The Bad Boys Club

In a previous post I mentioned how animated films, in fact, a lot of movies animated or otherwise have a strong, even violent female lead while the men are reduced to negative male stereotypes. Some might say that the male characters are “bad boys” because that’s the type that appeal to women. From where did that cliche come?

In most stereotypes there are aspects that are based on truth and it is true that bad boys make appealing movie characters. For one thing they take the kind of risks that leads to more exciting stories but there is more than that. Here is the basics of that whole “bad boy” thing; Bad Boys, also known as Jerks or referred to as A-holes, Punks and/or Losers appeal to some women because they are perceived as having (most of the time mistakenly) the one quality some women find literally irresistible, namely, confidence. That is the one thing that people who lack it crave the most. The problem is that A-holes and jerks sometimes get mistaken for having confidence because they do the sort of things that really take some balls. Actually, they don’t, they’re just stupid, ignorant, stoned, drunk or terminally obnoxious but their lack of sensitivity, sense of consequence, guilt, pride and/or morality is seen as simply not giving a crap what anybody thinks of them and that is sometimes misconstrued as having confidence. This is why beer is universally acclaimed as being a great pick up aid. “Liquid Confidence” is another term for alcohol and we all know that booze doesn’t really give anyone confidence, it just destroys your fear, doubt, common sense and reason.

 

"Wow, I can't believe you did that last night!" a girl might say to a guy who completely ruined himself the night before in a drunken exhibition of loss of control. And she's saying that as if totally impressed. Totally! If he acts cool, like he knows what she's talking about because he actually remembered what he did, he's got it made with her. It's only if he has any regret, remorse or is at all appologetic or embarrassed that he becomes the A-hole in her eyes.The best thing a guy can say to a girl is not "I love you" and not, "I'm sorry, can you ever forgive me?" and certainly not "I'll never act like that again, I promise." No, the absolute best thing a guy can ever say, EVER, is; "I meant to do that."

A-Hole 101.

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The Princess Problem

In 2009 Walt Disney Studios released The Princess and the Frog, its last traditionally drawn 2D animated feature. It made some money but wasn’t as cost effect as computer animation had become so they declared that would be their final 2D production.

Another aspect to what Disney felt was a problem with The Princess and the Frog was that “little boys” wouldn’t go see a movie about a princess (a girl). Why did they think that? Was it because without a fair damsel in distress there was no real incentive for a boy to become a hero and risk his life so there was no clear role model in these films for boys? 

Women complain that in the films of the past the women were all helpless victims waiting to be rescued by a man (they’re right about that), but the women being in peril was what motivated and drove the entire story. Take out the need for a male hero by making the female lead a take charge heroine and why do you need the male character?

In this “Princess Warrior” (King Arthur, Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland, Alien, Star Wars) genre the male is reduced to the usually immature, love-sick, or stubbornly macho sidekick or worse yet, comic relief. He usually grows up during the course of the film to redeem himself in the end, maybe even helping to save the Princess (who certainly didn’t need a MAN to help her!). Maybe this is why boys don’t want to see movies with “Princesses”. If a film is about a girl then it’s pretty certain the boy / man / love interest is probably going to be an embarrassment to males of all ages. Why support a whole genre of films that use you as the buffoon? These days you can’t make fun (or the villain out) of any particular racial / social / national / religious / political / etc. group and you certainly can’t ridicule women. So that leaves males. Thanks a lot.

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Prague's Latimer House

I just listened to the new single from the four man band Latimer House that claims to be based in Prague.

”Interesting,” I thought, “Prague Rock.” I always like rock and roll with a local flavor, especially an exotic flavor, and Prague, the largest and capitol city of the Czech Republic has the cool Medieval  history and more modern arts scene to make any music coming from there intriguing indeed. Unfortunately Latimer House sounds as Eastern European as Golden Earring sounds Dutch. Having the instrumentalists playing American style rock that sounds as if it could have been from Boston (Boston, J. Giels Band, Aerosmith) and an American singer singing in English does not make Golden Earring a Dutch band. Likewise, the only thing that Prague can boost about with Latimer House is maybe hosting their live shows as the band, fronted by guitarist (and presumably their lead singer) Joe Cook from London, England, sounds as Czechoslovakian as Golden Earring sounds Dutch.

