talk of Lady Gaga here. I get that she plays the piano, but she often jettisons the instrument for synthesizers. I will not mention Tori Amos, as I have written about her already (please see blog post "Thought I Made Friends With Time.") Also, she is not so much "pop" as she is alternative. Same goes for Fiona Apple. Alicia Keys, though POPular, is R&B, so sista girl won't be here either. This entry is strictly for those women whose sound is more organic, less synth-laden, and something that couldn't be played on a dance floor unless Hex Hector did his worst to turn one of their gems into a looped, repetitive, thumping monstrosity. (Adele's "Someone Like You" anyone?)

Where would popular music be without Carole King? For those who aren't particularly familiar with Ms. King's impact on popular music, let us turn back 50 years. Remember songs like "The Locomotion?" Or how about "Up On The Roof," and "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" Perhaps more familiar might be "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman." Yes, Carole King is responsible for those everlasting classics. And while on the subject of everlasting classics, I'd like to discuss Carole King's singer/songwriter contribution to pop music: "Tapestry."

Before Lauryn Hill swept the Grammys in 1999, and Beyonce thus trumping Hill in 2010, Carole King held the record for most statuettes won in a single evening with 4 (Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance). All were for her brilliant pop opus, "Tapestry." One need only look at the back of the album to discover the endless string of classics that appear here, including "I Feel The Earth Move," "So Far Away," "It's Too Late," and "You've Got A Friend."

This album was the cannon that blew the door open for Pop music to go deeper than a radio-friendly, sing-song ditty. Just listen to the words, in all their simplicity, of "So Far Away." How many of us haven't yearned for familiarity and lamented change like that before? Or the resigned au revior of a failed relationship in "It's Too Late?" An absolutely gorgeous, non-single off of this album is the confessional "Home Again:" "I really need someone to talk to, and nobody else knows how to comfort me tonight. Snow is cold, rain is wet, chills my soul right to the marrow. I won't be happy 'til I see you alone again, 'til I'm home again and feelin' right." Beautiful stuff that literally chills my soul right to the marrow.

A newbie that is certainly following in Carole's footsteps is a young woman from the Evangelical Midwest named Diane Birch. She quietly released her debut album "Bible Belt" 2 years ago, but the album is anything but quiet. Influenced by the Stax recordings and the "Memphis Sound" (please purchase, play, and be amazed by Dusty Springfield's "Dusty in Memphis" for a master recording of the Memphis Sound) at just 26 years when her album was released, Diane was already a master at honing pop melodies, with blues riffs. Her voice is very reminiscent of Carole King as well, but a much bigger instrument. There are hints of Carly Simon and Phoebe Snow (please hear "Poetry Man") in those vocal chords as well. Produced by the under-appreciated but super brilliant R&B chanteuse Betty Wright (please buy Betty Wright Live, one of THE BEST live albums ever), "Bible Belt" is packed top to bottom with delicious soul-pop gems. This album sounds like it's been locked away in the vaults since 1970--I wish it was released on vinyl, just to feel like I'm living the era.

Notable songs include the singles "Nothing But A Miracle," and "Valentino." The album opener, "Fire Escape" is a soul-stirring lament, while "Fools" is a pop-blues forewarning about losing integrity. "Photograph" is another slice of 70s reminiscence. The album closer "Magic View" is a freeze-frame of memories of a time you know will pass. The bridge gets me every time.

If there is one piano songstress who knows how to sock it to you, it's the unbelievably humble Sara Bareilles. Her fist album, "Little Voice" has some of the most lush pop melodies, I think, ever written. Songs like "Between The Lines," with it's confrontation of a situation that isn't at all what was expected, or the beautiful heartbreak of--and I mean just stunningly gorgeous--"Gravity." "Something always brings me back to you, it never takes to long...set me free, leave me be, I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity"--never a truer word was spoken about something we can't seem to distance ourselves from. And the best thing about it? It's POP music!

Kaleidoscope Heart, Sara's second album, was actually the album that prompted me to write this blog, and to revisit my piano goddesses. When I moved to New York, there wasn't an album that quite conveyed the ambivalence of my new life quite like this album. The opening track "Uncharted" has one of the most poignant lyrics ever written: "Compare where you are to where you wanna be and you'll get nowhere." I think I need a tattoo of that one to remind me that life, as cliche as it always sounds, is a journey. Additionally, this album served as a sonic justification for how I was feeling about a toxic--and I mean fuckin' septic tanks and landfills of sewage--relationship I dealt with for, thankfully, the blink-of-an-eye in time. "Say Your Sorry" and "Machine Gun" are indicative of this. "Words you won't use, you don't feel them like I do; show will be over soon... It's not the curtain closing, telling us to call it a day; I wanna walk away too, but I want you to say you are sorry." Something about a nail and a hammer hitting it on the head comes to mind. "Machine Gun" is for the people who think their shit doesn't stink. "Sight set proudly, bring me to the ground, see you love to be somebody's enemy... Maybe nobody loved you when you were young; maybe boy when you'd cry nobody ever comes; Will you try it once, give up the machine gun, machine gun."

Two songs on this album, however, are most affecting to me. One is "Breathe Again." "All I have, all I need, he's the air I would kill to breathe; holds my love in his hands, still I'm searching for something; out of breath I am left hoping someday, I'll breath again. It hurts to be here, I only wanted love from you." Killer. Killer. Killer. The other song, and my favorite on the album is "Bluebird." She writes great songs about letting go and this takes the cake. "And so, here we go bluebird, back to the sky on your own; oh, let him go bluebird, ready to fly, you and I, here we go..."

If you can, I'd advise you to find the Target deluxe edition of Kaleidoscope Heart, or try and track down the bonus track that was included called, "Send Me The Moon." Listen to it for yourself, and you'll see why it should've been a mainstay on the actual album.

Last (yes, I know there's a lot to read here) is one of the most life-changing artists to come along since Alanis Morissette. Her name is Rachael Yamagata, and if you've never heard of her, well, you're about to, and subsequently you will purchase everything she's ever put out.

Where to begin with Rachael Yamagata? The voice--with it's smoke and whiskey rasp but pure upper register or the piano and strings wrap you up and never let you go? What happens when you release a debut album that is a critical darling and the epitome of brilliance from start to finish? You drop whatever artist it is that released such an album from your record label. And that is what has happened to Rachael. But thankfully, she's been able to put out 2 more albums since then.

Now's the time to take notes lady and gent. Rachael Yamagata is the best sad song writer ever. EVER. Yeah, I said it. And where would we be without those songs that express all the pain and heartbreak we experience as human beings?

First things first: Go out and buy a copy of "Happenstance," Rachael's debut album. Listen from start to finish. Listen again. Repeat. Songs like the pleading of "Be Be Your Love" are what make this album a must-own. I dare you to listen to this and think about that one person you've always wished you could be in love with, without shedding a tear. "I'll Find A Way" is a broken-hearted valentine to saying goodbye. "The Reason Why" is a burner of a song. For any of us who've ever come to terms with a relationship that was destined to fail--with someone who had one-sided, exclusive rights to dictate how the two of you were going to be with each other, this one's for you. Another justification for the toxic-shock-syndrome-of-a-person I had relations with. "So I will head out alone, hope for the best, we can hang our heads down as we skip the goodbyes, and you can tell the world what you want them to hear, I've got nothing left to lose my dear, so I'm up for the little white lies; but you and I know the reason why I'm gone and you're still there." Eat shit.

"Quiet" might very well be one of the best songs ever written about a relationship. The reason is because it's a song written about a relationship in which it was as if you were never even there--as if you were never a blip on that person's radar. "And it'll be just as quiet when I leave, as it was when I first got here; I don't expect anything, I don't expect anything to change when I leave." I'm tellin' you, Rachael knows how to write 'em.

In between "Happenstance" and "Elephants," Rachael Yamagata released an EP called "Loose Ends" which as 2 indescribable ballads on it: "Parades" and "Answering The Door." Track them down, listen, and LOVE.

"Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart" is Miss Yamagata's darkest album to date. It's so dark she divided it into a double disc: Disc 1 is a sad ballads disc and Disc 2 is an angry uptempo disc. Another absolutely stunning ballad by RY is "Elephants." "You are forcing me to remember, when all I want is to just forget you...so for those of you falling in love: keep it kind, keep it good, keep it right. Throw yourself in the midst of danger, but keep one eye open at night." "Sunday Afternoon" is another standout ballad, filled with anger and longing. "Over And Over" is about not being able to forget somebody when you wish you could.

Rachael just released her current and third album, "Chesapeake." This album finds her on the lighter side of life, but she still manages to compose those beautifully haunting and lush ballads I think she's the best at writing. "You Won't Let Me" is about not being able to access and help someone in a relationship. "I want to be your friend, and tear down the walls that surround you, and build you back up again, but you won't let me." Right to the heart, god dammit. Another great track is "Full On." "Ain't everyone afraid of being figured out? They're just a fraud, a blank charade, some bluffing hand that's been well played, a bleeding mess, a passing fool, a lucky dog that's getting by on nothing promising or true, if you forgive me, my masquerade; I'll never tell a soul you weren't full on, full on, full on, no I'll never tell a soul that you've been faking it for so long." A perfect theme song for a nameless few I know of. If you don't know who you are, all the more reason you've been faking it for so long.

It appears to me that I've created the lineup for the next Lilith Fair; maybe only in my dreams, but I'd bet all these lovely piano playah's would be up for it. I have given you the gift of reviewing unbelievably beautiful, poignant pop music, with all the pathos that life embodies--I know my life has had plenty o' pathos, socio and other wise. What better way to accompany pathos than with a piano?

Thought I Made Friends With Time: Under MY Pink

2011-08-29T05:16:00.019-04:00

Tori Amos has always been my go-to songstress when I am suffocated with memories of my hometown, Castro Valley. As my best friend has heard me confess on more occasions than she'd like to remember, if I had to choose a song that described my educational period from grades K thru 12, it would be the brilliant "Precious Things" by none other than, you guessed it, Tori Amos. The song has all the raw, uninhibited emotion of the prom scene of the film "Carrie" and more or less describes many a time when I was too scared to go into the Boys locker room as the only male cheerleader in the only high school in the chicken ranch where I'm from. Or that awkward and harsh--HARSH period of time in our lives called "Adolescence." What a motherfucker.

With the robber-baron wealth of emotions I've been feeling in the last 2 months, it was only fitting that I'd turn to an artist who really knows what I'm going through. And oh does she know how to give me that one-two punch. If my tears were melodies and lyrics, Tori Amos would be responsible for them.

I've decided I would spare you reader(s) my usual track-by-track, play-by-play analysis of an artists' compositions or albums, and just let Tori's most gorgeous, aching songs do their damage. I love all of her material, but these are some of the songs that have stitched themselves in my heart.

From the album "Little Earthquakes" (My favorite of all her albums; a precursor to Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill")

"Silent All These Years" (So honestly real)

"Precious Things" (Let them wash away indeed)

"Winter" (This changed my life. Every parent should listen to this)

"China" (How I feel about some people)

From the album "Under The Pink"

"Pretty Good Year" (Sums up my year)

"Baker Baker" (I feel every word of this song)

From the album "Boys For Pele"

"Hey Jupiter" (This song obliterates me)

From the album "From the Choirgirl Hotel"

"Jakie's Strength" (The strings kill me)

"Northern Lad" (In love, love, LOVE with this song)

From the album "To Venus And Back"

"1000 Oceans" (Stunning)

From the album "Scarlet's Walk"

"Your Cloud" (For my parents)

"Gold Dust" (For all the times I wish I could go back)

From the boxed set "A Piano: The Collection"

"Cooling" (A B-side from "From The Choirgirl Hotel" that is so heartbreaking)

Her newest song, from the album "Night Of Hunters"

"Carry"

We Will Always Be Late For Very Important Dates

2011-08-11T01:42:00.001-04:00

I'd like to preface this writing with a quandary. I have been trying to figure out how to do justice to Vanessa Carlton's "Rabbits On The Run." I began discussing the tragic event in my family that proceeded the release of this album, and how ironically, this album seems to sonically embody everything that I had and have been feeling since that fateful Thursday in July. The album, being that music is my religion, is the precise scripture for where I am mentally and emotionally in my life. Kismet I say... there is more to faith than Jesus Christ. What follows is the culmination of writing then deleting, deleting then rewriting, about how thankful I am that this album came along at just the right time. But I'm also so burnt out on my indecision about what I've written that I've hit the "whatevs" wall.

I think it's safe for me to assume that I will have an existential crisis at least once a year. This is a steady change, considering previous years where I was a box step away from a bell jar. I am always drawn to musical works that capture the essence of what it means to be alive and living, good, bad or indifferent. I like my music honest, I like it substantial, I like it emotional, I like it real.

If I could, I'd track down Vanessa Carlton and give her the longest, most consuming hug that I could muster. She's done something for me that hardly any musician that's permeated my ear has been able to accomplish. She's given us another life-changer of an album. I'm almost positive when the name Vanessa Carlton is spoken, the mind goes right to a little ditty about walking "A Thousand Miles." That was Top 40 Vanessa. That was hum-along-as-you-shuffle-through-the-racks at Marshall's Vanessa. This IS NOT that Vanessa. Four albums in and 3 different labels later, Miss Carlton has made her most mature and unique album to date. Her earlier albums possessed beautiful, lush classically voiced songs that were pop-ified to make them radio friendly. This doesn't necessarily make them bad or unworthy of a listen, it just sets them apart from this stunning work. Please have a listen to her sophomore effort "Harmonium," my personal favorite aside from that which I am reviewing now. Then promptly listen to "Heroes And Thieves." Both of these records are melodically rich, dark and light in all the right places. Unfortunately for any woman that sits her ass down to play a piano that isn't wearing a fedora or a dress made of meat, she is all-too-often likened to a wannabe Carole King, as if women and pianos began and end with Carole. If they aren't as radio friendly as Carole King, they're compared to Laura Nyro or more recently, Tori Amos. None of these women are at all bad to be compared to, but in doing so, listeners often miss what each artist has to offer of their individuality. This has happened more than often with Vanessa Carlton. Yes, I understand her voice is an acquired taste, but her new album will surprise you. This is not fluff. This is not sugary-ugary. There is nothing here that remotely resembles bubbles or gum. Give it a listen. Then listen again. Then listen once more. Whimsical melodies, yes, but they are anything but. Listen to how Vanessa phrases the lyrics. This is not some girl tinkling away at her piano, this is a woman coming to terms.

With the Lombard Street of twists and turns my life has taken in the last year, and the recent, unexpected death of our family leader, my Uncle Dan, I have cozied up unwillingly in a head-space that forces me to ask, "Where am I going? What am I doing with my life? Where has the time gone, and have I made it meaningful?" The stages of grief have thrown me for a loop; in denial today and bargaining tomorrow. I'm trying to make sense and find the silver lining of it all. And while many take the "God's Plan" exit off the freeway of life, I take to my God: Music. And my current sonic deity is Vanessa Carlton and her beyond gorgeous, beyond an adjective album "Rabbits On The Run."

This album is about Time, and coming to terms with the fact that we have no control over it. No matter how many watches we wear or clocks we hang, we will never be able to tell when it's up. We will forever be chasing that damned elusive white rabbit. Time is a construct, whether you believe it or not, that will never be on our side, regardless of what The Rolling Stones say. There are other themes throughout this album as well, but I am highlighting a main theme of Time in light of my Uncle's death. On this album, Vanessa manages to suspend time whilst simultaneously watching it tick on. The concept is the very essence of falling down the rabbit hole; hovering through our past, falling through our present, and landing in our future, which will hopefully be a wonderland.

Stevie Nicks, believe it or not, sequenced this album. She chose the order in which the tracks appeared on the record. Clearly she saw that there is a story here, within each song and in the album as a whole--like a book. Big ups to Stevie for the song sequence.

Off to a hopeful start, Carlton opens the album with "Carousel." This song sounds like something you'd find playing while riding, you guessed it--a carousel. "Love comes back around again/It's a carousel my friend/Time won't wait so don't be late/White rabbits on the run." Simultaneously the song is optimistic and pessimistic; love may come back around again, but for a limited time only, much like the McRib.

"I Don't Want To Be A Bride" is an honest lament to marriage from a woman who is not in denial. "But I don't wanna wear white/ you know it's too late for that/ can we keep the ever after?/ Could it be?" Not everything is a fairytale. After dating 1 person in New York, and previous children of the corn that I brought into my life, I've decided I don't want to be a bride either.

Even the most cynical posses a secret hope, no matter how much they suppress it. Ever the cynic, I find myself becoming consumed by the ambivalence of life, like in the song "London." "But time betrays me/And I get older 1 more year...Cause I've never been so sure/That after all these years I'll never learn/That heavenly creatures never come/Waste away the days, waiting on a new age." I'm growing older, and feeling very much like I need to get real.

