Welcome to WeeklyWilson.com, where author/film critic Connie (Corcoran) Wilson avoids totally losing her marbles in semi-retirement by writing about film (see the Chicago Film Festival reviews and SXSW), politics and books----her own books and those of other people. You'll also find her diverging frequently to share humorous (or not-so-humorous) anecdotes and concerns. Try it! You'll like it!
“I don’t know how these stories get started, but I do not approve nor sanction the upcoming film about Judy Garland in any way. Any reports to the contrary are 100% fiction.” So said the largely MIA Liza Minelli about the bio-pic “Judy”, which focuses on her mother, Judy Garland. The performance should earn Renee Zellwegger an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
Zellwegger’s singing is good, too, complete with the awkward, nervous, arm-flailing delivery that those of us old enough to remember the real Garland associate with her.
“Judy” focuses on Judy Garland’s final shows in London at the Talk of the Town nightclub in 1969. She appeared for a five-week run that paid her $2,500 pounds weekly ($3,085 in dollars).
At that point in time Judy was considered unreliable and her life-long addiction to uppers and downers, dating from her childhood studio days, was contributing to her quickly failing health. She would be dead three months after these appearances, on June 22, 1969, at the age of 47.
THE GOOD
Acting: Renee Zellweger’s performance inhabiting the neurotic Judy Garland is the best thing about this bio-pic. It was nice seeing Finn Wittrock (“Write When You Get Work,” “American Horror Story”) finally get a chance at a “big” film, playing her last husband Mickey Deans, although the chemistry he and Zellweger generate was muted, at best; the film is very chaste in terms of depicting Judy Garland’s long history as a sexual being. The studio forced Garland to abort Tyrone Powers’ child in 1943 and, earlier, to end an “unapproved” pregnancy in 1941. We get no sense of Judy’s first 3 husbands. Vincent Minnelli (father of Liza) is omitted. Only Sid Luft and the 12-years-younger Mickey Deans are depicted, even though Deans was married to her for less than 3 months. Others deserving praise for their performances would include Darci Shaw as the young Judy Garland, and Jessie Buckley as Rosalyn Wilder, who is assigned to ride herd on the unreliable songstress during her London run.
Music: The quintessential Garland classics tell the story through familiar lyrics.”I’ll go my way by myself, I’m by myself, alone. I’ll have to deny myself love and laughter and friends…No one knows better than I myself know.” Or, later: “For once in my life I won’t let sorrow hurt me” or “As long as I know I have love in my life I can make it.” Zellweger has not sung since “Chicago” in 2002; she is terrific.
Costuming & Make-Up: Jany Temime does a fantastic job of dressing Renee as Judy. I did wonder how an actress who is supposed to be so broke found the money for such elaborate outfits and furs. The make-up and hair folks deserve plaudits for transforming Zellweger into a passable Garland. There were about 13 credited make-up folks and it took them 2 hours. It wouldn’t surprise me if they, too, snagged Oscar nominations on February 9, 2020.
THE BAD
Unnecessary Backstory: The opening “set up” of Judy speaking with L.B. Mayer on the set of “The Wizard of Oz” is used to establish the pattern that most of us already knew. The studio forced the 4’ 11 ½” Garland to diet and plied her with pills to keep her performing in good voice. Then it was barbiturates to help her to sleep. In her adult years, Judy became an insomniac, an alcoholic, and died of a barbiturate overdose that was deemed accidental, despite a couple of earlier documented suicide attempts.
Doting mother? The film insists that Judy was a devoted mother and depicts her traveling in a cab late at night with her two children by Sid Luft, Lorna and Joseph. They are turned away from their hotel for non-payment of the bill and end up going to Sid Luft’s house. The children appear to be of elementary school age—certainly not more than junior high school age—yet the setting for the film is 1968-1969. At that time, the two Luft children would have been about 13 and 16. Liza Minnelli, age 22 or 23 then, is shown only in a brief party scene where Judy “meets cute” with Mickey Dean (he actually met her while delivering illicit drugs.)
With the ages of her offspring much older than what is portrayed, the heart-rending conversation from an old-style red British phone booth where Judy more-or-less “gives up” her children becomes less touching. Judy stayed in London for three more months after her run at the Talk of the Town ended, ultimately dying at a rented house on Cadogan Lane, Belgravia, London, found by her fifth husband of only 3 months, Mickey Deans, in the bathroom on June 22, 1969. There is also a suggestion that ex-husband Sid Luft lost much of Judy’s money at the race track. Other sources say that subsequent managers after Luft mismanaged and embezzled her earnings. (One of them was Freddy Fields, husband of Polly Bergen).
This Rupert Goold adaptation of the stage play “End of the Rainbow” scripted by Tom Edge and Peter Quilter has been called “bland” by some critics and “melodramatic” by others. The scene with Judy befriending a gay couple was praised by some and castigated by others as implausible. The film really is most alive and engrossing whenever “Judy” sings. It soars in those scenes.One thing is certain: Renee Zellweger does a fantastic job of inhabiting and interpreting the trials and tribulations of a troubled icon.
“Ad Astra” translates to “To the Stars” and in this James Gray-directed film, which opened Friday, September 20th, Brad Pitt travels to the far reaches of outer space in search of his astronaut father long thought to be dead. (Tommy Lee Jones).”
The setting is “The near future. A time of both hope and conflict.” Earth has apparently established several bases on neighboring celestial bodies, including a base on the moon and an underground base on Mars that is one of the few such human outposts not harmed by recurring uncontrolled releases of anti-matter. The authorities think the electrical impulses originate from the long-ago Lima Project, which H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) headed up, journeying as far as Neptune and Saturn, the farthest point man has penetrated in space.
Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) is assigned to find his father and the fear is definitely unspoken but potential that he will be part of a mission to eliminate the now-famous space hero. Brad is told, by Donald Sutherland as Colonel Pruitt, an old friend of the senior McBride, that suspicion for the electrical battering that the solar system is taking, which threatens Earth and the very survival of mankind, is perhaps something that H. Clifford McBride has caused. So, they reach out to his now 45-year-old son—also an astronaut—hoping that this tie to the man who may be intentionally hiding out—-will help find him.
I was reminded of Colonel Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now,” with Pitt playing the Martin Sheen part as the man sent to find Marlon Brando’s mad man/god. There is a religious undercurrent running throughout the film, including these words, spoken upon the burial in space of a deceased colleague: “May you meet your Redeemer face-to-face and enjoy the vision of God forever.” H. Clifford McBride (Tommy LeeJones), a believer in alien life forms, says, “I know for certain I am doing God’s work.” He was so convinced that his expedition would find intelligent life in the universe that he took drastic steps to prevent a mutiny from the others in his party. Ironically, the son performs an act nearly as violent in order to find his father.
Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) ponders the meaning of existence at several points. “We go to work. We do our jobs. We’re here and then we’re gone,” says the alienated Pitt. He is a cool customer who, more than once recites in voice-over the information that “I am focused on the essential to the exclusion of all else.” Compartmentalized is another way he describes his ability to deal with emotions. He seems to recognize, early on, (especially after the fantastic opening sequence where he survives a harrowing space accident where a robotic arm crashes and takes the orbiting space station down with it), that “ I should feel something. I survived.” By film’s end, the very basic lesson that we must live and love those close to us and that his father “could only see what was not there, and missed what was right in front of him” has been conveyed.
I couldn’t help but remember Jennifer Aniston’s remark at the time of her divorce from Pitt that he was “lacking an emotional sensitivity chip.” I did find Pitt’s acting spot-on, especially in the scene where he abandons the script that has been prepared for him and speaks from the heart via a secure laser transmission designed to reach his father, wherever he may be hiding in the Universe. The younger McBride acknowledges early on that “I don’t know if I hope to find him or finally be free of him,” but admits that, “I must accept the fact I never really knew him.”
Another echo from an iconic flick is that of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Not only is the path through the solar system that Brad’s character takes the same as that of the ship in Stanley Kubrick’s film, but James Gray finds a way to work in apes—something that seemed out of the realm of possibility.
THE GOOD
Cinematography & Visual Effects:
Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography is fantastic. The sets and visual effects in “Ad Astra” are completely believable. It’s a bit off-putting to see the base on the Moon crassly commercialized, right down to a Subway restaurant and a Virgin Atlantic store, but the set design and the harrowing action sequences set in space are completely believable and well done.
Acting:
Nicely-done, Brad Pitt! It’s great to see him back in leading man form and aging gracefully. This is the second film for Pitt this year that showed he is more than a pretty face, with his pairing with Leonardo DiCaprio in “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood” worthy of a Best Supporting Actor nod and this solo turn equally good. It’s nice to see a return to form for Pitt, who has too often had his acting ability obscured by his good looks and the ubiquitous press coverage of Brangelina.
Screenplay & Directing:
The screenplay was written by James Gray and Ethan Gross and directed by James Gray (“The Lost City of Z,” “The Immigrants”). Brad Pitt and James Gray had planned to work together on two previous occasions, but circumstances intervened. Gray, in an NPR interview, acknowledged the “mash-up” of “Apocalypse Now” and “2001: A Space Odyssey” and expressed his admiration for character-driven films of the seventies, and is also quoted as having said, “This all sounds very pretentious, but I feel like love is a very important subject.”
THE BAD
Acting:
While Brad Pitt is fine in his leading man role, there is a waste of the talent of other cast members. Most notably, Liv Tyler has almost no part at all as the love interest who complains that even when he is there, Pitt is MIA. It as sheer coincidence that I watched a television special entitled “The Last Hours of Phil Hartman” that detailed how Hartman’s wife, possibly influenced by drugs and drink, but growing increasingly frustrated by his workaholic tendencies and his emotional distance from her, shot and killed him and then herself. While there is no homicidal wife in this space opera, the emotional underpinnings of the film are universal.
Donald Sutherland is another fine talent who is wasted in a very small part as Colonel Pruitt, an old friend of Tommy Lee Jones. He isn’t in the film for long. It seems as though the sequence in which Sutherland appears could be eliminated entirely without any harm to the narrative structure. Ruth Negga (“Loving”) also has a brief appearance as Helen Lantos, the Commander of the Mars space base, who assists Brad Pitt as he attempts to board the ship that will journey to Jupiter seeking his father, who Brad last saw at age sixteen.
While there are many exciting sequences, sometimes it feels as though they are being strung together like beads on a necklace. It is an exciting film, but there are slow portions in between the stringing of those action beads. And the film feels long, because it is—a distressingly common trend, it seems.
I’m wondering how the space aficionados will deal with facts in the film that are dropped into the mix, like the fact that it is going to take Pitt 79 days, 4 hours and 8 minutes to get from Mars to Neptune. I don’t pretend to know enough to begin to poke holes in scientific inaccuracies.
Snoopy, Come Home (1972) is re-releasing in theaters on Sept. 29th, Oct. 3 and Oct. 5th.
The1972 film “Snoopy, Come Home” is the rare exception to the other films involving Charlie Brown and the “Peanuts” gang in that (1) Charlie Brown’s name does not appear in the title, and, (2) When originally released, it earned back only $245, 073 of its one million-dollar budget.
The failure to do well at the box office can be attributed to the fact that Cinema Center Films was being shut down. They did not do the necessary marketing. “Snoopy, Come Home” would be Cinema Center’s last release and would also introduce Woodstock and Franklin to fans.
Snoopy visits Lila in the hospital.
The plot—also featured in the comic strip—involves Snoopy’s visit to his first owner, a little girl named Lila, who is hospitalized for three weeks and is very lonely. In a scene that would make no sense to today’s youth (“Why didn’t she just send an e-mail?”) Lila writes a letter and mails it to Snoopy, asking him to come visit her. Charlie Brown also uses an old-fashioned manual can opener to open Snoopy’s food—definitely an antique.
Clara decides she’d like to keep both Snoopy and Woodstock as pets.
Snoopy takes Woodstock, the bird, along as his companion in a trip through the woods, and the two have adventures, including being captured by a little girl along the route who ties Snoopy up and puts Woodstock in a bird cage. Clara (not named, but identified in the credits) wants to keep the two as pets, and she is quite persistent in chasing the pair as they try to escape.
Meanwhile, back at Charlie Brown’s house, Lucy says to Charlie, “You’ve got a used dog, Charlie Brown,” as they figure out the mystery of Lila of the letter. Charlie articulates his life philosophy to Lucy, saying, “I have a philosophy that no matter how bad things get, they will always turn out good in the end.”
Lucy gives Charlie her usual blunt appraisal, saying, “That’s not a philosophy, Charlie Brown. That’s stupidity.”
The songs this time around are by Richard and Robert Sherman, and the singing is considerably better than on “A Boy Named Charlie Brown.” The vocal credits are also different, going to Chad Webber as Charlie, Robin Kohn as Lucy, Stephen Shea as Linus, David Carey as Schroeder, and Johanna Baer as Lila. Bill Melendez directs again, and the explanation for the musical upgrade is that he wanted the film to be more Disney-like.
Is the film on the right wave-length for today’s youth? In the days of WWF and violence, it would seem so.
6% of the film has boxing or struggling over Linus’ blanket between Snoopy and Linus.
