The Two Faces of the Batman

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Batman is, bar none, the most iconic fictional character of the last century. Google "Batman" and you will find over 51 million entries--Only Superman can compete with those figures. James Bond, Spider-Man and Mickey Mouse don't even come close. While current searches give The Man of Steel a slight edge over the Dark Knight, that can easily be attributed to the PR surrounding the release of Superman Returns earlier this year. And while I am in no way dismissing the cultural significance of Superman or Mickey Mouse, I contend that that the Batman appeals to us on a much more visceral level.

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Bruce Wayne is a man obsessed with bringing all evildoers to justice, all borne out of seeing his parents murdered before his eyes. We all know that set-up--it's embedded in the pop culture psyche in no uncertain terms. Simple on the surface, it appeals to our primal sense of justice.

We all want to see evil punished.--and therein lies the cathartic nature of Batman. Through him, we know that justice will prevail, regardless of the odds.

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The character of Batman has been with us for sixty-seven years now, introduced to the world in the May,1939 issue of Detective Comics. To put that in a historical perspective, that was eleven US Presidents ago, Germany had not yet invaded Poland and America was clawing its way out of the Great Depression. Oh yeah, and comic books, a new media format back then, cost all of ten cents. In a world at the precipice of turmoil, the shadow of a bat meting out justice offered a darker, but more realistic hero than a god-like alien from Krypton. Batman was somebody a kid could relate to-- a hero, who, in theory, he could grow up to become.

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Batman was, and I think still is (although I could be wrong),

the only superhero who had no superpowers--he wasn't an alien deriving his powers from the sun, he wasn't given a ring with unlimited potentials, he didn't take an accidental chemical bath, he wasn't bitten by a radioactive spider, he wasn't a mutant--Bruce Wayne worked his ass off to become Batman. And that's what made him more real than any of the others.

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Batman is in many ways the lineal descendant of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Zorro and, of course, the Shadow, with one glaring exception--Bruce Wayne was motivated by a grief that ate at his soul. He had to release the pain of his loss, the fears that gnawed his psyche by projecting them into the evils that had been inflicted in him by his trauma. That sort of distress would leave anybody two routes in their lifepath: either a quest to heal, or a quest to destroy the pain. Batman has walked a precarious line between the two extremes throughout his various incarnations through the years. Leave out the downright silly stories of the fifties, and two distinct personalities emerge: Batman, the Caped Crusader, and the Batman, the Dark Knight.

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The Caped Crusader personality is most fully realized in the Denny O'Neil--Neal Adams stories of the mid-seventies to early eighties, and it is here that Batman finally emerges as a genuinely sympathetic character. O'Neil explored the psyche of Bruce Wayne as well as Batman, and Neal Adams drew the character as grim, determined, and most of all, bat-like. Theirs was a character fraught with angst-- part detective, part romantic, part avenger, and completely human.

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In 1986, with his The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller built on the themes that O'Neil/Adams had explored and presented a Batman that went beyond the roots of the character to examine the the dichotomy of Bruce Wayne and his alter ego: namely, is Bruce Wayne Batman, or is the Batman merely portraying Bruce Wayne? Ultimately, that is what is the core of the Batman mythos. It's also in that issue that we are afforded the opportunity to explore the yin-yang nature of humanity.

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As integral as the Batman is to pop culture, only two movies have come close to capturing the character of Batman: Tim Burton's 1989 mega-hit Batman, and Chris Nolan's 2005 take Batman Begins. Burton's version is responsible for the resurgence of comic book characters as feature-length movies. Played largely as Wagnerian opera, Burton's version takes a lot of liberties--such as having the Joker being the killer of Wayne's parents-- but achieving a visual aura that set a new standard for all superhero movies that would follow it. His follow-up Batman Returns, however, failed artistically in that Batman spent most of the film reacting, rather than acting, to events going on around him. The Schumacher versions that followed sent the character on a downward spiral that can only be charitably called campy messes.

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Batman Begins finally got the myth right. Chris Nolan and his team did their research, tweaked key points hinted at in the comics (most notably Frank Miller's Batman: Year One) and presented a film that not only was true to the original concept of the character (fear as a weapon), but offered a fascinating psychological study as well. This was a film about motives as much as it was about action. For the first time, the public was presented with a universal hero in the Batman, a character that at once delineates the duality of the mind with a clarity that speaks best in a visual vocabulary.