See how cool and psychedelic Prague can be? Imagine how this would sound?

At least on Latimer House’s new single, This Is Pop / Shake! their sound is strictly English, Cockney vocals and all. And not just English but “Rock of the Eighties” New Wave with the sort of bored, “too cool for school” monotone sung/talked vocals of The Petshop Boys or Soft Cell. 

 Kind of a New Wave Pop Art looking cover too.

The other members of the band are Anar Yuufov on keyboards and backing vocals who is from Baku, wherever that is, Jiri Kominek from Toronto on drums and another American from the great state of Virginia, Michael Jetton, on bass. So why are Latimer House from Prague? Is it because they recorded their debut ten song CD called "All The Rage", released on their own label, Honk Records, at Prague's Faust Studios with engineer Derek Saxenmeyer?   

They claim that “All The Rage” would not be what it is without the mandolin and violin of Jim Thompson, who came over from England so it must be the guitar work of Justin Lavash of Prague's blues and jazz bars, the trumpet playing of Tommy Levvechia, and Jan Keller who also plays fretless bass in a modern jazz quartet when not playing with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra that gives Latimer House their Prague cred.

With bands like fun! and Foster The People it sounds to me like there is currently a revival of the New Wave sound of the Eighties so maybe Latimer House is right in style rather than thirty years too late. They’re certainly too late for me but for those who weren’t there the first time around whatever sound is the NOW sound is the only sound that counts. I am disappointed as what my mad little mind was conjuring up as the possible sound of modern “Prague Rock” seemed a whole lot more interesting than a rehash of Human League’s sound but for every old fart disappointed by today's music there are a thousand kids claiming it as their own. Make up your own mind at: http://latimerhouse.bandcamp.com

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The Tooners' Rocktasia CD Songwriters

Being the 20th anniversary of The Tooners' rocktasia CD I'm writing about the three co-writers of songs included on the CD. The last article was about Don Coorough, writer of They Died Young and this one is about my brother, Dwayne Warner, listed as co-writer of Paid To Die.

Dwayne was a bodyguard for the English Punk rock band The Sex Pistols on their 1978 American tour and titled his autobiography (since novelized to protect, well, him), Paid To Die. Since I wrote the song about his stories about being on the road with a band as their head of security and since I took his autobiography title for the song title I credited him as co-writer.

Seven years ago this month, on Labor Day of 2006, Dwayne died of a Cerebral Aneurysm. I find it very coincidental that Dwayne, who was born on Memorial Day would die on Labor Day, two holidays I always mixed up. He also lived as long as his hero, actor Errol Flynn, fifty years.

Tim Piper's The Shot Heard Round The World

My old friend and world class Beatles tribute artist Tim Piper is releasing a new original song to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of The Beatles coming to America (The British Invasion). The song is called "The Shot Heard Round The World" which refers to the start of the American Revolutionary War and the original British Invasion. Check out the video at: http://www.timpipermusic.com/

Along with Tim's brother, Greg Piper, and keyboardist Morley Bartnoff, they also had the great honor of having Gregg Bissonette (Ringo Starr's drummer) play drums on the track. Also featured are Kat Raio (the singing voice for "Elmo"), and Clifford Carter (who plays with Letterman's Will Lee as well as other top-notchers) on strings and Hammond B3 organ.

95.5 FM KLOS's Chris Carter will close his next broadcast this weekend of "Breakfast With The Beatles" as the first DJ to play the song. Then, on February 9, Rodney Bingenheimer will play the track on his 50th Beatles anniversary show on 106.7 KROQ FM.

A video of the song can be seen on TimPiperMusic.com and will be available on iTunes this Sunday and hopefully this will lead to Tim releasing all the great music I and his other friends have enjoyed over the years but his "Beatles Tribute fans" don't even know exists.

