CHEAP JUNKIE WEEKEND

I am a sucker for a moderately priced piece of worthless junk. I am a goldmine dreaming junkie for junk.  I am a bottom-feeding American Picker. I want to be rich. Here are some of my most recent "finds" as I trolled the winter flea markets, estate sales, and thrift stores this weekend.

 

This beautiful die-cast metal Marilyn Monroe 1955 Cadillac Eldorado was made by Solido, a renowned French maker of model cars. It's in pristine condition, with opening doors, red Marilyn Monroe decals on the hood and doors, and a Cadillac license plate. It is completely unblemished. It's got a red tag serial number on the bottom. Was there a crazed look in my eyes when I asked the thrift store clerk, "Are you sure you don't have the original box?". The car measures 10" from fender to fender. It glared at me from a showcase and I took it home for ten bucks. I know, I know, you envy me.

                                                                                        

 

At another thrift store I bought this cool looking souvenir from Bolgona, Italy for a couple of bucks. The girl at the register asked if I planned on putting it at the bottom of my aquarium. "Honey", I said, "this is not a guppy toy". It stands 8" tall and is surprisingly heavy. It is sandy to the touch, possibly a ceramic. It is signed by two artists - "Cerrimi", and "Fasuloa", who are both greatly unknown in the vast universe of the internet. It is an intricately hand carved replica of The Leaning Towers of Bologna, not Pisa!  The also-rans of leaning towers. The name "Bologna" is prominently displayed.

 

 

The pic doesn't do it justice. Its intricate detail of lines and design is impressive, full of contours, ridges and curves.

 

How can I pass on (7) 9 0z. "On The Rocks" Plasticware glasses with the Official Symbols of the 1984 Olympic Games and a patriotic parrot carrying the Olympic Torch, for 49 cents? Forty-frickin' nine cents? It's a no-brainer! Even though 2 of the 9 original glasses are gone. And even though the box they originally came in is now dilapidated. And even though they feel as if they would fall apart if you dropped an ice cube in them. It's my first ever Olympic collectible! Picture me on "American Pickers" - "I bought the Officially Licensed Olympic plastic glasses for forty-nine cents. I think I can get one hundred dollars for them.".

                                                                                                           - .49 + 100.00  =  $99.51

 

                                                                                          

Exactly what is an Electronic Snapkit? I had no idea but for $1.98, I was willing to find out. It was made by Radio Shack (2005) and according to the box, I can "build one hundred exciting projects", and "have fun learning all about electronics!". The kit is complete and looks as though it was never used. It's got the original instruction manual and a block layout sheet. Fun? You bet! Can't wait to get started even though Talking Heads' Burning Down The House is suddenly rolling through my mind.

 

 

                                                                                                

 

Bought this vintage astrological print for 3 bucks by artist Margot Johnson, 1968. It's under glass in a  black bamboo-like wooden frame with the original paper lining on the back and a wire for hanging. It measures 17" x 8 1/2", and it's a cool collectible from the psychedelic era. I researched the print and Johnson did an entire series of these astrological signs in the late 1960s, and they are currently scarce and desirable. I'm waiting for a call back from Christie's ... not!

 

 



I bought not one but two Buffalo Bisons notebooks for fifty cents each. I need them to store all the worthless baseball cards I've collected over the years. They're a 2003 Sorrento Stringsters Cheese promotion. I'm perserving Buffalo history! They look brand new.

 

 

 

An open-neck AC/DC black medium T-shirt. Three bucks. It's hanging in my closet next to my Jefferson Starship T-shirt which I will also never wear.

 

 

 

  

 





Chasing "The Paper Chase"

There are a number of film/TV titles which have never been released on video that I periodically search for. Some may have had an obscure VHS release that is hard to find or ridiculously expensive in its rarity, and others seem to have never seen the light of day of any home video release.

The early 1930 "talkie" film The Royal Family of Broadway based on the George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber play The Royal Family, is a film I've always wanted to see. It has been on my radar for several years and I finally found it posted on Youtube in multiple parts. It stars Frederick March and an actress unknown to me, Ina Claire, in parodied portrayals of the famous Barrymore acting clan (Ethel and John) of the early 20th Century, of which Drew Barrymore is descended. The quality of the video was poor but the film itself was very good.



