Thanks to Facebook and the fact that I'm hardly satisfied, I am reminded daily of what I gave up in moving to New York. It was a tough decision, but a necessary rehabilitation from the folderol of Los Angeles. After awhile, as my L.A. Gems know, I couldn't particularly tell the diamonds from the zirconia. Los Angeles really forced me to question the concept of "friend." What is a friend? Someone you just meet, or someone you've known for 16 years? Someone you see and speak to all the time, or only sporadically? For some reason I want it to be very black and white, but it really exists in the gray area. Can you go on being friends with someone whom you only like parts of? Can you forgive a friend for doing something that goes against nearly every fiber of your being? Where do you draw the line? Can you draw a line? Do I have time for people like this in my life? "Fairweather Friend" is an ode to the gray area of friendship/relationship. "You didn't mean to do it/So I don't have to believe it/If you didn't really mean it/Then magical thinking gets us by/Say you see through the folly, but you did it for the fame." You never meant to hurt me. I never meant to hurt you. Oh, but we did it anyway.

Living gets to be a lot. It ain't cheap (thank you, Blue Shield), and it certainly isn't fair (the Kardashians). Sometimes I feel like handing the reigns over to someone else, like evangelicals who meander through life leaving everything up to God and his plan, throwing their personal responsibility to the wind. "Hear The Bells" captures ambivalence perfectly, and feels like sitting in a bathtub with your ears under the water, trying to listen to the sounds going on around you. The feeling is almost like turning down the volume on life itself. "Floating on the sea, stars are watching me/Current takes me out, what will be will be." This is what I mean by Vanessa suspending time yet watching it go by.

"Dear California" encapsulates with simplicity how I felt about moving from one major coastal city to another. I love, love, love New York City, but miss my friends, my L.A. Gems, terribly. It's as if I was subconsciously singing, and am still singing this refrain since I left: "Won't you love me as I leave...Your face is like a paper cut to the heart."

My near-year in Manhattan has been an eventful one. I began having Twilight Zone health problems. I tried my hand unsuccessfully in the New York dating game. I finally made my way to the nearest exit with my fledgling career. My Uncle passed away and I watched my mother's world shatter. I immediately started digging up the good times in L.A., as if they were some tangible, old time capsule I buried safe in my backyard. I can't bring them back. I can't bring my Uncle back. I am constantly trying to figure out what is and isn't my responsibility in this mess. "Mess" being a synonym for "Life." "Confess a past that won't let you go... And I'll pray to a ghost that I've never met/Still searching for some way out of this mess." ("Tall Tales For Spring"). Sometimes we get so Stockholm Syndrom-ed with our lives and become self-saboteurs. Guilty, party of 1.

About that secret hopefulness that us cynics possess: clearly VC and I are on the same wavelength, as evident in "Get Good." No matter how off my rocker I find myself, I hope (secretly) that "[I'll] figure it out...and get good again." In the meantime, it's back to the drawing board. After 5 years of working in the entertainment industry, I still haven't found a way to reconcile the direction in which my professional life is going. To work in show business when I've got the stubborn impatience of a newborn has been the bane of my existence. I get so damned restless. There are so many events I'd like to experience in my life, so many places I'd like to go, and shooting those experiences away like some clay pigeon while I wait for my first taste of real Hollywood success is a gamble I'm getting tired of. In "Marching Line" Vanessa has me doubled over with that question: is it "Time to join the marching line/Leave it all behind and join the marching line?" Perhaps, aside from my Uncle's death, this is what I cannot come to terms with. And Time will not tell until the very moment I come to terms.

"In The End," is such an ironic song to close the album. The lyrics sound optimistic: "In the end, you begin again, it's the way of all things." This song is the perfect theme to my life right now. Such ambivalence. In the end, we'll begin again, but the minor foreboding of the melody suggests otherwise... that is, unless you listen to the album on repeat. Then you're back on the "Carousel." VC just isn't sure anymore. She wasn't even sure she was going to make another record.

I'm not so sure either. I'm not so sure about life, about goals, about dreams. I am not sure about Time. I'm not so sure if it heals anything. What I am sure of, is that it runs out, and can run out sooner than we think. We can make as many plans as we want, and try to prepare as much as we can. We will go on wearing watches, crossing off days on the calendar, and ringing in new years. We will never hold time, stop time or have enough time; we will always be late for very important dates, much like that pesky white rabbit.

P.S., Please listen to and download (a.k.a BUY) these two Tori Amos albums: "Little Earthquakes" and "Under The Pink." If not the entire albums then these songs: "Winter" from 'Earthquakes' and "Baker Baker" from 'Pink.' These are two of my absolute favorite songs ever and are more gorgeous reflections on our inability to control Time.

www.VanessaCarlton.com

The Making Of "Rabbits On The Run

The Seven EP For $ix Ninety-Three

2011-07-31T23:57:00.011-04:00

If you created and put out an album that changed my life, chances are I've continued to be a dedicated supporter and advocate for your music. (Mariah Carey, I tried, but "Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel's" title alone reminded me of the overproduced, styrofoam and carcinogenic decomposed shat you put out. Can you bring it back to your debut or at least Daydream please? Oh, and quit naming your albums after the dancers at the Crazy Horse on Market Street in San Francisco). Breathe. There is an ever-growing list of artists that I continue to support, and the one I'd like to shed light upon right now is Emily King.

While working on a not-so-respected reality show 4 years ago, I met my dear friend Aireka. Immediately we clicked over our love of the sonic confession of song. I proceeded to introduce Aireka to Alice Smith, via my music mate Tiffany and Aireka introduced me to Emily King. Alice Smith, as an aside, is a brilliant, brilliant Rock/R&B musician who's "For Lovers, Dreamers, and Me" is one of the best albums to ever happen to music. Unfortunately she's in major-label purgatory because as usual, Epic records, like all major labels, are only interested in what sells, not what touches, moves, inspires, motivates, and truth tells. Back to Emily King...

I promptly pushed my hatchback over Laurel Canyon after work to cd/movie heaven Amoeba Music, otherwise known by Tiffany and I as "The Devil Store" because we spend hours--HOURS--there and never leave empty handed. I scooped up my copy of Miss E. King's "East Side Story." LIFE = Changed. I love this album more than words. So much so, it became the singular gift I gave at holidays. I bought it for my sister Kelly, my sister Jillian, and purchased the Japanese import, the best version by far, because of the bonus track "Lend A Hand." Emily King's "East Side Story" came to define my initial years as a steady Casting Associate Producer in Los Angeles, but mostly as a soundtrack to my existential journey in to the unknown of the unknown. As I told Miss King when I saw her for the first time at Santa Monica's Temple Bar (with my friend Aireka in tow), her East Side Story became my East Side Story.

As a superior on soul music, I have beyond a tight grasp on what makes a great soul record. East Side Story is just that. From the intro of "Walk In My Shoes" (sampling Diana Ross's "Love Hangover") to the closing track "Ride," ("Lend A Hand" is the import album closer) Emily King encompasses the complexities of life in an incredibly melodic, soul-conscious blend of guitars, strings and hip-hop beats. Add her honey vocals (she sounds like what Teena Marie's vocals are if they were made of the plushest velour) and you have what eventually turned out to be a Grammy nominated debut. Of course, it should have won, but when you're up against Ne-Yo, who at the time was busy obliterating radio with some decent, some not-so-decent tracks, your chances aren't strong. Not surprising for the Grammy Academy. But just as Emily's major-label future seemed to burn bright (she was on J Records, Mr. Clive Davis's label, and Clive knows artistry) she was dropped. Or parted ways. Either way, I'm sure it was because of the lack of promotion of East Side Story. That's the problem with these major labels: they sign a new and breakthrough artist, the artist puts out a brilliant record, but no promotion goes behind it and the record doesn't sell and become a success (by major label standards). Rachael Yamagata's "Happenstance" anyone? It's like the movie industry: both music and movie industries promote the hell out of tripe trash albums like Bieber's monstrosities (did you really think I'd ever let him get away?) or Rihanna's obliterations. Why? Because these twit twats are product pushers (please see previous blog "Not A Belieber")

So 4 years later, Emily King, a native of my new-nativity Manhattan, releases a stunning new 7-song EP called "The Seven EP." Here she whips soul into a dream-scape pastry, her guitar a cream-filled center, baked inside the most delicious cake of strings, warm Rhodes keyboards, frothy frosting-layered vocals, and the chocolate-chip crunch of hip-hop beats. It's a pinch of Sade quite storm, a table spoon The Byrds, a cup of Tony Toni Tone!, a dash of Erykah Badu, folded in with the "Quiet Fire" orchestral soul of Roberta Flack--but all Emily, right down to the lush, catchy melodies. Following are 7 synopses to compliment 7 delicious soul-concoctions. Listen to each Gem of a Jam below using the small black arrow near the song title to hear each tune:

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://emilyking.bandcamp.com/album/the-seven-ep"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;The Seven EP by Emily King&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

1. "Down"--Probably my favorite song on the album, if I had to choose one, this song gets into your bones and hips, and makes you sway away that dead-weight relationship that's been holding you down. The drifting beat and longing violin are to die for, but the chorus is the real culprit.

2. "No More Room"--Miss E. King has a way of telling a deadbeat off in such a quiet, subtle manner. Here, she kisses off a mother fucker who she can no longer fit in her life. Sounds quite relatable and familiar if you ask me.

3. "Ever After"--A ragtime upright piano plays us into a break-dancing, hip-hop back beat, while an electric guitar crunches just behind, as Emily's vocals glide over the peaks and valleys of the jam.

4. "Radio"--On this earthy groove, Emily rhapsodizes about how music is her religion. It has an Eastern feel to it. A Dao De Jing of musical enlightenment.

5. "Georgia"--With it's whispery vocals and gentle acoustic guitar, looped strings, layered harmonies (love these! Please listen to Beyonce's "Rather Die Young" on "4" for more) and lazy syncopated rhythm, this is definitely a song for the car, with windows down, sunroof open, and warm winds blowing through your hair.

6. "Sides"--This song just has a warm, dream-like quality to it, thanks again to it's dreamy layered vocals, chanting tambourine beat, grooving acoustic guitar, and it's weeping electric guitar. The song really builds into a climax of dreamy organs, harmonies, and drums before lulling back to Emily and her acoustic guitar.

7. "Every Part"--This tune is super vibe-y, so if you're someone who likes to light it up and take a puff, have at it with this song--as a matter of fact, have at it with this album! Keep in mind that this album warrants an un-mary jane'd listen as well.

The Seven EP is one of the few records this year I've purchased that is worthy in every way. At $6.93 on iTunes, you'd be a fool not to buy it. Yeah, that's right, BUY IT. Not illegally download. My girl is an independent artist and deserves the money she gets from writing and producing her own music. And yes, I'm shamelessly plugging Emily King's record, and needed 6 paragraphs to do so. What the hell, with two's of readers, I'm bound to get at least one copy sold.

1+1 Can Equal 4: Beyonce's Latest

2011-06-28T14:27:00.002-04:00

There are only a few reasons you can have an issue with Beyonce:
1) That she never seems to sit down and stay out of the limelight for more than 2 years.
2) That she mistakenly borrows too often from other artists for her videos and performances (please see latest Billboard Awards "controversy" (Really? Britney Spears charging for lip-synching her shows is a controversy) or her "Singe Ladies" video that borrowed HEAVILY from the viral Fosse/Gwen Verdon YouTube video.
3) She's trying too hard to win an Oscar.

Other than that, I'll need a coherently written, argumentative dissertation with citations as to why she doesn't deserve every bit of success that comes to her.

Today, her 4th album, cleverly titled "4" hit the shelves (the fans came up with this title; they must've racked their brains!). It will be a hit, despite the fact that the lead single "Run The World (Girls)" was not. And who cares? King B took a chance on this track, and went a little indie/artsy, a road NEVER traveled by any other commercial R&B acts, save for Cee-Lo Green or my personal favorite, Janelle Monae. (Run out now and buy The ArchAndroid which, thanks to Grammy politics, lost to Usher's sell-out, follow the money, pop-ified, homogenized euro dance Raymond vs. Raymond). I'm not bitter.

The only thing I care to fault Miss B for is the fact that at her caliber, she should hold copyrights to the elements of her songs. In other words, if a producer wants to produce a track for Beyonce, she should demand that the elements in the track not be used on another song produced by said producer for another artist. You cannot copyright the sound of a piano, strings, drum kits, etc. but you can copyright certain synthesizer sounds and drum samples, or better known in industry lingo as "beats." Take for example, her massive hit "Irreplaceable." Ne-Yo, in addition to a list of Swedish songwriters and the Norwegian production team "Stargate" wrote and produced this track for B, and then took it upon themselves to rearrange 2 notes but keep all the same elements and tempo and pawn second rate versions of it off on Jordin Sparks' "Tattoo" and Chris Brown's "With You." Ryan Tedder famously did the same thing with B's "Halo" and Kelly Clarkson's "Already Gone;" we know which is the stronger effort. This is what happens when money becomes the motivator and music becomes the product. The real challenge is trying to serve the two as a balanced meal, a challenge that a slew of other producers, in addition to Stargate and Ne-Yo ( I could certainly list most of them) never care to rise to.

Moving on from my tangent, Beyonce's "4" is not the strongest of her albums, but by no means a weak album either. Other artists have had no such luck with the stream of strong albums that Beyonce has (please see Rihanna's body of work, which, with certain hand-selected material from her one-hit killer but mostly filler 5 albums, would make ONE kick-ass, all-killer album). Aside from 2 tracks on her debut, "Dangerously In Love" is by far the strongest and most original of the quad. But the days of Beyonce's "Crazy In Love" coquettishness are gone. She put away the balloons and coned hats after her last, twenty-something B'Day party on her second album "B'Day." She became a woman on "I Am... Sasha Fierce." Sure she had the club bangers as Sasha, but the bangers were more for the Drais crowd rather than The Abbey set, (accept for the gaggles of gay geese that "put a ring on it" every time the song came on (guilty!)). Sasha's bangers had more of an Art Nouveau approach (please listen to "Sweet Dreams" or my personal favorite "Hello"). Whereas "I Am..." was divided into two parts, "4" is those two parts shaken, not stirred. So if you're looking for a complete departure from the more mature approach to R&B she gave us on her previous effort, look for a completely different album from a completely different artist altogether (perhaps Janelle Monae)?

When I popped this albumum (Grease 2 fans?) onto my iPod and hit play, I initially thought it was bold to start the set off with the ballad "1+1." This song has all the makings of a movie sex-scene, in the vain of Rose and Jack in the Renault in "Titanic." Sure it's a power ballad, but this is not a 2-disc album (unless you purchased the exclusive deluxe edition from Target, which you should because the 3 bonus tracks are worth it) and like a well-written paragraph, we need a good attention-getting intro sentence. But it's a steamy track nonetheless, with her semi-orgasmic "Youuuuu's." Instead, she brings up the bass on the second track, "I Care." Part gothic synth, part "Vogue" hand-clap, this song explodes into a sax-highlighted come-on, despite its initial minor key intro. It has a very "Halo" feel. The Casio keyboard makes quite a comeback on the following track, "I Miss You." King B has torn a page out of the Genesis/Phil Collins early solo material songbook with this tune. "The Best Thing I Never Had" is quintessential "he done me wrong" fare for Beyonce and it's no surprise it was released as a single. I love this song, espesh because it hit the personal nail on the head for me. As an aside, this song would've been a helluva catharsis for me during August 2010 to January 2011 because I somehow became entangled with a "best thing I never had." And "thank god you blew it, thank god I dogded a bullet." Some people are so damaged they have no idea how damaged they are. I said it was an aside! It's all about how music relates to life, people. The bible might be your scripture; music is mine.