Tim has performed in three different live musical stage shows performing as the late Beatle John Lennon; One Night Only which ran at the Stella Adler Theater in Hollywood, A Day In His Life which was represented by the William Morris Agency and toured the country and his current show Just Imagine which recently finished an extended run at the Hayworth Theater on Wilshire Blvd. in L.A.

After the successful run of his show A Day In His Life a show was written especially for Tim as a follow up called Fanatics. This show was intended to appeal to his Beatles audience and was about an extreme Beatles fan such as Tim who lived his life under their influence but comprised of Tim's very Lennon-McCartney sounding original songs. Not parodies, Tim Piper just naturally has the Lennon-McCartney style and much of the magic in his own original tunes.

The late leader of the very Beatles influenced band, The Knack, Doug Fieger, produced the soundtrack CD to Fanatics as one of his last projects and the music has the authenticity of a great meeting of original Beatles' fan minds. However, Tim does have more material and tends to get excited about his new music rather than what he's done in the past but I'm hoping that the success of The Shot Heard Round The World helps introduce his music that I've loved for years to the public at large, at last.

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Biocentrism

On my kitchen table is an old copy of Jonathon Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. I don't know how it got there. It came out when I was in high school as one of the first "New Age" books popular with the kids. I never read it. I think I will now. I knew Richard Bach primarily as the writer of the screenplay for The Beatles animated Yellow Submarine movie.

One of my favorite new shows is Beyond The Wormhole with Morgan Freeman (also called Through The Wormhole, I don't know if there are two separate series) which is a science show that explains some of the new concepts of science such as Quantum Physics, String Theory and ideas that were once the domain of Science Fiction writers, New Age writers and crackpots. In one episode exploring the possibility that reality isn't in fact real at all, author and renowned scientist Robert Lanza talked about the concept he calls Biocentrism. Basically, Biocentrism says that if a tree falls in the woods and if there's no one there to hear it the tree not only does not make a sound but that the tree, the woods and the entire universe does not exist. Your brain creates the world around you otherwise it does not exist. I've been reading the same thing in the Seth books since the early Eighties but Lanza's book describes the process in scientific terms. His book Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe is for those of you who want the details. A lot of people involved in science as well as religion are angry at this philosophy and repute it. Read crackpot Robert Lanza's bio HERE.

Reading Biocentrism I kept waiting for him to use my personal favorite analogy to describe his "consciousness forms matter, not the other way around" concept but although he mentioned "a computer simulation" to really get an average Joes like me to understand it all he needed to do was describe reality as a video game. Like all ideas about reality, death, the Hereafter, etc., if you're contented with your religious beliefs then you really don't need to explore all the other possibilities.The nice thing about "reality" and life is that whatever is going to happen is going to happen no matter what you believe and although what you believe will certainly help you get through it all, eventually you will learn.

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Disney, The New Rome

Pop culturally speaking, all roads lead to Disney. The Walt Disney company is becoming the great depository of pop culture. A museum, not in the old stodgy, lock it away type, but in the "let's preserve this because we like it so much way". As the National Parks keep alive the Great Outdoors for future generations the Walt Disney Company is keeping alive for future generations the pop art of artists whose work may not survive them on its own. 

Disney had already absorbed such cultural landmarks as The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, The Jungle Book by Kipling, the stories of The Brothers Grimm, the classic fairy tales of Europe, the books; Bambi, 101 Dalmatians, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, Wind In The Willows, Alice In Wonderland, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame and Tarzan and even modern movie mythologies such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Now they've acquired The Muppets, The Marvel Universe and all the Pixar characters. They even made a stab at The Beatles with a proposed but ultimately jettisoned remake of Yellow Submarine.

Many people lament that Disney seems to be turning into a children's entertainment monopoly since they have a tendency to "Disneyize" the properties on which they get their hands. The "Disney version" is a censored and cuter version of the original made for small children to enjoy while the original source material such as "The Hunchback Of Notre Dame" most certainly was not intended for children.

