The Beatles: Get Back

Just when I thought I couldn’t be in any more awe of the Beatles, along comes The Beatles: Get Back, Peter Jackson’s three-part, uncut version of their 1969 documentary, Let It Be, to blow the top of my head off.

I’m old enough to have seen Let It Be when it was originally released (and buy the album). I don’t remember too much about the movie but I think it’s mostly remembered as an account of the Beatles’ breakup, most of which was blamed on John Lennon’s girlfriend and soon-to-be wife, Yoko Ono.

What I see when I watch the uncut version, however, is four men who clearly love each other, particularly John and Paul. Their relationship is so close, it’s like they’re two halves of the same person. Most of the film is taken up with the four of them laughing and joking.

Yes, it’s true that George Harrison walks out of the recording session and threatens to leave the band at the end of the first part. That seems to be the real reason for the Beatles’ breakup (among other things): the fact that George felt that his opinion wasn’t valued and not enough of his songs were being included on Beatles albums.

But the real revelation of this film is the sheer depth and breadth of the Beatles’ talent. During the course of Get Back, you hear songs that not only are not included on Let It Be. (Some of them wound up on Abbey Road, some of them wound up on Hey Jude, some of them wound up on Paul and Linda McCartney’s Ram and some of them wound of on George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass.) Some of them are not on any of the Beatles’ studio albums (and I had all their albums from Rubber Soul onward)! Some of them are not even on their Anthology collections! I’m hearing Beatles songs I’ve never heard before!

Beyond that, their knowledge of the pop music that preceded them—people like Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, as well as lesser-known artists—is truly encyclopedic, as is evidenced by the number of these songs that are in their repertoire.

But the thing that will truly blow your mind is watching songs you know like the back of your hand come to life.

They’ll start out with maybe just a bit of the melody and no lyrics and they might just hum along or sing nonsense words. Then they’ll gradually start adding lyrics until the whole thing takes shape. And finally, at the end of the film, you see them performing some of the finished songs. It’s nothing short of miraculous!

Oh yeah, and one more thing: Paul was absolutely beautiful.

All of Us Strangers

All of Us Strangers is the most disturbing movie I’ve seen since The Deer Hunter in 1979. (That movie left me crying in my childhood bedroom afterwards. I remember my brother coming into my bedroom to ask me what was wrong.) When I got home, I posted on Facebook that, “while I thought it was extremely well done (particularly the performances), it's not a movie I'd recommend if you're feeling sad or depressed or don't have access to a therapist immediately afterwards. I also had to check Wikipedia when I got home to find out wtf happened in it and I'm still a little confused.”

I’m slightly less confused now but after a somewhat sleepless New Year’s Eve, I’m still disturbed by it, but I can’t discuss it without revealing some plot points, so here goes.

SPOILERS AHEAD

All of Us Strangers is about two gay men, Adam and Harry, who live in a mostly empty apartment tower on the outskirts of London (they seem to be the only two tenants in the building) who meet and start a relationship. During the course of the movie, it’s revealed that Adam’s two parents died in a car crash when he was 12. It’s a little confusing, though, because throughout the film, Adam visits his childhood home, where his parents are still alive and basically the same age he is. At the end of the movie, according to Wikipedia, Adam returns to his apartment building and “goes to see Harry but finds him long dead in his flat's bedroom, with the same bottle he was drinking from on the night they met empty in his hand." So does that mean their entire relationship was a fantasy?

One of the most depressing things about the movie is that it uses the song “The Power of Love” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood (quite powerfully, I might add) and I had to remind myself that that song is 40 years old.

So where do I begin?

On the one hand, this is a powerful, thought-provoking film with great performances by the entire cast (especially Andrew Scott as Adam, but also Paul Mescal as Harry and Jamie Bell and Claire Foy as Adam’s parents), but you might feel suicidal afterwards. I think it speaks to the alienation of living in a large city like London and also deals quite effectively with the issue of coming out to one’s parents and wanting to be accepted by them.

I think the movie’s message is that love transcends death (or “the power of love,” like the song used in the movie), but, damn, at what cost?

Eat Drink Laugh

I’ve been producing a monthly stand-up comedy show at Pangea in New York City’s East Village for almost two years. My next show is this Saturday, December 23 at 9pm. $10 cover in advance, $15 at the door plus $20 minimum. Advance tickets available here: https://www.showtix4u.com/event-details/78845 

Madonna at Barclays Center

Madonna and her daughter, Mercy

I had high expectations for Madonna’s concert last night at Barclays Center after reading Mary Gabriel’s exhaustive new biography, Madonna: A Rebel Life, which confirms Madonna’s place as a cultural icon. I had lost touch with her music after Confessions on a Dance Floor and thought this might be my last chance to see her. (Is she going to keep touring when she’s 80, like Mick Jagger?)

