A Reasonable Cause to Dig Mafioso Rap

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“You’re a writer?” she says, suddenly interested. “You write—like, books? I love romances and mysteries—“

“Actually,” I cut her sentence in mid-stream, “I write about pop culture—mostly about film and music—“

“Oooh! I love music—all kinds,” she parries, “except country and rap— especially rap. Some country I like, but I hate all rap.” She says it as if it were a treatise, a definitive statement on all things holy and right with the universe as we know it.

“Are you sure?” I reply, arching my eyebrow sarcastically as I launch into my patented retort. “How do you know? Have you heard ALL rap?”

This is the part I love, because I’ve heard it, with a few variations, so many times before, and it’s so predictable. “I—I don’t need to hear it,” she stammers, “I know it’s bad.” And that’s when I know she and I will not be doing lunch after all.

Americans love outlaws—we’ve romanticized them from Colonial days. There’s something universal about a solitary figure born in poverty, rising up against all odds, spending a stint in hell and emerging more powerful as a result. It’s not the American Dream—it’s the universal dream, and it stretches to our earliest literature. From Stone Age drawings to Beowulf to mythology to revolutions to cinema, the outcast made good is an inherent part of our thought process.

Given that, I find it strange we can embrace The Sopranos, The Godfather and even Scarface as high-minded allegories of the human condition, while dismissing gangsta rap as one of the first signs of the coming Apocalypse. It’s not that cut-and-dried simple. Like the crime movies it’s modeled after, the gangsta genre of rap can be broken down into several sub-genres, ranging from mindless, violent garbage to works that utilize the criminal underbelly as a metaphor for societal frustrations. The former celebrates the criminal lifestyle—the latter illustrates its consequences.

Jay-Z’s 1995 debut, Reasonable Doubt, recounted how Shawn Carter put his dubious background behind him to resurrect himself as the redoubtable godfather of mafioso rap, Jay-Z. It was an album full of bravado, and if not listened to carefully, could be construed to glorify the lives of ghetto drug dealers. In fact, it does the polar opposite. It chronicles the rise and fall of a kingpin (if only emotionally), and emerges as one of the best rock albums of all time. And well it should be considered as such—it took rap out of the ghetto, and established Jay-Z as a force with which to be reckoned.

The Classic Albums series DVD release of Jay-Z: Reasonable Doubt doesn’t make any attempt to review the original album, nor does it try to romanticize or justify it. Instead, it delves into the thought processes that went into the making of the album. What emerges as a result is a documentary of how Shawn Carter shed his street hustler life to become Jay-Z, arguably the most important figure in contemporary hip-hop.

You always think of your first time as being your best time, which may be why Jay-Z chose Reasonable Doubt to be his contribution to the Classic Albums series. He certainly had his hustle down in those early days, since he was able to work with some major hip-hop producers, such as Clark Kent, Knowbody, Ski and Sean Kane. In interviews, they share how they created the sound of the album, and analyze how the contrast of satiny smooth orchestration and guttersnipe rhymes melded to advance the genre. Mary J. Blige and a sixteen year old Foxy Brown contributed vocals to the album, as well. Kanye West is also featured in concert snippets and interview segments.

There’s some live concert footage imbedded in the documentary, but it takes a back seat to the participants’ reminisces of how the streets of Brooklyn forged the theme of the album. The bonus features, however, include the original promo videos for “Can’t Knock the Hustle”, featuring Mary J. Blige’s haunting vocals, and “Ain’t No Nigga.” In which Foxy Brown plays a prominent role. The rest of the bonus features expand on the technical details of how the album was made.

Jay-Z: Reasonable Doubt is unlikely to alter the preconceptions of those who profess to “hate all rap”, since they’re never going to watch it anyway. For those interested in the sociological and historical origins of gangsta rap, however, this is a must-see. Admittedly, this is a musical genre that has been corrupted to the point that it’s become a sad joke for the most part. When Reasonable Doubt was released in 1995, though, it made a statement about the consequences of the criminal life. If individual songs are taken out of context, it could be viewed as a glorification of brutality. But like Scarface (which inspired it in many ways), Reasonable Doubt ultimately was a grim cautionary tale. This DVD offers a number of insights into the story, and provides a reference point for the origins of a musical idiom.

Dexter's Last Stand?

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“Tonight’s the night, and it’s going to happen, again and again-- has to happen.”

That’s the innocuous way viewers were introduced to Dexter in its debut episode—a voiceover monologue that became the trademark device of the darkest storyline in the history of serial television. It wasn’t a conventional narration by any means—it advanced the plotline, of course, but it always drew us into the mind of Dexter, and forced us, against all our protestations, to actually like an undeniably demented serial killer. After all, he only killed really bad people who deserved to be chopped into little pieces and dumped in the ocean.

Season One was fraught with dark comic book humor and social satire—Dexter sent child murderers, coyotes and murderous nurses, among others, to their just desserts, and it all seemed a bit surreal. At the same time, it was catharsis—a part of us was Dexter, and those voiceovers were our voice. We knew exactly how Dexter felt, and we loved the thrill of seeing bad guys dispatched.