In very SWV fashion, the song "Party" featuring Andre 3000 sounds like a B-Side of that short-lived but notable girl group. Download (legally) SWV's "Weak in the Knees" and Zhane's "Hey Mr. DJ." Swooping back in with the power ballad, "Rather Die Young" is a delicious bit of synth frosting. The synth and horn arrangement feel a little Chicago/Peter Cetera, a little ELO (legally download the entire "Xanadu" album for 10 songs of pure genius). Continuing with the power ballad, "Start Over" has a little Depeche Mode in it. A personal favorite of mine is "Love On Top." Here she's giving me a little Miami Sound Machine/Gloria Estefan's "Bad Boys" (very similar, actually). The horns have got me hooked. It's part 80s one-hit-wonder, part 60s girl group; part Debbie Gibson, part Taylor Dayne. "Countdown" is a song Rihanna wishes she could've recorded. Let us not get it twisted: Rihanna is an offshoot of Beyonce, not vice versa. This track is a mish mash of Caribbean and Reggaeton. This song is probably the closest to older Beyonce, complete with rapid-fire play-on-words lyrics (think "Upgrade U"). "End Of Time" is militant in the same vain as "Run The World (Girls)" but reminiscent of Destiny's Child's "Lose My Breath." "I Was Here" has all the dreaminess of a Coldplay song. Surprise! It was produced by "Halo" alum Ryan Tedder of the "Dreaming Out Loud" band One Republic, but written by the most successful female songwriter in the history of the music business, Diane Warren. Not the most catchy of melodies considering it was written by Ms. Warren who gave us just about every song you hear playing over the PA system at Marshall's. Finally, there is "Run The World (Girls)." It took a minute to grow on me, much like Gwen Stefani's "Wind It Up." I'm a fan of it just for the commercial departure, much like her gem rarity, "Why Don't You Love Me." If you didn't purchase the exclusive Target edition of this album, I feel bad for you because the following bonus track, "Lay Up Under Me" is very much an ode to Mr. Michael Jackson's "Rock With You." The beat has a feel similar to one of my all-time favorite songs, "Do You Love What You Feel" from Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan's "Masterjam" album. I think it's a shame that King B didn't include it in the original version of the album because it's a Gem of a Jam! "Schoolin' Life" is another gem bonus track, in the vain of Chaka's solo "I Feel For You." It is very Prince-esque, complete with Keytar and electric guitar riff! The double back-beat will get up in your hips and dip 'em low, pick it up slow! The final bonus track is "Dance For You" a slow jam that is ripe for just what it says--dancing for you, as in with a pole and pasties. I'm neither here nor there about it, which is why it should remain a bonus track.

Even though this album is not as strong as "Dangerously" or "I Am..." it definitely belongs in the canon because the more you listen, the more it will grow on you. The reason why it warrants your time an money is because Beyonce, no matter how big a star she is, brings a different element to the standard R&B fare that plagues sooo many R&B divas: Tamia? Deborah Cox? Faith Evans? Fantasia? (Although her latest album is THE STUFF!) Mariah Carey?! (She should be leading the pack but instead releases tripe trash like "Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel"). This sounds like the title of a tween novel in the bargain bin at Barnes & Noble. But Hot Mess on Fiyah Mariah is another blog for another time. Moroccan? As in, this dangly necklace is Moroccan copper. As in these sheets are Egyptian cotton. Annoying baby names.

Regardless, Beyonce always attempts to give us 120% of her efforts, and works for every penny and accolade of it, even if it isn't all her idea. She's a force of nature, whether she's as original as "Crazy In Love" (arguably her best song) or as xeroxed as "Irreplaceable." She's one of the few in the R&B genre, with the legion of fans, respect, and reach that she has, who makes even leftovers taste as fresh and delicious as the day they were made.

A Rah Rah Ah Ah Aahs & Judah, Judah Ah Ahs Mix Up: My NY Summer Soundtrack (PART 1)

2011-06-03T19:59:00.000-04:00

Hot town summer in this city: New York. The tourists have invaded like an army of Soldier Ants. The questionable aromas of who knows what imbue the air with a sometimes sweet, sometimes sour, sometimes Halal stench, but that's what makes New York, New York. Central Park is a mad house. Times Square looks like the bathing at the Ganges (as an aside, this description is NOT racially motivated; the bathing at the Ganges is a chaotic spectacle where millions of people converge on the river to bathe, not unlike the Los Feliz Costco in Los Angeles). SoHo is crowded with the bourgeois and the plebeians, all buying designer shit that has the same shelf-life of Forever 21. But this, again, is what makes New York, New York. What of the soundtrack?

The soundtrack for my summer in New York, when not listening to my usual existential fare, is not the latest Top 40 tripe that's played in a 5-minute loop on the radio. It is NOT Lady Gaga's lack-luster new offering (let's be real kids: The album might've sold 1.1 million units in its first week but it's not the Lady's best). Her songs have already become formulaic with their Verse/Rhyme Talk Rhyme Talk/Chorus/Verse/ Rhyme talk a.k.a. "Don't be a drag, just be a queen / Whether you're broke or evergreen / Cause I was born this way" or "I'm still in love with Judas baby / In the most biblical sense, I am beyond repentance." I've gotten my "Rah rah ah ah aaahs" and "Judah, Judah ah ahs" all mixed up. But I digress...

For my summer soundtrack, I'm swingin' it back, espesh because I'm in Manhattan. I'm not swingin' it back to my Aretha or Al Green or Marvin or Motown. I'm swingin' it back to the BIG VOCALS of the '60s. My summer in New York soundtrack consists of these albums: "The Barbra Streisand Album, The Second Barbra Streisand Album, The Third Album;" Judy Garland's masterpiece "Judy At Carnegie Hall;" Lena Horne's "Feelin' Good," "Lena In Hollywood" and "Lena Horne: The Lady And Her Music;" June Christy's "Something Cool." I know what you must be thinking: this sounds like the soundtrack to a Fire Island summer. And though that may be partially true, You DON'T need to be a homosexual to appreciate this music. There is more than showtune sensibility to it; this is part of The Great American Songbook, from writers who essentially created the platform for popular music... before Justin Bieber and Rihanna got a hold of it.

Keep in mind when these records were made there was NO auto-tune. There were NO synthesizers. There were NO beat machines. There was NO digital. NO Pro-tools. If a recording engineer wanted to take two recordings of the same song and edit pieces of each into one track, they had to carefully splice the ANALOG tape and re-attach it back together at the precise point or the recording was damaged FOREVER. Keep this in mind for all of the albums I will discuss here.

I'll start with the Barbra Streisand Album Trilogy. Recorded when she was just 21--that's right, just 21-years-old, these 3 albums, in my opinion are some of the best of Barbra ever.

Barbra Streisand was almost never signed by Columbia Records because the head of the label didn't care for her style. But thank God he did. Barbra Streisand remains one of the very, very--one more--very few artists to have been with one record label for her entire career. She is also the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Song for "Evergreen" from "A Star Is Born." The Barbra Streisand Album was recorded over 3 days in 1963. Consisting of mostly standards and covers, what makes this album brilliant is the approach to the material. With a completely live orchestra, Barbra, who didn't initially want to be a singer but an actress, really delivers. I've included standout tracks, though the album is a complete masterpiece.

"Cry Me A River"--Justin Timberlake's re-iteration of the phrase doesn't hold a candle to the original song. And no other artist's rendition of the standard holds a candle to Bab's interpretation, maybe save for Julie London's, which I believe is the most popular. Whereas Julie London's delivery has a very seductive and cynical tone, Barbra's sings hers as a scorned lover. She's pissed, and it shows. She vocally blows this song out of the water and is backed up by a full-of-attitude upright bass. This rendition very much has the feel of a crime of passion. If there were a music video shot for this reading of the song, it might consist of Barbra creeping into her lover's room, tying him up, and torturing him before she kills him and then laments what's happened. It's a killer.

"Happy Days Are Here Again"--This song was written for Franklin Delano Roosevelt's inauguration in 1932 during the Depression. Barb's version is the best I've heard. She sings it as if she lost it all in the stock market and then got it all back. Incidentally, the version she sings as a duet with Judy Garland ("Happy Days Are Here Again" coupled with "Get Happy) is my favorite version. Watch below:

"Soon It's Gonna Rain"--From the musical "The Fantasticks" (the longest running musical in the world), this rendition is filled with such passion. Vocally, it's perfection; melodically its brilliant.

"Much More"--This is an extra special favorite of mine because it really sums up how I feel about life: that there's always "much more." (And has led me to believe I'm never satisfied). There is such a longing quality in her vocals--she really has a way with a song!

There are two songs on this LP that some may think are meant for children's albums, "Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf" and "Come To The Supermarket (In Old Peking)." Don't approach them as that, though their musical elements might sound so. Think of the whole of the album, and the different personalities Barbra conjures up on each song.

The Second Barbra Streisand Album:

Released 6 months after her debut and recorded in only 4 days, this is my favorite of the trilogy. Keep in mind she's still only 21-years-old here. Vocally she is out of this world, and nails every song. It's difficult to pick out only a few tracks on this album because it's just that good all the way through; but I'll do my best.

"Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home"--This song is a fantastic opener. Written by Harold Arlen (responsible for many of Judy Garland's famous recordings, including "Over The Rainbow" and "The Man That Got Away,") it begins very subtly, with a very swanky, strutting bass line then explodes into a huge swinging, rhythm-heavy torch song. She actually puts almost a rock n' roll vocal on this song. She brings the "stank" as they say.

"Down With Love"--The rhythm changes in this song make it one of my absolute favorites; she really tackles it like a cynical, almost manic former lover. Definite "stank" on this track.

"When The Sun Comes Out"--If I had to pick just one song on this album, this would be my favorite. I have not heard another rendition that rivals this version. Her vocal on this song really shows her range and skill. She almost has a Joplin-esque (as in Janis) or Etta James-esque approach to this song. Watch her perform it live below:

"Gotta Move"--This song was the exact way I felt while living in Los Angeles. It's self explanatory.

"My Coloring Book"--Written by John Kander and Fred Ebb of "Cabaret" and "Chicago" musical fame, this is a gorgeous reading. It's about someone whose love has left them. It's sad but cathartic in a way. There is a great soulful version, on par with this one, by Dusty Springfield on the album "A Girl Called Dusty (the British version) or the American "Stay Awhile / I Only Want To Be With You."

"Lover, Come Back To Me"--Babs is just plain crazy on this song. It's swinging rhythm will force you to at least get your toe tapping. I live for arrangements like this. This song has an emotional quality to it that gets your blood boiling!

"I Stayed Too Long At The Fair"--This song really encapsulates how I felt in the latter years of my time in Los Angeles. It really is a testament to the fact that we cannot live in the past, and that we can never re-enact past good times. It's all there in Bab's version of this song; she begins it as a reminiscent ballad of days gone by, and envelopes into the tale of a person who knows that things have changed.

"Like A Straw In The Wind"--This is a Harold Arlen song arranged into a medley of the album opener "Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home." However, Barbra knocks this album closer into the stratosphere vocally. It really showcases how brilliant she is as a musician and especially a singer--and this is someone who didn't particularly set out to be a singer!

The Third Album:

Released in February of 1964, this is the final installment in the album trilogy and the most subdued. There are more ballads here than on either of the first two and a more understated use of vocals. This album feels almost like you're sitting in a piano bar, half drunk and listening to someone croon a tune.

"Taking A Chance On Love"--The swirling orchestra will leave you in a heady feeling which goes perfect with summer humidity.

"As Time Goes By"--Nothing compares with the scored version from "Casablanca" but her version is sublimely subtle.

Even if you aren't a fan of the entire album trilogy, there are some of the best arrangements of these songs you'll ever hear on these albums. This is music for adults--and not just Baby Boomers. It's timeless (aside from a few turns of phrase here or there) which is why these standards are continually recorded even today, and why everybody has heard one version or another of them. So give 'em a listen! There's more to music than synthesizers and a hardcore beat. There's more to this music than show tunes; there's actually sheer, un-vocodered, non-auto-tuned, raw talent.

Keep posted for the following parts of of my New York Summer Soundtrack

LOVEFOOL: An Ode To The Cardigans

2011-05-17T20:04:00.005-04:00

I feel compelled this time ‘round to discuss the stunning brilliance of the canon of work that has been produced by the all-but-forgotten Swedish genius-of-a-band, The Cardigans. Remember them? The ones who were blowing up your car radio in '96 with that gem of a jam "Lovefool?" The band that, next to "Kissing You" had the best track on the "Romeo & Juliet" soundtrack?

I'm here to tell you that they're more than one-hit-wonders, in case you weren't informed. Just this side of perfection, The Cardigans have produced 6 albums that are each, individually strong pieces of work. Unsurprisingly, this pack of Swedes have the knack for melody flowing through their veins that would do ABBA proud. In fact, I'd go as far as saying this band is the hipster version of ABBA.

For those that know me, I pretty much want nothing to do with the Hipster movement, regardless if I own a few basics form American Apparel. And for some, I might be cardinally sinning by implying that ABBA isn't part of their movement--well, maybe just their wardrobe--but I'm not here to discuss the minutia of horn-rimmed glasses, stirrup pants and the unoriginal incorporation of cocaine as the Hipster drug of choice. The disco era is over; Studio 54 is now a musical theater, and leggings are not jeans, which means you should pair them with longer than a basic T-shirt. Well maybe a little piggy-back commentary on the Hipster movement is necessary.

However, what sets The Cardigans apart from the Hipster soundtrack is their sense of melody. You will not find any Karen O screeching, you will not find any trance-induced, looping bass lines composed of 3 notes, and you won't find any disco whistles. (For an example of a "disco whistle," please refer to Gonzalez's "I Haven't Stopped Dancing Yet"). What you will find is a unique approach to songs that, if just played on a piano, might sound like something from the Gerry Goffin/Carole King song book. In a stroke of originality though, the 'Digans have incorporated their knowledge of swinging mod sixties, Beatles guitar licks, and Shangri-La vocals, courtesy of a one Miss Nina Persson, into a combination so delicious, you'll make it your electric chair meal (this reference, for those not in my circle, is a term I use to describe the best meal I've ever had and which will be the last meal I eat before I die, which is hopefully not via electric chair or any form of capital punishment).

What follows is the order of The Cardigans albums that I feel, should you be willing to take a musical journey with them, you should listen to, to whet your musical appetite.

First Band On The Moon: This is probably their most successful U.S. album, as it includes the track "Love Fool." But this album is choc-full of melodic hits, including a very unique approach to Black Sabbath's "Iron Man." Every track is a standout, but to name a few:

"Your New Cuckoo"

"Never Recover"

"Step On Me" (my personal favorite)

"Great Divide"

Super Extra Gravity (BONUS VERSION): After a rather gloomy, but genius previous album (and number 3 on this list), The Cardigans enlisted Tore Johansson, a producer for Franz Ferdinand who also produced the 'Digans 4th album (number 5 on my list) to bring them back to what I think is their strongest sound. This album is filled with very existential pop songs--all of which are strong, individual tracks on their own, which makes this the second album of their's that is listenable all the way through. A few of my faves:

"Losing A Friend"

"Overload"

"I Need Some Fine Wine and You, You Need To Be Nicer"

"Little Black Cloud"

"In The Round" (a very beatnik, Fosse vibe to this one, think about his choreography)

"Holy Love"

"Good Morning Joan"

Long Gone Before Daylight (BONUS VERSION): Perhaps the deepest and darkest record in their arsenal, this album is quite gorgeous, with more stripped down instrumentation, orchestras/strings, and soothing vocals. This album was incredibly cathartic for me and has been since. Another all-the-way-through listener, some standout tracks are:

"Communication" (this song has resurfaced on my playlist so symbolize the "disconnect" of an unhealthy friendship)

"Couldn't Care Less"

"For What It's Worth"

"Live And Learn"

"If There Is A Chance" (only available on the Bonus Version with bonus tracks, you can't own this album without this song!)

"For The Boys"

Life: This album has a very '60s kitschy vibe to it, but is a great early indicator of maturity to come. The melodies are very catchy here, the vocals playful, and the instrumentation lush. This album will make you want to drive at night in the summer with your windows down. Standout tracks are:

"Carnival" (such a great pop song, the strings are to die for!)

"Daddy's Car"

"Fine"(a swingin' retro vibe)

"Rise And Shine"

"Celia Inside" (very dreamy and melancholy)

"Over The Water"

"Tomorrow" (very The Kinks)

"Sick And Tired" (reminiscent of The Byrds)

"Gordon's Gardenparty" (you'll feel very loungey and beatnik with this one)

"Hey! Get Out Of My Way" (very The Monkees)

Gran Turismo: This album was a little more experimental for the band, venturing into trip-hop and electronica territory. The melodies are minor and eerie, but the album has a very cool, space-age feel. Standout tracks:

"Paralyzed"

"Erase/Rewind" (used in the movie "Never Been Kissed" and I'm sure a slew of others)

"Explode" (very dreamy, I imagine this song is the sonic form of shooting up)

"Starter"

"Higher" (another very dreamy, euphoric-feeling song)

"My Favourite Game" (I love driving on a freeway at night with this one blaring)

"Junk Of The Hearts" (dreamy, great for coasting at night in the summertime with the windows down)

Emmerdale: Released in the U.S. in 1997, this was their debut in other parts of the world and contains earlier versions of songs mostly found on "Life." If you're a die-hard fan, get this one as well!

I am proud to say that The Cardigans are one of my all-time favorite contemporary bands... they should be yours too!

Say It's Only (a) Paper Moon

2011-04-17T00:43:00.003-04:00

It had been a minute since I last saw Peter Bogdanovich's brilliant "Paper Moon," but after reading Tatum O'Neal's simmering tell-all, aptly titled "A Paper Life" about growing up in the oblivion that was Hollywood in the 1970s, I had to revisit it. I'm thankful I did.

