Tag Archives: On Music

The saddest song in the world: R.I.P. Leonard Cohen

By Dennis Hartley

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1934-2016

It sounds like a bad joke: Man, what a depressing week! [“How depressing was it, Johnny?”]. I’ll tell you, Ed.  American democracy died on Tuesday…and Leonard Cohen was only able to make it to Friday.

(SFX: rim shot)

Hiyo!

Of course that’s not funny. But if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry. I’m all cried out.

It goes like this: The fourth, the fifth; the minor fall, the major lift

I’m uplifted already. Halle-fuckin’-lujah. Make the angels cry, Leonard:

Was anyone’s music more cinematic? Robert Altman was an early fan:

From his final album, released just weeks ago.  A true poet to the end:

Start drinking now: A mixtape for election eve

By Dennis Hartley

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Well, this is it.

We find out tomorrow if we still have a future. Drinks/meds on standby? Excellent! I brought chips ‘n’ dip. And tunes. Let’s rock:

  1. Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention – “Plastic People”

2. Barry McGuire – “Eve of Destruction”

3. R.E.M. – “It’s the End of the World”

4.  King Crimson – “Epitaph” (isolated vocal track version)

5. The Youngbloods – “Darkness, Darkness”

6. Roy Orbison – “It’s Over”

7. The Doors – “The End”

8.  John Martyn – “I Don’t Want to Know”

9.  The Ramones – “I Wanna Be Sedated”

10. Styx – “Come Sail Away”

PLEASE VOTE.

Bono drops the mic on Trump

By Dennis Hartley

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From The Los Angeles Times:

Donald Trump has “hijacked” the Republican Party and comes in as possibly the “worst” idea ever for America, the lead singer of the band U2 said.

“America is the best idea the world ever came up with,” Irish singer-songwriter Bono told “CBS This Morning” in an interview that aired Tuesday. “But Donald Trump is potentially the worst idea that ever happened to America – potentially.”

Bono, whose real name is Paul David Hewson, argued that the Republican presidential nominee threatens America’s underlying values of justice and equality for all.

“He’s hijacked the party. I think he’s trying to hijack the idea of America,” he said. And I think it’s bigger than all of us. I think it’s …really dangerous.”

BOOM! Couldn’t have summarized it better myself.

I can’t wait to see Trump’s flurry of after-midnight tweets, firing back:

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Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

“Pudgy Bono” said bad things about me. Ivanka tells me he’s this big deal rock singer. I bet I can do what he does so much better. Believe me.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

I hear Pudgy Bono does lots of work for charities. I don’t know, but that’s what people say. Maybe someone should investigate these “charities”.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

So I hear Pudgy Bono has been performing concerts in America. He’s not even a citizen. Does he have a work visa? I don’t know. We should check.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

Have you seen Pudgy Bono’s tiny little hands? And he’s so short. I think he actually might be a leprechaun. I’m not sure. We’re looking into that.

Stay tuned…

Strictly rude: R.I.P. Prince Buster

By Dennis Hartley

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He may not have been as big of a household name as another Prince we lost earlier this year (what is it with 2016?), but Cecil Bustamente Campbell (aka Prince Buster) was no less an important figure in the music world, particularly to fans of Jamaican ska and rocksteady.

(from the Jamaica Observer)

Ska legend Prince Buster died Thursday morning in a South Florida hospital, his son Kareem Ali has confirmed.

The singer/producer, born Cecil Bustamante Campbell, was 78.

Prince Buster was ailing for some time, after suffering a series of strokes.

From West Kingston, Prince Buster was a protégé of producer Clement ‘Coxson’ Dodd. In the late 1950s, he launched his Voice Of The People sound system and label, which released a number of his self-produced hits including Wash Wash, Blackhead Chineyman and Judge Dread.

He also produced the Ffolkes Brothers Oh Carolina in 1961.

Buster had an enduring following in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom where he performed regularly up to 12 years ago.

Here’s one of his classic productions/compositions:

Hush up! My favorite by the man himself:

Seen.

