Still Thinking

Dear Senior Burns, I despaired recently upon learning these posts reached a wider audience than the intended none. Truly, I believed we were alone here -- just me and you, Senior Burns, slavering at words like a meat-head pumping iron in a mirror. The only problem, keeping with the metaphor, I forgot that the internet is a giant Gold's Gym: mirrors impinge from all sides. Truly again, Senior Burns, we are not alone. My responsive choice became to either abandon or embrace the available space -- public mirrors and all. As you can see, I've chosen the latter, typing furiously as veins press the edges of my strained neck like prank-snakes in a pillow case. That final metaphor got lost. Here be the dietary bits I relished over Spring Break -- morsels that I cannot fathom anyone else giving a whipless dollop about. WORDS: I polished off Stephen King's 1982 novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption in two sittings, fully convinced by the end that Andy Dufresne's pa...

After success with The French Connection (1971) and The Exorcist (1973), William Friedkin coolly requested $15 million (over the $2.5 million offered) to film two trucks hauling dynamite across a South American jungle. Friedkin’s problem was that this pitch -- truck, dynamite, jungle -- provided his entire plot. Whereas The French Connection offered a gritty crime-thriller with epic car chases, and The Exorcist argued for Christian faith over scientific reasoning (with pea-soup projectiles to spare), Friedkin’s poorly titled Sorcerer (1977) explored little more than classic man-in-conflict scenarios. He eventually won (and exceeded) his budget for a project that failed to earn $6 million in box offices and panned in the press. Friedkin contends that Star Wars’ premiere a month prior overshadowed Sorcerer, making it the flop that nearly ended his career. However, Sorcerer recently garnered praise as an overlooked masterpiece. Surely, Friedkin captured viscerally intense naturalis...

  " Sometimes I am two people. Johnny is the nice one. Cash causes all the trouble. They fight." -- Johnny Cash Happy birthday today to the Man In Black -- Mr. Johnny Cash (1932). Admittedly, my all-time favorite Cash record is  Unchained , his second installment of the Rick Rubin helmed American Recordings. I love this record because Cash sounds strong and happy and mean on these tracks. Also, you've got Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers as the backing band, which brings a tinge of sweaty swaggered rock-n-raw to Cash's gruff vocal performance.  Unchained  feels like the apex of America's musical evolution -- a signal of what's still possible when experience and expertise and patience collide sonically. It's encouraging to consider that the best music these men made -- arguably -- was in their latter years. While the industry exalts youth and the next flash-pan fad of aural anesthesia, on  Unchained  the old guard redefined greatness through the simplicity o...