The Man Who Would Be Soul

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It's impossible to talk about the evolution of soul music without crediting Marvin Gaye as a prime exponent of its development. He wasn't necessarily the funkiest or the smoothest of the Motown stable, but he was unequivocally the most rebellious. Not content to churn out surefire radio singles in the Motown mode, he was often at odds with the label's founder Barry Gordy. In fact, his groundbreaking What's Going On almost wasn't released because Gordy didn't want to put the label in potentially controversial territory. After the album's phenomenal success. Gordy rethought his position, of course.

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Soul wasn't just a stance with Gaye--it was his lifeblood, and nobody infused the genre with more conviction than he did. In fact, he did more than sing his songs-- he ushered the listener into a place where words and music melded into a sphere that transcended vocabulary to reside in a universal emotion. He took soul music into a new frontier, making it relevant to what was happening to American society at large. It didn't matter what he sang about-- it could be anything from a simple proclamation of love to a a clarion call to social activism--when Gaye sang it, you believed it. He had a voice that sounded like silk soaked in cognac, and it transported you from gritty streets to silk sheets, all hinging on his mood.

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Marvin Gaye #1's is the latest addition to the everflowing well of "greatest hits" collections paying tribute to (or cashing in on, depending on your measure of cynicism) to Marvin Gaye's genius. In that regard, it doesn't really offer a lot that's new--since Gaye's untimely death in 1984, everybody and their dog has jumped on that bandwagon. A couple of things, however, make this release stand out from the gazillions of Marvin Gaye collections.

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Firstly, this album plays more like a soundtrack for an as yet-to-be-made biopic of Gaye's life, played out in flashbacks. It opens with some of his later work, the period when he was grappling with the dichotomies between spirituality and sensuality. He slithers through "Let's Get It On" and walks us through the animus of relationships with "Sexual Healing." Then we go back a few years, when social activism was his torch to bear, with the jazzy anti-war ballad "What's Going On," only to be whiplashed to his more innocent days, with "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing," one of his early duets with the ill-fated Tammi Terrell.

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It goes like that, skirting between timeframes, flashing from different personnae and different emotions-- seventeen songs in all and not a stinker among them. There are the obligatory tracks, like "I Heard it Throuth the Grapevine" and "Inner City Blues(Makes Me Wanna Holler)" counterpointed with innocent romps like "Ain't That Peculiar" and "I'll Be Doggone."

Admittedly, there's nothing here that's not on other collections, but as an introduction to the diverse stylings of Marvin Gaye, this is a nice package.

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The other thing that makes this set stand out has nothing to do with the music, but it bears mentioning. This is part of the Number 1's series by Universal Music Enterprises, and what makes them stand out is the packaging. Touted as "eco-friendly," the releases in this series are packaged, both sleeve and tray, in completely recyclable paperboard replacing the traditional jewel case and plastic tray. I'm all for it--it's a bit retro, considering vinyl was always packaged that way, but it's more environmentally friendly-- and it reduces consumer costs. However, I'm not buying the company's argument that they've eliminated the liner booklet to save trees thereby further helping the environment.

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Still, I'd like to see the industry as a whole adapt this sort of packaging. In the meantime, give Marvin Gaye #1's a listen. It's a perfect driving CD. And it works pretty well for late night listening.

When Superman Wasn't So Damn Super

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I was five, maybe six, when I discovered the awesome power of gravity. And I owe it all to Superman.

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Like most little kids at the time, I was a huge fan of the Superman TV series gtarring George Reeves. It didn't matter that virtually all the flying scenes consisted of a single stock shot of him flying in profile. I was more interested in how he made his takeoffs--that had to be the key to flying. Jumping up in the air wasn't working. But then I noticed the Reeves Superman did a sort of double jump before he flew, and that set my wheels turning. If I threw my legs out from under me on that second jump, I would obviously soar to the heavens. So I marched out to the driveway, confident I had at last unlocked the secret of flight.