What goes around comes around, and in Dexter’s case, it’s happened in spades. Season Two began with Dexter unable to sleep, and his inner monologue telling us “I really need to kill . . . somebody.” It’s the first hint we have that Dexter is no superhero, that he is, in fact, a very disturbed killer. That’s been the focus of this season, with his inner voice sounding more desperate than bemused.

He’s had good reason to be nervous. Once his underwater dumpsite was discovered, and FBI Agent Lundy’s task force started closing in on the Bay Harbor Butcher, the series has taken on a much more tense tone. It still has its humorous moments, mostly courtesy Deb and Masuka, but those are fittingly overshadowed by the twisting cat and mouse plotline.

It all comes to a head tonight, in what promises to be one of the most explosive climaxes in recent memory. Doakes, having discovered Dexter’s secret, is still his captive. And it looks like Lila is about to uncover his secret as well, which would put a serious crimp in Dexter’s plan to frame Doakes as the killer. Of course, she has her own frame job going against Angel. For whatever nefarious reason, she’s framed him for rape against her. As Deb and Lundy discovered last week, she’s in the country illegally. Her secret may be even darker than Dexter’s. Obviously, if Dexter is to survive, both Doakes and Lila must be silenced. How that will be accomplished is the question.

In the meantime, Agent Lundy is closing in on the truth about the Bay Harbor Butcher. There are a number of enticing plot threads to be tied up, or severed, as the case may be. However it turns out, it won’t be expected. Nothing ever is when it comes to Dexter.



After tonight’s finale (airing 9PM EST), Showtime will be hosting an online event 10PM EST with video of the cast and crew discussing the shocking season finale, including a live fan chat.

And for the really diehard fan (pun most definitely intended) Showtime is sponsoring a Dexter Finale Sweepstakes for a chance to WIN A WALK ON ROLE in the next season of Dexter!

The second season of Dexter has been one surprising twist after another and tonight’s the night it all comes together. I’ll have a review of the episode later this week. In the meantime, I strongly suggest you do whatever you have to in order to see this finale.

David Bowie as Elder Revolutionary

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There was a time, mostly when I was in my teens and twenties, when I really believed that rock music could change our world, politically and culturally. It wasn’t naivete so much as it was a sense of wonder that fueled that belief. Those three chords, in all their permutations, shaped my adolescence, and became my evolving mantra. Whatever was happening in the world could somehow be translated into the music of Dylan or Lennon or Lou Reed or any number of other musicians—some that were embers in the wind, and others who continue to burn brightly even now.

I was always around music. My father taught me all he knew about country music and its relationship to our Irish roots, my mother waxed on and on about Elvis and American Bandstand, my grandmother fostered an appreciation of Sinatra and swing, and my aunts slipped me soul and Brit rock. As a result, commercial radio always seemed lacking to me. Maybe that’s part of the reason I didn’t play well with others as a child. I had my music and comic books and TV, and all was right with the world.

When I was sixteen, maybe seventeen, two almost concurrent events made it all begin to gel in my mind. I read Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions collection, and I saw one of those Columbia House ads, this one featuring an album called The Man who Sold the World, by some guy named David Bowie. Between the “inner space” of so-called New Wave science fiction and the oh-so-cool apocalyptic soundscapes of Bowie, my own worldview began to take shape. Bowie, like Ellison, inspired me to absorb every viewpoint I could find. Between the influence of the two, I found a common ground from which I could think, and more importantly, write. It goes without saying that Ellison and Bowie have left an indelible imprint on pop culture. And it’s equally obvious that while their output is not as prolific as it was during their fiery days of the seventies and eighties, they make whatever statements they make, count. It’s the price of being an Elder Statesman of one’s chosen genre.

David Bowie Box, as its nondescript title suggests, makes no apologies for Bowie’s less than hit-worthy output during the millennial transition Consider it more an inside nod to the utilitarian titles of his last five albums—Outside, Earthling, ‘hours. . .’, Heathen and Reality. The last ten or so years have found Bowie retrospective more than anything else, reconsidering his status as “rock royalty,” and pondering how preposterous it is that we came to this. Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, the Thin White Duke, the Disco King and the Man Who Fell to Earth all came home to roost in this collection, albeit with mixed results.

After the debacle that was Tin Machine, followed by the relative dance floor success of Black Tie, White Noise, Bowie tried his hand at duplicating the cyberpunk world of William Gibson with Outside. Originally envisioned as the first part of a series of non-sequential narratives following the exploits of police detective Nathan Adler Outside reunited Bowie with his “Berlin Trilogy” (Low, Heroes, Lodger) collaborator Brian Eno. While many at the time thought Outside signaled a new direction for the ever-changing Bowie, the project never went beyond this effort. Even at that, it managed to put Bowie at the forefront of industrial dance floor music for a time. Disc Two is testament to that, laden as it is with remixes, most notably Trent Reznor’s alternative mix of “The Heart’s Filthy Lesson.”

