2.28.05 feeling sorry for marty

In the past, the Oscar telecast has seemed incredibly bloated, sometimes clocking in at a butt-numbing four hours long (the record, four hours and 16 minutes, was set in 2002). This year, viewers were promised a shorter, tighter show. But with so many awards to hand out, how much fat could realistically be trimmed from the Oscarcast?

Quite a bit, as it turns out, especially if you "edit" the show yourself. It took us about two hours to watch it on TiVo last night. We fast forwarded through all of the commercials and musical numbers (why did Beyonce keep showing up, even to sing lead on the French boys' choir song?), but watched all of the awards presentations. It moved so quickly that it almost felt like we were fast forwarding through the entire program. There was no time for the lesser winners to walk all the way from their seats to the stage! Gotta give them their awards right out there in the audience, or, even odder, put all the nominees up on stage like a chorus line of middle-aged white guys in tuxedos! Quick, quick, hurry! The clock is ticking (literally -- best original screenplay winner Charlie Kaufman seemed hypnotized by the thirty-second countdown).

I really appreciated the decreased presence of those ubiquitous Chuck Workman montages and tributes to "the magic of film" -- there was just a brief Dustin Hoffman-narrated one at the beginning of the show and a well-deserved appreciation of frequent Oscar host Johnny Carson. Even the honorary Oscars, given to director Sidney Lumet and film preservation advocate Roger Mayer, didn't really slow the pace; both men were gracious and concise in accepting their statuettes.

The only occasion when I felt time slow to a molasses-like crawl was during Hilary Swank's acceptance speech. She's a wonderful actress, but I hope she never wins again because she is one of the worst Oscar accepters ever, reciting a long, long list of "thank yous" to her lawyers, publicists, managers, agents, etc. Who cares? Thank them privately, later! Say something interesting to the 100 million people watching you! Jamie Foxx's tribute to his dead grandma seemed like he'd been rehearsing it in front of his bathroom mirror for weeks, but at least he wasn't just reading a list of names from a little piece of paper.

And then there's Marty. Marty -- I can call him that, can't I? everyone else does -- Scorsese was snubbed once again, despite the fact that he is considered one of the greatest American directors of the last 50 years. I really thought it would be Marty's night. I figured "Million Dollar Baby" would win best picture, but Marty would pick up the best director statuette for "The Aviator." But Clint triumphed, winning his second directing trophy. Does the great Scorsese gnash his teeth at night, mourning the lack of a little gold man on his mantelpiece? And more importantly, why do I care? He's rich, famous, and able to direct his dream projects, working with the most beautiful and talented performers in Hollywood. I spend my days responding to requests like, "Can you make the purple stripe on the left edge of my web page a little narrower?" And yet I feel kind of sorry for the guy. I hope he doesn't have to wait 'til he's 80, when the Academy will hand him an honorary award, and everybody will say, "Why didn't he get that years ago?"

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2.25.05 spree

Life has been mighty dull lately, and this weblog has suffered accordingly. Lately, it's been more tales of the sickly than "Tales of the City." I haven't been able to give you, my loyal readers, what you crave -- tales of celebrity sightings, all-girl mosh pits, and elderly Japanese yodeling cowboys. Well, friends, at last, today's the day!

Last night, we ventured out to Bimbo's 365 Club in North Beach to see the Polyphonic Spree, part of the annual Noise Pop festival. There were three opening acts on the bill. Regular readers know of my general loathing for opening acts. In 20 years of concertgoing, I have seen so few really good ones that I now dread them. I often try to time my arrival at a show in order to avoid them. However, due to surprisingly light traffic, we wound up at the club fairly early.

My jaded, seen-it-all demeanor was immediately shattered by the song stylings of one Toshio Hirano, an honest-to-God Japanese cowboy singer. Hirano, who appeared to be in his 60s, was dressed in a white button-down shirt, tie and khakis. He yodeled and strummed his way through a set full of country and bluegrass tunes, including a Jimmie Rodgers cover. Now that's something you don't see, or hear, every day. He was actually quite good. Kudos to the Noise Pop bookers for coming up with such a unique opening act.

Second up was Knife & Fork, a local quintet fronted by Laurie Hall. Just as I was thinking, "Damn, she sure sounds like Polly Harvey," Joe pointed out that we were standing directly in front of the woman herself. Apparently, PJ's tastes run to "singers who remind me of me," with a little Patti Smith thrown in for good measure. Still, the band, with its super-heavy two-drummer rhythm section, was, as the IKEA ads say, unböring. (K&F keyboardist Eric Drew Feldman played on PJ's To Bring You My Love album, and K&F have opened for her in the past, which explains PJ's presence in the audience. She took off immediately after K&F's set.)

The short string of interesting opening acts was broken by From Bubblegum to Sky, a dull indie-pop band who sounded thin and twee after the bottom-heavy rock of K&F. A lot of other bands, particularly the Orange Peels and Apples in Stereo, have done a much better job of mining this particular vein of '70s AM radio pop.