There is an extended sequence involving a battle for Linus’ blanket between Linus and Snoopy. Following hat, Snoopy and Lucy box (Snoopy wears the boxing glove on his nose). These scenes of active jousting take up at least 5 minutes of an 83 minute film ( 6%.) Maybe one explanation for these scenes would be it’s what kids do, or we can take Peppermint Patty’s words from the film and use them to explain, when she tells Charlie, “I’m an action type of person. When nothing is moving, I feel low. That’s why I always keep moving.”
Kids might notice that, when Snoopy and Woodstock leave home to go visit Lila, Snoopy carries a small valise that resembles a briefcase. Yet, from this briefcase Snoopy is able to take: a helmet; a football; a cooking pot; a frying pan; a complete dinner service; a large, rolled-up sleeping bag; an old-fashioned alarm clock; and a strange musical instrument that I couldn’t identify (mouth harp?), which somewhat resembled a harmonica, except that it looked like a key. That and the antique can opener were both artifacts that Seth Meyer might hold up on his show and ask a young person to try to identify. I’m an old person, and I couldn’t tell you what the “instrument” was that Snoopy plays when he and Woodstock are camping in the woods.
Snoopy, Lucy, Charlie Brown and Linus return on August 18th.
The good advice that was abundant in the previous Charlie Brown film is here, also. Example: “No one likes a moody person. If you go around in a mood feeling sorry for yourself, you do it alone—and I mean alone!” Or there is this profound bit of shared wisdom from Linus when he says, “Happiness lies in our destiny, like a cloudless sky before the storms of tomorrow destroy the dreams of yesterday and last week.” That pronouncement causes the retort: “I think that blanket is doing something to you.”
There’s a recurring theme of prejudice against canines. When Snoopy tries to go to the beach, he is kicked out because of a No Dogs Allowed sign. This discrimination continues throughout the entire film, up to and including Snoopy being banned from a library, a hospital, and an apartment building.
The songs are better in this Peanuts film, including “Fundamental Friend Dependability” and the song with the lyric, “I still remember a summer gone by. Why was it over so fast? Why can’t our summertimes last?” The explanation is that Melendez wanted the film’s musical score to be more like a Disney film.
Charlie Brown, as usual, is the lovable loser. He says, at one point, “I had 14 pen-pals once, but I did all the writing.” (Isn’t that always the way?) After Snoopy disappears without any explanation, Charlie moans, “I never know what’s going on.”
That feeling that we are the ones who “never know what’s going on” will keep Charlie Brown and the gang relatable for decades, even though so many visual constants of 1972 now appear dated. The beautifully colored woods that Snoopy and Woodstock hike through will be gorgeous on the large screen when the film begins showing at theaters on September 29th, October 3rd and October 5th as a re-issue.
The emotional messages conveyed by “Snoopy, Come Home” will remain true forever.
Lucy, Charlie Brown, and Linus examine cloud formations as “A Boy Named Charlie Brown” opens.
Way back in 1969, half a century ago, when my son was a year old, we watched “A Boy Named Charlie Brown,” directed by Bill Melendez and showcasing the lovable loser Charlie Brown from the “Peanuts” comic strip that Charles Schulz created. It’s 50 years later and, on October 18th, 2019, the film is being re-released on the big screen once again in honor of its 50th anniversary.
The songs in the film were both Oscar and Grammy nominated back in 1971, with music and lyrics by Rod McKuen like, “People, after all, start out as being small, And we’re all a boy named Charlie Brown.”
As the film opens, Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt and Linus are all staring at the clouds and describing what they see. Linus thinks he sees an outline of the British Honduras Islands in the Caribbean and a profile of Thomas Eakens, famous painter and sculptor. When asked what he sees, Charlie admits that he was going to say a duckie and a horsie. Now Charlie is rethinking that response.
My son was one year old when this film came out, but most of it is as fresh and timely today as it was then. Perhaps the only exception to that remark is one of the final scenes that shows boys shooting marbles in a circle. Boys today would have no idea what that scene was all about. I remember playing marbles, and I’m sure Charles Schulz, who wrote the source material probably played marbles with shooters and Aggies, but today, it would be some video game.
Mostly, we are allowed to empathize with Charlie Brown, who goes through a depression when he cannot fly a kite (Snoopy can, immediately after Charlie has exclaimed, “Anyone who can fly this kite is agenius!”) or, seemingly, succeed at anything. “I just can’t seem to do anything right,” Charlie says, noting that his baseball team has just lost its 99th straight game.
Snoopy, Lucy, Charlie Brown and Linus return on August 18th.
But the times, they are a’changin’, and Charlie wins the local spelling bee and goes on to a larger competition, where he almost takes home all the marbles. As a former English teacher at the elementary school level, I applaud the spelling rules the film packs into the script. I guarantee you that 90% of today’s students probably won’t have heard most of them before and could benefit from taking notes!
Here is Lucy Van Pelt, pulling the football away just as Charlie attempts to kick it and causing Charlie to moan, “Why, oh why, do I let her do this to me!”
When Charlie embarks on a Lucy-directed attempt to follow up his school spelling bee championship by winning big at other spelling bees, he leaves town on a bus, taking with him Linus’ blanket, which Linus gave him as a good luck token. Unfortunately, the absence of the blanket leaves Linus in a funk.
Linus and Snoopy go to the big city to try to retrieve the precious blankie. My son had such a blankie and, when he was hospitalized with double pneumonia at the age of 2, his grandmother took his dirty blanket home to wash it, leaving son Scott with a substitute blankie. This substitute blanket did not set well with son Scott (“Accept no substitute!”) who went through his own meltdown while in an oxygen tent, pining for his wonderful blanket and rejoicing when it was finally returned to him. (He used to find “the good part” on the edge, which was a tiny segment of the lace that had worn off the entire perimeter of the blanket, and rub it against his cheek as he drifted off to sleep.)
Finally, Linus gets his blanket back (as did Scott) and all is well. Linus can finally stop saying, “Woe is me!” Linus plays Beethoven. (Lucy, seeing abust of Beethoven on his piano, asks, “Who is this? George Washington?”) and Snoopy ice skates like a champion.
The movie holds up remarkably well after fifty years (with the exception of thatmarbles-shooting scene) and the colorful sequences with animated pulsing color will be even better viewed on a giant screen once again. Enjoy it at your local theater beginning August 18th.
The second “sleeper” film of the summer, after “Late Night,” is “Yesterday,” an upbeat story of love and the Beatles.
Helmed by Danny Boyle (“Slumdog Millionaire,” “Shallow Grave,” “Trainspotting”) from a script by Richard Curtis (“Notting Hill,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Love Actually”) “Yesterday” has an improbable plot that presents as fact the idea that everyone in the world has forgotten about the Beatles, except for Jack Malik (Himesh Patel of the BBC’s “Eastenders”).
