August 6, 2012

 

SPIKE LEE TOOK A PICTURE

  1. . . . Of the marquee board outside New York’s Longacre Theater on opening night (last Thursday) which showed the title of the one-man play he’s directing:  “Mike Tyson:  Undisputed Truth,” about the heavyweight champion boxer’s up and own controversial life, which reportedly shows a softer, gentler side of the man.
  2. . . . His childhood, his drug abuse, his boxing career . . . topics, said Tyson, “difficult to relive.”
  3. . . . So why do it?
  4. . . . “I bet he’s learned things about me and I’ve learned [things] about him . . . I just think it’s a great story,” said Lee.
  5. . . . Anyway, Lee took the picture with his camera phone, an iPhone, a BlackBerry or some other kind of mobile device.
  6. . . . INCONGRUENT.  He’s a big time director that uses professional motion picture cameras in Hollywood, what’s he using a cheap camera like that for?
  7. . . . He looked like a tourist.
  8. . . . While he was aiming up at the board some guy was taking a picture of Lee taking a picture.
  9. . . . WONDER.  If the title of the show has anything to do with the Motown group, Undisputed Truth, and their hit back in 1971 (Gordy Records) called “Smiling Faces Sometimes.”
  10. . . . “Smiling faces sometimes . . . pretend to be your friend.  Smiling faces show no traces of the evil that lurks within.”
  11. . . . Just asking.
  12. Congress is taking five weeks off.
  13. . . . What did they do to deserve that?
  14. Could someone ask Debbie Wasserman Schultz (chairman of the Democratic National Committee)  to slow down when she talks?
  15. . . . She was in the first guest segment on ABC’s This Week before Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee had his time in the catbird seat.
  16. . . . “George” -- as the network and its other anchors refer to him, like everybody in the country knows who he is – Stephenopoulos couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
  17. . . .  “George, Diane, Robin . . . all one-name phenoms, like Rihanna, Pitbull, and Madonna.
  18. . . . Speaking of Pitbull (Armando Cristian Perez) . . .
  19. . . . I might be late on this but . . .
  20. . . . He’s got a song out, “Back in Time,” that samples the very old (1956) Mickey and Sylvia hit, “Love Is Strange” (Groove Records).
  21. . . . It’s a hip-hop remix heard in the “Men in Black III” movie but it’s not on the soundtrack.  (The original song was also featured in the “Dirty Dancing” soundtrack (1987).
  22. . . . The remix sounds pretty good.
  23. . . . That familiar (to some of us that remember) guitar riff and their voices are in there.
  24. . . . “Baby, oh oh baby, oh oh baby, oh, oh baby, my sweet baby . . . you’re the one,” sings Sylvia.
  25. . . . A SIDE NOTE.  Sylvia  (Robinson) later went on to co-write The Moments’ “Love on a Two-Way Street” (1971, Stang Records), whose piano riff is prominently sampled in Jay-Z’s and Alicia Keys’s “Empire State of Mind.”
  26. . . . “New York . . . concrete jungle where dreams are made of .”
  27. . . . And speaking of hip-hop, some of the culture has infiltrated the Olympics.
  28. . . . Michael Phelps and others are using those expensive ($200-400), big, old-school-looking headphones -- not ear buds – called Beats, the most popular brand created and designed by rap star Dr. Dre and music producer and “American Idol” mentor, Jimmy Iovine. 
  29. . . . They’re known for recreating a powerful studio sound.  They put you in the zone.
  30. . . . The athletes wear them on their way to the venues.
  31. . . . Other swimmers and athletes – Ryan Lochte, Cullen Jones and competitors from Britain, Brazil, China, Germany and Russia wear them too.
  32. . . . There’s controversy about them because some include country colors and logos and the Olympic Committee does not want the competitors endorsing commercial products.
  33. . . . The manufacturers insist, according to New York Times reporters Andrew Das and Andrew Martin, that they did not pay for the perceived advertising.  The guys did it on their own.
  34. . . . MORE HIP-HOP FASHION.  And Ryan Lochte wore “grills,” metal jewelry for the teeth, that Lil Wayne and other rap, rock stars and devotees attach to their front choppers.  Ouch.
  35. . . . Lochte’s hardware had an American stars and stripes theme (red, white and blue) encrusted with diamonds.   He designed them.
  36. . . . “For those who don’t know what a “grill” is, it’s basically a retainer filled with diamonds,” he explained.
  37. . . .  “I wear it when I go to the podium..”
  38. . . . HOLD UP.  NOT QUITE.  He put them on after winning the 400m race but Olympic officials banned him for having them on while he was being presented with his award on the podium.
  39. . . . So there are before and after photos.
  40. . . . I guess they wanted a clean-cut image although Lochte’s did look uniform, not extreme and professional, if you ask me.  They weren’t all crunked up like some of the hardcore rappers.
  41. . . . The New York Daily News is reporting that TMZ is reporting that Ryan Lochte’s parents are facing the potential loss of their house because of an unpaid mortgage.
