The Goodbye Song

I was recently asked the question: If you could have a “goodbye song,” one song that would play for the entire world before you left it forever, what would it be?

The question doesn’t ask what your favorite song is.  That is a major implication, but you’re also invited to consider whether a favorite song is the one you’d want the world to hear.  And do you interpret the question to mean that, by extension, the world will remember the kind of person you were based on the song you chose?

Songs are like air molecules; they constantly float about me, and I keep sucking them in.  But I have to write about them before I can understand what they mean to me.  For me, writing is the process of figuring out what I think about things.  So here we go . . .

I could pick something like “Act Naturally” by the Beatles, if I wanted my kiss-off to the world to be that human existence is a great cosmic joke. 

If I want to send the message that life is about having a good time, it would probably be “Down on the Corner” by Creedence Clearwater Revival.  If I wanted that good time to play well among Europeans, I’d pick “Sexbomb” by Tom Jones. 

There are specific songs that I think of when I’m in certain moods.  When I’m having conflicts with people I care about, I always think of “We Can Work It Out” by the Beatles, which to me embodies a meta-level ballet/wrestling match between Lennon and McCartney.  When I’m sad, I automatically think of Sarah McLachlan’s version of “Song for a Winter’s Night,” or “Lost Cause” by Beck, or . . . anything by Natalie Merchant. 

If it’s the song I’ve sung the most times in Rock Band and Guitar Hero, it would be “Hungry Like the Wolf” by Duran Duran.

For a message of pure romance, nothing beats “The Way You Look Tonight,” written for and still best performed by Fred Astaire. 

If I wanted to be a greedy scoundrel, I would choose “You Never Give Me Your Money” by the Beatles, which is really like three songs in one (a technique that reached its apotheosis in McCartney’s “Band on the Run”). 

The song I loved best as a child: “Straight Up” by Paula Abdul.  The song I love best with my sexy inner child: “2 Become 1” by the Spice Girls.  The song I loved then and now with equal fervor: “Beat It” by Michael Jackson. 

The two songs I most recently tried to mash up were Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” and “Wish You Were Here,” but then I realized it wouldn’t work because I couldn’t remember which was which.  Or maybe it worked too well . . .

If I wanted the perfect jukebox song, I’d pick Sam Cooke’s “Another Saturday Night.”

“On Your Shore” by Charlotte Martin is the song that would play when Aeneas lands in Italy . . . in my film adaptation of The Aeneid.  Someday . . .

If it’s a brilliant song that I never play for guests because they’ll never like it (because it takes as its subjects sharecropping and an orphaned child), it would be “Annabelle” by Gillian Welch.  (Also “Names” by Cat Power – not safe for fragile souls.)

I shouldn’t neglect the influence of movies (and nostalgia), and it was Back to the Future that etched “Earth Angel” and “Johnny B. Goode” indelibly into my childhood.  (Equally memorable was “The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis and the News.  Don’t be a hater.)

If I’m going to express my ethical philosophy, then no song says it better than Queen’s “I Want It All.”  (Except maybe “Fat Bottomed Girls,” but that’s more what you’d call a personal history.  Kidding!)

If it’s the one song that will keep the aliens from enslaving humanity, which is probably the noblest ideal I’ve mentioned so far, it would probably be Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,” because I honestly believe she sings the language of the aliens. 

*          *          *

Gather all those songs, and it would make a pretty good mix tape, which kind of leads me to my final answer.  I’ve always believed that music, and art in general, should be free.  Despite the fact that every artist you’ve ever heard of (except Emily Dickinson) has made money off their art, there is nevertheless something vulgar about selling that which is supposed to express the height of human creativity, and thereby reacquaint you with your soul.  So I think if I had to choose one goodbye song, it would be a song that realistically belongs to everyone.  The problem is, any song like that (“Happy Birthday,” “We Will Rock You,” your national anthem) has lost its meaning or ability to move you.  On the flip side, I could pick something hopelessly obscure, probably something I’d have to write myself, and that would express the world as I’ve absorbed it.  I feel like everything in between these extremes is just another great song. 

And so . . . I have to cheat.  I choose not a “song,” but an aria, “Che gelida manina” from La Bohème, because . . .

Because it’s opera, it is meant to be performed over and over and in a variety of ways.  You can hear it however you want, and you can probably play it better in your head than any orchestra or singer could perform it.

Because it predates recordings, there is no expectation of a definitive performance. So in theory, even I could sing it and make it my own.  In theory!

Because it’s a love song, and love, especially new love, is universal.

Because it’s a song about art and being an artist, a writer of poems and songs.  A song about song seems appropriate for this purpose.

Because it is as beautiful as anything else I could have chosen.

Finally, because I first heard La Bohème when someone shared it with me.  Someone wanted me to hear it.  So if there’s one song I’d pass on for others to hear, this would be it.

Herman Sinaiko, Superstar

At least two men who were known for wearing turtlenecks died last week. While Steve Jobs receives the kind of farewell that typically conducts American presidents down the River Styx, you probably won’t hear about Herman Sinaiko’s death on your evening newscast, or Slate, or CNN, or the Huffington Post. But those who heard the University of Chicago professor talk about Plato, Aristotle, art, criticism, beauty, knowledge, theater, and so many other subjects, will agree that with a single discussion, he could change something inside you, or rather, draw out some quality or thought that you didn’t know was in you. 

Sinaiko was hailed at UChicago for his dedication to teaching undergraduates. He was one of the greatest teachers I’ve ever had, one of the most humane people I’ve ever known, and a magnetic speaker. Listening to Sinaiko was, I imagine, like listening to Cicero or Demosthenes. The measure of this man was that he, in his greatness, didn’t make me feel small. Rather, he made me feel great as well, and that I could do great things. 

I used to attend rock concerts frequently, mostly smallish venues with medium wattage artists, stars who would show up occasionally on the radio and in Rolling Stone. Artists you could walk up to after the show, and who would sign an autograph and shake your hand. And though I invariably did approach them and ask them to sign my CD liner notes, it was always an awkward affair. What would I say to these people who didn’t know me, whom I would probably never talk to again? You were amazing? Thank you? 

In June of this year, I was at the University of Chicago for a day, and I happened to see Mr. Sinaiko walking rather jauntily on campus. I hadn’t seen him in over ten years. I wanted to walk up to him and re-introduce myself, but I didn’t. I suppose I was embarrassed to approach this monumental man who probably didn’t remember me, and tell him . . . tell him what? You were amazing? Thank you? 

I wish I had gone up to him and interrupted him just briefly. I would have told him that I took two classes with him, and in that short time, he left me with this indelible message: it is noble to help the helpless. It was the ethics not only of a humanist intellectual but of a comic-book superhero. I think in the minds of many of his students, he was both.  

Bouncing Babies

The first personal computer in my family was an MS-DOS-based machine, though it wasn’t very “personal.”  I don’t know what the brand was, or if it even had a “brand” in the normal sense of the word.  In the time that it loitered in my home (probably several years), all I ever really extracted from that humming box of chips and wires was a game called Bouncing Babies, which challenged the player to rescue purple pixel babies tumbling out of the windows of a burning apartment building.  I controlled a trampoline wielded by firemen at ground level, and the goal was to catch the falling babies and bounce them to the safety of an ambulance.  Kind of like Pong or Breakout, but with imperiled infants.

Oh, I also learned the neat trick that if you typed “DIR” into the DOS prompt and pressed Enter, you could bring up a directory of all the files on the computer.

That was it.  That was all I ever learned to do on that machine.

I think I was in 6th or 7th grade, and around the same time, I was playing Oregon Trail in computer class at school on an Apple IIe.  Here was a computer that was almost as old as I was, the best that public school funds could procure for my technological edification, and I got just as much or more out of it as I did on my newish home computer, supposedly a cutting-edge device.

But let’s be real here.  I had a Nintendo.  What were bouncing babies and death by dysentery compared to Mario and Final Fantasy?  Heck, even the Atari 2600 outclassed the foolishness of playing games on a keyboard.  If this was what personal computing was, I could pass.

Of course, no one ever taught me how to use DOS, or even the Apple IIe.  And I suppose that was the point.

In those neophyte days, I remember being reassured by a family friend, who worked in the software industry, that the computer was just a passive, slavish machine.  It can only do what you tell it to do, so I shouldn’t feel intimidated by it.  And yet, unless you were a software engineer, there was no intuitive way to know how to tell the machine to do anything.  It should have been obvious to everyone that the easier it was to tell a computer how to do things, the more enjoyable and useful a computer could be.