Don’t get hung up on why the knowledge of the Beatles and their song catalogue has disappeared. It’s not just their music, as Oasis (the band) has disappeared, as well, along with Coca Cola, Harry Potter and cigarettes. It all seems to have happened during a 12-second world-wide blackout, during which our hero is on his bicycle and gets hit by a bus that cannot see him because its headlights have gone dark.
Starring alongside new-comer Himesh Patel as Jack is Lily James as Ellie, his first manager and long-time admirer. Lily is recognizable from “Baby Driver” and her appearance in “Mama Mia.” She has just the right combination of fresh-faced admiration and loyalty to make her the perfect grade school teacher (which she is) and, eventually—although he is slow to recognize this fact—the girl of Jack’s dreams.
Along the way we are treated to a small appearance by Ed Sheeran as himself, a part he got after Chris Martin of “Cold Play” turned it down. Sheeran hears Jack sing a Beatles song on television and pops around to his Suffolk home to give him a shot at stardom (Sheeran really is from Suffolk). The scene with Jack’s father in the kitchen is pure Curtis and very realistic, as are Jack’s parents’ reactions throughout his climb from unknown to world-famous singer of Beatles songs.
As the press kit for the film put it, “Ultimately, this film is a great example of the power of song…To reconnect with the power of music is a fantastic treat.” One of the amusing points made by the film is the difficulty of remembering all the lyrics to a favorite song. In this film, that song is “Eleanor Rigby.” It proves to be one of the most difficult to re-construct from memory, after all Beatles tunes have disappeared from the globe.
Jack has been struggling to make his name as a singer/songwriter for years, but his own composition, “Summer Song,” just isn’t up to Beatles standards. As the villainess of the piece (Kate McKinnon of“Saturday Night Live”) put it, “I hated it, but I wasn’t interested enough in it to listen to it again to figure out why.”
Now that Jack has pinned down his failure to thrive to his songs, but not his singing, armed with the Biggest Hits of the Sixties and beyond, he completely blows the competition out of the water. There is even an impromptu song-writing competition with Sheeran where Jack’s contribution of “The Long and WindingRoad” is judged the winner. He seems to compose it in 10 or 15 minutes. (An interesting side note: the song that Sheeran wanted to contribute at that point was initially received with great enthusiasm—until his record company stepped in and said they needed it for his next album, at which point Sheeran composed another original work that runs at film’s end.)
Another role in the film is that of Jack’s roadie, Nick (Harry Michell). As the plot put it, “Nick is famously a world-class moron.” In real life, Michell was initially considered for the lead role of Jack because of his musical ability. When he auditioned he was ill and barely able to sing, but he was good enough that the part of Nick—comic relief—was his.
In part, the film is a hymn to the power of marketing. The scene where Jack is meeting in a board room with the marketing team that will decide how to present “his” songs to the world featured a dynamite monologue from the actor playing the lead marketer, who is, in reality, a well-known comedian. LaMorne Morris, the marketing guru, knocked it out of the park in shooting down such esoteric titles as “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in favor of “One Man Only.” The room used was loaned to Boyle for one day’s shoot because of his affiliation with WME and Cooper Wave Louise in L.A. and the W Hotel also makes an appearance. The rooftop scene of Jack performing at the Pier Hotel (a real Suffolk hotel) conjures up images of the real Beatles performing “Get Back” and “Don’t Let Me Down” on the roof of Apple Records.
Patel does all his own singing and glowing references to his audition, when he sang “Back in the U.S.S.R.” were made, with the comment that “Danny’s approach is all about the performance; that’s what we were there to catch.” In other words, no lip-syncing.
One small criticism. The film is a bit over-long. As it goes on past 2 hours we meet John Lennon. I wondered if removing the John Lennon meet might have brought the film in at 120 minutes or less, because that would have improved it, and the meeting with the doppelganger for John is not really that central to the plot until they give him this line: “Tell the girl that you love that you love her and tell the truth to everyone whenever you can.”
In other words, not a good movie choice for Donald J. Trump.
The Rolling Stones on June 21st, 2019 at Soldier Field.
The Rolling Stones played for the 8th time at Soldier Field on Friday night, June 21st, beginning at 7:30 p.m. with the lead-in act, St. Paul and the Broken Bones from Alabama.
Before arriving at the venue, we were told not to bring large purses. Specific dimensions were sent and a suggestion was made that we use quart-sized plastic bags. All metal objects had to be placed in trays as we went through metal detectors up front. I was able to get my plastic bag contents down to cash, one credit card, my cell phone, my small camera,
We were waaay up in the stadium and these were taken with a Canon PowerShot with a 40 zoom.
and opera glasses (that turned out to be useless). Tickets in the nosebleed section were $69.50 and we climbed a long time. (I told my husband, “I’ll just keep climbing until I pass out.”)
The booths selling shirts and the like ($45 for a regular tee shirt; $85 for a hooded sweatshirt) were set up in a particularly problematic way. You could barely walk through to get to your section because of the presence of several tables selling merchandise.
Mick Jagger.
Finally, we climbed to the 18th row in the highest section. The night was cool and rain threatened, but the four things that amazed me most about the concert this night were as follows: (1) Mick Jagger definitely is in amazing shape for someone his age (75, born July 26, 1943) (2) Jagger is back from the heart surgery that had originally postponed this concert date, but was re-programmed for the original date shortly after he had stents placed in his heart (3) my new small camera (Canon Powershot) with a 40 zoom did a pretty fair job of getting pictures from this far away and (4) how far other concert-
Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood.
goers had come to hear the Rolling Stones. We heard Germany, England, New York, Cleveland, Minneapolis and St. Louis and everyone around us was from out-of-town. In fact, following the concert, we had to provide directions to a gentleman who was to meet his friends at Scout bar on Wabash and Michigan and had little idea how to get back there.
Mick shared that the Stones had played Soldier Field 8 times and Chicago 38 times over the years since 1964. Only 2 of the songs were from later than 1981. Which, as the Chicago Tribune noted, is exactly what the vast majority of fans paid to see.
Other musicians assisting the band included keyboardist Charlie Leavell and Chicago born bassist Darryl Jones ably backing the Stones (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood).
The Rolling Stones, June 21, 2019.
Since 1998, the stones have produced only 2 studio albums, yet they play their hits differently each night. I can vouch for this, having seen them for the first time in 1982 in Cedar Falls, Iowa, at Northern Iowa University and, after that, during the Steel Wheels tour, the Bridges to Babylon tour (2x), the VooDoo Lounge tour, the Tattoo You tour, twice inside the United Center (one of them the No Security tour) and at the Indianapolis Speedway in 2015, as well as tonight’s No Filter tour. Mick had never danced more and I had never seen Charlie Watts AND Keith Richards smile more onstage.