Paper Moon (Theatrical Trailer) by NakedBrotha2007

I am known to my film friends as the lover of quirky, rather obscure films, especially those that contain performances, direction, and story telling that are of noteworthy quality. "Paper Moon" is one of those movies, and one of my all-time favorites. It is quite simply a masterpiece. Shot in beautiful black and white and based on the novel "Addie Pray," it is the story of a con man "Moses Pray" and the orphaned daughter "Addie Loggins," of a prostitute "Mose" (for short), had a fling with. Mose shows up to the prostitute's funeral and meets Addie and the two of them head across depression-era Kansas swindling anyone in their path. The film captures one of the best screen parings in movie history. For as damaged as Tatum O'Neal was in real life by her father Ryan, the two were at the top of their game here, especially Tatum appearing in her first film. You can't help but keep your eyes affixed to her as Addie, as she outsmarts even the seediest of swindlers, most notably that of Mose--even managing to teach him a few lessons. In fact, when the movie wrapped, Peter Bogdanovich stated flatly to Ryan that he "let the kid walk off with the picture." And that Tatum did. For the details, please refer to her memoir. As an aside, most would say read "A Paper Life" with a grain of salt, but Ryan O'Neal has 2 children who were former drug addicts (Redmond O'Neal, his 4th child, is currently battling his addictions). Nevertheless, there isn't a more precocious performance captured on celluloid (she was only 9). So precocious in fact, that Tatum O'Neal walked off with the 1973 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, the youngest winner in the history of the Academy. Take a look at her winning moment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf2J8hktI5Y

It should also be noted that the under-appreciated, oozing with talent Madeline Kahn as "Trixie Delight" is also hysterical in the movie, turning in her first of two Academy Award nominated performances. Only a pure comedic genius can get nominated for an Academy Award for comedy--we all know how they dote on drama. For more of her brief but brilliant work, start in this order with her films:

"What's Up Doc?"
Another Bogdanovich gem that pays homage to the screwball comedies of the 1930s, most notably "Bringing Up Baby" with Katharine Hepburn and Carey Grant.

"Paper Moon"
See this blog.

"Blazing Saddles"
One of the most memorable comedic performances in the history of cinema.

"The Cheap Detective"
She shows us her versatility by playing a deranged number of noir heroines with ever-changing aliases.

"Clue"
Perhaps her most recognized role as "Mrs. White" to Generation X and Y, and equally as side splitting (please see the "flames" speech)

A film all but forgotten by the public, "Paper Moon" might be seen by some critics and cinema chroniclers as mere 1970s cinema cheese. But when the director, the under-admired, should-be-legendary Peter Bogdanovich happens to have been personally mentored by the great Orson Welles himself, any film of his is worth a second look. You'll notice many Wellesian techniques in this film, from the long takes to the deep-focus masters. Currently out-of-print, the film might be hard to come by on DVD, but track it down. It should be a screening must for any film aficionado or student.

Other Peter Bogdanovich Films worth seeing:

"The Last Picture Show"
A look at small town Texas life, with an incredible Academy Award winning performance by Cloris Leachman

"What's Up Doc?"
See Madeline Kahn

"Nickelodeon"

"Mask"
Probably his most recognized film, featuring Cher.

Femme FATAL: How Britney Spears Got Us To Drink The Kool-Aid

2011-03-29T21:48:00.002-04:00

Eleven years ago, my big sister Kel invited me into her room to hear a cd single she had recently purchased from Sam Goody. Remeber CD Singles? Remember Sam Goody? That CD Single was a song from an ex-Mouseketeer named Britney Spears, and it was of a song called "Hit Me Baby One More Time." The two of us sat around her Sony Boombox (remember those?), which still works like a pro to this day, and listened to that thumping piano, that beat, and Britney confessing that "her lonliness was killing her now." We looked at each other as Britney sang melismatically, and were quite surprised at her soulfulness. I know what you're thinking: Britney Spears got soul?

Her first album was sweet enough to give me cavities twice over, what with songs like "Soda Pop" with its faux reggae sound, or perhaps the worst song recorded in music history, "E-mail My Heart" (it's a toss-up between that and "Dear Diary," another of her eardrum obliterating obliterations). "E-mail My Heart" makes me want to e-mail spam, if anything. At this writing I am managing to type whilst simultaneously putting my guilty hands up in the air. Yes, I said it. GUILTY. I am guilty of purchasing Britney Spears records. I didn't just purchase the debut either. I remember in high school, speeding out of class at lunchtime just after the bell rang (much like the music video, sans bare midriff and Catholic schoolgirl uniform), hopping into my tan 1984 4-door Volkswagen Rabbit (the essence of cool) and racing to Target to purchase "Oops, I Did It Again," (a title I, at present, feel is the loop of dialogue playing through every newborn's head after their parents have just changed their diaper). I also bought "Britney" and "In The Zone" before finally snapping out of whatever bubblegum delusion I was in.

Like Bjork and her Swan dress, I too was wondering, "What the fuck was I thinking?" I realized it was a "phase," much like going goth or wearing the obviously-not-a-good-idea bang, or, according to Evangelical parents, dating boys over girls. It was a phase. But to write it off as just that gives credence to an ever growing music market of blow-up dolls and pubescent heartthrobs with a sense of rhythm and little else. Our sense of taste, culture, class and especially TALENT has been reduced to the likes of someone patting their head and rubbing their stomach simultaneously.

This is precisely what Britney Spears does, but in beaded, sequined nothings while writhing around with a purchased-as-an-accessory-to-a-home-karaoke-machine head mic. In 1990, a group called Milli Vanilli had to return their Best New Artist Grammy because they lip-synced. Many a brainwashed Britney fan will argue to the death that there is a difference between the two, and they're right. Milli Vanilli didn't even sing on their own records. Britney, in a sense, does, to say the least. I saw her in concert once, for "Oops..." (money I should be able to recoup), and thought it was quite strange that all the uptempo tracks--uh--songs were perfectly on pitch, even while dancing her ass off, and when she sang a ballad, she was grossly off pitch. I am aware that what I'm saying is nothing new; she's been the butt of many a joke, but for some strange reason we've acquiesced and have made the exception for her. Why should she be the exception? Because she puts on a good show? Chuck me a couple mil' and I'll put on a good show too, but I'll actually sing. That's what the art form of being a musician is all about. With all the recording technology these days, it's evident she's a studio creation, and her recording engineers have sonic blood on their hands. I understand why big producers collaborate with her; she's a meal ticket. In 1992, Mariah Carey (who is a whole other hot mess-of-a-blog) silenced her critics by performing on MTV Unplugged and gained one of her slew of #1 singles ("I'll Be There") in the process. But again, why should Britney be the exception?

Why is it ok for Britney Spears to lip-sync her performances, her concerts, and still sell millions of albums while artists like Christina Aguilera (another mess-of-a-blog) have plummeting sales? Some would argue that Christina is just as much trash as Britney; in many ways yes, but vocally Christina weapons of mass destruction's Britney out of the universe. So why the exception? Because the music business, like Jim Jones, has gotten everyone to "drink the Kool-Aid." And drink we did and do--especially the gay community who now have become the conduit for testing tripe trash of all sorts. Far too many people have relied on the gay community as their totem for taste. STOP. The gay community is out of its mind on taste, save for certain fashion and Lady Gaga.

Interestingly enough, Britney Spears performed a free concert this past Sunday in San Francisco's gay neighborhood, The Castro District. The gays are the ol' fail-safe. When you're worried about what will or won't sell, go to the gays. Why? It's a built-in market and the music business, in addition scads of other industries, know we'll buy shit if it has glitter on it... Or better yet, if Britney Spears can lip-sync to it.

Adele's 21 Debuts At #1

2011-03-03T03:04:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to Adele for debuting at #1 on the Billboard Hot 200 Albums Chart! She sold over 350,000 copies in her first week! Do you hear that Music Industry?! There are those of us out there wiling to buy substantial, legit, actual music--enough to make records debut at #1 and put more dough into your greedy little pockets. So enough with the 3-note songs and the same 5 tripe trash songs you play on loop over and over on the radio stations. Bring on the singer/songwriters (minus the auto tune)!

Copy and paste this link for the Billboard cover story:
http://www.billboard.com/#/news/adele-s-21-sells-over-350k-to-top-billboard-1005054352.story

Rolling In This Deep: Adele's 21

2011-02-17T02:26:00.004-05:00

My ears have been sent to Heaven and back again, and it's moments like this that I live for. Music, which my 2s of readers know, is my personal Jesus and I have seen HER today. What is the rapture to which I bear witness, you ask? The mononym: ADELE.

Like an impatient child on Christmas morn, I simply could not wait until the end of February to procure a copy of Adele's awaited follow up, "21." How exactly did I obtain the album? I bought the import, which was released in the UK on January 24th. The italicized "bought" is to let you know that I actually wanted Adele to get paid for her music/art and for having an impact on my life, as opposed to illegally downloading it. No subtext here, folks, BUY your music. We're in the land of purchasing singles now as opposed to LPs so please, buy your tune-age even if you only want a song or two. In Adele's case, buy the whole damn record!

It was my incredible friend Tiffany who turned me on to Adele. In fact, I was standing right by her side at the "Devil Store" otherwise known as "Amoeba Music," when she decided to purchase the import of "19" as it had not yet been released in the U.S. Thus began my familiarity of Adele, which has led me to this blog-post.

"19" was a brilliant debut, combining elements of acoustic instrumentation with programmers and electronic beats and sweetening said elements with lush strings. Obviously this record is where Adele was trying to find her voice--a voice which is older and wiser far beyond the nubile 19 she was when she wrote it. She even included, in my opinion, the best cover of Bob Dylan's "Make You Feel My Love" on the record (Garth Brooks's is a close second). Then again, I feel that Bob Dylan's songs are best served by artists other than he--albeit for "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Mr. Tambourine Man." (Please pay for and download or buy the album of Bette Midler's version of "I Shall Be Released" from her self-titled second album; it will blown you to oblivion). I believe, because it was a bit of a mishmash of styles, it didn't pick up the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album, instead going to Duffy, who's record was more cohesive. An incohesive album is not necessarily a bad album; it may just show Grammy voters that a musician's "voice" hasn't yet been clearly defined. Nevertheless, 2008's "19" was a stunning record, choc-full of existential questions and pondering, all in the name of love.

"21" is a heart-breaker of a record in the best and worst sense; you will feel obliterated by her scornful, you-done-me-wrong blues thumpers; wracked with sadness over her profuse, tear-inducing ballads and even slightly hopeful by the album's arresting final song. But overall, you will feel like you are party to an extraordinary event: actual singable, substantial mainstream music; a rarity today. Have you heard the radio today and the 5 excuses for songs they play on loop? "21" will leave you speechless--it's that good.

Opening with "Rolling in the Deep" this heart and foot stomper of a gem is part Etta James, part Muddy Waters, and part Aretha Franklin, and sounds as if she traveled down to Muscle Shoals, Alabama circa 1969 to write and record it. It's a mixture of the soul-wrench of, "I Would Rather Go Blind," the sex of "Hoochie Coochie Man," and the I-found-you-out, you son-of-a-bitch "Don't Play That Song For Me." It's bass beat is enough to drum the heart out of your chest. The guitar strums with a vengeful pulse, and the piano brings on and wipes away the tears simultaneously. The cherry on top is that pain-of-a-wail Adele delivers, as if she's trying to shout the death out of the man who done her wrong to a six-feet-under state.

"Rumor Has It" is another blues-banger, but this time she's taken off the earrings and vaselined up. The bass pounds like a fist to the face, while her backing vocals of "ooh ooh" are the schoolyard kids circled up around, spectating and taunting her as she beats the shit out of her ex-lover. No sooner has she given a love TKO when the song slows to an adagio piano, as if she's regretful for punching him out. Adele is no sociopath; she shows the remorse, if only for a minute, but goes back for more.

"Turning Tables" is gorgeous melodrama in an un-campy sense of the word. It's rolling piano is reminiscent of a mantra being repeated over and over, as if to self-affirm that Adele is, in fact, over the boy she sings of. It's sonic lovelorn melancholy pure and true, as evident by the sweeping strings which, for me practically pull the tears out of my eyes. If Adele hasn't quite convinced you that you've lived this song too, she pulls out the big guns; I've never heard a lyric truer than this: "Next time I'll be braver, I'll be my own savior; Standing on my own two feet...I can't keep up with your turning tables." Ain't it the truth that we are always telling ourselves, "next time, it will be different" only to fall back into familiar shoes.

"Don't You Remember" is Adele's "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going." The instrumentation is organic, consisting of live drum kits, electric guitars, acoustic guitars, and, my absolute favorite part, the strings. The string arrangements on this record just knock me out; here they will murder you, especially with the resounding key change at the bridge. Perhaps the component that most makes this song so gorgeous is Adele's vocal. She makes incredible use of the top of her belting range here--on the entire album--but here, it has such a longing to it, it's sure to make you ponder past relationships and what went wrong.

Perhaps taking a tip from Phil Spector of the '60s "Wall of Sound," the track "Set Fire to the Rain" is a colossus of dreamy orchestration, underlined by a Fleetwood Mac-inspired drum line. Adele's vocals on this song are too, in peak perfection, using the top of her belting range--a range we saw only a portion of on "19." It's a baptismal of a song, hence the theme of the "rain," and one that I definitely can relate to. The lyrics are as resonant as the echo-chamber feel of this track: "'Cause there's a side to you that I never knew, never knew; All the things you'd say, they were never true, never true; And the games you's play, you would always win, always win... But I set fire to the rain..." It's moments like this where I need to shout "can I get an amen?!"

"He Won't Go" is definitely the groove on this album, and the one for all the stubborn lovers. How many of us have kept on pushing in a relationship, trying to achieve an end result we subconsciously know will never happen? Adele sings: "So petrified, I'm so scared to step into this ride, What if I lose my heart and fail the climb? I won't forgive me if I give up trying; I heard his voice today, I didn't know a single word he said, Not one resemblance to the man I met, Just a vague and broken boy instead...But I won't go." This girl knows the burn of love well. Again, it's hard to believe all of this comes from the mind of a 21-year-old. I would kill to be a backup singer on this track because it grabs hold of your hips and sways them to and fro. It's heavy on the kick drum, with a side of strings, harp and piano. Who'd have thought a harp could slap you across the face like it does in the bridge of this song? "He Won't Go" is, to quote a true R&B legend "Sophisticated Funk."

What would "21" be without going to church for a minute? One song short of a masterpiece. "Take it All" pairs the two best elements about an Adele record: the piano and those smoke-soaked, cockney vocals she's so famous for. Throw in a choir and you've made me a believer. Not only does the passion of the piano and vocal asphyxiate you with gut-wrenching emotion, the lyrics will rip your heart out: "Maybe I should leave, To help you see, Nothing is better than this, And this is everything we need, So is it over? Is this really it? You're giving up so easily, I thought you loved me more than this, But go on, go on and take it, Take it all with you..." Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor.

The first thought to come to mind when I hear "I'll be Waiting" is as though the track were originally written for Dusty Springfield's masterpiece "Dusty in Memphis." Considered one of the 100 greatest albums of all time by Rollingstone, I believe this is Adele paying homage to the first blue-eyed British Soul singer to give way to the Adele's, Duffy's, Amy Winehouse's, and especially the Joss Stone's of the UK. We can throw my new fav Jessie J in there for good measure as well. Whereas Adele went on down to the Muscle Shoals studios on "Rolling in the Deep," she went on over to Memphis on this song, to get that Memphis sound: a sweet and soulful blend of horns, strings and rhythm. Though strings aren't on this song, it is very horn-driven along with some groovy hand-claps, and a blues-riffing piano. This is Adele testifying to a second chance, and after hearing it, I'd give her a third, forth and fifth chance.

The first person to come to mind after hearing the song "One and Only" is my friend Tiffany. The reason being that it has a bit of a Motown rhythm and arrangement to it, and I know how Tiffany loves the girl groups of the 50s and 60s. But while Motown may be the easiest comparison, this very much has a feel similar to Etta James during her "Tell Mama" album period. All hollerin' and no apologizin'. If this is your speed, I recommend you get Ms. James's "Tell Mama" album this instant! Did I mention that Adele goes to church on this one too? Possibly more so than "Take it All." I think her vocals may be my favorite on this track as she does more ad-libbing. Listen carefully to the background as she really goes to church vocally whilst the choir echos the sentiment. A welcome addition to this song is the Organ, an instrument that is no stranger in the house of the Lord.

Perhaps the darkest song on the record, "Lovesong" is less about being "caught up in the rapture" (I'm a sucker for an Anita Baker reference), and more about lamenting love. The lyrics are some of the most repetitive on the record, almost as if this is Adele saying a rosary to love. Is this not what The Cure is known for? This is, as I have recently learned, a cover, much more stripped down, including a much slower tempo--almost unrecognizable from the original. What is an Adele album without a breathtaking cover? Blue is the mood of the organ, with its minor chord warble, whilst the strings resonate with foreboding and the guitar "gently weeps." There is a rather surprising element in this song which I found quite brilliant, so kudos to the producers. That element is the accordion, which very much hints at the lovelorn French torch songs of the inimitable Edith Piaf. In addition, the cello is the sole string instrument playing out the tune which gives an even more heightened sense of sadness. Though it plays a very sad melody, I believe the cello is one of the sexiest instruments around! Gorgeous. Just gorgeous.