Throughout my life, I have come late to computer technology, internet innovations, even (especially?) viral phenomena.  I sent my first email in 1997, just before entering college.  I bemoaned the inexorable drift away from handwritten missives.  As I warmed to the idea and practice of email, I still insisted on writing a date at the top of every email I sent, as though it were a formal letter.  Yes, I wrote the date.  Even though the date and even the time were automatically stamped.  Every email.  Oh, and back then, I wrote the term as “e-mail,” with the hyphen.  I wasn’t the only one, but maybe I was the only one who did it on principle, instead of succumbing to the slurred, lazy, and (in my mind) inaccurate “email.”

In college, I found out from friends about downloading music online.  That’s right, mp3s, the term that for a few years replaced “songs” in the lexicon of cyberspace (do people still say “cyberspace”?).  We would go to a website called Scour, download their downloading program, and then search for any random song we could think of.  This was well before any talk of legality or piracy.  Nor did we worry about viruses and Trojan horses.  We were like boys stumbling upon a stash of fireworks, or hillbillies discovering oil.

And yet I remember saying it was “a fad.”  I had the curmudgeon’s gift of grouse; Andy Rooney would be proud (I mean, he would be if he weren’t such a curmudgeon who hated everything that was born after the Battle of the Bulge).  I couldn’t deny the thrill of downloading “Secret Agent Man” by Johnny Rivers on a whim and listening to the 128kbps mp3 file on my computer’s tinny speakers (satisfyingly retro, hissy like a vinyl record on a turntable, or better, a wax cylinder on a phonograph – ask Andy Rooney for details).  But I started to get tired of simply sitting in front of a computer searching for songs all night long.  Eventually, I ran out of songs to look for.  My mind couldn’t contain that many names.  I couldn’t see how other people wouldn’t get tired of this activity.  And then there were some songs I desperately wanted to acquire, but that were nowhere to be found (“Halah” by Mazzy Star; yes, it was the late 90s).  What would I do then?

* * *

Just as I came very late to the internet and technology game, I came very late to an appreciation of what Steve Jobs was.  When the announcement was made in August that Jobs was stepping down as CEO of Apple, I knew that his death was imminent.  A man like this doesn’t step down, doesn’t let go of the bouncing baby he had fathered and rescued from the flames, unless he knows it’s the end.  I said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he dies tomorrow.”

And then for the first time, I realized that he represented something very important.  He was an artist of technology, one of the very few of his kind.  As expensive as his products were, as overbearing as his acolytes were, as publicly dismissive as the man could be toward legitimate criticism of his work and ways, it was clear that he believed in the world he created.  I used to think that he was getting fat off of duping the public into buying things they didn’t need, but I think the truth is more complicated.

He got rich by giving people things they didn’t realize they wanted.  He didn’t ask them what they wanted; he told them what to want.  To the extent that he was wrong, we could call him a tyrant or megalomaniac.  But to the extent that he was right, wouldn’t we have to acknowledge that he had shades of a philosopher-king?

* * *

Years ago, my brother won an iPod.  This was a 15-gig device, very early generation.  A Mac-aholic could probably tell you which version it is.  It was the first Apple product that anyone in my family owned.  My brother never really used it, but for a while, I used it every day, listening to all those old college-acquired mp3s at the office.  But I had my reservations.  I cursed the iPod for its frictionless casing, which put me in constant fear of having it slip through my fingers.  I lambasted it for occasionally bugging out and freezing, as if it were a Windows-based system.  I scorned the pretentious white cable that eventually malfunctioned and left me unable to connect the iPod to my computer.  I lingered in my grumblings that a portable music player was nice, but really just a luxury, as all of these overhyped Apple products were.  I didn’t like this little machine, and I didn’t like the iTunes software that served it.  And yet I used it every day, and I never seriously believed that any competing system would operate better.

But after a few years of use, I put the iPod down, and have rarely used it since.  Whether you want to create more or consume more, technology is supposed to make that process easier, faster, better.  The reason I eventually put down the iPod was because I realized it wasn’t making my life better.  I loved music, but having it on all the time while my mind was trying to engage my workday tasks, or driving, or other things that held my attention hostage, I think I started to associate music, even good music, with the parts of my life that I would rather have spent doing something else.  This, along with the overwhelming availability of music, whether through paid or unpaid channels, had desensitized me to the experience of listening.  I was acquiring music, new and old, to “see if it was any good,” but I wasn’t actually listening to it.

I had become the passive, slavish machine.

That’s one of the central ironies of Steve Jobs’s creations and of his legacy.  As much as his life sets an example of doggedly pursuing your own excellence, and as genuinely inspirational as his Stanford commencement address was as a message of perseverance and non-conformity, he created things that, though they arguably had a moral aesthetic, were strictly amoral in use.  They could be tools of liberation or subjugation, depending on the strength of will of the user.  Thus, we see that the hammer-throwing blond girl and the pasty-faced drones of the iconic Mac Super Bowl commercial are siblings, bouncing babies born of society’s equal capacity for self-exaltation and self-annihilation.

* * *

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life." - Steve Jobs

Another two bite the dust. What now?

Here they are, the ten songs that I wish I could have played on either Rock Band or Guitar Hero. I’m not saying that the inclusion of some or all of these would have saved either franchise from the ax (that’s a pun, see?), but they would have added some legitimacy, zest, variety, and vigor to decent song lists that consistently fell short of greatness, hewed too close to a noise rock comfort zone, and included far too much that was disposable (I’m looking at you, Slipknot, and “Chop Suey” by System of a Down).

I searched the official websites of both series to see if any of these songs were available either as downloads or innate to any of the boxed games, and as far as I could tell, they were not. If I made a mistake, let me know, and more importantly, buy me that song.

1. Crowded House – Don’t Dream It’s Over (1987)

A bit of a “soft” choice, but all instruments are represented, including keyboards, plus there’s a backing vocal. And it's a great song for singers of either sex.

2. Erasure – A Little Respect (1988)

Synth-pop gets little respect in the rock world, but with the arrival of the keyboard in Rock Band 3, this song would have easily led the vanguard of keyboard tracks (though, as it turns out, this vanguard is now more of a funeral procession).

3. Foreigner – I Want to Know What Love Is (1984)

A real singer’s song, the kind of thing both series are short on. That made some sense in the pre-Rock Band days, but with the coming of the microphone and the acknowledgement that these games weren’t just for would-be power shredders, it would have been nice to have this song, the king of the power ballads.

4. Golden Earring – Twilight Zone (1982)

You can play “Radar Love” on Rock Band, and while that’s a fun song, “Twilight Zone” is the one I want. It’s like riding on the knife edge of insanity.

5. Guns ‘n’ Roses – You Could Be Mine (1991)

A classic, especially memorable from the Terminator 2 soundtrack, and the kind of song that these games were designed for. So what was the hold-up?

6. Led Zeppelin – Stairway to Heaven (1971)

I’m no Zeppelin aficionado, and I would understand a little backlash in selecting this, a too obvious choice, and too lengthy a song. But I listened to it again the other day, and it is a truly marvelous piece of music. And I can’t think of any other Zeppelin song I’d choose over this. Let’s say it falls into the category of “missing definitives.”

7. Smashing Pumpkins – Ava Adore (1998)

Both series feature decent selections of Smashing Pumpkins songs, but neither features this, which I consider their best song. You can keep “Today,” which shows off the band at its most saccharine and user-friendly. “Ava Adore” is a song for the Gothic Nosferatu within.

8. The Sounds – Midnight Sun (2009)

A relative obscurity, and recent, but this list needs a representative of where music is going now. This is perhaps my favorite song from my favorite good-time band of the last several years.

9. U2 – Pride (In the Name of Love) (1984)

If you could have only one U2 track, which one would it be? As much as I love “One,” I wanted more of an earnest rocker than a ballad of yearning. So it was a toss-up between “Pride” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” While I think the latter is a more pleasing song, I’m going with the former because it’s more of a vocal challenge.

10. Veruca Salt – Seether (1994)

“Volcano Girls” is available as a download in Guitar Hero, and while that may be a more rocking song overall, “Seether” is their iconic hit, one of the defining songs of the 90s, and it should be here. Plus, it's nice to have the harmony vocal.