The David Lynch television comedy series from 1992, On The Air, an ABC show in which only 3 of the 7 filmed episodes were broadcast, is another title which is unavailable. The word was that it was simply too bizarre for network television. I missed the 3 televised episodes during its original run and I have been putting out online searches for it for a number of years. David Lynch has been known to sell videos of the series directly from his own website, but only occasionally. I have found the first few episodes on Youtube. It is a whacked-out show about a fictitious TV network in the 1950s putting on a variety television program.



Occasionally I'll search for titles that have been unavailable, and on a recent hunt, I was delighted to find that the television program, The Paper Chase has finally been released by Shout! Factory on DVD. So far only the first two seasons have been released.

It was a favorite program of mine on CBS during the 1978-79 TV season. It was a ratings disaster. Scheduled opposite the then most popular programs on television - Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley - The Paper Chase lasted one whole season dead last in the Nielson ratings. Legendary CBS founder and president William S. Paley, who built CBS up from a small radio network into the empiric television network it became, was fond of the show, and purportedly saw comparisons with the series' relationships between a renowned law professor and his students, and Paley's kinship with his own young television executives. It stubbornly remained in its doomed time slot for the entire season and was then cancelled.

PBS - Public Broadcasting System, in what was an unprecedented move for public television, re-broadcast the repeats of the series, marking possibly the only time an American network program was repeated nationally on PBS. There was talk of new episodes being produced by PBS, but it wasn't until four years after its cancellation by CBS, that fledgling pay-TV cable network Showtime renewed the series for three more seasons.

It is only the first season that I have been craving to see again. Strangely, the subsequent seasons on Showtime, resembled the bland familiarity of dramatic television. Being able to add more mature adult content on a pay-TV network, did little to improve The Paper Chase.  The whimsy and intellect of its first season on CBS was missing in subsequent Showtime episodes.

Based on both the 1970 novel by John Jay Osborn Jr. and the 1973 movie version, TV's The Paper Chase retained the Oscar winning actor from the film version, John Houseman (1902-1988), for the lead role of Professor Charles Kingsfield, a renowned law professor who intimidates but nurtures his students like a crowned king in the study of law at a prestigious American law school. Unlike other TV programs of its era, or any other era, The Paper Chase relied on story lines that rarely invoked the traditional formula of television network programming; action, comedy, adventure. Its drama was realized in the study of law being an adventure in itself. Plot lines would evolve around  legal issues and cases the students were studying.

It was partially filmed at The University of Southern California, giving it a tree-lined, hallowed halls collegiate appeal. The show follows first year student James Hart, a farm boy going to law school on a scholarship, played by actor James Stephens, as he contends with his utter fascination, fear and awe of  the infamous Professor Kingsfield. The supporting cast is made up of other students who form a study circle with Hart. They all share the common bond of being at the mercy of the god-like Kingsfield.

I'm 8 episodes into revisiting the program, and loving it again. A few celebrities have popped up unexpectedly. Marilu Henner of TV's Taxi, appears in the pilot episode as Hart's co-worker at his part-time bar tending gig.  A very young Kim Cattrall, Samantha on HBO's Sex and The City, has a featured role as the wife of a harried law student in the 6th episode, "Da-Da".

The catchy theme song, "The First Years" rolls through my mind every time I think of the program. It is sung by Seals and Crofts and written by Charles Fox and Norman Grimbel, who wrote the songs "Killing Me Softly With His Song", popularized by Roberta Flack, and Jim Croce's "I Got A Name".

The program may seem a little drab and crudely 70s-ish to some viewers. For all its gentle nature, it can at times become exceptionally heated and exciting. Witness the violent nature of Kingsfield (John Houseman) as he reacts to a paparazzi photographer invading his classroom in the episode "Nancy". The scene has all the fury of TV's most action packed moments.

Music Review: LIFE OF PI (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

The soundtrack of the film Life of Pi will invoke images of the beloved film, but is alas, only a movie soundtrack, wherein dramatic surges in the score only serve as plot advancements in the film, thereby leaving the isolated music naked without closure. It is a design of images, not composition.

