Everything in a Blender
Monday, December 25, 2006
James, The Godfather, The hardest workin' man...is gone
James Brown died today. He was 73 years old, and he was still performing till pretty recently. In his lifetime, he'd contributed beyond measure to funk, R&B, rock...even disco. He was one of the few who could claim credit for having spawned a whole generation of black music—R&B, funk, rap, hip-hop, and more.
Eddie Murphy's impression of James is so spot on, it's..really quite amazing. On a sad day, Eddie's humor is..just what I needed to ..make me feel a little better, and to look fondly on the life of James Brown. There are other sad things happening in the world. We have the president of Iran—Ahmadinejad, sayin' all sorts of crazy things.
Doesn't his last name sound like a James Brown lyric?....Almost sounds like James saying "I have my dinner jacket"...or something. Tell me what YOU think that last name sounds like.
Check out the link. If you don't know James's work, listen to Eddie, then to some James Brown (especially any rendition of "I Feel Good" "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag", or " Sex Machine".)..The one they use in "Good Morning Vietnam" is the classic rendition of "I Feel Good")..The horn section is sharp on everything except the unison figures. And on a few of the unison figures, they sound just a little bit ahead of the beat..But we can forgive that.
(Doesn't James Brown look just a LITTLE like Richard Pryor in the "Sex Machine" video? The moustache at least?)
James sang, he danced..he rapped, he...was just ..a presence, a personality like we don't have today. We had Michael Jackson in 1982/83..He sang and danced like we hadn't seen before or since. But..there would not have been a Michael Jackson had James Brown not come before.
The younger of you reading this (assuming anyone's reading it) may see these videos, and hear this music for the first time and think you've heard it before, and done much "better". Well, James was the FIRST. In 1965, to release "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag", and a few years later "Sex Machine"....I mean...WOW...To just groove like that? No one had done that before. The only reason it may seem like old hat to the 20-somethings of 2006 or later, is because James did it first. Little Richard did for Rock and Roll what James Brown did for R&B and Funk.
He was also known for other things too...
That makes me think about James' less than flattering side. He was a wife beater, and a druggie. But that's his personal life. It doesn't speak of his art. He would sometimes try and redeem himself publicly by referencing his great contributions to music. Eh. I don't buy it. In that "Sonya" video, I doubt the listening /viewing public did either.
Picasso and Groucho Marx were both horrible misogynists. They were also unparalleled in their respective art forms. Do we throw away one of the greatest comedians of all time, and someone who changed everything about how we understand the visual arts because of some aspects of their personalities? Some folks say we should. I say we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater, when it's THIS baby.
So where do we draw the line? When does the bad stuff about a person become so bad that we have to put aside his/her positive contributions to the world? Does it take an O.J. Simpson? I think we can stop way before murder.
Michael Jackson? He took his offstage shenanigans too far, though. He did some bad things with kids. Talented though he may be, it's a tough sell. Many say he only acted as he did because of the abuses probably heaped on him when he was a child (star). Damn. I feel sorry for Michael, but...if you fondle/have sex with underage boys who don't have the ability to give consent, you..simply have gone too far, great talent or no.
So..where DO we draw the line? It's before OJ, that's clear. It's before Michael.
Do we forgive a guy for assault because he's a creative legend? I don't think so. It's not right to overlook those parts of James' personality, because he'd done something to another person without that person's consent. Ray Charles was similarly flawed (drugs, spousal abuse...Makes me wonder how the hell his wife couldn't have gotten away from him when he was aiming for her..but that's another story..).
Charlie Parker was a MAJOR smack addict. He died from his addictions, and the related medical problems they caused him. Charlie Parker who changed EVERYTHING for the saxophone, and (along with Dizzy Gillespie) took jazz in an unbelievable, complex and amazingly brilliant new direction.
Leads back to the philosophical question of..how do we separate the great artist from his/her flaws, and still look at the art objectively? Richard Pryor, classic wifebeater! The artist isn't excused or exempt from the laws and social conventions of the society in which they live. But they live in a world of their own. That's no excuse, of course.
You don't hear much about James Brown, Richard Pryor or Groucho Marx ever having tried to teach anyone how to be a good parent. Groucho brought his daughter on TV (top link). They looked really sweet together (Groucho, Melinda Marx, and Candice Bergen who was all of 11)..But that was showbusiness. He was just doing what he did best—being a showman. It was clear that he loved his daughter..but he really had sexist views about women in general.
I can forgive him of that because...oh my God, what a talent.
On this sad day, I think we can put aside, just for a short while, some of James' faults, and just mourn the loss of a great. I wonder what y'all have to say. Let me know.
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Monday, December 18, 2006
There is NOTHING new at all
My knowledge of sports is limited..at BEST. I really don't know much about sports except for what my older bother ("r" intentionally deleted) imposed upon me.
But I do know about the mess Reneé Richards got herself into in the 1970s as a tennis star.
UGH! What the fuck! So now this Indian track star's in a similar mess. She wins a championship race, and someone calls her on it, and she has to pass a "genetic test" after having won the race—not before having competed in it!
Is it fair that someone with the muscle mass, or chromosomal makeup of a male compete in a women's event? I have no idea. Is Reneé Richards a woman? Ask Reneé. I'll go by whatever she says she is. I don't know different, and I don't think it's anyone's place to tell who or what gender another person is.
As for the track star, and the tennis player? Oh, damn...Well, if one represents oneself as being one thing, and one KNOWS what the ramifications of that representation are, then..one had best be honest...or at least not blatantly dishonest.
