Songs Of The Week- 1/5/15

A few notes:

• This is a mix of songs that I listened to throughout the week.  Could've been on break at work, while eating breakfast, or while working out.  They're kind of a record for me of the week that was.

• I heard "Use Me" on the radio on a station with a new format and didn't know anything by Bill Withers other than "Lean On Me" and "Ain't No Sunshine".  I couldn't get the hook out of my head all week.

• "The Eye" is the first single off Brandi Carlile's upcoming album The Firewatcher's Daughter.  I'm really looking forward to that in March and hope she comes to Milwaukee this year.

• "Amsterdam Moon" is from the Mavericks' excellent album In Time, which Sarah and I take on road trips because it's a fun listen and a good mix of styles.

• "Electric Feel" is great to listen to when I need a jolt of energy and reminds me of my brother, who introduced me to the song and requested it at our wedding.

A few other things from the past week:

I'd heard that Paul McCartney had written a song for a video game.  When I heard the title, I hoped it wasn't cheesy and overdone.  I hoped wrong.

Trampled By Turtles played New Years Eve in Milwaukee, so I thought I'd give their 2014 release Wild Animals a listen.  The pace is pretty sluggish, and while at first lead singer Dave Simonett's voice reminded me of David Gilmour, in the end I tired of hearing his voice, as it had the same weary tone throughout.

I was really pleasantly surprised by The New Basement Tapes' Lost On The River.  It's a set of songs with lyrics by Bob Dylan but performed by a group with Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford, Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Taylor Goldsmith and Rhiannon Giddens.  I liked pretty much everything except the Elvis Costello tracks.  It was especially good to hear Mumford in a different light, as Mumford and Sons has such a specific sound, and James has some great moments as well (like the just plain odd "Hidee Hidee Ho #11).  Giddens provides some stunning vocals on Spanish Mary (on this week's mix) and a couple other songs.

Best Songs- 2014

 

The Theory Of Everything

The Theory Of Everything was the second half of a double feature for me on Saturday night.  The film tells the story of physicist Stephen Hawking (played by Eddie Redmayne).  The action begins shortly before he meets his wife Jane (Felicity Jones) for the first time when they both were in college.  When Stephen was just 21, he was given the devastating diagnosis of  a motor-neuron disease (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease) and given two years to live. 

Hawking has lived well past that diagnosis, but its effects are debilitating, and the film shows he and Jane trying to raise a family despite Stephen's difficulties.  Jane develops feelings for Stephen's caretaker, so the complications in the story were more than just physical. 

I enjoyed The Theory of Everything, especially the performances by Redmayne and Jones. There were scenes that stuck with me, like when Hawking learns of his diagnosis from  a doctor who lacks  warmth and dumps all the repercussions of his disease out all at once in a hallway.  It's a wonder that Hawking ever gets up again, but Redmayne's portrayal of Hawking's persistence and Jones's firm-jawed performance as Jane Hawking really made the film for me.  I think both could be up for some awards in the months ahead.

Birdman

Riggan Thomsen (played by Michael Keaton) was a big deal.  Past tense.  He played a superhero twenty years ago, but now he's the kind of guy TMZ would catch at an airport to get a meaningless sound bite.  As the film begins he's in his dressing room, and he's got problems. Someone delivered a poster of one of the Birdman movies, and it's taunting him as he tries to mount a Broadway production of a Raymond Carver play that he's starring in and directing.  He needed a miracle when it came to a lead man, and although a solution arrived in the form of Michael Shiner (Edward Norton), that solution is a head case.  Throw in the fact that his daughter Sam (Emma Stone) despises him, and he's got more than enough on his plate.


I was eager to see Birdman.  Other than the part about Michael Keaton playing an actor who was a superhero, I didn't really know what to expect.   Birdman, it turns out, is unlike anything I've seen in a while.  There's steady percussion and drumming in the background.  The camerawork is in-your-face (or rather, in the actors' faces).  The plot adds complication to complication, making the viewer feel almost as overwhelmed as Riggan.  I found myself not on the edge of my seat, but leaning back as events unfolded.