In a new-age, meditation sort of way, Mychael Danna's score is a lovely piece of music, combining traditional Indian culture - as is the ethnicity of the film - with thunder-rousing movie music, complete with full angelic vocal choir. A simple minor piano chord serves as the theme obliging the oceanic orchestra and Indian indigenous instruments (mandolin, sitar, and a host of other Indian percussion instruments).

While there are vocal arrangements throughout, the first track, "Pi's Lullaby", is the only piece with lyrics (and is sung by classical vocalist Bombay Jayashree). Its soft melody and lingering refrain - very much a lullaby - will kindle fond memories of the film. "Are you a flower or the nectar? Are you the fruit or the sweetness?" the song asks as if to a sleepy child. It serves well as a singular song in a "world music" vein, with its European accordion accompanying the languid sound like a drift down The Riviera in a gondola.

Too often the musical passages are simply too short to serve as separate entities. Surging violins will lead the orchestra for all of 34 seconds before one track ends and the next piece begins. It makes for difficult, stop-and-go listening that only serve as bold reminders of the movie.

The music breathes in the longer tracks. "Back to the World" explores the music's theme with slowly vibrating strings ushering in the soft vocal choir and tinkling keyboard invoking the twinkling of the starry night sky. It sounds very much like an exhaustive journey's end. "Tiger Vision" sounds remarkably like a tiger's soft paws stalking through a night jungle, with its quiet, cautious percussive sounds, and mysterious conch shell woodwinds creating a jungle exotica aura.

The album is full of sounds and passages that are both peaceful and disarming, as is the nature of the film. As a single piece of music, it is a bit abrupt. For serious students of music who love the film, it is likely essential listening.



this article was first published by the author here:
http://blogcritics.org/music/article/music-review-life-of-pi-original/

Movie Review: Hitchcock

While Hitchcock, the new biographical film directed by Sacha Gervasi, gives us little insight into the mind of the "master of suspense", Alfred Hitchcock, it does provide an inside view of the making of his most celebrated film, Psycho. The creation of this classic horror film, depicted unsuccessfully here in a film-within-a-film concept, offers glitzy glamour, name-dropping pizazz, and the fascinating business and techniques of movie making. The creation, however negotiable, of Psycho's classic "shower scene", a movie scene that will be studied by film enthusiasts as long as there are movies to watch, makes the film an enjoyable if trivial entertainment.

The film goes to great lengths to define the relationship of "Hitch" (a rotund and seriously pouted Anthony Hopkins) and his wife/collaborator/editor, Alma Reville (Helen Mirren looking at least a decade younger than her 67 years), but fails to reveal them as anything but an aging and dear old couple, harboring the slightest suggestion of psychological abuse inflicted by Hitchcock regarding flirtations with his leading ladies. The relationship is coy and ill-defined. Separate single beds and late night chats in the bedroom do little to clarify it.

The movie fares better as a roving Hollywood eye detailing the business and trauma of the creation of Psycho. The movie-making backdrop scenes are the engine that keeps the film from being swallowed whole as a tepid Hollywood biopic. Excursions into character development lead down stray paths as movie moguls pressure Hitchcock to produce a money-making blockbuster, and the great director becomes increasingly obsessed with the real-life inspiration of Psycho, murderer Ed Gein (Michael Wincott). Here, as Hitchcock imagines consultation with the deceased Gein regarding the direction of the film, the movie loses momentum and only flirts with the motivation of Hitchcock's mind.

However, Hitchcock retains an entertaining value for the Hollywood, if not Hitchcock, subject matter alone. Scarlett Johansson is a pleasure to watch as Janet Leigh, playing the tragic anti-heroine of Psycho, Marion Crane. Johansson nails the look and manner of the sexy Leigh, and she does a dead-on impersonation of Leigh in the Psycho scene where Marion's stream-of-conscious thoughts are heard aloud, as she drives off to a date with death at Bate's Motel.

While Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren are merely pacified caricatures of The Hitchcocks, their performances are splendid to watch. Hopkins boasts a solemn and thoughtless physical stance with searching, even greedy eyes, that capture Hitchcock's hunger for perfection. Mirren reveals a strong and secretive woman whose adoration and commitment to her husband is evident in longing and sad gestures. Jessica Biel as real life actress Vera Miles, and James D'Arcy as Anthony Perkins, the original Norman Bates of Psycho, add to the fun of celebrity portrayals with perfected mannerisms.

