'TBH Politoons'
Baron Dave Romm
American Pop
By Baron Dave Romm
The Return of the Podcast!
Shockwave Radio Theater
Podcasts
for iTunes and iPods, with pictures
Even newer!
Shockwave Radio
broadcasts on archive.org. Bookmark my bookmark page.
Recent
additions include:
2005 Chinese Space
Program & Pledge Drive
2003 with guest
Rev. Billy C. Wirtz
Next show: 28th
Anniversary!
Political Quick Thought: As expected, Keith Ellison won the primary in our district. If elected, he would be the first black person to represent Minnesota on the national level, and would be the first Muslim in Congress. Also as expected, the slime began almost immediately. Republicans have no hope of winning this race, but the more they can throw mud at Ellison the more they hope the mud will stick to Democrats in general. Republicans are disgusting, and they should be turned out of office, all of them, to teach the party a lesson.
Memory jogger: What ever happened to the Anthrax terrorists? Bush isn't even looking for them. Were they the Christian Extremists who are friends with Ashcroft and W? The killers are still out there. All the people who harbored terrorist Eric Rudolph are still out there. You are not safe under a Republican administration.
American Pop is an animated film, with rotoscoped images and bits of culture flashing behind the characters, that takes us from the end of Fiddler on the Roof to the era of Syd and Nancy. Maybe a bit beyond. In between, it covers One Upon A Time In America, Lady Sings The Blues, The Benny Goodman Story, Dobie Gillis, Head and many others. In 96 minutes, American Pop covers four generations of Jewish musicians in their quest to make a life and to make music. It nearly succeeds. The wide panorama of 20th Century America is seen from near the bottom. War, violence, death and drugs are tempered with hope, family, some kind of love and an attempt to live an honorable life. All the main characters in American Pop try to be a mensch, even if they don't know the Yiddish word. They nearly succeed.
I saw American Pop when it first came out in 1981. I loved it. One of the people with me didn't like some of the song choices. The punk rocker at the end sings "Night Moves" and that threw him. Didn't bother me much. Punk is about giving up, and American Pop is about persevering across generations.
Starting off with the pogroms that kill the devout patriarch and drive the family to America, the story continues in jazz clubs in the early part of the century which created a unique American music and in the speakeasies of Prohibition which created gangsters. The despair of the Depression is alleviated by WWII, giving a purpose to people who don't know their own strengths. The be-pop 50s slide into the protest rock 60s. The punk 70s slide into the techno 80s. The film ends on an uncharacteristic high note.
Each era is well represented by music and images. No song is sung all the way through, though the music selection is excellent. The mood is evocative and sensual. It paints a picture with daubs of sound, and the images reverberate. Like an Impressionist painting, it's best viewed from a bit of distance. Like a jazz improv solo, individual notes are less important than the riff.
No film can hope to cover most of a century in an hour and a half, and American Pop is more of a ride than a history. It works best if you have an appreciation of history and knowledge of music. I liked American Pop a great deal, but as an appetizer more than a main course. On the Shockwave scale of 9 to 23, with 23 being top, I give American Pop about a 19.
Ralph Bakshi almost changed animation. Almost. His solution to the expense of creating animated movies was to throw static images behind main characters. This is better than Hanna-Barbera limited animation, but still feels artificial. Wizards uses the same technique, as does his attempt at The Lord of the Rings. These are good experiments, but didn't change how people made films. We had to wait another couple of decades for Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and CGI.
Fritz the Cat is still fun (though I haven't seen it for a while) and his Mighty Mouse series was cancelled by the sphincter conservatives before it had a chance. His frenetic style was adopted by bad music videos, which isn't his fault. He stretched the acceptability of big budget animated features, which is to his credit.
Bakshi's career lasted 40 years, and he still makes appearances at conventions. He may not have been the animation pioneer of his hype, but his films are still watchable and his influence is still felt.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
--////
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Interview by Alice Chasan: Why We Need to Debate Torture : Real life requires us to decide between evils, says Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz (beliefnet.com)
"The United States does not torture," President Bush said when he announced the transfer of 14 top terror suspects to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay on Sept. 6. Yes it does, says author and legal scholar Alan Dershowitz, who calls for a public debate on the moral and pragmatic dimensions of this "reality."
Howard Zinn: Robert Birnbaum talks with the author of A People's History of the United States (identitytheory.com; from 2003)
I don't consider the Cold War real. That is, I consider that Communism played the same role in that period of the Cold War that terrorism plays today. That it was a useful opportunity to do what we wanted to do in foreign policy.