I think Birdman is one of the best films I've seen in a long time, simply because it didn't let up and didn't let me catch my breath. It efficiently and effectively tackles themes of self-worth versus worth in others' eyes, throws in some supernatural elements and a lot of unexpected twists.  I highly recommend seeing Birdman while it's still in theaters, as it's definitely a vivid sensory experience.

Chef

 

In Chef, Jon Favreau plays chef Carl Casper.  Carl's happiest when he cooks, and life's pretty good at his restaurant.  Pretty good, that is, until he receives a humiliating review from food blogger Ramsey Michel (Oliver Platt), and the ensuing Twitter fight leads him to try to change his menu to show Ramsey that he hasn't lost his creativity.  The changes don't sit well with the restaurant's owner Riva (Dustin Hoffman), who wants him to "play the hits".  Carl storms out, then storms back in to confront Riva.  Carl's tirade goes viral, and he lays low for a while before finding a new opportunity to be creative and bond with his son.

Chef certainly made me hungry, as there is a heavy focus on food preparation and enjoyment throughout the film.  Unfortunately, Chef also made me restless and a little bored.  After the conflict early on, there's not a lot of drama.  Casper starts a food truck, and too much of the film after that is travelling to the next location, shopping for food, and Casper's son Percy tweeting.

What left the sourest taste in my mouth was Carl storming back into his restaurant to berate Ramsey  To be sure, Ramsey's review got personal (saying that Carl's weight gain probably came from eating the food sent back to the kitchen).  But Carl starts almost whining that the bad review really hurts and wasn't fair to his hard-working staff.  This seemed ridiculous to me, as surely Carl would have had a bad review before and not lost his mind (and job) because a food critic simply did his job. 

 

Life's A Ride

    
     A new roller coaster recently opened at Six Flags Great America.  It's called the Goliath (shown above), and it features a first drop that's nearly straight down, as well as some inversions, one of which apparently makes riders feel weightless.  It's opening with a lot of fanfare, as it's the newest and scariest thing in the roller coaster wars.  I'll have to settle for watching the online videos for now, as the line probably stretches on for hours, but I did have my own Goliath when I was a kid.



      Water had frequently given me trouble as a little guy, going back to when I was really tiny and thought that I was going to follow the water down the drain in the bathtub.  My first solo swimming lesson was a terrifying experience.  As I made my way out of the locker room at Pulaski High School, I saw the water in the shallow end and immediately thought that I would drown if I jumped in. 

     I'd eventually get over the swimming lesson anxiety (a few years later, I was one of only two in my class to pass the higher level "Swimmer" class).  As a little kid, though, I did have a summer nemesis.  It was a metal water slide perched menacingly in the shallow end of the McCarty Park pool.  It taunted me when I came out of the locker room, and I thought maybe my parents would forget about it and I could just have fun in the water.  No such luck, though.  Each time, I had to go down the slide.


   I would muster up some courage and look up at the slide.  It seemed to stretch into the sky.  I'd put one foot on the bottom step, and then climb up, knees wobbling slightly, one foot at a time.  I must have looked ridiculous, but I didn't care.  The steps were treacherous to me, as they were slippery and spaced far enough apart that I felt compelled to one-foot them instead of climbing. By the time I was near the top, my fear of heights kicked in and I'd cling to the sides before whooshing down into the water.  Success!  Time for an ice cream sandwich (which, for some reason tasted best next to the pool).

    I haven't totally lost the nerves around rides.  Two years ago, Sarah and I went to the Wilderness Resort in Wisconsin Dells.  It was February, so in addition to the wave pool and lazy river, we tried out all the indoor slides.  Indoor waterparks tend to build up and not out, so as to maximize space, so I'd get a little shot of nerves here and there climbing up the stairs.  For the most part, the slides were really fun, but storm clouds began to gather in the Klondike Kavern, where the Hurricane awaited.