On 1997’s Earthling, Bowie expanded on the industrial-techno framework of Outside, imbedding it throughout with the “drums ‘n’ bass” mix wildly popular in London dance floors. It was his first self-produced album since Diamond Dogs, and it was something of a techno hit. But Bowie found himself overshadowed by the Nine Inch Nails remix of “I’m Afraid of Americans” the “Dead Man Walking” version mixed by Moby, both featured on Disc Two. Bowie, however inadvertently, had found himself in the position of being source material for the next generation.

Bowie bade farewell to the end of the last millennium in 1999 with ‘hours…’ a transitional work that was steeped in introspection, as evidenced by “All the Pretty Things Are Going to Hell.” After the experimentation that marked most of his work in the nineties, this album seemed almost like Bowie’s swan song, and in some ways, it was. With it, he severed his ties with Virgin Records, and ended his relationship with Reeves Gabrels, his guitarist and musical partner since the Tin Machine days. Disc Two veers away from techno remixes as well, concentrating more on mixes that were adapted to film soundtracks, or were paeans to the man himself.

With the release of Heathen in 2002, the Thin White Duke was redefined once again, this time as a culmination of all the themes and personae Bowie had explored throughout his career. If some of his work in the nineties suggested that he had fallen prey to Aging Rocker’s Syndrome, Heathen dispelled such assertions. His first album on his own ISO label (distributed by Sony Legacy) found him working once again with longtime producer Tony Visconti, who had worked on and off with Bowie since the early seventies. The resultant album was a work that found Bowie at last comfortable in his own skin, and was his highest charting work since Let’s Dance. The entire album exudes a confidence and power borne of acceptance of aging. In fact, it takes a second listen to realize that his versions of “I’ve been Waiting for You” (Neil Young), “Cactus” (the Pixies) and “I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spaceship” (The Legendary Stardust Cowboy) are covers. Disc Two features a Moby remix of “Sunday” and a 1979 outtake (deservedly so) of “Panic in Detroit.”

Reality followed in 2003, and continued the premises laid forth in Heathen, once again finding Bowie being Bowie, relishing his past while living in the present. Besides a diverse wealth of original material, it features Bowie’s take on Johnathan Richman and the Modern Lovers’ “Pablo Picasso”, and a haunting version of George Harrison’s “Try Some, Buy Some.” The centerpiece of the work, though is the nearly eight minute song “Bring Me the Disco King,” a loopy lounge lizard piano and sax piece of subtle self-deprecation that also encapsulates the failed invincibility of the eighties. Disc Two features several nuggets, most notable being “Rebel Rebel” and updated versions of same, appropriately titled “Rebel Never Gets Old.”

In Bowie’s case, truer words were never spoken. While a mild heart attack in 2004 cut a world tour in support of Reality short, and may partially explain why he hasn’t released an album in the interim, it hasn’t kept him from the public eye. In 2006, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. And though he says he’s taking a break from performing and recording, he continues to show up for impromptu gigs with artists ranging from Alicia Keys to Arcade Fire. He’s even rumored to be working on a rock opera adaptation of Alan Moore’s classic graphic novel Watchmen. Even now, over thirty-five years since he launched his career, Bowie remains an enigma.

David Bowie Box offers an important, if sometimes overlooked, part of his overall portrait. At this stage in his career, Bowie wasn’t as interested in being a superstar as he was in sharing what he’d learned with a new generation of musical rebels. In the process, he achieved both. Just as Harlan Ellison became the spokesman for a generation of speculative fiction writers, Bowie was a prime mover in the evolution of rock music. The five albums represented here, along with the five bonus discs included, are testament to that. The albums stand on their own, inconsistent though they may seem on first listen. And the various remixes, outtakes and alternate versions may be a bit much to take in at once. Still, this ten disc set is a comprehensive history of Bowie’s continuing influence on the evolution of modern music. It only leaves us with one question: where will the Thin White Duke next take us?

Dexter's Dark Days

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There was a time—mostly during Season One—when Dexter could do no wrong. He was a Merry Prankster of Mayhem, deftly darting between the pastel hues of a cartoon Miami by day, and its opaquely sinister washes by night. Sure, he was a serial killer, but he only killed really bad people the law couldn’t, or wouldn’t, touch. He was an Everyman, just getting through the complications of work and love by day, while dispensing deadly judge, jury and executioner justice by night. It was all implied—you never saw him actually dismember anybody, but you knew retribution had been served, and that the next morning would be bathed in watercolor sunlight. Dexter was a dark avenger, a whimsical comic book kind of guy who would go out of his way to bring doughnuts to his friends, while not giving a second thought to chopping evildoers into fish food. It was that comical dichotomy that made him so endearing.

Season Two has been no such picnic for either Dexter or the viewer. Even though it opened with promising Dexter inner monologue, “I really need to. . .kill somebody,” much of the season has found him confronting his demons within and without, while attempting to maintain his unflappable façade. Even before the first episode was over, treasure hunting divers inadvertently came across Dexter’s underwater dumping ground, prompting an FBI manhunt for the killer the press dubbed “the Bay Harbor Butcher.” It certainly doesn’t help that the Feds have assigned their superstar manhunter, Agent Lundy (Keith Carradine) to oversee the investigation. To complicate matters even more, Dexter’s adoptive sister, Deb, is in a May-December romantic relationship with the Zen-like Lundy.

