The Roaring Twenties

The Roaring Twenties
seen on TV @ TCM
5.7.12


I've never thought of the drinking of alcohol as a vice. I remember my father letting me have a sip of his beer as a kid, every once in awhile. I thought it made me feel grown-up. (I think he drank Michelob, but I don't recall for sure.) My beer of choice is Heineken (sorry, Frank Booth), but I usually only drink on special occasions. I'm not a prude, I'm just not that into beer, which also means I'm not a regular bar-goer. Hand me a beer, though, I won't turn it down (especially after spending twenty hours on a train).


Same goes for wine and other spirits. When I traveled to Barcelona for a summer, I was only 21 and still learning about the rest of the world, so it took me a bit by surprise when I saw how commonly people over there drink wine. Either my first or my second night there, I tried some of the local vino. I can't say with any authority whether it was good or not because I was unused to the taste of wine in general. Suffice it to say it wasn't to my liking. I stuck to Coke and bottled water for the remainder of the vacation. And of course, I've had champagne on New Year's Eve, but that tastes even weirder.

I'm certain I've never been falling down drunk - and no, it's not a matter of "if I have been, I wouldn't remember," either. It takes longer for someone as big and tall as I am to get drunk. I have a few friends who are recovering alcoholics. Once, I was at a comics convention and I was crashing with one of those friends. We had come from a party in the hotel and were walking across the parking lot to her car. I was finishing off a beer. As we got into her car, she said to me, "Please don't drink that in my place," and I was quickly reminded that she was, indeed, still clean and sober. I hurriedly drained the bottle dry and stuffed it into my backpack, out of sight.


In thinking about Prohibition, I can't help but be reminded of the so-called "war" on drugs. Without getting into a big political debate, let me just say that curtailing vice through legislation seems to create more problems than it solves. I think the most you can do is make it harder for people to engage in, as opposed to eliminating it altogether. Here in New York, laws have recently been passed banning smoking not only from bars, but also from parks, beaches and pedestrian plazas. I still see people lighting up, though - and cigarettes haven't gotten any cheaper either.

The Roaring Twenties plays kinda like a documentary in that the narrative is sprinkled with voice-over montages describing what Prohibition was like in the 1920s, how people profited from the liquor bootlegging business, and how the law combated it. I'm sure this movie was meant to be as much cautionary tale as entertainment; after all, Prohibition was still within recent memory. It's unsubtle, yet interesting to watch, and doesn't detract much from the main narrative.


Jimmy Cagney's in fine form, as always. I really felt for his character as he goes through his rise and fall. It was odd at first to see Humphrey Bogart in a supporting role, but there's no mistaking his presence - and he shares some great scenes with Cagney.

Pride of the Yankees

Pride of the Yankees
seen on TV @ TCM
4.18.12


Did you know there's a Y-nk--s fragrance? I've been seeing subway ads for it lately and every time I do, I wonder who thought it was a good idea and why would anyone choose to wear it? I imagine it smelling of sweatsocks, tobacco, and whatever else the inside of a professional baseball player's locker smells like. Call it Eau de Jock Strap.


There was a time, still within living memory, when the Team From the Bronx was the only team in town. And while I'm grateful that this period ended, since the Mets came along in 1962 to fill the void left by the Dodgers and Giants (50th anniversary this year, by the way - just sayin'), sometimes I wonder what it would've been like growing up with only one ball club. Indeed, when it comes to sports, New York is greedy; we have to have two of everything (the Nets will return to this side of the Hudson this fall in a new arena in Brooklyn). I never questioned the need for this until I spent a year in Columbus, a smaller town where everyone - and I do mean everyone - gets behind one team: the football Buckeyes of Ohio State U. 


It was a very different feeling. Having a single team in a single sport unites the town in a manner unlike here in New York, where there are always gonna be divided loyalties. Let's face it, anyone who says they like both the Team From the Bronx and the Mets equally are not real New York baseball fans. (I suppose a similar argument could be made for the Giants/Jets and Rangers/Islanders, but I wouldn't know for sure.)

More than any other sport, baseball has been a hugely integral part of New York's identity, and yes, the Team From the Bronx is largely responsible for that, but the Mets, Giants and Dodgers were and are also part of that identity too (I've touched before on what makes the Mets distinct from their crosstown rivals). But what if New York remained a one-team town after the Giants and Dodgers left?


Would it have been so bad to eventually get behind one team, the team with more championships than anyone else? Sure, it would've been wrenching at first to be forced to shift loyalties after rooting against them for so long - I know how it would make me feel - but once the reality set in, I imagine that eventually I'd have to concede that any team is better than no team. (Actually, now that we've got minor league teams within the five boroughs as well, that'd be a compromise I could live with...)

These days, however, sports teams change cities at an alarming rate, as greedy owners stick up their host cities for money to build ultra-modern arenas. The Team From the Bronx held up Y-nk-- Stadium for ransom too, demanding the capital necessary to make a new ballpark, and because no one can conceive New York without the Team From the Bronx, they got it, though not without a drawback or two (for instance, parking space that no one uses).


It's pointless to speculate on what a one-team-per-sport New York would be like, I know, but with the imminent return of the Nets this fall, it's been on my mind a bit lately, and I've wanted to get it off my chest.