    
The Hurricane was a regular slide, for the most part, but instead of a last drop to safety, it drops riders into a funnel, where they go up and down the sides until finally exiting the ride.  It was also accompanied in true theme-park style by fake weather reports and flashing lights.  The butterflies  were back, and I think they were a result of me flashing back to infanthood and my fear of circling the drain. Being in my early thirties, I wasn't going to let some nerves get in my way.  It was a water slide.  What was the worst that could happen?

     Oh, I don't know, me screaming "I HATE THIS THING" loud enough for the entire waterpark to hear as we were flying up the side of the funnel and thinking we'd fly off our slide and fall to serious injury or death.  It's just one of those in-the-moment things.  Same thing happened to my mom when I was a little kid and we were on a ride at a church festival.  I think she thought it was just going to be a gentle ride up in the sky, but after we shot up and over the grounds pretty quickly, she was screaming for the operator to stop the ride. The thrill, though, is the point of the ride, and conquering fears and anxieties is a thrill.  Not only did I survive The Hurricane, I wanted to go again.  
Similarly, twenty or so years ago, in one fearless and slightly drizzly half hour, I rode both Iron Wolf (a stand up roller coaster) and the scariest ride I'd ever seen, the Shock Wave (below), with its terrifying drop and seven loops.  I felt invincible (and also slightly queasy) after exiting the Shock Wave, another victory under my belt, and I'm sure if Goliath existed back then, I would have turned and pointed in its direction, ready to scream my bloody head off yet again.

Book Review- I Don't Care If We Never Get Back

Even the most hardcore of baseball fans probably wouldn’t want to see 30 games in 30 days, especially when cross-country car travel is required, but it was a dream for Ben Blatt.  Not so much for his friend Eric Brewster, who doesn’t even like the sport.  Eric went along to see the country, but winds up seeing mostly ballparks and interstate highways.  

I Don’t Care If We Never Get Back is the chronicle of the daunting trip.  It’s not really geared towards baseball fans, or packed with information about the different ballparks.  It’s more about the journey of two friends and a tale of logistics.  Ben is a statistics freak, and he designed an algorithm to identify the most efficient route to accomplish the 30-in-30 feat.  There is much attention paid to how much driving the two would need to do to make it to the different ballparks, and how Ben went from a baseball fan during the trip to rooting for short games so the travel would be easier.

It’s a fast read, but ultimately kind of repetitive, as the friends strive to make it to each ballpark on time (Ben doesn’t consider it a complete game unless they’re there from first pitch to last).  There are some notable moments, though.  Ben gets to meet his idol (not a player, but Cubs President Theo Epstein, in a meeting that doesn’t go as planned), family is visited, and complications arise throughout the trip.

 

One of the great things about watching baseball (for baseball fans, at least) is that memorable or odd things can happen at any game.  The odds may be small, but in any game, a pitcher can throw a no-hitter, a player could hit four home runs, or the game could end dramatically on a hit or home run in the bottom of the ninth.  Here are just a few of my memorable moments:

 

·         September 9, 1988 was my first Brewer game, and Gary Sheffield hit his first home run in the major leagues, a game winner against Seattle.  Sheffield would go on to hit over 500 home runs.

·         I watched the Cleveland Indians and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim play a game at Miller Park.  There was a huge snowstorm hitting Ohio and Major League Baseball moved the Cleveland/LA series to Miller Park.  Tickets were heavily discounted, and we sat right along the first base line for $10.  This would be the first time I’d see CC Sabathia.

·         My dad and I were at one of Sabathia’s first home starts.  Sabathia was a huge acquisition for the Brewers,and he didn’t disappoint, throwing a complete game and hitting a home run.

I think everyone has a little Ben and Eric in them when going to a game.  Not every game is going to feature the spectacular plays, and some pitchers work very deliberately, so it’s very easy to get fidgety.  For a lot of people, it’s a three-hour opportunity to visit and chat, with the game taking a back seat to good conversation, brats and beer.