Fred Astaire popped into my head (as he often does, gracefully!) Massively talented, of course, but from what I've read (and I haven't looked much, perhaps fearing I'd find something bad) he also seemed to be just a genuinely nice guy. A perfectionist who worked his collaborators almost to death, but nobody more than himself.
A story I like about Astaire is that after he got too old for the dance, he took up drumming in a more serious way (he was always a talented drummer, you can see that in a couple numbers, in Easter Parade and Damsel in Distress, and one thing people always remarked on was his amazing sense of rhythm, how he wasn't chained to the beat of the music, could move easily ahead of it, then behind, often changing the beat within a single number.) But anyway, I take great joy and comfort from imagining Fred in retirement, in the basement of his Hollywood home, some jazz record on the Webcor stereo, just poundin' away on a drum kit for his own amusement.
Back in the mid-'90s, I worked room service at a super hip, swanky hotel (hippest at the time... Delano, Miami Beach, FL when it first opened... owned by Ian Schrager of Studio 54 fame).
So many celebrities stayed there! I took room service to Harrison Ford! Cindy Crawford! Dennis Hopper! So many more. Spike Lee was there a lot. I don't mean to psychoanalyze, but Lee ordered room service pretty often and he was usually there with his family and kids. He seemed like a miserable bastard. Always came off as being in a foul mood... never rude or shitty towards us exactly... but he never seemed like he was fucking enjoying himself staying at this gorgeous place on a postcard beach with 4-star food. All of us waiters had the same take on the guy, no matter which day, what time of day.
It's always entertaining/enlightening to hear negative things about celebrities/people way above us normal folk, but my "why?" was directed at the OP. Why David Byrne? (I'll probably agree with you!) And Spike Lee? Same, man. Speak
I worked with Spike a bunch of times, and I have many actor friends who have worked in his movies, and yes, he can be a cranky mess.
I’m wondering if he was in the throes of getting divorced when he was at that hotel…he was EXTRA salty then.
As for Byrne - he can be a total asshole at times - I let it go because he’s so high on The Spectrum.
I am pretty sure of this via what I’ve learned while getting my degrees in education, and seeing how he’s behaved on stage, encounters friends have had with him, and in interviews.
Many years ago, while I was standing at the edge of the sidewalk on Greenwich, about to cross 6th, he clipped my arm and knocked my bag off, as he FLEW by on his infamous white bicycle, dressed in white from head to toe, no helmet.
I yelled, “GET BACK HERE DAVID BYRNE, YOU JACKASS!” and after a few feet, he slammed on his pedals, and circled back, very slowly.
When he got back to me he stopped, got off of his bike, put the kickstand down, walked up to me and apologized. “Sorry, I was thinking of something and got a little giddy.”
“What the fuck David, you don’t have a helmet on?!?
If you hit me harder, you could have flown off the bike, landed on your head, and had your eggs PERMANENTLY SCRAMBLED!
Wear a fucking helmet man, get your head out of your ass!”
He just stared for a few, seemingly very long seconds.
“I will. I’m REALLY sorry. You have cool hair, I love your look.”
I stared at him.
“I know how your brain works David…for fucks sake, BE CAREFUL!”
He extended his hand, I reached out to shake it, and he did, very slowly, then pulled me in for a hug. He apologized again, slowly got back on his bike, and slowly rode away.
Fast forward to his Broadway show American Utopia (Spike directed the film!) when I DJ’d the after party, where he recognized me again, and just said,
“Hey! I still have my helmet!”
“That’s great David, I’m glad you’re being more careful!”
Then, not long after that, I DJ’d a party for Here Lies Love, and he remembered me again, pointing to his head, saying, “My eggs are still intact!”
I’m a bad fit for this Fun Friday, as one of my guiding principles is Put Not Your Trust In Princes. So I try to remain as oblivious as possible, or when that’s impossible at least detached, about the lives of actors/musicians/artists whose work I enjoy. This goes double for the politicians I vote for, as I have an intrinsic mistrust of anyone who makes politics a career, especially above the local level. Obviously, some information about famous people will seep through anyway, but I remain partially skeptical.
As a result, I usually only learn someone whose work I’ve enjoyed or admired is a genuine mensch AFTER they’ve passed, when the kind of tributes that come pouring in from people who actually knew them vouch for the fact they were by and large one of the good guys.
But I'll be interested to hear what others have to say here. Good topic, Roy!
" have an intrinsic mistrust of anyone who makes politics a career, especially above the local level."
Amen. As for "local level", our city's Common Council met a few days ago, one item on the agenda was a resolution in support of the student protesters and their encampment, it failed to pass on an 8-8 tie, public testimony in favor and against went on for HOURS, aided by the fact that the Council, since the pandemic, has kept a hybrid meeting format that allows the public to testify from Zoom. Consequently, the meeting went on til the wee, small hours of the morning. But that "consequently" isn't quite right, because EVERY Council meeting goes that long. Public testimony on all matters is always the first item of business so mere citizens can have their say and still get to bed at a decent hour, but the Council members, of course, have to be there to the end. These people, even when I heartily disagree with them, are Saints of Democracy.
Nothing can make you dispair the fate of democracy, humanity, and the universe like sitting in the audience of a city council meeting. The 7th circle of Hell with fluorescent lighting.
I get the opposite feeling, maybe Madison is just a magical exception to the norm*, if it is, please don't tell me.
*It's not unusual here to see a race for City Council where there are three people running for an open seat and they're ALL good, and the struggle is how to choose between them. Do others not have this problem?
The first vote I ever cast was for Carter. And while his administration was less than a resounding success, he has both lived up to and epitomized the ideals one might hope would govern the lives of our other would-be leaders. He is, without doubt, America's greater former president.