Howard Zinn: Robert Birnbaum talks with the author of A People's History of the United States (identitytheory.com; from 2001)
HZ: I think that pressure exists on young people who want to be poets, actors and musicians. Both because their parents are looking in on them and wondering how their kids will survive and paying huge tuition for them and also thinking themselves of their own future and decide, "No, I can't be a poet. I can't be a musician because I won't be able to survive." So yes, it's a culture so dominated by the need to make money and be successful in the orthodox sense that it cripples creativity...
Interview by Holly Lebowitz Rossi: The Sexy Spirit: Gina Ogden peeked into America's bedrooms and found lots of...spirituality going on. (beliefnet.com)
It's no surprise that at those moments, we say, "Oh, God, oh, God!" In bedrooms all over the country, people are crying out, "Oh, God!" They're not crying out, "Oh, Devil!"
Robert Urban: Conservative Republican Barry Goldwater's Pro-gay Legacy (afterelton.com)
The life and political legacy of conservative American politician Barry M. Goldwater (1909-1998) gets a liberal makeover in HBO's new documentary Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater. Although the documentary touches only briefly on Goldwater's pro-gay activism, it will nonetheless be of special interest to gays who seek to understand the American political process, as it sheds light on how the religious right has risen to power in the Republican Party.
Poll: Same-sex marriage not a big concern for most Americans (advocate.com)
A new Associated Press-Ipsos poll finds that more Americans are only slightly or not at all concerned with the issue of same-sex marriage than those who are very concerned.
Yuri Arcurs (arcurs.com)
A well-done WWW site by a Danish photographer.
Hubert's Poetry Corner
ANN RICHARDS' LAST SMIRK
RIGHT ALL ALONG!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Santa Ana winds took away the humidity and upped the heat.
Promote T-Shirt For AIDS Fund
Hewsons
The lead singer of the band U2 brought his fight against AIDS and poverty to town. Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson, visited the downtown Nordstrom store Saturday to promote a designer T-shirt that will raise money to pay for AIDS medication and medical care in Africa.
The shirts are emblazoned with the logo of Bono's "One" campaign against poverty. They are made in Africa by Edun, a fair trade clothing label started by Bono and Hewson. The company will donate $10 for every $40 shirt sold to a fund supporting the health care of the factory workers who make the shirts.
The shirt factory is in a village in Lesotho in southern Africa.
Hewsons
U.S. Holds AP Photographer 5 Months
Bilal Hussein
The U.S. military in Iraq has imprisoned an Associated Press photographer for five months, accusing him of being a security threat but never filing charges or permitting a public hearing.
Military officials said Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi citizen, was being held for "imperative reasons of security" under United Nations resolutions. AP executives said the news cooperative's review of Hussein's work did not find anything to indicate inappropriate contact with insurgents, and any evidence against him should be brought to the Iraqi criminal justice system.
Hussein, 35, is a native of Fallujah who began work for the AP in September 2004. He photographed events in Fallujah and Ramadi until he was detained on April 12 of this year.
Hussein is one of an estimated 14,000 people detained by the U.S. military worldwide - 13,000 of them in Iraq. They are held in limbo where few are ever charged with a specific crime or given a chance before any court or tribunal to argue for their freedom.
Bilal Hussein
Joke Beer Celebrates Decade
He'Brew
A company that started out as a joke celebrates ten years in business. Founder Jeremy Cowan says that starting out, he and his friends just thought it would be fun for Jews to have their own beer and brewed up something called "He'Brew." Ten years later, with 2 million bottles sold, it's not a joke anymore.
Cowan says he likes the beer, but wouldn't want to abandon the inside joke that started it all, the punch line being "don't pass out, pass over."
The tiny San Francisco-based brew, which depends almost as much on schtick as it does on brewing expertise, is celebrating its anniversary with several new beers. They include a rye-flavored tribute to the late comedian and free-speech icon, Lenny Bruce.
He'Brew
Inspirational Hotel Relaunched
Fawlty Towers
The hotel that inspired the cult television comedy Fawlty Towers is to re-launch after a 1 million pound makeover -- but guests will be spared rants by the rudest hotelier of all time.
John Cleese was prompted to write the classic 1970s series with his then wife Connie Booth after staying with the cast of Monty Python's Flying Circus at the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay.
Cleese called hotelier Donald Sinclair "the most wonderfully rude man I have ever met" after they were berated for their table manners and had a timetable thrown at them when they asked the time of the next bus to town.