The final track is the equally stunning twin sister to "Hometown Glory." "Someone Like You," a song Adele recently performed on the Brit Awards, will move you to tears--she was moved to tears singing it in that moment. Again, this is Adele at her best--at her simplest with just the piano, and vocal. She writes some of the most stunningly gorgeous, beautiful songs about reflecting on love and life. Just take a gander at these emotive words: I heard that you're settled down, That you found a girl and you're married now, I heard that your dreams came true, Guess she gave you things I didn't give to you, Old friend, why are you so shy? Ain't like you to hold back or hide from the light; I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited, But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it, I had hoped you'd see my face,
And that you'd be reminded that for me it isn't over; Never mind, I'll find someone like you..." Get the tissues out, you'll need 'em.

I know I've culled many comparisons in each song description here, but I want to assure you that though there are traces of legendary musicians and their styles throughout this record, this is a completely authentic record from Adele and my most anticipated album of 2011. It's early to say this, especially when one Miss Lady Gaga is getting ready to drop her next effort this May. But I have been longing for an album that utilizes the simplest elements of instrumentation to speak volumes to its listeners; while Lady G goes for the synthesizers and self-empowerment, Adele has brought, in my opinion, the raw emotion of trying to just exist within life and love. I am not attempting to compare the two because the musics are of two different "monsters." However, the most original track we will and have been hearing this year is "Rolling in the Deep." I stand here and now and predict a Record of the Year nomination, Song of the Year nomination, Best Pop Vocal Album nomination and the coveted Album of the Year nomination for Adele. It's an album like "21" that leaves me wondering, what horrendous deductions did the National Academy of Arts and Sciences (N.A.R.A.S.) make to award Taylor Swift the prize? Yes, I'm bitter.

Fresh off the lackluster telecast of the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards, it must be an incredible feeling to N.A.R.A.S. to know that they got their Best New Artist winner right in 2008, awarding the trophy to Adele, because she has proved on her sophomore effort that she is a Best if no longer New, Artist. Since I don't mind kicking a dead horse even more, I'm going to restate the fact that like Esperanza Spalding, the Best New Artist winner of 2010, Adele had no mass-marketing team behind her and her record, pushing it down our throats until we gave in and bought the apparel, make-up line, and 3D concert tickets (please see the previous blog post). And when we allow musicianship to speak for itself, it more often than not, prevails with the promise the Best New Artist Grammy Award makes.

There aren't enough adjectives to describe this body of work from Adele. She has released two, virtually flawless masterpieces--stunning, gorgeous, and brilliant, which give me hope that music hasn't totally succumbed to the beat-driven, two note, repetitive, chanting come-ons that litter popular radio like plastic bags on freeways. Rihanna, I'm speaking to you. Do yourselves a favor, and go out and buy this album--or get it from iTunes. Buying only a portion of the songs doesn't do it justice; it's just too miraculous not to purchase it in its entirety, as it was meant to sound. Get ready to roll in the deep.

Not a Belieber: Esperanza Spalding's World 2.0

2011-02-14T16:38:00.001-05:00

Justin Bieber fans hacked into Esperanza Spalding's Wikipedia page because he didn't win the Best New Artist Grammy and she did. I guess they're upset with her because she didn't have to rely on a mass-marketing agency banking on raging preteen hormones, or releasing a line of Wal-Mart-esque clothing, or cheap makeup for little girls (yes, JB has a line of nail polish--his favorite lacquer colour is "I'm a Belieber Purple" available at Target for $7.04), a Toys R Us smattering of dolls complete with that overgrown mop of a hairdo, a memoir recounting all 16 sage, wisdom-filled years of her life, and a documentary about an inflated ego going through puberty and singing to a backing track brought to you in 3D. Voice and musicianship be damned, a pair of panties with your face on them is what a Grammy win is all about. Incidentally you can pick those up at Hot Topic. It positively screams Best New Artist. Welcome to Esperanza Spalding's World 2.0, Bieber.

Fucking It Up, With A Bow On Top

2010-09-12T02:56:00.000-04:00

I think I’m on a crusade to ruin every last relationship I have in my life. I’m not speaking of my non-existent love life—that’s been a flabby spare tire for 3 years and counting—but my friendships old and new. They are the closest people to me, yet I always have to test them—to fight with them at some point—to see if they can handle the challenge that is Nicholas Patrick Williams.

You see, each of my friendships starts as a gift; given by each individual who enters my life for one reason or mere happenstance—offerings that would shame, for lack of a less dramatic scenario, the goodies given by the wise men to the baby Jesus (I am not being cynical here, I promise). Each gift is adorned with a wrapping that makes Innisbrook look like the Sunday Comics. Even better is what’s inside: an existential piece that I receive, sometimes with an open heart, sometimes with hesitancy, that I carefully place in its proper position which in turn is the puzzle of my life. To say that I love my friends is an understatement. They are the resuscitation paddles to a life I have tried, at one point not long ago, to let fade nonchalantly on the operating table. But I am here. Some days I wish otherwise, but most of the time, thanks to a small blue pill and my friends, I am here.

But I still haven’t learned my lesson. After my own personal apocalypse that was the year 2009, and a psychiatrist that seemed, on some days, more like Willy Wonka with candy prescriptions, I’ve emerged from the cocoon, not the clichéd beautiful butterfly I am meant to be, but still—and maybe more so—the prickly, deprecative caterpillar I was one year ago…and I hate it. It bears repeating: I HATE it.

At what point do we learn to enjoy life? Living? Living, for me, seems more like a chore than the gift it was meant to be. But if you asked me 3 months ago how I felt about my life, I was riding some kind up euphoric high. I can’t explain it. Perhaps it’s because I was still on the ‘Zac. Do I need to get back on it? Perhaps it was because the air was fragrant with opportunity again (I was, after all, planning my move to New York). But I’ve landed on the longest chute on the board, and damn it, I’ve slid with the ease of KY back down to the low again.

I want to enjoy living. I don’t even buy that. I WANT to ENJOY LIVING. I want to step with the nimblest quickness off of my soapbox, which, incidentally, my feet have been firmly cemented on since I’ve come out. I want to exist with a Teflon exterior, so that the things people say that may seem negative in connotation, slip right into my personal pan and sauté over with good intention; dashed with a grain of salt. I want to be discharged from the military of policing people whose conscience and integrity have taken a permanent vacation. I want to be relieved from my self-imposed “second-ratedness;” the low self-image and confidence I’ve maintained with Edward Scissor Hands perfection, as a means to keep even a shred of humility alive. I want to be able to stand in a full-length mirror, naked, and LOVE what I see: pale skin, freckles, long, gangly limbs. I want to be able to walk into a room, albeit a bar, and turn every head because I believe I am worth the sight…and they believe it too. At 27 years of age, I’m very nervous and worried I may never obtain this. I can barely stick to P90X.

All of this is at the behest of my conscience, which has sadistically thrashed me physically, mentally—and where it really hurts—emotionally, because I can’t seem to accept people for who they are. I can’t. And that too, I HATE.
There is a woman in my life that I initially met as the result of being an employee on my first show. She and I have eventually developed a simpatico working relationship, which has more than bloomed into a friendship unlike any that I have. There is a reason she is in my life. She is the one person that I know that has the best sense of self I have ever seen. EVER. She possesses a joie de vivre that I aspire to, and I am convinced she is going to outlive everybody else that I know. She knows who she is. She is smart. She is kind. She is gorgeous. She is caring, nurturing, giving. She is humble but owns a confidence as warm and endearing as Betty White.

And those aforementioned gifts that friends give me—the gifts she gave me—the missing puzzle pieces she tried so gingerly to fit in their respective shapes, I pretty much obliterated, because I wouldn’t let go; I wouldn’t find peace; I wouldn’t accept her for who she is.

Now we may spend the next few weeks in an awkward exchange; and once my departure to my new home nears, the exchange may not be at all.

The humorous thing about all of this is I know it exists in me; I see my issues. I am aware that I live more up on my soapbox rather than on the ground where everyone else walks happily. I realize that I continue to march on that crusade. “You are Katie Morosky,” said my friend; “Barbra Streisand’s character in “The Way We Were” and everyone around you is Hubbell Gardiner.” And like Hubbell Gardiner they’re leaving me for another because they are unable to live on the pedestal I have erected for them.

Oh, Does it Hurt, When You Believe You're in Love with a Wonderful Guy

2010-08-11T05:27:00.000-04:00

It's a bitter feeling to feel an affirmation; to know that you were only engaging in nights out and simple, common affection for similar things. What I thought, regardless of latitude and longitude could be something more, really just turned out to be a series of 3 nights out; a final fling on the town, so's I would realize that what I was leaving was detrimental to my character. always. I must say, with all of my animosity towards this smog-laden land fill, I will truly miss those I have come to know; if only for a
passing phase or a gallivant to "Pav's" on a drunken Saturday. How I wish we could've been more, but know that distance and time would've altered us with even the most cadenced drama; something...reminiscent of "Days of our Lives." The sign of the cross to you, and maybe me, tho' I don't believe; hopefully we'll find solidarity and monogamy;
because it is possible between two men. LOVE.

Some People Wait a Lifetime, for a Moment Like This!

2010-08-07T05:12:00.001-04:00

I know it's been a while for all of my twos of readers out there. This one may very well be short and sweet.

I have reviewed the paperwork for that atrocious cattle call and exploitative excuse for a "dream-maker" program called "American Idol." Guess what I found? It says "DO NOT RESUSCITATE!"

So, FOX, and all you other media-frenzy whores who are, like the show, trying to revive careers that never should have happened in the first place, PUT DOWN the defibrillation paddles...

AND LET AMERICAN IDOL DIE!

My heart is warmed over the fact that everyone is leaving/quitting. "Some people (like me) wait a lifetime, for a moment like this!"

Now if only the cast of Twilight, Miley Cyrus, The Jonas Brothers, The Jersey Shore, The Kardashians, Spencer Pratt (Herpes Simplex 1), Heidi Montag (Herpes Simplex 2), Sarah Palin, Bristol Palin, Levi Johnston, John and Kate Gosselin, MTV and FOX News would follow suit, we might get back to learning something for ourselves and reading books instead of media menstrual rags and watching nothing but IDIOTS dictate who we should be, there might be hope for our generation to redeem itself. And they say terrorists are in the Middle East.

Tuck that in your g.

You got to tip on the tightrope!

2010-04-02T15:21:00.000-04:00

Watch to hear this summer cut! Album out May 18th!

This is FIRE!

2010-03-30T18:27:00.001-04:00

Dissatisfaction Guaranteed

2010-02-12T20:39:00.000-05:00

When will we ever be satisfied with ourselves? Sure, there’s always room for improvement, but improvement is simply a bridge to perfection. And if perfection (which is relative to each individual), is never attainable, does this mean we’ll never be satisfied?

“Whaddya talk!” I hear you say to me as you flick your wrist in dismissal—but with all seriousness, it’s a perfectly valid question, devoid of rhetoric and, I believe, answerable…maybe. (I can’t even be satisfied with a solid answer; instead I exercise ambiguity to cover my ass).

All of this, I know you’re dying to know, comes on the heels of my last day on a pilot I’ve been working on for the last 6 weeks. I won’t get into the semantics of the show; these are irrelevant. I will, however, describe to you the instances of effort put forth by yours truly, as a means of validation—because isn’t that what we’re really looking for?

After 6 weeks of rifling through drug addicts, abuse victims, and plain old flaky people (see previous entry “They’re Grrrrreat!”), I still feel like I’ve done a job that possesses more lack than luster. At the eleventh hour, I managed to bring in 2 mediocre stories; the first of which I jammed down the 405 (and by "jammed," I mean a 3-hour bumper to bumper car ride; it's L.A. people) to San Diego to complete; the other of which I chugged along the cyber highway to retrieve, eventually, via FedEx. (Note to Apple: forget iPads; how about inventing a way to send incredibly large data files via Internet without having to jump through a 3-ring circus of firey hoops)! So with those efforts, why do I feel vocationally unfulfilled?

I’m surrounded by a great bunch of co-workers; though we all are working on our respected projects, the workplace still manages to be a daily dose of surprise, guttural laughter and cynically sarcastic one-liners. But the fun ends when the clock strikes quittin’ time, and on my brief car ride home I reflect on the day’s productiveness… Each night, I walk through my door, prep for bed, lay down to go to sleep; I ponder what more I could’ve done, done better, improved; then I shut my eyes, and with immense difficulty, fall asleep, dissatisfied.

They're Grrrrreat!

2010-02-02T19:13:00.000-05:00

Today’s discussion: Flakes. Not of the frosted, corned, dandruff, or epidermis variety; not even snow flakes, flakes of fish-food or flakes of soap; I am referring to the type of flake that is always late and even worse, the kind that doesn’t show up; no phone call, no text message, no e-mail, no voice message, no letter, no memo, no note, no nothing. (One may also glean from this entry the theme of reliability, credibility, and responsibility.) Let’s talk about it.

I can’t stand flaky people. I’ve gone through the majority of my life maintaining a loyalty to plans that I have made with other people, because, like a food chain, if you change your plans, there is in turn, a chain reaction or a domino effect that sends a wake of obliteration on down through those whom you have made plans with. For example: You’re casting a show where you need two people who know each other, because every story has two sides; for identification purposes we’ll refer to them as “Side 1” and “Side 2.” Side 1 comes through and is totally on board; Side 2 builds up your hopes, leads you on and says they’ll be there; but after numerous phone calls from 2 different phones, coupled with *67 number blocking in the hopes they’ll pick up, a half a dozen e-mails and contacting other people to get through to them, still, to no avail, there is nothing more you can do but get out the existential branding iron and stamp their irresponsible asses with “FLAKE.” I know Flakes well; my two elder brothers bear the brand…and incidentally, so does Side 2 in this case.

I feel like a little boy who desperately waits by the window for his dead-beat daddy to show up to bring him a promised Christmas gift; only daddy doesn’t show up, and daddy doesn’t call, write, or even send homing pigeon. (I’m not apologizing for stepping out on a completely dramatic, soap operatic limb for the above analogy).

They say ("they," always the operative for those we never see but those that coined use of a turn of phrase) that if you make plans, God laughs; I say God laughs because he knows how Goddamned flaky people are.

Hopes, Dreams, Fears. Did I Mention Fears?

2010-01-22T19:05:00.000-05:00

I’m officially over waking up every morning feeling like my lower intestine is being poked and prodded with a meat tenderizer and a feather duster…at the same time. Why do I freak out about things? Why am I freaking out about my job? Why am I freaking out about taking the GRE? (For those of you not in the scholastic know, that is General Record Exam; a computer-based test for upstanding academics who somehow forgot or never learned how to write and/or find the area of an isosceles triangle). I always thought these spiked-winged butterflies in my stomach (more analogies to come because that’s how my ballpoint pen rolls) would subside once I reached the south side of my 20s. No such luck folks (or spammers, whomever is reading).

Hopefully somewhere down the line if I have an offspring or two, their stomachs evolve quickly enough to be able to withstand ulcers. Deep breaths just ain’t cuttin’ it; I’m left light headed and nauseous, no matter how many in through the noses, out through the noses I breath or how many times I try and align my chakras, which incidentally, are like one of those super-mod baby mobiles that dangle over cribs; or maybe more like Christmas lights wrapped around a tree (I told you there’d be more analogies); there’s no untangling those twinkling nightmares; it’s just cheaper to throw the lights away and go to Target to get new ones. Anyone know where I can get a good deal on aligned chakras (or a baby mobile because where would I be without one)?

So even though I’m officially over waking up with the lower intestinal situation, that doesn’t mean it’s gone. Will it ever be? I get so furious sometimes that I’m such an upstanding citizen; there are days I wish I could shout “integrity be gone!” but my heart won’t let me. I'm officially changing my name to Charlie Brown.

Perhaps I should just Xanax it with a Chablis chaser like everybody else does; life seems to be a picnic not being able to feel. That’s like cheating on life... or a test. Therein lies my problem; I have subconsciously equated the GRE with life, which means if I fuck up on the GRE, I’ve fucked up on life. That’s ok; I can always take it 4 more times this year.

Glee-fully Grotesque

2009-09-17T04:05:00.000-04:00

I have a horrible healthcare plan: my dental insurance only covers up to $87 worth of dental work. It costs about $229 to get a cavity filled, and thanks to the ooey gooey, syrupy, plastic Halloween pumpkin full of saccharine schmaltz musical numbers in “Glee,” I’m looking at a mouthful of amalgam that would rival the grill of Lil’ Wayne and/or a Cadillac Escalade. I bet you thought I was haranguing about healthcare.