Funny how: Can We Take a Joke? *** & Eat That Question ***1/2

By Dennis Hartley

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“I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.” – George Carlin

In my recent review of Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, I noted an observation by actress Joann Lumley (one of the film’s co-stars), excerpted from a Stylist interview:

[… ] And now the world is much more sensitive. People take offence at the smallest things, which in [the 1990s] were just funny. In the future, it’s going to be harder to write anything.

To which I added my 2 cents worth:

I’m going to risk crucifixion here (won’t be the first time) and heartily concur with [Joann Lumley’s] point regarding the intersection of P.C. and Funny these days. Now, I’m a card-carryin’, tree-huggin’, NPR-listenin’ pinko lib’rul, and I fully understand the subjective nature of humor. But speaking as a lifelong comedy fan (and ex-standup performer myself), I remain a firm believer in the credo that in comedy, nothing is sacred. I don’t always agree with Bill Maher, but I’m with him 100% on his crusade to counter a new Bizarro World Hays Code from segments of the Left that has even forced mainstream fixtures like Jerry Seinfeld to swear off playing college gigs.

Life is hard out on the streets for professional funny people. But don’t feel singled out, fellow liberals…for The Uptight Brigade is a non-partisan club, with members hailing from Left, Right, and Center. All you need to join is a sense of moral superiority and an active Twitter account. Consider the hot water that self-deprecating comic Jim Gaffigan got into in 2013 with a fairly benign “men are from Mars/women are from Venus” tweet:

(from Gawker)

So yesterday, stand-up-comedian-slash-fat dad Jim Gaffigan decided to make what he thought was a mostly harmless joke about women and their nails.

“Ladies I hope getting your nails done feels good because not a single man notices you got them done,” Gaffigan tweeted to his 1.6 million followers.

Ha! Women be getting their nails done, am I right fellas?

Anyway, commence TOTAL MELTDOWN:

“If you think I make my nails pretty for anyone other than myself, you are a fool,” replied @gesa “or maybe some women do things not to impress other people,” offered @oceana roll. “you’re such an asshole,” @phaserstostun. And the tweets kept coming. Dozens every minute.

“If you think people are overreacting to my edgy ‘nails done’ post here,” Gaffigan followed up a short while ago, “you have to see the anger on my Tumblr.”

And sure enough, since the joke was posted there yesterday, it has racked up over 100,000 notes, most of them far less subtle than those being made on Twitter. […]

For his part, Gaffigan did issue a worrying apology, telling those who were offended by his “edgy ‘nails done’ joke’ that he’s sorry and he’ll “attempt to be more sensitive in the future.”

Do people get irony anymore? Obviously (well, to me) he was making a point about how self-centered and clueless men are. Gaffigan got the last laugh, using the incident as fuel for one of this current season of The Jim Gaffigan Show’s best episodes. In “The Trial”, Gaffigan (who plays ‘himself’, a la Seinfeld, Louis, and Maron) is in a Kafkaesque alternate reality where he gets tossed into Social Outrage Jail (his cellmate Carrot Top has been doing time “since the mid-90s”) and tried in The Court of Public Opinion (presiding judge: comic Judy Gold) as a result of his offensive nail tweet. Jim is saved by the bell when shocking news arrives that Ricky Gervais just tweeted ‘Miley Cyrus has a dad bod’. Pitchforks are issued immediately, a mob forms and the courtroom empties out.

(*sigh*)

August 3rd marked the 50th anniversary of Lenny Bruce’s death; in my tribute, I wrote:

For years following his passing, he was arguably more famous for the suffering he endured for his art, rather than the visionary nature of it.

In fact, it wasn’t until 2003, after years of lobbying by members of the entertainment industry and free speech advocates, that New York governor George Pataki issued Bruce an official posthumous pardon for his 1964 obscenity conviction. It is worth noting that no comedians have been jailed in America for telling jokes to roomfuls of drunks since Bruce died. […]

Of course by now everybody has jumped on the bandwagon and acknowledges the man’s genius and the groundbreaking nature of his material. But I can’t help but wonder how Lenny would have fared in the age of social media, or in front of a modern college audience (oy).