On top of all that, Dexter’s blossoming relationship with Rita has apparently gone to hell, due in no small part to his dalliances with his Narcotics Anonymous sponsor, Lila (Jaime Murray). She’s a perfect counterpoint to Dexter—where he’s cautious, she’s reckless, where he attempts to hide his true self, she wears her persona like a badge. For all her superficialities, though, there’s something very dark about her, and her motives may be even more twisted than Dexter’s.

Then there’s Doakes. He’s been a foil for Dexter from Day One, He’s been steadfastly pursuing Dexter since this season’s first episode. The question that arises is, why? It’s been established that Doakes has his own dark past, some of it having to do with his military Special Ops past, and he’s not above eliminating bad guys without benefit of due process. Now that Dexter has him imprisoned, Doakes might be a source of clues to Dexter’s origins.

Agent Lundy may be the most dangerous of them all, however. He’s too studied for his act to be real. For all his Eastern philosophy, he’s a predator, lying in wait for his prey to make a fatal misstep. He’s more feline than mantis, constantly throwing Dexter off track. Does he really believe Doakes is the Bay Harbor Butcher, or is that a mere ploy to flush out Dexter? Does he actually care for Deb, or is his relationship with her a ploy to bring the killer to justice?

There are only three episodes left in this season of Dexter. Since Showtime has already announced a third season, Dexter will obviously find a way to elude all the potential traps laid before him. In the meantime, the writers have laid out a scenario that leaves the viewer bewildered at best. It’s an ingenious mystery that twists serpentine through the darkest corridors of Dexter’s mind. He’s no longer a Merry Prankster—he’s more akin to a trapped animal. He’s perverted his much vaunted Harry’s code to make not getting caught his prime directive.

How it will all play out is anybody’s guess. Dexter the TV series parallels Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter novels, but is by no means an adaptation. It’s safe to assume that somebody is not going to survive this season. I’m not going to even hazard a guess as to who dies.
The genius of Dexter is that it defies all guesses, and goes in totally unexpected tangents. Yeah, it’s twisted that we find ourselves empathizing with a character who’s gone beyond the sociopathic and teeters on the edge of all-out psychopathy. On the other hand, Dexter affords us a refuge from the realities of evil. It’s creepy to realize a monster slumbers in all of us, but it’s also liberating. If nothing else, Dexter shows it’s best to let sleeping monsters lie.

Dexter airs Sunday nights on Showtime, with repeats throughout the week. It is the best show on American television—bar none. It’s the only series I can think of that’s consistently compelling, and certainly the only series that keeps me guessing. If you have cable, but don’t have Showtime, you’re missing the only programs worth watching on a regular basis..

Injecting Sound into Your Skull

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Back in the day, I wasn’t a huge fan of headphones. No matter how people tried to convince me I couldn’t really appreciate Dark Side of the Moon until I heard it blasting directly into my lobes, I just couldn’t sit tethered to a stereo system. Consequently, my neighbors were treated to an ever-changing cornucopia of my musical tastes, probably to their betterment. In the meantime, I was blissfully surrounded in sound, courtesy of my Cerwin-Vega PA speakers.

Of course, that was before late night knocks on my door from the local constabulary warning me my neighbors didn’t necessarily share my musical affections. I went through a number of headphones as a result of those visits, and even begrudgingly learned to appreciate them. That was also before the tinny advent of earbuds and their greatest champion, the MP3 player. Maybe my ears are just shaped wrong, or perhaps I had a psychological aversion to audio q-tips in my lobes, but the buds never quite worked for me.

Apparently, I wasn’t alone. Earbuds may offer a certain convenience in size, but they’re a throwback to the portable transistor radio—they simply don’t offer a full sound. Plus, they aren’t really designed for an active lifestyle. So it’s no wonder that a growing number of people have gone retro and embraced headphones as the way to enjoy their music on the go. Headphones designed specifically for MP3 players is a a growing market, and no company has embraced it more than Skullcandy. They offer a full array of headphones (and even earbuds) engineered with audio excellence in mind. They also look really cool, as headphones go, to give that certain street cred oomph.

Skullcandy takes it up a notch with the MFM Pro Mp3 Player Headphones. Endorsed by renowned snowboarder Marc Frank Montoya, these DJ- style phones also offer an integrated, detachable 1 gig MP3 player.



These are a first of their kind headphones, offering superior sound quality for the price (just around $200) and are also equipped with a detachable MP3 player/ recorder that works independently of the phones. I love the design and function of the MFM headphones, having lived with them for three months now.