I suppose it’s no accident that this list is heavily populated by the songs of my childhood and adolescence. Take them for what they’re worth; they’re just one man’s opinion. All in all, I think Rock Band and Guitar Hero did a good job; it wasn’t exactly easy to make this list, and though I can think of many other songs I would have like to have played (Phil Collins and Rod Stewart, anyone?), the above are the closest to being essential.

So long, music games. You made a good show of it. I guess we still have karaoke night.

Star Trek: The Underappreciated Motion Picture

I don’t usually do this kind of thing, but it being Thanksgiving and all, I wanted to give thanks for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, truly an underappreciated masterpiece. It is a far better film than the laughably overrated 2001: A Space Odyssey, with which it shares the esteemed “special photographic effects director,” Douglas Trumbull. It is better even than Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the proverbial “best” Star Trek film.

But let’s set aside for the moment questions of what is better than what (as these can only be addressed here by morbid opinions). Having recently watched this now 30-year-old film for the first time, I’m far more interested in talking about what I think the filmmakers were intending, and why this film stands in such stark contrast to the rest of the Star Trek oeuvre (and consequently, why it tends to suffer in comparison).

Having been told by various sources that the first Star Trek movie was utter codswallop and not worthy of its successors, I could only think it’s no wonder the movie has been forgotten by most, and summarily dismissed by those unlucky few who remember it. But as a lifelong Star Trek fan, I figured I owed it to myself to watch the one Star Trek film I had missed entirely.

What I saw charmed me with its familiarity, but even more so, it shocked me with a vision of Star Trek that differed from almost every other rendition I had seen – in tone, in pacing, in aesthetics, Star Trek: TMP paints with an entirely different palette, a different set of brushes. Star Trek, in its various incarnations, is sometimes as exquisitely detailed as a Fabergé egg, sometimes as imposing as Picasso’s Guernica. TMP is like a fresco or a tapestry; that is to say, very old-looking, but also vast and ambitious.

This is a movie made in the old Hollywood style, but just at the moment that the new style, ushered in by Star Wars and the 70s auteurs, was becoming dominant, and in fact, making the old style look “old.” I imagine there were intense labor pains as this picture struggled to get born, as it simultaneously tried to look as technologically advanced as Star Wars, but was consciously harkening back to a filmmaking vocabulary more reminiscent of Lawrence of Arabia. (Star Wars itself was in some ways a throwback, but with far more action and whimsy than the brooding TMP).

How old-school is this movie? When I popped in the DVD and hit “Play,” I and my fellow viewers were greeted with a star field and the ambient strains of a wistful version of the Star Trek theme. As this near-blank screen dragged on for about a minute, I wondered if the DVD had glitched, since nothing was happening. I finally hit the forward button and the DVD seemed to reach an actual scene, and from that point, all seemed well. Only later on, after I had watched the entire film and gone back to review various scenes for this article did I realize that the star field was the “Overture” to the movie, a three-minute overture, to boot. Following this was a “Main Title” sequence, which I had also unwittingly skipped, consisting of a more amped-up version of the title theme accompanying the opening credits. I had managed to skip the first two segments of the movie without even realizing it (and in so doing, shaved about five minutes off the run time). I can’t imagine this sort of opening playing well to today’s impatient audiences, and even in 1980, this must have seemed old-fashioned. The only surprise now was that there was no intermission.

Of course, this was a calculated blast from the past; just look at the director they chose. Robert Wise had proven his sci-fi chops with The Day the Earth Stood Still, a well-known though poorly remembered film from 1951 (tragically remade in 2008 with Keanu Reeves in a suit borrowed from Men in Black and a personality borrowed from, well, any of his other characters . . . sorry, was that too easy?). At the height of his career, Wise helmed such epic entertainments as The Sound of Music and West Side Story. His first directorial efforts were cheesy horror flicks. And before any of this, he was the editor of a little movie called Citizen Kane, and worked with Orson Welles again on The Magnificent Ambersons.

Star Trek: TMP shows a little bit of all these influences – the message-based science fiction, the ominous tone of the horror milieu, the grand panoramas and centrality of music in telling the story. It does, perhaps, show its distance from the economical Wellesian style, but Wise learned his craft well, and there is nothing sloppy about the way TMP is put together.

Not much needs to be said about the actors and their iconic characters. They are and always have been pitch-perfect in their roles. But in this film, you see what a Star Trek movie is like when the characters are put in the service of a story, rather than having the story revolve around their large personalities. The movie seems to acknowledge the legendary quality of these characters – Kirk usurping the captaincy of the Enterprise, to the great pleasure of his adoring crew, Spock arriving on board like a Roman statue – and then carries them almost like passengers along an adventure that ultimately allows them little agency over how things play out.

For me, it was one particular scene, perhaps the most controversial scene in the movie, that made me appreciate the complicated soul of this film – the unveiling of the new starship Enterprise. This enormously important and impossibly lengthy scene, set to Jerry Goldsmith’s glorious music, is the first time that both the viewers and the characters in the movie see the Enterprise in all her beauty and immensity. Standing seemingly at Kirk’s shoulder, we move at a glacial pace across dry dock, gazing languorously at the USS Enterprise, an achingly detailed scale model shot to look as big as the galaxy. Lingering fetish shots of the starship alternate with glances at Kirk and Scotty in their puny shuttle, and after lord knows how many cuts back and forth, the two men look like they don’t know how else to play to the camera. About seven minutes later, we finally complete our zero-gravity pilgrimage, and Kirk and Scotty exchange a priceless look, thoroughly bemused, as if they were watching a Vulcan who couldn’t comprehend “Row, row, row your boat.”

Even for a patient chap like me, this was a bit much, and without Goldsmith’s score to anchor this scene, it would have been unbearable. But I think of it this way. This is the very first time anyone had ever seen the Enterprise on the big screen, with big budget technology to bring it to life. Anyone who has ever seen the original Star Trek TV series, especially from this many decades away, knows how hopelessly lame the special effects were on that show, and especially the plastic toy that was the Enterprise. I have no doubt that Gene Roddenberry and Robert Wise wanted the big reveal of the Enterprise to be a defining moment of this movie, a chance for all those fans who had waited so many years for this movie to get to see the Enterprise exactly the way they always wanted it to look – huge, gorgeous, shiny and glowing, covered with twinkling lights, branded with house-sized letters, a real vessel that real future people could board, a ship worthy of a beloved crew, a monument to the ingenuity of the human race and to Roddenberry’s imagination.

On the audio commentary, Wise says of the scene’s mixed reception, with his typical understated wit: “Some people have very strong feelings about that.” It is too long, it is old-fashioned, and it almost doesn’t even work, thanks to Kirk and Scotty looking like goofballs, but despite it all, it is a Star Trek moment through and through. It was a riskier choice than the later films would tend to make, but the later films also didn’t have the momentousness of this occasion to fulfill. Wise: “Gene really wanted to finally show the Enterprise the way the fans wanted to see it. He wanted it to look big and real.” By that measure, the scene succeeds.

Douglas Trumbull, as the supreme artist of the special effects on TMP, is perhaps even more responsible for this and numerous other extremely long, slow scenes in the film. He’s on record in the commentary expressing his displeasure with the current style of action-oriented filmmaking with its quick cuts and dialogue-heavy explanations.

The later Star Trek films would take us on more jaunty, though I would argue, less poetic journeys through space. The Wrath of Khan, for instance, which I also recently watched, though certainly very engaging, plays almost like a double-length episode of a television show. It’s almost too snappy, and at the risk of inciting many a nerdlinger to an “Amok Time” style fight to the death, I must say that Wrath of Khan simply looks and feels like a smaller, less daring movie than TMP.

Of course, there’s no practical reason to pit the movies against each other when they are all worth watching. What’s remarkable to me is that, given all the grief that avowed Star Trek fans have heaped on TMP, consider that if this movie had failed at the box office or otherwise incurred the wrath of the studio execs, Star Trek as a big screen franchise would likely have died in the womb. Whatever one’s thoughts on its artistic merits, it was the success of this first Star Trek movie that made all the other movies possible. And without that revival of the brand, would we have seen the offshoot Star Trek: The Next Generation television series, and all the subsequent TV Star Treks to follow?