But the cops don't have a sense of humor about that stuff. My favorite response to the question "Are you a man or a woman?" would be "No."...Sometimes "No" is a good, positive word. Freaks the hell out of people in that context, though. Don't try it with a cop. I'd be too scared if a cop ever stopped me.
In 1992, one of my favorite comics—Judy Gold—asked me, from the stage at The Comic Strip, "Are you a guy or a girl?"..I responded "I'm a transsexual". Without missing a beat she asked "Oh yeah? Which way ya goin'?".
That's a classy comic. A tranny is an easy target..a million jokes about penises or...gender identity, homosexuality, ..oh, you name it. She explored the human aspect. Kinda like the crowd-work equivalent of asking a tourist "Yeah, where are you from?"...She made it nice, AND she got a good laugh. Is that a joke at the tranny's expense? Maybe a little bit, but I didn't feel at ALL insulted. Judy was doing her job. I've always loved her crowd work!
Judy's one of those funny people who, if you asked them to recite the alphabet could make it funny. I bet Judy would do some accents, or voices. Judy's SO great on HBO's At The Multiplex with Judy Gold!
Eddie Murphy could do it as James Brown, Little Richard, Stevie Wonder, Rick James, Frank Sinatra, Moms Mabley, or something. Jack Lemmon was one of those actors who..could read the alphabet and probably make it funny and interesting.
But shit, back to this other tranny thing. Is the track star a tranny? Oh, I don't know. I don't much care, really. I'm just upset that none of this stuff has changed. Are men going to win against women every time? It would suck if it were true. Should Mike Tyson be put in the ring with Muhammad Ali's daughter, Laila? Fuck, no! But...she wouldn't ask to be. Oh, I don't know. I don't like any of it...but..if the qualifying test had happened before the match/event and not after, I wouldn't be so upset about. But of course, this one isn't about me.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
It's been a long, long time
I miss this. This blogging thing is fun. It's cathartic, and I don't even have to use a catheter.
I started editing, proofreading, and publishing my mother's memoir-blog, and it brought back my blogging jones.
So what's happened in the 26 months since my last entry?
Well, in no particular order:
- I moved.
Frankly, I'd have been much more impressed if my then-landlord had buddied up with the Corleone Family..or even the Tataglias. At least the neighborhood would have been safe, and maybe Al Pacino would have paid a visit now and again.
Ya ready for the punchline? The staff of Extell Development is at least partly Orthodox Jewish, and partly Israeli. So..let's review: Osama Bin Ladin's relatives are in an indirect partnership with Orthodox Jews—the ones blamed by Osama for having "inspired" him to blow up the World Trade Center. Talk about bad management of New York real estate! These bastards can't be trusted. Then again, maybe my building is safe from future bombing now. Who knows?
In any event, that company played mean, and illegally, and I didn't want any part of it. I'm not a fighter.
So now I live in Harlem, in a developing neighborhood. ("Developing neighborhood" is a euphemism for Manhattan neighborhood that is not yet developed). The building isn't bad. The apartment's great, and has the same rent as the old place. This apartment's a lot bigger, and much nicer. The landlord's Jewish, and doesn't have any Muslim-extremist partners. A Jewish landlord? Who woulda thunk it? In New YORK yet.
But seriously, folks: The move was expensive. It was also worth it. I may have to live on something closer to an austerity budget; I may be farther away from some of the things I really love; but overall, the move was a good one.
What else has happened?
- I've seen a lot of great comedy
Yeah, I know..I'm always writing about comedy...Perhaps it's an avoidance mechanism. Then again, perhaps I'm just a comedy fan who loves to share it with her friends.
Right around the time of my last post, I started going to The Laugh Lounge—a great comedy club on Manhattan's Lower East Side—a whole lot. The website may not be any great shakes today (see the date of this post), but check back in a few months.
When I lived 4 blocks from the club, I went there about once every three weeks. Now it's a bit more of a trek, but it's still worth it. It's a real surprise who'll show up at shows there. I missed Colin Quinn once. But I saw him recently at Joy Behar's show at The Metropolitan Room. Joy's lost her edge. Mostly, she talked about guests on The View. Eh! She did a friggin' song parody! She had some good jokes too, and made some good points, but it certainly wasn't revolutionary. Judy Gold and Colin Quinn were at the table behind me. Those two are old school comics, and probably just came to the show to support their friend. That's nice.
I saw Paula Poundstone live again in April, 2005 in White Plains, NY. She was great. Her opening joke asked why the name of the town in which she was performing was "White Plains"..She suggested it might be a reflection of the people who lived there. That got a good laugh.
Paula has a book out now. It's pretty funny. It reminds me a bit of Jonathan Katz's To-Do Lists of the Dead. Jonathan's book is more to-the-point, though. Paula has bits of her standup in her book, incorporated with shortened biographies of famous dead people. She finds ways to relate stories of the famous dead people to her own life.
I've seen Jaffe Cohen, Judy Gold, Lisa Lampanelli, and many comics at The Laugh Lounge a whole bunch of times. Jim Mendrinos is really funny, and he performed and MC'd at my holiday party this year. Jaffe Cohen was the closer, and Natalie Gray was in between them. Jaffe absolutely KILLED. He is an old-school style, openly-gay, borscht-belt comic. You don't see that every day. He really hits home with a lot of things.
The audience was a combination of Orthodox Jews, those who work with Orthodox Jews, formerly Orthodox Jews, (are you seeing a theme here?) some conservative Jews, many gay-friendly people, a handful of actual gay people, and a few plain old, white, WASP hetero folk. Jaffe read his audience pretty quickly, and..went for the gay material, the Jewish material...and he blew the room apart. There were only about 45 people in the audience. The party maxxed out at 56, but 11 had left before the standup show had begun. Shame, that!
Okay. More later!
