Joel Hammond thinks the NFL, not Matt Millen, is to blame for a swiss cheese minority hiring process.
By Joel Hammond
210 west Writer [send email]
I went to Dairy Mart yesterday with a craving for the juicy delight that is a Milky Way candy bar. You know, creamy caramel and rich milk chocolate dancing in your mouth as you salivate for more.
But after I made a beeline for the Milky Way, the cashier would not allow me to pay my $.62 and be on my way.
Why? Because I did not make an attempt to review any of the other equally delicious treats, including the likes of the Snickers, the Mars bar and Reese's pieces, just to name a few.
I was in disbelief, a feeling I'm certain Detroit Lions President Matt Millen echoed after learning of the $200,000 fine levied against him last week by National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, an action that has caused quite a stir within the NFL and the media alike.
No, the attempts of the NFL to increase the presence of minorities
in higher positions within the league are not as simple as my attempt and
subsequent failure at purchasing a Milky Way. But they're not as
complicated as league officials have made them, either.
And no, I am not a racist. I believe there are many qualified African-American and other minority coaching candidates available and coming into their own.
Marvin Lewis is the perfect example. If you look at the talent that other white Bengal coaches have had over the past five years, the team’s record is quite perplexing. Akili Smith (Who is talented, but didn’t have the right coach), Darnay Scott, Ashley Ambrose, Carl Pickens, and even current Bengal Corey Dillon, have all donned the orange and black, with minimal success. Lewis now has the chance, and will succeed I believe, in doing what those other white Bengal coaches couldn't: Taking a talented team and turning them into a winner.
Millen, though, in former San Francisco 49ers Coach Steve Mariucci, knew he had his guy. He had just suffered through 27 losses in two seasons with the departed Marty Mornhinwheg at the helm. Mariucci, who did not mesh well with former 'Niners Coach Bill Walsh, now in the front office, was fired in January after the 49ers went 10-6 and lost to the Super Bowl-champion Buccaneers in the NFC playoffs.
But Millen wanted Mariucci. He knew he was the man for the job, and would, with the right off-season moves (like the drafting of another homestate guy, Charles Rogers) would get the franchise headed in the right direction, much like I knew the Milky Way was the right delectable treat to take care of my hunger.
So Millen went after the Michigan native, and I went after the Milky Way, and we were all destined to be together and happy. No questions asked.
But NFL officials started asking questions after the hire, because of a conference in December when team owners agreed to a policy that any team conducting a search for a head coach must interview at least one minority candidate.
The rule is essentially garbage. Like I have said, I am all for advancing minorities within the league's front offices. Gene Upshaw, the executive director of the NFL Players Association, was a great player and does great things for the players in the league. But he and his colleagues are doing minority-coaching candidates a disservice with this policy.
The point is that no minority head-coaching candidate wants a mercy interview. Dennis Green, an initial candidate in both Dallas and Detroit, declined an interview in Detroit and was briefly "interviewed" in Dallas after learning both teams knew whom they wanted. That brief interview: Dallas owner Jerry Jones asking Green if he was interested.
So let me get this straight. The NFL is instituting a policy that teams can manipulate just enough not to get in trouble? Detroit attempted to interview five minority candidates, but unlike Dallas, couldn’t get one of them to lie to the NFL for them, like Jones did with Green.
Why wouldn't Green and other minority candidates decline interviews
with these teams? Why would Green, knowing Parcells and Mariucci, two
established NFL coaches, were already in place, be willing to interview
with a team who didn't want him?
The NFL has put these teams in a precarious position, and Millen was the first major victim. A team knows who they want, and makes it known publicly. But they have to interview a minority candidate, and they attempt to do so. But no minority candidates will waste their time with said team, because said minority knows they have no chance at a job that is virtually already taken.
So who's the hypocrite here? NFL teams, for not giving minorities a
chance, or the NFL for putting these teams in a no-win situation?
Erik Pepple appreciates the Bob Hope today's young people saw, but laments the fact that we missed the first 80 years of America's greatest entertainer.
By Erik Pepple
210 west Pop Culture Editor [send email]
The news of Bob Hope’s death is not shocking. Nor is it tragic. At 100 years old it’s almost expected. That, however, doesn’t take the sting out of hearing the news about the passing of one of America’s greatest icons.
For most people my age their memories of Bob Hope are limited to his NBC specials from the 80’s. They were occasions for rimshot worthy one-liners, college football stars and mid-level celebrities like Dom DeLuise to come out of the woodwork. With the foundation of our collective memory rooted in watching these specials with our parents or grandparents it’s easy to see how many folks have underestimated Hope’s gifts and influence in these last two decades.
The NBC specials were never meant to be innovative or ground-breaking. They were professional examples of a career comedian who had become an institution. And most people turn to institutions for a sense of comfort, to be reassured that some things never change. As a kid it was difficult to find better comfort food in televised form than the Bob Hope specials. They were events that would find the entire family in the living room, with everyone finding something at which to laugh. It is perhaps the greatest testament to Hope’s extraordinary talent that through all the bad one-liners and entendres, his delivery, his nasally snark and bourbon smooth phrasing, that even the worst of jokes sounded good. Hope was a consummate craftsman who, when he’d put all his chutzpah behind what he knew and what we knew were bad jokes, he’d still manage to knock it out of the park by sheer force of will.
It is a deep shame, then, that most folks in my generation will only remember those Saturday night specials and overlook arguably the most influential career in contemporary comedy. In many ways Hope (along with Groucho Marx) is ground zero of contemporary comedy.
Born out of a vaudeville sensibility, Hope’s only drive in life was to entertain. He was one of the first comedians to introduce a conversational style to the art of stand-up. When he took the stage he turned it into a dialogue between audience and performer. He was there for them and once said that he viewed an audience as his best friends and who doesn’t love to have a conversation with their best friends? Parts of that conversation were glib, self-deprecating one-liners (Hope, like Marx, seemingly had an endless supply) coupled with a sarcastic edge that poked fun at his foibles, making him easily loved by the audience. He could make an audience feel like they were sharing a joke, and that is the gift of the greatest of comedians: to turn the art of comedy into a purely communal experience.
Hope parlayed his stage skill into a film career that peaked with his “Road” pictures with Bing Crosby. Hope & Crosby were experts at playing the schnook, and the “Road” films were the best illustration of this gift. It is interesting to note that in these movies Hope perfected a persona that would find itself at home in everyone from Woody Allen to Conan O’Brien (O’Brien’s lascivious growl at sexy female guests is a direct steal from Hope). The persona of the cuckolded nebbish, the flibbertigibbet who only wanted the girl or the laugh, but was constantly knocked down by their own nerves and insecurity, is one of Hope’s greatest creations. Beyond that Hope was one of the first comedians to break the fourth wall, to turn away from the action onscreen to comment to the audience about the ridiculousness of it all. Take a look at “The Road to Morocco” and you can see the stirrings of modern comedy’s reliance on irony and sarcasm being injected into the consciousness. For Christ’s sakes at one point in “Morocco” a camel starts talking for no discernable reason, it’s the kind of intelligent absurdity that has become part of the DNA of Albert Brooks through David Letterman up to and including The Simpsons (on which he had a memorable cameo as Bob “What the hell am I doing in Springfield” Hope).
While Hope’s skills earned him success in every medium he came in contact with, it was his work as an entertainer for the USO that has forever earned him a place in popular culture’s history.
Famously rejected for military service, because the Army felt he would be more valuable to the military as an entertainer, Hope became a towering example of the kind of good will many entertainers aren’t exactly known for. Performing for troops across the globe, Hope devoted so much time to the USO that he once said that when he finally sees his kids they think he’s booked a personal appearance. His work in this field was not motivated by politics, and even when he came to disagree with the Vietnam debacle he still performed for the troops. Hope was there to make them happy and entertained if only for an hour. It is a generosity of spirit and good will and speaks to his nobility that Hope was there for them, he wasn’t there because he was behind any cause or because he particularly cared for who was president at the time (although rumor has it every president he met, regardless of political stripe, loved him, and it’s not hard to see why). His USO performances speak to the greatest power a comedian, no matter what their disposition, can have. When a performance is cooking it becomes about something greater than both performer and crowd, it becomes an experience to be shared.
Bob Hope knew that the greatest gift a comedian can give is themselves. It is an idea that the finest of comedians from Groucho Marx to Lenny Bruce to Richard Pryor to Jerry Seinfeld innately realized, and no one did it better or more professionally than Bob Hope.
So a man wakes up from a Coma after 19 years. Vince Guerrieri looks at what he missed - and what stayed strong - since 1984
By Vince Guerrieri
210 west Managing Editor [send email]
There’s nothing new under the sun.
--Ecclesiastes 1:9
In a miracle of medical science, an Arkansas man awoke earlier this month from a 19-year coma. The injuries Terry Wallis sustained in a 1984 car crash left him in a coma and a quadraplegic. I’m not going to make the usual coma joke, because, well, The Simpsons did it better.
(They showed a man waking up from a 25-year coma and he said, “Is the Sonny and Cher Show still on?” Someone told him that Sonny was a Congressman and Cher won an Oscar. The man said, “Good night!” and coded.)
Things have changed dramatically since then. In 1984:
=Britney Spears was learning to read
=Saddam Hussein was our friend (or at least, not our enemy)
=Osama bin Laden was an anti-communist fighter in Afghanistan
=For that matter, there was still a Soviet Union
=George W. Bush was in the middle of an epic bender
=Sandra Day O’Connor was the only woman on the Supreme Court (and Pat Robertson wasn’t praying against her)
=Only rich people had car phones, as they were called at the time
=AIDS was something that gay people in San Francisco caught
=Michael Jackson was known more for his music than his weirdness
=The Detroit Tigers were running away with the American League
=Colin Quinn was a second banana on an MTV game show called Remote Control (and MTV still played videos!)