Reluctantly I rise to speak ill of the almost dead: Deregulation of trucking and airlines that set the destruction of organized labor up as a slow, sweet pitch over the heart of the plate for one Ronald Wilson Reagan. Signing on to Mika Brzezinski's dad's clever plan to "Give the Russians their own Vietnam."
Staying away from the philosophers, scientists, humorists and novelists because the list is too long but will fall short of being complete, I’ll propose James Garner, an actor whose presence made every movie and TV show (and Polaroid ad!) he appeared in better than it deserved to be. And apparently a real mensch at home and on the job (I hope I never hear otherwise).
Rockford Files fan here, so this gets a big yes from me. Sticking around to watch an RF rerun one afternoon kept me from coming back home to a pile of ashes (the wiring to the clothes dryer shorted out and started a fire in the wall, which I noticed because I was watching The Rockford FIles...).
To make that event even stranger: The episode I was watching is about a group of older guys who come out to LA in an effort to "take care of" a girl from their town who has damaging information about them, and their cover story for the trip was to buy a firetruck.
Apparently he *was* a mensch… Julie Andrews once wrote about working with him in THE ANERICANIZATION OF EMILY and it makes one of my fave movies seem even better
There's a scene in which Rockford and Angel are hiding from some mobster types in a warehouse, and right when you think they're gonna pull it off, Angel leaps up and starts yelling, "Shoot 'im, Jimmy, SHOOT 'Im!!!" I was howling at that one.
LOL - I once saw a blooper reel from that show, and Stuart cracked everyone up. A LOTTA takes to get through scripts, and I think that’s what he was only on every once in a while.
I'd like to add the proto-Garner, Robert Ryan, to this discussion (two guys who carried "rugged good looks" to an absolute extreme.) Ryan was the classic Hollywood Liberal, always ready to sign on to a Good Cause, and one consequence of that for his career was getting slotted into some roles as absolute shits. Crossfire, for example, an important post-war film about antisemitism, but who should we get to play the hateful antisemite? Ryan stepped willingly into that role, and made it great. I think because he believed in the message of this "message film", but also because Ryan would play ANYONE, he never acted as if he had a "brand" to protect, and consequently the brand he got stuck with was "psycho."
If anyone is looking for more Robert Ryan, there's the Anthony Mann western The Naked Spur, with Jimmy Stewart, and Clash By Night, a Barbra Stanwyck movie based on a Clifford Odets play. Oh, and a Joan Fontaine film, Born to Be Bad, which lives up to its awesome title, and allows Ryan (for once) to play a sympathetic character.
Ringo and Charlie. For me, way back when doing covers, these were the hardest guys to copy. Charlie was my inspiration (Stones fan). Any drumming I've ever done was informed first and foremost by Charlie (somebody's got to keep these assholes playing in time, somebody has to understand meter, and somebody has to not give a shit about being the star of the show). There is nobody in the world who could sound like Charlie while covering a Stones tune. It can't be done. Ringo... man, I've heard fellow drummers slag Ringo and Charlie: "Charlie just keeps the beat"; "Ringo is just the Beatles drummer." Like. "Ringo is just the Beatles dummer" is some kind of fucking insult? Ringo, in my opinion, was an extremely musical drummer. Fuckin dude knew what to play on every note of every tune. The Beatles would have sucked without Ringo. Ringo is probably the most copied drummer on rock/pop history. Sadly, I'll never meet Charlie Watts, but if I ever met Ringo Starr, I'd probably faint
I know way more people than I should who think "Ringo's a shitty drummer." I know it's an opinion, it's just one that's not backed by reality. The other Beatles knew exactly what they were doing and getting when they swapped Pete Best out for Ringo. He played beats no one else would ever have thought to do, and they fit the songs perfectly.
I think it was Denis Leary (and a couple of decades ago!) was ribbing Richards about an anti-drug-abuse PSA. „Keith Richards is on teevee: ‚Kods, don‘t do drugs.‘ We CAN‘T, Keith, ‚cos you took ‚em all!“
I used to disdain Ringo, and sometimes think his playing is a catalogue of missed opportunities for transitions. But I realized his time was terrific, his use of the semi-open/sloshy hi-hat really contributed to their sound, his creative stuff (In My Life) was excellent, and his personality fit in with those of the other lads. I met and actually wrote for Ringo when I did a lot of scripts for Shining Time Station (kids' PBS show). As nice as you'd hope.
Speaking of heroes, my first drum god was/is Dave Mattacks, of Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson, XTC, etc. We met and became friends, so there's THAT.
It really annoys me when people say that he wasn’t a good drummer.
Ringo is a great drummer who kinda invented techniques, because he is a lefty who played on a right-handed kit, which I talked about with him when I met him.
He was shook, and I got the “because what do Black girls know about Rock & Roll, let alone him or how he played” (which is a look I STILL get to this day when talking to famous White guy musicians. It can’t be helped because, America) and once he got past that, he opened up.
Super nice man.
But remember, NO AUTOGRAPHS!! Just “Peace and Love✌🏾” and a hug.
For me of late, it's a group of nerdy-ass voice actors who get their geek on every Thursday, and have taken control of their art and destiny like no one else, and seem to be genuinely good people. Critical Role started out as a group of professional voice actors active in animation and video games. One of them, Matt Mercer, had played Dungeons and Dragons since middle school. As a birthday gift to one of his friends, Liam O'Brian, he agreed to run a one-shot, a DnD game that lasts just one session, for Liam and some friends. They all got hooked.
