"Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune"

I saw Kenneth Bowser's powerful documentary "Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune," a couple of weeks ago at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival. It's an amazing film, and I would recommend it to anyone who's interested in Ochs or the folk scene of the 1960's. It presents a portrait of a talented and gifted man who sadly died way too young.

Bowser was able to interview just about anyone still living who had a significant connection to Phil Ochs. (Not surprisingly, he wasn't able to interview Bob Dylan.) Ochs started out as a folk/protest singer, writing his own material about the various troubles of the day, very much like Dylan. Eventually, inspired by Dylan and the Beatles, Ochs started writing more personal material, although he still wrote the occasional straightforward protest song. Ochs had little commercial success during his lifetime, and remained more of a cult figure. Apparently, Ochs always thought that he was just about to break out commercially, and he proudly predicted that his 1967 album "Pleasures of the Harbor" would go to number one. It's highest chart position was 168. Dogged by poor reviews at the time, it's now considered Ochs's masterpiece. Ochs's material was very uncompromising, and it's hard to imagine that he didn't see why he wasn't more successful. Maybe his enthusiasm was just his way of covering up his insecurities. Phil Ochs did not write simple love songs that would have been surefire hit singles. The closest Ochs came to having a hit single was his song, "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends," from the "Pleasures of the Harbor" album. It's a great, funny, witty song, given a jaunty arrangement courtesy of Lincoln Mayorga's piano playing. But here's the first verse of the song:

Oh, look outside the window
There's a woman bein' grabbed
They've dragged her to the bushes
And now she's bein' stabbed
Maybe we should call the cops
And try to stop the pain
But Monopoly is so much fun
I'd hate to blow the game
And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends

It's a brilliant satire of apathy, specifically referencing the then-current case of Kitty Genovese, who was stabbed and killed in New York City. Neighbors who overheard the attack did nothing because they "didn't want to get involved." It's a great song, but when the first verse of your song features a stabbing, it's probably not going to get a lot of Top 40 airplay. It's a great example of how Ochs created powerful songs that were totally uncommercial. People don't always want to be reminded of bad things when they listen to music, sometimes they just want to escape. But Ochs was not about to compromise his vision of his music.

As the 1960's came to an end, Ochs had lost his optimism about America. The war in Vietnam was still raging on, MLK and RFK were dead, Nixon had won the 1968 election, and Chicago police had savagely beaten protesters at the 1968 Democratic convention. Ochs started drinking more and more heavily, and he started to exhibit signs of bipolar disorder. And for whatever reason, he became unable to write new material. Even trips abroad did not spark his creativity. After his 1970 album, facetiously titled "Greatest Hits," another bit of irony that seemed to go over people's heads, Ochs released just 5 more songs during his lifetime. I wonder if Ochs might have had an easier time today, at a time when people get irony. I sensed from the movie, and from reading parts of biographies of Ochs, that sometime his audience didn't understand him. Few people seemed to understand at the time that Ochs dressing up in a gold suit like Elvis to promote his "Greatest Hits" album was at least a little bit ironic. Or maybe a lot ironic. They just booed him because he was performing 1950's rock songs and not the protest folk they wanted to hear. They were angry at him for confounding their expectations. Nowadays it would at least be easier for Phil to explain exactly what he was trying to do, and the meaning behind it.

The film features all kinds of amazing film footage of Ochs, which is reason enough to go see it. I got more of a sense of who this remarkable man was. There's even some heartbreakingly sad footage of Ochs in his final manic state, when he insisted that everyone call him "John Butler Train." Unlike Ochs, Train was mean and belligerent, and ruined some of Ochs's friendships. When Train left in early 1976, never to reappear, he left behind a shattered Phil Ochs, who thought that he could never repair the relationships he had broken. What Ochs didn't know, or didn't allow himself to acknowledge, was that people would have forgiven him, life could have gone on. There were still people hungry for his music, who would wonder, what would Phil Ochs have written about this? Phil Ochs chose to end his own life on April 9, 1976, at the age of 35. Phil may be gone, but his music lives on, and it's still touching people's lives today. I was born 5 years after Phil died, but his music and his spirit means so much to me. He's truly one of my heroes, and I wish he were still alive today.