=Video games were played on Atari
=HBO’s only original show was Fraggle Rock
=People still bought albums and cassettes. CDs were starting to creep into use. MP3s were a pipe dream
=Reality TV was just a joke in Network
=A publication such as this couldn’t exist. (I’ll let you decide if things have improved since then in that regard.) Only a few nerds and engineers knew of something called the internet.
But some things, really, haven’t changed.
=Bruce Springsteen is filling stadiums, like he did in 1984 at the height of the popularity of Born in the U.S.A.
=Deficit spending is ballooning, and our military is still involved in some bad shit in the Middle East.
=Arnold Schwarzenegger is still the Terminator. In a short matter of time, though, he might be governor of California.
=Another Indiana Jones movie is in the works
=America is captivated by a young girl from West Virginia. Then it was Mary Lou Retton. Now it’s Pfc. Jessica Lynch
=The Democratic Party still seems committed to running a presidential election without winning a single state (for the record, I’ll vote for Dennis Kucinich)
=The Cleveland Indians still suck. But this time, the Detroit Tigers suck even more
Wallis might not have really missed the 1980s. It’s still around. Thankfully, some crimes of fashion have been relegated to the dustbin or the St. Vincent DePaul Society (jams, anyone?), but there’s all kind of nostalgia for the 1980s. One of the local radio stations in Pittsburgh has an 80s lunch, where from noon to 1 p.m., you can hear Tommy Tutone and Katrina and the Waves to your heart’s content. That same radio station has 80s Fridays and the occasional 80s weekend. VH-1 (which didn’t exist in 1984) recently had a 10-hour series called I Love the 80s.
I lived through the 1980s, and even remember most of them. I watched The Dukes of Hazzard on Friday nights, and then, when it was cancelled, I watched Mr. Belvedere. I was in bed by Dallas. Wearing a seat belt wasn’t the law, but my parents made me. My mother’s father died in 1982. He was 63. I wasn’t quite 5, and I got to stay up late and play cards with the babysitter. Like my parents’ generation with the JFK assassination, I can recall exactly where I was when the Challenger blew up. I watched the Berlin Wall topple. I remember when Chuck (my dad, to the uninitiated) brought home a VCR. I listened to albums like Off the Wall and Sports on vinyl. The Iran-Contra hearings were only on network television, where they pre-empted daytime game shows. The Cleveland Browns ripped my heart out with The Fumble and The Drive (it wouldn’t be the last time they did that). One Sunday night in 1989, I sat down and watched a cartoon with Chuck. The show was called The Simpsons. I haven’t missed an episode since.
I don’t remember much about 1984. I was seven years old. The Dukes of Hazzard went off the air that year. Idora Park, the amusement park in my hometown of Youngstown, burned and closed. Ronald Reagan ran for re-election against Walter “Fritz” Mondale and beat him handily, becoming one of two presidents to carry 49 of 50 states(Mondale managed to grab Minnesota). Bruce Springsteen came out with Born in the U.S.A. I still want “Glory Days” played at my funeral, but the song gets funnier and sadder the older I get.
Lately, there has been manufactured nostalgia for the 1980s, just as the 1980s saw manufactured nostalgia for the 1960s (I still can’t watch an episode of The Wonder Years without hearing my parents say “I remember that!”). I wonder if there will be as much nostalgia a decade from now for the 1990s.
I remember more from the 1990s. I heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana for the first time (in fairness, I also heard “Ice, Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice for the first time). I watched the confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas (I know, I know, I’m a nerd). They blanketed the television, which included a 24-hour news channel by that point, much like the Iran Contra hearings blanketed television in the 1980s. I watched Magic Johnson’s news conference saying that he had HIV, the virus that led to AIDS. “If I can get it, you can too,” he said. I remember a hick with a wandering dick coming out of nowhere and beating an incumbent president in the 1992 Presidential election. I voted for the first time in a Presidential election in 1996.
I also covered my first election that year, for the BG News. Most of my memories in the latter half of the 1990s, and most since, came in a newsroom. I was in the Bowling Green Radio News office when I first heard about a place called Columbine. I spent New Year’s Eve 1999 at Pittsburgh International Airport making sure planes didn’t fall out of the sky (they didn’t…sadly, that day came a little less than two years later).
September 11, 2001 is regarded as the day America lost its innocence. There’s a day like that for every generation. For my grandparents, it was December 7, 1941, when Pearl Harbor was bombed. For my parents, it was November 22, 1963, when John Kennedy was shot. Or maybe May 4, 1970, when National Guardsmen opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators at Kent State University, killing four students. Or possibly August 8, 1974, when Richard Nixon resigned as president, still the only president to do so.
I guess the best way to ensure nostalgia for an era is to have a built-in audience to remember the time fondly while forgetting living through the ominous moments. One of my friends, a decent God-fearing woman who got a degree in history, still likes Ronald Reagan for saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” She doesn’t remember Iran-Contra. She doesn’t remember the largest peacetime spending in history, leading to the largest federal debt in history.
In that respect, I’m sure that there’ll be nostalgia for the 1990s. The children of the Baby Boomers now comprise the largest generation in American history. Being born in 1977, I’m one of the older members of that generation. The people starting college this year don’t remember the world that Terry Wallis left behind in 1984.
I wonder what they’ll tell Terry Wallis about the time he missed. I wonder what he’ll find out on his own. He’ll have to adjust to a world that, for the similarities, is certainly different than the one he remembered.
At the same time, I wonder what the people of America who are younger than me will be told about the events they might remember, but only in passing. They won’t remember that visceral reaction we had in the Radio News offices when news started coming in off the wire about two students opening fire in a Colorado high school. All they’ll know about impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton is what they read in history books (Lord knows they didn’t learn about it at the time…could you imagine explaining to a 12-year-old the significance of the stained dress?). They’ll remember the Power Rangers. They’ll remember Jurassic Park.
In another decade, I won’t be surprised to see “I Love the 90s.”
Some idolize the athletes. Dan Nied idolizes those who write about them.
In my formative years as a wide-eyed chubby catholic schoolboy, naïve to the ways of the world, the only thing that linked me to the rest of my culture was sports and the men who told me about them through their eyes.
Each morning I would sit at our dining room table, bowl of raisin bran overflowing with milk, and read the Detroit Free Press sports section.
Monday, Wednesday and Friday were Mitch Albom days. I’d never seen a man weave words with such description and confidence. He told a story like nobody else could and, even though I was only 7-years old, I knew that he was something special.
It was around second grade that my stepfather bought me a subscription to Sports Illustrated and, from that point on - for the last 17 years - Thursday has been known as Sports Illustrated Day.
And here I am now.
We look back on athletes and measure how they have inspired us with abilities and fame. But they are merely good stories. We rarely think about the men who tell their stories.
As for my path to becoming a sportswriter, five men that I do not know influenced me more than anyone I do.
Four can be found in the tabernacle that is SI and, well, Mitch Albom still writes for my hometown paper.
In reading Albom, Steve Rushin, Frank Deford, Gary Smith and Rick Reilly religiously, like a zealot reads The Bible, I have learned how to tell a story and I have found that the written word still stands as the most powerful medium in the world.
More than that, I have learned that poor grammar and run-on sentences may be the best way to tell a story.
Albom’s column was my teething ring, showing me the basics, peaking my interest in writing. I wondered if the words he seemed to put down so easily were actually hard to find.
I tinkered with a journal and a few sample columns and found that I had at least a scrap of talent. Then words weren’t too hard to find.
Nobody captured the feeling of a city better than Albom did with Detroit. He was a transplant, a Philadelphia native who we got from a paper in Los Angeles. But he was on our pulse. He knew the hunger Detroit’s sports fan had.
And while he wasn’t as poetic as the other four on this literary murderers row, he still stands, in my opinion, as the best.
Albom was the backbone of sports writing for me. But when that Sports Illustrated subscription came I relegated myself to looking at the pictures and reading the shorter articles. I had the attention span of a 7-year old, so the longer articles were just too much.
But as time went on, Frank Deford’s words captivated me. His word choice was perfect, his points salient. Deford showed me what it would be like if Michael Jordan had been a sportswriter.
I searched for his articles in back issues that I may have missed. Eventually, in a compilation book, I found “The Rabbit Hunter” his seminal piece on then Indiana Men’s Basketball Coach Bobby Knight. Immediately I knew I had a standard to go by.
Then as I entered into the journalism program at Bowling Green State University (largely on the influence of Albom and Deford), SI gave Rick Reilly a column on its last page. “The Life of Reilly” was a circus of metaphors and dry wit and perfectly illuminated the reasons we love sports. To this day, I’ve never seen a writer who gets it quite like Reilly does.
He understands the culture, he knows when to lambaste and when to praise. He knows right from wrong, probably the most important quality in a sportswriter.
A few years later SI gave a similar column to Rushin, only this one was in the front of the magazine. Essentially, SI created the most lethal 1-2 combination since Morganna: The Kissing Bandit.
Reading Steve Rushin is like watching all four Rocky movies in one day. It jabs at your heart, invigorates the soul and makes you realize that greatness actually exists. I can’t describe his style here. I wouldn’t do it justice.
So let’s just move on to Gary Smith.
Smith has a rule that he interviews at least 50 people for every story. Yet finding a quote in one of Smith’s stories is like finding an ice cream parlor in the Sahara.
He tells the story based on what people tell him. His writing says that he knows nobody can tell a story better than him, so why rely on their words when his will be more apt.
To try to aspire to be these men wouldn’t be fair to anyone. But their writings - their sculptures of words - are amazing things to behold.
And no matter where I go in this business, whether I emerge to be the next in line of this amazing lineup or settle in as a staff writer at the Podunk Times, I will always rush to read the work of these men.
But pardon me, please, I need to go check the mailbox. Today is Thursday…Sports Illustrated Day
As Lollapalooza starts the climb back to respectability, James Eldred caught the Detroit show to see just what the renowned music festival is up to. He comes back with images of bare breasts and rock music the way it used to be.