Actress Prunella Scales, who played Basil Fawlty's waspish wife Sybil in the comedy that became a worldwide hit, is to commemorate the relaunch on Monday by unveiling a plaque at the hotel.
Fawlty Towers
2006 Inductions
Georgia Music Hall of Fame
The four original members of R.E.M. gave a rare performance Saturday night as the group was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
Saturday's reunion performance was by far the largest and the first that was publicized in advance. Many of the roughly 1,500 people at the Georgia hall's black-tie induction ceremony clearly were there to see the group.
Also inducted Saturday were Allman Brothers founder Gregg Allman, writer-producers Dallas Austin and Jermaine Dupri, and the late Felice Bryant. Bryant, along with husband Boudleaux Bryant, wrote country and rock standards including "Rocky Top," "Wake Up Little Susie" and "Love Hurts."
Georgia Music Hall of Fame
Viewers Choice
'Sound of Music'
A 23-year-old Welsh call center worker won a television contest on Saturday to star in a revival of the musical "The Sound of Music" on the London stage.
Connie Fisher was chosen by viewers to play the lead role of Maria in London's West End and landed a six-month contract.
The contest, entitled "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?," was launched by composer and producer Andrew Lloyd Webber and attracted 6,000 hopefuls.
He decided to hunt for an unknown after failing to secure U.S. actress Scarlett Johansson for the role.
'Sound of Music'
Researchers Work To Save Rare Songbird
Bicknell's Thrush
As dusk shrouded the summit of Whiteface Mountain, Juan Klavins aimed his headlamp at the bird in his left hand, its head between his fingers and its wing extended to expose a crimson vein.
The 26-year-old Argentine researcher deftly pierced transparent skin with a hypodermic needle and filled two fine glass tubes with blood to be tested for mercury. The bird craned its neck to eye the swarming gnats, impatient to resume feeding.
The fledgling was a rare Bicknell's Thrush, subject of a long-term study by the Vermont Institute of Natural Science on the bird's breeding grounds at high elevations in the Northeast and its wintering grounds in the Caribbean.
Bicknell's Thrush is a cousin of the American Robin but is smaller and slimmer, with a brown back and wings, chestnut tail, buffy breast and speckled throat. Unlike the common Robin, Bicknell's is rarely seen, living in dense fir forests on high mountaintops. It is identified more often by its lilting flute-like song than by sight.
Bicknell's Thrush
Johannesburg Restaurant
Gramadoelas
Johannesburg restaurant Gramadoelas gives diners the chance to see how South African food reflects the diversity of its people.
More than 30 years ago, Gramadoelas defied stringent apartheid-era laws to allow blacks and whites to eat together and now, more than a decade after white rule collapsed, this restaurant in the heart of South Africa's economic capital remains one of the only eateries that serves worms.
For the less adventurous, Gramadoelas offers a range of Cape Malay classics - a cuisine born of slaves from Indonesia and Malaysia who were brought to South Africa's Cape by Dutch settlers to serve as household chefs.
They infused hearty but tasteless Dutch meals with Eastern spices, spawning dishes like bobotie -- spiced minced lamb topped with a savoury egg custard.
Gramadoelas
World's Tallest People
Dutch
In the last 150 years, the Dutch have become the tallest people on Earth - and experts say they're still getting bigger. It is a tale of a nation's health and wealth.
Prosperity propelled the collective growth spurt that began in the mid-1800s and was only interrupted during the harsh years of the Nazi occupation in the 1940s - when average heights actually declined.
With their protein-rich diet and a national health service that pampers infants, the Dutch are standing taller than ever. The average Dutchman stands just over 6 feet, while women average nearly 5-foot-7.
Dutch
Art Student Posed As Terracotta Warrior
Pablo Wendel
A German art student hoodwinked police in northern China's famed terracotta warrior museum by disguising himself as a clay soldier among a forest of ancient statues, state media said.
Pablo Wendel jumped into an archaeological pit showcasing several thousand terracotta soldiers, found a spot to stand and frustrated police who had difficulty finding him amid the 2,200-year-old warriors, Xinhua news agency said.
After finally locating the art student, Wendel refused to budge and police at the museum near China's ancient capital of Xian were forced to carry him off "as if he were a log," Xinhua said.
Wendel, 26, told police that since he was a child he had been fascinated by the terracotta warriors, created to protect the nearby tomb of the legendary Emperor Qinshihuang who united China over 2,200 years ago.
Pablo Wendel
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