There’s quite a bit to love about these headphones, as these specs will attest:



-Built-in detachable MP3 player with direct USB upload/download-DJ style headset with 90 degree swivel earcups
-Optional battery pack instantly turns the built-in 1 GIG MP3 into a portable MP3 player- -Plays MP3, WMA & DRM files
-1 GIG Flash memory for music or data-Built-in voice recorder, with voice activated recording (VAD) support-Deleting files is possible from the device-MP3 Player can be used as a mass storage device-USB v1.1-40mm power drivers-Auxiliary audio jack with detachable connection cable
-MP3 Player can be used as a mass storage device-Headphones can be used with other audio devices-MP3 player can be used with other headphones

What sets these phones apart from anything else on the market is the integrated MP3 player. Slightly smaller than a Zippo lighter, it fits snugly into one earphone for use with the headphones. With a 1 GIG flash memory, it hardly competes with iPods, but that’s not its intent. The MFM headphones aren’t really designed for sedentary audiophiles—they take an active lifestyle for granted. The 1 GIG memory stores over an hour of music—plenty of space to serve as a soundtrack for a workout, or even a trip to the local grocer.

The MP3 player also functions as a voice-activated recorder when separated from the headphones. It’s good for “notes to self”, but doesn’t have the range to go beyond that. Still, it’s a nice touch.

The headphones themselves, equipped with 40mm power drivers, are very good at high and low frequencies, as might be expected in a package designed for the action-oriented. Bass thumps in your jaws when you wear these phones—I found Johnny Cash and Jay-Z particularly pleasing. More intricate music, particularly jazz, loses a bit in the mid-range, doesn’t fare quite as well, as some nuances are given up to bass and high end.

It’s a miniscule price to pay when you consider the advantages of the package as a whole. I’ve used the MFM headphones during runs, and have become addicted to them as my computer headphones, as well. If you’re looking for an all-purpose set of headphones, you’d be hard-pressed to surpass the MFM Pros.

Dexter and the Writers' Strike

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Think of the writers’ strike as pennies from heaven. If nothing else, it’s spared us from the hype of the November sweeps. Consequently, there are no “very special episodes” of The Big Bang Theory or The Bionic Woman competing for our limited attention spans. On the downside, Deal or No Deal and Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? are suddenly elevated to requisite viewing status.

Truth to tell, it’s been a lackluster season thus far. Not one new series can be considered a hit, and returning series are either stumbling or retreading familiar ground. That’s understandable when you’re dealing with something like the CSI franchise, but Heroes can ill afford to get lazy after one season. The high hopes I had back in September are all but dashed at this point. I eagerly anticipated Cane, only to see it disintegrate into a terminally boring soap opera by its third episode. I liked the unlikely premise of Life, but it’s degenerating into a procedural crime drama.

As grim as all that may sound, there is a silver lining. Series that were largely overlooked or ignored have a shot at finding an audience. Pushing Daisies and Moonlight, for instance, have a cult following of sorts already, and with reruns across the board, they’re in a position to reach a wider audience. On the other hand, serial-based programs like Desperate Housewives and Journeyman don’t play well in reruns, and may fall by the wayside.

However it shakes out, network television has to rethink its strategies. It’s not going to be enough to rerun shows via the Internet for a few pennies more ad revenue. The networks are pinning a lot of their hopes on so-called “new media” without thinking through its implications. That’s the main bone of contention the Writer’s Guild has with producers now. It’s not that the writers (without whom there would be no series) are opposed to exploring new media—they merely want to be compensated fairly for work they’ve already produced.

Admittedly, the finished product on the small screen has been largely lacking this season, but much of that can be blamed on “the art by committee” mindset that’s always permeated Hollywood. After all the meetings and rewrites and more meetings, what’s eventually seen on the tube has little resemblance to the original script. It’s all about compromise and getting product before the consumer. If it doesn’t play well on mainstream networks, no matter--there’s always basic cable. And if the Sci-Fi Channel or USA can’t move it, the Internet is a tertiary market. It ain’t art. It’s a commodity. And you’d be well advised to remember that. The networks exist to sell advertising. Anything beyond that is happenstance.

If it’s any semblance of art you’re looking for, you’re going to have to turn to PBS, or shell out a few pesos for premium cable. It’s indisputable that HBO pioneered the concept of bringing high quality drama, unfettered by commercial interests, to television. After the conclusion of The Sopranos, however, the network has laid relatively low, with Entourage probably their biggest original draw at this point.

Showtime has wasted no time picking up the slack left by HBO. Four original series airing on Showtime—specifically, Dexter, Brotherhood, Weeds and Californication—not only offer a refuge from the mainstream networks’ mediocrity, they may signal a revolution in television storytelling. At their core, all four of these programs are rooted in the mainstay of television themes: the trials and tribulations of familial relationships. If, as Shakespeare said, there are only seven basic plots, then it’s ultimately up to the writer to spin those plots into innumerable variations.

The writers on these programs have done exactly that, taking that basic theme of family and propelling it into regions rarely explored in cinema, much less television. On the surface, Dexter may be about a vigilante serial killer on the surface, but on a deeper level, it’s more about balancing secrets with relationships. Brotherhood explores the workings of the Irish mob and political machinations, but it can’t escape its meddling mom core. Weeds is much more aligned to the plight of single mothers providing for their family than it is with dealing drugs. Conversely, Californication isn’t about a reprobate writer—it’s more concerned with a dispossessed father attempting to reconnect with his family.