By James Eldred
210 west Writer [send email]
In 1992, Lollapalooza was the place to be. Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Ice Cube and The Red Hot Chili Peppers, among many others, took the stage to begin what was to be one of the most influential concert festivals in history. Unfortunately, for me, I was only 12 years old and didn’t get to go. By the time I was old enough to go on my own Metallica was headlining the tour, so what was the point?
Now, over 10 years later, Lollapalooza has returned, and this year not only was I old enough to go, the line-up didn’t stink to high heaven. So I bit the bullet, forked over the 60-plus bucks for a ticket and traveled two hours to Clarkston, Michigan, to see seven bands and bear witness to what would hopefully mark the return of really good rock music.
I don’t know if that’s going to be accomplished with this year’s Lollapalooza, but judging from what I saw, Perry Farrell and company are off to a good start.
Here is how my day unfolded:
1:50 PM: We arrive at Lollapalooza. The beats coming from the second stage can be heard a mile away, which is fortunate, considering that’s how far away we parked.
2:15: We finally make our way past the front gate. Four steps later people are trying to sell us stuff at a huge merchandise area that I will from now on call the ‘Lollamall.’ I quickly snag a program ($10) and try to make my way past the piercers, tattoo artists and other assorted culture merchants for the main stage, because Rooney starts in 10 minutes.
2:25: We get to our seats as Rooney takes the stage. The lawn is already nearly full, but the covered pavilion seating (where we were) was nearly empty. How come the people that pay the most for the best tickets never arrive on time?
Known by many for the semi-hit single “Blue Side” Rooney is only known by me as the band that has the little brother of the kid from Rushmore in it. After hearing their boring power-pop for 20 or so minutes, I think that’s all I’ll ever know them as.
2:45: I get sick of Rooney and wander towards the Lollamall. The first thing I see is a body painting booth that featuring a huge sign proclaiming: “PAINT YOUR FACE, PAINT YOUR ASS, PAINT YOUR TITS!!!” Immediately after seeing that, my eyes jump to the bare, tiger-painted boobs in front of my face. I’ve been here less than an hour and I see my first bare rack, always a good sign for a rockin’ concert.
3:00: After checking out the various clothing, accessory, skateboard, quilt and art booths, I learn one thing; you can freaking make anything out of hemp!
3:25: It sounds like a good time is being had at the second stage, but they don’t have The Donnas so I rush to my seat to catch my favorite pop/rock band with big tits. They perform a decent enough set, but seeing them is reward enough. Halfway through their 45-minute set, they point out their biggest fan, who is sporting a super-bitchin’ mullet. The girl next to him is sporting a very fine pair of bare painted breasts, the fourth pair of I’ve seen so far today -- tying my previous record set at a 1994 Ozzy concert.
4:00: I return to the Lollamall to browse the art/body art vendors while yet another woman with a bare painted chest is getting gawked at by men who know fine art when they see it. She seems very upset about it.
Now, I know that the ‘she’s asking for it’ line is no excuse, but I’m sorry, if you take your shirt off and have a pair of sunflowers airbrushed onto your knockers ….
4:15 I see a woman that should obviously not be going topless and painted doing just that. In my stare of pain and awe I realize that all the ‘topless’ girls are wearing pasties. I feel betrayed and sad.
4:30: The Jurassic 5 take the stage, emerging from a giant gold-platted turntable that opens like giant palace doors. I need one of those. If I left for work by emerging from a giant gold turntable, I could face my day with a little more ease. Jurassic 5 amazes the theatre, which is now about half-full.
5:35: Right on time, the gods of ‘stoner metal’ The Queens of the Stone Age take the stage. Their bass player is scary, serial-killer scary. Dude must be six-plus feet tall, totally ripped, and covered in tattoos. Add to that his bright red goatee and screaming vocals and you get the second-scariest bass player in music, right behind the dude from System Of A Down. The two should do a team-up or something.
Immediately after the Queens wrap their set, the Bellydance Superstars take the stage, which leads me to wonder, how does one become a superstar of belly dancing? Are there auditions? Competitions that start on the local level and work their way up to the national championships? Or are they just five chicks that are pretty good at shaking their asses and decided to make a buck off it? If that’s the case, then I declare myself a Bellydance Superstar, because I shake ass like no one’s business.
6:30: I head down to the second stage, where all the ‘cool kids’ are, the ones that are too hip for Audioslave. The Distillers are delivering a particularly aggressive set while some guy in a cape and a mask at the ‘Booty Camp’ makes passersby do insanely stupid things for incredibly small prizes. Next to that freak, I try my hand at the turntable academy for beginners and prove once again that I have no skillz or mad beats.
6:40: The Axis of Justice, Tom Morello of Audioslave’s left-wing political group, has a very large booth by the second stage, and Tom happens to be signing autographs there. Tom, only having an hour or so before his set on the main stage begins, signs like a man possessed, barely taking time to look up at the people in the line. Still, it’s nice that he made the time to see the fans up close.
7:00: Between all the shops and political causes present at Lollapalooza, I realize that you could come to this concert as a conservatively dressed, brown-haired Republican, and leave as a pierced, tattooed, blue-haired communist in a kilt.
7:30: Facing near exhaustion from wandering the second stage and the Lollamall, I return to my seat to catch the second half of Incubus’ performance and bear witness to one of the most amazing guitar solos I’ve ever heard, making me forget why I hate the band so much. Then they cut right into “I Wish You Were Here” and I remember again.
8:30: The black curtain drops and Audioslave takes the stage, which has been covered in mirrors and features their drummer facing away from the audience, presumably, so we can all see that he is a briefs man. Audioslave stuns the crowd with the longest and best set of the night, doing about half of their amazing album as well as a few surprise covers, including an acoustic version of “What’s So Funny about Peace Love and Understanding” and an amazing rendition of The White Stripes' “Seven Nation Army.” The Detroit audience went apeshit for this. By the time they closed with their superhit “Cochise” the audience was screaming for more, but unfortunately didn’t get it. I guess Perry has a schedule to maintain.
9:30: During the set change the Lolla Girls take the stage. The Lolla Girls are a group of skankily dressed skanks that dance skanky dances, never removing any bits of their skanky clothes. It’s all the skank of a stripper with none of the rewards, what’s the point?
9:40: In the restroom a drunk seems very upset that no one is using the sinks to relieve themselves; he doesn’t follow his own advice though (thankfully.)
10:00 Jane’s Addiction takes the stage, which has now been transformed into something resembling a gay bar built by NASA. Everything is metallic metal, and a giant metal bridge is near the back of the stage. It is here where Perry jumps out and screams the opening lines to ‘The Mountain Song.’
Perry only addresses the audience twice during his entire set, and barely looks up at them while doing so. In fact, he seems kind of disinterested as a whole, which is a real bummer, considering it’s his tour and all. The Lolla Girls sure as hell are into it though, as they faux make-out, hump luggage and even go spread eagle while hanging upside-down. I would have slipped a 20 in her g-string if I was close enough. About the only interesting thing Perry does is grind against the phallic metal poles on the sides of the stage, which is funny the first five times and eventually becomes disturbing as the night rolls on. As for everyone else in the band, they were so motionless I almost forgot they were there.
10:46: Jane’s Addiction ends their set, having played less than an hour. When they fail to come out for an encore, the audience boos and screams ‘bullshit,’ scarring an otherwise crowd-pleasing day.
By the end of the night, I had seen eight bands, about twice as many boobs, got two contact buzzes and met one guitar god. All in all, I’d call that a good day. Does this new wave of bands represent some upward trend in popular music as Perry Farrell believes? Only time will tell, after all, we didn’t know just how much Lollapalooza ’92 kicked ass until 1994, but here’s hoping.
As long as there are women to swoon and men to croon, scores to settle and tears to cry, Vince Guerrieri says, the late Frank Sinatra will continue to hold sway over us all.
By Vince Guerrieri
210 west Managing Editor [send email]
A fella came up to me the other day with a nice story. He was in a bar somewhere and it was the quiet time of the night. Everybody’s staring down at the sauce and one of my saloon songs comes on the jukebox. “One for My Baby,” or something like that. After a while, a drunk at the end of the bar looks and and says, jerking his thumb toward the jukebox, “I wonder who he listens to?”
--Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert Sinatra cashed in his chips at the Big Casino in the sky more than five years ago. At the time of his death at the age of 82, he hadn’t released an album of new material in more than 15 years, since “L.A. is My Lady” in the early 1980s. He hadn’t acted in almost as long, with bit parts in the “Cannonball Run” movies and a cameo on the TV show “Who’s the Boss.”
But on that Friday morning in May 1998 when he finally shuffled loose this mortal coil, his death merited wall-to-wall coverage on news channels. It pushed stories of Seinfeld’s last episode out of entertainment sections and even front pages. We still care about Frank Sinatra today. "Ocean’s Eleven" was remade. Sinatra’s former valet, George Jacobs, came out with a book about his 15 years with “Mr. S.” The book covers Sinatra’s dark days in the early 1950s to his halcyon days in the early 1960s to his decline into irrelevance in the late 1960s, when his wife Mia Farrow got more ink than he did.
Even today, Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack holds a mystique. Ashton Kutcher and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs have said they’re the new Rat Pack. That sound you hear is The Chairman of the Board spinning in his grave (or that might be due to the fact that the featured entertainment in Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, his old stomping grounds, is Celine Fucking Dion!). Ashton, I love you in That 70s Show, but don’t compare yourself to Sinatra until you’ve won an Oscar. That goes for you, too, Puffy. People are still buying 50-year-old Sinatra albums. Will they buy yours in half a century? (Although I do give you credit for Jennifer Lopez … she could turn out to be your Ava.)