Michael Feinstein at Orchestra Hall

The singer/piano player and Great American Songbook archivist Michael Feinstein was at Orchestra Hall last month for two concerts that focused on his 2008 album, "The Sinatra Project." It was a fantastic concert, Michael's voice is as good as it has ever been, and I think this is one of his strongest albums. I've been a fan of Michael Feinstein's music for a long time, ever since I was about 9 or 10 years old, and he and Harry Connick were really my entry points into the Great American Songbook. (My appreciation for Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Bobby Darin would come in my teens.)

For those of you who need a little intro to Michael Feinstein, he worked as Ira Gershwin's archivist at the end of Ira's life, and then he started playing piano in clubs, which eventually led to a record deal. He's been making records since the mid-80's, at the pace of about one a year, most of which focus on songs from the Great American Songbook. Feinstein is dedicated to preserving the legacy of these songs, and he does deep research into them, often performing forgotten verses or special lyrics that were written for a radio show but never before recorded. He's as much an archivist and historian as a performer. It's clear from every song he sings that he really cares about these songs and loves them. But it doesn't mean that he treats them as musty museum pieces. On the contrary, he sees how these songs can still be vital in the 21st century. His PBS program, "Michael Feinstein's American Songbook," which aired last fall, gives viewers a closer look at what Feinstein does. From going to antique sales to cleaning out storage spaces of a composer who has passed away, Feinstein is always on the lookout for rare material. He's a terrific singer, with a pure tone, and you can always hear the happiness in his voice. His piano playing is also extraordinary, although he doesn't often feature his own playing on his records.

The "Sinatra Project" album is very good, in part because Feinstein isn't trying to imitate Frank, and most of the songs he sings on the album are not indelibly associated with Sinatra. He even sings one song that Sinatra never recorded, "The Same Hello, the Same Goodbye." (It was written by Alan and Marilyn Bergman for Sinatra, but he never recorded it, despite liking the song.) One of my favorite songs from the album is Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine." Sinatra only recorded "Beguine" in the 1940's, but Feinstein re-imagines it as arranged by Nelson Riddle, in the style of Sinatra's 1956 recording of "I've Got You Under My Skin." (Both songs use what Riddle called "the heartbeat rhythm," also a feature of Sinatra's recording of "Night and Day.") Feinstein swings hard on Porter's "It's All Right With Me," and it's nice to hear him sound a little more jazzy than he usually does.

In concert Feinstein added more songs associated with Sinatra, which makes me hope for a Volume 2 of the Sinatra Project. He led off with a medley of "Luck Be a Lady/All I Need Is the Girl," mixing one of Frank's most well-known swingers with an underrated gem. (Check out Frank's 1967 recording of "All I Need is the Girl," with Duke Ellington, it's amazing!) Feinstein is equally at home singing ballads or up-tempo songs. For most of the concert he just sang, but he would occasionally sing a song solo at the piano, which was wonderful to hear. You could have heard a pin drop when he sang a solo of "Time After Time." Beautiful. Feinstein has amazing control over his voice, and he seems to be using his upper range more, as he ends a lot of songs on a high falsetto, which is very affecting. Feinstein brings such a joyous energy to performing that you can't help but be charmed by him. (Although he didn't do any of his impersonations this time. In previous concerts he's veered into note-perfect mimicry of Liberace, Peter Lorre, and Jackie Mason.) Here are the songs that he sang, in mostly correct order:

Luck Be a Lady/All I Need is the Girl
I Thought About You
Exactly Like You
Time After Time
Brazil-instrumental
Fools Rush In
What Kind of Fool Am I?
Just One of Those Things
Once in a Lifetime
How Do You Keep the Music Playing?
Begin the Beguine
So In Love
All My Tomorrows/All the Way
I Remember You
For Once In My Life-which was apparently one of Frank's favorite songs, I had no idea!
Theme from New York, New York

All in all it was a wonderful concert, it's at least the fifth time I've seen Michael Feinstein in concert, and he never fails to put on a great show!