I’m not alone in that speculation, as evidenced by a new documentary called Can We Take a Joke? (available on VOD), throughout which Lenny Bruce frequently serves as a touchstone. Writer-director Ted Balaker’s film examines the impact of “outrage culture” on modern comedy. Balaker assembles a sizable coterie of comics who thrive on pushing the envelope, like Lisa Lampanelli, Jim Norton, Adam Carolla, Gilbert Gottfried, and Penn Jillette. He also invites opinions from social observers and free speech advocates.

The film’s underlying thesis (in so many words) boils down to that good old school yard chestnut: “If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out.” As one interviewee puts it, “Along with the right to speak freely, comes a responsibility to have a thick skin. Words can be hurtful, but they are not the same as violence; and they can be countered with other words. And that’s our responsibility…the responsibility to put up with being offended.”

Balaker offers anecdotal evidence that seems to indicate not only that America’s skin is stretching ever thinner, but suggests something more threatening is occurring as a result. One of the interviewees offers this tidbit: “There was this huge study that’s done every year; and they ask citizens whether or not they think the First Amendment went too far. 47% of people between the ages of 18 and 30 said that the First Amendment goes too far. This is terrifying to those of us who care about free speech and the future of free speech.”

Is he just concern trolling? Consider this further observation: “One of the first things you know when a society is turning authoritarian is the comedians start to worry. When they start going for the comedians, everyone else needs to sweat.”

One of the more notable examples cited regarding this creeping trend of “chilling speech” occurred at the WSU campus in Pullman, Washington (where, oddly enough, I once did a comedy gig). African-American student Chris Lee created a satirical play (“Passion of the Musical”), which he admitted was designed “to offend everybody.” It caused such a ruckus that he earned the nickname “Black Hitler”. But that’s not the disturbing part, which is that WSU administrators comped students who wanted to attend for the sole purpose to disrupt it.

Again, is this a tempest in a teapot? How bad can it get? Two words: Charlie Hebdo. The Hebdo massacre is mentioned in the film, but only in passing; this is one avenue that the film glosses over. It’s a bit of a missed opportunity, especially in light of what’s happening in our current political climate, which begs some glaring questions. Namely, is there in fact, despite what the great George Carlin said, a “line” no one should dare cross?

Amy Goodman featured a rare interview with political satirist Garry Trudeau just this week on her Democracy Now radio program. She brought up a controversial piece he wrote for The Atlantic in 2015, called “The Abuse of Satire”. It’s a great read, and presents a flipside view to the thrust of Can We Take a Joke? Here’s a pertinent excerpt:

I, and most of my colleagues, have spent a lot of time discussing red lines since [the Charlie Hebdo massacre]. As you know, the Muhammad cartoon controversy began eight years ago in Denmark, as a protest against “self-censorship,” one editor’s call to arms against what she felt was a suffocating political correctness. […]

And now we are adrift in an even wider sea of pain. Ironically, Charlie Hebdo, which always maintained it was attacking Islamic fanatics, not the general population, has succeeded in provoking many Muslims throughout France to make common cause with its most violent outliers. This is a bitter harvest. […]

By punching downward, by attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority with crude, vulgar drawings closer to graffiti than cartoons, Charlie wandered into the realm of hate speech, which in France is only illegal if it directly incites violence. […]

What free speech absolutists have failed to acknowledge is that because one has the right to offend a group does not mean that one must. Or that that group gives up the right to be outraged. They’re allowed to feel pain. Freedom should always be discussed within the context of responsibility. At some point free expression absolutism becomes childish and unserious. It becomes its own kind of fanaticism.

I’m aware that I make these observations from a special position, one of safety. In America, no one goes into cartooning for the adrenaline. As Jon Stewart said in the aftermath of the killings, comedy in a free society shouldn’t take courage.