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What it comes down to is this: something in Batman strikes a universal chord that resonates in all of us. His obsessions echo our fundamental need for balance. In an uncertain world, we all need a Batman to protect us. Pity that in our world, there is no Batman.

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Opening the Doors to House

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House is inarguably the best "medical drama" television series ever made, as the DVD boxed set House: Season Two makes abundantly clear. Watching this six disc, 24 episode collection is watching evolution unfold--not only in characterization, but in the medical genre itself.

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Far from another medical mystery series, such as Quincy or CSI, or to a lesser extent,Crossing Jordan, House takes its cues from literary detective traditions, and does so unapologetically. The similarities between Dr. Gregory House and Sherlock Holmes are obvious, as they are designed to be. (House. Holmes. Dr. Wilson. Dr. Watson. Get it?) Both characters are brilliant, albeit flawed, and not necessarily likeable men, but their eccentricities make them irresistable.

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House, as portrayed by Hugh Laurie, is an enigma of sorts--on the surface, he's an irascible, bitter curmudgeon with no regard for authority or convention. He walks with the aid of a cane and his pain has led to his addiction to Vicodan ( as Sherlock Holmes was addicted to cocaine). He's an unlikely diagnostician at best, but his uncanny ability in solving medical mysteries forces those around him to begrudgingly tolerate him.

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It's the interraction between House and the characters that surround him, be it his team or the victim of this week's mysterious malady, that makes the series such a delight to watch week after week. There simply is not a weak episode in the second season. While a case could be made that it is formulaic in structure (patient is felled by what seems an obvious diagnosis, but further investigation indicates something more insidious, leaving House and his team to track down the real medical culprint), each story manages to speak to a universal element without weighing itself down in pretension.

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That in and of itself would not make House the groundbreaking series it is. Other medical programs, from Dr. Kildare to ER, took a more heartwarming, almost soap opera approach to recounting the trials of the medical microcosm. Detective shows almost invariably took either a hard-nosed or comic approach to their stories. What creator David Shore did, along with executive producer Bryan Singer, was meld the two genres into a synergystic concept unlike anything American audiences had heretofore seen. It's a series that has drama, mystery, suspense and a touch of comedy, all woven in a tightly knit package that's held together by seamless scripting, outstanding performances and flawless direction.

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Season Two builds on these premises and evolves the series to a level that the first season falteringly promised. The relationships between House and his team, not to mention his foils, are gradually developed through each episode, almost as hints. as to what might follow. The evolution of the relationships is wisely underplayed, so as not to distract from the primary plot. It all comes to a head, thought, in the final episode of the season. "No Reason" opens with House being shot by Jack Moriarty, a man who blames House for his wife's suicide. It's a hallucenogenic cliffhanger that further embellishes the Sherlock Holmes analogy. (Moriarty was also the name of Holmes's archnemesis.)

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House: Season Two stands on its own as thought-provoking entertainment, but this set also includes several nice "special features." There is the usual blooper reel and a couple of inexplicable but amusing "Valley Girl Alternative Takes" done for laughs. Two episodes, "Autopsy" and "No Reason" are given the audio commentary treatment by executive producers David Shore and Katie Jacobs. While they are a bit on the conversational side, they nonetheless offer some insight into the technical process of making the show. Also included is a casual interview with the cast and makers of the series, entitled "An Evening With House."

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This is a handsome package, with flawless image quality and 5.1 Dolby sound. For fans of House, it is an almost indispensable investment. For casual viewer of the series, and for those unfamiliar with the show, it serves as excellent entertainment on its own merits.

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The third season of House premieres 5 September on the Fox network.

Confessions of a Hired Gun:

Being Bulletproof

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There is no dearth of articles philosophizing the craft of writing. Unfortunately, at least 97% of them have absolutely nothing to do with the act of writing. Instead, the vast majority focus on the mysteries of the creative process, the sundry neuroses that inhibit writers, the unreasonable demands of markets and 99 other problems that attempt to explain and rationalize why mediocre writers aren't published, much less paid.