Why does Frank Sinatra still hold the public’s attention? Simply put, it’s because he endured and influenced. His musical career spanned half a century, starting with big bands, and his last album was produced by Quincy Jones. Before Eric Clapton poured out his soul on “Layla,” Frank sang “I’m a Fool to Want You.” Before Motley Crue was tearing up hotel rooms, Frank was throwing his own epic tantrums and slugging (and in one case, running over) members of the Fourth Estate. Bruce Springsteen, who was three years old when Sinatra was in From Here to Eternity, called Sinatra the patron saint of New Jersey. Bono, who wasn’t even born when Sinatra made Ocean’s Eleven, said he invented cool.
A bit of full disclosure here: I am a Sinatra fan. My grandfather, first generation American, listened to Sinatra, and introduced me to him via his copy of Strangers in the Night on vinyl (which also features “Summer Wind”). My friend and mentor, the Rev. Dr. Joe Boyle, said he related to Springsteen because “I’ve never met him, but he knows me.” I feel the same way about Springsteen (in fact, I introduced Dr. Joe to his music), but I also feel that way about Sinatra. He was one of us, only a little better. I wear fedoras, and people say they make me look like a real reporter. Matt Drudge can kiss my ass. I’ve been wearing them since high school, when my hair started to thin, the same reason Frank started wearing them.
Lost love? It sucks, but if Frank could still pine for Ava Gardner decades later, then maybe I’d be all right. In the dumps? He’s been there, and sang about it to make us feel a little better. (Although I prefer his Capitol works, my favorite Sinatra song is a Reprise tune, “Here’s to the Losers”). Been at those moments where you got the world by the short hairs, and you want to beat your chest and do your Tarzan yell? Well he’s been there, too. What makes this even more impressive is that unlike Springsteen and many other singers, Sinatra didn’t write his own material. Paul Anka wrote “My Way.” Johnny Mercer wrote “Summer Wind.” Rodgers and Hart wrote “It Never Entered My Mind.” But Sinatra made them all, and many other songs, his own.
What makes Sinatra’s story more incredible is that he started out as the Justin Timberlake of his day. His fans were almost exclusively women, bobby soxers of the 1930s and 1940s who screamed and fainted, as their daughters would do a generation later for Elvis and the Beatles. Franklin Roosevelt complimented the skinny Wop from Hoboken, New Jersey, for reviving the lost art of swooning.
As the 1950s dawned, Sinatra was a nobody, a Charlie Brown-Shoes, a loser. He had divorced his wife, who bore him his three children, for Ava Gardner. Ava, the love of his life, screwed around on him incessantly and indifferently, prompting Humphrey Bogart to tell her during their filming of The Barefoot Contessa, “You’ve got a guy that every woman in America wants to go to bed with, and you’re screwing bullfighters!” Columbia Records dropped him, and his movie contract wasn’t renewed. He still performed in some clubs, but his voice, The Voice, was a shadow of what it was a decade earlier.
This is where George Jacobs meets up with Sinatra in Mr. S: My Life with Frank Sinatra. Sinatra fired Jacobs 15 years after he hired him, after gossip columnists reported that Jacobs was dancing with Mia Farrow (Sinatra’s wife only on paper at the time) at a club in Los Angeles. Sinatra, a self-described manic-depressive, fired Jacobs in a rage and didn’t talk to him for years. Yet Jacobs doesn’t give Sinatra a Kitty Kelley hatchet job, nor is he as fawning as Esquire writer Bill Zehme in The Way You Wear Your Hat. Jacobs comes down closer to the latter, but he’s still willing to talk about Sinatra’s flaws. Jacobs’ tale starts out with Sinatra as a loser, when he had time to be nice to people. As his star rises, he becomes more magnanimous, but his vindictive Sicilian temperament always lurks under the surface. In the late 1960s, with the Rat Pack days behind him, and largely his movie career as well, Sinatra becomes bitter at the changing world around him, and fires Jacobs in that bitterness and frustration.
The book is packed with lurid little details about the life of Sinatra and those around him. Marilyn Monroe was a slob who liked to parade around in the nude. Sinatra said Judy Garland gave the best blow jobs (The Wizard of Oz, one of the first movies I ever saw, is never going to be the same for me). Cole Porter, a homosexual, wrote “I get a Kick Out of You” about a truck driver who stomped him (kinda gives new meaning to the lyric about flying too high with a girl in the sky is his idea of nothing to do, huh?). Jacobs saw John Kennedy snorting cocaine with Peter Lawford (who, according to the book, got off on S&M) at Sinatra’s Palm Springs home. Jacobs also saw the 5’7” Sinatra come out of the shower, and realized Ava Gardner was right when she said, “Frank was only 120 pounds, but 110 of it was pure cock.” Sinatra, who cited as his main acting influence none other than Boris Karloff, tried to follow up his Oscar-winning performance in From Here to Eternity with the lead in On the Waterfront, but was bumped for Marlon Brando. Sinatra hated Brando, calling him “Mumbles” when he worked with him on Guys and Dolls. Sinatra also thought his role in The Man With the Golden Arm would win him an Oscar, but he lost to Ernest Borgnine, whose performance as Fatso Judson in From Here to Eternity, ironically, helped Sinatra win his Oscar.
The book mentions nary a word about Sinatra’s music on the Capitol label, which was arguably his best stuff. A decade before the Beatles gave us concept albums like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Sinatra gave us In the Wee Small Hours and Only the Lonely, albums so desolate that you feel like you’re in a basement bar in Manhattan on a rainy miserable night, and you can smell the bourbon and Lucky Strikes. But where the book excels is in its stories about the days in the 1950s and early 1960s when it truly was Frank’s World, when he was a serious Oscar-winning actor and turned out some of his best music. Sinatra’s torch songs and acting career got him a following among the half of the population with external genitals, the people who still idolize him after women have found out what a shit he could be.
Today, Frank Sinatra’s lifestyle remains popular to men, thanks to movies like the new Ocean’s Eleven and Swingers, while his love songs remain popular to women. A friend of mine, who’s getting married in the fall, was desperately looking for Sinatra’s rendition of “It Had to Be You,” a song made popular by Harry Connick Jr’s rendition in When Harry Met Sally. Of course, I found it for her, and sent her a copy of the CD as an early wedding present. I’m only too happy to share Sinatra’s music with the people I know. I’ve been known to sing his songs at friends’ weddings, or at work (I get looks for that). I listen to his down music when I’m feeling down, or his up music when I’m feeling up (or on the rare occasion when I’m in mixed company in my apartment…ring a ding ding, baby!).
At that, really, is the key to his popularity. Women love his love songs, and men use them to get laid.
And as long as men want to score, Sinatra will endure.
Point: The athlete-idolizing system worked for Maurice Clarett but Dan Nied reminds us that the student should come before the athlete.
Counterpoint: Joel Hammond says Dan Nied is an idiot. That Clarett's special treatment is a necessary evil in big time college athletics.
Who's got it right?
POINT
When I was in college, I walked out of a midterm after answering only 20 percent of the questions.
It was a very Clarettesque move on my part.
But I just got an “F”. Where was my makeup oral exam?
Oh, that’s right, no one was counting on me to come through big in the Fiesta Bowl.
It’s OK though, things worked out in the end for me. I got this sweet gig writing for this website and a degree at that.
But, still, I had to take my failing grade and repeat the course. I didn’t have access to study table and I did not have free tutors hanging around, whose job it was to make sure I pulled straight C’s. No one was looking over my shoulder at my classwork and no one checked in with my teachers to make sure I was in class.
I didn’t get this treatment. That was reserved for, you know, the athletes.
Apparently that wasn’t enough help for Ohio state running back Maurice Clarett. No, even with all that help, Clarett walked out in the middle of a midterm after not knowing a thing, according to African-American and African studies professor Paulette Pierce. So Pierce decided to give Clarett an oral exam for the midterm and the final, which he apparently passed, clearing the young scholar athlete’s way into the national championship game.
I have a problem with his.
Everyone should.
When college athletes, who already have all of the above advantages over other students, start passing classes on the strength of two oral exams, things aren’t right. When a football game overshadows knowledge, things aren’t right.
When a student, athlete or not, walks out of a midterm without even trying and is given a second chance, things aren’t right.
What happened to accountability?
Pierce said that it was her job to make sure Clarett knew the material. But that isn’t true. Her job is to teach the material. It was Clarett’s job to know it. If he doesn’t hold up his end of the bargain, if he can’t make it through a midterm, then let him go.
It’s called Darwinism.
If, with the help of study table and tutors, Clarett can’t grasp the concepts of a 100-level class, maybe he isn’t cut out for college. Maybe OSU and the NCAA should have shuffled him through to the NFL right out of Harding High School.
Of course, if it is just that Clarett is too lazy, too apathetic to worry about his classes, then why did OSU accept him in the first place?
Oh yeah, he can run with a football.
But if that is the case, then what is the meaning of “student-athlete”? Clarett’s major is football. His midterm is spring practice, his internship is the NFL scouting combine and his first job will be carrying that ball. So god forbid he should have to go to classes that aren’t practice.
Is Ohio State offering him an education? Sure. Is Clarett accepting it? Hardly. But what does OSU do when other students don’t learn? I would assume that, like every other university, they let that student sink to the bottom until he is no longer welcome at the school.
But those students don’t win national championships. They aren’t going to the NFL. No, those students are just going back to Bucyrus, Lorain, Pemberville or any other Ohio town to be anybody but Maurice Clarett. But Clarett had a study table, a tutor, a coach checking in and an oral exam. And he’s going on to big things.
Just don’t expect him to finish that midterm.
COUNTERPOINT
By Joel Hammond
210 west Writer [send email]
If I went to The Ohio State University, who've been the national champions in NCAA Division I football since a dramatic double overtime win over the heavily-favored University of Miami Hurricanes in January, I'd be a bit perturbed at the latest scandal involving my star tailback Maurice Clarett and African-American Studies professor Paulette Pierce.
