The Pop Culture Addict’s Blog

Is it wrong that I only really know 3 of Joan Armatrading’s songs and actually would’ve been content with a concert comprising of her performing each of them once with the exception of Love and Affection which I could’ve heard a few times in a row? The other two songs I know and like are The Weakness in Me and of course Me Myself I.

But Love and Affection is worth the accolades, sales and popularity it generated for Joan Armatrading. It is just one of those songs that captures emotion in this way that everyone can grasp. The way it flows musically and lyrically is pure genius.

I can say that I’m a little young for Joan Armatrading. But I think her popularity in America was a little delayed. The album my friends and I probably know her from is a collection called Track Record released in 1989.

Joan was very charming and appreciative of the warm reception from the audience particularly after she performed Love and Affection. She had a mike stand with a drink holder which struck me as amusing in that anti-rock and roll way. I mean, it was really useful for her to have a place for her beverage within easy reach as she alternated between rocking out and crooning. Very pragmatic. I guess genre-wise she is a singer-songwriter with an electric guitar.

Anyway, it was fun. It was sort of last minute. A fellow PCA set it up and she is always interested in what I’m listening to because she listens to Claudia Marshall and Julianne Welby’s show on WFUV (City Folk® Morning) and they play a nice blend of music on their show. The first time I mentioned Sondre Lerche to her, she said, oh yeah, I’ve heard him on WFUV which is definitely true because I know Sondre has been interviewed a few times at the station. She even thought she had heard Tammany Hall NYC on WFUV which is possible as the station is NYC-based (it’s the Fordham station). But I admit I searched the playlists at ‘FUV and didn’t see TH anywhere.

I also found it striking that The Weakness in Me is such a favored song considering the theme of betrayal. It made me think of how Liz Phair’s single Why Can’t I became the song used in every romantic movie that year because she wrote: “Why can’t I breathe whenever I think about you? Why can’t I speak whenever I talk about you?” I guess people can relate to it all including what leads to breakups and betrayal, i.e., “Got a girlfriend, you say it isn’t right. And I’ve got someone waiting too.”

So let me wrap up this Joan review. She was promoting her most recent album which as far as I can tell was released in 2003 and it was pleasant enough. The Apollo is a cozy venue. The first thing people say when they see the inside is, “It’s so much smaller than I expected! It looks bigger on tv.” That’s why it struggles to make money/break even despite having landmark status – because the house doesn’t seat enough for big headliners and smaller acts can’t fill the seats. But Joan was pleased to be there and she sang her heart out for us.

Aside: The opener was this dude I saw open for Jason Mraz. His name is Raul Midon. He is talented for sure. His music is pleasant but not earth-shattering. He has a lot of technical finesse but his song-writing is still emerging. Still, the crowd seemed impressed.

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Solitude is different from loneliness, and it doesn’t have to be a lonely kind of thing. – Fred Rogers (1928-2003)

The first time I saw Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise it blew my mind. At the time, I thought it was the coolest movie I’d ever seen aside from This is Spinal Tap and Stop Making Sense. I couldn’t believe this guy existed who made this movie. So of course I loved Down By Law when it came out though not as much as Stranger Than Paradise.

It turns out that Wim Wender gave Jim Jarmusch the black and white film that later became Stranger Than Paradise. I also like how Pauline Kael called Stranger Than Paradise “punk picaresque.”

Anyway, I must admit I only liked parts of Coffee and Cigarettes (most just not all). But I loved the Bill Murray segment with RZA and GZA. It is clear that Jim Jarmusch and Bill Murray have a thing. They understand each other. Bill Murray said, “It was like meeting a cousin I didn’t know I had.”

