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Saturday, September 10, 2005 ( 9/10/2005 02:35:00 PM ) Bill S. BLOOD SIMPLE – Went to give blood today to the Red Cross: though we've been regular donors in the past, we realized to our dismay that the last time we could remember doing it was right after 9/11 – so we drove over to Illinois Wesleyan, where the two-day drive was being held, after setting up an appointment to get stuck. My wife and I are both A-Positive, so we're not the kind of donors who get frantic calls from the agency asking us if we're willing to come on down. Our blood type's common, so unless there's a big draining emergency, our type's in good supply. The blood drive was originally scheduled to run both days in Shirk Arena, IWU's big indoor stadium, but because the place isn't air-conditioned, they relocated after a 90+ degree Friday: too many donors, we were told, had been passing out in the heat afterwards. Saturday, the drive was moved to the air-conditioned student union, though when I got to my cot, I saw that a skinny young coed had passed out in the cot next to me. "She said she'd had breakfast," the nurse confided to me, "but I doubt it." The procedure went find with us, though I swear the number of pre-test interview questions grows larger every time. I can understand the need to be cautious, but, I tell ya, you better not be easily offended if you intend to give blood. Once we got the interview and pre-tests (they've even added a new 'un for West Nile virus) out of the way, the actual giving of blood went fairly quickly. One year, I remember, it seemed to take hours for them to get a full bag out of me (perhaps the moon tides were in the wrong position); this time, it took under ten minutes. Just call me, Speedo. For treats, we were given Little Debbie snack cakes (cue Southern Culture on the Skids song) and ice water. But for our efforts we were also handed out snazzy tee-shirts that read, "Classic Blood Donor – 100% Authentic." Went around the rest of the morning with the bandage stickin' out from under the sleeve of my Hawaiian shirt (just a sympathy whore, that's me), but by the afternoon the tape was driving me crazy so I ripped it off. Every once in a while, the leftover glue from the bandage still sticks together on the inside of my arm, but it's a piddly inconvenience. The A-Pos feeling that comes from doing this simple thing – that's something else again . . . # | Friday, September 09, 2005 ( 9/09/2005 11:29:00 AM ) Bill S. WEEKEND PET PIC – Busy diggin' myself out of a pile of work-related paperwork (and also tryin' to finish a "Bullets"-length review for TCJ), so the best you're gonna get today is a pic of Stormy, Savannah and Xander, I'm afraid.  Have a great Friday! # | Thursday, September 08, 2005 ( 9/08/2005 01:03:00 PM ) Bill S. "FOLLOW THE LINE (TO THE THRONE)!" – Hipness points to Showtime's Weeds (which grows funnier by the episode) for utilizing the New Pornographers' "Laws Have Changed" on its soundtrack this week – but could the sound edit from verse to chorus been more raggedy? # | ( 9/08/2005 01:00:00 PM ) Bill S. WHERE'S AARON & ART? – Looking back over my list below, several missing names immediately leapt out at me: Professor Longhair, Dr. John and that music-makin' family, the Nevilles. The reason for these omissions is fairly simple: though all of these musicians recorded through the period repped in the list below, to my ears they don't really start shining until the late sixties/early seventies. I might, if pressed, work to make room for Aaron's gleefully threatening "Over You" from 1960, but with the Doctor, it isn't until "Right Place Wrong Time" (done with Allen Toussaint & the Meters) in the early 70's that the man really takes hold on my interest, while I'm shamed to admit that Roy "Professor Longhair" Byrd has always left me cold. I will add that if you can find a copy of the Neville-affiliated 1976 album, The Wild Tchoupitoulas, you should definitely snag it. Ain't an album anywhere that better sez Mardi Gras . . . # | ( 9/08/2005 08:51:00 AM ) Bill S. "SOME FOLKS DON'T UNDERSTAND IT/THAT'S WHY THEY DON'T DEMAND IT" – Many of us who've never managed to visit New Orleans before the disaster of Hurricane Katrina have felt an attachment to the city from the music that's come from it over the years. The first connection most folks make is to jazz ("You know what it means to miss New Orleans?" Satchmo once asked) or, perhaps, zydeco. But the city also left a strong imprint during the formative years of rhythm 'n' blues. I've been playing a lotta this music over the past few days, and here, for your consideration, are ten seminal r-&-b tracks from the fifties/early sixties. Most of these songs, I should add, can be found on a host of collections devoted to the city's considerable musical heritage:
# | Wednesday, September 07, 2005 ( 9/07/2005 10:25:00 AM ) Bill S. WHERE MY MIND SOMETIMES WANDERS AT LUNCH TIME – So I was watching this Red Bull cartoon commercial last night. It opens with a husband and wife, and wife tells her spouse, "Your mother-in-law is coming for a visit." This leads to the hubby fantasizing about gettin' rid of the old biddy in suitably cartoony fashion, but the thought that lodges in my head is: would a wife say, "Your mother-in-law" as prelude to a stale in-law joke – or would she, more likely, go, "My mother" or, more simply, "Mom"? # | Tuesday, September 06, 2005 ( 9/06/2005 08:58:00 AM ) Bill S. "IF YOU SAY YOU WATCHED THE MOVIE, THEN YOU'RE A LIAR!" – Johnny B. has posted an enjoyable appreciation about the drive-in theater of his youth - whicn naturally got me thinking about my own experiences at drive-in movies. As a kid, I recall going to the drive-in in Massachusetts with my parents, sitting in the back seat with my sister and being told to lie down after the cartoon and first feature. We usually hit the drive-in once a summer when we were visiting my grandparents, and many of the double features back then were divided into a "family hour" feature followed by more "grown-up" fare. Nothing "adult," just something that the average kid viewer wouldn't understand: the last movie I remember seeing in that venue was the Sean Connery flick, A Fine Madness. By then, I was old enough to stay up and watch both features, but as I recall I didn't get much out of the movie. By high school, I was living in the northwest suburbs of Illinois, and I spent a lotta time at the now demolished 53 Outdoor Drive-In in Palatine. Because my friend Tom Michalski and I were nerds, we didn't do any of the "traditional" teen things like sneak in beer or bring our non-existent girlfriends along: we were there to simply watch the movies. A couple of times a summer, the 53 ran horror double features – and I remember seeing quite a few sixties era Hammer and AIP films in that outdoor venue. Also caught a few mildly sexy features there – though since I was watching 'em at an age when practically anything could turn into sexy imagery – they sure seemed hot at the time. I recall seeing several items with a young Jane Fonda: Barbarella, of course; Spirits of the Dead and a movie about a young woman being kept prisoner in her house. (Only remember a few quick images from that last, and I'm not even sure what its title was, though it may've been Roger Vadim's La Curée.) Back in the day, Jane was the go-to girl for hot and titillating movie fare. When I left for college, the place for drive-in action was the Bloomington Drive-In, which was located right behind Sinorak's Smorgasbord off Business Route 55. (Dinner and movie!) In the early 70's, Bloomington's theater alternated between second- and third-run mainstream movies – and double features that were pure "drive-in." Back then, I'd go with my first wife Barb and a twelve-pack of beer. Saw the inimitable Death Race 2000 there, along with David Cronenberg’s Rabid. Good times, but, then, as with Johnny B.'s beloved Twin City Drive-In, the theater switched to primarily showing X-Rated movies and we stopped attending. Wasn't prudery that kept us away – we'd already seen several skin flicks at the then-struggling Castle Theater – just disinterest. It was always a kick to watch for the drive-in if you were driving on the Bloomington-Normal beltline because you could see the screen for a couple of seconds from the highway. If you were lucky, you got a flash of silicone-enhanced breast. The Bloomington Drive-In is gone now, replaced by a strip mall with a Dollar Store and an oak furniture place. Many of the movies that we used to think of as pure drive-in fare today are getting shown on in-door mall screens, though I've gotta admit that it's not the same watching 'em in a darkened theater. In some strange way, the drive-in experience – with its tinny speakers and big wall screens – encouraged greater involvement in the movie itself. Instead of being spoon-fed, the moviegoer had to do some work themselves, which I suspect gave us a stronger connection to the events we were watching on screen. I do know I have stronger visual memory of more horror flicks that I first experienced through a bug-spattered windshield than I do bigger budget multiplex fare . . . # | Sunday, September 04, 2005 ( 9/04/2005 09:44:00 AM ) Bill S. "WHAT HAS HAPPENED 'ROUND HERE IS THE WINDS HAVE CHANGED" – Took me a couple days to decide to put up the uncensored (when Aaron Neville covered the song in the 90's, he changed "cracker" to "farmer," thus nullifying the song's stinging indictment of not-so-benevolent politico condescension) lyrics from Randy Newman's Good Old Boys. The reasons for my hesitation are obvious, but in the end my anger over our present government's malign neglect won out. # | ( 9/04/2005 07:57:00 AM ) Bill S. TONE-DEAF DENNY – I don't blame Dennis Hastert for wondering out loud about the advisability of rebuilding the devastated New Orleans – considering the expense and people power it's gonna take, this "tough question" needs to be considered honestly and openly from all