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When my tailbone hit the concrete with a force I could have sworn shot my entire spine through my brain, I realized my plan was a wee bit flawed. I never tried to fly again.

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If only I'd seen the Superman serials from some years earlier, I might have figured out that Superman actually turns into a cartoon when taking flight, and most likely would not have contrived an experiment to turn myself into a cartoon. (That wouldn't happen until my college days, and it involved mushrooms. But that's a completely different story.)

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The point is, those old serials fueled your imagination and imbued you with a sense of wonder that made you really believe anything was possible, if you just never lost sight of the magic. That's why Superman: The Theatrical Serials Collection is a genuine treat to view.

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This four-disc boxed set comprises both complete Superman serials--"Superman" (1948) and "Atom Man vs. Superman" (1950). To enjoy them to the fullest, it's best not to view them through the jaded eyes of 2007, but to watch them with a wink and a nod to a time that wallowed in its wide-eyed wonder of a new era on the heels of the second world war. Somewhere in those two extremes lies the truth of why they were made in the first place. They were low budget entertainment delivered in 15 episodes of roughly 15 minutes each, filled with enough implausible thrills, chills and cliffhangers to ensure audiences would return the next week to watch the feature film.

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Superman as a character was late into the serial game--in fact, the Superman serials were among the last of the 15 chapter tradition. It didn't matter--after all, this was Superman, and this was the first time the iconic superhero was presented as a real live person. Kirk Alyn brought the Man of Steel to life with an exuberance that might have inspired Frank Miller, decades later, to refer to the character as "the big blue schoolboy." Oddly, Alyn wasn't credited with the role, supposedly because the studio wanted to maintain the illusion that he was, really was, Superman. And given the time, he really was. In those days, Superman was not the messianic figure we think of now--he was a bit of a goofus. Alyn played him exactly like the comic book--gleefully saving the world from destruction while not fully comprehending that was what he was doing. He never even picks up on Lois Lane's double entendres. ("Are you ready?", he asks, before flying her out of harm's way. "I was born ready," she coos, arms draped over his shoulders.).

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These two serials are by no means high art, and that's what makes them so endearing. They are Superman comic books come to life, and as incomprehensible as the plots may be, however crude the special effects may be, they possess an innocent charm that brings a smile even to 21st century eyes. Lex Luthor was a simple mad scientist out to take over the world back then, Lois Lane was just a spunky female reporter and Superman was just having a good time ducking into broom closets pretending to be Clark Kent.

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Oh. By the way, when I realized I couldn't fly, I set about devising Batropes.

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You live and learn.

The Tudors: Pragmatic Pageantry Among the Pawns

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With its third episode, The Tudors completes its introductory arc, setting the stage for a launch into the darker intrigues and alliances that marked Henry VIII's monarchy. What we've seen thus far has been an evolution of sorts. In the premiere, Henry came across more as a spoiled playboy, with affairs of state more an annoyance keeping him away from his more serious affairs, such as tennis, jousting and bedding ladies in waiting. By the second episode, he was settling more into the political weight his throne afforded him. In the latest installment, Henry's grown comfortable in his skin, and has learned to reconcile the playful passions of youth with the more deliberate maneuverings of diplomacy and power.

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It's not as though Henry had an epiphany-- from the beginning, he's used boyish charm to mask his calculating shrewdness. He was more reckless then, hastily declaring war on France almost as an afterthought, only to dissuaded by the pro-French Cardinal Wolsey from acting too hastily. Wolsey has his own Papal ambitions, of course, and needs the support of the French to fulfill them. And on Henry's other shoulder is his humanist conscience, in the form of Thomas More. For a while, it appeared Henry was easily swayed by either of them.