There’s another twisty corollary that the film misses, concerning certain political candidates who cynically conflate themselves as if they were colleagues of professional humorists (as opposed to possible future leaders of the Free World, who should be choosing their words much more carefully). How many times now has Donald Trump gotten away with tweeting something incredibly offensive by backpedaling afterwards that “it was meant as a joke, folks”… thereby (disingenuously) positioning himself as a  ‘victim’ of the P.C. police?

Clearly, there are equally viable arguments for both camps of First Amendment interpretation (i.e., the constitutional “right” for offenders to offend and for the offended to condemn). But as Garry Trudeau cautioned in his piece in The Atlantic , “Freedom should always be discussed in the context of responsibility.” Can We Take a Joke?won’t break the impasse,  but it does succeed in prompting a dialog.

As Jim Norton notes in the film: “Everyone says ‘I love free speech, I love free thought, I love free expression’…but deep down they’re going: ‘Except for when, except for when.’ There’s always that little asterisk: ‘But that doesn’t apply here.’” So you see? Cracking wise is more complex than it is, erm, cracked up to be…especially in this current  political climate. As Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean (allegedly) said on his deathbed: “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.”

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“There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.”      –Frank Zappa

If there’s a missing link between today’s creative types who risk persecution in the (virtual) court of public opinion for the sake of their art, and Lenny Bruce’s battles in the actual courts for the right to even continue practicing his art as a free citizen, I would nominate composer-musician-producer-actor-satirist-provocateur Frank Zappa, who is profiled in Thorsten Schutte’s new documentary Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words (in limited release).

Despite his massive catalog (62 albums released in his lifetime, 43 posthumously), Zappa, like Bruce, is probably remembered more for his fights against censorship, rather than for the actual material in question (which includes some pretty hummable stuff, I must say). Most famously, he took on Tipper Gore and the Parents Resource Music Center in 1985, joining fellow musicians Dee Snider (from Twisted Sister) and John Denver (!) to testify at a Senate hearing over the “Parental Advisory” sticker controversy.

One of the highlights of the film is a clip from a 1986 appearance Zappa made on CNN’s Crossfire. In an observation that now seems quite prescient, Zappa opines, “The biggest threat to America today is not Communism, its moving America toward a fascist theocracy, and everything that’s happened under the Reagan administration is steering us down that pipe.” Of course now, I almost long for those “good old days”, when the Republican Party was but a tool for the Religious Right-in lieu of, uh, whatever it is now.

That said, I should point out that Zappa was not an artist who went out of his way seeking dragons to slay; it’s just that somehow, the dragons had a tendency to seek him out. While he definitely leaned Libertarian when it came to freedom of expression, he was otherwise politically…fluid. Through the course of the film (culled from archival interview/performance footage and contextualized via Schutte’s editing choices), Zappa dumps on the Left, the Right, Hippies, politicians, religion, pop music, record companies, consumer culture (his pet rant), corporate America, and even on his own most rabid fans.

As far as those rabid fans were concerned, the more curmudgeonly and autocratic Zappa’s stance became (regardless of whether or not it was just  show biz shtick), the more they loved him (in that narrow context, there’s a weird parallel with Donald Trump…the obvious difference being that Trump has never really created anything that is of  value to anyone but himself). Zappa was kind of an asshole, but in that Mozart kind of way, as he was an extremely gifted and prolific asshole (was Tipper his secret Salieri? Discuss). Like Picasso, he kept experimenting and creating until he expired (after a long battle, Zappa succumbed to cancer at 52 in 1993).

Let me be up front…this documentary will play best for members of the choir (guilty!). If you’ve never been much of a Zappa fan, the largely non-contextualized pastiche of vintage clips will likely do little to win you over. This impressionistic approach can still paint a compelling portrait; if you’re patient enough to observe, and absorb (consider 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould, which remains my favorite biopic, despite the fact that I had never even heard of him when I first saw it, and I still don’t own any of his albums).