While a genuine impression of Alfred Hitchcock may lean more towards a Hollywood Babylon expose than this celebrity biography, Hitchcock is still an enjoyable romp through Hollywood lore.


this review was first published at:


http://blogcritics.org/video/article/movie-review-hitchcock/

Doonesbury

Hit Shuffle - 10 Random iPod Tunes - Beatles, Badfinger, Lambchop ...

The Beatles showed up 5 times when I shuffled my iPod and listened to the first 10 songs. That's because I'm only as far as the letter 'B' in transferring selections from my album collection to my tiny metal device, and into my head, where I still save a space for a sweet melody.






1. The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Regarded by most rock and roll enthusiasts as one of the finest rock albums ever produced, Sgt. Pepper was a milestone in cultural history ushering in a wave of psychedelic rock that still influences scores of musicians today. It brought rock and roll up to a higher artistic standing, comparable to the greatest book, the finest sculpture. The 1967 album was originally conceived to be a concept album regarding The Beatles' individual childhoods, but when McCartney wrote this song, he suggested it could serve as the theme to the entire album. The band agreed and magic ensued. This opening track's circus Big Top atmosphere is made horrid and macabre by the sound of an audience reacting to the music, as if coming from the very hollows of Hell.


2. Lambchop, 2B2

"Took the Christmas lights off the front porch", begins this sad lament from Kurt Wagner (Lambchop) that is about as quietly devastating as kicking through the rubble of the aftermath of a major flood. Wagner discovers bemused gloom in everything, and here in this gentle assessment of life, longs for an escape from the drudgery all existence possesses. The sound of soft spoken wooden knocks deep in the languid music finds me wondering if the sound is outside the headphones, or indeed, outside my sphere of being. From the 2012 album, Mr. M.

http://youtu.be/fZSK5v5KbP0






                                                                                                              
3. The Beatles, Yer Blues


Credited as a Lennon/McCartney composition, but written by John Lennon while in India, this raw blues song from The Beatles (The White Album), 1968, was recorded in the "annexe" of EMI Studio 2, a large closet in the control room, and sounds as if coming from an echoed chamber. A crude production that allowed Lennon an opportunity to exorcise his demons in an hard-edged guitar blues rant. The Beatles can be heard shouting drunkenly to one another as Lennon belts out primitive psyche statements like, "I want to die!".




                                 http://youtu.be/sHqvN5YO9wY                                                                












4. The Bee Gees, Stayin' Alive





Ain't too proud to dig disco. This record is one of the finest hit singles ever produced. From the soundtrack to the enormously successful 1977 film, Saturday Night Fever starring John Travolta, this Bee Gees composition transverses being a fashion conscious dance fad to becoming a teen angst classic rock recording. The unchanging rhythm of the drums is credited to drummer Bernard Lupe, but the name is an alias made up by The Bee Gees when they "looped" the drums from another song on the album - "Night Fever". That didn't stop the unreal Bernard Lupe from becoming an in-demand session drummer, much to The Bee Gees amusement. Dig the awful clothes in The Bee Gees video of the song at the link below.


http://youtu.be/A3b9gOtQoq4

5. The Beatles, And I Love Her

From the soundtrack to A Hard Days Night, this McCartney composition, credited to Lennon/McCartney, is the pre-psychedelic Beatles at their most romantic. A Spanish guitar gives the song an exotic drunken appeal like the soft oceanic morning light after a night of cocktails. Both Lennon and McCartney vowed credit for the middle verse break in the song - a love like ours, will never die - which the first recording of the song did not include, as heard on The Beatles' Anthology album.


6. The Beatles, Don't Pass Me By

From The Beatles (The White Album), this is drummer Ringo Starr's first recorded composition. It's a simple three chord blues song with a country "fiddle" by violinist Jack Fallon and a rinky-dink piano that gives the song a cosmic moonshine-y feel.

7. Pink Floyd, Young Lust

A gem from Pink Floyd's 1979 classic The Wall, this hard rock song sounds like a seismograph shaking crack coming up through the floorboards. A hammering of monolithic audio technique gives this rocker an antiquated sound like a far-out '60s experimental jam. The spoken word phone conversation that closes the song, a Floyd signature moment, is in reality an unsuspecting AT&T operator the band recorded while trying to make an impossible call to London from America. I've always wondered if she received any royalty for her contribution.