I had heard from a fellow audience member that the 8:30pm show wouldn’t start until 10pm. It actually started at 9pm (only a half hour late), but first we were subjected to a one-hour “set” by DJ Honey Dijon. (I’m sorry, but a DJ isn’t my idea of an opening act.)

Finally, at 10:45pm, Madonna took the stage and, thank God, she delivered.

First of all, she looked amazing. It was classic Madonna: blonde hair and bustier. (Does anyone remember her Pippi Longstocking period? How about the shaved eyebrows and gold tooth? Hello?)

Secondly, I think this was her most elaborate production yet. (I’ve seen her live twice and I’ve seen several of her concerts on cable TV.) She not only hovered above the stage in a steel cage suspended from the ceiling, but at one point she literally set the stage on fire.

And yet it was also strangely intimate. She talked to the audience and even managed to crack a few jokes. (After all, this was her first show in her hometown of New York City.)

Some high points for me: “Live to Tell,” which was accompanied by photographs of people who died of AIDS, like artist Keith Haring and Christopher Flynn, her dance teacher; “Bad Girl,” on which she was accompanied on piano by her daughter, Mercy; and “Don’t Tell Me,” during which she recreated what I think is her sexiest video. (Dancing cowboys! Woof!)

In the end, I forgave her diva behavior because she put on a great show and, well, bitch, she’s Madonna.

Barclays Center. My seat was so high up, I needed oxygen!

Keith Haring and Christopher Flynn

In Search of New York’s Lost Record Stores

There are no second acts in New York real estate. Except when there are.

One such exception is Café Figaro on Bleecker Street. When I was a still going to college on Long Island, I thought it was the height of sophistication to go to the Café Figaro. I associated it with the Beat writers of the ’50s, as well as the Bleecker Street Cinema, which was down the block. I thought I was so cool ordering my spinach salad with chick peas. (Or was that at Bagel And, which, unbeknownst to me at the time, occupied the site of the original Stonewall Inn?)

Anyway, imagine my surprise to see that it was reopening.

Cafe Figaro: It's back!

I walked into the restaurant and told the new owner my whole history with his establishment. This was at least the second time I had done this. The previous time was when I walked into the former site of the Greene Street Café (which is now a high-end stereo store) and explained to their owners that I had once worked there as a busboy and that HBO had filmed a Young Comedians special there with people like Bill Maher. (That how long ago it was. Bill Maher was still a “young comedian”!)

Anyway, the reason for all this nostalgia was that I was trying to find a copy of the CD Fearless, by Nina Hagen, for a reading of my screenplay. It’s not available on iTunes and is out of print (although you can find it on eBay for as much as $90). I have the German version on vinyl and, in a pinch, I could just play the song on YouTube, but I thought it would be nice to have a digital copy and, anyway, I needed the English version. Fortunately, a DJ friend of mine offered to burn me a copy of her Greatest Hits, which contains the song I need (“New York New York”).

Nina Hagen's Greatest Hits: I found it!

Out of curiosity, I decided to visit a few of my old record store haunts (and a few new ones) to see if I could find it. I started at Academy Records on West 18th Street, which I’d never been to. These places are like walking into a time warp, but once upon a time, before streaming and mp3s, I used to spend a lot of time browsing record stores in search of a particular record or CD.

Needless to say, they didn’t have it, but they did have some surprising selections I didn’t expect to see (Heaven 17! Human League!) along with some that are even before my time (Jimi Hendrix?!). OK, I may have been alive in the ’60s, but I was more into the Beatles at that age. Hendrix was a little too heavy for me.

My next stop was Generation Records on Thompson Street, in the heart of the Village. Same story.

And finally, Village Music World (a.k.a. Village Revival Records) on Bleecker Street, where I was shocked to actually find a copy of Nina Hagen’s Greatest Hits on CD, which I was tempted to buy but didn’t because my friend would never let me hear the end of it. (“You spent $22 on a CD after I offered to burn it for you?!”)

Just for the hell of it, I decided to walk further west on Bleecker Street to see if one of my other hangouts, Golden Discs, was still there. It wasn’t. It had been replaced by a store that sold Lotto tickets and some other nondescript business.