They never made another Star Trek movie as contemplative as the first one, but I see hints of its philosophical style in many of the episodes of the various TV series, especially Next Generation. Most of the Q episodes, Data’s quest to become more human, the existentialism of the Borg, even the groan-worthy “Kes evolves” subplot of Star Trek: Voyager – these are all explorations of purpose and identity, and the terrible and glorious ways in which they intertwine. As Spock says in TMP, “Each of us at some time in our lives turns to someone, a father, a brother, a god, and asks, ‘Why am I here, what was I meant to be?’”

If Star Wars is the apotheosis of the hero myth in science fiction, Star Trek is its counterpart, showing us not heroes, but the men and women within, journeying through a universe they scarcely understand in search of the new, and ultimately coming face to face with themselves.

Sometimes a patriot

This is my 51st blog post, and but for an eleventh-hour substitution, it would have been the 50th. If that had come to pass, here is how it would have gone:

This is my 50th blog post. I thought this day would have come quite a bit sooner, but it comes now, and I want to post something special. Something classy and respectable, and that best represents the magnanimous spirit of Czardoz Contra World.

Behold, a goat peeing:

As Paul Harvey would say, now let’s hear “the rest of the story.” I spotted this enchanting tableau at Comic-Con this year, on a congested intersection in the heart of the convention’s splash zone (by which I mean, where the Con’s largesse splashes over onto the streets of downtown San Diego). The goat was one of an unholy trinity of protestors calling for the abolition of Anaheim, specifically in reference to our northern neighbor’s attempts to pilfer Comic-Con from us, but perhaps in general terms as well.

I hope all this talk of Comic-Con leaving San Diego for Anaheim or LA or wherever is all smoke and mirrors. The Con is the cultural touchstone of San Diego, and the city needs this event much more than the alleged wooers. Anaheim has Disneyland. LA has Hollywood, among other splendors. Vegas has . . . Vegas versions of Paris, New York, Ancient Rome, the South Seas, and more magicians than you could fit into a clown car.

Lest anyone think this is purely a local issue, one municipality against another, I must remind you that this is a matter of national gravity, nay, of patriotism. This point is driven home by no less than the greatest patriot, Captain America:

Though Cap is looking about as plush as the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man these days, his point is well made.

This controversy actually reminds me a lot of the Lebron James debacle in Cleveland. I’ve been to Cleveland. I’ve seen President Garfield’s coffin lying in the crypt of the exquisite Garfield Monument. I’ve admired Tiffany’s denim jacket at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I’ve stood in the footsteps of the concertmaster at Severance Hall and gazed from his perspective at the podium where George Szell once conducted the Cleveland Orchestra.

So yes, I know that Cleveland has its place in the world. But that place is not at the top of a jetsetter’s hitlist. And if I were some young buck (or cavalier, for that matter) with a bright present, I wouldn’t expect a very bright future staying in a town like Cleveland.

Lebron is just a dude, of course. Comic-Con is an institution, and, like the office of President, it’s much bigger than any one man. But even though I can understand the arguments for moving – the bigger convention space, the proximity to Hollywood, the proximity to Disneyland, for Goofy’s sake! – the loss of Comic-Con would leave a cultural void in San Diego far bigger than the bankruptcy of the San Diego Symphony in 1996, bigger than the loss of K-BEST 95 – the only oldies radio station in town and yet to be replaced, bigger even than the death of Dr. Seuss.

Yes, I understand that this is a crum-bum town in which I reside, and when the Namor-reading nerdlinger grows up to be Tobey Maguire or some kind of expensive Hobbit crap, he needs to spread his wings and fly to a bigger toilet. Hell, I did it myself once upon a time.

So no hard feelings on my end. But Comic-Con, if you really do leave, just don’t think for a second that the gasping culture junkies you leave behind in this wasteland will forget that you pulled the plug on their life support.

They’ll Go Gaga at the Gogo: The Second Coming

Some months ago, I went to see Lady Gaga in concert. This was the second time I had seen her, the first being when she opened for New Kids on the Block and fairly stole the show (and that’s no mean compliment, as the New Kids were Block-tacular). Though she was the headliner this time, and though she performed well, I must admit that this second experience was a lesser one overall.

I endured a smorgasbord of emotions at this one.

Confusion – at the labyrinthine queuing on display at the venue (San Diego Sports Arena) that had me hopping around trying to figure out which line led to which door for which ticket-holders.

Searing rage – at waiting for some 20 minutes in one line just to find out that I was in the wrong line and would have to find a different one – twice.

Lumbar pain – I’m about five years too old for the kinds of shows that have you standing elbow to elbow with Bud-swilling, 7-foot-tall douchebags as you wait two hours for the main attraction to get on stage.

Elation – at finally seeing Gaga perform in all her Gaga-ness.

She played every song of consequence, aside from duets (like her current hit, “Telephone,” featuring Beyonce). Though it was hard to tell what was live and what was lip-synced, I would say a far larger portion of the show featured live singing than the Britney Spears concert I went to a few months prior. The dance routines were aggressively primitive and scandalous, and the special effects were appropriately flashy.

And yet the show was a bit disappointing, and at times, a real drag. Though it may be unfair to give too much weight to peripheral issues like a maddeningly incoherent venue and loutish rabble – things that have nothing to do with the performer – a concert is more than just the music; if it weren’t, I would just stay home and listen to my CDs. A great concert is more than just a stellar performance; it’s the feeling that you’re in a special place where you and the performer share a unity of purpose that brings that performer closer to you.

Lady Gaga didn’t necessarily help her own cause when she repeatedly baited the crowd with cries of “Hello San Jose!” I’ve always loathed this cliché of the touring circuit – calling out the name of the city you’re playing to elicit gratified hee-haws from your slavish audience – but if you’re going to do it, at least you could bother calling out the right city. She yelled out “San Jose” about six or seven times before the surely mortified crowd started chanting back, “San Diego!” Then she said “San Jose” about two more times before switching to “San Diego.” About three songs went by before she started bantering with the crowd and finally issued a shockingly sincere mea culpa, which I didn't expect, or at least I thought if she were going to apologize, it would have happened right away. She said she didn't want to "pretend it didn't happen," because she "respected her fans too much." I appreciated that, I guess. More mystifying was when she said her people had told her before the show that she wasn't in San Diego. I guess when you lead a diva’s life like hers, you rely on other people to tell you where you are, what year it is, what your name is, etc.

She later embarrassed herself and the more knowledgeable fans in the house when she announced that just one year ago, she opened for New Kids on the Block in this very arena. Har har. She didn’t – she opened for them at Cox Arena across town, now known as Viejas Arena. Whatever.

* * *

During our interminable wait for Gaga’s appearance, they (the house? her handlers?) had the audacity to play only Michael Jackson songs. For concert-going veterans, this will surely come as a surprise. They will wonder, “What, you mean they didn’t just blast awful crap from bands you’ve never heard of?” No, they played a known quantity, and a monarch at that. This was fun for the first few songs. Then, frankly, it became awkward. Perhaps this comes as a shock to no one, but the longer you pump out the MJ, the more unfavorable the comparison will be when you play your own music. I have to believe this is why most concerts entertain you with the lousiest music available – they don’t want the intermission music to outshine the actual performer.

And yet, part of me thought there was another force at play here. Maybe this was Gaga’s not so subtle way of announcing that she was Michael’s successor, a fittingly nutsoid Princess of Pop. After all, one of the questions that arose in the aftermath of Jackson’s death was: who is his successor? It’s like asking who the next Jordan or Gretzky is. Everyone has a nomination, prefaced by vehement proclamations that no one could ever replace the original. And yet the questions keep coming.

Well if you have questions, you’ve come to the right place. I know my readers don’t come to Czardoz Contra World for wishy-washiness. They come for straight answers from a straight shooter. So here it is: Lady Gaga is not the next MJ. But that doesn’t mean she’s not the next something. Something a little more obvious.

What made Michael Jackson the King of Pop was not just the extraordinary talent, but the singular strangeness that he embodied. He couldn’t help being Wacko Jacko any more than he could help being a brilliant artist. This sense of the inevitable hasn’t been seen since, not even in Gaga.

Gaga has a much more calculated sense of world domination. She’s a freak, yes, but you get the feeling that she could dial it back if she wanted to. She could dial it back, drive it deeper, sprout antlers, grow a penis – whatever it takes to stay one step ahead – in fashion, in music, and especially in controversy. In short, Gaga is the next Madonna.