Mick Jagger.
To me, tracking the band in person for 37 years, Keith Richards looked the most changed. Something about the expanse of forehead looked very different. The joke about Keith is that he has looked like he is at death’s door for at least 40 years. He really did look different to me, tonight, and his comment when he spoke was, “I’m happy to be anywhere.”
Keith (Richards) and Mick Jagger onstage.
The Stones have weathered sixties drug busts, seventies heroin addictions, the Jagger/Richards split during the eighties, Keith’s brain surgery after he fell out of a tree in 2006 and, now, Mick’s heart surgery (stents) in March. They sound as good as ever, and Mick danced more, if possible, than I’ve ever seen him, in a “Look! I’m still standing!” move. It was a great show! Even the weather cooperated. The downside was that it took us a full hour to walk across the street from the stadium.
An Irish illustrator, John Rooney, sent me his work on “The Films of Bill Murray.” Since I just took myself to see “The Dead Don’t Die” in Chicago at the AMC Theater, I told him I’d run his artwork with a few observations about the film. It’s not really a “review,” but simply some observations after my viewing of same.
The Dead Don’t Die film was exactly what I had anticipated: an oddball display of Bill Murray at his hipster best, playing a small town Sheriff with a deputy, played by Adam Driver of “Star Wars” and “BlackKlansman.” Zombie fare has been hot for a while now and this is a bit like “The Walking Dead” in that the principal characters (Murray, Driver, Chloe Sevigny, Steve Buscemi,Tilda Swinton) are told to “aim for the head.” Carol Kane also has a brief bit as a corpse who “changes” while in police custody.
Steve Buscemi plays a racist who is not mourned when he bites the dust (or, more accurately, when the zombies bite him). He is featured at a local diner drinking coffee while wearing a hat that resembles the Trump red hat with the words “Make America White Again.” Seated next to him is Danny Glover, who, at almost 73 years of age, seems to be taking just any old role these days. I saw him in a movie about the Ebola virus at the Chicago International Film Festival of 2017. It was pretty bad. Here, he only has a few lines, but the one that Buscemi speaks to him about the coffee is something along the lines of, “That’s too black for me,” which he immediately doubles back on, saying, “I was talking about the coffee.”
At one point, when Murray and Driver are trapped in their car in a cemetery and Adam Driver keeps saying, “This will not end well,” Murray freaks out and tells him to stop saying that. Murray then demands to know WHY Driver keeps repeating the line, and Driver says, “I read the script.” Murray has a momentary outburst of outrage over the fact that Writer/Director Jim Jarmusch (renowned for his “quirky”films) didn’t share the entire script with him. It’s that kind of “inside joke” film.
Tilda Swinton plays a very strange mortician. Her finale in the film is the kind that cannot be predicted, because it is fairly illogical. But, then, this is a Jim Jarmusch film. It really plays like a long commercial for the song of the same name, which is pretty good, but an entire film about the song? Really?
The horrible ending to the film, for me, was when I was charged $39 to park for 2 hours in the AMC parking lot under the theater. I was supposed to have had my ticket validated, at which point my charge would have been a mere $17. I spent 4 days trying to reach Tiara, who oversees 6 different parking lots, they told me. I did finally reach her, only to be told that she could not put the $22 differential back on my charge card. (Sigh)
Sir Paul McCartney onstage at the Taxslayer Center in Moline (IL) on Tuesday, June 11, 2019.
My first “live” Paul McCartney concert experience was in 1965 at the San Francisco Cow Palace when he played and sang with a little group called the Beatles. My boyfriend of the time and I had cut class at Berkeley and drove up on his purple Czechoslovokian motorcyle. We had no tickets. We got there and were able to purchase 2 seats on the end of the 7th row on the floor for $7 apiece. That concert was a classic and deserves its own column, so, moving on.
My second “live” Paul McCartney concert experience was when he was singing with “Wings” and played in Ames at the HiltonColisseum. By the luck of the draw, my name was drawn first for tickets in the state of Iowa in a drawing that took place outside the Younkers entrance at Duck Creek Mall. Paula Sands (KWQC anchor) came over to me and asked me to purchase 4 tickets (there was an 8-ticket limit) and sell 4 to she and husband, David Sands,which I did. It was a great concert and we were very close to the front.
My third “live” Paul McCartney concert experience was at Wrigley Field a few years ago with my daughter. We were in the upper bowl, but the seats were tiered and were good. I knew every song he played and the fireworks at the end were great. The concert was well worth the money. Interestingly enough, all of the anecdotal stuff he mentioned in concert in Moline he had (also) mentioned in Chicago. He also had exactly the same band with him on Tuesday as he had at Wrigley Field.
Pictures of the Beatles and of Paul in younger days were projected in the background throughout the concert.
My most recent “live” Paul McCartney experience was at the TaxSlayer Center (previously the Mark of the Quad Cities) ,on Tuesday night. I’ve seen so many glowing accounts of the concert—most of which I agree with—that I thought I’d throw in “another country heard from.” I sat down when I reached home and wrote this account of Tuesday night’s concert—where I knew 75% of the songs, as opposed to 100% at the others—to my son and daughter, to let them know how the concert went. So far, no comment from them. [Perhaps they, too, have had to put up with a Bobblehead who just won’t quit and semi-ruins their concert experience.]
I got in on a pre-sale for concert tickets, so our tickets in Section 213, row 11, seats 3 and 4, cost us $213 apiece. While this is not “cheap,” our upper tier seats were definitely not the ones that people were paying thousands of dollars to secure. We climbed 45 stairs to reach the 11th row in the upper bowl. As luck would have it, the 2 seats next to us remained empty and we moved over into seats 2 and 3, leaving a seat on each end (1 and 4), which made us feel less like sardines.
Getting into the venue was not that difficult. We were “wanded” and purses were checked, but it did not take that long and it was not that onerous.
The first sign of trouble came with the realization that a First Class Bobblehead was going to sit directly in front of me for the entire concert. A bobblehead, as you all probably know, is someone who never sits down, screams loudly all the time, is constantly waving fists and arms in the air, and generally seems to have not received enough attention from his or her parental unit as an infant. The one in front of me resembled a small creature that might live on the back of a rhinoceros, to make an animal allusion, because of the size differential between him and the man on the end of the aisle. I say this because the gentleman on the end of the row in front of us (Row 10) was really, really large. He had a very hard time making it up to his seat. I say this with empathy, as I have a bad left knee and am no Birdwoman, myself. He was a red-head and fair and overweight and the SHAKING of his entire body was really concerning, to me. I am not joking about this; he was in distress.
This was my view of the Paul McCartney Concert on June 11th , for 3 hours.