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Throughout most of the second episode, Henry seemed more a pawn than a ruler. The real battle for dominance seemed to be between Wolsey's quest to be Pope and More's humanist ideals. Even the Duke of Buckingham's execution for treason seemed vaguely orchestrated by Wolsey, more than by order of Henry. Henry, however, is entranced with the writings of Machiavelli, and wonders aloud if it's better for a king to be loved or feared. But once Elizabeth Blount bears Henry's illegitimate son, whom the king names Henry Fitzroy, his entire demeanor changes. We suddenly see Henry in a new light, and find that he's no longer a king to be taken lightly. By the episode's end, he's even "persuaded" Wolsey to happily turn over his palace to him.

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In episode three, any hopes for peace with France are all but extinguished. Even Wolsey has allied himself with Spain, and Charles V, King of Spain and the nephew of Henry's wife, Catherine. Henry, too, is anxious to ally himself with Charles, and the two strike up a pact to unite against the French. Because of the ramifications, Henry is careful to make it appear he and Catherine are blissfully married. But once he comes face to face with Anne Boleyn, Henry is once again smitten. . .

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Is The Tudors historically inaccurate in places? Of course it is-- that's why it's called "historical drama." Shakespeare's take on Julius Caesar wouldn't have played well to audiences if he'd done a barebones account, either. What's important in dramas of this sort is to capture the essence of the events, which, thus far, The Tudors does admirably. The sets, the costumes, the characterizations--all lend an air of sensuality necessary to capture the intrigues of the time. In a series like this, we're not interested in the plight of the masses--we want to know what is transpiring in the offices of power. What this series demonstrates, above all else, is the rich and powerful now are not that far removed from their 16th century boardroom equivalents.

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Showtime is showing the first three episodes of The Tudors back to back on 21 April, and they're all available on Showtime on Demand. They're loosely constructed if viewed individually, but seen together, they serve as an enticing preamble for what looks to be a series that delves deeply into the motivations of power.

A Voice Beyond the Wall of Words

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Elizabeth Hand, if not our finest fiction writer, is certainly among our most challenging and adventurous. Her stories blur the line between mundane realities and and the utterly fantasial. Saffron and Brimstone, aptly subtitled "strange stories," eloquently illustrates the quiet horrors of contemporary society from a personal vantage point.

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This is not a collection of horror, or even science fiction, genre fiction. It can't even be called a short story anthology. Hand's stories are typically novellas that explore the nuances of her characters and their environments. The resultant works read like rich tapestries, bleeding with muted colors and telling often abstract tales. Usually told in the first person, these stories not only lure us into the protagonist's psyche, but once there, trap us in a world we have no desire to escape. We relish our time there, and as exhausting as it may be, we find it to be a refuge of sorts. The opening sentences of "Cleopatra Brimstone" (the only story here not told in first person) demonstrate her mastery of words as dreamscape:

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"Her earliest memory was of wings. Luminous red and blue, yellow and green and orange; a black so rich it appeared liquid, edible. They moved above her and the sunlight made them glow as though they were themselves made of light, fragments of another, brighter world falling to earth about her crib. Her tiny hands stretched upward to grasp them but could not: they were too elusive, too radiant, too much of the air."

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Throughout, Hand's phrasings invoke a sense of remarkable imagery that lift her stories from what would be pedestrian chillers in lesser talents. "Cleopatra Brimstone" concerns a young rape victim who inadvertently discovers her fascination with butterflies affords her a means of revenge, but with unforeseen consequences. In "Pavane for a Prince of the Air," neo-pagan, drug imbued funeral rituals transcend the finality of death in almost romantic ways. And in "The Least Trumps," the tattoo artist daughter of a children's book author, finds love redefined and intertwined through a pair of errant tarot cards.

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As compelling, romantic and sexually ambiguous as these stories are, it's the quartet of tales making up "The Lost Domain: Four Story Variations" that best showcase Hand's talents as a prose stylist. The four stories here--"Kronia, "Calypso in Berlin, "Echo" and the haunting "The Saffron Gatherers"--interlace themes of Greek mythology and current tragedies with the transitory nature of relationships in ways that are at once both chilling and profoundly beautiful.