8. The Handsome Family, So Much Wine

The second song on this list which mentions the Christmas holidays. The cosmos must be aligned! It's a soft and tragic bluegrass folk ballad from the band's 2000 In The Air album with a haunting refrain that is as warm as a jug of spirit - Listen to me Butterfly, there's only so much wine, you can drink in one life, but it will never be enough, to save you from the bottom of your glass.

http://youtu.be/tNz-EiO3BRY


9. The Beatles, Revolution 1

The Beatles (The White Album) version of "Revolution" is very different from the hit single on the flip side of "Hey Jude" the band released in 1968. This album version is the one John Lennon preferred be released as a single. While the original song is a fired up rocker, this album cut is a bluesy, no-holds-barred affair that ends with the unmistakable grunts and groans of lovemaking. The radical left felt betrayed by Lennon's lyric in the original single - But when you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out -. By the time the album's version was released months later, the lyric was more ambiguous - ...talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out (in).



10. Badfinger, Baby Blue

Love this record by The Beatles' Apple Records prodigy band, Badfinger. A big hit in America in 1972, it was never released by Apple as a single in its UK homeland, due to the upheaval and corporate changes at Apple Records in the early '70s. It was written by Badfinger front man, Peter Ham, who also wrote Harry Nilsson's smash hit, "Without You". Ham ended Badfinger uncerimoniosly with his suicide by hanging in 1975. It's just a rocker with a shiny fuzz-tone guitar, cutting riffs, and Beatlesque harmony that cut a knife in me at a very young age leaving a wound that has been lovingly festering ever since. From the 1971 album, Straight Up.

                                                                                                                                     
http://youtu.be/TkA7xQb6uPk
                                                                                                                    

MOHAWK PLACE, ROCKABILLY AT THE TRALF, A BLOG IS A BLOG IS A BLOG

Word is that Mohawk Place, Buffalo, New York's hole-in-the-wall and legendary rock and roll club, is closing on January 12. A message on their Facebook page announced the closing due to "circumstances beyond our control". I touted the club often on this blog. Keep supporting local music, and go tip a final beer at Mohawk during the holidays. And hope against hope that the club will be somehow saved.

Saw a rockabilly show with Canadian rockabilly kingpins The Royal Crowns and Buffalo's own Blue Ribbon Bastards at The Tralfamodore Cafe (The Tralf) on Saturday night. Treated my brother and sister-in-law to the show - they are huge rockabilly fans and they just happened to be in town when I acquired the tickets compliments of The Tralph's mailing list. The Blue Ribbon Bastards are a young 5-man outfit who are just finding their rockabilly sea legs and whose set I thoroughly enjoyed. My bro and his wife were just a tad snobbish (critical is a more apt word), about the band, and they've been known to cross the continent just to see a rockabilly show. "Seeds of promise", I think was the phrase loosely thrown about our table. I thought they were mighty fine and I especially liked lead/singer Wade Witczak's tempting invites to go full blown pshyco-billy with loose rolling eyeballs and euphoric moonshine yelps. And I appreciated guitarist Steve Cryan's easy and repetitious riffs dominating the music like an old funk jam. 

 

Pictured above left The Royal Crowns, right Wade Witczak of Blue Ribbon Bastards

 

The three man "The Royal Crowns", celebrating 20 years as Canada's premier rockabilly act, duked out a fine set of accomplished and confident rockabilly with particular attention to guitarist Danny Bartley masterful riffs. The set included classic covers of blues and rockabilly, original songs, and one beautiful ballad that sounded like the drunken morning-after effects of rocking - a slow meditative and melodic song that lulled me away. Didn't catch the title. The trio consists of original guitarist Bartley, original drummer Teddy Fury and Buffalo, NY recruit Jason Adams on bass.

 

From rockabilly to Happy Trails! I was driving down the road and I saw an Estate Sale sign so I pulled in to check it out. Weird coincidence that the manager of the sale, running it for an elderly woman who was moving out of her home, happened to by my cousin's husband. He gave me an excellent deal on a horde of Old West magazines from the 1950s and '60s that I found buried in a box. I'm prairie packin' -