Author: Dan Seeger

FilmLeave a comment

Then Playing: Unfriended

Dan Seeger

I usually reserve the longer reviews for films still playing in theaters, but sometimes a title I’ve caught up on later merits a few extra words. Appropriately, the conversation took place on Facebook Messenger. I was discussing Unfriended with my friend Khaetlyn, who had recommended the film in the first place, offering the assurance that it was far more than the trashy, cheapo found footage horror film it appeared to be from all the floridly urgent promotion around it. Shortly after seeing it, I was about to let her know that she was correct, when she framed her curiosity about my reaction … Continue reading Then Playing: Unfriended

ComicsLeave a comment

My Misspent Youth: Howard the Duck by Steve Gerber and Gene Colan

Dan Seeger

I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. As I remember it, I figured out right away that Howard the Duck wasn’t for kids. The first issue hit spinner racks when I was a mere five years old. At first glance, it bore a resemblance to the material I was excitedly reading at the time. Still, I somehow knew it was a comic for adults. I suspect that was attributable to the fact that adults were reading and talking … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Howard the Duck by Steve Gerber and Gene Colan

Music1 Comment

Top 40 Smash Taps: “Love of My Life” and “Bowling Green”

Dan Seeger

These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. By my rough, hasty count, the Everly Brothers placed a total of twenty-seven songs into the Billboard Top 40, including three that topped the chart. The siblings were such a constant presence on early rock ‘n’ roll radio that disc jockeys routinely turning singles over, giving the B-sides enough spins to merit respectable chart placement. That was the case with “Love of My Life,” … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Love of My Life” and “Bowling Green”

MusicLeave a comment

College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 220 – 218

Dan Seeger

220. fIREHOSE, “Brave Captain” “Brave Captain” was the ideal opening salvo from fIREHOSE. Recorded in October, 1986 at Radio Tokyo studios, in Venice, California, Mike Watt and George Hurley put the song to tape less than a year after the tragic death of D. Boon brought an end to their prior band, the Minutemen. Inspired punk rockers still reveling in acclaim showered on the recent double album masterpiece Double Nickels on the Dime (though the now rarely invoked 3-Way Tie for Last was the band’s true final statement) at the time of the van accident that claimed the life of their lead singer, … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 220 – 218

Music1 Comment

One for Friday: Michael Penn, “No Myth (Acoustic)”

Dan Seeger

Though it clearly charted at my college radio station, I have no clear recollection of playing any music from Michael Penn’s debut LP, March, when it was in the new music rotation. I probably did, but it didn’t stick with me, even once its lead single, “No Myth,” started edging its way up the charts (eventually becoming Penn’s sole Top 40 hit). Very much in the know-it-all phase of my late adolescence, I was probably given to a needlessly reactionary indifference to Penn’s music, so certain that he had a record deal only because his brother was a movie star, … Continue reading One for Friday: Michael Penn, “No Myth (Acoustic)”

TelevisionLeave a comment

Garry Shandling, 1949 – 2016

Dan Seeger

When I suggest that boxing, like comedy, is about rhythm, he nods. “My trainer, Dave Paul, he said, ‘G’—he calls me G—he said, ‘G, you have an unusual rhythm of your own that’s sort of, uh, no rhythm whatsoever. And yet that works for you, because they can’t figure you out.’ So sometimes when I’m in the ring, it’s like you can’t tell whether I’m about to tell a joke, or throw a punch, or start a punch and not finish it, or pass out. So some guys can’t read me. They come in close—just like when an audience leans … Continue reading Garry Shandling, 1949 – 2016

Film7 Comments

Greatish Performances #23

Dan Seeger

#23 — Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Johnson in Creed (Ryan Coogler, 2015) I don’t begrudge Sylvester Stallone the victory lap he got to take for his seventh performance as the hangdog Philadelphia boxer Rocky Balboa. While he’s perpetrated a great many heinous acts on moviegoers (he didn’t just star in Rhinestone, Cobra, Over the Top, and Cliffhanger; he also helped write them!), there’s something appealing, even charming, about his unlikely perseverance in the business. There might have been a little more sourness had the Academy Award nomination he received actually turned into a win, but, as was the case … Continue reading Greatish Performances #23

Books1 Comment

My Writers: Malcolm Gladwell

Dan Seeger

Back in the rough and tumble days before the vast digital landscape was scored with roadways to full archives of certain publications, I used to devote thought and energy to tearing pages out of magazine. Our filing cabinet had a folder stuffed full of articles either I or my partner-in-all-things found interesting enough that we wanted the option of revisiting them somewhere down the line. A sizable number of these came from The New Yorker. These weren’t yanked indiscriminately, but nor we we making a concerted effort to assemble the work of certain writers. I wasn’t even looking at the byline … Continue reading My Writers: Malcolm Gladwell