Sunday, June 18, 2006

***###NEWSFLASH!!!###***TRIAGE GIGS for June+July+Beyond***###

The above link takes you to the Triage website, designed by our Margie, & it's worth a click or two; but I think I am scooping her with this breaking info about our latest confirmed dates to triage folks via our soulful brand (if I do say so) of folk-n-rock.

We played a very fun & well-received (if I may say so) gig in Long Beach last Saturday at DARWELL'S, a terrific restaurant in old downtown, a couple of blocks up from the beach. (Lovely Long Beach, Mississippi, was the birthplace & hometown of my late father, Tommy Meek, just a short 50 miles or so from my present home in Jackson County, at the eastern edge of Mississippi's re-arising Gulf Coast.)

Darwell's friendly Front-of-the-House man, Papa D., not only expertly aided us in fine-tuning our soundcheck when we arrived; at night's end he invited us to come back for a standing gig every other Saturday night, to play from 7:00 to 9:45 or so (vis LBCity regs for noise!). We said YES, natch; so we'll see you there if you drive on down for some good good food food (NOTE: Alcohol not served--BRING YOUR OWN BOTTLES if you like) at Darwell's palace--or, er, place--I'm sorry, I lost my concentration remembering the award-winning & mouth-watering shrimp creole prepared by the chef of the house, Papa D.'s own son, Dale. The smoke-barbecued pork tenderloin chopped up in guitar-god Kelly's sandwich was equally delicious. [I'll supply last names & Darwell's exact location & phone number next draft; I believe they are on East 1st Street.]

However, this next week only, we are not playing there Saturday, but Friday night the 23rd, & we can't wait. We might even start before 7:00--by the time we're all set up & tuned, Robert & Kelly are ready to "do it to it". The very next night, Saturday the 24th, we will be at Coffee Fusion Bubble Tea in Ocean Springs, on Bienville Blvd. (aka Hwy 90), a lively, 'Net-wired spot we always enjoy visiting. After that, we return biweekly to Darwell's, beginning Saturday, July 8th, & we'd love to see YOU at both venues. Thanks for reading.

Saturday, June 10, 2006

on MSNBC.com - Entertainment Weekly's List of 25 Most Controversial films - #1: Gibson's "Passion of the Christ"

The link above should go to the MSNBC.com story on EW's new list of 25 most controversial films (MSNBC's is the only online story I've found yet, & lists only about half the flicks.-?- It was not on EW's current display yet-?!- I did find mention of the top 10 from this list on a Detroit News weblog page.) Anyway, I don't know anything about the selection processes used to make this list, yet, but it seems to me a pretty good set of choices. (The full list appears in the June 16, 2006 issue of Entertainment Weekly.)


  • 1. Passion of the Christ (2004) dir. Mel Gibson
  • 2. A Clockwork Orange (1971) dir. Stanley Kubrick
  • 3. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) dir. Michael Moore
  • 4. Deep Throat (1972) dir. Gerard Damiano
  • 5. JFK (1991) dir. Oliver Stone
  • 6. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) dir. Martin Scorsese
  • 7. Birth of a Nation (1915) dir. D. W. Griffith
  • 8. Natural Born Killers (1994) dir. Oliver Stone
  • 9. Last Tango in Paris (1973) dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
  • 10. Baby Doll (1956) dir. Elia Kazan
  • 13. DaVinci Code (2006) dir. Ron Howard
  • 16. United 93 (2006) dir. Paul Greengrass

Also in top 25 , in unknown order(giving us 16 of 25 for now):

  • The Deer Hunter (1978) dir. Michael Cimino
  • Basic Instinct (1992) dir. Paul Verhoeven
  • Do the Right Thing (1989) dir. Spike Lee
  • Kids (1995) dir. Larry Clark

As I said, a pretty good list. In fact, the first two would have been my first choices, as well. I believe Bertolucci's (& Brando's) Last Tango in Paris, which was still quite a hot topic when I first saw it, in a commercial theater in 1977 in Jackson, Mississippi, must go up there near them; evidently, the same is true for Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo' (1975)--of which I have read & been told by friends, but have seen only scenes. I would immediately also think of Natural Born Killers, Apocalypse Now (1979, Francis Ford Coppolla), & The Deer Hunter. Also tough to watch were Sam Peckinpah's extreme Straw Dogs (1971) & David Cronenberg's crazy Crash (1996). I suppose Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979, Terry Jones), Birth of a Nation, Da Vinci Code, & Basic Instinct are controversial to somebody. But in 1932 Tod Browning's Freaks was fairly freaky, as it remains today. & any number of offerings by John Waters (especially early on, with Divine &co.) have been definitely freaky over many years.

Two final notes to Never Forget on this subject of controversial movies:

  • The truly original--& hugely originary--power of the great King Kong of 1932, by Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack, more mysterious & amazing than ever, after 74 years!, superior to what any outright remake, by the definition of remake, could ever intend to be, or actually be. I mean, how would it be possible to conjure in today's film audiences the same frisson, the same stunned delight, that Kong's first fans must have experienced in their local movie houses, staring up at the screens in amazement at the noisy spectacle unreeling overhead, still unaccustomed as they were to talking pictures, & all blissfully unaware of the astonishing cinematographic developments that lay in store for audiences 70 years thence?
  • The unprecedented effect of terror on a segment of the population caused in 1938 by a radio broadcast: Orson Welles' Mercury Theater production of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds. The unforeseen panic was provoked by the broadcast's detailed verisimilitude, its seeming credibility as an urgent, realistic news program, clearly creating, as an entertainment event, a superior structure of suspense, & drawing greater controversy & audience response, than either filmed version.