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Call it literary fantasy, if you must attach a label to Elizabeth Hand's writings. Even at that, her works are too grounded in the underbelly of mainstream culture to be sloughed off as genre fiction. What she does in Saffron and Brimstone is hold a mirror up to our fears and foibles, and gently urges us to take at look at what we behold. It's a reflection we'd be well advised to take seriously.

The Day After Death

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It's the evening after the morning that sent us reeling in disgust and horror as I write this. We've had a bit of time--not nearly enough--to come to grips with the fact that the unfathomable happened. . . again. We know who pulled the trigger so many times, and we can put faces to the victims. There are plenty of stories that go along with each of those faces, all of them tragic. It should be a time of mourning and respect, shouldn't it?

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One would think.

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Sadly, what has happened instead is the horror that happened at Virginia Tech has become a springboard in some quarters to relaunch political agendas across the board. Certainly a disaster of this magnitude warrants a reexamination of our core values. It's even understandable to ask how could we as a society allow this to happen--it's part of the grieving process.

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The short answer, of course, is we didn't allow it to happen, and we could never have prevented it. No matter how much we wring our hands and wail in retrospect, there is no way anybody could have seen this coming. Even though we know now the shooter wrote some terribly constructed, plotless and very twisted fiction, that's hardly enough to lock him away before he could have the opportunity to possibly kill.

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Advocates on both sides of the gun issue have attempted to weigh in on the tragedy with a "see-told-ya-so" rhetoric that makes proponents on either side of the fence sound like schoolyard rivals. This is not a Second Amendment issue, anymore than the "constitutional right" not to wear seatbelts is. To suggest if students and faculty had been armed, they could have cut the shooter down before he ever got off a round is ludicrous. By the same token, banning handguns outright as a preventative measure is also a pipedream. I will say, however, a restriction on how much ammunition anybody can buy at a given time might not be a bad idea. After all, nobody's had a problem with Sudafed purchasing restrictions.

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We've gone beyond denial and shock at this point. We're at the anger stage, and we're grasping at straws to make sense of it all. It will never make sense. Madness is not something that can be rationalized. We'll feel the pain in some part of our hearts forever, and in that part of our hearts, it will never subside. But this is not a time to advocate kneejerk responses.

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The Battle of Imus: Lessons Lost

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If the so-called Imus controversy taught us anything, it's that we Americans have way too much time on our hands--that, and we love a good brawl. Give us a few ill-chosen words on an early Friday morning, and we're pretty much set for at least a weekend of drunken punditry. In the Imus case, though, we just can't seem to shake the hangover.

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It's a hotbutton issue that has about as much meaning in the scheme of things as Avril Levigne getting married. Yet, we're fascinated by it, outraged by it, devastated by it and in a state of denial by it. Here's why: it forced us to look at ourselves.

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And we didn't like what we saw.

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While most of us nursed our wounds after the initial brawl, bullies from all corners smelled blood. And bullies being what they are, they made alliances. It's the way bullies work--it's how gangs are formed. It doesn't matter about your personal ethics--all that matters is a common foe. Once that's in place, you become invincible. And once that happens, there's no stopping you.
Your foot soldiers will do the rest, and you can sit back and reap the spoils.

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That's what's happened here--and what better time than an election year? Hilary Clinton was outraged, so Condoleeza Rice had to be indignant, also. Black conservatives with political aspirations suddenly spoke of a need for civility, and white liberals had to jump on that bandwagon, also. Snoop Dogg even weighed in, saying that when rappers say it, they're just reflecting a community that whites can't understand. It's all a matter of proper context, after all.

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Here's the thing: we Americans have no short term memory. We buy whatever message is sold to us, so long as it's served up on a cool soundbite or an iPod. We forget the message of Martin Luther King or Robert Kennedy or even Barry Goldwater, and we purposely divide ourselve according to race or ethnicity. This is 2007, and we've run out of ideas. Rather than forge ahead, we want to retreat to the idealized version of the 1950's, where nobody ever said a cross word, and blacks and whites lived happily in their segregated neighborhoods.