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Why?

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Preaching to the choir is a hell of a lot simpler than converting the heathens.

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I fall into the latter category. I'm a freelance writer. I freely admit that every word I write is geared to a specific audience, and that audience changes with every new project. That doesn't mean I have no principles--it's merely a recognition that specific audiences read specific articles or stories geared to their specific tastes. Some would call me a writing whore ( in fact, some have) because I have no problem switching gears between fiction, criticism and copywriting. It's all the same to me-- stringing words together is what I do. It's just the mindset that changes. If that makes me a whore, so be it.

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I see it a bit differently. I prefer to think of myself as a hired gun. The qwertyuiop keyboard is my weapon of choice, words are my bullets and I never miss. That's the beauty of freelancing-- I'm afforded the luxury of deciding who my clients are, and just as importantly, who my targets are. As with everything else in life, there's a trade-off. When you're not beholden to any one special interest, it's easy to become a thorn in the side of all special interests, however noble your intentions may be.

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So how do you reconcile those conflicts? Do you wrestle with self- doubt and fears that you might actually piss off somebody? Or do you throw caution to whatever ill winds might come your way, and write what is exactly your gut is screaming for you to write?

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There isn't a pat answer. There are, however, a couple of clues that serve you well regardless of the idiom in which you're writing. First, you have to realize that the universe is not hanging on your every word. Your audience could give a rat's ass about your desire to alter civilization with that book that's in your head and you will one day actually write. They could care less about your personal turmoils and neuroses. They want to be entertained and/or informed.

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Period.

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You have to be bulletproof if you want to write for a mass audience. You're a constant target, and the trick is to keep the reader guessing where you're going next. The methods you utilize to pull off that trick are up to you. All that matters is that you connect to your audience. And that requires a willingness on your part to wear disguises at times. Obviously, it's difficult to inject a personal remark into a copywriting gig. But that's where the fun comes into play. It's also where we can work our own touch of personal subversion into everything we write.

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Years ago, I wrote a script for a training film for a fast food chain meant to instruct employess as to how to conduct an in-store birthday party. It was an assignment boring beyond words. To make a long story short, I turned it into a parade of cliches, with the lead character, Timmy, uttering the immortal words,"This is the best birthday ever!!" as we fade out.

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The client loved it--to the tune of a four digit payment for what I wrote as a satire. My perception of the script and their purchase if it were diametrically opposed, but they loved it, and I ate for another month, and slept without any pangs of conscience.

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Assignments like those leave me free to do what I want, to say what I think means something. Even at that, I still think in terms of reaching a global audience. Way back in the early1980's , I got it into my head that I could reconcile all the divergent aspects of pop culture in a single magazine. The resultant product was called Pulse ( subtitled"Tomorrow's Trends Today') and while it lasted only five issues, it opened myriad doors to me.

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I am by no means trying to tell people how to write here--there is no formula for that beyond the individual soul. I am going to tell you how to sell your work, though.

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Care to listen?

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Free and Legal Music Downloads Coming Soon--sorta...

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In what may signal a major shift in the recording industry's strategy, Universal Music Group announced Tuesday it plans to make its entire music catalogue available free to consumers as online downloads. . . sorta.

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On the surface, it appears to be a win-win situation for record labels plagued by declining CD sales and for an audience reluctant to buy music online. UMG is the world's largest music distributor, with a roster including the likes of U2, Kanye West and Mariah Carey. The deal they have inked with start-up Spiralfrog.com allows consumers to access and download UMG's entire library at no cost--provided they're willing to watch advertising as they download the music.

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It's a risky venture fraught with a number of caveats.

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Hoping to reach a core 13-34 year old demographic--a marketer's dream, and also the age group most likely to pirate music-- SpiralFrog is banking on the assumption that demographic will be willing to exchange their time for free music. It sounds logical enough, until a 90 second download time is figured into the equation, considerably longer than a download from itunes or other online retailers. In a target group not known for patience, that's an eternity.

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There are other issues as well. SpiralFrog downloads are not ipod compatible. While this may be a boon for Microsoft, who powers most other online music sites, such as Yahoo!, and is set to release its own "ipod killer," Zunes, later this year, the fact remains that Apple is the gold standard in online music. In addition, SpiralFrog will require users to use the site at least once a month, and it only allows storage on a hard drive or mp3 player--no CD burns. It's also rumored that downloads self-destruct after six months, requiring users of the service to download songs repeatedly.