Admittedly, these shows were unaffected by the writers’ strike, since they had wrapped season’s production beforehand. More importantly, though, they demonstrate there is no dearth of writing talent in Hollywood. And I’m by no means saying that everything on the TV screen should be geared to adults—Dora the Explorer is a case in point. By and large, however, network television, through no fault of the creative process, takes the path of least resistance. Rather than finance ventures that might challenge, or even educate the viewer, the studio execs continue down the timeworn path of the lowest common denominator. An engaging story is secondary—how well it will move product is paramount.
If Internet revenue will move product, the execs and producers reason, it bodes well for the industry, and adds another source of revenue that ensures television will flourish in the face of new media. After all, if the programs are already produced, there’s really no sound business reason to further compensate work for hire writers. It’s much more fiscally sound to put that unknown profit into corporate coffers.

That’s their reasoning, anyway. The fallacy is that were it not for the writers, they wouldn’t have product to tool around new media in the first place. But, they say on one hand, the Internet and downloads may only account for a tiny percentage of revenue. Privately, they’re predicting unbridled growth in its untapped potential. It’s revenue they don’t want to share with writers. Directors and producers have secured their deals in the face of all this, and writers are at the bottom of the food chain when considering film.

While it may be considered a director’s medium, one fact remains. Everything we see on the screen, whether it’s an action-packed thriller a yuppie- friendly comedy or a WWII documentary, began as a thought in a writer’s brain. Without writers sharing their thoughts, however outlandish or mundane they may be, we’d all be watching white noise.

With the exception of premium cable, I can’t escape the feeling I already am.

The Two Jakes and the Trilogy that Never Was

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It’s not absolutely necessary to have seen Chinatown to appreciate its sequel, The Two Jakes, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. Originally designed as the second installment of a trilogy about the rise and fall of Los Angeles, The Two Jakes takes up where Chinatown left off, albeit some eleven years later.

Private eye Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) has prospered in the ensuing years since the events of Chinatown. He returned from WWII as something of a hero (though what he did isn’t specified), owns the building from which he does business, belongs to a country club, enjoys golf and has a more or less fiancée. He hasn’t forgotten his roots, though—he’s still a gumshoe at heart. And he’s not even remotely chagrined that his business largely hinges on marital philandering. By all appearances, he’s middle-age successful and happy.

In the best tradition of the noir detective, things for Jake Gittes are never what they appear to be. The years have been have been kind to him, but the past still haunts his subconscious. As the film opens, he’s cocky and cynical to a fault. He’s “the leper with the most fingers”, as he puts it. But when he finds himself embroiled in a divorce case that may have been a pretext for murder, he’s forced to realize the past is always lurking just over his shoulder.

Originally intended as the second part of a trilogy about the despoiling of Los Angeles, The Two Jakes never really achieves the murky atmosphere of Chinatown. Water rights were at the core of Chinatown, and darkness prevailed as its metaphor. In The Two Jakes, oil serves as the root of evil, and most of the film is shot in bright sunny hues. At the core of both films, though, is the nature of how the past is omnipresent. The orange groves in Chinatown are mowed under to make room for suburban developments in The Two Jakes. It’s a post-war America, so full of optimism for a future, it’s blindsided by its past.

Jake Berman (Harvey Keitel) is a sympathetic foil for Gittes. Like Gittes, Berman has returned from the war scarred but optimistic in his hopes for the future. He may or may not have murdered his business partner, but his love for his wandering wife (Meg Tilley) is undeniable. She, of course, has her own dark past, inextricably linked to Gittes. It’s all the stuff of great noir, but Robert Towne’s script meanders too much to make it truly compelling. Admittedly, this film had a troubled gestation, and fell victim to numerous rewrites, some of which were done by Nicholson himself.

Where The Two Jakes falls short is in Nicholson’s direction. As good as he is as an actor, Nicholson is only pedestrian as a director. He has a problem with separating Nicholson the actor from Nicholson the director. As a result, every shot favors Nicholson the narcissist. While he nods to Polanski’s Chinatown, it’s impossible to forget that this emerges as a Jack Nicholson vehicle. Nicholson hints at that in the DVD’s only special feature, a featurette entitled “Jack on Jakes.”

To be sure, The Two Jakes is a flawed film. Considering it was conceived as a bridge in a trilogy that never happened, however, it remains a minor treasure in the evolution of neo noir. The plot is convoluted, disjointed and only hints at the evils it attempts to purvey. Nonetheless, beneath its watercolor landscape, it manages to convey the taut coil of the emerging cynicism of America as portrayed by Los Angeles.

Remembering a Blues Great

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Every kid growing up in Texas who ever picked up a guitar wanted to play the blues at one time or another. You can hear it in any music that’s ever come out of Texas, whether it’s rock and roll, country and western, or even mainstream pop. Give a Texan a guitar, and strings are going to bend. Playing the blues and making the blues come alive are two different things, however. Stevie Ray Vaughan, in a recording career that barely spanned seven years, reimagined electric blues, and transformed the genre forever.