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Sure, it would be nice if we were a little more civil and polite. But who in their right mind believes a government can mandate civility? We face innumerable challenges as a nation. Slips of the tongue and coarse language only divert our attention from the real dangers we face. To paraphrase Jay-Z, "I got 99 problems, and the bitch ain't one"

We can go down that road, and ban everything we find personally offensive. Of course that will also mean not only an end to hip-hop, but those bare midriff commercials for everything from Slimfast to Bally's, all those adolescent fantasies disguised as body spray commercials, every program that may inadvertently slander a group — say Irish or Germans — ditch every politically offensive program — depending on your point of view — and, hell, get rid of almost all the programming we've come to love. We can create our new Mullah class, and we'll all be protected — or else.The other option is to shed our eggshell skins, and realize even a bad joke is better than no joke at all.

Where Were You That Night in June?

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We don't recognize the days that shape our lives until the moment has passed. They're just days, like any other day, unless some unexpected something comes along with such overbearing force that a particular day becomes seared in our memory-- where we were, what we were doing-- suddenly takes on an otherworldly significance.

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Bobby is a film about such a day. What writer/director Emilio Estevez attempts to do here is present June 4, 1968 as just another day that happens to culminate with the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. It all takes place at the Ambassador Hotel, where Kennedy would be mortally wounded before the day's end, and focuses on the ordinary travails of staff members and guests at the Ambassador that fateful day. It's an ambitious, if uneven, effort that teeters between melodrama and significance.

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At its worst, Bobby plays like a cross between The Love Boat and Crash. The ensemble cast, featuring Anthony Hopkins, Sharon Stone, William H. Macy, Lindsay Lohan, Harry Belafonte, Laurence Fishburne, Christian Slater, Elijah Wood, Demi Moore, Freddie Rodriguez, Ashton Kutcher and a host of other rising and fading stars, often distracts from the intent of the film. Their substories are mostly banal--the alcoholic diva (Demi Moore) and her cuckolded husband (Emilio Estevez), the philandering hotel manager (Macy) and his silently suffering hairdresser wife (Stone), the reminiscing hotel retirees (Hopkins and Belafonte)--and don't add to the weight to which the film strives. They serve more as counterpoint to the more interesting stories interspersed with them. Lindsay Lohan is surprisingly good as an idealistic girl marrying Elijah Wood to keep him from having to serve in Vietnam. Martin Sheen and Helen Hunt portray aging liberal socialites representing the passing of more civilized culture, and the interaction between Fishburne and Rodriguez are quiet testaments to the evolving socio-racial awareness among minorities.

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The first third of Bobby establishes all these characters and their stories, and it's a bit haphazard at first, more a game of "spot the star" than anything else. But as the film progresses, their stories intertwine in remarkably subtle ways that reflect the timbre of the times. Kennedy himself is more metaphor than character through most of the movie, with archival footage of him punctuating the film's main point of how a single moment can alter the shape of a society.

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When it works--which it mostly does, once the establishing sequences are out of the way--Bobby is a compelling statement. Estevez doesn't dwell on conspiracy theories or political machinations. By taking the sociopolitical climate of 1968 and viewing it through the eyes of people unaware they were microcosms of the upheaval taking place all around them, he makes the assassination of Robert Kennedy deeply personal and moving. When he was killed, the dreams of many Americans for a more tolerant society were all but shattered. Yet, the senselessness of it, coming so soon after the assassination of Martin Luther King, united us in some ways, if even for a short time.

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As a film, Bobby sometimes overreaches its ambitions. But as a snapshot of American life and how we viewed ourselves on the day that RFK was shot, it's a powerful achievement. The DVD release has special features that enhance its significance, including a "making of " documentary and eyewitness accounts by people who were there the night it happened. It's not a masterpiece, but it is a movie that stands repeating viewings.

Imus Must Go! And So Must You, And You. . .And Me

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We all know by now Don Imus made an unfortunate comment the other morning on his radio program. It's been oft repeated, so if you don't know what he said by now, you obviously don't have CNN, MSNBC, FOX or even a working television. It was one of those dumbass remarks, the sort of which shock jocks say every morning. But somebody just happened to be listening at the right time, and a media firestorm erupted.