But my dismay would have nothing to do with Clarett, a rising sophomore, possibly receiving preferential treatment, but everything to do with the graduate assistant who found a problem with it.
Let me get this straight: First, a professsor allowed him special treatment by giving him an oral exam, passes him, allows him to play in the game, one in which he performed admirably after being hurt all season? Sounds fishy. (If I may pause for a minute, did you watch this game? Clarett, more so than the Canes' Andre Johnson or Willis McGahee, both first-round NFL draft choices -- literally changed the face of the game in his team's favor. Amazing.)
A graduate assistant finds it wrong now, but it wasn't then. Pierce claims she watched Clarett walk out of her midterm, and not even show up for the final.
Pierce subsequently gave him oral exams on which he received good enough grades to pass the class.
If I were an OSU student right about now, I'd be finishing up a memo to anyone at OSU thinking about raising a stink about the treatment student-athletes receive.
The memo would contain five words (excluding a hearty greeting, mind you): "HIS TALENT PAYS YOUR SALARY". Which isn't true in a literal sense. But in a figurative sense, and in the grand scheme of things, it's about as close to true as you're gonna find.
Preferential treatment for athletes, especially those at a school like Ohio State, where so much money is produced with every game, is a presence that I'm sure took getting used to by some - a phenomenon upon which effects those like the graduate assistant or me or you or Joe Good Professor like it or not.
And I like it. Especially if I go to Ohio State.
Clarett rushed for two touchdowns in the championship game, and his presence, after missing three games during the regular season with assorted injuries, was enough for Miami to alter their defensive game plan. He even stripped the ball from a Miami return man on special teams. His line: 23 carries, 47 yards, two touchdowns, one fumble forced, one fumble recovery. Just another day at the office? Hardly.
But let's rewind a bit first: The fact that Clarett played a big part in getting the Buckeyes to the title game was perhaps his biggest victory during his freshman campaign. The school, before splitting their earnings with the Big Ten, and a host of others, was awarded $13 million for playing in the game. My guess is they took home a nice little check.
Then they win the national championship, blessing ordinary Joe Student with a host of other benefits: More endorsements for the school, more exposure, higher enrollment and many other advantages that aren't available to non-BCS schools like say, Bowling Green, which scheduled games with Ohio State and Purdue this year just hoping to milk that cash cow
I would say I'm going out on a limb here, but the limb is becoming shorter and shorter: I think more people are realizing the simple fact that big-time major college sports like basketball and football make money. In order for the those sports to make money, they have to have big-time, talented athletes like Clarett playing. In order for the big-time athletes like Clarett to play, they need to be eligible while practicing and training for the good part of each and every day, 12 months out of the year. In order for the big-time athletes to maintain their physical edge and remain eligible, they have to have help.
Call it preferential treatment, call it help, call it cheating. But while you're doing that, I'll call everyone else calling for Clarett's head hypocrites. Especially when faculty enjoy their raises and the students enjoy their new recreation center, while Clarett, whose jersey is sold and who is marketed all over the country by the school, doesn't receive a dime.
So who's really getting the preferential treatment?
I say, Hey, Maurice! Need help with that English paper?
Vince Guerrieri wonders what the hoopla's all about: Jerry Springer's recent re-entry into the world of politics is nothing new for him -- or other entertainers, for that matter.
By Vince Guerrieri
210 west Managing Editor [send email]
The most vital function our government performs is entertainment.
--Dave Barry
Well, Jerry Springer has thrown his hat into the ring, which already contains two midget strippers and the 500-pound lesbian trapped in a man’s body who loves them both.
Springer announced his candidacy for next year’s U.S. Senate race in Ohio, a seat currently occupied by George Voinovich. As expected, there are some people who are positively mortified that an entertainer would attempt to enter politics. Many of these people probably voted for Ronald Reagan … hell, didn’t everyone in 1984? Reagan, you may remember, made some lousy westerns before becoming governor of California and then President. It’s worth noting at this point that Springer already has elective experience, having served as councilman and mayor of Cincinnati.
Many people have been making the leap from sports or entertainment into politics. The Republican vice-presidential candidate in 1996, Jack Kemp, shared a locker room with O.J. Simpson as quarterback for the Buffalo Bills in the 1960s. The junior senator from Kentucky, Jim Bunning, is the only senator and the only man to throw no-hitters in both leagues. Arnold Schwarzenegger is mulling a run for governor of California. His opponent might be Rob Reiner (can you see the campaign ads? Carroll O’Connor in his “All in the Family” glory screaming “You are a meathead! Dead from the neck up!”).
The line between politics and so-called “serious” issues and more frivolous entertainment issues is becoming blurry enough that you have to squint to see it. Celebrities have offered their political views (some, all too willingly), and some have left the gridiron or the baseball diamond for Congress.
This is a uniquely 20th century problem, because before then, there really were no leisure activities like going to movies or ballgames, and thus, no class of people who made them their living.
People in power started to realize how much influence ballgames and movies had during the 1930s and 1940s. People went to movies or ballgames to escape the Great Depression, if only for a few hours. Actors were used to sell war bonds, and Franklin Roosevelt said that baseball was necessary to keep morale up.
After World War II, the gaze of Washington turned to Hollywood. Communists were infesting the movie industry, leading to hearings and blacklisting. Clearly, by this time, the influence of movies could not be denied.
Some movie stars got defensive against communist witch hunts. Others got on the offensive. Ronald Reagan, whose movie career had more days behind it than ahead of it, was the president of the Screen Actors Guild at the time (to date, he’s the only former union president elected President of the United States). The Errol Flynn of the B movies, as Reagan was called, decided that communism was a scourge and began speaking out against it. The Western actor started carrying a pistol for protection against communists, cultivating the cowboy image that led him to the governor’s mansion and then into the White House.
In 1988, when Reagan was forbidden from running for a third term, his vice president, George Bush, ran for president. Along with him on the campaign trail was Arnold Schwarzenegger, who described his opponent, Michael Dukakis, as the real Terminator. Dukakis, for his part, had a cousin, Olympia Dukakis, who won an Oscar (something that Schwarzenegger still can’t claim).
Now, there’s a movement afoot to recall California Gov. Gray Davis, and Ahhnold is considering a run, if not this year, then when the term would be up next year. Suddenly the line from “Demolition Man” about the Schwarzenegger amendment, letting him become president, is a little less funny because it’s a little less far-fetched.
Because Reagan made the jump, everyone else in Hollywood thinks people care about their politics. Actors and actresses wear ribbons for their cause, be it breast cancer, AIDS or whatever. Some use their appearances at events or talk shows as a bully pulpit.
During the events leading up to war in Iraq, and the war itself, some celebrities thought war was a bad idea. Surprisingly, there weren’t a lot of people in Congress who offered that kind of criticism, which makes electing actors to Congress a decent idea.
People in Washington asked about the credentials of the people criticizing them, forgetting that as Americans, we all have the right (some would say duty) to question our government. They don’t know what we know, politicians say. However, in light of the revelations about George W. Bush’s last State of the Union address, I’m not sure just how much politicians really know.
Like Frankenstein, political involvement by celebrities was a beast created by Washington. They liked it when they were part of the propaganda machine, but when celebrities started to think for themselves and challenging authority, well then, what did they know?
Warren Beatty thought about running for president (and you thought Bill Clinton had a nonstop sex life?). Charlton Heston became president of the National Rifle Association Sonny Bono was mayor of Palm Springs and then Congressman. Clint Eastwood was mayor of Carmel by the Sea. Someone asked Bruce Springsteen about running for the U.S. Senate from New Jersey (to his credit, he refused, saying he didn’t want a real job. He’s my hero).
And now, Jerry Springer wants to run for the Senate. I say why not? Where does it say in the Constitution that a senator has to be a lawyer? Or even a college graduate? All a senator has to be is at least 30 years old and a U.S. citizen.
Springer’s run won’t be politics as usual, and that can’t be a bad thing. If nothing else, Senator Springer would make C-Span ratings go through the roof.
Cleveland and Buffalo have brought their sporting disappointments and broken championship dreams on themselves, by the continued neglect and abuse of that one natural wonder left to the Lake Erie Basin: Lake Erie herself.
By Erik Cassano
210 west Writer [send email]
Mankind has had a long and stormy relationship with the sea even since there were first humans treading through, swimming about and sailing on water. The grizzled old sailor with salt water in his veins could sit at the harbor bar, telling stories about the sea. Love it, but don’t disrespect it. Use it, but don’t abuse it. And above all, never, never, never neglect it or take it for granted.
It is the shallowest of the Great Lakes at a little over 210 feet deep, and as such is the most temperamental of the lakes. It’s easily angered waters have claimed the lives of thousands of sailors in 300-plus years of recorded boat traffic, so much that Lake Erie was once dubbed the graveyard of the inland seas.
In the second half of the 20th Century, Lake Erie became a different kind of graveyard. This time, the dead were the fish and underwater life, the lake’s rightful inhabitants. Years of unchecked industrial waste, much of it from Cleveland and Buffalo, were poured into the water. The lake’s ecosystem was nearly destroyed at a time when ecosystem wasn’t even a word.
The polluted water ran dark. Birds that hatched near the water had deformities. Fish carcasses washed up on shore. The lake became a national embarrassment. It was declared dead.
The lake was shamed. She had been abused and neglected terribly. And she was about to fight back.
But how? Terrible storms and waves sending ships to the bottom? Never stopped people before, and who knew what nasty things would be released by a broken cargo hold in this day and age?
Catch fire? That would only create more embarrassment. The Cuyahoga River tried that, and see where it got her.
The Lake would have to be craftier. She’d have to wage psychological warfare on these perpetrators who so scarred her. She’d hit them where it hurts. Right in the sports teams.
She’d figure out a way to curse the teams of Cleveland and Buffalo so they’d never win a championship for years. Oh, they’d get close. They’d get the carrot dangled right to the front teeth. But they’d get it snatched away at the last minute, every time.
