I assume this was scripted and not ad libbed. But the impressionist (J-L Cauvin is a stand up comedian and sketch writer) doesn’t appear to be reading from a prompter screen. The clip above has >8,000 views in less than 24 hours. Hard to remember a time before YouTube.
Category Archives: Media & Culture
The Beatles: Get Back
“What’s startling about “Get Back” is that as you watch it, drinking in the moment-to-moment reality of what it was like for the Beatles as they toiled away on their second-to-last studio album, the film’s accumulation of quirks and delights and boredom and exhilaration becomes more than fascinating; it becomes addictive. We’re there in the studio, right alongside the Beatles, seeing — living — what they do. There are moments when “Get Back” meanders (at a certain point in Part 3, you may feel like you never want to hear “Don’t Let Me Down” or “Let It Be” again). Yet even the repetition is part of the documentary’s experiential quality. As you soak up the film in its totality, it become moving and momentous. “Get Back” is a long-form portrait of the dissolution of the Beatles and the togetherness of the Beatles.” — Variety review of Peter Jackson’s 8 hour documentary.
If you weren’t a fan I doubt you’d enjoy this. The Beatles exploded in 1962 and flamed out in the late sixties, neatly covering my high school and college years. A big musical influence in my golden years. (Good article on which US radio stations played The Beatles first)
Brother Can You Spare A Dime
From the archives.
One big room for everything
Imagine a big room in your house where you keep the stuff you want to find later. Things you had written; articles from magazines; newspaper clippings; excerpts from books; cassette tapes of recorded music; VHS video cassettes… everything.
To save something you simply opened the door and tossed it into the room. Yes, in time my stuff would accumulate in piles waist high. But I know where everything is. It’s in this room.
To what extent does any such saved item really exist if I can’t find it?
Now imagine said room lined with filing cabinets, each clearly labeled as to contents. In each drawer there are section dividers and folders within. A 3-ring binder hanging on the wall for quick reference to what is in each of the filing cabinets (or banker boxes).
This has been my thinking as my blog has grown to 6,000+ posts in the last twenty years. I’ve been pretty disciplined about putting each post in one or more categories, and tagging for the finer grain. Without that metadata, my blog would be almost useless.
BUT WAIT! you say. You can also search the blogs db? You can, if you can remember what to search for.
PS: Sadly, I can’t think of an appropriate category or tag for this post… so I put it in STUFF.
Live Streaming Star in China
From the New York Times: “Over the past year, as Covid-19 has severely limited our ability to interact with the world beyond our front door, livestreams have helped transport us to places we couldn’t visit, people we couldn’t see and events we couldn’t attend. In China, live streaming services command an audience of nearly 560 million, with streamers broadcasting to devoted followers who tune in every night. Successful live streamers can earn thousands of dollars each month in direct donations from fans, and those at the very top earn millions from brand sponsorships and major contracts. In the short documentary above, we enter two agencies that scout promising newcomers and mold them into high-earning stars. But what’s it like working for a company that engineers every aspect of your life — and then requires you to livestream it all day?”
Not sure which I found more frightening… the lives of the “stars” or their fans.
Honky Tonk Women (Playing for Change)
Muscle Shoals Sound Studios
Barb and her sister are in Destin, FL this week and on the way down they stopped in Muscle Shoals, AL for a class reunion. Including a tour of the studio where the Rolling Stones recorded Wild Horses (and Brown Sugar) in December of 1969. The tour included the toilet where Keith Richards reportedly wrote Wild Horses, and an invoice for the recording sessions.
“What Makes A Cult A Cult?”
It’s a little surprising how many cults I’ve seen come and go over the years. Heaven’s Gate, Branch Davidians, Peoples Temple, Aleph (formerly Aum Shinrikyo), Moonies. And let’s not forget Scientology. Yes, most of the members considered these religious sects. But who you gonna believe, me or some guy in a cult?
A fascinating essay in The New Yorker Magazine (What Makes A Cult A Cult?) got me thinking about cults. A few of my favorite bits from the piece:
“One stratagem favored by Keith Raniere, the leader of the New York-based self-help cult NXIVM, was to tell the female disciples in his inner circle that they had been high-ranking Nazis in their former lives, and that having yogic sex with him was a way to shift the residual bad energy lurking in their systems.”
“A great many people were, after all, able to resist his spiral-eyed ministrations: they met him, saw a sinister little twerp with a center part who insisted on being addressed as “Vanguard,” and, sooner or later, walked away.”
“Few of us believe in our heart of hearts that Amy Carlson, the recently deceased leader of the Colorado-based Love Has Won cult, who claimed to have birthed the whole of creation and to have been, in a previous life, a daughter of Donald Trump, could put us under her spell.”
Easy to laugh at these folks but they were never funny (and getting less so). Down in Jonestown, old Jim sometimes conducted “White Nights.”
During such events, Jones would sometimes give the Jonestown members four options: attempt to flee to the Soviet Union, commit “revolutionary suicide”, stay in Jonestown and fight the purported attackers, or flee into the jungle.
The Soviet Union is no more so I’m thinking I might flee into the jungle.
I Don’t Want Kids
The Beatles: Get Back
Peter Jackson has released a “sneak peek” at his COVID-delayed documentary, The Beatles: Get Back. He stresses this is not a trailer or a sequence, rather a “montage” to give you a feel for “the spirit” of the film. Can’t imagine where or how he come up with 56 hours of “never before seen” footage of the band.
The Beatles hit the U.S. airwaves in February of 1964 (“I Want to Hold Your Hand”). I was a sophomore in high school and I won’t even try to tell you want a big deal this was. Nothing even close in the 50+ years since.
The Beatles broke up in 1969 so they provided the soundtrack for my high school and college years. I am really looking forward to this documentary. PS: It sure looks like they were having fun.