After about two years of play in their homes, Felicia Day asked if they'd like to stream it on the new Twitch channel Geek and Sundry. They never thought anyone would want to just watch them play Dungeons and Dragons for hours, but hey, why not?
Almost ten years later, the eight members of Critical Role are on their third campaign (each campaign is really just one long shared story they create together every Thursday). From the beginning, as actors in a rather brutal field, voice acting, they knew that for anything they created they wanted complete control and ownership. A couple of years in, they split from the Twitch channel on which they started and began their own company, Critical Role Productions. A few years ago, pre-pandemic, the decided to see if they could raise enough money to make a 20-minute animated special from their first campaign, called Vox Machina (Voice in the Machine, a nod to their voice acting). Instead of the $750,000 they wanted to raise, in less than 24 hours they raised over $3 Million, and ended up with over $11 Million raised from their rabid fans called Critters. Amazon then agreed to their terms (complete control over the content of the series) and picked it up and made it into two 12-episode seasons out on Amazon Prime. "The Legend of Vox Machina" did so well, the third seasons is due out this fall, and their second campaign, The Mighty Nein is in production. And just yesterday, they announced that they continue keeping the control of their own art by started their own subscription service, so as to not be reliant upon the whims of some mega-corp to keep their content up there. (beacon.tv) They've also been featured in Fortune and just yesterday, The Washington Post.
So, they're successful, and loved and near gods in the niche Table Top Role Playing (TTRPG) world. They've managed to keep authentic to what's important to themselves, and retain control of their own art and destinies. That's all admirable, but what makes them part of my pantheon is not their success, or creativity, both of which they have in spades, but it's the people who make up the group.
From the beginning, they have been not just role playing but also role modeling. The TTRPG space was known, in the past, for a fair amount of misogyny, subtle (and not so subtle) racism, and gate keeping. Critical Role actively challenges that stereotype. They have also, from the first moment they formed their own company, wanted to give back. They raised so much money for charities they ended up forming their own charitable foundation. For the past couple of years they've run a one-shot for Red Nose Day, twice with Stephen Colbert. They care about each other, and they care about their community. They're just good people being their authentic nerdy selves, creating fun and feelings and adventure and just damned good stories. And for that, they're on my list.
My hot take is that Matt Mercer was a fairly mediocre DM. He is great at description of the room and environment, but he rarely kept up with what his players were doing and to me, that led to the departure of, to me, a good player. I haven't watched CR in several years so maybe he got better
I’d toss out Leonard Nimoy. I was, and still am, a huge Trek fan and by all reports he was a genuinely good guy. Quite the contrast to the asshole Shatner turned out to be.
Taylor Swift and Beyoncé are badasses. They're doing it their way and winning. Taylor's rerecording her albums to screw the record companies that we're trying to screw her was a total boss move. Her and Beyoncé are generous with credit and pay for their teams. All of this in addition to being talented AF.
Honestly, I'd rather listen to Steely Dan and nothing else than any music Albini had something to do with. Still, he sounded like he was an upright man.
It took me years to appreciate Steely Dan because they didn't "rock" like whoever. Hopefully you can someday appreciate Nirvana, etc. because they didn't "suck"
Yeah, I hate this "Why I, as an informed and awesome person, hate band/movie/thing XYZ." bullshit. I love Steely Dan and I love many of the artists and music Albini produced ("engineered!!"). Pompous, shitty behavior, but I guess that's who he was. I happen to know a person whose brother was one of Albini's assistants (yes I really am in Chicago!) and apparently Albini was a good guy to work with. So there's that.
As William Holden says to Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday: "The idea is to get bigger, not smaller!" I admire people who can look into a thing closely and FIND stuff that's good.
I don't hate Steely Dan but Albini's description of them is still pretty spot on: "music made for the sole purpose of letting the wedding band stretch out.”
When Albini was playing in the Chicago punk scene, Steely Dan & “yacht rock” was the popular music style to rebel against —Albini’s music was angular, proto-industrial, quick, savagely satirical, & high-bpm. His lyrics were minimalist, often to the point of giving a listener a chance to miss the point completely. And anger — lots & lots of anger.
OTH, Fagin & Becker did long-form, languid, jazz-fusion, densely intellectual, virtuosic, softer & slower. Just as alienated, but in a more bemused way, resigned. Everything punk was not.
There’s room in my heart for both — and always has been. Sometimes more, sometime less from year to year, but I love them both. But I’ll perform “Black Cow” & then “Kerosene” at the same karaoke night.
Thanks for the Steve Albini talk. I heard Big Black soon after they came out, and quite liked it. But I also saw and read some things Albini said that really raised an eyebrow. I had to do a pretty serious amount of "separate the art from the artist" for a long time. Maybe 18 years ago, though, I talked to him after a show, and he was gracious and still seemed to really appreciate that people would come out to see his band play. The thing that really cemented his rep for me was that Twitter thread a couple of years ago, wherein he talked about reckoning with his part in coarsening our society (the "edgelord" thing). I've, unfortunately, known a few people who *really* love that "extreme" thing that he liked to do and promote, and they'll never give that up. But they'll never have the reckoning that he did, and that's why I find it relatively easy to just not make the effort to stay in touch with those people.
I absolutely agree. Albini’s ability to identify his own shitty behaviors/attitudes/actions and to do his best to atone for them and counteract their effect, makes him a fantastic example of how to mature gracefully, without sacrificing principles in the process. He still raised a righteous middle finger to the industry up to the end.
I worked with Tom Hanks just before he hit. He was funny like breathing, and a genuinely nice person. He seems to have retained his basic decency, and his acting has just gotten better over the years.