I don’t have an issue with the characters or Glee’s plotlines (thus far); I think it has a Technicolor quirkiness that has successfully HD’d its way onto Circuit City liquidated plasma TV screens in millions of homes, replacing the former candy-colored “Pushing Daisies.” However, the world of “Daisies” was 100% fantastical, right down to the Pie Hole’s pie-shaped awning, allowing for musical outbursts as viscous as pie filling. Glee takes place in a high school in Lima, Ohio (an actual place), and though the characters are eccentric and the palette a frenzy of Skittles colors, the song reproductions warrant the popping of Pepto Bismol.

What makes me cringe is the musical numbers: not necessarily the choreography or song selection, but the fact that the production value of each Top-Forty tune has all the makings of a “Kidz Bop” album. For those of you unfamiliar, Kidz Bop is a series of album compilations of today’s hottest hit singles that, if in possession of foul language and/or sexual innuendo (which they all contain; face the awkward moments parents and just answer your children’s damn “where do babies come from” questions) are rerecorded and reproduced for kids who have “outgrown Elmo and [aren’t] quite ready for Britney [Spears].”

I can’t help but wince every time this club breaks into song, save for the recent “Bust Your Windows” because of the uber-sharp cheddar synths, handclaps, and processed beats courtesy of a Casio keyboard circa 1988. If you’d like an audible example of ate-too-much-cotton candy-and-rode-the tilt-a-whirl ad nauseum on wax, I suggest you download, listen, hold your hair back and vomit, then promptly delete a diabetically sugary Britney Spears monstrosity called “E-Mail My Heart.” This is the sonically sickening song that projectiles into my head and out of my esophagus every time those wonderful pariahs of Glee burst into song… What was with those renditions of Bell Biv Devoe’s “Poison” and Color Me Badd’s “I Wanna Sex You Up?”… Anyone? I suppose the overt Broadway diction and placement of Matthew Morrison's and Lea Michele's vocals don't help either (though I enjoy their voices).

What works are the quick-witted quips and the insider’s view of the outsiders and their tenacity to remain as unique as possible; what doesn’t is the musical ipecac. Glee, please find a new music producer or I'll bust the windows out your car.

(500) Days of Near Perfection

2009-07-31T17:22:00.001-04:00

Finally! A movie made in the last 5 years where the guy is authentically, belligerently love-struck with the girl and not just on a conquest to nail her and brag to his friends. As for the killer soundtrack: I am convinced Regina Spektor makes any situation magical.

Kudos to the casting director for showcasing two incredibly real-life, naturally attractive actors, who are in this biz for (hopefully the motive doesn’t change) the love of acting and not the next huge blockbuster franchise film and Smart Water campaign. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the every young adult’s adult: attractive, smart, talented and believable as the guy who is madly in love with a girl he cannot have. Zooey Deschanel is illuminating; our generation’s Debra Winger (what an excellent mother/daughter paring; Debra Winger is still relevant people!), an unconventional beauty conventionally relaying the message that love really is unsure.

This movie is fragrant with the inspiration of “Annie Hall,” one of the few romantic comedies that makes us believe that this type of relationship really can happen.

A near perfect cinematic experience; not total perfection only because it is set in Los Angeles, a place where J-Date and Match.com reign supreme; where bodacious boobs and a bombastic ass are the traits that get you any kind of relationship (no one says it has to be real and/or successful). Notice that any and all locations are in downtown L.A. where the un-corporate or non-government employed and certainly non-entertainment industry never go unless for a night out at a pretentiously trendy bar but even then are weary of the urban jungle if there’s no valet. There is no trash; there are no homeless in this fantastical L.A. that “Summer” is set in; no signs of Skid Row or “Mamma Judy” (that one’s for you Katie). I not only refuse, but also have yet to be convinced that a love like Tom and Summer’s can actually happen here; perhaps I’ll need to finish my bottle of Prozac to change my mind.

Nevertheless, “(500) Days of Summer” will leave anyone and everyone enraptured.

...On Toronto

2009-07-16T01:59:00.000-04:00

It’s difficult to find the proper adjective for Toronto. I’ve experienced the rapture of New York, and San Francisco is thrillingly sublime. Toronto is nowhere near as “go, go, go” as NYC. I don’t feel like I’m rushing toward the void here, as I could living in New York, or like I’m wasting the hours of my life away in a hatchback as I do in Los Angeles. Toronto is different; sure it was founded as the city of “Toronto” in 1834, and possesses some of the most beautiful Victorian architecture, but it really didn’t come together as a major metropolis until the late 1960s and early 1970s…and it continues to grow to this day.

I feel these pangs of optimism—yes, I said it: optimism—are the result of being able to escape the suffocating plastic bag (is not a toy) that is Los Angeles. One has to step back for a minute and think about why Los Angeles has such a bad reputation. I went on a tour of Toronto Islands yesterday and the docent asked me where I was from. I told her originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, California but that I’ve lived in L.A. for 4 years. On my honor, my inflection remained neutral when I said my city of residence. She followed it by telling me she has had many a tourist and friend tell her they loathe it. This? Clear across the U.S. up thru the Canadian border to Toronto? You’ve got to wonder… The genuine people who travel to L.A., or the genuine people who are from there are the only people who have genuine friendships. They’re not based on who can snag you a job on this set, or who can forward your resume to this assistant’s desk…or are they? Often times, the genuine people who travel to this Landfill of America petrify to superficiality. Dangerous. It happens 24 frames per second.

Chances are, if you aren’t from San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, or Seattle, Los Angeles is a siren song to paradise. A place where celluloid dreams abound, and celebrities appear and disappear like an exotic San Diego Zoo animal does in their captive, artificial habitat. I know, I know, here I am bludgeoning you all with a literary tirade on being down and out in Beverly Hills, but consider this entry as one of those pore sucking, seaweed, avocado, heated stone, firming mud spa wraps that force all of the toxins to the surface. Really, I’m just letting this flow, as if it were my “time of the month,” because being here in Toronto has released a cacophony (that one’s for you, Nikki) of emotions, as evidenced by my Regina Spektor entry two blogs down. Self-promotion—something I learned from living in Los Angeles.

The truth is, I don’t want to leave Toronto. Though New York is still my number one, and San Francisco, of course, is my North Star but much too close to mercurial memories and a painful past I want to have nothing to do with, Toronto ranks as my number 2 destination of desire. Like the Big Apple, the air of opportunity is so shockingly electric (but of a different voltage, and I promise that’s the last electricity analogy) it is difficult not to fall madly and maniacally in the big L-O-V-E with this place. I wish I could just send for my things. But then again, that wish is the eyelash on the finger for every city I’ve been that isn’t Los Angeles.

I used to think that if I were passionate about something I’d stop at nothing to make it happen. I’ve discovered I will stop at something: I will stop when my mother and doctor suggest I begin taking anti-depressants; when my happiness has been compromised; and when I’ve realized there’s much more outside that Auschwitz gas chamber of a city than I’m—we’re—ever led to believe there is, and I’m not just talking physical destinations, I’m talking emotional destinations that no third eye or Bikram Yoga class could ever take you to.

Is there somewhere you want to go? Book that trip, wherever it is. Just so you know there is life outside of an agency mailroom, a producer’s schedule, a UTA job-list.

A View From the Top!

2009-07-12T23:40:00.000-04:00

The CN Tower is an amazing landmark that is definitive of the Toronto skyline, so it was incredibly necessary that I grasp at the brass ring-of-a-chance to get a view from the top of the world’s tallest freestanding structure. To those who are planning future ventures to this fantastic city, this is a MUST, no matter how long the lines are.

Completed in its entirety in 1975, the CN Tower is host to over 2 million visitors a year, possesses the world’s highest wine cellar, a restaurant, and is also a broadcasting tower and extremely large lightening rod. The rather eerie thing about this tower is that it is designed to sway with the winds, and sway it did. When I got back to the bottom, I still felt I was moving back and forth.

After hoping off the Gray Line tour, which is a mere block or so from the Tower, I decided, what the hell, I might as well get my visit to the CN in today. As I approached the entrance I tried to maintain a high level of optimism, as I didn’t want to stand in the rumored 2-hour-plus lines (or is it queue?) that this monument is known for. I decided on the “Total Tower Experience” at approx. $32 Canadian plus applicable taxes, which allowed me to experience not only the observation deck and the vertigo inducing glass floor, but also a visit to the skypod (the smaller bubble a number of feet above the actual sphere) where most of the swaying in the breeze is felt. You also get to jump the long line and wait no more than 15 minutes. What a deal!

Approaching the queue, visitors first walk through a futuristic Star Trek-like security archway which blows air on you as it does a full body and backpack scan of everything in your body and your bags. Once through you either veer left to the OPEC Oil Crisis line or, for the Total Tower, to the right to jump it. The elevators hold approximately 10 people comfortably, and have glass-paneled floors that you can look down through as you ascend to the Canadian heavens. Once the main elevator reaches the top, the Total Tower Experience allows you to take yet another elevator (this one has no windows and no glass-paneled floors) up to the skypod. What scenery! I could see everything from the Toronto Islands to Lake Ontario, and inland all of downtown Toronto, to practically the northern suburbs. After about 30 minutes up here, gripping the wall from time to time, I headed back down to the observation deck and glass floor.

The CN Tower is also home to the world’s highest Calcutta. That’s what it felt like as we all penguin-walked off the elevator to try and get out. What a madhouse! There were a million strollers and toddlers and bodies strewn all about the glass floor, some people laying all over it, some stomping up and down to test its durability. I managed to edge my way through to take a sitting picture or two. I love thrill rides. I love the CN Tower, but standing and sitting on this piece of glass that is 2 ½ inches thick exactly ONE THOUSAND, ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-TWO FEET above the ground gave me an immediate case of acrophobia. Look at the fear in my face in the first picture I took. I couldn’t even force a smile; eventually I managed one.

The most morbid things go through my mind when I encounter situations like this. What if a stylish stiletto heel punctures the glass? What if too many people rolling around on this floor forces it to collapse and we all tumble to our deaths? What if I lose my balance and fall onto one of the panes of glass and it shatters and I’m dangling out like Faye Wray at the top of the Empire State Building in “King Kong” and the one person who grabs my hand has just eaten greasy popcorn from the gift shop and loses their grip? What if a sudden gust of wind causes this hollow-in-the-center concrete structure to snap? Thankfully I wasn’t thinking out loud.

After about 2 hours above, I made my way below to watch the brief film documenting the building of this structure. Quite fascinating as the Tower is solid cement except the center, which is hollow for the elevators, and they had to continuously pour cement 24/7 for a number of months.

From here, the last stop was the “Motion Simulator Ride” which has nothing to do with the Tower, just some tourist tripe, much like the needless manufacturing of CN Tower water canteens, hacky sacks, miniature playing cards, and pepper mills (although whomever purchased the mill must’ve been in tchotchke heaven!).

I bid adieu to the Total Tower Experience, though not the tower itself, as never a Torontonian day goes by that one doesn’t see the mighty CN Tower.

Check out my Williams on Warhol Canadian gallery.

"Far"

2009-07-11T22:40:00.000-04:00

Allow me to wax poetic about Regina Spektor and her new album "Far." This is the best album I've purchased this year, and having owned Miss Spektor's two previous full-length major label albums, the most elementally consistent of her work. But I am not attempting to review this album; I am simply attempting to put into words the beauty expressed on this disc.
"Far" has been my Canadian companion; the repeat mode has been selected on my iPod as I've traipsed up and down Toronto. It can be chalked up to coincidence, to mythic or religious reason, or the conspiring of the universe that each track has in some way or another narrated this Torontonian escapade I'm on; perfectly encompassing the mixed bag of emotions I've experienced since I set foot on Air Canada; as if I was meant to stumble on this sonic sensation at the very point in time I threw my Canadian bill on the cashier’s counter. The thing is, I didn't purchase "Far" until two days after arriving in Toronto.

From the risky love of “The Calculation,” to the haunting melody of suicide on “Genius of the Year” to the superstition of “Laughing With,” the robotic monotony of “Machine,” to the impending doom of “Human of the Year,” Regina Spektor: this album is an opus; each entry is the peak of perfection. Another of the—dare I say it—succulent morsels (two words I absolutely despise but find so perfectly befitting) is “Eet.” A swooning up-tempo ballad (in the vain of “Viva la Vida”), “Eet” perfectly encapsulates the stifled identity I’ve been privy to. The video for “Eet,” created by Regina herself, is 3 minutes and 53 seconds of enigmatic scrumptiousness.

Regina, if you are not nominated for Grammys this season, it is only on the money-grubbing consciences of Recording Academy voters that they’d rather go with something generic, say, the current R&B fluff and Pop-Hop that has filled domestic and international radio speakers with toxic sludge. You are worthy of that golden emblem of distinction.

This is an album for our ages; this period in our lives when we travel to new places to escape the “mundania” we’ve resigned to; when we are desperate to find security in the definitive occupational niche we wish, hope--dream about… But we inevitably discover we may never get that “far.”

"Whatever It Takes..."

2009-07-11T18:40:00.000-04:00

"I know I can make it through!"

Ode to Canada's "Degrassi: The Next Generation!"

Carpe the Canadian Diem

2009-07-09T03:18:00.000-04:00

“Open the gates and seize the day!” I was totally child star Christian Bale today! That’s from the Disney movie “Newsies,” for those of you who don’t get the reference. I accomplished a ton of activities and basically saw the compass rose of Toronto! I awoke this morning at 6:30 a.m.—my alarm was set for 9:30 a.m.—and watched a little Good Morning America (surprise, more Michael Jackson coverage, I swear they had his daughter Paris’s statement from his memorial on a loop) where I learned that “to the best of [his] knowledge,” MJ’s dermatologist is not the father of his 2 children; props to Diane Sawyer for calling dermabrasion out on his response. I’ve digressed.

I promptly headed down to the Bloor/Yonge subway station and headed for the Union Station stop. I’ve included a map so you can familiarize yourself with Toronto’s TTC (I was on the yellow line):

The Union Station stop is a few blocks from that famous Lake Ontario waterfront—no folks, Toronto does not sit on an ocean, it sits on a lake, and people apparently always ask what ocean it faces when they see that famous Toronto skyline.

From Union Station I walked and caught the Gray Line Double Decker Bus for the North and South Loops of Toronto; that’s uptown and downtown Toronto. First we made our way past the famous CN Tower, currently the tallest structure in the world at 1, 815 feet and 5 inches (unfortunately that damn conservative, over priced, overblown Middle Eastern hell they call Dubai will soon outdo this record with the Burj, Dubai, a phallic-shaped condo skyscraper that Dubai is having erected (pun intended) for the mega-rich oil swillers). I visited this monument later in the day, and it warrants a separate blog.

We also passed by Rogers Centre where the Toronto Blue Jays play. It has a fully retractable dome. In addition to this, we passed the Hockey Hall of Fame and their old arena where the Toronto Maple Leafs played from 1931 to 1999.

We passed a familiar eatery that I know all of you have either eaten at or heard of—damn Fullerton, CA is such a long drive for some Mizithra!

From here, we made our way past the most photographed building in Toronto, their Flatiron building (just about every major U.S. city has one of these). There are also an abundance of 19th century churches; most of them functional but NONE of them wrathful like the U.S.’s bible belt.

From here we moseyed on up to the intersection of Yonge and Dundas, the beating heart of Toronto. Consisting of their recently constructed (but publically panned) Dundas Square, (the big T’s version of Times Square), the Toronto Eaton Center (they’re over 400 stores “mall”) with Canadian chanteuses in all their billboard glory, and other shopperies, this is where North meets South meets East meets West.

Continuing northbound, we traversed through Yorkville, Toronto’s exclusive shopping/hotel/restaurant district. Many a celebrity, either Canadian or American, can be found loitering here (especially the American celebrities; let’s face it, they really do loiter and make life look like a piece of cake, stuffing their pre-Barry’s Boot Camped mouths’ with 5-star cuisine) and would be the Torontonian version of L.A.’s vomit-inducing Rodeo Drive; but the money here don’t stink.

Even farther north now, we four-wheeled it over to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) with a building famously combining early 20th Century elements with 21st century elements. Take a gander at the huge Origami “fortune teller” gobbling up the original 1914 building. Currently, the Dead Sea Scrolls are on display here, “the earliest record of biblical patriarchs and prophets embraced by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.” Oooh, how Da Vinci Code!

Moving up Spadina (when pronounced, this rhymes with female genitalia, not with Tina) Avenue and onto Spadina Road (this one rhymes with Tina) we came upon Casa Loma, Toronto’s famous castle. The man who lived here, Henry Pellatt, had this house built from 1911 to 1914 to show Toronto how rich he was; unfortunately he couldn’t afford the property tax, let alone the window tax (yes, there was a tax on the number of windows in a house) and moved out just shy of 10 years of living here. According to my friendly Gray Line tour guide, this was used in the Movie “X-Men.” I have yet to visit it—I’m going to visit before I leave.