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Yeah, Imus shot off his mouth once too often at the wrong time, and for that, he should be banished to some broadcasting netherworld. The Reverend Al Sharpton has said as much, adding that forgiveness does not absolve a perpetrator from penalty. Jesse Jackson has echoed this, although I'm still not sure how NYC is "Hymietown," or what penance should be paid for referring to the Big Apple as such. Stevie Wonder and Jay-Z, who have used the exact same words Imus used, have thus far had no comment on the remark.

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Look. Imus shouldn't have said what he said over the airwaves. He's admitted that. You just can't use barroom language on the radio. What you can do on the radio, however, is promote gun violence, advocate death for outspoken foes of Bush ala Dixie Chicks, hustle yo' hos and discuss questionable ways of scoring big, so long as you put it to a bitchin' dance beat.

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I'm not defending Imus. I'm also not jumping on his execution cart. There are larger issues at play here. The American culture has become dysfunctional--rehab has become the new magic pill for everything from depression to homophobia, and it's a cure-all that's becoming more than a little frightening. It more than homogenizes us--it somnabolizes us. When we strive to make everything politically correct, we render independent thought impotent.

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Alas, we're approaching that point, if we haven't already crossed it. By all means, fire Imus. We can't have those kinds of ill-chosen words polluting our collective mind. But let's don't stop there--let's fire all the shock jocks and political commentators, be they from the left or right, from Tim O'Reilly to Jon Stewart. And while we're at it, let's pull The Jeffersons and All In the Family--who ever knew people like that? I'm feeling better already, aren't you? Rap has to go, of course, what all that street jive, and country, to, with all those songs promoting cheatin' and drinkin'. Oh hell, let's just burn it all.

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It will be a perfect world. Everyone will live in perfect harmony, and nobody will offend anybody else. Until one early morning, somebody just has to open his mouth. . .

Medieval Machinations, More and Machiavelli

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The Tudors is not a series given to bombastics. Why would it be? We tend to remember history as a series of dramatic events, forgetting what led to those events. In reality, history is comprised of little moments that culminate in something the participants could never have seen coming. That's how life works.

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The second episode of The Tudors moves at a deceptively leisurely pace, drawing on the premises of the first episode. War with France still appears to be imminent, despite Henry's summit with the French king. Cardinal Wolsey is still trying to connive his way into the Papacy. The Duke of Buckingham is still insisting he's the rightful heir to the throne. And Queen Catherine's lady in waiting is pregnant with Henry's child.

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It all rings of soap opera, I know, and even though it wasn't nearly as glamorous as portrayed here, the fact remains-- it all happened.

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What The Tudors does, so far, is examine the beginnings of Henry VIII's monarchy .and we see him as reckless, unruly and ruthless when needs call for it. He's young, and plays the monarchy as a rock star, going for the groupies with elfin abandon. He goes mano y mano with the French monarch in a wrestling match (which he loses), he treats Cardinal Wolsey as a Colonel Parker mentor, he regards Buckingham as a trivial rival and he relishes in the birth of his son, illegitimate though he may be.

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In episode 2, we begin to see how resolute King Harry 8 was in redefining England's role in Europen affairs. He's no longer a mere playboy, as portrayed in episode one, but a man who's not to be trifled with. Buckingham's claims to the throne result in his beheading. Henry claims his son, Henry Fitzroy, much to Catherine's dismay. And war with France seems inefvitable.

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While it plods at times, The Tudors is a program that bears watching. Think of The Sopranos, set it in the 16th centurty, and go from there.