I was very concerned that the man on the end of Row 10 was going to have a heart attack, as he was beet red, sweating profusely and shaking. He immediately began blotting his face with a napkin and guzzling water from a bottle someone in the row below handed up to him, but he was really distressed. I honestly thought we might need to administer CPR. I looked around for someone to assist us, who might be in an official capacity, but there was no one
The Bobblehead, wearing glasses and his baseball cap backwards seemed over-caffeinated, went into high gear immediately and never once let up. He seldom sat down and emitted ear-shattering hoots and hollers throughout, singing along loudly to the point that it was hard to hear Sir Paul. My husband cautioned, “Just ignore him” and, as God is my witness, I did. That is why most of my pictures have his arm or hand in them. He did leave once, giving me a clear view for about 10 minutes.
Mid-concert a blonde girl, clutching a beer bottle, came to our row and leaned over and began hugging and kissing Mr. Bobblehead. To do this, she occupied the empty aisle seat, which she soon announced, very belligerently, she intended to sit in for the entire concert. I asked her, “Don’t you have a seat and a ticket for that seat somewhere?”
She admitted that she had a seat “way over there,” (throwing her arms around in a random fashion.) As politely as I could, I suggested that, if she had a ticket for a seat, she should probably occupy her own seat. She didn’t seem to like that logic, but it was pretty obvious that if she were to move into the row we were in, my husband and I would be subjected to even more extreme aggravation that would be IN OUR ROW. We already were having difficulty seeing over Mr. Bobblehead’s appendages, at times, and hearing the concert, at times (Mr. Bobblehead liked to sing along, loudly). With this blonde person in our row it would be a double whammy. She was not very smart about how she threw out this idea, declaring it as a “fait accomplis” without any attempt at asking nicely or explaining why allowing her to shove her way into our row would be a “good” thing for all of us. She did not ask if she would be an acceptable addition to our row or if we would mind. She simply loudly announced that she was going to move into our row and our seats, while sloppily guzzling something from a pink can. She was also very loud.
The blonde clutching the beer bottle left—for a while—but, of course, decided to come back later and pretty much ruin the concert during the Grand Finale number (“Live and Let Die”), which was song number 32 (of 36). At that point, she was truly drunk. When I objected to her inserting herself into a row she did not belong in and SCREAMING as loudly as possible in my left ear, she called me every name in the book, gave me the finger, and then hit me. On the nose. I suggested that she might want to “Go away” or I’d have to find a cop who might escort her somewhere, and that I would press charges if I had to miss the rest of the concert to find an officer of the law.
The original photo had Paul nestling his new-born child within his sheepskin jacket. I wonder if the child was Stella McCartney? Did Annie Leibowitz take the photo? A wonderful picture.
This was RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF the biggest number of the night (“Live and Let Die”) when various flash pots were detonating down below. I missed most of it because a drunk blonde person assaulted and insulted me. Her friend (Mr. Bobblehead) now climbed over the BACK of hisseat to get into our row. This put him in between Blonde Drunk Girl and me. If you’re keeping score, there are 2 seats there, and now we have 3 people occupying them. I’m thinking, “This can’t be good!”, but I’m also glad that there is someone between the young girl who had just assaulted me and her.
I believe I said, more than once, “Keep her away from me.” Since she had already hit me once, I didn’t think a repeat performance would be any more enjoyable. Since I was trying to film the Grand Finale number, I may even have some film footage of this intrusion into our personal space. It’s pretty erratic, but if I can find it, I will post it later.
It was pretty clear that there were not going to be any security officers rushing to my aid. My husband was sitting closer to the stage (seat 4), looking to his right, and was engrossed in the pyrotechnics going off down below, so he did not notice all of this until it was almost over. When he did, he asked the duo to calm down (both were drunk) and stop.
Mr. Bobblehead, perhaps realizing that his drunk friend (wife? girlfriend?) had gone too far, did take her “away from me” shortly after she assaulted and insulted me. I was able to enjoy songs #32 through #37 in peace. Too bad that the first 31 were ruined by this pair. Good thing that my nose is Irish and small and pug-nosed, as a Grecian honker might have been broken by the blow.
So, when I’m asked (by my husband), “Which concert did you enjoy the most?” I can’t say it was the one where 2 young rude people did their best to ruin it for me (and all those around me). I also enjoyed the Wrigley recent concert more because he played nearly all songs that the audience knew well. I’d have to rate them in order chronologically and say that this was the fourth concert and #4, through no fault of Sir Paul’s.
There were three factors for my rating, beyond the inexcusable rude behavior of two young drunk concert-goers:
1) Paul played more recognizable songs at the other 3 concerts
(2) My tickets at the Cow Palace for the Beatles and at the Hilton Colisseum for Wings were better (Wrigley was a draw) and cheaper.
(3) Nobody wants to have to put up with rude behavior from two strangers that they in no way have instigated. And I DID pay $426 for these tickets, so…. (In the age of Trump, don’t expect courtesy may be the name of that tune).
Bill Duke: My 40 Year Career On Screen and Behind the Camera
Bill Duke: My 40-year Career On Screen and Behind the Camera
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, 193 pages, plus index and photographs (15 pages)
Amazon: Print – $16.47. E-book: $13.99.
Bill Duke, with his 62 directorial credits, 17 as a producer, and 4 as a writer, is a face on the screen that movie-goers have recognized since the seventies. It was 1976, in fact, when his breakthrough role as Duane/Abdullah in “Car Wash,” paired with such luminaries as Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Otis Day, Antonio Fargas and the Pointer Sisters gave him his first big break in the 40-year career he writes about in “Bill Duke: My 40-year Career Onscreen and Behind the Camera.”
For me, one of his most memorable roles was as Leon, the gay pimp in “American Gigolo.” His movements were sinuous and catlike; he was an unforgettable character in this story of lust and greed, which focused on Gere and his romance of Lauren Hutton as a neglected politician’s wife and a murder suspect. Paul Schrader (Oscar-nominated this past year for his script for “First Reformed,” which Schraderdirected) was the director. The music by Giorgio Moroder imprints the film on my mind.
Duke admits, “I found it to be one of the high points of my acting career with one of the leading roles of the film. It was outside of my comfort zone, but it was a growing experience. I loved the character I played, and I loved working with Richard Gere.”
Duke goes on to say that “Richard Gere was meticulous with every movement of his character, like the movement of his eyes, the face, the lips, the hands, and the legs.” I would add that this attention to detail and movement goes double for Bill Duke in his roles. Leon was, indeed, a high point of Bill Duke’s acting career, and one I remember well.