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Other questions arise from a creative viewpoint--how willing will recording artists be to have their music associated with advertising over which they have no control? Politics and social issues are often inherent in pop lyrics. Even when they're not, they can be manipulated to fit into any context of an advertiser's desires.

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SpiralFrog chairman Joe Mohen brushes off all such concerns. "The currency e're using is time," he says, adding, "Webelieve that advertisers will pay to show those consumers ads, and that those payments will rival what companies get from iTunes andother online retailers."

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That may be, but doubts remain. Details of the agreement betwee UMG and SpiralFrog are undisclosed, and SpiralFrog's business plan is sketchy at best. A launch date has been set as "late 2006." The company claims to be in talks with other labels, such as Sony Bmg and Warner, but no commitments have been confirmed. Regardless, the basic idea may be implemented in a more fleshed out form by online retailers in the future.

A Roundtrip Ticket to the Sun

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El Nino y El Sol is billed as the "original soundtrack to the motion picture." If that's the case, then this collaborative effort by Ocolte Soul Sounds and Adrian Quesada may have the distinction of being the first soundtrack album ever recorded for a movie that doesn't exist. More likely, it's a soundtrack for the movie that wafts dreamily through our subconsciousness. If that's the case (and I think it is), it's a soundtrack that embellishes the storyline without overpowering it.

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While not necessarily groundbreaking--at least in the traditional sense of the term--this album succeeds in fusing a number of musical idioms into a pleasant identity. Drawing on inluences ranging from hip-hop to afrobeat to Carribean jazz, El Nino y El Sol (the boy and the sun), drafts a musical storyboard for urban life. Through most of it, Martin Perna's flute stylings and Adrian Quesada's arrangements play gleefully against one another.

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It may or may not be a musical rendition of the Icarus myth, but it certainly plays as if it might be."Marindio" opens the album with a childlike sense of wonder that beckons us to the possibilities of worlds colluding in a larger scheme. By the album's closing, lilting tune, Paz y Alegria", we're brought gently to a landing in surroundings that are both familiar, yet somewhat alien. Along our flight, we visit worlds inhabited by both Barry White and Ian Anderson, by Willie Wonka and Peter Gunn.

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What Ocolte Soul Sounds and Adrian Quesada have accomplished here is a piece that works as a mild morning caffeine jolt for the freeway drive to work while also serving as a soundtrack to a romantic dinner. It may not be that great jazz album we keep hoping for (Bakithi Kumalo still holds the lead there), but it's a pretty good stopgap until that comes along.

Immortality at 1/400th sec: Joe Rosenthal Dead at 94

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The man who snapped what is arguably the greatest photo of the twentieth century died today. Joe Rosenthal was 94.

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You may not know his name, but you certainly know the photo. On 23 February 1945, at approximately 1:03 PM, Rosenthal took a quick shot of five Marines and one sailor raising the American flag atop Mt. Suribashi, Iwo Jima. He shot it at 1/400th sec, at an aperture of somewhere between f8 and f11. In other words, it was a lucky shot, the kind photographers dream of. The composition was absolutely classical, the lighting flawless, the symbolism timeless. It was the perfect photograph, the kind that stirs emotions that no word can express.

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Too perfect, some said. It wasn't the first raising of the flag--that photo was taken by Sgt. Louis Lowery, working for the Marines Leatherneck magazine. And that became the focal point of a controversy that would haunt Rosenthal for years. Rumors abounded that the Rosenthal had to be staged--it was just too good to be real.

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None of that matters. As I've said before, photography captures a moment in time that has never happened before, and will never happen again. The moment Rosenthal captured was 1/400th of a second in time, but for a nation sorely in need of a morale boost, it was the most iconic image of the preserverance of the American Spirit ever recorded. He didn't fake it-- he snapped at that moment, that perfect moment that history remembers always.

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Joe Rosenthal should be immortalized with that iconic photo. He's gone, but remember his name.