A fellow PCA knew I’d missed reading Jim Jarmusch’s interview in the New York Times Magazine by Lynn Hirschberg (7/31/05) and was cool enough to show it to me. Let me tell you, I was so into this interview. I liked everything Jim Jarmusch said and how his friends and fans described him and his work. In fact, I felt like telling you some of the cooler things said. I think my favorite thing is how Jim Jarmusch described his movies as “made by hand.” I think that is a perfect description. Here’s the full quote:

“My movies are kind of made by hand. They’re not polished – they’re sort of built in the garage. It’s more like being an artisan in some way.” – Jim Jarmusch

Another good way to look at his work is to imagine how his hair turned white as a teenager thus making him feel like “an immigrant in the teenage world” as his good friend Tom Waits explained.

“The key, I think, to Jim, is that he went gray when he was 15. As a result, he always felt like an immigrant in the teenage world. He’s been an immigrant – a benign, fascinated foreigner – ever since. All his films are about that.” – Tom Waits

I feel akin to Jim Jarmusch in his self-description as “a dilettante in a positive way.”

More than anything, Jarmusch is a sort of focused amateur enthusiast.
“I consider myself a dilettante in a positive way, and I always have, [Jarmusch] said. “That affects my sense of filmmaking.”
His passions, which reflect his resolute disinterest in the conventional, include the study of mushrooms…birdwatching…the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays…the history of cinema…and most of all, music.

I can totally get with that feeling that there are just a million and one things in this world that I want to know more about. And while I may never become a full-on expert in any of my interests, I’ll have a good time in my Frank Sinatra way.

So, Jim Jarmusch was director Nicholas “Rebel Without a Cause” Ray’s teaching assistant at NYU. Jim Jarmusch said,

“Ray said, ‘If you want to make a film, you can make a film.’ And that sense of possibility made all the difference. It also mirrored the feeling in New York then. Technical expertise was not as crucial as spirit: the punk scene was about expression over virtuosity. It was more important to be open to all influences.” – Jim Jarmusch

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Broken Flowers

So I what set me off on this Jim Jarmusch reverie was the release of his latest movie Broken Flowers. I’ve been wanting to see it desperately ever since I heard it was coming out. So opening night, I was there in a huge theater no less. It was totally packed. Amazing considering the small crowd at Dead Man which I liked. I wasn’t that into those mixed ones…um…Mystery Train and Night on Earth – I liked parts just not every second of them like the others. And for the record, I never saw Year of the Horse. Eh. Not so appealing to me. However, Broken Flowers was as good as I expected. I’m looking forward to seeing it again.

I couldn’t decide which part to quote here so I just went with the whole thing because it all reminds me of Broken Flowers:

Live Everything by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

I want to beg you, as much as I can,
to be patient toward all that is unresolved
in your heart and to try to love the questions
themselves like locked rooms and like books
that are written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not seek the answers, which cannot
be given you because you would not be able
to live them.

And the point is to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then gradually,
without noticing it, live along
some distant day into the answer.

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And I just had to say that ultimate consumer that I am, I am totally digging Pepperidge Farm’s Mini Milanos. What an adorable idea. Am I sucker or what? But they really are a good idea. And apparently, they also make Mini Mint Milanos. I’m so there.

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“I hate music. Sometimes I don’t. I hate music. It’s got too many notes.” – Replacements.

So I saw Last Days and Hustle & Flow. I thought I’d write about them. First off, I liked both of them. I didn’t think they were the best movies I’ve ever seen. But I definitely liked them. I think it was because of their lack of cliches, their originality and their overall draw. Let me break it down.

Last Days
Just to fill you in if you don’t know what I’m talking about, this is Gus Van Sant’s fictional account of Kurt Cobain’s last days. That’s not really accurate. Michael Pitt plays “Blake,” the stand-in for Kurt Cobain in this story. And there’s a disclaimer that states the movie is inspired by the life of Kurt Cobain but it does not intend to depict real people or real events. Blake is a rocker living somewhere in the Northwest in a house with the rest of his band and/or hanger on’ers. Blake is depressed and anguished. It seems he might be fresh out of rehab or a recent escapee (watch the beginning and see why I’m saying this) or just plain in need of it.