This criticism of Disney doesn't bother me as I see what they do as similar as to what a band does when it covers another band's hit. The original still exists and must have achieved a considerable level of popular awareness for Disney to have been interested in absorbing it to begin with, but their version is just another artistic interpretation and usually intended for a different audience than the original. Disney's guaranty that the work will survive, at least in one form, for future generations is enough to make their cataloging of the world's great stories a very valuable service. It is also nice to think that Disney is not destroying the opportunities for new artists that some may see as its competition but like the huge company that they are, they're there to buy you out if you succeed enough and insure that your work won't be forgotten even if you are. Remember Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan or only Disney's Tarzan?

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Even MORE JFK Stuff

As crappy the stories thus far of the 21st Century, the 20th Century had some really great stories. I'm not going to include the wars, war stories really aren't "great", but other unbelievable stories. Some of my personal favorites are the story of Nicholas Romanov, the last Czar of Russia, his wife, four daughters and hemophiliac son who were all murdered by the Bolsheviks. A royal family being murdered is a terrible story not a great story but add the intrigue involving the "mad monk" Grigori Rasputin and you have a story you'd think only Hollywood could write.

Another GREAT story is the one of The Beatles starting in 1964 (50 years this year!!!) and ending with the Beatles Anthology and their last ever new music released in 1995. If you really think about it the story of The Beatles is totally unbelievable.

Another really bizarre and unbelievable story is the JFK assassination. This being the 50th anniversary there have been some great TV documentaries I watched and about which I've commented in prior posts. But looking at that famous and damning photo of alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald posing with the murder weapon (who would keep a picture like that around if you wanted to get away with it?) something popped out at me.

How considerate to pose for your own WANTED poster ahead of time.

First, his head does seem a little large for his body but maybe he has a big head. But look at the shadows on his face. His nose is working as a sundial and the shadow it cast is pointed directly down, almost exactly center with his upper lip. The shadows on his eyes and ears and lower jaw are all even which means the light source is directly above him and slightly forward. Now look at all the other shadows in the photo. His neck, the shadows on the fence behind him and especially his shadow on the ground. The light source for all those shadows is much lower and coming from the right of the photo. If this picture was taken indoors there could have been two separate light sources but it's taken outside in the sunlight. The shadow cast by Oswald's nose should fall across the right side of his face in the same direction of his shadow on the ground not straight down. If this picture was taken these days it wouldn't even be considered a good Photoshop job. No wonder his head looks big, it had to be large enough to cover up whoever's head was originally on that body.

Fifty years and the JFK assassination is still the story that won't go away.

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Happy New Year!

Happy 2014. Things seem to be improving which isn't too hard considering what crap the 21st Century has been thus far. First we had the big panic over Y2K which was back when we liked to get excited over nothing like the president hitting on White House interns. Then we had 911 which lead to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Then we had the space shuttle Columbia disaster of 2002 then the disaster of Hurricane Katrina which a recent poll of Republicans in Louisiana said that 24% blamed the government's bad response as the fault of President Obama (?!). Don't forget the BP Gulf Oil Spill which mysteriously disappeared (from the press) and the Great Recession (near Depression) of '08 to now.

On the plus side we did elect the first non old white man as president which is really only because the Democrat's real choice, a Southern white man with Kennedy hair (got to have some JFK appeal) and with a cancer patient wife completely self destructed in the most douche bag way possible leaving the Democrats with their token black man and lady candidate who were only running in the primary to attract minorities and women to their side before throwing all their supporters to the good looking white man. The Democrats were doomed... unless the Republicans did something even dumber like deciding to run a woman of their own, not as a Presidential candidate in the primary but as the Vice Presidential candidate. They did run an African-American in the primary but since McCain was in his seventies and had a history of cancer a vote for John McCain seemed very likely a vote for the first woman president, Sarah Palin. The big question in 2008 was Is America More Racist Or Sexist?

God Bless America, we're more sexist.

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Merry Christmas