By this time, it was almost 11 PM and I was ready for the headliner to come on already. For the uninitiated, the Polyphonic Spree is a 24-member band whose majestic, orchestral pop sound is produced by a dizzying array of instruments, from theremin to French horn to pennywhistle to harp, and a nine-person choir. They all wear robes and their songs have lyrics like "Hey now it's the sun, and it makes me smile." It sounds so cheesy, and yet it works, mainly because every single member of the Spree is so upbeat and enthusiastic. After years of seeing bands that are too cool for school, being in the presence of the relentlessly cheerful Spree almost comes as a shock to the system.

We were standing pretty close to the stage, which was fine until a bunch of girls who were having a little too much fun started pogoing around. One of them stepped on my foot, causing me to cry out in pain. We moved back. Not since a drunk guy threw up on my shoes at an Iggy Pop show have my feet suffered such indignity at a concert.

Nevertheless, it's all about the love, and doing our own thing, whether it's stomping on strangers' feet or standing in the traditional San Francisco concertgoing pose (arms crossed, unmoving). Spree leader Tim DeLaughter switched from leading the band onstage to perching on a monitor and attempting to direct the entire audience, gesturing grandiosely as the people in the crowd (like me) who weren't too self-conscious to participate raised their voices in song: "The trees want to grow, the trees want to grow/Grow grow grow!"

It continued for over two hours, until DeLaughter announced that this will be the last Spree show for a while; the band is taking a break after three years of nonstop touring and recording. They encored with "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," and we really did feel like such a lovely audience, and that they would love to take us home with them. Over five hours after the Japanese cowboy took the stage, the show was finally done. It was fun, but quite an endurance test.

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2.23.05 phantoms

Sorry to leave everyone hanging for so long -- I am pretty much over my bout with the flu, except for a residual cough. There's just not a lot to write about when one is ill. "Slept. Woke up. Read newspaper. Ate Cream of Wheat. Fell asleep while listening to 'Talk of the Nation.' Woke up. Watched 'Oprah.'" Etc.

I did manage to venture out on a rainy night to attend a live taping of NPR's "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" I even took some photos afterward. I will post a more detailed account shortly.

In 125 Records news, we're going to be reissuing another Jill Tracy CD. This one is an all-instrumental album, Into the Land of Phantoms, her soundtrack to F.W. Murnau's silent film "Nosferatu." It will have the catalog number 125-011; my hope is that lucky number 125-013 will be, appropriately, a new Jill Tracy recording, released around Halloween. Boo!

Doesn't grief make you feel sentimental about the most unlikely things? Every time I see the Ronald Reagan stamp, issued a little over a month after her death, all I can think about is how my grandmother would have bought sheets and sheets of those. I was never a huge fan of the Gipper, but I know that I would have picked some up, too, just to use on the letters I sent to her.

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2.16.05 the cruelest month

I've been sick, so not much to write about. I will say that a diet consisting almost exclusively of Cream of Wheat, popsicles and applesauce is a remarkably effective weight-loss plan. I must be getting better, though, because I keep fantasizing about Gregoire's crispy potato puffs with aioli.

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2.11.05 five for writing

There used to be a web site called The Friday Five that provided bloggers with five questions they could answer in their blogs -- sort of like Blog Helper, if you will. The site disappeared, but it looks like it's recently been resurrected on LiveJournal. Here are today's questions:

1) Would you rather live in a world with or without technology such as computers, cars, airplanes, bombs? With.

2) If you had to live without either heating in your house or air conditioning, which one would you keep? I don't have A/C, so I guess that answers that.

3) If you had to own five dogs, what kind would you get? Boston Terriers. Maybe one French bulldog or pug for variety's sake.

4) If the world had a front porch, what would you do on it? Huh?

5) Would you rather live in a neighborhood where you know all of your neighbors by name, or where everyone sticks to their own business? The latter.

OK, that was pretty easy. Here are some of the posers from previous weeks that I'm glad I missed: "If you were a book... would you read yourself?" "Which is worse, the Burning Question ~OR~ the Painful Truth?" "Apparently, there's suppose to be happiness in the afterlife. What age are you and what's different about you that makes you oh so happy to be here?" "What is one phobia you wouldn't mind having, if you were to face one?" Ah, navel-gazing.

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2.9.05 pod people

So I have my new iPod, and it's working perfectly (the battery life seems shorter than I would prefer, but it sounds like that may improve over time). There's only one problem: loading it up with music.

Apparently, I am not alone. According to this Chronicle article, several firms have sprung up to transfer your CD collection onto your 'pod. Some of the people who use these services are technophobes, which I am decidedly not; it's more a matter of how overwhelming the task seems. So far, the only music I have on my iPod is a few dozen Roxy Music tracks from their box set, which are on there because Joe had already ripped it.

I've thought about trying the methodical approach -- start with "A" (ABBA, in my case) and work through the alphabet, doing one or two albums a day. But what if I really want to listen to Neil Young or XTC? Do I skip ahead? Doesn't that invite chaos?