I grew up on my dad's folk revival records and had the opportunity to meet Pete Seeger when I worked on the no nukes concerts. He too seemed to me to be a man of endless creativity and good principle.
When I worked in the Art Department at Tower Sunset in West Hollywood in the mid ‘80s, I met Mr. Albini while he was looking through some albums in the main store.
As usual, I was the only person who recognized him (I think it’s a combination of my hawkeyes and the “It Factor” energy that celebrities have), so I walked over and asked him if he needed any help.
He said, “Yes, can you do something about all of this shitty music?” I laughed, he scowled, and we spoke for about 15 minutes…well really, he complained for about 15 minutes, and I got some words in - asking him about the cover of “The Model”, which I dig, along with the album cover graphic. Songs About Fucking - 19 songs in less than 30 minutes!
I miss those days.
He was a super cranky Rodney Dangerfield, a lot of good laughs.
Yesterday on IG, I posted one of my “R.I.P.” collages/obits that I make when an important famous person dies, and some rando jumped in the thread, screaming about Steve being a “picture pedophile” - something I’d NEVER heard before.
Of course this person posted a link to Reddit - which is something I avoid like the plague - but I looked at it, and after about 10 minutes or so, as usual with Reddit, I didn’t know what to believe, because it (supposed quotes of his about it) seemed to be debunked by a lot of people.
I deleted his post in my thread and blocked him.
I really HATE Reddit, because that seems to be the norm there…mass confusion.
Have any of you heard about this side of him? I would think that it would have been BLASTED all over the place, and ruined his career, right?
Now I’m off to make another collage about Dennis Thompson, who died yesterday morning.
Ooh, did you click on that "Worst people in the world" link? I almost did, but now that I know that McCardle is at the end of it, I'm happy that I made the right decision.
Hey! She's an A-list grifter and bullshit artist, I'll have you know! One example: her solution to school shootings was to have the kids charge the shooter! Genius!
She’s one of those “casual” name droppers, apparently intent on demonstrating her socio-conomic “superiority.” She has zero class, actually, but is given to much swanning around as if she’s one of the Astors.
She can be a reliable source of humor, but only when taken indirectly. Let someone else do the shit-work of actually reading her and picking out the laugh-worthy bits.
There's a guy on Twitter who's spent the last two days crashing threads mourning Albini and saying "No, he never really changed, he was a racist pedophile until he died." His proof is a quote from a Forced Exposure column where Albini writes about encountering Odd Future (remember them?) and the N-word is bandied about. I think it's clear from the context that Albini was quoting the language that the members of Odd Future used; the Albini hater doubts it and says I'm "insane" for thinking it. Oh, and he also did a post meant to prove that only white guys cared about Albini, and one of the photos he used was mine. That'll teach me!
Well,it wasn't just me. It was me and three other white guys who said nice things about Albini. The point being that only white guys cared about Albini, so no one else should care about his death, I guess. As I pointed out back at Elmo's Enshittification Emporium, it would be interesting to ask the members of This Moment in Black History (one of the bands Albini worked with) what they think about all this.
They're all dead...
Who? Details, please!
Eleanor Roosevelt was more awesome than we'll ever know, probly.
But for sheer cussedness in the face of down-punchers:
• Ambrose Bierce
• George Seldes
• IF Stone
Up-punchers of distinction, all managed to lead worthwhile lives, pissing off the power-mongers for decades...
All the people who died, died
They're all my friends they died
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRGWavWPRNM
Fred Astaire popped into my head (as he often does, gracefully!) Massively talented, of course, but from what I've read (and I haven't looked much, perhaps fearing I'd find something bad) he also seemed to be just a genuinely nice guy. A perfectionist who worked his collaborators almost to death, but nobody more than himself.
A story I like about Astaire is that after he got too old for the dance, he took up drumming in a more serious way (he was always a talented drummer, you can see that in a couple numbers, in Easter Parade and Damsel in Distress, and one thing people always remarked on was his amazing sense of rhythm, how he wasn't chained to the beat of the music, could move easily ahead of it, then behind, often changing the beat within a single number.) But anyway, I take great joy and comfort from imagining Fred in retirement, in the basement of his Hollywood home, some jazz record on the Webcor stereo, just poundin' away on a drum kit for his own amusement.
David Byrne. And Spike Lee (when he’s not being an asshole).
Why?
Back in the mid-'90s, I worked room service at a super hip, swanky hotel (hippest at the time... Delano, Miami Beach, FL when it first opened... owned by Ian Schrager of Studio 54 fame).
So many celebrities stayed there! I took room service to Harrison Ford! Cindy Crawford! Dennis Hopper! So many more. Spike Lee was there a lot. I don't mean to psychoanalyze, but Lee ordered room service pretty often and he was usually there with his family and kids. He seemed like a miserable bastard. Always came off as being in a foul mood... never rude or shitty towards us exactly... but he never seemed like he was fucking enjoying himself staying at this gorgeous place on a postcard beach with 4-star food. All of us waiters had the same take on the guy, no matter which day, what time of day.
It's always entertaining/enlightening to hear negative things about celebrities/people way above us normal folk, but my "why?" was directed at the OP. Why David Byrne? (I'll probably agree with you!) And Spike Lee? Same, man. Speak
I worked with Spike a bunch of times, and I have many actor friends who have worked in his movies, and yes, he can be a cranky mess.
I’m wondering if he was in the throes of getting divorced when he was at that hotel…he was EXTRA salty then.
As for Byrne - he can be a total asshole at times - I let it go because he’s so high on The Spectrum.
I am pretty sure of this via what I’ve learned while getting my degrees in education, and seeing how he’s behaved on stage, encounters friends have had with him, and in interviews.