The Films of Warren Beatty: "The Only Game in Town," starring Warren Beatty and Elizabeth Taylor, directed by George Stevens (1970)

Warren Beatty became a full-fledged movie star after producing and starring in "Bonnie and Clyde" in 1967. The movie helped usher in the "New Hollywood" era of films, and it also made Warren Beatty a very rich man. Warner Brothers had such little faith in "Bonnie and Clyde," thinking that it would merely be a "B" movie, that they gave Beatty 40% of the profits. According to imdb.com, "Bonnie and Clyde" cost $2.5 million to make, and grossed about $50 million in the US alone. Good job, Warren. So, what movie did Beatty choose as his follow-up? Typically for Beatty, he waited and waited, and turned down a classic movie, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Beatty then accepted the offer to replace Frank Sinatra in director George Stevens' last movie, "The Only Game in Town," where he would co-star with Liz Taylor. Beatty was a huge admirer of Stevens's work, and basically said yes to the movie just so he could work with him. Stevens directed many great movies like "Gunga Din," "A Place in the Sun," with Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift, "Shane," and "Giant," with Liz, Rock Hudson, and James Dean. Unfortunately, "The Only Game in Town" is not one of his great movies. Ever polite, Beatty defended his decision, saying, "I always thought that it was probably one of the most sensible decisions I had made because I got the chance to work with George...ultimately it was more rewarding to me to have made a sort of an unsuccessful picture with him." Beatty soaked up everything from Stevens, who was a perfectionist with a tendency to over-shoot. (Just like Beatty would be as a director.) Beatty was amazed by Stevens's calm demeanor, and remarked that he never once heard Stevens raise his voice on the set. Beatty tried to handle himself the same way as a director.

"The Only Game in Town" is set in Las Vegas, but it was mostly filmed in Paris. Why, you might well ask. Well, because Richard Burton was a tax exile from England and could only spend a small number of days a year in the UK. So Burton's latest movie, "Staircase," though set in London, was being filmed in Paris. (In "Staircase" Burton and Rex Harrison play gay hairdressers. Really.) And Liz wanted to be in the same city as Richard. Therefore, extremely expensive facsimiles of Vegas casinos were built in Paris to accommodate Liz. Ah, show-biz!

"The Only Game in Town" was actually a play before it was a movie, running on Broadway for 16 performances in 1968. Frank D. Gilroy, the playwright, must have clicked his heels for joy when 20th Century Fox bought the film rights for $500,000 before the play even opened! It's basically a two-person character study, as the film focuses on chorus girl Fran meeting cocktail bar piano player Joe. Fran has been in Las Vegas for five years, and Joe is planning to leave for New York City as soon as he can save $5,000. Joe soon hits a lucky streak and wins $8,000 at the casinos. He tells Fran he wants to have one more nice night on the town before he leaves the next day. In an excruciating scene, we watch as Joe gambles away all $8,000. Which explains why he's been in Las Vegas for 5 years trying to save $5,000. Just as Joe is waiting for the perfect time to leave Vegas, which may never come, Fran is waiting for her lover, married and living in San Fransisco, to finally divorce his wife and marry her. In the meantime, Fran invites Joe to move in with her. No strings attached, free to leave whenever either one pleases. Eventually Fran's lover comes back with what seems to be the perfect news: he's gotten a divorce, and now they can get married. He's booked them tickets for a honeymoon starting that night. But after saying goodbye to Joe on the phone, Fran realizes that she is in love with Joe, and doesn't leave with her lover. (In a very un-Liz Taylor like moment, Fran even gives him back the ginormous ring he bought her!) So, what happens at the end? Well, I won't spoil that for you.