Madonna was Jackson’s contemporary and near-equal in fame and fortune, but it was always clear that hers was a different sort of mania. For Michael, it was all unaffected: he was as natural doing the moonwalk as he was dangling babies over balcony rails. Madonna, on the other hand, was the ultimate salesman selling the ultimate product: herself. All the shapeshifting in her career has been about getting an edge and keeping people’s eyes focused squarely on her, even when other shiny objects were fighting for some of that attention. They copied her hair, so she changed it. They copied her moves, so she came up with new moves. They even tried to horn in on her controversy, but how could they? Look at “Papa Don’t Preach.” Look at the “Like a Prayer” video. The “Justify My Love” video. The Sex book. Oh, the controversy!

Like Madonna, Gaga isn’t the prettiest starlet. She doesn’t have the most range in her voice. But she has the larger than life persona that turns a star into an icon. I don’t care what adherents of Beyonce or Britney or Taylor or any other diva may say. As respected, beloved, or well-known as those artists may be, none of them dominates pop culture the way Lady Gaga does. Just turn on the radio. I can’t remember the last time I heard a single artist with so many different songs played on so many different stations. I can name six Gaga songs that are in current, regular play on any of four radio stations in San Diego alone: “Poker Face,” “Just Dance,” “LoveGame,” “Paparazzi,” “Telephone,” “Bad Romance.” No other artist commands that kind of appeal, both broad and deep.

The Britney-Madonna kiss (to Christina Aguilera’s everlasting dismay) at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards was widely seen as a passing of the torch from a pop icon to her heir apparent. I’m not so sure that the right person took the torch. Britney is huge and Britney is great, and I even preferred her live show to Gaga’s (at the same venue). But Britney is a product of other people’s imaginations, whereas Gaga, like Madonna before her, seems to be a product of her own.

In fact, I’m most reminded of the ashen body of Optimus Prime on his deathbed, passing the Autobot Matrix of Leadership into the hands of Ultra Magnus, who (in a brilliant piece of foreshadowing) fumbled and bumbled it into the hands of Hot Rod, who would later become Rodimus Prime and turn out to be the true successor to Optimus Prime, leading the Autobots to victory and salvation.

Roll out!

O Captain! My Captain!

For those of you who were looking for a reason to spring for that Disneyland 2fer ticket, behold:

After a 13-year absence, Captain EO returned to Disneyland yesterday, February 23, for what is described as a “limited engagement,” though some sources report that the stay will be indefinite. Good riddance to Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, which this replaces.

I saw Captain EO more than once when I was a kid, and I remember not one jot of detail from it. But when news of Michael Jackson’s death broke back in June, one of the first stray thoughts that moonwalked into my mind was, “I wonder if they’ll bring back Captain EO at last.” What? You didn’t wonder the same thing?

The Greatest Show on Earth

P. T. Barnum uttered the iconic maxim, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Or did he? History convincingly says no, if only anyone bothered to check their facts. Huh, isn’t it weird how the false attribution of a phrase about people being suckers has made suckers of us all? (Hmm, is there a word for that?)

So when Britney Spears came to town last month, I couldn’t help but think of Barnum and his bogus saying. If the title and packaging of her latest album, Circus, don’t make the line of descent from Barnum to Britney clear, then surely the stage production of her accompanying concert tour, The Circus Starring Britney Spears, does. Her concert was every bit the spectacle it was meant to be:

Let me first discuss the show, then the compunctions. Britney’s Circus was actually something like a cross between a Cirque du Soleil show and an arena concert. It opened with several genuine circus acts, including a guy who twirled big glowy things above his head, a female acrobat jumping off of and landing back on an elastic beam, and a seriously disturbing legless(!) woman being bounced up and down a trampoline by a strongman:

Oh, there was also a concert wedged in there:

Britney looked shockingly great, and this is coming from someone who never liked the way she looked, even before she went cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. She sounded . . . well, she sounded like Britney, that is to say, the recorded, reverse osmosis purified Brit, this being an obviously lip-synched show.

Sadly, my favorite Britney song was the one that sounded the worst – “Baby, One More Time,” apparently in a remixed format. It was tediously militaristic, lacking the sparkle and flirtatiousness of the original. They didn’t bother to treat us to my other two favorites, “Oops, I Did It Again” and “(You Drive Me) Crazy.” Alas, alack, etc. New songs dominated the evening. After all, this was The Circus Starring Britney Spears, not the The Circus Starring the Barely Pubescent Sex Object Nostalgia Britney.

The songs were punctuated by the occasional martial arts display, a street dancing interlude (including a brief, obligatory Michael Jackson imitator), and most interestingly, a magic act featuring Britney as the magician’s assistant/victim, in a variation of the “sawing a woman in half” staple, followed by a take on "the transported man":

It was an extravaganza, but in the aftermath of the concert, I wondered to myself: was I a sucker for paying a big head of lettuce to see what was essentially a dancing blond girl lip-synching to a catalog of mediocre songs? I wondered if Britney were the latest in a long line of hucksters, charlatans, and flim-flam artists, a girl after fake Barnum’s own heart.

I’m sure my compunction has more than a little to do with my having to endure the scornful ire of my rock snob acquaintances for having gone to a Britney concert, and on my own dime at that. But if she were at least singing live, the critics might have relented. I guess in my youth, I would have seen this episode in similar terms. You don’t go to a live show to hear pre-recorded music. That’s what CDs (and yes, mp3s, sigh) are for. But as I’ve grown older and gone to more concerts, there’s been a sea change in my views.

I used to think that a concert was the definitive rendering of an artist’s music. An artist who could “bring it” on stage was not just legit, but was sharing his or her music in the most intimate, honest way, naked even. And it was one of a kind because they could never reproduce that exact performance. However, as I saw more and more of my favorite artists on stage, I started to feel that a lot of them sounded a lot better on a recording than they did live. And they weren’t even bad live; they just weren’t quite what I knew them as from the CDs. To be sure, some artists were even better live, but I realized that it wasn’t necessarily because of the music. The best live performers were just that – performers, and they could overcome a bad sound system or shabby acoustics. Passion and charisma made up for the jumbled mess of noise that concerts often became. The greatest concerts inject the feeling of the music into the audience, no matter what the actual aural quality is.

This new paradigm reaches its apotheosis with Britney’s Circus, which carries on Barnum’s spirit of showmanship. At this point in my life, I want to see the spectacle, I want to be blown away. I don’t really care to just see someone strumming a guitar and yodeling into a mic. Hey, her songs aren’t that great anyway, but they generate a manic energy that suits the big top perfectly. And if Britney has to lip-synch so that she’ll have enough energy to dance for two hours, then I say, let the girl dance! I’d rather see her moves anyway.

No, I don’t think I’m a sucker for wanting that, and I don’t mind ruffling some purists’ feathers by saying that a concert can (should?) be about more than just the music. I can listen to the music at home or in my car and be just as happy. John Lennon himself said that he “wasn’t that upset that Elvis never came to England.” He liked listening to the records. I think he was on to something. Whether fake Barnum was onto something, well, that’s another story entirely.

And your bird can sing

In a previous life, when shaggy hair and round-framed glasses were more my bag, I received two of the odder, more flattering comments I’ve ever received.

The first was from a girl I met through ballroom dance. One day, without prelude, she told me I reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t remember whom. “Someone famous and very good-looking?” I fished. I got it half right. After dance class, she finally conjured the name: “John Lennon.” She suggested that it went beyond the glasses and hair; there was something in my demeanor.

The second comment came after I had parked on the street one night, on my way to the Casbah for a show (undoubtedly, it was a sub-Beatles-caliber band). Just as I stepped out of my car, a (presumably homeless) man approached me, crying, “Hey, hey! You got a cigarette?” I was mildly alarmed, but right when I turned to face this figure emerging from the shadows, it was he who was taken aback. “Whoa! You look just like . . . that guy!” I shook my head, “Who’s that?” “The Beatles guy!” he said. “John Lennon?” (There’s not much chance of people mistaking me for Paul.) The guy seemed very pleased, but unfortunately, I couldn’t pay him back for his compliment, seeing that I tend not to pack death sticks.

This coming just a few weeks after the comment from my dance friend, I wondered if I had subconsciously been cultivating Lennon’s look. I certainly had him on the brain, having recently seen a TV documentary about his death and life. This was also around the time when the Working Class Hero two-disc compilation of Lennon’s best was released – my first serious exposure to Lennon’s post-Beatles work.