Many years ago, while I was standing at the edge of the sidewalk on Greenwich, about to cross 6th, he clipped my arm and knocked my bag off, as he FLEW by on his infamous white bicycle, dressed in white from head to toe, no helmet.
I yelled, “GET BACK HERE DAVID BYRNE, YOU JACKASS!” and after a few feet, he slammed on his pedals, and circled back, very slowly.
When he got back to me he stopped, got off of his bike, put the kickstand down, walked up to me and apologized. “Sorry, I was thinking of something and got a little giddy.”
“What the fuck David, you don’t have a helmet on?!?
If you hit me harder, you could have flown off the bike, landed on your head, and had your eggs PERMANENTLY SCRAMBLED!
Wear a fucking helmet man, get your head out of your ass!”
He just stared for a few, seemingly very long seconds.
“I will. I’m REALLY sorry. You have cool hair, I love your look.”
I stared at him.
“I know how your brain works David…for fucks sake, BE CAREFUL!”
He extended his hand, I reached out to shake it, and he did, very slowly, then pulled me in for a hug. He apologized again, slowly got back on his bike, and slowly rode away.
Fast forward to his Broadway show American Utopia (Spike directed the film!) when I DJ’d the after party, where he recognized me again, and just said,
“Hey! I still have my helmet!”
“That’s great David, I’m glad you’re being more careful!”
Then, not long after that, I DJ’d a party for Here Lies Love, and he remembered me again, pointing to his head, saying, “My eggs are still intact!”
He’s a kooky dude.
<3<3<3
I’m a bad fit for this Fun Friday, as one of my guiding principles is Put Not Your Trust In Princes. So I try to remain as oblivious as possible, or when that’s impossible at least detached, about the lives of actors/musicians/artists whose work I enjoy. This goes double for the politicians I vote for, as I have an intrinsic mistrust of anyone who makes politics a career, especially above the local level. Obviously, some information about famous people will seep through anyway, but I remain partially skeptical.
As a result, I usually only learn someone whose work I’ve enjoyed or admired is a genuine mensch AFTER they’ve passed, when the kind of tributes that come pouring in from people who actually knew them vouch for the fact they were by and large one of the good guys.
But I'll be interested to hear what others have to say here. Good topic, Roy!
" have an intrinsic mistrust of anyone who makes politics a career, especially above the local level."
Amen. As for "local level", our city's Common Council met a few days ago, one item on the agenda was a resolution in support of the student protesters and their encampment, it failed to pass on an 8-8 tie, public testimony in favor and against went on for HOURS, aided by the fact that the Council, since the pandemic, has kept a hybrid meeting format that allows the public to testify from Zoom. Consequently, the meeting went on til the wee, small hours of the morning. But that "consequently" isn't quite right, because EVERY Council meeting goes that long. Public testimony on all matters is always the first item of business so mere citizens can have their say and still get to bed at a decent hour, but the Council members, of course, have to be there to the end. These people, even when I heartily disagree with them, are Saints of Democracy.
Nothing can make you dispair the fate of democracy, humanity, and the universe like sitting in the audience of a city council meeting. The 7th circle of Hell with fluorescent lighting.
I get the opposite feeling, maybe Madison is just a magical exception to the norm*, if it is, please don't tell me.
*It's not unusual here to see a race for City Council where there are three people running for an open seat and they're ALL good, and the struggle is how to choose between them. Do others not have this problem?
I'm thinking of the public comments. The councilmembers have the patience of saints.
So... like the internet, then? "Whatever you do, DON'T LOOK IN THE COMMENTS."
NOW YOU TELL ME!
I'll be that guy: James Earl Carter, Jr.
The first vote I ever cast was for Carter. And while his administration was less than a resounding success, he has both lived up to and epitomized the ideals one might hope would govern the lives of our other would-be leaders. He is, without doubt, America's greater former president.
OK, I can get onboard with this. He's not dead, but his life speaks for itself at this point.
I think that's a good call.
Reluctantly I rise to speak ill of the almost dead: Deregulation of trucking and airlines that set the destruction of organized labor up as a slow, sweet pitch over the heart of the plate for one Ronald Wilson Reagan. Signing on to Mika Brzezinski's dad's clever plan to "Give the Russians their own Vietnam."
Staying away from the philosophers, scientists, humorists and novelists because the list is too long but will fall short of being complete, I’ll propose James Garner, an actor whose presence made every movie and TV show (and Polaroid ad!) he appeared in better than it deserved to be. And apparently a real mensch at home and on the job (I hope I never hear otherwise).
Garner seems to have been a lifelong mensch, which shows in his screen presence. Met his wife at an Adlai Stevenson campaign event. March on Washington participant, SAG activist, and more. https://www.goiam.org/news/iam-remembers-actor-james-garner-for-his-union-activism/
That’s what I’m talking about! I once wondered, “What if Garner had been our Hollywood actor POTUS instead of Reagan?”
Or Melvyn Douglas.
Garner and Jack Lemmon had a go at it in My Fellow Americans.
Rockford Files fan here, so this gets a big yes from me. Sticking around to watch an RF rerun one afternoon kept me from coming back home to a pile of ashes (the wiring to the clothes dryer shorted out and started a fire in the wall, which I noticed because I was watching The Rockford FIles...).
James Garner’s power reaches across the karmic ether!
To make that event even stranger: The episode I was watching is about a group of older guys who come out to LA in an effort to "take care of" a girl from their town who has damaging information about them, and their cover story for the trip was to buy a firetruck.