"The Only Game in Town" is actually a pretty good movie, it's certainly better than I thought it would be, and better than it's reputation would suggest. It was a flop when it was released in January 1970. The movie cost about $10 million to make, took a very long 5 months to shoot, and only grossed $1.5 million in the US. But it's an interesting story, and it features a very good performance from Beatty. Like many other Beatty characters, Joe is a charmer who is very adept at reading people and getting his way. His dreams are less grandiose than most of Beatty's characters, as his only real goal seems to be making it to New York. Joe is actually a well-written character, in part because he is very sarcastic and ironic, which makes his character seem much more modern. You could give Joe's lines to a character in a contemporary romantic comedy with no trouble at all. Sinatra actually would have been quite good for this part, the only problem is that he was about 20 years too old for it. (A piano player in his early 50's who is trying to make $5,000 to get to New York? Um, no.)

Liz is good, but her voice drives me nuts sometimes, as she has a tendency to screech her lines when she yells. She can sound so shrill and harsh. And whoever designed the wardrobe for Liz should have been fired. It's obvious from the way Liz is dressed that she must have gained some weight around the middle, as all of her clothes are really big and baggy on her, which just makes her look larger than she really was. She was only 36 when the movie was filmed, and still had a gorgeous figure, but you'd never know it from this movie.

And how did Richard Burton feel about his wife making a movie with Hollywood's new Don Juan? According to his journals he was a bit jealous. (Personally, Richard Burton and Warren Beatty would both be on my list of guys I would not want my wife to make a movie with.) Burton was on the set when Liz and Beatty filmed their love scene, and he played some George and Martha-like mind games, saying to them, "I say Elizabeth, don't you think you should be a bit closer to your lover? And Warren, you look a touch bashful. Is my presence making you nervous?" According to everything I've read, nothing happened between Liz and Beatty. I would think that Beatty would have tried to do everything he could to impress Burton, as the young Beatty had a pattern of seeking out friendships with older men who were more established in their careers, but I can't find any evidence of this from biographies of Burton or Beatty.

"The Only Game in Town" is certainly a curio, and it's not good enough for me to recommend it without reservations. It's not available on DVD, but I caught it on the Fox movie channel. But if you like old movies that are somewhat talky, or if you want to see two amazingly pretty people go gambling, or if you want to see Warren Beatty be incredibly snarky, this is the movie for you.

Mint Condition, by Dave Jamieson

It's the baseball off-season, so I thought reading a book about baseball would be the best way to keep the spirit of baseball alive during the gloomy winter months. "Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession," by Dave Jamieson, chronicles the history of baseball trading cards, from their introduction in the 1870's and 1880's to the present day. Confession: I love baseball cards. I collected them voraciously in my childhood, and I still make the occasional purchase online or at a card show. Jamieson is only a couple of years older than I am, so his memories of the baseball card boom of the 1980's and the collapse of the baseball card market in the 1990's are my childhood memories as well. And Jamieson gets extra points because his all-time favorite baseball card set is the 1987 Topps set, which is my all-time favorite set as well. (You can see an example of the 1987 Topps set above.)

But onto the book itself. Jamieson dug deeply into the rich history of baseball cards, and I learned a lot from this book. The first time baseball cards created a sensation among young boys was in the 1880's, when cigarette companies inserted cards into their packs of cigarettes. This had the dual effect of both promoting brand loyalty to collect more cards, and also of making these young boys eager smokers. Win-win for the cigarette manufacturers. According to Jamieson, the popularity of the baseball trading cards helped establish cigarettes as a tobacco product at a time when they were seen as hopelessly lower-class. (People with status smoked cigars or pipes.)

Back in the olden days, baseball cards were not issued every year, and the next time they make a major reappearance is around 1905-1915. These cards were again mostly made by cigarette companies, and they included the most famous baseball card of all time, the 1909 T206 Honus Wagner. The Wagner card is noteworthy not only because Wagner was one of the greatest players of his era, but also because it was produced in very limited quantities. Sources vary as to whether Wagner objected to the card because he did not want to be associated with a tobacco product, or if he was angry because the company was using his image without his permission. Whatever the reason, the Wagner T206 is very scarce, and an example of it in good condition has sold for more than $2 million at auction, making it the single most expensive baseball card ever.