A Darkly Delightful Carnival of the Soul

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Think of those calliope sounds that wafted just over the horizon when you were a kid, and how your heart skipped a beat when you realized a carnival was coming to town. Now remember the first time you saw The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, and how it made you just know that the next carnival that stopped in your little town was going to be that magical, that ominous. Now imagine Tim Burton and David Lynch pooling their resources for the purpose of making that carnival actually happen. Swirl all that around in your head for a moment or two, let your mind evolve a soundtrack that's part Raymond Scott, part Merrie Melodies, part Oingo Boingo and part Kurt Weill. Let all of it sink in, congeal and morph, and you have a rough understanding of Ego Plum and the Ebola Music Orchestra.

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On their first full-fledged album, The Rat King, Ego Plum and the Ebola Music Orchestra not only recreate the sullen dangers of the carnival--they reinvent them. The resultant work is a twisting thrill ride through Jungian corridors that leave the listener a little woozy, but panting for another trip. The cartoonishly eerie "Introduction," replete with Salvation Army trombones and marching bass drums, lures you in like a spider awaiting prey. Then, the carnie barker entices you to enter into the labyrynth with promises of sights never before seen, and "all questions answered inside the carnival show."

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This is a carnival, though-- and carnivals being what they are, success depends on sleight of hand and misdirection. Ego Plum is a master of both. He promises a journey into the darker realms of the psyche, and because the music teeters somewhere between cabaret and outright psychosis, we believe him. We want to believe him, so even when the illusion wears thin, as on "The Death of Cannibal Chimp" (a reworking of Poe themes), we can't wait for the next pause on the ride. Instrumental interludes of juxtaposed xylophones, mellotrons, trombones and guitars lull us into a dreamy trance before we're jarred into the next Daliesque exhibit. Everybody has "Something To Hide," he assures us towards the beginning of the ride, and proceeds to gleefully expose those frailties as another part of the natural order of life. In Plum's world, irony, guilt and redemption are helpmates to one another, with none of them emerging as a victor. "Hansel and Gretel" finds Hansel riddled with angst over the traumatic aftermath of the fairy tale, practically sobbing to Gretel, ". . . on my knees, I promise that I'll never put you back in harm's way."

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But like any good carnival ride worth the price of admission, The Rat King lets us know in the end that it's all been a bit of a lark, that it's all been an elaborate joke. When the master of ceremonies finally appears in "The Rat King," he's all drool and sarcasm as he taunts and toys with us one last time. "There's a time to harm 'em and a time to P.T. Barnum--exorcise all the shames and insecurities--in me."

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And as the strains of "Ebola Music Orchestra Theme" usher us, a bit shaken but none the worse for wear, into the light of everyday reality, it dawns us that we've been taken. As rides go, it was good while we were traversing that tricked out artificial river. But once the ride came to its inevitable end, we realize we've been the rubes all along, and we actually paid to feed the Rat King's own neuroses.

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The Rat King ultimately works best if not taken seriously. Unfortunately, it too often defends itself as being "art." It's not. But if taken straight up as a cartoon shot with a bitchin' soundtrack, it's one amusing ride. There are enough musical references to make the mind reel, and enough stop and go cartoon lurches to make you anticipate the next pratfall. It's the kind of shot that hits you in the gut and brain, and leaves you wondering. . . what just happened?

The Dance Floor As Metaphor

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Generally speaking, techno dance music is not the first solution that comes to mind when debating global strife. Frequency, the full-length debut album by Naked Rhythm, proposes just that as a possible first step to achieving world unity. According to founders Alex Spurkel and Avi Sills, "We are trying to get people to open up and think outside of their own cultural reference point, to be more accepting of cultures and people they might normally have conflict with. We are trying to present a model for the world. There's a lot of war going on in the world right now, and a lot of healing that needs to be done. . . and music breaks down walls instantly. "

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Lofty aspirations aside, Frequency does an admirable job of fusing world music and electronica. By taking native rhythms from the Middle East, Africa, India and Brazil, and beefing them up with techno dance effects, Spurkel and Sills generally deliver an end result that's palatable across a wide cultural spectrum. The problem is there are times when it's too agreeable. "Samba Bionic" for instance, relies too much on trance remixing to be interesting beyond the club dance floor.