Apparently he *was* a mensch… Julie Andrews once wrote about working with him in THE ANERICANIZATION OF EMILY and it makes one of my fave movies seem even better
“Hello Rockfish”
Isaac Hayes was so good on that show.
He’s a guy I admired for his music and being Truck Turner, but never understood his religious stuff.
My wife and i have been watching RF-the stories are terrible but hilarious to watch, and Rockfish is our code word!
It used to be my “safe word”😆🤣😂
Angel was my favorite side character. Such a conniver.
YES, Stuart was GREAT!
There's a scene in which Rockford and Angel are hiding from some mobster types in a warehouse, and right when you think they're gonna pull it off, Angel leaps up and starts yelling, "Shoot 'im, Jimmy, SHOOT 'Im!!!" I was howling at that one.
LOL - I once saw a blooper reel from that show, and Stuart cracked everyone up. A LOTTA takes to get through scripts, and I think that’s what he was only on every once in a while.
Thanks for the suggestion, I'm gonna go watch Grand Prix again.
I'd like to add the proto-Garner, Robert Ryan, to this discussion (two guys who carried "rugged good looks" to an absolute extreme.) Ryan was the classic Hollywood Liberal, always ready to sign on to a Good Cause, and one consequence of that for his career was getting slotted into some roles as absolute shits. Crossfire, for example, an important post-war film about antisemitism, but who should we get to play the hateful antisemite? Ryan stepped willingly into that role, and made it great. I think because he believed in the message of this "message film", but also because Ryan would play ANYONE, he never acted as if he had a "brand" to protect, and consequently the brand he got stuck with was "psycho."
If anyone is looking for more Robert Ryan, there's the Anthony Mann western The Naked Spur, with Jimmy Stewart, and Clash By Night, a Barbra Stanwyck movie based on a Clifford Odets play. Oh, and a Joan Fontaine film, Born to Be Bad, which lives up to its awesome title, and allows Ryan (for once) to play a sympathetic character.
LOVED HIM!
I met him in LA when I worked for Tower Sunset. He was super cool.
John Coltrane.
Some commentary/explanation seems in order here. Not disputing Coltrane's genius or anything. But why for you?
No one, because I'm one of those for whom "hero" is a dirty word. At the same time, anyone who risks anything to work for justice.
Honestly, that sounds like you'd deny a personal hero and are looking for a superhero
Ringo and Charlie. For me, way back when doing covers, these were the hardest guys to copy. Charlie was my inspiration (Stones fan). Any drumming I've ever done was informed first and foremost by Charlie (somebody's got to keep these assholes playing in time, somebody has to understand meter, and somebody has to not give a shit about being the star of the show). There is nobody in the world who could sound like Charlie while covering a Stones tune. It can't be done. Ringo... man, I've heard fellow drummers slag Ringo and Charlie: "Charlie just keeps the beat"; "Ringo is just the Beatles drummer." Like. "Ringo is just the Beatles dummer" is some kind of fucking insult? Ringo, in my opinion, was an extremely musical drummer. Fuckin dude knew what to play on every note of every tune. The Beatles would have sucked without Ringo. Ringo is probably the most copied drummer on rock/pop history. Sadly, I'll never meet Charlie Watts, but if I ever met Ringo Starr, I'd probably faint
I know way more people than I should who think "Ringo's a shitty drummer." I know it's an opinion, it's just one that's not backed by reality. The other Beatles knew exactly what they were doing and getting when they swapped Pete Best out for Ringo. He played beats no one else would ever have thought to do, and they fit the songs perfectly.
From the way he looks at 83, Ringo’s gonna live forever.
What's that meme? "We need to think about what kind of world we're leaving for Keith Richards."
"Keith Richards has two young daughters. When they dies, he will inherit everything."
I think it was Denis Leary (and a couple of decades ago!) was ribbing Richards about an anti-drug-abuse PSA. „Keith Richards is on teevee: ‚Kods, don‘t do drugs.‘ We CAN‘T, Keith, ‚cos you took ‚em all!“
From all accounts, Ringo is a lovely person as well.
I used to disdain Ringo, and sometimes think his playing is a catalogue of missed opportunities for transitions. But I realized his time was terrific, his use of the semi-open/sloshy hi-hat really contributed to their sound, his creative stuff (In My Life) was excellent, and his personality fit in with those of the other lads. I met and actually wrote for Ringo when I did a lot of scripts for Shining Time Station (kids' PBS show). As nice as you'd hope.
Speaking of heroes, my first drum god was/is Dave Mattacks, of Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson, XTC, etc. We met and became friends, so there's THAT.
At the very least Ringo was certainly better than Pete Best
No kidding! He played with Eno, too, didn‘t he?
It really annoys me when people say that he wasn’t a good drummer.
Ringo is a great drummer who kinda invented techniques, because he is a lefty who played on a right-handed kit, which I talked about with him when I met him.
He was shook, and I got the “because what do Black girls know about Rock & Roll, let alone him or how he played” (which is a look I STILL get to this day when talking to famous White guy musicians. It can’t be helped because, America) and once he got past that, he opened up.
Super nice man.
But remember, NO AUTOGRAPHS!! Just “Peace and Love✌🏾” and a hug.
For me of late, it's a group of nerdy-ass voice actors who get their geek on every Thursday, and have taken control of their art and destiny like no one else, and seem to be genuinely good people. Critical Role started out as a group of professional voice actors active in animation and video games. One of them, Matt Mercer, had played Dungeons and Dragons since middle school. As a birthday gift to one of his friends, Liam O'Brian, he agreed to run a one-shot, a DnD game that lasts just one session, for Liam and some friends. They all got hooked.