I would also say that Duke’s praise of his fellow actors and directors and co-stars is universal throughout the book. “Never is heard a discouraging word.” If you are looking for a “tell-all” book from a Hollywood insider that will open the floodgates on unsavory doings, this isn’t it. Bill does allude to a low period in his own life when he gave in to the temptation of drugs, but the story of the seamier side of life in Hollywood is not this book’s mission.
BACKGROUND
When I was teaching junior high school students in a small town in Illinois, I was happy to find that the local library had a series of 16 millimeter After School Specials. I could rent these and show them to my students. I selected those where Bill Duke and Kevin Hooks were involved because they would be quality productions with good messages and the length was perfect to show to a class on a Friday afternoon late in the year. I was then (and am now) a film critic. I pay attention to who is in a film, and also to who is directing, writing and producing a film.
Duke has appeared in too many television series to list them all, including stints on those After School Specials as well as on “Cold Case” (2008), “Lost” (2006), “Battlestar Galactica” (2006), “Starsky & Hutch” (1978), “Kojack” (1976), “Falcon Crest, “Fame,” “Hill Street Blues,” “Knott’s Landing,” “Dallas,” and “New York Undercover.” He is still active on “Black Lightning.”
Bill Duke’s feature credits include the two films mentioned (“Car Wash,” “American Gigolo”), which really launched him, as well as “Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit,” “Get Rich or Die Trying,” “Deep Cover,” “Hoodlum,” “Predator,” “Menace II Society” and “Not Easily Broken,” to name just a few. He has won NAACP Image Awards and been a nominee for a 1991 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or with “A Rage in Harlem.” Sundance Film Festival awarded “The Killing Floor” (1984) a Special Jury Prize and a Grand Jury Prize. More recently, the Northeast Film Festival recognized “American Satan” with a Best Ensemble Prize and, in 2018-2019, Bill Duke can be seen as Agent Percy Odell in the television series “Black Lightning.”
Reading about how this 77-year-old African American actor/director/producer/writer rose from humble origins in Poughkeepsie, New York and how he continues to open the door for so many other talented black entertainers was interesting, educational and amusing. He seems to write from the heart with sincerity, although there are a few areas that he treats “once over lightly,” including his own bouts with drug addiction and his personal life.
When Duke talks about Leon, his desire to excel shines through. “Playing that role gave me an opportunity to show other sides of my acting ability. I was seen by many casting directors as the big, tall, angry black man. I wanted to show that I could be more than that. The character of Leon was a soft-spoken brilliant sociopathic businessman, and I wanted the opportunity to let casting directors know that I had more range.”
Duke shares the trials and tribulations of being a television series regular. (“A television series is thehardest work for an actor on the face of this Earth.”) He thanks all those who have helped him along the way and does not speak ill of anyone, but does tell readers that, after appearing on a television series called “Palmerstown,” he could not find work as an actor for 2 years.
He explains, “In those days, they had something called a TV Q score, which was a way to measure how familiar audiences were with an actor, TV show, and so forth. If you were on a television show that garnered a lot of publicity, you could be considered ‘overexposed,’ which could make it difficult to get hired for another television show or feature because your Q score went down.” He adds that the experience made him depressed and angry and convinced him that he had “better learn how to do more than just act.”
Thus began a career move towards producing, writing and directing and this quote: “Once I figured Hollywood might typecast me as the police officer, I turned to directing. That way, I could wait until an interesting project came along.” Duke has also moved into the job of Chairperson of the Department of Radio, Television and Film at Howard University, as of 2000.
[*As an aside, I once interviewed the man responsible for the Q Score system. He had headquarters at that time in Marion, Iowa. At that point in time, he was tasked with making a television star spokesperson out of top model Cheryl Tiegs, something that never really worked. The man had worked for Gallup and took his knowledge of polling into the world of television and movies with the much-vaunted “Q Score” that Bill Duke mentions as having given him two years of idleness, sadness and depression. The Q Score Big Boss didn’t like what I had to say about the Q Score, so the article never ran. I was paid a “kill fee” after I interviewed him in his Marion, Iowa, offices.]
Duke scored a collaborative job with Joel Silver on “Commando,” which introduced him to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mark Lester (the director) and led, later, to his role as Mac in 1987’s “Predator.”’
PREDATOR STORY
One of the best stories in the book involves “Predator” and the unknown and inexperienced stuntman/actor hired to play the title creature. The actor was dressed in heavy black felt for the filming in the jungles near Puerto Vallarta. The heat and humidity were intolerable, causing the stuntman to pass out at least two times early on.
The director strode over and said, “If you pass out again, I’m going to have to fire you.” The original Predator creature (which did not appear in the film), was a smaller, more nimble creature that flew through jungle trees with speed and flexibility and fully packed laser guns. That Predator was also invisible and could strike his prey at any time. The bodysuit, including placement over the head and face, was originally used to insert computer-generated special effects over the actor’s body in post production. Unfortunately for the actor within the suit, he did pass out again.
At that moment, Joel Silver marched over to him and, as the actor awoke, suffering from exhaustion and dehydration, Silver said, “You’re fired.” The acrobatic, multitalented martial artist flying through the trees in a felt suit in one of his first jobs in America was Jean-Claude Van Damme.
ENCOURAGEMENT
One of the best things about the book is its “never say die” encouragement of young actors, in general, and African American actors in particular. While giving props to all of the heavyweights who have gone before (Sidney Poitier, Spike Lee, etc.), Bill Duke, himself, has proven to be a shining example of an actor who has paved the way for others. His work in Hollywood earned him an appointment to the Board of the California State Film Commission, as well as an appointment to the National Endowment of Humanities under President Bill Clinton. The Directors’ Guild of America honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Tribute. The reader may get the feeling that the author sometimes feels he has not received his fair share of recognition, and his Bill Duke Media corporation may be an attempt to rectify that by producing a great deal more quality film output.
As an unconventional actor—-not known for good looks, but renowned for good performances—Duke has had a career that has had many highs and lows. He shares that, “It’s all about relationships in the industry.” That remark could probably be expanded to any line of work. It may be intensified in Hollywood, but it seems true of many corporations, businesses and industries.
