Category: Old Shit That Is Still Old

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Eek! A Greek!

Of course I had to go see this despite reservations about Matt Damon.  How could he possibly convince as the wily Odysseus?  Well, the script helped him out by ignoring “wily” and turning Odysseus into a pensive, guilt-ridden bore, a complete anachronism.  Mr. Damon had no problem with that.

But there’s plenty to like.  Most of Homer’s Odyssey is a flashback, and Christoper Nolan handles matters temporal very well.  The Polyphemus episode, as well as those of Circe and Scylla/Charybdis were excellent. As were the Shades emerging from Hades.  Cool shipwrecks too.

The Laestrygons episode might have been better had Monty Python and the Holy Grail never existed.  For some reason the giants were dressed in medieval armor, which made me expect them to demand a shrubbery or say “none shall pass.”  As they were chasing the Greeks off the island, I was half-expecting the Greeks to start shouting “Run away, run away!”

In a similar vein, Agamemnon resembled Darth Vader, which seemed comical to me.  I was reminded of Rick Moranis in Spaceballs.

Some of the inevitable changes to Homer worked well, others not.  The movie cut the island of the Lotus Eaters, instead having Calypso give Odysseus lotus flowers to keep him forgetful and happy.  Excellent idea.  But for some reason Helen and Clytemnestra are now twins.  Why?  I get changes that make a leaner movie, but that seems random.  And where the hell was Laertes?

Borrowing Sinon from the Aeneid was an excellent idea, but poorly executed.  Excellent as a plot connection that I won’t get into here.  But completely wrong as a character.  Sinon was the point man for the Trojan Horse trick, a glib con-man.  But in this movie he’s an awkward innocent who utters a few words after getting mortally wounded.  

The Trojan Horse episode was well-depicted despite Sinon’s botched character and Agamemnon as Darth Vader.  But due to Sinon’s reduced role and the absence of horse-doubters (Laocoon and Cassandra), the Trojans’ decision to accept the horse would seem like idiocy to those unfamiliar with the story.  As a majority of Americans can no longer tell you who won WWII, that likely would be most people.  Granted, Laocoon makes no appearance in Homer’s version, but if you’re borrowing Sinon to add coherence, why stop there?

My biggest problem with this movie involves a spoiler, so I’m mum on that.

Overall I enjoyed it and would recommend seeing it on the big screen.  Shipwrecks.  Mythical Monsters. Minimal CGI.  Yes, please.

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Sagittarius/Ballroom/Millennium

The various 60’s projects of Curt Boettcher are an addiction I come back to every couple of years.  There’s a 30 minute Andrew Hickey episode on “My World Fell Down” that tells the full, ultimately sad story.  Here’s what I know: “My World Fell Down” was originally a flop single by the Ivy League, a British band.  Across the pond in LA, Gary Usher* thought it could be a hit, but he could find no takers.  So he got some studio musicians (a pre-fame Glen Campbell on verse lead vocals and Bruce Johnston on chorus lead vocals) to record it.  He pitched it to an A&R guy at Columbia who signed the “band.”  

But there was no band, which Usher didn’t mention.  Friend Curt Boettcher had a band called The Ballroom, mostly a studio project. Boettcher had made a name for himself by writing amazing vocal arrangements for the Association, among others. It’s his work you hear on their hits.  He was a Brian Wilson type (BW admired him and was likely influenced by him)  who spent many studio hours on a single song, which was unusual back then for anyone not named the Beatles or Brian Wilson. Anyway, Usher brought in Boettcher and the Ballroom to complete an excellent album which was released under the name Sagittarius.  Boettcher ended up dominating the project.  “My World Fell Down” and “Hotel Indiscreet” were released as singles.  The first did ok on the west coast but flopped nationally.  The other just flopped.  Both single versions had Musique Concrete sections that were edgy for the time.  