Hearing the music 30 years after it was made, I marveled at how humane it sounded, especially compared to most of the mindless aggression that clogs the airwaves today. In his songs, I heard a man obsessed with personal freedom and in love with love itself; fitting, since between love and freedom, when one is absent, the other soon withers.

Some time after my two interesting encounters, I had a chance to travel to New York, and I visited Strawberry Fields, a small garden on the western edge of Central Park, just across the street from the Dakota Apartments, where Lennon lived and died. Strawberry Fields commemorates his life and dreams, and on the day I visited, the Imagine mosaic at its center was particularly inviting:


Without any premeditation on my part, I think I just naturally gravitated to John more than the other Beatles. I’m not saying his songs were the best in the band (not all of them anyway), but only that I empathize most with the way he seemed to be. I think of how much we miss him now, not just his music, but the hopeful vision it fostered, and I hope that my similarities to him go beyond looks.

* * *

As much as I admire John’s solo work, he’ll always be a Beatle first in my mind. Today, September 9, 2009, is the big release day: all of their original studio albums REMASTERED(!) in two sets: 1) a stereo box set, and 2) a mono box set containing those albums that were originally mixed in mono sound. (Oh, and a little thing called The Beatles: Rock Band also comes out today.) It’s fitting that a band that took 22 years to remaster their music should issue it exclusively on a dying technology – the compact disc. (To be fair, the original 1987 CDs were “remastered”; it’s just that the 1980s tech sounded older and worse with every passing year.)

I bought the stereo box today. It may be the first time I’ve ever purchased a CD on the release date. It’ll also be the last; these are the last CDs I’ll ever buy. Well, until I can get my hands on the mono box.

Touched for the very last time

As I walked down Michigan Avenue on a recent trip to Chicago, I saw a familiar building bearing unfamiliar nameplates. The Virgin Megastore at the corner of Michigan and Ohio, long one of my favorite stops along Chicago’s “Magnificent Mile,” is no more, and has been replaced by a Forever 21 (aka, “XXI”), the ubiquitous young women’s fashion store that specializes in designer knockoffs at Walmart prices.

Here is how the building looked during my college years:

Here is the same building on June 4, 2009:


Along with the old Tower Records store on S. Wabash (and to a lesser extent the still extant Borders on N. Michigan), Virgin was one of Chicago’s premier places to browse for music, especially classical music, which evolved to become practically the only music I listened to in college.

I can trace my love of classical music to two sources: 1) my father’s enjoyment and regular playing of it at home while I was growing up, and 2) my time at the University of Chicago, where my friends introduced me to their favorite music, got me hooked, and led me to my own discoveries. Very quickly, borrowing CDs from friends just wasn’t enough. I had acquired the thirst, and a bite here and a nibble there would no longer satisfy. So I went shopping.

Tower had an immense selection, but Virgin was arguably as good, and it had Tower beat in terms of presentation. Tower was housed in a gritty building under the El tracks. The classical section was on the top floor, and though there was an escalator up, there was none going down, so when I was done poring over Beethoven box sets and woefully pulling my pocket linings out of my pants, I had to walk down along a steep and winding side staircase that emptied into a filthy corridor adorned only with a stack of Chicago Readers and the smell of fresh urine.

Virgin, on the other hand, was an immaculate prestige store right on the Mag Mile. In contrast to the raucous downstairs selection of rock, pop, and hip-hop, with music blaring from above and played by a live DJ, the classical section upstairs featured quiet contemplation among the glimmering rows of CDs, as well as an entire wall of opera recordings. This was the real McCoy, unlike the token classical sections of off-brand “100 Greatest Hits of Mozart” CDs found at your local Best Buy or the late, unlamented Circuit City.

Both Tower and Virgin had all the labels: Decca (formerly London in the U.S.), Philips (now joined with Decca), Deutsche Grammophon, Sony, EMI, Teldec, Naxos – all your favorites, each with their more or less exclusive stable of legendary performers.

My favorites were the box sets. These were a cost-effective way for a college student to amass a library of classical music, and they were the fundamental building blocks of my collection. I had little patience for browsing new releases by the latest diva of the month or the “next great violinist,” sold at a premium price. I preferred the classic recordings, superlative performances that had endured over the decades, and every label had its archive series, boxed and priced to move. DG’s 9-disc complete set of Dvorak string quartets played by the Prague String Quartet set you back about $70, a hefty sum, but also a relative bargain when you consider that it’s just $8 a disc. Decca’s 13-disc set of the complete Chopin solo piano music played by Vladimir Ashkenazy cost about $95, a veritable mint, but still, that’s about $7 a disc. The bargain sets brought great, sophisticated music into the hands of a college student who was only just learning how to pretend to the high life.

Sure, it could be argued that no one pianist’s interpretation of Chopin, no matter how fine, could really tell the whole story of the composer’s work. That’s true enough, and I’d love to buy multiple recordings of my favorite works and compare the nuances that each performer brings to the music. I’d also love to be massaged by Russian princesses while eating foie gras seared by my manservant, Witherby. . . .

Eventually, we’ll have clueless generations who won’t remember a time when people actually bought music on shiny discs in a store, rather than online from a degenerate corporation clad in whiteface. That is, if people buy music at all. Hell, even I can barely believe that I once took for granted that you had to pay money for music. How stupid was I? (For the record, it was during my college years that the mp3 downloading revolution and its attendant piracy were born, but that’s a story for another time.)

As a commercial venture, the Virgin Megastore chain was a much bigger success for Richard Branson than, say, The Rebel Billionaire. With the way the world is going now, I don’t know if either Branson or anyone else could, or would even want to, replace it. Borders and Barnes and Noble are okay. Amazon has the volume, but the interface is so 1997 (and not in the good way). And classical music is comparatively difficult to find in the downloadable world (though this will certainly be the answer one day). For all our technological advances, one thing seems obvious to me: Browsing through thousands of CDs in a store is fun. Browsing through thousands of links and web pages on your laptop is . . . mind-numbing.

* * *

As a side note, I wish there were a men’s version of Forever 21, a store that carried highly fashionable and “of the moment” menswear that could be bought with the change stuck beneath your sofa cushions (if you could afford a sofa, which I can’t). There is H&M, the super-popular Swedish chain that slowly crawled across America and has only in the past two years penetrated the West Coast. H&M carries a full men’s selection, but overall, they are more like the sartorial analogue to Ikea than a place for imitation couture. They specialize in a Euro-minimalist aesthetic, rather than the more diverse dabbling in trendy styles that characterizes Forever 21.

Indeed, the bigger Forever 21 stores now have a men’s section, usually occupying a disgraced corner of the store, like the unruly kid forced to don a dunce cap. And while the prices and material are in line with the ladies’ selections, the “designers” at XXI apparently believe that men like to wear only gray, black, and white, and have an inordinate fondness for shapeless hoodies over skintight jeans. The lady’s side showcases pop tarts, faux vintage princesses, and cute tomboys; the men’s side perpetuates slob chic. Why the disconnect?

Though I know many women would disagree with me, it is entirely obvious to me that cheap, good men’s clothing is much harder to find than cheap, good women’s clothing. At Forever 21, girls can buy a t-shirt for $5. They can buy a skirt for $10 and a dress for $20. I’ve seen $16 jeans there, and they weren’t on sale. The only place I could find prices like that for men’s clothing is Old Navy, and I swear their stuff is made from crumpled newsprint.

Until some visionary fashionisto brings us a Forever Dudes Be Stylin’, you can find me in the clearance racks at the Banana Republic Factory Store. Yeah, the shirts say “Banana Republic” on them and are emblazoned with your typical fake golf tournaments and bogus yacht races, but come on – they’re $3! Even Witherby has to eat.

Now about those Russian princesses . . .

The Gloved One

The first time I saw The Gloved One, I wanted to be him. I wanted his moves, his swagger, his single glove, and most of all, his wounded history. But this Gloved One wasn’t the Moonwalker; it was a Skywalker. Luke Skywalker’s single black glove appeared in 1983’s Return of the Jedi, covering the prosthetic hand that replaced the one Vader had cut off in The Empire Strikes Back. Lightning would strike twice in 1983, which also saw the debut of Michael Jackson’s one white glove (not to mention the first moonwalk) in his performance of “Billie Jean” at the Motown 25 anniversary special on television.