  42. . . . CitiMortgage – how much money does that bank have? – is suing in order to foreclose on the house.
  43. . . . Sonny boy better get those endorsements coming in.  He won 11 medals.  That’s worth something, isn’t it?
  44. . . . They’re calling McDonald’s the official “restaurant,” a loosely used term, of the 2012 Olympics.
  45. . . . Is the main entrée a Chicken McNuggets mini-meal?
  46. . . . What, do they all sit around the McDining room table in the Olympic Village and wash ‘em down with a nice pinot noir?
  47. . . . Washington’s Metro is now tacking on an extra $1 surcharge for riders when they buy a paper fare ticket in order to force them to use plastic SmarTrip cards.
  48. . . . It sounds like a penalty.
  49. . . . They want to “go green,” thereby saving money on paper.
  50. . . . “Environmentally impractical,” said Kristopher Nichols, a Columbia University student interning in the nation’s capital, who was quoted in a story about it.
  51. . . . Since when do we go around quoting interns on municipal policy in the nation’s capital?  Do they have any gravitas?
  52. . . . Did Monica Lewinsky?
  53. . . . The Washington Metro . . . they oughta fire every executive that works there from the top down.
  54. ABC’s got a new fall show titled “666 Park Avenue,” a supernatural drama.
  55. . . . You know that “6” thing is the sign of the devil, so beware.
  56. . . . Nancy O’Dell of Entertainment Tonight called the show “Six, Six, Six Park Avenue” and so did one of its stars, Vanessa Williams, who was hawking it on  “Live! with Kelly” and said the same thing.
  57.  . . . But to a cabby or any native New Yorker the address would be “pronounced” “six sixty-six.”
  58. . . . But maybe saying “six sixty-six” is too contemporary-sounding for satan.
  59. Chris Matthews disparaged the equestrian sport of “dressage” at the Olympics on his MSNBC cable show last week.
  60.  . . . Ann Romney had  a horse competing and was in London with friends and co-owners to watch it.
  61. . . . On “Hardball,” Matthews mocked the sport and the fact that George Romney’s wife was involved in a competition usually reserved for “royalty.”
  62. . . . Did he say that just because she’s a Republican?  Give her a break and tell him to stop blabbing about inconsequential things.
  63. . . . Another example of the networks’ slanted point-of-view (P.O.V.) “journalism
  64. . . . Think they oughta put a muzzle on him?
  65. Ryan Seacrest seems to be out-dressing Matt Lauer on the Today show.
  66. . . . More hip:  dark suit, a dark, opened shirt with a complimentary, maroonish pocket square.
  67. . . . Good shoes and not sockless as Matt is wont to do.
  68. . . . Ties seem to be out for all the menfolk.  The look is more sporty for the Olympics.
  69. . . . No sunglasses for Seacrest but Lauer seems to have a pair for every corner of the earth he visits.
  70. . . . I noticed Seacrest’s styling while he was sampling British cheese sandwiches with Italian-American chef, Giada de Laurentis, who never stops smiling.
  71. . . . That show really sticks to the news, doesn’t it?
  72. FRIGHTFUL.  There’s talk about the next generation of the Kardashian sisters (Kendall and Kylie Jenner) getting their own reality show “to carry on the family business.”
  73. . . . K and K are pitching the spin-off to the E! channel.
  74. . . . When do these girls have time to do this and keep up with their studies?  They’re both in high school, for crissakes.
  75. . . . Keep ‘em there.
  76. . . . Put ‘em in detention.
  77. MINE ALL MINE.  “Much more on “MY” interview with Mitt Romney coming up,” “teased” CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer of the candidate who was to appear on/(in?) The Situation Room.
  78. . . . Why not say “our” interview?  Whatever happened to “us”?
  79. . . . TV is a collaborative effort; no one person is responsible for what gets on the air.  Stop hogging it.
  80. . . . The interview belongs to the network – not individual anchors and reporters.
  81. . . . “Me” journalism again.  Modesty went out the window. 
  82. . . . Stop hogging everything.
  83. They’re showing a preview for the new Superman movie, “Man of Steel,” during “The Amazing Spider-Man.”
  84. . . . I guess it’s a “reboot.”  All these movies are the same thing made over again.
  85. . . . Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe, who are in the movie, seriously narrate – not together – the trailers.
  86. . . . At the end of it you see Superman shooting up through the clouds like a rocket with all that velocity thrust trailing beneath him, and causing a sonic boom.
  87. . . . Looks good to me.  I’m a sucker for Superman movies.
  88. That NASA mission control crew – all in blue shirts like Best Buy -- were jumping up and down, hooting and hollering like Olympians when they learned the Curiosity rover successfully landed on Mars after that “seven minutes of terror,” when communication was blocked.
  89. . . . They’re searching for life up there on the Red Planet.
  90. . . . What if they find it?
  91. . . . UH . . . “What is Life” – George Harrison, on Apple Records, 1971.


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