There is genuine poignancy as well. In a Today Show interview, an obviously gravely ill Zappa is asked how he wants to be remembered. “It’s not important to even be remembered.” After an awkward silence that implies his interviewer did not see that one coming, he continues, “The people who worry about being remembered are guys like Reagan, Bush…these people want to be remembered, and they’ll spend a lot of money and do a lot of work to make sure that remembrance is just terrific.” “And for Frank Zappa?” she presses. Without missing a beat, he replies “Don’t care.” Back to you, Katie.

I suspect you really did care, Frank. But I know if I ask, I’ll end up eating that question.

#   #   #

In case you’ve forgotten what a lyrical player he was (when he chose to be)

Star-spangled ban: thoughts on the 1970 Atlanta Pop Festival

By Dennis Hartley

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46 years ago today, the 3-day 1970 Atlanta International Pop Festival opened.  Attendees were estimated to be around 200,000.

Historically overshadowed by Woodstock (held 11 months earlier), it still boasted an equally impressive roster of performers. Granted, a number of Woodstock luminaries were there (Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winter,  Ten Years After, John Sebastian, Richie Havens, Mountain et.al.), but there were top acts exclusive to the Atlanta Festival like The Allman Brothers, B.B. King, The Chambers Brothers, Procol Harum, Grand Funk Railroad, Spirit, Rare Earth, Mott the Hoople, and It’s A Beautiful Day (just to name a few).

The cost of a ticket?  $14.  I’ll spell that out, so you don’t think it’s a typo: fourteen dollars. Yes, I know, inflation, yadda yadda…but still (a front row seat at this fall’s Desert Trip will only set you back $9,400).

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But I digress. Back to Atlanta, 1970.  At midnight on July 4th, Jimi Hendrix performed to the biggest domestic audience of his career (sadly, just over two months later, he was gone forever). He played a rousing set, which is documented in the excellent 2015 Showtime production, Jimi Hendrix: Electric Church (currently available  on Showtime’s In-Demand feature, if you haven’t caught it yet). Hendrix included his idiosyncratic “Star Spangled Banner” salute (how could he not do it on the Fourth?), with fireworks. Pretty awesome stuff.

Unfortunately, despite the “right of the people peaceably to assemble”  (not to mention that whole freedom of expression thing) someone didn’t find Jimi’s paean so awesome (there’s one in every crowd). The “someone”?  Governor Lester Maddox. Two days after the festival, he announced he was going to push for legislation to ban any future such DFH events in his state.  Because you know…freedom.

Oh, Georgia. Happy holiday weekend, everyone!

We are the presumptive champions

By Dennis Hartley

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Oh, Donnie. Brian May is less than pleased with Trump co-opting Queen’s “We Are the Champions” as his grand entrance theme:

[From Rolling Stone]

“I’ve had an avalanche of complaints – some of which you can see in our ‘Letters’ page – about Donald Trump using our ‘We Are The Champions’ track as his ‘theme’ song on USA TV,” May wrote on his website. “This is not an official Queen statement, but I can confirm that permission to use the track was neither sought nor given. We are taking advice on what steps we can take to ensure this use does not continue. Regardless of our views on Mr. Trump’s platform, it has always been against our policy to allow Queen music to be used as a political campaigning tool.”

[…]

May isn’t the first musician to deny Trump access to their catalogs. In September, after the politician used R.E.M.’s hit “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” at a rally, singer Michael Stipe angrily responded, “Go fuck yourselves, the lot of you – you sad, attention-grabbing, power-hungry little men … Do not use our music or my voice for your moronic charade of a campaign.”

Sad! In the interest of mediation, may I suggest the following (and much more apropos) selection for Mr. Trump’s intros going forward?

England swings like a pendulum do

By Dennis Hartley

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It was 50 years ago today (or thereabouts)…

(from USA Today)

This year, 400 since the death of Shakespeare and 90 since the birth of Elizabeth II, is also the 50th anniversary of Swinging London, a time and place that produced the British Invasion rock bands, Georgy Girl and Darling, Twiggy and The Shrimp and the miniskirt.