Shakespeare Behind Bars Is An Island Apart

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Shakespeare Behind Bars is essentially a film about redemption and forgiveness from the perspective of self-loathing retrospection. Using The Tempest as its centerweight, the documentary comments both on the universal language of Shakespeare and the flaws of the human psyche.

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What filmmakers Hank Rogerson and Jillann Spitzmiller have done here is quietly brilliant. Shakespeare Behind Bars ostensibly chronicles the making of a convict-produced rendition of Shakespeare's The Tempest. In the process, it offers the viewer a glimpse of people who will pay with large chunks of their lives for moments of evil. What makes it more compelling, though, is its detached approach as it follows the troupe of felons for a year as they rehearse their roles in the play. As they prepare for their roles, they are forced to wrestle with the inner demons that fated them to incarceration.

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Make no mistake, however--this is no teary-eyed, bleeding heart advocacy piece. Rather, the camera looks at the inmates through an unflinching, utterly objective eye, and leaves it to the viewer to reconcile the issues it presents. These are not nice men by any stretch of the imagination--they're murderers and molesters of varying degrees of reprehensibility. And while staging their production of The Tempest, they present themselves as real-life people seeking forgiveness for their past misdeeds. Their place of captivity, Kentucky's Luther Luckdett correctional facility is, for them, a metaphor for Prospero's mysterious island, and the play is itself almost group therapy for them.

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All of them speak of their personal need for society to forgive them, but for the most part, they lay the blame for what they are on society, or family, or anything but themselves. The viewer keeps waiting, wanting to believe that at any moment they will make that breakthrough where they realize that they alone must bear personal responsibility for their circumstances.

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It never happens. They relate not to the lessons inherent in Shakespeare's works, but to the flawed characters themselves. And that is why Shakespeare Behind Bars is often unsettling. We see the inmates for what they are --killers and sociopaths-- on one level. But on another level, they are so convincing they seem like average joes you might share a beer or two with. In that regard, the film clearly puts the face on evil--the face is no face.. or any face..

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The inmates' performance of The Tempest is relatively inconsequential--indeed, we only see snippets of it. Shakespeare Behind Bars, however is a documentary of considerable importance. Considering the opportunities the filmmakers had to exploit a multitude of social issues, it isto their infinite credit they chose to let the film speak for itself. That angle will leave the viewer more than ample time to consider those issues on their own terms.

The Liberation of Lisa Germano

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At its heart, Lisa Germano's In the Maybe World is an album rife with optimism. It's also a work that arrives at that optimism via a circuitous journey landmarked by the pain of failed relationships and emotional ambiguities.

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In a voice that rarely rises above a whisper, Germano gently guides the listener through a world that is at once ominous and strangely beautiful, an ambient landscape of almost childlike simplicity. It's a piebald land of innocence marred by the intrusion of mundane realities, and she traverses through it like a weary veteran. "Let the love go/ Let the love be," Germano pointedly pleas in "The Seed," underscoring the prevalent theme of the album--through loss, we grow stronger.

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Whether she's eulogizing her beloved cat ("Golden Cities") or playing both roles in a dysfunctional, but loving relationship (Red Thread"), Germano's trademark whisper is anything but brittle--it is the sound of a razor slicing through virgin linen. Backed by her own barebones instrumentation of piano, violin and guitar, and supplemented by Johnny Mar's haunting guitar phrasings on"Into Oblivion" and "Wire", coupled with Sebastian Steinberg's masterful string bass work on several tracks, In the Maybe World strikes at a visceral level that belies its simplicity.

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Lisa Germano has always put her craft above the demands of the machinery that is the recording industry. That is a trait that is becoming increasingly rare, but is nowhere near extinction. Germano, like Kate Bush and PJ Harvey, isn't remotely concerned about churning out a hit record. Instead, she invites the listener to join her in an ongoing debate she's having with her personal demons. Often as not, she confronts them head-on and wins, however ambiguous the victory may be.

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In the Maybe World, though, illustrates the power of little victories in our daily lives. It's the kind of album that you listen to at night--soft and melodic, with a quiet message of hope for a better tomorrow. "I try to love you when I can/ When it's alright to be who I am", she says on "After Monday." Tuesday will be better, and it's that seemingly bleak optimism that drives this album.