After about two years of play in their homes, Felicia Day asked if they'd like to stream it on the new Twitch channel Geek and Sundry. They never thought anyone would want to just watch them play Dungeons and Dragons for hours, but hey, why not?
Almost ten years later, the eight members of Critical Role are on their third campaign (each campaign is really just one long shared story they create together every Thursday). From the beginning, as actors in a rather brutal field, voice acting, they knew that for anything they created they wanted complete control and ownership. A couple of years in, they split from the Twitch channel on which they started and began their own company, Critical Role Productions. A few years ago, pre-pandemic, the decided to see if they could raise enough money to make a 20-minute animated special from their first campaign, called Vox Machina (Voice in the Machine, a nod to their voice acting). Instead of the $750,000 they wanted to raise, in less than 24 hours they raised over $3 Million, and ended up with over $11 Million raised from their rabid fans called Critters. Amazon then agreed to their terms (complete control over the content of the series) and picked it up and made it into two 12-episode seasons out on Amazon Prime. "The Legend of Vox Machina" did so well, the third seasons is due out this fall, and their second campaign, The Mighty Nein is in production. And just yesterday, they announced that they continue keeping the control of their own art by started their own subscription service, so as to not be reliant upon the whims of some mega-corp to keep their content up there. (beacon.tv) They've also been featured in Fortune and just yesterday, The Washington Post.
So, they're successful, and loved and near gods in the niche Table Top Role Playing (TTRPG) world. They've managed to keep authentic to what's important to themselves, and retain control of their own art and destinies. That's all admirable, but what makes them part of my pantheon is not their success, or creativity, both of which they have in spades, but it's the people who make up the group.
From the beginning, they have been not just role playing but also role modeling. The TTRPG space was known, in the past, for a fair amount of misogyny, subtle (and not so subtle) racism, and gate keeping. Critical Role actively challenges that stereotype. They have also, from the first moment they formed their own company, wanted to give back. They raised so much money for charities they ended up forming their own charitable foundation. For the past couple of years they've run a one-shot for Red Nose Day, twice with Stephen Colbert. They care about each other, and they care about their community. They're just good people being their authentic nerdy selves, creating fun and feelings and adventure and just damned good stories. And for that, they're on my list.
!
My hot take is that Matt Mercer was a fairly mediocre DM. He is great at description of the room and environment, but he rarely kept up with what his players were doing and to me, that led to the departure of, to me, a good player. I haven't watched CR in several years so maybe he got better
This is fabulous, thank you for this information!
I’d toss out Leonard Nimoy. I was, and still am, a huge Trek fan and by all reports he was a genuinely good guy. Quite the contrast to the asshole Shatner turned out to be.
Taylor Swift and Beyoncé are badasses. They're doing it their way and winning. Taylor's rerecording her albums to screw the record companies that we're trying to screw her was a total boss move. Her and Beyoncé are generous with credit and pay for their teams. All of this in addition to being talented AF.
Yeah, but, the Chiefs? As if that team wasn’t already the new Patriots (in a good way)?
I love the TS could buy them tomorrow.
Honestly, I'd rather listen to Steely Dan and nothing else than any music Albini had something to do with. Still, he sounded like he was an upright man.
It took me years to appreciate Steely Dan because they didn't "rock" like whoever. Hopefully you can someday appreciate Nirvana, etc. because they didn't "suck"
I tried, grunge wasn't/isn't for me. Have you heard "Black Hole Sun" by Steve and Eydie?
That S&E album is GLORIOUS
Yeah, I hate this "Why I, as an informed and awesome person, hate band/movie/thing XYZ." bullshit. I love Steely Dan and I love many of the artists and music Albini produced ("engineered!!"). Pompous, shitty behavior, but I guess that's who he was. I happen to know a person whose brother was one of Albini's assistants (yes I really am in Chicago!) and apparently Albini was a good guy to work with. So there's that.
As William Holden says to Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday: "The idea is to get bigger, not smaller!" I admire people who can look into a thing closely and FIND stuff that's good.
"apparently Albini was a good guy to work with. So there's that." Yeah, a lot of people can't even manage that.
I don't hate Steely Dan but Albini's description of them is still pretty spot on: "music made for the sole purpose of letting the wedding band stretch out.”
And the wedding band crack is a tell. Even heros need someone to look down on.
In his early years, Albini was a bit of an edgelord, so if in that time it probably peak early Steve
Can I really like Steely Dan and also really like this wisecrack at the same time? I contain multitudes.
When Albini was playing in the Chicago punk scene, Steely Dan & “yacht rock” was the popular music style to rebel against —Albini’s music was angular, proto-industrial, quick, savagely satirical, & high-bpm. His lyrics were minimalist, often to the point of giving a listener a chance to miss the point completely. And anger — lots & lots of anger.
OTH, Fagin & Becker did long-form, languid, jazz-fusion, densely intellectual, virtuosic, softer & slower. Just as alienated, but in a more bemused way, resigned. Everything punk was not.
There’s room in my heart for both — and always has been. Sometimes more, sometime less from year to year, but I love them both. But I’ll perform “Black Cow” & then “Kerosene” at the same karaoke night.
Thanks for the Steve Albini talk. I heard Big Black soon after they came out, and quite liked it. But I also saw and read some things Albini said that really raised an eyebrow. I had to do a pretty serious amount of "separate the art from the artist" for a long time. Maybe 18 years ago, though, I talked to him after a show, and he was gracious and still seemed to really appreciate that people would come out to see his band play. The thing that really cemented his rep for me was that Twitter thread a couple of years ago, wherein he talked about reckoning with his part in coarsening our society (the "edgelord" thing). I've, unfortunately, known a few people who *really* love that "extreme" thing that he liked to do and promote, and they'll never give that up. But they'll never have the reckoning that he did, and that's why I find it relatively easy to just not make the effort to stay in touch with those people.