It is so deviously perfect. Few things pump up or deflate a civic psyche like their sports teams. You win, you’re a city of champions. You lose, and you’re, well, Loserville.
Not only that, but the fans would have to sit back and watch all their talented (and less talented) players go on to greater things in other cities.
Bernie Kosar. Dominik Hasek. Ron Harper. Danny Ferry. These guys all have championship rings from a place not on Lake Erie.
Art Modell has one, too. All the former Browns and current Ravens owner had to do was leave Cleveland, take his team with him, and the pieces seemed to fall into place.
Red Right 88. The Drive. The Fumble. The Shot. Scott Nor-wide. Four straight losses in the Super Bowl. Art. Jose Mesa. Brett Hull.
Lake Erie showed them. She showed them all as she danced on the broken hearts of thousands of her violators.
The lake has started to be appeased in recent years. She’s cleaner, and thanks to stricter environmental laws, she doesn’t have waste belched into her at alarming rates anymore. But she’s still moody, and she hasn’t forgotten. Maybe she’ll loosen the noose a bit, maybe a championship will squeak in for Cleveland or Buffalo sometime soon. But her hand is still on the rope.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
... Cause they've got you by the you-know-what.
Natalie Miller-Moore contests that health insurance is not just an issue for the elderly or the poor -- we young and unpredictably-employed are every bit as much at the mercy of the HMOs and PPOs.
By Natalie Miller
210 west Content Editor [send email]
As medical insurance becomes a political issue yet again, I’d like to put it my two cents.
It was always something I’d taken for granted – both of my parents worked hospitals, and we got free health care. Granted, we had to go to the Primary Care department, where there was a group of doctors, rather than one single physician and we saw whoever was available. Since I never saw the same physician regularly, I still don’t have that demand to see whatever physician I want, damn the HMOs.
When I was restricted geographically to the health center at college is when the expense and the bureaucracy became apparent. Every year I had to get my annual gynecological exam twice because my hospital at home wouldn’t accept the results from the health center and vice versa. I had to charge the health center fees to my bursar account; it wasn’t covered because it wasn’t at a satellite hospital and wasn’t an emergency. I would be covered by my parents insurance until I turned 22.
As I graduated, many of my peers were worried about getting jobs, and getting health insurance with them or until they were gainfully employed. I was off to Ireland – not only was I covered out of the country by my parents’ insurance, Ireland has free socialized health care for its residents. So two paradoxes there – I was not covered by my parents insurance 2 hours away at Bowling Green, but was 2,000 miles away, and the socialized health care was great for everyone, but not me. As a non-national, I had to pay by the visit. I only had one occasion where I might have needed it – when I got a tiny piece of glass stuck in my finger at the bar where I worked. The skin had grown over it, and my 3 American roommates performed surgery the old fashioned way. Meaning, after I had drank a bottle of wine, one of them distracted me while the other two went at it with tweezers. It worked – old-timey medicine at its best. But admittedly, a risky thing to do to avoid paying 60 quid. Being young makes it seem easy to take risks with your health.
Finally I got a grown-up job back in Cleveland after being home for four months. Besides dismal wages as a reporter, I had to wait for 6 months to be covered by the company’s health plan. The COBRA plan would have cost me a week’s wages, and I was barely scraping by, so I forewent that “luxury.” The six months turned to seven because it was the first of the month after your six month anniversary. The benefits woman seemed to have no sympathy.
About four months into the job, I had severe pain in my left foot. I thought maybe I had sprained it somehow. I wondered if it was broken. The pain continued for a week. I asked at a paramedic at the firehouse to look at it – he said, “Go get it checked out.” I said “Thanks.” And didn’t – I absolutely couldn’t afford it. It began to dawn on me that not being able to afford it now could have serious consequences. I looked it up in medical books. I hopped around at work trying to avoid putting pressure on it. I called a friend of a friend who was in podiatry school and described my symptoms. He said he thought it was a bunion developing, which is the bone pushing outward, and once it stopped, it would hurt less. That’s what it was. It was resolved eventually, but I spent a lot of time being angry about being outside the system, and feeling helpless.
Then in a life-changing move, my husband and I relocated to Virginia. I was trapped by my contract in a temp job for four months, again with no insurance. And my husband’s insurance was either individual or family, a steep price again. More insurance limbo. Then I got hired on at my work, with health insurance but no sick days. I tried to be grateful, but wound up edgy about that, too. Is it that wild to think that staying home for one day might help you rebound? That staying home might prevent the rest of the office from being sick? Does no one have respect for health? Does it have to be about production and efficiency and restriction?
So, one thing I am sure of in all this: I do not believe medicine should be practiced for profit. People should be paid what they are worth, and the equipment and facilities upgraded. Profit squeezes things that aren’t meant to be squeezed, and I think we are all worse for it. There need to be ways that people are encourage to be healthy and promote wellness rather than only using medical care for extreme sickness. All the plans and insurance and restrictions complicate a simple matter – people need health care.
Until our society makes moves toward equitable and affordable health care for everyone, how can we rage about worker loyalty or productivity? It’s hard to think about doing your job when your foot hurts, or you can’t take your medication because you can’t buy it. It’s not just an issue for the elderly. And from my experiences in the past few years, I can see it’s not just an issue for the poor. It’s an issue for the full-time employee as well. Until we fix that, what costs will mount and what will be lost?
The staff of 210 West tells you how to keep us and other young people enmeshed in the fiber of your town.
We, the staffers at 210 West Magazine are valuable people.
Not because of our writing skills, but most of the cities from whence we came, and more than a few in which we now live, want us.
We are…YOUNG PEOPLE!
Chief among the problems of cities, particularly in the northeast, is the graying of the populations. There is no cure for the common birthday. People might move into an apartment or a nursing home. Their children get older and leave the nest.
People are worried about “brain drain,” when young people leave town to go to college and they stay left, or leave town for a job that they can’t find there. Journalists are in a special bind. Shy of working for one of the few forms of media in our hometown, we all have to leave town at some point to ply our trade. Many towns (and many counties) only have one paper.
In cities across America, people in the corridors of power ask, “What can be done to keep our city growing and vibrant? What can be done to lure and keep young people here?”
We want something intellectually challenging. We want to go somewhere other than a multiplex on a date. Give us plays. Give us bands. Give us interesting lectures.
We want to meet people. Give us chances to meet other young people, be it at bars, parties or even in our apartment complexes or neighborhoods.
We want somewhere to ponder the mysteries of life. Give us libraries with late hours. Give us parks.
We want activity. Give us a vibrant downtown. Give us a nightlife that’s more than chain bars and restaurants. Give us unique places to eat, drink and gather.
We’re like anyone else. We want a place to live and enjoy life. We want a place where we won’t have to go into hock to live there (are you listening, New York, Boston and Silicon Valley?).
Getting young people to stay in town is a simple proposition. We all enjoyed college. If there was a way that the big city could continue those experiences for us, then we’d stay there in a minute.
Chuck Soder says the Supreme Court's sodomy decision is long overdue and could reinforce the meaning of 'freedom'.
By Chuck Soder
210 west Writer [send email]
U.S. citizens, put your hands on your asses, and proudly give a good, solid squeeze: You now officially own every inch of your tail-end, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 23 ruling.
The court voted 6-3 in Lawrence and Garner v. Texas to strike down a 1986 decision that let states outlaw one of the world’s most horrific and hilarious acts: anal sex.
This probably won’t do much to change what people do in their bedrooms—rarely did police ever crack down on anal sex outlaws in the first place. Heck, tons of ’em were behind bars when they started.
This is more of an ideological victory, especially for homosexuals.
Thirteen states have anti-sodomy laws, but four of those banned only gay sex: Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and, of course, Texas. That’s where plaintiffs John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner were caught in 1998 doing the ultra-nasty after a neighbor called police to say a man next door was “going crazy,” according to the Associated Press.
They were fined $200 and spent a night in jail, where they likely continued “going crazy.”
The ruling will nullify anti-sodomy laws across the nation, according to CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. But the decision specifically overruled a Texas ban on gay sex, oral and anal, which had no foundation in the first place.
However, the Rev. Rob Shenck of the National Clergy Council begs to differ: “The court has said today that morality — matters of right and wrong behavior — do not matter in the law.”
Gay sex, he implies, falls into the “wrong” category. His argument — and that of many others on his side — can be summed up like so: “God and I don’t like gay sex. It is disgusting, so it is wrong.”
Something can’t be outlawed just because some people find it offensive — after all, disgust is just a matter of taste. I don’t like gay sex. But I don’t like broccoli either, and I can’t make that illegal. I think Britney Spears is a talentless, annoying wench, but I can’t throw her behind bars. Nor am I a big fan of Satan worshipers — neither is God — but they are free to pay homage to their dark master as long as they don’t summon their beloved demons to destroy the Earth.
This case is being called a victory for gays, but it’s also a win for everybody else. It could set a pro-privacy precedent by reminding legislators and judges what the word “freedom” really means: People can do whatever they please as long as they don’t infringe on the rights of others.
Yet, those in power still forget this definition every now and then. They still ban gay marriage, suicide and prostitution all while making everybody wear seat belts.
Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum will probably never realize what “freedom” is supposed to mean. In words embarrassing both Democrats and fellow Republicans, Santorum told the Associated Press that, once sodomy is legalized, “then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery, you have the right to anything.”
His comparisons are a little off. Incest can produce mutant babies. Anal sex can’t. Adultery is based on deceit — and isn't actually illegal — Anal sex isn’t. That leaves bigamy and polygamy — why not legalize them? Who’s being hurt? Once again, these things shouldn’t be illegal only because some folks simply don’t like them. Actually, a three-way is starting to sound pretty good right about now. Seems it’d fit nicely into that “pursuit of happiness” category.
So go ahead sodomites, gay and straight. Continue your pursuit of happiness. Even if that journey gets a little dirty along the way.