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Lisa Germano raises more questions about life than she answers, and that's what makes her so compelling. That she accomplishes this in an album scarcely thirty minutes long speaks volumes.

Mike Douglas: Gone, But Never Forgotten

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Mike Douglas died this morning, on his 81st birthday.

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While he has been out of the spotlight for several years, Douglas will be remembered for pioneering the afternoon talk show. From 1961 to 1982, The Mike Douglas Show was a daily staple of American pop culture. It's estimated that during that tenure, he did 6000 shows, most of them 90 minutes long, and hosted over 30,000 guests. Among that roster were seven sitting, former or future Presidents and a preschool Tiger Woods, among numerous other celebrities.

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Born Michael Delaney Dowd in Chicago, 11 August 1925, Douglas began his career as an Irish crooner in the 1940's. But as musical and cultural trends moved towards a more youth-oriented market in the fifties, he shifted his attentions to television as a means to keep his career alive. It was here that he found the niche for which he will be most remembered.

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The Mike Douglas Show, however reluctantly, revolutionized daytime television in the early seventies. He was to a largely female afternoon audience what Johnny Carson was to post-primetime viewers. Douglas himself never viewed his series as a talk show, but as a music program with conversations thrown in between tunes. Be that as it may, it was his convivial style of interviewing guests that makes him one of the true greats for any student of pop culture.

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Looking back through the fog of memory, what stands out most significantly is that Douglas never lost his cool. Even when he was dealing with difficult subjects like Jerry Reuben, Yoko Ono and John Lennon, Douglas maintained a happy hour atmosphere in his shows. He was, above all else, an entertainer, and he never let the audience know if he was sweating a bit. It is not stretching a point to say that he laid the groundwork for all that were to follow him.

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Mike Douglas led a good life. Thankfully, he shared it with us.

Is Rhymefest Really the New Face of Rap?

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Che Smith aka Rhymefest emphatically wants to distance himself from gangsta rap and take the genre to a more positive plane. On his debut album Blue Collar, he delivers a set of rhymes that don't stray far from the conventions of current rap, but attempts it from a working class perspective on those themes.

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The inhabitants of Blue Collar are inner city working stiffs, by and large, who punch a clock by day and pick up a forty rather than a gat at the end of the workday. They are the people who live in direct opposition to the gangstas--wannabe and otherwise--that much of rap glamorizes.

'Fest makes this theme blatantly clear in "Dynomite (Going Postal)", a blistering indictment of gangsta trappings bereft of street cred. He's not preachy here--he attacks at gut level, using every profanity at his disposal to drive his point home. Since he is a veteran of the dub wars (allegedly beating Eminem in a duel), this should come as no surprise. The language of the streets is the language in which 'Fest is most well-versed. And as such, some audiences might find much of the lyrical content offensive. Even on "Sister," purportedly sympathizing with female victims of physical abuse, the narrator admits his initial motive to talking to the woman was the possibility of a sexual encounter. It nonetheless becomes a poignant vignette about the perils of the ghetto. While not exactly cocktail conversation, its lyrical tone does ring true on a subliterate level.

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What Blue Collar does bring to the table that's refreshing is a musical backdrop that is neither West Coast nor East Coast, but distinctly Midwestern--"Chi-Coast," maybe. There is an unmistakable Chicago rhythm permeating the entire album, ranging from steel factory beats to smoky blues riffs to back alley shout outs. A lot of this is no doubt due to No-ID's production, but the greater credit has to go to 'Fest--he may be blue collar, but he has the blue collar popped up throughout the album. Whether you agree with his stance is irrelevant--the man raps with conviction. He did, after all, co-write boyhood friend Kanye West's hit "Jesus Walks." Kanye and 'Fest rhyme together here, most notably on the romp "Brand New."

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I'd hesitate to say that Rhymefest puts a new face to rap, though. While he does steer away from the guns and crime themes of gangsta, he falls back on the older themes of clubbin' and sexin', which served as the basis of the current stagnant state of rap. 'Fest has an opportunity here to take rap forward to a more socially aware level. Rap, when done at its best, is street poetry. Let's hope Rhymefest takes advantage of that power, and not become yet another rapper caught in their own myth.

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