Another stop along the way was City Hall, moved from the first building pictured to the second building pictured. Big difference in architecture, huh? One’s Queen Victoria, the other is Tomorrowland.

Making our way back to where we started, I disembarked from my double decker with 45 minutes to kill before I embarked on the East/West Loop of my tour. My camera battery, as Murphy’s Law would have it, died and I desperately needed to charge it. My first thought? Starbucks! They have wireless Internet, and plugs for laptops! Of course when you need one on every corner, there isn’t one. I hiked 3 blocks north and 2 blocks east to the closest Starbucks and plugged in my battery. With only 20 minutes to sit and wait for my battery to charge, I sucked down a Venti Iced Coffee, sweetened, light ice, room for cream. With the East/West Loop bus arriving at 2:00 p.m. and my $10 watch striking 1:45 p.m., I unplugged my charger and charged west 2 blocks and south 3 blocks to arrive at the pickup spot. Of course, Murphy’s Law again would have it that the bus is 15 minutes behind schedule. I quickly went into the nearest establishment, a tourist trap store called none-other than Nicholby’s. My camera battery still needed juicin’ and I was desperate for an outlet. I combed the walls of the store and stumbled on a vacant outlet where a neon sign reading, “cheapest prices in Toronto” had been unplugged. I dropped to my knees to make like I was tying my shoe and plugged in the battery without the cashier seeing me. I wandered through the store, combing the garage sale goodies, while keeping an eye out the window for the bus, while keeping an eye on the corner of the store where my battery was plugged. I didn’t really care to purchase any of the pack-rat products Nicholby’s had to offer so I opted for a $2.99 pin of the Canadian flag to adorn my backpack. I figured I at least owed the lovely ladies at Nicholby’s that much for the electricity I used (as a side-note, Canadians call their electric bills “hydro bills;” merely a case of “tomato/to-mah-toe”). To retrieve my battery, I pretended to drop the pin whilst affixing it to my backpack strap. There was a mirror right over that corner of the store so I had to be quick and crafty. Camera battery locked and loaded, the bus finally arrived.

The East/West bus was not a double decker, but a Greyhound tour bus. Apparently they’re trying some new kind of tour. Forgive the pictures that follow if the sky looks unusually reflective and tinted; this is on account of the bus windows being…well…reflective and tinted. The wheels on this bus went round and round past the Royal Bank of Canada main building in the financial district. There are three cities I can recall where the financial districts are closest to the waterfront: San Francisco, New York, and Toronto. Is this the proximity of choice in case a business deal goes bad, the “suits” can jump ship? I’m just observing… I’ve digressed again. The RBC building has approx $70 worth of 24 Karat gold in each window. Apparently during the summertime this gold reflects the sun and saves on air conditioning. I’m guessing Liberace had a gold toilet because it used less water?

Onward and upward, we moved to Toronto’s old Whiskey distillery. It is now filled with unique shops but only a few years ago, Hollywood did as much location shooting here as they could. This was used as the Nazi camp of Magneto in “X-men” and served as the streets of Chicago in “Chicago.” More on the use of Toronto in another famous Chicago based film later.

We passed Toronto’s water reclamation center, where they take the wastewater and purify it. The aroma was not pleasant.

Next was “The Beach,” as it is called, a manmade, just-add-sand front along Lake Ontario. About 25 miles out from the coast of Toronto in the middle of Lake Ontario is where the U.S. border begins.

Through the east side of Toronto, we made our way past one of the places you can buy beer; alcohol is government regulated so it must be purchased for home-consumption at an “LBCO” or the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, but beer can be purchased from a beer store and any establishment that makes its own alcohol can sell it.

Continuing, we roll through one of the lower income neighborhoods of Toronto and past the “projects” or government housing.

The architecture here is very reminiscent of Boston to me; the European style where houses share a common wall is dispersed through many a major metropolis from San Francisco to Chicago to New York to…well…Europe.

Passing from the east to the west, we managed to move through Little India and Greek Town, the neighborhood used for the #1 romantic comedy of all time, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” Ladies and gents, that film was shot entirely on location in Toronto, including the Parthenon house (reportedly untouched by production designers, that house actually exists). Cutting through Dundas Square to the west side of T-town, we passed one of the many streetcars that run all through downtown Toronto—now the largest streetcar line in North America. Beyond the Art Gallery of Ontario, we wend our way into China Town where you can get dim sum and then some! Similar to China Towns across the U.S., but all pale in comparison to San Francisco’s—the next best thing to China! Incidentally, like California’s Chinese Exclusion Act of 1880-something, Toronto too had a Chinese Exclusion Act; to brush you all up, that was an act conceived by white people of the period to stop the Chinese from immigrating to either city (in California’s case, the whole of California) because they were taking jobs normally occupied by white immigrants and working for much less money.

From the town of China we wheeled on over to Little Italy. Toronto’s Little Italy has the second highest concentration of Italians outside of Italy! Pasta and Chianti amore!

From here we passed back from the west to central, past The Bata Shoe Museum with over 10,000 shoes from different countries and time periods into Toronto’s Church & Wellesley Gay Village. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, this was used as the gay area in the Showtime series “Queer as Folk,” though the series took place in Pittsburg, PA.

Scooting into the trendy area known as Queen Street, this is where Canada’s “Much Music” studio is. Much Music is Canada’s version of MTV, but MTV when they used to be about music and not about idiot, spoiled rich white kids who attend UCLA because of money not merit. This is also an area for trendy eateries and shopping.

Of course, as the U.S. has impacted culture everywhere, there is a Second City comedy troupe here in Toronto as well. Known as the “Second, Second City,” this is where John Candy, Mike Meyers, and Jim Carey got their start.

The roaring greyhound toddled its way back to where we first began. I disembarked and thanked the tour guide for the insight and made my way to the world famous CN Tower.
Stay blogged on for the chronicling of my journey 1,815 feet and 5 inches into the sky!

Makin' My Way Downtown

2009-07-05T20:03:00.000-04:00

I awoke from my comatose sleep at 3 p.m. Canadian time with my bloodshot eyes intact (not that my eyes were going anywhere; I had certainly hoped the blood vessels would have gone). What a way to start my travels. On the other hand, I had been up for 24 hours so I guess I needed it. I decided that since I slept the day away, I’d just hit the town on foot and become acclimated to this new frontier.

As I was makin’ my way downtown Vanessa Carlton style (minus a red mobile piano), I couldn’t help but notice the different nomenclature for what we in the U.S. of A. call the “Restroom/Bathroom.” Here, it is “Washroom” (mostly for customers only). I would like to move for a vote to change our “restroom” to “washroom.” This needs to be set into motion pronto, because I figure maybe if the word “wash” is used in reference to where we mind our 1s and 2s, people might actually wash after they use the facilities. It’s worth a shot.

Something I have yet to master here is the Canadian money, although there really is no science to it, just visuals. Also referred to as the “dollar” Canadian bills stop short at the $5 bill; anything below that is strictly gold and silver coins, copper for the pennies. I’ve had to stop myself twice thus far from referencing the coins here as “doubloons” and am still getting used to receiving a 5 dollar bill and a handful of Queen Elizabeth emblazoned coins when I give a $20. The more coinage I accrue, the more I feel the need to find a slot machine and a plastic Harrah’s cup to put them in.

I decided to make my way homebound because my body was soon detoxifying itself, as I had a major case of swamp ass and had managed to sweat off my $2 in coins bottle of Perrier. On the way home, I walked up Church Street and found myself in oddly familiar territory. It took me a moment, but then I realized this was the setting for Showtime’s "Queer as Folk" series, except the show took place in Pittsburg, PA and this was their “Liberty Street,” or gay area. Known as the "Church and Wellesley Gay Village," this is the WeHo of Toronto, although much, much less intimidating.

I am surprisingly tired, and am going to call it a night, as most everything closes at 6:00 p.m. much like the States. Until tomorrow…

The Faux Does Toronto

2009-07-04T18:52:00.001-04:00

Greetings from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, all of you three readers! I will be blogging abooot my experiences here in Canadia for the next 2 weeks so join me as I navigate the big T-town!

I must’ve been in a trance whilst reading my Norma Shearer bio (she’s Canadian—learning Canadian history already!) because when they called for boarding, I stepped up to the ticket-taker (proper airline terminology?) and was prompted by her to turn over some baggage tags. She exclaimed, “There’s the baggage tags I’m looking for,” as if my name was being echoed in the intervals where the odd robot lady tells us not to accept items form strangers over that loud, monotonous airport intercom. So I asked her, “did someone call for me? I can’t seem to find my luggage tags,” to which she responded, “well, they’re (my bags) already on there (the plane) so go ahead.” I asked for her assurance one last time before I lethargically lugged myself down the (tarmac). Incidentally the woman behind me was reading “Are You There Vodka? It’s Me Chelsea.” I exclaimed immediately that I was a fan of the book, and she reciprocated to my official book club selection: “Norma Shearer...wasn’t she married to Thalberg?” This woman clearly knows her film history, but not so quick boys and girls, there wasn’t to be some Romantic Comedy ending where we hit if off on a plane to Canada—that’s where the conversation ended.
This marks my maiden voyage on an airline that speaks first in French and then in English. I must say the translation is a nice change from the constant interruption of Speedy Gonzales narration on Disneyland attractions. I wonder if instead of wings they give out berets—le freak c’est chic! I must say that major airlines, (or those that aren’t Southwest) send me into hysteria with the separation of the “classes.” That’s so Rose and Jack and Titanic and 1912. Those thin 60s kitschy patterned curtains that partition the nobleman from the commoners certainly told me where to go. I love this airline. I love that it has movies, television, music, XM Radio, games and Canadian media on demand and that there is an actual outlet you can plug your electronics into. I wonder if people have tried to flatiron their hair or blend a margarita, or maybe compose a song on their super electric Casio keyboard (I’m just saying, the options are endless with an on-board outlet; I don’t find anything in the Air Canada “En Route” magazine for exceptions to the rule so long as you keep the aisles clear). Of course my sweet Mac computer, which needs electronic outlet affection 24/7, worked perfectly in the air because it usually dies after 5 minutes. Now if only there was more legroom. Story of my life.
Gotta jet (puns, puns, puns)…ascending onto the great Canadian plains in a great Canadian plane.

Love That Story: And Then There Were 10

2009-07-02T22:47:00.000-04:00

Well movie aficionados, it was only a matter a time ‘til the Oscars went from a prestigious televised emblem of cinematic excellence to a slab of cattle thrown into the rodeo for ratings. According to Entertainment Weekly, ABC threatened to cut the amount of money paid to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (A.M.P.A.S or AMPAS) for the telecast unless they beef up the awards ceremony with the inclusion of more “audience friendly films” to...say the magic words with me industry kids because you know where this is going…INCREASE RATINGS! That’s right folks, now Johnson & Johnson has a say in what AMPAS should recognize in terms of films nominated. I believe there is a crystal ball inside this skull of mine because there wasn’t a doubt in it that the Oscars would soon succumb to the huge advertisers who sugar daddy the networks for airtime. Paddy Chayefsky, we are living in your “Network” prophecy!

Hence the decision to revert back to the 10 nominations handed out for the Best Picture category (in the 1930s and 40s, the Academy nominated 10 pictures as opposed to the now defunct 5, but also, movies had a higher art value because they took time to create). The operative term: hand out. They might as well create runner-up awards, or maybe a silver and a bronze Oscar, or better yet, a “you tried really hard and did your best so here’s commemoration for doing just that” award. I can’t wait until they introduce “the people’s choice award,” where people 1-800 or text in a number for their favorite shitty flick…(If the Academy allows this, it won’t be too long before movies like The Hangover win Best Picture). Wait a minute, there is a people’s choice award and they are aptly titled “The People’s Choice Awards” and have a different value, a different meaning, and different network.

Oscar statuettes, or any statuette for the Cinema/Television art form for that matter, are like money. The more money that is in circulation, the more devalued it is. The more Oscars and/or nominations that are handed out…you can figure out the rest of the equation. I believe the root of the problem is with the Theaters. Is it the Academy’s fault that the big, fat, white theater owners (especially in rural America) don’t include the smaller films in their awards season lineup? Sure, studios give much smaller budgets to films about Transgendered people or smart-mouthed pregnant Teenagers, but they wouldn’t have to if they could guarantee such films would be shown everywhere. Actually, if people weren’t idiots to begin with and sought education and enlightenment through knowledge and the medium of film, and went to see movies (which were an art form first and then a lucrative business) about Transgendered people and pregnant teens because they give a shit about the greater good of humanity, then studios could tender more money to a movie about a Transgendered person and promote the hell out of it so that the big, fat, white theater owners include it in their awards season line up so that people would go see them, then tune into the Oscars and watch the movies they’ve seen win so that Johnson & Johnson’s multi-millions of dollars in airtime to ABC becomes money well spent. Easier said than done, I know, but we should quit dumbing down the population just because they’re willing to pay to see their idiocy on screen.

The Oscars were never about popularity (in terms of material nominated; I still haven’t forgiven them for Reese Witherspoon’s win over Felicity Huffman and the fact that “Syriana’s” main character is George Clooney for which he won a supporting statue). They were never about which company could put together the funniest, cleverest commercial, and they certainly were never about ratings. Again, our capitalist ways have lent to the erosion of our arts and most importantly our humanities, proving time and again that the dollar is truly the almighty.

ABC: you are owned by one of the largest conglomerates in the world, The Walt Disney Company. Can you not recoup low ratings and loss of advertisers with the lines of Jonas Brothers and Miley Montana dolls and other contrived, talentless tween shit you make billions of dollars off of?

I'm Over It: V for V-neck Vendetta

2009-06-25T22:28:00.000-04:00

Attention! Attention! There is a Los Angeles epidemic, soon to be pandemic if I don't stop and address it. This has nothing to do with Swine or Hs and Ns and 1s. It's been here a while, and it’s symptoms are Herpes-like (that too is going around L.A.); you don’t really know you’ve got it until someone diagnoses the problem, and unlike those Simplex visitors 1 & 2, it’s curable. Fortunately for the L.A. ladies, this isn’t much of an issue. For the L.A. men, or anything with a prostate and an Adam’s apple, we’ve got a problem. I’m here to help.

V-necks. An ever-worsening fashion rash, has somehow spread its scaly dryness (in assorted colors and fabrics) down the center of men’s sternums everywhere and cannot be treated by Calamine or Desitin Creamy. I am calling V for Vendetta against V-necks. Men: you MUST take them off (granted you have another shirt to replace them with)! Once a simple undershirt for those who like to wear an unbuttoned collar, the V-neck has now become some kind of a staple in fashion culture (or as I like to refer to it fashion “bacteria”) thanks to the mass production of them by our local, not-a-sweatshop clothiers American Apparel; not to be outdone by our sweatshops-keep-the-prices low retailers Forever 21 and H&M. For some reason guys, big, small, built, husky and/or pudgy (a.k.a. flabby spare tire) have taken a liking to baring their chests, pectorals, areolae, and in some cases, their bellies—yes, some V-necks cut that low—and we have to bare the unsightly visual that is their upper torso man garden. Men, please act now and find a shirt more befitting of your bodies…say, a ringer T?

More often than not V-neck offenders are guys who like to emulate (most of them unknowingly) the style of “Ducky” from “Pretty in Pink” with skinny jeans and fedora, or think it badass to rock their lock-laden hairy chests complete with medallion a la “Scarface.” What makes it doubly disgusting is the fact that many bare their buxom out of shape bosoms tufted with hair thinking they resemble some 60s rock star when in fact seeing all this man-breastiness go on is like opening your eyes constantly to one of those pictures of a rippling, obese woman in a thong riding a radio flyer tricycle. How turned on are you now?

Many V-neck fugitives are celebrities. Take Perez Hilton for instance. It seems every time he makes an appearance on Chelsea Handler’s show, he pulls out 1 of 2 shirts: the minus a few buttons, plunging, Rico Suave silk collard number, or the “deep-V;” either choice paired with a gold baptismal medallion, keeping us forcibly abreast of his Latin American chesty goings on, so much so, we can’t focus on what he is saying (do we really care?). How about this recent discovery of beloved Star Trekkie Zachary Q? Tell me he doesn’t look like he’s a pair of tube socks and dolphin shorts away from being a 70s porn star. Another such celeb V-neck assaulter is that trio of pubescent promise(cuity) ring wearing boys the Jonas Brothers, who appear to wear only V-necks or something buttoned into a “V” with dog tags nestled nastily around their collarbones. Any minute now, they’re chests doth springeth crops of that curly-cue pubic hair they have on their heads.