In the 1960s, London — epitome of everything hierarchical, traditional and stodgy — was the site of a revolution in music, fashion and design. Lords partied with bricklayers, rockers with gangsters. Anything seemed possible.

The scene was made famous by an April 1966 Time magazine cover story, titled “The city that swings.’’ It described a place where “ancient elegance and new opulence are all tangled up in a dazzling blur of op and pop.’’

[…]

The 50th anniversary of Swinging London is being marked at a Saatchi Gallery show of Stones memorabilia. Jimi Hendrix’ old flat (once Handel’s attic) has opened to tourists.This summer the Victoria & Albert Museum begins an exhibition, You Say You Want a Revolution?

Yeaahh, baby!

I’m a bit of an Anglophile; I particularly love the British music,  films  and TV shows of that era.  In fact, 1966 was a watershed year for British cinema: Alfie, After the Fox, The Deadly Affair,  Fahrenheit 451,  Funeral in Berlin,  Georgy Girl,  A Man For All Seasons, The Wrong Box, and of course, Antonioni’s Blow-Up. Here’s my favorite scene:

As for the most memorable UK TV show of ’66, 2 words: Emma Peel!

Image result for emma peelAnd lest we forget the fab UK music of ’66…here are my top picks:

Now if you will excuse me,  it’s time for my tea and bickie. Cheers!

Shaker meets Quaker: Elvis & Nixon **1/2

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on April 23, 2016)

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While the line dividing politics from show-biz has always been tenuous, the White House meeting between Elvis Aaron Presley and Richard Milhous Nixon in 1970 remains one of the more surreal moments in United States presidential history. From Smithsonian.com:

Around noon, Elvis arrived at the White House with Schilling and bodyguard Sonny West, who’d just arrived from Memphis. Arrayed in a purple velvet suit with a huge gold belt buckle and amber sunglasses, Elvis came bearing a gift—a Colt .45 pistol mounted in a display case that Elvis had plucked off the wall of his Los Angeles mansion.

Which the Secret Service confiscated before Krogh escorted Elvis—without his entourage—to meet Nixon.

“When he first walked into the Oval Office, he seemed a little awe-struck,” Krogh recalls, “but he quickly warmed to the situation.”

While White House photographer Ollie Atkins snapped photographs, the president and the King shook hands. Then Elvis showed off his police badges.

Nixon’s famous taping system had not yet been installed, so the conversation wasn’t recorded. But Krogh took notes: “Presley indicated that he thought the Beatles had been a real force for anti-American spirit. The President then indicated that those who use drugs are also those in the vanguard of anti-American protest.”

“I’m on your side,” Elvis told Nixon, adding that he’d been studying the drug culture and Communist brainwashing. Then he asked the president for a badge from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

“Can we get him a badge?” Nixon asked Krogh.

Krogh said he could, and Nixon ordered it done.

Elvis was ecstatic. “In a surprising, spontaneous gesture,” Krogh wrote, Elvis “put his left arm around the President and hugged him.”

I’ll bet you thought E was going to say, “Thank ya, sir…thankyahveramuch.” Amirite?

He very well may have, but since there is no verbatim transcript, it’s up for conjecture. Which brings us to Liza Johnson’s featherweight yet passably entertaining Elvis & Nixon.

Co-writers Joey Sagal (who, interestingly, played an Elvis-like character for the premiere run of Steve Martin’s play Picasso at the Lapin Agile), Hanala Sagal, and Cary Elwes frame their screenplay with the most oft-recounted anecdotal lore surrounding the meet, shored up by a fair amount of creative license. Of course, this device (nowadays referred to as “fan fiction”) is nothing new. There have been a number of such explorations done on both figures; at least one featuring them together (the 1997 TV film Elvis Meets Nixon).

What makes this romp eminently watchable are its two leads: Michael Shannon (as Elvis) and Kevin Spacey (as Nixon). While this is far from a career highlight for either, they both have the chops to rise above the uneven script and carry the day. It does take a bit of acclimation to accept the hulking Shannon as Elvis; but he is subtle enough as a character actor to convincingly transform himself into The King, despite the fact that has no physical resemblance to his real-life counterpart (neither does Spacey, for that matter, but he utilizes his gift for voice mimicry to really capture Nixon to a tee).