It’s not so strange to compare Star Wars and Michael Jackson. I can’t think of two more universally known properties, nor two more universally liked properties. And if the recent activities of both had caused some fans’ devotion to sour a bit, perhaps it was because they remembered so well the Star Wars and Michael Jackson of their youth, and found their current renditions so changed.

I was familiar with Return of the Jedi from an early age. My father had taped it on VHS (probably copied from a rental video) and sent it with me to my babysitter’s house, and almost every night, we would pop it into the VCR and watch it. In fact, back then, I thought this movie was Star Wars, I mean, the entirety of Star Wars. I had no idea I was missing two previous episodes. What made it worse was that my father’s tape cut off about ten minutes before the end of the movie. For years, until I was maybe 10, I thought that this movie was Star Wars, and that it ended with the Death Star blowing up and Lando and his grotesque, mush-faced co-pilot screaming in joy. Then the tape ended and started rewinding, which I assumed was what always happened at the end of a movie. I never knew there was an Ewok celebration, never saw Vader’s body burning in a funeral pyre, never knew Anakin’s spirit found peace and companionship with the ghosts of Obi-Wan and Yoda. But I got everything else, and to me, Luke was the essence of cool, not just because of the lightsaber, but because he wielded it with that one black glove, and that made him dangerous, invincible, and maybe just a little bad.

On the contrary, I had never seen Michael Jackson’s performance on Motown 25, never even knew it existed. And if not for his death, I probably never would have come across what I now consider the most amazing five minutes of entertainment I’ve ever seen:

(For the Jackson 5 medley that immediately preceded this performance, see here. This clip shows Michael’s way with the crowd as he introduces his solo number.)

This performance is made all the more incredible by the fact that it’s lip-synched, yet it loses none of its immediacy. And for being the first time he showed the moonwalk to the world, it's astounding that it's just four steps lasting all of three seconds. But when I tried to figure out what made this performance stand out among all the iconic and mesmerizing images we have of Michael, I realized it was not only because it was live and he was throwing down all his best dance moves, but because he’s out there all by himself. You can see the band lurking in the shadows, but the reality is that MJ didn’t need anyone else on stage with him, and the audience wouldn’t have noticed anyone else when he was there. His greatest sidekicks on stage were sequins, a cocky fedora, and of course, the one white glove.

If you had asked me on June 24 what I thought of Michael Jackson, I would not have recognized having any personal feelings about him. It’s a tribute to the hugeness of his imprint on our social consciousness that I didn’t even notice all the ways he would show up in my daily life. Without trying to seek him out, I kept running into him.

Last year, just casually reading some forgotten online article about an unrelated subject, I learned for the first time that Eddie Van Halen played the guitar solo on “Beat It.” Around the same time, I was delving into the post-Beatles recordings of Paul McCartney and John Lennon when I heard an unmistakable voice on Paul’s, “Say Say Say.” Maybe everyone other than me knew that Michael and Paul had collaborated, and not just that once. And that was indeed MJ singing on Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me,” which I first heard in the Adam Sandler movie, The Wedding Singer (the song is now a TV staple thanks to the Geico commercials).

When I started doing ballroom dance a few years ago, I never thought of Michael Jackson as one of my dance influences. After all, his was a completely different style from ballroom (he was practically a style in himself). Yet even in the ballroom world, there was no escaping the man.

I remember one time at a dance competition where I was entered in the hustle, an updated disco dance that is now usually set to synth-heavy contemporary dance-pop. To the delight of me and probably everyone else in the room, the music started to play, and it was “Billie Jean.” No one could have expected it. I couldn’t move at first because I was so surprised by a sound so familiar, yet strange in this context. Afterward, I thought to myself that they should play MJ at every competition.

I remember going to practice with my partner one day at our regular studio. In those days, I tended to wear white socks for no good reason except that I owned them. That day, I was dressed in black warm-ups from head to toe, with the exception of those white socks. The studio owner noticed me and asked if I were trying to channel Michael Jackson. I didn’t get the reference at first, but then I looked down to see that what looked a little ridiculous on me once looked funky and fresh on MJ.

All of these things were just neat facts and coincidences, because for years now up until his death, I never thought about Michael, maybe because he was everywhere all the time. I had ceased to notice, either for good or bad.

My first thought after hearing of his death was about Guitar Hero. Just a few days earlier, I had sung the vocal part on “Beat It,” with the guitar and bass parts in the hands of my siblings. In general, I do the vocals for this game under duress, and mostly because my siblings are reluctant and prefer the instruments. But I was ecstatic to get to this song, and I didn’t really know why. I knew I wouldn’t do it justice, and I just about mangled the “Hee” and “Hoo” yowls so badly that my brother thought I was making fun of the man, when in fact, those were part of the vocal track.

I always thought that a music artist’s success and influence shouldn’t be measured in number of albums sold. 100 million albums sold doesn’t tell you how many more millions (billions?) of people heard the songs and loved them. I never bought a Michael Jackson album or single or anything, but my first musical memory is of “Beat It.” It was my favorite song as a kid, and even though I don’t believe in favorites anymore, I don’t feel bad about saying that it’s still my favorite song. It may sound silly, but singing it in Guitar Hero has brought me closer to my memories of how much I loved Michael Jackson as a kid.

All my personal run-ins with MJ over the last few years fed into my subconscious sense of his impending comeback. Seemingly everything from the 80s and early 90s has returned to us, and the results have been a mix of successful (New Kids on the Block, Transformers, Indiana Jones, Rocky Balboa, Nintendo’s market dominance), mediocre (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Terminator, American Gladiators), and just plain ugly (Knight Rider, shutter shades, the G.I. Joe movie?). Finally, Michael Jackson announced what seemed inevitable, that he was coming back, live on stage. This was going to be his year. Even though I wouldn’t be there to see it, I wanted it to happen.

Now that the man is gone, I can only imagine what his comeback concerts in London would have done for his career and his legacy. I console myself by thinking that his death may have done exactly what he hoped the London concerts would do: bring the real Michael Jackson back into the public eye and private hearts. At least for now, it seems like all the ridicule and Michael-as-punching-bag have been wiped away, leaving only the music, which had dried up ever since his last album in 2001 and the subsequent child molestation trial that more or less banished him from the stage he once owned. More important than this, I think his death has reminded those of us who revered him back in the 80s that to us, he is still the greatest, even if we had forgotten.

On June 24, I wouldn’t have thought of Michael Jackson. On June 25, I remembered the man who first brought music into my life, and wondered how it was possible to feel so deeply about something and not even know it.

One last anecdote: I was in a Nordstrom store yesterday, browsing some shirt racks, when the mewling sounds of Coldplay overhead gave way to the opening synth of “Thriller.” I immediately started nodding my head to the beat, and then I looked up to see two other guys nodding their heads as well. We gave each other some knowing glances, but to be honest, these guys looked a little douchy, and I’d be surprised if I had much in common with them. Yet if there was one thing that could join us in a head-nodding unison, it could only be the Thriller himself. May the Force be with you, Michael Jackson.

Moonwalker

He was a man, take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again.
- Hamlet

Michael Jackson
1958-2009

A Tale of Two Cirques

I recently visited Las Vegas and had the rare and expensive opportunity to view not one, but two, Cirque du Soleil shows: KÀ and Zumanity. Both shows surprised me with how different they were from my preconceptions of what Cirque du Soleil was. Like most people, I had a passing familiarity with Cirque: acrobats in colorful skintights, extreme contortionism, and that dude who lies on top of that other dude.

Yeah, that’s the one.

I had my first glimpse of Cirque as a child, viewing the televised versions on Bravo. Though strange and impressive, I thought the acts were sort of one-note – supremely flexible people doing unconscionably weird things with their bodies. I suppose these French Canadian wunderkinds were rescuing the circus from the likes of Bozo clowns and the guy fighting a lion with only a whip and a tiny chair. Now, the concept is so popular that there are six Cirque du Soleil shows in residence in major Vegas casinos, and it seems that you’re not hardcore as a casino until you score a Cirque show. I’ve even seen a Cirque-style show (knockoff?) at Sea World; their Cirque de la Mer is the Cirque formula with jet skis.

Going in to the first show, KÀ, I had an ominous feeling that I would not be amused. I think I had some notion that Cirque was an overly precious bourgeois kind of entertainment, lacking the history and gravity of the theater or opera worlds, as well as the glitz and youthful exuberance of a rock concert.

Here are my impressions of the two shows. (Warning: Spoilers and adult situations ensue.)