Quote: “Nobody else in this world is like you. There may be similarities, but nobody is just like you. You have value, and if nobody has validated that for you, it is time for you to validate yourself. Let your soul and your spirit out in your writing. Tell the truth of your experience in life through your writing. Writing forces you to love yourself and let out your truth. It takes courage, but the payoff is something that you cannot spend.” (p. 190)
“I wish I could say that writing this book was inspired by me and my courage, but the truth is that it was not. For many years, people told me that I should tell my story because of all that I had gone through in Hollywood, but I never believed that I had anything important to say. I thought a lot of people had gone through what I had gone through. I didn’t think there was anything special about bill Duke in Hollywood. However, when I reached my seventies, I wanted to leave something for those who come after me to benefit from.” (p. 190)
POETRY
Duke shares his poetry with us throughout the book. After reading of his humble origins in Poughkeepsie, New York, and the events that shaped him over the years, including a history of family violence, his poetry reveals a deep, sensitive soul, who arranges the poems on the page in vertical fashion. Lines like: “Nobody really cares. Nobody seems to really care about the other’s pain. For we must laugh and dance and sing and not remind us of anything that resembles fears that we’ve secretly tried to cover by pretending to be devoted lovers of everything except ourselves. “
What came through, for me, was that Bill Duke, at least early on, suffered from self-loathing. Was it his appearance? Was it because of remarks made to him when he was young? Was it because of his father and mother’s sometimes violent marriage? The source is difficult to pin down, as it often is in life.
WOMEN
Bill Duke during 1987’s “Predator” filming
It sounds as though Bill Duke doesn’t trust women. The reason for this is hinted at: a girl he had a crush on in college led him to believe that she’d spend time with him if he traveled to her school. He did (travel to her school). She didn’t (spend time with him). That seems to be one of the reasons why he stopped trusting ALL women. He had some sexual mistreatment by an early babysitter that also may have affected his views.
He frankly admits (p. 27): “I thought of sex as a game of pleasure from that day on, and maybe the reason I’ve hurt so many women in my life was because I always focused on the act, not the person. I liked having sex with different women, but I never went beyond that and made emotional connections. I simply enjoyed the physical act. Maybe it’s because of the way I learned about sex; I’m not sure.”
On page 171, Duke adds, “One of the many reasons I never got married was that I always thought I was ugly, and I didn’t want to have children that looked like me.” He goes on to say, “After my first love betrayed me, I used that as an excuse to become a scoundrel when it came to women.”
At least this sensitive, introspective man realizes it is an excuse and admits he has, at times, been a “scoundrel” when it comes to women.
TRUST
While Bill Duke trusts himself (“Trusting what is inside you is key”, p. 189) he doesn’t seem to trust many other people. He talks of loneliness this way (p. 178): “You have a couple of friends who are with you throughout your life. Some stay and some go, but when you’re not successful, not making money, and your career is not going well in our industry, there aren’t many people who flock to you. That shouldn’t be a shock, because they are hustling and trying to do what they have to do. If you can’t do anything for them, you are of no use to them.”
The book is good. The stories and experiences are fascinating and interesting. I always liked any film Bill Duke was associated with and that has proven to be prescient. If you’re interested in the film industry in any capacity as a career, this is a good read.
Earlier in the festivities I did a review of a wonderful new documentary called “The Bluebird,” which is a visit to the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, Tennessee, which is (apparently) the subject of a television show starring Connie Britton. (I’ve never watched it).
I attended the Bluebird documentary, however, taking many pictures of the director and others on the stage of the Paramount in Austin, Texas, at SXSW on Thursday, March 14th at 6:30 p.m. (It showed again at the Lamar at 11:00 p.m. on Friday,March 15th).
Later on, I received a phone text message informing me that the daughter might be singing back-up for one of her singer/songwriter friends who was going to be appearing onstage at the Bluebird Cafe on their Monday songwriters’ night (featured heavily in the documentary). Lest you think this is unimportant, it launched the careers of both Garth Brooks and Taylor Swift and, although the daughter wasn’t certain she would have a role, I look forward to her ringside seat report of her friend’s performance.
“Bluebird Cafe” in Nashville, Tennessee. (Stacey Wilson).
Interior of the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville. (Connie Wilson).
I asked the daughter, who went to school in Nashville and lives there now, to send me a picture of the exterior, but when I went to press, somehow that picture (and a few others she sent) had disappeared, not to be found.
I’m still trying to figure out how to get a small bit of film sent me by the son of Low Cut Connie performing at Lucy’s Fried Chicken in Nashville on Saturday, March 16h, to post on my blog. The file sent me came through as IMG-5643.MOV (5.2 MB) but how does one get THAT to post? In place of it, I shall post the link of Adam Weiner (who is “Low Cut Connie”) appearing on Seth Meyer’s late night show and the 2 pictures of the Bluebird that I now have located.
I am posting the Low Cut Connie link because he and his band will be performing at The Rust Belt in East Moline (IL) on April 18th. I’ve been told that the Rust Belt is somewhere on 7th Street, but look it up and check it out. (I’ll be in Mexico). I’m hoping that www.QuadCities.com will run a notification when it is closer.
I missed Low Cut Connie when he hit the Raccoon Motel in Davenport, but Craig wanted to be present here in Austin for his birthday celebration with son Scott and daughter Stacey at Lucy’s Fried Chicken. They got to hang with the band afterwards, as one of the guitarists was someone known to the Nashville daughter.
The van at Camp Sandy.
I was covering “Pet Semetary” with stars Jason Clarke, et. al., (that piecehas also run previously), so I missed the hilarity (and the chicken) and the music, but I’m doing my best to drum up a record crowd for you, Low Cut Connie (i.e, Adam Weiner) if only because my name IS Connie. The picture to the left represents the van that Low Cut Connie was supposed to play in at Camp Sandy. INSIDE the van. You sit outside and watch the performances on the screens you see mounted on the exterior of the van.
I’m not thinking this would be optimal for an act that is Jerry Lee Lewis Redux times 100. However, I did drive out to catch him there (since I couldn’t be presentat Lucy’s Fried Chicken on Saturday, March 16th). There were problems at Camp Sandy, but the Turtle Wax people have reached out and are sending me vats of Turtle Wax to East Moline. Thanks, Eden Zaslow of Zenogroup! That was not necessary.
Low Cut Connie WAS present on the 16th and, if I can figure out how to post the 5.2MB piece of film sent me by my son, you will be able to see it here some time in the future.
Their play list this night was as follows:
She admitted that she had a seat “way over there,” (throwing her arms around in a random fashion.) As politely as I could, I suggested that, if she had a ticket for a seat, she should probably occupy her own seat. She didn’t seem to like that logic, but it was pretty obvious that if she were to move into the row we were in, my husband and I would be subjected to even more extreme aggravation that would be IN OUR ROW. We already were having difficulty seeing over Mr. Bobblehead’s appendages, at times, and hearing the concert, at times (Mr. Bobblehead liked to sing along, loudly). With this blonde person in our row it would be a double whammy. She was not very smart about how she threw out this idea, declaring it as a “fait accomplis” without any attempt at asking nicely or explaining why allowing her to shove her way into our row would be a “good” thing for all of us. She did not ask if she would be an acceptable addition to our row or if we would mind. She simply loudly announced that she was going to move into our row and our seats, while sloppily guzzling something from a pink can. She was also very loud.