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For the most part, though, the fluid collective of musicians that is Naked Rhythm build a sea of sound that ebbs and flows ethereally between cultural and musical idioms. The opening tune, "Deep Lotus," lures you in with a light jazz feel imbued with Indian roots, only to jerk you into an almost cyberpunk world with "Babylon", combining hip-hop and traditional Arabic rhythms in an otherwordly setting that demonstrates the universality of music.

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Since Spurkel and Sills are both accomplished drummers, the entire album is heavily percussive, and it's their driving beats that keep the album cohesive. But it's their uncanny ability to meld traditional global music with electronica, coupled with the drive of the musicians with whom they surround themselves, that makes Frequency stand above most dance albums. Talents featured here include Abhiman Kaushal, known for his tabla work with Ravi Shankar, Lebanese spiritual singer Tony Khalife, Oakland-based rapper Brutha Los, soul songstress CC White and Woroud Antabal, best known as a traditional Muslim vocalist.

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Despite its decidedly urban nightclub flavor, the music on Frequency is more organic than electronic. Overall, the album is a celebration of cultural and ethnic diversity, and how the commonalities of music weave us all together as a human race. And while I'm not totally convinced that therein lies the key to world peace, I have to think it couldn't hoit.Naked Rhythm's live shows are celebrations in themselves, replete with belly dancers and accoustic instruments from various cultures. This disc also includes a bonus DVD performance and interview segment that provides you with a more complete picture of the band.

Rock Star Royalty in the Sixteenth Century

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You might think a ten-part series about a young Henry VIII would be a stodgy affair, given our popular perception of the English King as a man of considerable girth with a bad marital track record. The Showtime series The Tudors, premiering tonight 10 PM EST, handily shatters any such notions. As portrayed by Johnathan Rhys Meyers, Henry is a vibrant, athletic sovereign as consumed with his libido as with affairs of state.

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The series opens with the assassination of Henry's uncle in Italy by French assailants, thus setting the tone for what follows. Henry and a hastily called council decide there is no course for England but to war against France. The King leaves it to his councilors, particularly his Chancellor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (Sam Neill) to work out the details. Henry has more pressing matters to attend, mostly involving sex with various ladies in waiting, tennis matches with assorted dukes and earls, and the occasional joust against pretenders to the throne.

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Actually, it's a bit more complex than that. The first episode, by necessity, loosely sketches a tableau of palace intrigue, ambition and deceit, with characters whose agendas seem oddly familiar to a modern audience. Henry is in a loveless, questionably legal marriage with Katherine of Aragon (Maria Doyle Kennedy), whose loyalties appear more rooted to her Spanish relatives than to Henry. Cardinal Wolsey has Papal ambitions that appear to outweigh his loyalty to the King, while Sir Thomas More (Jeremy Northam) envisions a Utopian future for England. The Duke of Buckingham (Steven Waddington) sees himself as the rightful heir to the throne, and conspires to thwart Henry.

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This would all seem a bit on the soap opera-ish side were it not for the fact it's all rooted in historical fact. This is not a 21st century version of the early reign of Henry VIII, as some have suggested. By all accounts, Henry was a robust, athletic man at this stage of his life, and Rhys Meyers plays the king with a nonchalant air that belies his steely resolve in maintaining his throne. In fact, all of the principals play their parts convincingly, shunning the melodrama frequently seen in historical dramas. The dialogue may be modernized, but it only serves to make the story flow more smoothly. This is a story that moves at a pace sinilar to The Sopranos, with plot twists happening when you least expect them.

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If I have any quibbles about the premiere, it's only that 16th century England looks too pretty--even the peasants look robust, and the skies are always azure blue. Still, that adds to the regal nature of the show, and somehow lends an aura of credibility to the dark intrigues simmering just beneath the pastoral facade. You just know that bad things are about to happen.

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If the premiere episode is any indication of where the next nine episodes are headed, Showtime may have a major hit with The Tudors. Expect Emmy nominations all around.