In the meantime, I'm listening to books on tape, downloaded from Audible.com. Maybe someday there'll be a system that allows people to scan their CDs' bar codes and the music will automatically be transferred onto their portable devices.

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2.8.05 taxing

More on Super Bowl halftime shows: the only good one I've ever seen was U2 in 2002. It was an excellent performance and a touching tribute to the victims of 9/11. They should just have U2 do it every year, or at least alternating with Bruce Springsteen, if they can get him. Having been to a lot of huge outdoor shows in my younger years, I know firsthand that there are very few performers who can command a stadium (and, by extension, an audience of millions) the way those two can. With all due respect to the ex-Beatle, Paul McCartney, whom I saw at Washington's RFK Stadium back in the day, just doesn't have their super-sized charisma.

I have been extremely busy of late, so not much time to write. I actually finished doing our taxes last night around 12:30 AM. ("Doing" = "gathering and organizing all of the information I need so that I can take it to our accountant," which is actually a pretty big job when you run two small businesses.) Of course, if it turns out that we owe money, I wait until April 15 to drop the check in the mail, but it's nice to have everything ready.

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2.6.05 ad bowl

I watched the first half of the Super Bowl -- OK, perhaps "watch" is overstating it, since I was actually reading the Chronicle's Pink Section at the time and didn't even notice that the Patriots had scored a touchdown until I glanced at the score several minutes later. But I did pay close attention to the ads. This year's theme seems to be Random Celebrities -- Burt Reynolds, Gladys Knight, M.C. Hammer and Dennis Rodman, among others, popped up in various spots. It's like one long casting session for VH1's "The Surreal Life."

Meanwhile, over on Animal Planet, we have a bunch of puppies running around a miniature replica of a football field. They sniff each other's butts, chew on rope toys, bark at each other and run around. And this is on all day, for nine hours straight -- the canine equivalent of that televised yule log. It's the Puppy Bowl, counterprogramming for people who really, really love to watch puppies.

Back on FOX, we have the tamest half-time show imaginable, featuring Sir Paul McCartney singing some of his edgy! pop! hits! from 35 years ago, as the sweater-clad rent-a-teens surrounding the stage jump up and down, pretending to look excited. Personally, I think they should have gotten the Polyphonic Spree -- they're clean and wholesome, and they all wear choir robes. Maybe next year.

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2.2.05 $%#&!

I'm sure you'll all be thrilled to hear that I have acquired a new digital camera, allowing me to continue my quest to document the Bay Area's fine taverns and signs. This one seemed just right for Presidents' Month, don't you think? (It's located on Lincoln St., by the way.) Plus, it is one of the rare illustrated bar signs I've seen without the iconic martini glass. We have beer on tap, red wine, and some mysterious splashy red drink. After studying the close-up, I have concluded that what I first thought were antennae protruding from the glass on the right are actually ice cubes being dropped into the drink. I think the vertical lines represent motion. Give the artist an A for creativity, anyway.

I wonder how many times each month I'm approached by a panhandler? One quick 3- or 4-block walk down Shattuck St. in downtown Berkeley always yields at least a few requests for a handout, and the Union Square area in San Francisco is rife with beggars. Usually people just ask for spare change; it's been a while since someone approached me with a complicated story, the sort I used to fall for when I was in my early 20s and honestly believed it if a person told me he desperately needed $10 for a bus ticket home or a case of baby formula. Now I know they're all scams and I hardly ever give anything to anyone. I'm jaded, I suppose.

Sometimes panhandlers go to the trouble of giving you the alleged reason they need your financial assistance. They claim they need 50 cents to make a phone call, or, in the case of the guy who was sitting on a bench outside the post office yesterday, 45 cents for the bus. It costs $1.25 to ride the bus, but I suppose it's possible that he had managed to scrape up 80 cents already. I had a lot of change in my pocket so I figured, what the heck, I'll give him 45 cents. Whether it winds up going into the till of the liquor store 2 blocks away instead of an AC Transit farebox matters not.

I stop and dig into my jacket pocket for the change. Then the guy starts yelling, "I need money for the [gosh-darned] bus! I need 45 cents for the mother-[bleeping] bus!" I tell the guy that I'm not going to give money to someone who curses at me, and walk away. He sort of half-heartedly says, "Hey" as I depart, and then sits back and resumes his watch on the post office door, perhaps hoping for someone who doesn't mind being assaulted with a string of expletives. Someone needs to give this guy a lesson in effective panhandling technique; I'd rather donate money to the people one occasionally sees up on Telegraph with signs reading, "I'm not gonna lie -- I need money to buy pot."

Meanwhile, this song by Monty Python's Eric Idle -- included as the bonus track on a year-end comp from my friend Jeffrey -- keeps running through my head. "F*** you very much the FCC... f*** you very much for fining meeeee..." Not since "South Park"'s "Uncle F***er" has profanity been so very, very catchy.

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All content © 2004-05 by Sue Trowbridge.