Perhaps the largest culture of V-neck atrocity belongs to the Gays. Why, just walking up and down Santa Monica Boulevard you’re bound to spot more V-necks than you can count on your hands and feet. Feel free to start a game of “Slug Bug,” but substitute those beloved Volkswagen cutie cars with that hideous cotton, Lycra, poly-blend garment—if you spot a “deep V,” they’re extra points in it for you. But V-necks are never more prominent on the Gay scene than when the calendar strikes Friday and the clock strikes 10:30 p.m. or a Pride parade is underway. Like transvestites to Hollywood Boulevard, the Gays start packing their pecs into V-necks and hitting the boulevard “Saturday Night Fever” style. I’m shocked that a V-neck night hasn’t veered it’s way into one of those many clubs; or maybe a wet V-neck contest…never mind. What’s the point? We already get a glimpse of your gay goodies because that V cuts from collarbone to navel.

If only V-necks had the shelf life of fanny packs; but even those tend to surface every now and again. Actually, you can purchase them at—you guessed it—American Apparel. I’m surprised the Singer sewing machines at the downtown factory don’t stage a walkout. Nevertheless, V-necks have got to go, either under a shirt or into a compost bin. The deep-Vs need to just plain go and never return; they're better saved for pimps. The next time you see a V-neck on a dude, think to yourself, did I want to know his business? It's as if we are witnessing plumber's crack, but in the upper frontal region of men's bodies. My close friend Nikki said it best when she noted, “a man’s sternum should remain a mystery.” I couldn’t agree more. So men, send those V-necks to the grave; let’s throw them on a burning barge and push it out to sea or turn them into dust rags. For those of you who just can’t let go, have a panel of cloth sewn into them and whenever you feel the urge to bare your boobs, remember this: Nothing is evermore nausea inducing than seeing a plunging neckline on a man; the beads of perspiration collecting on his follicle-framed chest as his locket, swaying to-and-fro, dangles between his sumptuous, hairy man-cleavage. Bon appetite!

Next on the trend agenda: vests.

Hollywood Love Letters

2009-06-23T00:59:00.000-04:00

Dear Hollywood,
Picture it: You circa 1932. Once a dairy town and by now, quite a reputable city, you were no longer cutting your teeth when it came to movies, other than the kinks in the still developing Vitaphone (“sound” for you out of the Classic Movie know), and the hippest place to be outside of a sound stage was The Cocoanut Grove (reconstructed in Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator”). The Cocoanut Grove was your playground; now it’s a demolition derby.

A number of weeks prior to today, I was perusing your hills called Beverly with a friend. We had set sail for a late afternoon’s journey; the Star Map was our guide, real estate window-shopping the stars of yesteryear’s humble abodes. As we managed to get caught up on a cliff’s edge to view Rudolph Valentino’s infamous “Falcon’s Lair,” (all the alcoholics: John Barrymore, John Gilbert and others managed to live in homes that were up hillside roads more suitable for foot-traffic than an automobile) and detected in the security cameras of Ms. Irene Dunne’s old haunt, I caught the ghastly sight of a historical landmark which had been bulldozed to the ground. On the search for the vivacious and effervescent Claudette Colbert’s mighty mansion, a vacant field-of-a-lot with a white brick wall and deformed iron gates greeted us. I was flabbergasted. Where was her house? 615 N. Faring Avenue had been leveled. It looked as if KOA could’ve opened a Bel Air location here. Incidentally, we managed to run into the same problem with Bette Davis’ and Errol Flynn’s palaces: demolished (now a geriatric joint (below)) and Myrna Loy’s enclave, now duplexed into apartments, for a gaggle of the infinite number of talentless geese that flock here: wannabe actors no less.

I managed to grieve over the next few weeks, visiting these villas in my mind and with the aid of Google Earth, put a physical picture with each dwelling; Zillow.com managed to appraise them… not quite a buyer’s market on those properties. I re-emerged with the notion that there are a dozen other locations protected under the Los Angeles National Registry, but I shouldn’t neglect to mention that you’ve also destructed two once famous L.A. eateries: The Brown Derby and Ciro’s, now home to a strip club. Classy. My hope to hang on to the Golden Age of you, Hollywood, had been reignited nonetheless. Way to burn it out—this time for good.

While out on a jovial jaunt last Friday morning trying to resurrect any crumbs of love I may still have for you, you soulless bastard of a town, I arrived at 3400 Wilshire Boulevard, the exact address of a one Ambassador Hotel, home to the glamorous garden of the stars known as The Cocoanut Grove…except there was no hotel. No Cocoanut Grove. There was a Las Vegas resort-looking tower spanning the length of the property with a “Coming Soon” sign hammered into the rocky soil advertising for “Los Angeles’ largest school facility.” Perfect, I thought to myself. Just what we need, another Southern California school where all the classes will be taught with Spanish subtitles, not to mention the fact that teachers are being laid off left and right in this economy. I am stunned, Hollywood…just stunned. Apparently Diane Keaton was too. She lobbied with insurmountable force to save this historic treasure, also the location of many a legendary concert recording (Judy Garland, Sammy Davis Jr.) and the assassination heard ‘round the world of Senator Bobby Kennedy.

The L.A. Unified School District struck a deal and promised to build a new structure around the existing Cocoanut Grove and maintain the entrance of the iconic Ambassador as the entrance to the new school. Since then, they have discovered much of both the entrance and the Grove suffered from aging and instead of preservation, have gone on to demolish the majority of each. The yellow portion of the school is what used to be The Cocoanut Grove/Ambassador Entrance. Give me a minute… my heart has been warmed.

After scraping for something to do that involves the history of cinema, since you, Hollywood possess nothing more than hokey, carnival class amusements to lure in tourists in lieu of an ACTUAL MUSEUM dedicated to the preservation of that medium for which you are synonymous (the funhouse in the Max Factor building by Mel’s diner on Highland is a window-shopping only vintage boutique—let’s be real, and The Margaret Herrick Library keeps actual library hours) I thought the best thing to do would be to find locations in the National Registry of Historic places. I went on the scavenger hunt for these buildings because they’re the only remaining representations of the Golden Age (that, and the lamps that line your main boulevard), and since you’ve taken to blowing them to smithereens, I am left with this question:
Why must you burn your own pages of history? You are a classified “Self-Cutter.” Just as you have the chance to affix a National Registry number, you’ve already warmed up the steamroller to make way for a parking structure. It’s disgusting, and I’ve now come to refer to these actions henceforth as “The Pulverization of Hollywood” (funny I haven’t used this to refer to the countless number of Franchise, Chick and Dick flicks you mass produce). You think about that, Hollywood, and someday, when we can walk up your avenue without forced deliberation on which sex shop or Zoot Suit outlet to enter to make change for a dollar to park our cars on your trash ridden streets we just might say “hooray.”

Regrettably,

The Faux

I'm Over It: "The Hangover"

2009-06-16T20:34:00.000-04:00

Who's super excited for "The Hangover" sequel!? I can't wait to see what halfhearted mayhem this group of defective XY chromosomes gets into next. I say halfhearted because that's all we can expect from Hollywood sequels: a script that is banged out overnight with an unoriginal plot about 4 totally-tubular but awkwardly studly stallions, another trashy vacation destination (maybe the island of Ibiza for the 'quel?) and how they manage to circle jerk their way through a bevy of big-titted, idiot bimbos--the last 10 minutes of the film sprinkled with the reminder that every guy who thinks with his cock still possesses a heart of gold. Who knows, maybe after the junior high teacher, the dentist, the bearded guy who's the most unattractive and unbelievably stupid character but gets all the laughs (comedic license here works for minimum wage), and the one who's getting married will open the redux with the dentist getting married--but not to Rachel Harris; she's not young, dumb, and busty enough to have sustained the dentists' newfound pimp status, not to mention the 18 to 34 year-old male demographic--note to self: get Megan Fox on the phone--she and the character of Stu will be uber hi-larious because the scrawny four-eyed nerd got the centerfold, (insert laugh track here). Either way, this is nothing new for Hollywood...as expected. Incidentally, I'm starting a movie psychic hotline.

More disturbing, critics are raving, particularly about the structure of this story. I believe what made the structure of "Casablanca" brilliant was not that it only consisted of a tension-filled romantic plot and memorable lines, but that the characters have redeeming qualities and give hope to society--especially the men. The main male character Rick, decided his love was so deep for the married Ilsa, that he had to let her go...before he could get her back to his sweet Vegas hotel room and bang her every which way but Sunday. I think today, Ilsa would be referred to as a "cock tease" and then, to make himself feel better Rick might call her a "bitch" and slap her down--or better yet, for guttural laughter, film their sex and then screen it for all his bros and buddies, showing them how awesome his game is. That's it! Let's re-pitch Casablanca as a fraternity/sorority coming-of-age with plenty of beer, sex, and warm apple pies...as long as it makes us laugh--'cause hey--that's entertainment! I feel a sequel coming on for that idea too.

I think a new genre has been born: the "Dick Flick," which is essentially every movie made except those during Oscar season (even in the Chick Flicks, the girl always wants the bad guy, and she gets him; his philandering aside, the guy eventually wins). From these amazing men's stories seized on celluloid, we can expect the shenanigans of a pack of rabid semen shooting numbskulls to make us laugh while projectile vomiting barrels of popcorn and kegs of Coke out our noses, because let's face it folks, piss, shit, balls, penises, vaginas, boobies, jerking off, menstruating on legs, beating each other to a pulp for no reason, stumbling on a baby, not to mention losing teeth, sexual predators running through malls for 15 minutes of screen time with nothing but an open trench coat on, blood squirting animatedly, strippers, hookers, playboy bunnies--definitely trying to get laid multiple times so's to prove our masculinity--and throwing the word "fag" around for an extra round of raucous laughs (I can go on, but I think I've probably sent you all into hysterics already by the brilliance of those aforementioned items of "funny," and you can thank me for the ab workout later) really do indeed make for an escapist's dream at the movies. Pepper in a tablespoon of witty lines and you have a 10-minute "smart" comedy. Woody Allen watch your back! Sounds like an Arclight tickets' price worth of money well spent.

In every male ensemble comedy, men can't just be a teacher, a dentist, a deadbeat, or a man getting married. Their ultra hip, cool, you's a playa manliness isn't fully realized in those humdrum everyday, real-world existences. They have to go and fuck a bodacious hooker to realize it, and in the midst, get into a monumental amount of trouble for true comedy effect. Throw in a random Siegfried and Roy tiger and voila!--isntacomedy--what I like to refer to as Taster's Choice Comedy: the verdict is in on those vile mix-with-water coffee granules, why not on those guy trying anything to get laid and ends up cheating on his girlfriend but she still takes him back comedies? Sure there are comedies that sometimes flip the script, but usually the script consists of extremely odd social archetypes, say an interracial couple played by a duo of semi-attractive TV supporting character actors, and followed by a really indie soundtrack, an abstractly Crayola crayoned one sheet, and a budget of about 15 dollars American (can you guess where I'm going with this?).

Did I mention that dynamic duo of screenwriters who created this work of deep, penetrating (pardon the pun) art known as "The Hangover" also wrote "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," that number 1 box office Matthew McConaughey/Jennifer Garner gem? The genius lightening doesn't strike twice, but these writers have shown us that they know how to write for the submissive female ("Ghosts") and the good ol' American boy (both "Ghosts" and "Hangover" remember, the guy always wins) in addition to those willing to shell out money to watch what American society has been trying to tell us since birth: "Girls wanna get married and boys follow their penises." But you laughed, right? And so did Warner Bros...all the way to the 18 year old male's lawn-mowing (real, actual grass) allowance.

Hollywood, you've managed to underachieve once more, but what the heck, you've made millions, have a sequel in the works and soon will churn out a line of "The Hangover" T-shirts and bobble-heads, and possibly "Hangover Pale Ale." You've secured advanced ticket sales from every Frat-house across this cock-sure nation for the sequel. Hold still a minute, I'm fastening your blue ribbon of excellence to that Executive lapel of yours for another stereotypical guy movie well done.

West Hollywood Love Letters

2009-06-11T23:25:00.000-04:00

Dear WeHo,

I have taken the liberty to explain to the hetero and "Q" portion of the "LGBT_" as to what Pride festivities will entail over the course of this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. For those of you who aren't sure of the schedule of events, I've outlined for you some of the more notable highlights of West Hollywood pride happenings:

June 12:
The WeHo Dyke March - this is the march of Dykes, not "dimes," of all the proud females who look like males that are into females, and is most likey sponsored by Home Depot, Harley Davidson, Subaru, Birkenstock, and Showtime.

There is also a Dance Party, presumably at every West Hollywood Bar, just like every Monday thru Friday of every week of every month of every year in West Hollywood.

June 13 & 14:
Get ready to pay 1/3 of the cost of a Disneyland ticket to get into The L.A. Pride Festival - an avenue (San Vicente) of booths and Budweiser beer barrels that cater to queer interests such as gym memberships, lubrication, condoms, things made of lycra, not to mention gay dating networks such as Gay.com, The Gay Connection, and Match.com for those weekend hookups and many coupons offering a buy 1 get one half off special at the dozen or so porn shops within 5 WeHo city blocks of Santa Monica Boulevard.

Be prepared to be subject to half dressed men, some of whom will be out of shape and some whom will be wearing leather, assless chaps and/or other strings and things.

For both evenings' dance parties, dig out those glow accesories and your poppers (chemicals that are found in car air freshners and video head cleaners that are snorted during incessant gyrating to hideosly unmelodic techno music to enhance sexual pleasure), so you're guaranteed to bed at least one guy who will nevertheless never learn your name.

June 14:
The L.A. Pride Parade, featuring the most FABULOUS (the first word in the Homosexual to Heterosexual dictionary) of all Grand Marshalls, Chelsea (Lately) Handler and her "nugget" Chuy. Your eyes will have regurgitated everything you saw the previous two days, including the scantily clad men that are both in and out of shape, riding around on floats that are sponsored by authentic representations of what it means to be homosexuals such as:

-Id Lubrication
-Bally/24 Hour Fitness/L.A. Fitness/Crunch (to work on that Pride ready body you've always dreamed of, in addition to the communal showers and lockerooms for plenty of sexing--wear your water socks)
-Speedo
-The Abbey
-Porn Shops
-Online Dating (because for some reason all the men in the gay community are so desperate to find a significant other or get laid...Just check the back of every Frontiers/InLA gay magazine for all of your one-night stand needs).

The best part of the Parade is watching all the proud parents, churches and organizations of LGBT and sometimes Q people marching in acceptance. This is perhaps my favorite because to me, THIS is what pride is supposed to be about.

But the overall theme of Pride every year is the gathering of a half-million or so LGBT and sometimes Q people who can drink, dance, and f**k all night while high on ecstasy who'll wake up the morning after, under an orgy's worth of bodies and smile to themselves and say, "this is what being gay is all about, the ability to be sexually promiscuous (often misinterpreted as "liberated") without the worry of a morning after pill. Which begs the question:

What is a Pride celebration without an endless dance card of f**k buddies as long as there's an open bar, plenty of oiled up men in small things and a Winnebago of some sort that's set up as a test center for HIV and Syphilis, passing out condoms after the fact?

See you there.

With love,

The Faux

Hollywood Love Letters

2009-06-09T21:14:00.000-04:00

Dear Hollywood,

Are you out of your f**king mind? What's with all the road construction? You know damn well that with 8 coches (that's cars in Spanglinsh, se habla espanol) per household and no convenient method of public transportation, roads are bound to be busy 12 hours out of the day. So what do you do? You decide to overhaul all of your major thoroughfares during the busiest drive times of the day. That's like filling in the Panama Canal and putting a detour sign out for cruz ships!

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this because 9 times outta 10 minus 1, you are out of your [expletive] skull, and there is nothing to "hoo-ray" about, Hollywood! Going over Laurel Canyon this morning at 10:45 a.m. was like going through the Grand Canyon on a donkey's back minus the view but just as dangerous and deathly. Crossing the Fountain and La Brea intersection was a nightmare from hell, especially when you have a bus full of tourists in front of you. I now know the slums of Beverly Hills because of this horrendous construction! This is the land that invented shooting night for day and day for night, so take a tip and set up some Baby Ks and construct away when everyone but Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan is asleep. Who knows, maybe the neon orange and blinding light might keep their track records clear for an evening. Or maybe they'll think they're in the middle of a scene. Crack is wack.

Yours,

The Faux

P.S. The "Men Working" need to pick up the pace.

Fauxget Your Troubles, C'mon Get Happy

2009-06-05T23:20:00.000-04:00

Welcome Ladies and Gentleman, Friends, Neighbors, Celebrities, unemployed actors, and LGBTQ Youth to THE FAUX11, a cyber xanadu for those of you who care--or care less--about this fantastic plastic place we call Los Angeles...and what I have to say about it!

Live from my winsome WeHo womb I will express to you the underwhelming joys and overwhelming sorrows of living in and around this culture most call "Pop" but I call bacteria. Stick with me as I share personal insights into daily Los Angeles activies, Hollywood's headlines, the locals and the illegals, and potent potables for 500. All will be delivered fresh, piping hot, politically correct and incorrect to you for the admission of following this blog, not to mention my Twitter "Eaux de Faux."

Stay bookmarked for more to come!

143!

The Faux