I liked it. It was shot and directed very much along the lines of Elephant and Gerry. I bet you saw or at least thought about seeing Elephant – Gus Van Sant’s depiction of the Columbine shootings – but did you see Gerry? That is another movie inspired by true events. Two friends went hiking and got lost and GVS took it from there (I’m leaving out the ending so as not to spoil it). Most of Gerry takes place in the desert and get this, both friends are named “Gerry.” They are played by Casey Affleck and Matt Damon. I wasn’t sure about this one while I was watching it (and my friend sitting beside me was complaining about it the entire time though she managed to stick it out till the end and proclaimed she hated it with a passion) but by the time it ended, I realized I liked it a lot. I also liked Elephant. I disagree with everyone who says one interesting aspect of Elephant is that GVS made no attempt to explain Columbine. I thought he made a clear attempt to offer theories. And in case you haven’t seen it yet, be forewarned, Elephant is upsetting, unsettling and sad.

So keeping that in mind, let me move on to Last Days. It was hard to watch it without remembering that time…more than a decade ago. I guess Nirvana is experiencing a resurgence. The kids keep listening. Anyway, here’s a link to an interesting account of Gus Van Sant’s one and only meeting with Kurt Cobain. It was in 1991 and it gives the impression that Kurt and Courtney had a Bobby and Whitney type bond. I don’t know, they sounded like they had something real between them. And Kurt sounds like he was introspective and uncomfortable in his own skin. What a loss of talent. So sad. Kim Gordan and Thurston Moore (of Sonic Youth) were friends with Kurt Cobain. Kim appears as more or less herself and Thurston was a “music consultant” on the movie.

Clearly GVS is a visual director. He has a vision and he responds to “beauty” in faces, bodies and places and wants to share that with the film-goers. Often people and places seem captured in a pose or snapshot. Also, GVS has a distinct aural experience he wants the viewers to absorb. In Last Days, the soundscape is primarily of ambient noise. It’s what we’d hear if we happened to be walking by at the time. If Blake is muttering or singing to himself, we can’t distinguish what he’s saying or singing. Another thing I wanted to mention was that Robert Christgau said he thought the film did not convey Kurt Cobain’s understanding of the mainstream and his agility and ability with pop culture and knowing how to be relevant. I was thinking that since the film takes place during the “last days,” it is when the main character has decompensated so much that he isn’t really himself at the point we meet him. He’s dulled, confused and very lost. I wanted to say that I bet GVS would’ve liked River Phoenix to have played the role of Blake. Unfortunately, River Phoenix passed away some months before Kurt Cobain. Anyway, Michael Pitt does justice to his role and I thought the two songs he wrote and performed for the movie were very fitting.

Hustle & Flow

When I first heard about Hustle & Flow, I was excited to see it. I read about how Terrence Howard won the audience award for best actor at Sundance. And the critics seemed to love this movie. Then I started worrying that it was one of those movies where the acting would be better than the movie. I predicted that Terrence Howard probably did an admirable job with mediocre/unimpressive material. But I was still curious to see it. So, to paraphrase Al Gore on his recent Leno appearance, the movie benefitted from low expectations.

I was most impressed with how consistent the acting and story were. When I began hearing things about how the desperation of the characters shone through, I got worried it would be a dismally depressing story. But it wasn’t. It was engaging and uplifting. I’m glad I saw it.

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The Aristocrats

So I was hoping to have seen The Aristocrats by now so I could add it to my reviews here but alas, I haven’t had time. I heard that the actual joke isn’t that funny but hearing comedians talk about their craft around this joke is highly entertaining – as long as you don’t get easily offended. It is certainly not for children.

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Bling in 2005


I promised to write about Minya’s book once it came out. So I wanted to say I have my advance copy and it looks great. Minya, a.k.a. Miss Info, is a stellar writer. Her writing is funny and entertaining. And she has an easy way with her interview subjects.

I’ll write once more after I’ve read through it properly but wanted to remind you that it’s due out soon!

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Domestic bliss?

I had to share this lil treasure with you:

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