Joel Hammond says Kobe Bryant's recent trouble with the law just runs the usual course of the seemingly angelic pro athlete.
By Joel Hammond
210 west Writer [send email]
We don't possibly know enough details about Kobe Bryant's legal situation in Colorado to make an informed decision about the fate of the five-time All-Star.
Allegedly Bryant sexually assaulted a woman at a ski resort June 30,
and turned himself in, despite not being
charged.
The frighteningly undeniable fact about the accusation, though, is
that despite Bryant's squeaky-clean public image and the possibility
that the woman is indeed just looking to tarnish said image of arguably
the NBA's best all-around player is the assumption that the accusation
might be true.
These are the times we're living in.
Charles Barkley is not and never was a role model. He said it
himself. Neither was Mike Tyson. Neither was Rae Carruth, Jayson Williams or other high-profile athletes who have run afoul of the law.
But cases like those of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Jason Kidd
and now Bryant are the ones that surprise folks.
Those athletes are supposed to be the good ones.
But it's becoming all too common for the good ones to turn bad
much too quickly.
Jordan gambled with his money and marriage enough to make his wife
file for divorce from the world's most recognizable athlete. Johnson fooled
around on off nights enough to contract a deadly disease and shock
the world with his HIV-positive announcement.
Kidd beat the hell out of his wife.
Now Bryant, although in the eyes of the law innocent until proven
guilty, is guilty until proven innocent in the public eye.
Bryant will be OK, on the court and off. His team is about to sell
the farm to purchase Karl Malone and Gary Payton, vaulting the Lakers
past the Spurs in the pre-season Western Conference picture even if Tim Duncan and Gregg Popovich land JKidd.
Even if Bryant is convicted of the crime, he will serve a small, if any, jail term, pay a fine, do a couple community service announcements and
be right back where he was.
But for a guy who just got a smaller shoe deal from Nike than an
18-year-old kid named LeBron and whose team didn't hold up a gold
trophy for the first time in three years, Bryant didn't exactly need this
distraction.
Which makes this accusation seemingly impossible to believe.
Which, in turn, in today's day of high-profile American citizens
thinking they can get away with anything they want, makes it all the
more believable.
I'll take the odds on Kobe being convicted. They've got to be at
least 10-1.
Then I'll have enough money to allegedly assault a woman, pay a
nominal fee, remake that fee in two minutes on the basketball court and
be on with my life.
Just like Kobe.
I'll be able to do whatever I want.
Just like Michael.
Just like Magic.
Vince Guerrieri sees eerie similarities between two culture-busting white guys who turned the music world upside down
By Vince Guerrieri
210 west Managing Editor [send email]
I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley
--Eminem
A white male is born of origins that can generously be described as humble. He absorbs the culture around him, including black music. He begins performing, bridging the gap between black performers and middle America. He becomes a phenomenon and starts acting in movies.
People my age are nodding their heads and know exactly who I’m talking about. “Eminem,” they might say. But people of my parents’ generation or older also nod knowingly. “Elvis,” they say.
And they’re both right. The rapper and the singer both overcame hardscrabble beginnings to become phenomenal stars. Eminem has established himself as arguably the most successful musician of his generation, selling millions of copies of his last two albums and winning Grammys and becoming the first rapper to take home an Oscar.
But he still has a long way to go to catch up with the man they call the King of Rock ‘N’ Roll. Elvis Presley has sold more than one billion records, a feat made even more impressive by the fact that he’s been dead for nearly 26 years.
Elvis and Eminem also have one more major thing in common: both made their respective musical genres safe for white people while still offering a sound that appealed to black people.
Find me a white man who can sing the blues, and I’ll make a million dollars.
--Sam Phillips, Sun Records
In the early 1950s, a hybrid of music started to emerge, combining elements of jazz, blues, country and gospel. Black people called it “rock ‘n’ roll,” a euphemism for sex. White people called it “race music,” and that was being polite.
Many people thought that it was the devil’s music, driving young people to drink, commit wanton acts of carnality and drive too fast. There was actually a movement afoot to have it banned.
The growing number of teenagers in America listened to rock ‘n’ roll. And they liked it. The Moondog Coronation Ball in Cleveland in 1952, the first rock concert ever, ended abruptly after 6,000 people tried to crash the gates. There were already 10,000 people at the show, and although the bands were mostly black, the audience was mostly white.
But while the youth of America were drawn to black music, their parents weren’t. White rock ‘n’ roll singers usually consisted of clean cut, Hush Puppy wearing geeks like Pat Boone or Ricky Nelson, who covered (and sanitized) black rock ‘n’ roll.
Then came Elvis. He grew up in a shotgun shack in Mississippi and then lived with his parents in public housing in Memphis. While there, he absorbed the rhythm and blues and gospel music scene. He sounded like nothing anyone had ever heard before, and within two years of his first recording for Sun Records, he is singing for RCA, appearing on television and making movies.
If people were nervous about race music and the effects it had on teenagers, they were absolutely apopleptic when Elvis came on the scene. They found his dancing lewd, and didn’t think he was that wholesome. Most famously, Ed Sullivan only filmed Elvis from the waist up when he appeared on his show.
But even though Ed Sullivan refused to film Elvis’s gyrating pelvis, he thought he was a decent boy, and said so on his show. Elvis loved his mama, buying her a pink Cadillac. He made charitable donations and played a concert in Hawaii in 1961 for the benefit of the Pearl Harbor Memorial. He was a man-child, maintaining his fundamental decency after he’d become famous, up to his death on Aug. 16, 1977 of heart failure. At the time, he was almost a relic, performing in Las Vegas and getting tired of touring. However, his legend continues and has even expanded since his death.
Around the time of Presley’s death, a new form of music started to coalesce. In the 1970s, disc jockeys had moved from spinning records at dances or parties to playing several records and mixing them together. Disc jockeys started to use MCs to keep parties moving. MCs used to throw out rhymes to the beat of music. Soon, musicians were making albums of those rhymes, usually with some social commentary.
Marshall Mathers wasn’t 5 years old when Presley died. Seven years later, he moved with his family to Detroit and, for a time, lived in public housing. Mathers was exposed to the hip-hop culture and rap music, which was starting to gain popularity as well as notoriety.
2 Live Crew released an album that was judged obscene. Ice-T released a song called “Cop Killer,” which went over in mainstream America like you’d expect a song called “Cop Killer” to do. Much like parents in the 1950s fretted about the black influences of rock ‘n’ roll, parents in the 1990s fretted about rap music. There were a few white rappers, but they really weren’t taken seriously. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Vanilla Ice is the Pat Boone of rap.
In 1996, Mathers released his first solo album as Eminem. His life crumbled around him, forcing him to move back in with his mother. Their relationship wasn’t as good as the relationship Elvis had with his momma. Eminem’s girlfriend wouldn’t let him see his daughter.
In 1997, Eminem created an alter ego named Slim Shady, and released The Slim Shady LP in 1999. He released another album in 2000, The Marshall Mathers LP. He completed the trilogy last year, with The Eminem Show. By then, he had weathered a storm of controversy from gay-rights groups and women’s groups accusing him of being a misogynist.
He mended some fences by singing a duet with Elton John at the Grammys, and had been described as a doting father to his daughter, Hallie. No less than Maureen Dowd, middle-aged white woman and columnist for the New York Times (not exactly a voice of the counterculture), expressed her enjoyment of Eminem.
Rap has emerged from the underground (literally, as it fomented in New York City subway stations) to go mainstream, due in part to Eminem. More than 40 percent of the Top 30 songs are rap or hip-hop, now the largest genre of popular music today. Its audience includes white suburbanites who would never even meet people like those they listen to. And to think, a couple of white guys made it all possible.
Bluesy folk rocker presents one of the top albums of 2003
By Erik Pepple
210 west Pop Culture Editor [send email]
M. Ward
Transfiguration of Vincent
Merge Records
Grade: A
While the entire world has seemingly gone moony for Jack White's admittedly considerable talent at making blues and folk rooted rock palatable for a good chunk of the population, an even greater talent, a guy named M. Ward, has been working the sidelines, creating a body of work that has a deep understanding and respect for Americana traditions. And unlike White, you don’t get the sense of cheeky irony that pervades his work. Ward writes with a genuineness and generosity of heart that is sorely missing from much of contemporary music.
Ward started with a stint in Rodriguez and then two years ago released his debut full-length, the excellent End of Amnesia. With Transfiguration of Vincent, however, he has stepped up and delivered one of the best records of the year-a stunning song cycle with one foot firmly planted in the dirt and honesty of the blues and country and the other foot in the surreal, rustic yarns of Tom Waits.
Tunes like “Sad, Sad Song,” are delivered with a Haggard grace. Built upon a bluesy groove and detailing one man’s journey to uncover the mysteries of love, it’s not all that impossible to imagine Howlin’ Wolf or Willie Dixon giving this a whirl at the height of their powers. And the album’s dabbles in pop, like “Vincent O’Brien” and “Helicopter” all find their soul in the blues tradition with lyrics that read like a brainstorming session between Waits and Raymond Carver. These are songs that have a superficial simplicity, a stripped down verbal economy that belies the emotional complexity bubbling under the surface.
Vincent also features a sublimely beautiful cover of one of David Bowie’s biggest hits, “Let’s Dance.” Scaling back the tune’s 80’s pop sheen to a delicately plucked guitar and hushed vocal, it becomes a gently remorseful song where the protagonist seems to finally find his footing-taking the bold step of simply getting up and asking a girl to dance, the smallest of gestures becoming the grandest of symbols.
The Transfiguration of Vincent is a remarkable and staggeringly original work, a record that firmly earns its place in the grand story telling tradition of the best blues and folk songs.
Dan Nied recounts how he watched helplessly as his friend found the internet girl fom hell.
It’s match.com, Yahoo personals and AOL chat rooms: The new way to fall in love, find a hookup or just a new obsession.