Around the corner, on Jones Street, I thought I’d look for another beloved record store, Record Runner, and, much to my surprise, I found it! They didn’t have Nina Hagen, either, but I was encouraged to see two young men entering the store after I left.

Record Runner: Still there!

There used to be tons of record stores in the Village: Sounds, Free Being, Rebel Rebel, Vinylmania and, of course, Bleecker Bob’s¹. Flipping through bins of vinyl (or plastic) was a sign that you were a real music fan. Entire books and movies have been written about this! (OK, one: High Fidelity.)

Nowadays, I feel like a historian, regaling unsuspecting store owners with tales of my illustrious past.

But somebody has to.

1. https://thegaycurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-last-days-of-bleecker-bobs.html

In Praise of Matthew Perry OR I’m a Closet Friends Fan

The sudden death of actor Matthew Perry at age 54 has made me more upset than I would have thought possible. It’s kept me awake all night and made me come to the decision to come out of the closet about something that has caused me some degree of shame: I’m a closet Friends fan.

I feel the need to say this publicly because I’ve often made fun of those tourists taking selfies outside the Friends house on Bedford and Grove Streets. But consider this: People from all over the world travel to a house that was just used for an exterior shot on a show that was filmed in Los Angeles—20 years after it went off the air!

I think that says something beyond our country’s obsession with celebrity. I think it says the show touched them on a deep, emotional level.

Now, I can’t claim to be a fan of the show in the same way that I’m a fan of, say, Seinfeld. Seinfeld is more misanthropic, for lack of a better word, and that seems to be closer to my personality than Friends, which seems to have a higher opinion of the human race.

But I have to say that, on the occasions when I’ve left my TV on after Seinfeld, I’ve been surprised by how well-written and well-acted the show is.

In fact, I’d have to say that the cast of Friends may be one of the best ensembles in sitcom history, a rare instance where it was the group that was the star, rather than any individual actor. And the show itself, it must be said, is one of TV’s greatest sitcoms.

And why is that? Why is this show so popular and why has there been such an outpouring of grief for Perry, who stood out even among this group of talented actors?

I think it’s because the show was about the importance of friendship itself, how no matter what may be happening in your life, you always have your friends to fall back on.

I think Perry’s passing will be a marker in the lives of Gen Xers, the moment when they lost their innocence and confronted their own mortality.

There’s something so tragic about it (although I suppose every passing is tragic to some extent). This man brought joy to so many people and yet was in personal pain because of his drug and alcohol addiction. (If you read his memoir, you know what I’m talking about.) As someone who gets physically ill after two drinks, it’s hard for me to understand how someone can drink so much. But I can certainly understand being in pain and wanting to be able to “fix” it with something like alcohol.

Why does this happen to so many artists (or is it just that we hear about it more often because they’re artists)?

I’m reminded of Whitney Houston, whose documentary, Whitney: Can I Be Me?, I’ve watched countless times. I always think, this woman had everything. She was beautiful, rich, famous and had one of the best voices in the history of pop music. And yet she destroyed her voice (and thus her life) with drugs.

Or Amy Winehouse, another great singer who literally drank herself to death.

And now we have Matthew Perry, who was such a gifted comic actor.

Could his death be any more tragic?

No, it can’t.

Morrissey at United Palace

I wasn’t planning to see Morrissey at the United Palace theater. I’d already seen him four times (twice with The Smiths and twice as a solo artist) and, to be honest, I’ve kind of lost touch with his music. (He’s very prolific!). But I won a free ticket from WDRE and I was pleasantly surprised.

His voice was strong and his band was tight! I don’t normally think of Morrissey as a rocker, but I have to say: he rocked!

The audience greeted him with a standing ovation and remained standing for the entire show.

One of the great things about a Morrissey concert are the videos before and slides during the show. They’re like an encyclopedia of his influences and cultural heroes. Some of the ones I recognized were Visage, Sinead O’Connor (her “Nothing Compares 2 U” video got applause!), Siouxsee and the Banshees, Roxy Music, David Bowie, Brigitte Bardot, To Sir, with Love, Judy Garland, Lypsinka, Steve McQueen, Oscar Wilde, the New York Dolls, Lillian Hellman and Gertrude Stein.

One more thing: The United Palace theater, like the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn (where I saw Billy Idol) is one of the architectural wonders of New York.

Nosebleed seat again (but it was free)! And another amazing theater!

The ceiling! 

The wall! 

Moz!

Moz again!

A shirtless Steve McQueen

Moz again!

Moz and Oscar Wilde

The New York Dolls

Moz again!

Moz and Lillian Hellman