angles – but I do fault the man's egregious timing. Reading about it earlier this week, I was reminded of the inaptly timed statements by Noam Chomsky in the aftermath of 9/11: whatever good points the man had to make were lost through his sheer stupidity in bringing 'em up while Americans were still in shock and mourning. Hastert's foot-in-mouth property-over-people moment was even more thoughtlessly timed since he spoke it out loud while human rescue proceedings are still in process, and if Illinois Democrats have any sense at all, they'll never let him (or us) forget these statements. When re-election comes along, I'd play his words about New Orleans over and over and then ask, "What would Denny have said during the Great Chicago Fire?" # | ( 9/04/2005 07:06:00 AM ) Bill S. SITHING IN THE THEATER – Months after its release, we finally made it to the theater to watch Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. (Never said we were timely around this joint!) It was showing as a Labor Day Weekend matinee at Bloomington’s Castle Theater, the moviehouse where Becky and I had our first date two (gulp!) decades ago, so we had to take advantage of the opportunity. I've written about the Castle in the past: a couple of years back, the downtown Bloomington theater reopened after over a decade of abandonment. To offer a different experience from trad multi-plex viewing, the owners replaced the seats with couches, love seats and small modular tables; moviegoers can order eats and drinks which are delivered via waitress during the movie. The weekend matinee costs $6.00, but from the looks of the menus, the food is where the big money is. Sith was showing at noon, and we definitely got the sense that theater personnel weren't accustomed to running their movies so early in the day. (When I've been to other matinees there, it's usually been around four o'clock. The theater doors all have head-level windows in 'em, and the bright noon sun glared through onto the movie screen for the first ten minutes or so – until one of the ushers started taping menus over the windows. Because the movie's opening is a battle that takes place in deep black space, we saw large white boxes along the bottom of the screen: they were so distracting, especially when the usher's head appeared in one and he started putting up the menus, that I couldn't tell you what that opening fight was all about. Ben & Anakin get out alive, though, I know that much . . . Don't have a whole lot to say about the movie that hasn't been chewed to death in the blogosphere already (which won't stop me from nattering a bit, of course). I'm one of those viewers who saw a pretty clear political warning message in the film. When Padmé notes in the Senate session passing power over to the Supreme Counselor Palpatine that liberty dies "in thunderous applause," we're meant to see a comparison to the abrogation and erosion of civil liberties in this country under the Patriot Act. (Seems to me that this is the first flick where scriptwriter Lucas uses the words "Senate" and "Congress" interchangeably, though I could be wrong on this.) Anakin/Darth's move to the dark side of the force is motivated, first and foremost, by fear and an overwhelming desire to protect his loved one, though in the end he nearly winds up killing her himself. I'm not bothered by Lucas' infusion of possible political metaphors into the film: unless you're a pundit writing on deadline – and you haven't hacked out a column on Evil Hollywood in the past two weeks – I suspect it's possible to enjoy the film while ignoring its politics and simply view the story as a larger-than-life cautionary on the dire effects of living your life ruled by any kind of fear. You can really see Lucas, the director, getting off on those scenes detailing Anakin's descent into the dark side (the moment when he prepares to kill that cute group of younglings from the last movie is suitably appalling) and the scenes where evil triumphs through betrayal (the mass murder of the Jedi knights) also have plenty of power. Where the first completed trilogy of Star Wars movies were marked by youthful vigor and focus, I suspect this second threesome will in retrospect be seen as an older man's story. Between Christopher Lee's Dooku (gone too soon, alas) and the enjoyable mano-a-mano twixt Yoda and Emperor Palpatine in the empty Senate stadium, some of the biggest movie fight scenes focus on sprightly geezers as opposed to attractive 70's coiffed actors, while the story essentially details the destruction of Anakin's childhood innocence. (It's not irrelevant to note that Yoda, the wisest of the wise, has possessed an element of kid-ness from the very first moment we met him.) After all the understandable reaction against the excessive kid-flick elements in Phantom Menace, turns out that Lucas was leading us into a place where that one severed limb in New Hope's cantina was only a flesh wound . . . # | |
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