It is internet dating that is sweeping the nation’s singles, married swingers, perverts and recluses. It’s the perfect no-harm-no-foul way of getting around a fear of talking to the opposite sex.
And sometimes, it works. Sometimes the swingers find other couples to swing with. Sometimes single people find a spark through electronic personals. Sometimes perverts find other perverts.
Where bars or parties were once the only acceptable way to meet new people, now comes E-dating.
But it can be a nightmare.
Case in point: About a month ago, some girl sent my friend Mike an instant message out of the blue. There was no prompting, no prior chatting. Just a screen name and the information that this girl was something special.
She said she played club volleyball for her college and sent him a picture that ultimately made her one of the 10 hottest girls on earth. (Unfortunately, we can’t show the photo here. Just think of a bustier Camron Diaz with longer hair and a chest hugging tank top.)
So Mike goes with it. They start calling each other and getting to know one another. They hit it off so well that she decided to drive two hours to come with him to a party we were having.
There were about eight of us anxiously awaiting her arrival because the intrigue level was so thick you could cut it with a knife.
Finally, around 7:30, Mike shows up with her as we were sitting on the lawn, drinking beers and having a good time. As they approached us from the adjacent parking lot about 50 yards away. It is apparent that this girl has put on a few (read 150) pounds since her photo was taken.
Not that big a deal. Tough luck, but we can handle that.
At 30 yards out we notice that her hair, which was long and flowing and straight in the photo, was crimped in the front to allow for bangs and curly on top. By all means it was atrocious.
Not good. Bells and whistles were sounding. The jig was up.
From 25 yards out, Mike made eye contact with my roommate Brendan. Brendan just covered his mouth with his cup and tried to laugh silently, as politely as he could.
From 20 yards out Mike, a dark skinned Italian, was blushing.
At 10 yards out, it was clear that Internet Girl’s nose, which was straight and cute in the photo, was hooked on a 15-degree angle and rivaled that of the Wicked Witch of the West. I half expected her to have flying monkeys attack us before midnight.
At 10 feet, she smiled as we were introduced and it appeared that her teeth, which were straight and white in the photo, were crooked and doglegged.
This was bad, really bad. There was no way this was happening. It was too…predictable.
From six feet out it was obvious that this was not the same girl from the photo.
Mike had been had and this girl had to be crazy.
At that point every one of my friends made an excuse to go in the house where the initial shock and awe wave of laughter continued for more than a few minutes. My roommate Jeff, who was upstairs looking on from his bedroom window, flew down those stairs and collapsed on the couch, gasping for air at this amazingly hilarious twist of events.
Mike was trapped for the night with a girl who had lied through her keyboard on the assumption that, when she showed up, he wouldn’t have the heart to tell her to go away.
Mike, had undoubtedly been done in by his urge for sex with attractive women, and he was paying for it dearly. He was being taught a lesson in karma.
And in between the schoolgirl giggles of grown men, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Internet Girl. Even though she had pulled an amazing stunt by fabricating this image of a culturally accepted attractive woman, only to show up as the opposite, I thought that maybe this was what she had to do to get attention from guys. Maybe this was her thing: the lying internet girl shunned by normal society, but accepted in an anonymous cyber world.
Maybe we shouldn’t have been laughing at Mike, maybe we should have been asking her why, digging through what had to be years of frustration over her square peg status.
But in actuality, we just kept laughing.
Around 10:30 p.m. Mike’s recent ex-girlfriend, with whom he’d just ended a five-year relationship, showed up and fed the laugh track a little more. Before Internet Girl showed up, Mike had hoped aloud that his ex would see him with this girl and become insanely jealous.
Needless to say that plan backfired. Although it took a lot of restraint to not tell his ex what was going on. She was probably confused enough to see her ex-boyfriend with Louie Anderson attached to his arm all night.
At one point I suggested that Internet girl show us her volleyball skills by getting a pickup game going on the lawn. I figured that since she told Mike she had been playing for 12-years, I wanted her on my team.
“I don’t know how good I would be,” she said.
YOU PLAYED VOLLEYBALL FOR 12 YEARS!?
Another lie.
To his credit, or his error, whichever way you look at it, Mike didn't call Internet Girl out. He took his lumps like a man. He hung out with her all night and resisted her sexual attempts (although, he did make out with her, which he admitted later, wasn’t fun)
In the morning, Internet Girl accompanied us to a Pizza buffet where she refused to eat more than a salad.
“I don't want your friends to think I’m a hog,” she said to Mike.
If she didn’t want us to think she was a hog, she shouldn’t have shown up looking like the offseason version of William “The Refrigerator” Perry.
And yes, you might say it is a little mean to make fun of Mike and this girl’s looks and normally I would agree.
But, the only reason I cared what she looked like is because she made herself out to be someone entirely different. We’re still not sure who the girl in the original photo was. We aren’t sure she even exists.
There is a theme here, and it is one of protecting yourself in a world where everyone can be anyone and people aren’t afraid to mislead you or lie outright.
Mike got had, he took one for the team. As for Internet Girl, well after Mike talked to her a few times and broke things off, I assume she went back to whatever it is she does.
The funny thing was that, as a few days passed and Mike ultimately called her on the photo fraud, Internet Girl never came clean. She says she had a thyroid problem and had forgotten to take her medication; an excuse I would buy if her face looked anything like the original photo.
I’m no doctor, so enlighten me, do thyroid conditions make your teeth crooked and your nose hooked?
It just doesn’t add up.
So, internet dating may be a wave of the future and it may be big business in the present. But it is still not without its fallacies. For every girl or guy who sends a model-like photo, there could be a 200 lb. Gorilla just looking to be held.
Mike just had the bad luck to find one that would drive 150 miles to cuddle.
Danny Boyle combines beauty and horror in what comes very close to pure cinema.
By Erik Pepple
210 west Pop Culture Editor [send email]
28 Days Later
Rated R
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Brendon Gleeson, Christopher Eccleston and Naomie Harris
Directed by: Danny Boyle
110 minutes
GRADE: B+
28 Days Later opens with one of the most visually stunning moments in years. Waking up in an abandoned hospital, Jim (Cillian Murphy) finds himself alone, nude and cold. Stalking the empty corridors and finally traversing to the outdoors he sees a London ravaged by something he can’t quite figure out. Is it war? Nuclear annihilation? A natural disaster? As Jim wanders his abandoned hometown, director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) gives the audience some unnerving images of London landmarks left abandoned, haunted only by the stench of the dead. In these opening ten minutes, Boyle presents a cold, unforgiving portrait of something that is not quite the apocalypse, but is getting close.
Eventually Jim meets up with some fellow survivors (Naomie Harris and Noah Huntley) who inform him that the world has been destroyed by a virus. Unleashed by animal rights activists when they liberated chemically altered monkeys from a lab, the virus taps into the inner rage of animals and forces them to rely on their most basic of instincts -- the desire to eat and to kill. From here the band of survivors roam the wasted landscape of England in an effort to find other survivors and to rebuild. Along the way, they discover a father and daughter hiding out in an apartment complex and begin to hear strange transmissions over a radio, transmissions that promise salvation from the virus.
The movie’s fundamental conceit -- that humans are essentially animals, waiting for an excuse to channel their inner rage -- is a great one, and for most of the movie Boyle’s ingenious camerawork and Alex Garland’s lean, no-fat script gives the audience a smart, almost elegiac look at a plausible survival scenario. It is always interesting to see a horror picture about actual horror. For these people the true terror isn’t necessarily running into an infected person: generally they have accepted the fact their time is limited; the true terror lies in never seeing family again or, as one character says, "realizing you’ll never read a book that hasn’t already been written." What the filmmakers seem to be saying is that once you realize that your time is up, life becomes about the smaller things, about creating a sense of formality and order where there is none. Of course, the dark punchline is that life cannot have a fundamental order or formality. As the old saw goes, "How do you make God laugh? You make a plan." The survivors for all of their good intentions must ultimately realize that life is about attempting to forge a balance between our animalistic impulses and our compunction for order.
Boyle tells his story through some astonishing visuals. 28 Days Later actually comes closer to pure cinema than any movie in recent memory. This picture is about movement and sound. In addition, Boyle brilliantly employs a stark visual and aural style that approaches a form of bleak poetry. Glimpses of mothers grasping their dead babies, the desolate row of lonely highways and the pastoral beauty of horses running through an empty meadow all work to illustrate the contrasting nature of humanity -- violence and beauty going hand in hand.
When the survivors finally reach the source of the radio transmissions, a military compound in Manchester where soldiers have reverted to the basest forms of sexuality and violence, the movie begins to bring to mind George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead series with sequences of claustrophobic terror and tension. And while the Living Dead movies and The Omega Man (even down to an interracial coupling) are the templates, Boyle injects the genre with a vigor and intelligence that while not exactly advancing the genre, keeps it from getting stale.
Joel Hammond recalls the ultimate turning-point moment -- the instant his fate was sealed.
By Joel Hammond
210 west Writer [send email]
I, just like the other sports writers you're reading on this site, am a big fan of ESPN Page 2's Bill Simmons. The Sports Guy, as he so affectionately refers to himself.
So, I like to take after him. A few months ago, I delved into his
mindless ramblings routine and was pleased with the results.
This time, I thought I'd try my hand at his "There is one moment that defines my career as a sports fan" bit. His, however, is more a coming of age, he says, watching Larry Bird come into his own as a member of the Boston Celtics.
Mine, though, is absolutely a moment. One moment in time that, over the years of looking back and crying over this one moment, that my fate as a sports fan was sealed: It will never happen for my teams (despite Green Bay downing the Pats in New Orleans, single-handedly the greatest night of my life ... but that's another column).
Let me set the stage. It's May 7, 1989. My dad works for Little Debbie (the No. 1 snack cake in America, mind you), and he used to load his truck on Sundays. So here I am, just a shade past seven, a die-hard Cavs fan. I loved Mark P