While most press links Stevie Ray Vaughan to Austin, he had a huge following in Dallas long before his major label debut in 1983. I used to see him and Double Trouble at a tiny venue called St. Christopher’s. It was a pool hall/bar that also booked bands. It didn’t have a stage to speak of—just a corner of the club for the band to play. To call it “intimate” would be charitable—it was the definition of a dive, and I mean that in the most convivial way possible. It was the kind of place that didn’t enforce capacity codes efficiently, but it did have a helluva jukebox. It was always crowded and hot, and when Stevie Ray and Double Trouble played, it was a lot hotter.

You can get a rough idea, albeit a bit cleaned up, as to what St. Christopher’s was like on the “Love Struck Baby” video, which introduces the DVD release of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble: Pride and Joy. Originally released shortly after Vaughan’s untimely death in 1990, Pride and Joy was a collection of the six videos released to promote the albums Texas Flood, Couldn’t Stand the Weather and Crossfire. In its original version, it also included a live version of “I’m Leaving You (Commit a Crime)” and a sorta “live” performance of “Superstition.” (The audio from the latter was from a live performance, but the video was staged.)

Technically, the DVD version of Pride and Joy is a reissue of the 1990 release, but only in the narrowest of definitions. This new release not only expands the original’s half-hour length to over 70 minutes, but benefits from remixed stereo and 5.1 Dolby audio enhancements. Besides being crystalline both in audio and video, the DVD also has a clearer sense of Vaughan’s historical significance. Now at seventeen tracks, the DVD is more a chronicle of his too-short career than the ragtag collection of MTV promo clips that the original was.

Those clips are still there, of course, and they still hold up musically, if somewhat dated visually. They date from the days when MTV actually promoted music via video, and still have a certain nostalgic charm about them. Despite their mini-movie style, and even though they hardly showcased the intricacies of his style, it’s a fact they helped promote Vaughan’s abilities to a wider audience. Three previously unreleased performances from MTV’s Unplugged series rectify that. On “Rude Mood,” “Pride and Joy” and “Testify,” Vaughan channels all his flash into a 12-string acoustic, with results every bit as electrifying as his signature Stratocaster performances.

The DVD also includes posthumously released promo videos from the album The Vaughan Brothers, the album Vaughan was working on with his brother Jimmie Vaughan shortly before the helicopter crash that took Stevie Ray’s life. Most haunting, though, is the inclusion of his instrumental version of Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing.” Besides being a haunting rendition of the tune, it’s a visual montage of great guitarists, most, but not all of whom have passed. There’s a fleeting instant depicting Stevie Ray Vaughan performing.

A talent like Stevie Ray Vaughan comes along only once every couple of generations—and that’s if we’re lucky. The sting of irony is that those talents invariably seem to leave us too quickly. Pride and Joy falls short of being a definitive chronicle of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s life. It focuses more on his videos, which were, as the industry demands, oriented to wide audiences. Still, it offers moments of insight into his short life. And it’s all done with his beloved Stratocasters as the main star.

I think he would have wanted it that way.

In Praise of the Short Film

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Film, when you break it down to its most basic, is a shorthand narrative for life. It captures moments never before seen, never to be seen again. It doesn’t matter if it’s a tintype from the 19th century, or the latest Hollywood blockbuster, film records that one moment, real or imagined, destined to be seared into our brains forever. Once it’s stored there, it joins our memories of sound, scent, touch, even taste, to create something unique to each individual. Ask three different people what a film’s about, and odds are you’ll get at least two different opinions. Ask the filmmaker, and you’re likely to get a completely different take. But sit the filmmaker down with one or two audience members, and you’ll end up with some sort of zeitgeist about the film’s real meaning.

Ideally, a film, not unlike a novel, should reflect the filmmaker’s viewpoint while making a universal statement about the human condition. It’s not a perfect world, though, and filmmaking is a largely collaborative effort. Feature films very rarely bear more than a passing resemblance to the writer’s, much less the director’s, original vision. It goes through too many hands for it to be otherwise.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s what makes cinema a unique art form. Still, to understand film, and the motivations of the filmmaker, it’s important to see works stripped of commercial expectations, to see ambitions and views on the screen for exposure to an audience beyond their basements. And that’s one reason the short film is the unsung backbone of the entire film community. It’s in the short film that any aspirations to art within the medium are readily apparent. Because they’re usually made on shoestring budgets, short films are often technically innovative. Above all else, though, the short film represents the filmmaker’s most creative efforts, unhampered by commercial expectations or studio bottom lines.

Cinema16: European Short Films, as its title suggests, is a compilation of sixteen short films from European filmmakers. Actually, Cinema16 compilations have been around in Europe since 2003, but were only available in Region 2 PAL formats, and thus incompatible with the American NTSC format. This volume is the “Special USA Edition,” and is sort of a “best of” of the UK releases “European Short Films” and “British Short Films”, and also includes material not seen on those releases.