The film is  farcical in tone, but there are brief flashes of pathos. In a scene recalling De Niro’s “who am I?” dressing room soliloquy in Raging Bull, Shannon gazes into a mirror and laments about how disassociated he feels from “Elvis” the legend. It’s a genuinely touching moment. Spacey gets to flex his instrument in a monologue where he reflects to Elvis on their commonalities; how both men rose up from humble roots to achieve greatness (yes, I know…depends on how you define “greatness”).

It’s based on historical fact, but not don’t expect any new revelations. You may forget what you’ve just watched by the time you get back to your car, but political junkies will get some laughs. There are stretches where the film threatens to morph into a glorified SNL sketch, but at a short running time of 87 minutes, it’s over before you know it. If only I could say the same for the 2016 election…

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This is what it sounds like

By Dennis Hartley

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RIP Prince 1958-2016

Do I believe in God, do I believe in me?

Some people want to die so they can be free

I said life is just a game, we’re all just the same

Do you want to play?

2016…the year the music died. Or at least it’s starting to feel that way. It’s all too much.

What can you say about Prince Rogers Nelson? If anyone could be labelled the “American David Bowie”, I’d wager this ever-evolving musical chameleon comes damn close. He was a true iconoclast. He was an amazingly gifted songwriter, vocalist and musician who could effortlessly segue from funk to rock, soul to psychedelia, R&B to jazz, hip-hop to techno…you name it. It’s as if he was created by a mad scientist who wanted to see what happens if you take DNA from Sly Stone, Paul McCartney, James Brown, Todd Rundgren, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder-and toss it all into a super collider.

His foray into cinema was more of a bumpy ride. Still, I have a soft spot for his semi-autobiographical 1984 vehicle, Purple Rain. While it is uneven from a narrative standpoint, the soundtrack is genius, a truly superlative song cycle in Prince’s canon. His 1986 “vanity project” Under the Cherry Moon, however, kind of put the kibosh on his acting career. It challenges Ishtar for title of Most Critically Drubbed Film of All Time. Still, its critics-to-audience score ratio on Rotten Tomatoes tells an interesting story. Only 25% of the critics “liked” it…but the audience score is 69%. As one critic wrote: “Strictly for Prince fans — but then again I am one.” Ditto. Obviously, he struck a chord.

(*sigh*) It’s getting crowded up there. Now George can thank him for this heartfelt solo:

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince.

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

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UPDATE:                                                                                                                             Wow. On CNN tonight, even Stevie Wonder was at a loss for words:

(from Newsmax)

Stevie Wonder Thursday described Prince as “a great musician, a great producer, great song writer” — and was nearly overcome with emotion when asked to perform something that reminded him of the music icon who died at age 57.

“I think I would probably break down if I do a song right now,” Wonder told Anderson Cooper on CNN in during an interview from his Los Angeles home.

Prince, who was pronounced dead after collapsing in his Minnesota home, once described Wonder, 65, as a role model and an inspiration. “He was incredible,” Wonder told Cooper. “I’m just glad I was able to say to him I love you the last time I saw him.”

The performers had appeared together on several occasions, including the BET Awards in 2006 and in Paris four years later.

“The times we did jam together were amazing,” Wonder said.

He described Prince as “someone who allowed himself to be himself and encouraged others to be themselves.

“He was very free — and to do what he did without fear was a wonderful thing because it’s always great. It is always great when we don’t allow fear to put our dreams to sleep — and he didn’t.”

Wonder cited 1984’s “Purple Rain” as his favorite — “the whole album was incredible” — adding that Prince “was able to mix the blessing of life of God and, yet, the marriage of sex and passion.

He had fun doing it,” Wonder said. “It is rare for me that I can feel with every single breath how he just passionately loved music.”