KÀ

KÀ, at the MGM Grand, has the distinction of being the first Cirque show with a true narrative. That doesn’t mean there’s any talking, aside from a brief prologue voice-over. It’s more like watching a Tchaikovsky ballet, where the music and dance tell a story without words. Actually, what’s special about KÀ is that it’s like many different art forms at once. It’s like a ballet or silent stage play in its presentation, but there’s also an epic feel and emphasis on technology that make it about as cinematic as live performance gets. The cup holders and surround speakers built into the seats make it feel even more like being at the movies. It’s also a lot like one of those stunt shows at Universal Studios, with the enormous infrastructure and audience interaction before the show. In a less than enthralling way, it even feels like an amusement park ride, when staff members go around taking your picture and then giving you the option of purchasing the photo after the show.

I was skeptical about whether the show would be worth the exorbitant cost, which, even after student discounts and seasonal promotions, averages about $70 for the mid-range seats (we’re talking about $150 regular price for the best seats). Cirque du Soleil is notorious for its steep sticker prices, so I would be happy with nothing less than being utterly blown away. Well sir, consider yourself blown. KÀ is an amazing show, and unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

That’s a cliché statement, but think about how rare it is that you actually see something and don’t immediately categorize it as a type, another example of a style you’ve experienced many times over. A movie, a play, a sporting event, a museum, etc. – only the finest examples really slap you in the face and make you wonder, “What did I just see?” Otherwise, a movie is just a movie, and you don’t feel like you’ve experienced something more.

The story of KÀ, as a “story,” is rather minimal, and not always easy to follow. Two imperial twins, brother and sister, are separated from each other when enemy forces attack. They endure various adventures before finding each other again and reclaiming their rightful place. There’s a vaguely Chinese/Asian feel to the show, with a heavy emphasis on martial arts action and Asian-style costuming.

In addition to martial arts, KÀ has straight-up acrobatics, just as I expected from a Cirque show. But the show isn’t about acrobatics or any kind of athletic prowess as an end in itself. Rather, the human physique is placed in the service of a visionary dream. KÀ consists of a series of brilliant set pieces that don’t necessarily make up a great story, but individually, the pieces are gorgeous and, at their best, poetic.

My favorite section involved the twin sister being tossed overboard into the ocean during a storm. The thrashing ship, impressive on its own, gives way to the serene sight of the girl falling slowly down the entire height of the theater. Images of bubbles and watery ripples are projected onto a transparent screen at the front of the stage to render a perfectly convincing scene of a girl sinking deeper into the ocean. Then we see her find her bearings and swim downward to save her nursemaid who is in danger of drowning. It ends with the girl swimming upward to the surface, nursemaid in tow. The scene is simple and sparse, accompanied by a beautifully simple melody. I know what it is and what technology was employed, and yet I’ve never seen anything like it.

KÀ is as much about technology as acrobatics, and the most impressive piece of technology is the stage itself. It’s a floating platform operated by a gigantic robotic arm, and it seems to spend most of the show tilted toward the audience at various angles, so that the cast is constantly performing on a slant. At one point, after a scene at the beach, the stage goes completely vertical facing the audience, thus dumping I don’t know how many pounds of sand in a shimmering cascade into the pit below (I’ve read that the “sand” is actually cork).

I thought I had really seen something there, but the climactic battle scenes of the show involve the cast clashing on the same vertically-oriented stage. The cast members are in harnesses and suspended by wires, of course, and it created a melee in 2-D, kind of like a moving painting, with swordsmen flying all across a stationary background.

Even that was not as much fun as another use of the vertical stage: at one point, thin posts protruded from all over the face of the stage. The acrobats proceeded to chase and fight each other by swinging and climbing from post to post, all without wires or support. I saw one guy falling from the top to the bottom through the posts, shifting from side to side; it was like watching human Plinko.

There’s much more to the show, including shadow puppets, rock-climbing, aerial tissu, the wheel of death, archers shooting what looked to be real arrows over the cast-filled stage, and some small-scale pyrotechnics. It’s all accompanied by a grand score, the kind of music someone would write for a movie if told that the music would take center stage instead of the actors.

I came out of KÀ with enormous respect for what Cirque du Soleil is all about: challenging established art forms and melding them together to create new experiences in live performance. What began as a band of preternatural acrobats is now almost a myth-making enterprise. I don’t think it’s an accident that each Cirque show is given a meant-to-be iconic name (Mystere, O, Love, Varekai, etc.), as if they are new worlds in themselves.

Zumanity

Zumanity, at New York New York, has the distinction of being the first 18-and-over (aka “R-Rated”) Cirque show. From the name, I had originally thought that the show might have something to do animals, maybe even animals versus humans, à la Grizzly Man; I was sorely disappointed. Zumanity is essentially a cabaret-style burlesque show with acrobatics. Like KÀ, Zumanity is a series of set pieces, but without the narrative and the brilliance. There is near constant nudity, but surprisingly, it doesn’t make up for the lack of fun.

Admittedly, having seen KÀ the previous night, I couldn’t help judging Zumanity against it. Most of what I liked about the former was absent from the latter. In place of an army of cast members, Zumanity offered numbers focusing on couples and individuals. Instead of technology, we were given intimacy. The by turns martial and dreamlike score of KÀ gave way to dirges rooted in bluesy saxophone. Warriors in Asian robes were replaced by a woman in ass-less pants.

The best part of Zumanity came before the actual show started, in the pre-show banter and audience interaction. Bawdy cast members would take turns smothering defenseless audience members in their unyielding bosoms. Flamboyant male actors would bait some of the men in the seats into homoerotic innuendo. Ironically, the more the men resisted, the gayer they seemed. The lady doth protest too much?

By the time the 7-foot-tall drag queen came out to MC the night’s festivities, I was ready for an entertainment distinct from KÀ, but just as engaging. And yet the show, from its structure to its music to its acrobatics to its cringe-worthy attempts at humor, just didn’t do it for me. (This was a show that thought funny was an out-of-shape woman using liquid-filled Ziploc bags as breast enhancement devices.)

Numbers include two girls writhing in an oversized fishbowl, a young Fabio lookalike doing a strip tease, and two chiseled dudes engaged in what can only be described as steel cage tango-wrestling. None of the numbers were really bad, though I’m sure I would have been more impressed with the aerial work if I hadn’t already seen the same thing for free at Circus Circus earlier in the day. I was mostly disappointed by the unnatural attempt to marry a sex show with a circus show.

There is enough raw sexuality in the sight of a woman spinning and flipping her body in mid-air while clinging to a strip of aerial silk. Having her do it topless is not only overkill, but it distracts the viewer from the beauty of the movement, leaving it with a tawdry feel. Most of the pieces gave me the same uneasy feeling of stumbling upon some great acrobats who were trying too hard to be exotic dancers.

The most impressive performance of the night was also the most inappropriate. A solo contortionist took the stage, just a bony dude in short shorts who could twist his body into one godless position after another. He was a methodical loon, maintaining a feral grin on his face as he robotically went through his routine. He’s kind of what might happen if people were Transformers. He had me hooked as no other part of the show did. But what on earth did this sickboy have to do with the “sensual side of Cirque du Soleil”? Aside from a stomach-turning suggestion made by the MC that the man could do a self-inflicted crotchplant, I didn’t see any connection between his brand of contortionism and the show’s stated goal of titillation. Especially as a solo act!

For some sad reason, the show ended not with a bang-up group number, but with the MC inviting an old couple on stage and having them do a slow dance to celebrate their 40 years of marriage. Really? This is the right way for the reinvention of burlesque to climax? There is something subtly sadomasochistic about Cirque du Soleil as a whole. I mean, look at all the ropes and the dangling and the bodies bent double over themselves. But instead of playing that up and taking it to its natural conclusion, Zumanity misguidedly tries to serve lechery and romance on the same plate, and ends up shortchanging the hungry audience on both counts. When the MC asked a guy in the front row what he was going to do after the show, it’s no wonder that his response of “Have sex?” sounded more like a question than a statement.

Ultimately, the problem with Zumanity is that it doesn’t do justice to either burlesque or Cirque du Soleil. (I’ve heard the same problem afflicts another of their shows: Criss Angel Believe, Cirque fused with illusionism.) They are impressive enough as acrobats, and they provide the “sex,” but they’re missing the all-important next word: “appeal.”