So: about that Lou Gehrig biopic from the 40s. You know the one. I used to see this on TV every so often around the start of baseball season, and of course, because I knew my baseball history, I knew who Gehrig was. Watching it the other day, I was gratified that I now know who Teresa Wright, Walter Brennan and Dan Duryea were in addition to, of course, Gary Cooper, and could better appreciate their performances as well (especially Brennan).

Still, the movie doesn't hold up as well for me anymore. For instance, there are places where the action stops dead (why did we need to see that dance number?). The narrative is not as dramatic as it could be. The drama should come from Gehrig's slow realization that he can't perform as well as he used to because of his neurological condition, but in my opinion this gets the short shrift because the movie is so eager to show you the whole of Gehrig's life, which, prior to his illness, is less dramatic.


The worst part, though, is how they can't even be bothered to explicitly tell you why Gehrig can't play ball anymore, never naming amyotrophic lateral sclerosis even once, which I find a little offensive, actually. It minimizes the disease and keeps it at a safe distance for no good reason and makes it less real, and by so doing cheapens Gehrig's life a little bit. I realize a lot of people love this movie, but that's just how I see it.

Marley (advance screening)

Bob Marley, poet and a prophet

Back during my days as a summer camp counselor in Massachusetts, there was this guy named Nick. He was one of the counselors, and he was a good guy; very laid-back. Nick played guitar, and his bag was world music. I remember him teaching me about some Brazilian music that I really dug. Nick played guitar, and all summer long he tried to get the kids into reggae music. There were two songs in particular he loved playing most. "Pressure Drop" by Toots and the Maytals was one; the other was "Redemption Song" by Bob Marley.


He had mixed success. Nick was popular and well-liked by both campers and staff, so it wasn't anything to do with his personality. He was a decent singer, so it wasn't that. I suppose some songs connect with kids more than others.


Every now and then I think of Nick whenever I hear reggae music, and in my neighborhood, I hear it almost as often as I do hip-hop. To be honest, reggae has always been difficult for me to get into. A lot of the time, I can barely understand what the singers are saying, partially because of the thick Jamaican accents, partly because of the cadence of their singing. "Pop" reggae stars like Shaggy and Sean Paul are different, naturally, though I imagine most reggae fans would probably turn their noses up at those guys. And then there's someone like Matisyahu, who is perhaps in a league of his own.

Bob Marley taught me how to off it

Still, when you talk about reggae music, sooner or later you have to come to Bob Marley, because in practical terms he was the Elvis of reggae. No one in the field has the following he does, even long after his death, because over the course of his brief life he grew to become much more than a singer. Like John Lennon, he was an icon for peace.


The forthcoming documentary Marley captures his life and music beautifully, including interviews with members of his band, The Wailers, plus family, friends, and business associates, and of course, lots of news and concert footage.


The film goes into the singer's conversion to the Rastafarian religion, but it doesn't go that deep into the faith's basic tenets. We do see quite a bit of discussion on the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, who's revered as some sort of reincarnation or direct descendant of Christ or something, like Linda Fiorentino's character in Dogma, but we don't really find out how he got that way. Rastafarianism is such an integral part of Marley's music; it would've been nice to have gone a little more into it, I thought.


And then there's the political aspects of Marley's life. We see the opposing political parties in Jamaica during Marley's time, his involvement, the attempt on his life during a concert in Jamaica, as well as the subsequent concert, years later, that the country practically begged him to do in order to restore peace between the factions.


Seeing all of this reminded me of the activism in pop music that I grew up witnessing in the 80s. Whether it was to fight drugs, or South African apartheid, or hunger in Ethiopia, I don't recall ever questioning its place, even if I didn't always understand what the cause was about. Take apartheid, for example. I vaguely remember learning a little about it in school, but I probably learned more about it from singers like Peter Gabriel than anything else. It's an aspect of 80s music that's rarely discussed. People sometimes mock 80s music, but for all its synthesized sound and big hair and heavy makeup, it was also a period of great activism, and that activism was front and center in the mainstream.

Bob Marley, walk it like he talk it

Marley, though... imagine an entire country looking to a singer to quell civil unrest and inspire hope and freedom amongst the populace. And not just in Jamaica, either; the doc also shows him in a concert in Zimbabwe on the eve of that nation's independence. (Of course, no one knew at the time what their leader, Robert Mugabe, would turn out to be like, but hey.)

Perhaps the only contemporary musician comparable to Marley in terms of combining popularity and politics might be Bono, but even he doesn't come close to the reverence many people felt, and still feel, for Marley. There was no one quite like him.


Marley the doc was screened last Thursday at a club called the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn. This was my first time there. The bar/lounge area is surrounded with paintings of musical stars, like Debbie Harry, Iggy Pop, and Johnny Cash. In one corner there was a video game console where people were playing Tetris. I played it for a bit before we were all let into what would normally be the concert hall for bands. There were folding chairs all around in front of the screen on the stage. I sat up in the front row for a change.


The audience was a diverse one, and it soon became clear to me that some people knew Marley's history better than others. A woman in the row behind me periodically responded to salient points on Marley's history with knowing "um hmms" in recognition. She talked to her friends quite a bit, but it never quite reached the point where I felt I had to shush her.


Marley will be released April 20 (Four-Twenty, of course).