Fly High By My Window At Night
Thanks to the bends of the calendar, it’s been a couple years since Halloween has fallen on a day that this digital space didn’t have regularly scheduled programming. It’s time to revive an old tradition. These are things that have scared me…. Yes, there’s a Stephen King entry. There’s always a Stephen King entry. That’s how I once rolled. “The Mangler” is an exceedingly silly short story. I know that. I knew that at the time I read it. And yet this tale of a demonically possessed industrial laundry press left me highly rattled when I first read it, probably … Continue reading Fly High By My Window At Night
College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 127 – 125
127. Bronski Beat, “Smalltown Boy” There’s probably no way to overstate the importance and the power a song like “Smalltown Boy” carried in 1984. The first single from the London synthpop band Bronski Beat addresses the difficulty of growing up a gay young man in the era, empowered enough to fully understand his own identity, but also cruelly judged and shunned by those around him, their own levels of enlightenment not up to the decidedly simply task of acceptance. “As hard as they would try/ They’d hurt to make you cry/ But you never cried to them/ Just to your … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 127 – 125
From the Archive: Child’s Play 2
At the time we were immersed in the movie review radio show, I was actively rooting for the Child’s Play films. Chucky creator Don Mancini was an early interview subject and he entirely won me over with the his enthusiasm … Continue reading From the Archive: Child’s Play 2
One for Friday: the Mountain Goats, “Cubs in Five”
One of the aspects of John Darnielle’s songwriting I admire most is his eager conviction that anything — absolutely anything — is potential inspiration for him to sit down with his guitar and create a tune that is piercing and true. He’s talked about that in live performances I’ve seen. He’d learn something in a history class and immediately want to rush home and merge his impressions of the particular slice of the past with a couple of well chosen chords. I’d long assumed that his song “Cubs in Five,” which leads the 1995 EP Nine Black Poppies, referenced the … Continue reading One for Friday: the Mountain Goats, “Cubs in Five”
Greatish Performances #27
#27 — Wilford Brimley as Pops Fisher in The Natural (Barry Levinson, 1984) When Barry Levinson directed The Natural, he was interested in the mythology of baseball. Aided by Caleb Deschanel’s lush cinematography and Randy Newman’s score which somehow infuses stirring possibility into the very notes, Levinson spins a yarn that makes the misty romanticism of the grand old game and makes it as real and true as the crack of the bat. Hitting the cover off the ball is no longer mere hyperbole; it’s something that mysterious middle-aged rookie Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) can actually accomplish. To accomplish this, … Continue reading Greatish Performances #27
The Art of the Sell: “Chicks Dig the Long Ball”
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. 1999 was a heady time for baseball. Just a few years earlier, Major League Baseball delivered a nasty self-inflicted wound with a labor dispute that cancelled a sizable chunk of the season, including the World Series, an event that world wars and devastating natural disasters couldn’t wipe off the calendar. Fan animosity was justifiably at a riotous high, and it seemed likely that legions would turn their back on the sport for good. Then Cal Ripken, Jr. … Continue reading The Art of the Sell: “Chicks Dig the Long Ball”
My Misspent Youth: “Foul Play!” by Bill Gaines, Al Feldstein, and Jack Davis
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. When I was a young, I didn’t know too many other kids who were into comics. I had no one to commiserate with about the latest developments in the Marvel Universe, nor anyone who could turn me on to new and different stuff by sharing issues and titles that they loved to which I’d been previously unexposed. There were rare exceptions, which made them memorable. And if one of those exceptions … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: “Foul Play!” by Bill Gaines, Al Feldstein, and Jack Davis
Laughing Matters: George Carlin, “Baseball and Football”
Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. When I was young, I chose baseball. I lived in a state where the yard-by-yard battle over the pigskin reigned, thanks to an irresistible fervor stirred up around the Green Bay Packers. (I use “irresistible” because I am not immune to the magnetic pull of the green and gold, especially when the playoffs come banging at the calendar.) But I also grew up at … Continue reading Laughing Matters: George Carlin, “Baseball and Football”
College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 130 – 128
130. Cocteau Twins, “Carolyn’s Fingers” The Cocteau Twins sound was well-established by the time they recorded their 1988 album, Blue Bell Knoll, stirring the ethereally gloomy hearts of a sizable enough fan base in the U.S. to trigger genially perplexed stories on local television news. They could have easily locked in and kept on with the flow — that’s what the dreamy music sounds like it’s suited for, after all — but they wanted to take greater control of what they created. The band’s fifth album was the first on which they took charge completely. “I just realized I needed … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 130 – 128
From the Archive: A League of Their Own
My mildly embarrassing true confession is this: I spent most of Wednesday feeling downright woozy, in large part because I was anxious about how a postseason baseball series was going at the time. I’m doing much better now. Still, I’m expending a great deal of energy today in preemptive fretting over the sporting contest set to take place in Wrigley Field this evening. The archive raiding for this Saturday helplessly reflects that. This piece was written when Penny Marshall’s highest-grossing directorial effort was released on home video. Enjoy my litany of early-nineties curmudgeonly fan complaints that leads the review. With … Continue reading From the Archive: A League of Their Own
Coffee for Two 