Boettcher’s next project was The Millennium.  They made one album, Begin, which is brilliant, a sunshine pop masterpiece with far less filler than the Sagittarius album.  At the time it was the most expensive album ever made due to CB’s obsessiveness. It flopped, so Columbia dropped them.  Perhaps it could have gone somewhere had they not been so studio obsessed, or maybe sunshine pop needed the novelty of a family group like the Cowsills to sell it.  I also wonder if the burgeoning acid rock scene up north in the Bay area rendered them passe.  I’m not sure about the timing, but tastes changed very rapidly back then, and vocal pop was getting to be old hat.

And maybe it still is.  Back when we were doing Music League, I posted a couple of the songs above, and they tanked.  But but give them a shot.  Some of it sounds twee, but the musical ideas are outstanding. I think all of the released music is available for streaming.  Word is, there’s strong work that’s never become available. Even the released music used to be very hard to find. “My World Fell Down” appeared on Nuggets, and Various CD releases of the Sagittarius and Millennium albums trickled out over the years, but a small box of all the Millennium sessions didn’t come out until 2021.  We’re in extreme cult territory here…

”Another Time” would have been perfect for The Carpenters.

*producer of the Byrds and Beach Boys, and best of all, the horror hot rod/surf album Dracula’s Deuce by the Ghouls, featuring such classics as “The Little Old Lady From Transylvania” and “Be True To Your Ghoul.”

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Latin Football Cheers

Football season is over of course, but you can use these for any sport.  It’s not like Latin had a real equivalent for “touchdown” anyway.

 

Sequimini, sequimini, facite ut pilam relinquat! 

Pursue them, pursue them, make them relinquish the ball!

 

Illos repellite, expellite, compellite ad fugiendum!

Repel them, expel them, compel them to retreat!

 

Utinam vincamus!

Oh, would that we would score!

 

Volebamus atque volemus pilam trans metas deponi!

We have been wanting and shall continue to want a touchdown!

 

Those are from Latin For All Occasions, by Henry Beard, a Classics major who went on to co-found National Lampoon.  For years people gave me books like that.

Here’s a bonus (under “LATIN AT THE AIRPORT”) that might come in handy as we enter the imperial era:

 

Recedite, plebes! Gero rem imperialem!

Stand aside, plebeians!  I am on imperial business!

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Twas a Riot

Someone pieced together fan video from the Replacements’ RiotFest Show in Denver (okay, outside of Denver) a few eleven (!) years ago. I of course, was at that show (saw the Stooges as well). Anyway, it sounds great, and Paul is hilarious.

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So This Is Cool

Learned this past weekend on a trip visiting my 81-year-old aunt that my grandmother’s cousin (my first cousin, twice removed) was a songwriter in California. And that I’m named for him, by way of my dad. (Fucked up spelling and all.) Here’s one of his tunes that Bing Crosby recorded.

And here’s another that could be fun to work up as a rocker.

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Long in the Tooth

I have zero desire to watch the same film over. The nostalgiafication of Star Wars was nauseating.

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What Are They Dancing To?

Here’s a Scopitone of Brook Benton lip-syncing Mother Nature, Father Time while bikini girls apparently dance to something else.

If you’re unfamiliar with Scopitones, they were music video jukeboxes typically placed in lounges and similar adult-oriented locations.  It seems that most Scopitones, like the later music-video format, were more about the girls than the songs. (I remember child-oriented ones, but their format and machines had a different name).  The videos often had the hubba-hubba vibe of 50’s-60’s softcore men’s magazines (like here and here).  Although Procol Harum did one, most rock acts snubbed Scopitones. I imagine they’d started looking dated, like something their dads watched for cheap thrills, down there with carnival peep-shows.  One novelty was a live Billy Lee Riley one, unusual in that it’s not lip-synced.

For you film nerds: I can’t verify this, but I know I read somewhere that French (who invented them) Scopitones used Pathecolor, a very early film tinting process that used stenciling.  Wikipedia claims that the last use of Pathecolor was the 1954 Mexican surrealist classic, Robinson Crusoe, but it’s often stated that it was used in that august cinematic masterpiece, Dr. Goldfoot & The Bikini Machine.