Links to a couple of interviews in which Albini talks about this stuff: https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/steve-albini-counsel-culture-interview
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/aug/15/the-evolution-of-steve-albini-if-the-dumbest-person-is-on-your-side-youre-on-the-wrong-side
I absolutely agree. Albini’s ability to identify his own shitty behaviors/attitudes/actions and to do his best to atone for them and counteract their effect, makes him a fantastic example of how to mature gracefully, without sacrificing principles in the process. He still raised a righteous middle finger to the industry up to the end.
I worked with Tom Hanks just before he hit. He was funny like breathing, and a genuinely nice person. He seems to have retained his basic decency, and his acting has just gotten better over the years.
I grew up on my dad's folk revival records and had the opportunity to meet Pete Seeger when I worked on the no nukes concerts. He too seemed to me to be a man of endless creativity and good principle.
Everyone I know who came in contact with Seeger says that. Checks out, as they say.
I LOVE Bob Seeger. I think he’s woefully underrated.
But getting recognized more and more!
Dolly Parton. She walks the walk.
Who the fuck is Megan McArdle?
Fuck her.
When I worked in the Art Department at Tower Sunset in West Hollywood in the mid ‘80s, I met Mr. Albini while he was looking through some albums in the main store.
As usual, I was the only person who recognized him (I think it’s a combination of my hawkeyes and the “It Factor” energy that celebrities have), so I walked over and asked him if he needed any help.
He said, “Yes, can you do something about all of this shitty music?” I laughed, he scowled, and we spoke for about 15 minutes…well really, he complained for about 15 minutes, and I got some words in - asking him about the cover of “The Model”, which I dig, along with the album cover graphic. Songs About Fucking - 19 songs in less than 30 minutes!
I miss those days.
He was a super cranky Rodney Dangerfield, a lot of good laughs.
Yesterday on IG, I posted one of my “R.I.P.” collages/obits that I make when an important famous person dies, and some rando jumped in the thread, screaming about Steve being a “picture pedophile” - something I’d NEVER heard before.
Of course this person posted a link to Reddit - which is something I avoid like the plague - but I looked at it, and after about 10 minutes or so, as usual with Reddit, I didn’t know what to believe, because it (supposed quotes of his about it) seemed to be debunked by a lot of people.
I deleted his post in my thread and blocked him.
I really HATE Reddit, because that seems to be the norm there…mass confusion.
Have any of you heard about this side of him? I would think that it would have been BLASTED all over the place, and ruined his career, right?
Now I’m off to make another collage about Dennis Thompson, who died yesterday morning.
Ooh, did you click on that "Worst people in the world" link? I almost did, but now that I know that McCardle is at the end of it, I'm happy that I made the right decision.
She earned the nickname McArglebargle. C list right wing grifter and bullshit artist.
Thank you Dan🤘🏾
Hey! She's an A-list grifter and bullshit artist, I'll have you know! One example: her solution to school shootings was to have the kids charge the shooter! Genius!
I always refer to her as "pampered, chauffeured scion of a crooked NYC building contractor".
She’s one of those “casual” name droppers, apparently intent on demonstrating her socio-conomic “superiority.” She has zero class, actually, but is given to much swanning around as if she’s one of the Astors.
Thank you for all of this info everyone🤘🏾
I didn’t know about that Steve, thank you for saving me some time!
She can be a reliable source of humor, but only when taken indirectly. Let someone else do the shit-work of actually reading her and picking out the laugh-worthy bits.
"We're not laughing *at* you - we're laughing *with* you."
(Her) "But I'm not laughing..."
"We're not laughing *at* you - we're laughing *with* you."
"I am!"
Gastritis ate her calculator, all her kitchen appliance stuff
It's the political philosophy of cigarette ash and pink Himalayan salt, blended with unearned privilege in a Thermomix.
A toxic stew of obliviousness, seasoned with just the right amount of bad faith.
There's a guy on Twitter who's spent the last two days crashing threads mourning Albini and saying "No, he never really changed, he was a racist pedophile until he died." His proof is a quote from a Forced Exposure column where Albini writes about encountering Odd Future (remember them?) and the N-word is bandied about. I think it's clear from the context that Albini was quoting the language that the members of Odd Future used; the Albini hater doubts it and says I'm "insane" for thinking it. Oh, and he also did a post meant to prove that only white guys cared about Albini, and one of the photos he used was mine. That'll teach me!
Whoa, he used a photo of you Mark?
Damn.
This is the kind of spontaneous publicity that can Make. Things. Happen.
"Just look at him in this photo, being all White and everything!"
Well,it wasn't just me. It was me and three other white guys who said nice things about Albini. The point being that only white guys cared about Albini, so no one else should care about his death, I guess. As I pointed out back at Elmo's Enshittification Emporium, it would be interesting to ask the members of This Moment in Black History (one of the bands Albini worked with) what they think about all this.
Well, shit, Dennis Thompson too. And there are none left of the mighty MC5.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QhZ82kl6jw
Check my obit post on my IG -
@DJCrystalClear
Unfortunately, I don't have IG, so I can't get there from here. Do you have a direct link? Thanks!
Albini’s - https://www.instagram.com/p/C6xPNn4N96o/?igsh=MWt6cXNqMDNpazZudw==
Dennis’ - https://www.instagram.com/p/C6zCZLsue-F/?igsh=Yzh2ZWxvd2J2d3g1
No, I never heard that -- sounds like bullshit. But people should definitely read your Insta!
Thank you Roy!