It’s an extensive two-disc collection running over three hours that includes cult classics, first efforts, art films and international award winners, all held together by a universal thread of naïve dedication to craft. Beyond that, all sixteen of these little films ring of honesty rarely seen in mainstream productions. Individually, they speak in dialects ranging from satire to earnestness, from whimsical exuberance to bleak stoicism, but they all speak in some way to the human condition.

“The Man without a Head,” by Argentine director Juan Solanas, is the opening film in this collection, and sets the tone for what follows. It’s a parable about the faceless in society, told with humor and style. Andrea Arnold’s “Wasp” takes a decidedly more somber look at that theme with its tale of a single mother of four trapped in a cycle of poverty and despair. Both films have won numerous awards.

Cinema16 offers more than recent shorts, though. Ridley Scott’s first film, “Boy and Bicycle,” finished in 1958, and starring his brother Tony, is represented here. Although it’s a bit tedious, it offers early glimpses of the techniques the Scott brothers would employ in their films that later catapulted them to fame. “Doodlebug,” a three minute student film by Christopher Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins) is an amusing little piece that, according to Nolan, taught him what not to do.

Animation is showcased here, also. Czech surrealist Jan Swankmejer’s 1971 classic “Jabberwocky” is a particularly notable inclusion, given his influence on a number of filmmakers, such as Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam. His influence is felt in 2005’s “Rabbit,” by Run Wrake, a dreamlike fantasy about lost innocence, composed mostly with clip art from a second hand bookstore children’s book. Less obvious, but equally surreal is the Austrian “Copy Shop,” by Virgil Widrich, a wildly imaginative live-action, stop motion hybrid about a copy shop employee who copies himself until he eventually populates the whole world.

The films represented on the Cinema16 collection range in length from three minutes to 23 minutes, and all hit their mark with a precision rarely seen in mainstream film. The economics of independent filmmaking dictate such an approach. As a result, every frame, every word of dialogue propels the story. Nothing is wasted.

Outside of an available audio commentary on all but three of the sixteen films, there are no extras on Cinema16. I t doesn’t need any. It’s a celebration of the medium of film, told as it should be told—visually. For those looking for something with more substance than the Hollywood Hit of the Week, it’s essential viewing. Vastly entertaining, Cinema16 should be required viewing for anybody on either side of the Big Pond who claims to be a student of film technique.

Of Streaming Audio and Fighting Foo

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There’s something to be said for audio streams. In the eighties, record labels promoted new album releases with lavish bios printed on heavy stock paper, replete with 8 X 10 glossies and fan lapel buttons. They even sent critics picture discs on occasion. Sometimes, we were even treated to margarita parties and backstage passes.. We loved all that attention, probably a little too much. All the perks and extras made us feel way too special, and diverted our attention away from the core reason any of us there were there in the first place—our devotion to music.

While I’m not knocking the excesses of the eighties (outside of the fact that I’m left with a buttload of promo nonsense, the significance of the moment escaping me 25 years later), I rather like the audio streams the labels often send me now. I know I’m in a bit of a minority among my contemporaries, but the notion that we need a physical object to remind us of the importance the music makes to us strikes me as daft.

Downloaded audio streams force us to focus purely on the music. That’s a good thing, I think. It divorces our opinion from extraneous factors like graphics, microscopic liner notes and lyric sheets, and allows us to concentrate purely on the music. The latest release from Foo Fighters, Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace, is a case in point. I had a graphic of the album art—a bomb presumably descending on a target, and the music—nothing else—no liner notes, no lyric sheet, nothing but the music. In other words, it came as a rock critic’s worst nightmare. It’s like flying blind in a snowstorm in the middle night—no press release reference points to guide me, no fan and pan feedback, nothing but the music and me, mano y mano.

Touted as a more “mature” effort, Echoes reunites Dave Grohl and company with Gil Norton, who produced 1988’s The Color and the Shape, arguably the Foos’ best album. In the decade since that album, the Foo Fighters, or at least, Grohl, managed to stay in the fringes of the spotlight. Even though his band was content to play stadiums and festivals, Grohl worked the talk show circuit to the point I could envision him as Letterman’s successor somewhere down the line. Musically, though, Foo Fighters were doing little beyond last year’s fizzled live acoustic album Skin and Bones.

I was really looking forward to Echoes. I was anticipating a triumphant return to rock and roll. Barring that, I was hoping for a reenergized band. I was expecting. . .something more/

I’ve listened to this album several times, hoping it would grow on me. I’ve scrambled the tracks, played it full blast through Skullcandy headphones, tried it out for ambience, tweaked the balance—in short, tried everything the streaming audio offered. No matter what I tried, it still came out the same—there was nothing here I haven’t heard before.

It’s not that it’s a bad album. Even at its worst, Echoes still rocks more than much of the schlock on the radio. But that’s also the problem with it. It sounds as if it were tailored to stand out in a classic rock radio format. There’s nothing adventurous here—it goes from stadium rock standard fare to acoustic romance to bar band crowd pleasers. Like most of Foo Fighters’ work, it plays to an audience torn between Cheap Trick and Nirvana, filling a low end niche in classic rock.

Echoes isn’t terrible. But it could have been better.