After around 1915 tobacco companies stopped issuing baseball cards, presumably because their product was selling so well that they saw no need to include giveaways like trading cards. There was a lull in the baseball card market until 1933, when Goudey, a gum company, started producing baseball cards again. Goudey would include 1 card as an enticement to purchase a stick of gum for 1 penny. The Goudey cards were very successful, and a number of other gum companies, notably Bowman, jumped on the baseball card bandwagon. By the late 1940's, Bowman had established itself as the leading baseball card maker. But within a decade the Topps gum company, despite coming late to the baseball card party, would have a virtual monopoly on baseball card production. How exactly did this happen? Jamieson is able to shed some light on it, but I would have liked more detail on the battle between Topps and Bowman. Topps issued it's first real set of baseball cards in 1952, and in 1956 Bowman sold their baseball card rights to Topps. How did Topps bring down Bowman in just 4 years? Well, a lot of the credit goes to Sy Berger and Woody Gelman, who basically created the 1952 Topps cards, and in doing so, created the prototype for the modern baseball card. Berger and Gelman chose the dimensions that nearly all baseball cards would use from that point on, and they decided to include statistics on the back of the card. That was huge. Bowman's cards had narrative sentences on the back, which might incorporate some stats. It would usually read something like this: "Zernial batted .262 and slugged 29 homers while patrolling the outfield last season. The A's have high hopes for this young slugger in the years to come!" But Topps had a full row of all the most important stats from the previous season, hits, runs, RBIs, home runs, batting average, and they also had the player's career totals. And this was at a time when these stats were not readily available to youngsters. There were not comprehensive books of baseball statistics, so the newspaper and baseball cards were how kids knew what their favorite players had done. And so, despite making some beautiful cards, like their classic 1955 "television" design, Bowman sold out to Topps.

It's clear from "Mint Condition" that Topps didn't really want Jamieson digging too deeply into their closet, as Berger was the only former Topps employee he was able to interview. And there are some skeletons in Topps's closet, as they intimidated other companies from issuing baseball cards and basically had a 25-year monopoly, from 1956 until 1981. Topps pressured young prospects to sign exclusive baseball card contracts with them, meaning that other companies couldn't even get their foot in the door. Topps was the only game in town. And this led to some sloppiness on Topps's part. Like using the same photos for a player year after year. (Claude Osteen's 1963 and 1964 cards use the exact same photo, it's just cropped differently.) Or not bothering to obtain a photo of a player in his new uniform after he was traded. Which led to numerous cards of players without hats on, or players whose uniforms have been airbrushed almost beyond recognition. But Topps still changed their cards during this period. For example, beginning in 1971 photos from actual games were used on cards, which lent an excitement to some of the cards.

Eventually, the Topps monopoly began to crumble, as Marvin Miller, the new head of the player's union, took a much more aggressive stance against Topps in the late 1960's, arguing that they were getting rich off of baseball cards and barely compensating the players. (Miller was right, Topps paid most players $125 per year for use of their image.) Topps eventually let the player's union get a slice of the pie from baseball card sales. And Fleer, a rival candy company, launched a lawsuit alleging that Topps was running a monopoly. Eventually, Fleer was successful in their legal action, which opened the door for competing card companies to issue 1981 baseball card sets. Fleer and Donruss both issued their inaugural sets in 1981, and both were low-quality compared with Topps. Photos were blurry and errors were plentiful as the cards were rushed into production. However, despite Topps' fear that the market was not large enough to support two card companies, let alone three, baseball card sales jumped. Legal action by Topps meant that Fleer and Donruss could not package their cards with chewing gum, so Fleer included team stickers as a bonus, and Donruss included puzzle pieces for a puzzle of an all-time baseball great. (I never put the puzzle pieces together. Sorry Donruss! But at least the puzzle pieces didn't stick to the cards the way the gum did. My Dad once broke a crown on a stale piece of Topps gum.) An irony of the baseball card business is that the companies that produced the cards were actually candy companies, and in the beginning, it was supposed to be the gum that sold the cards, not the other way around. But at some point, the baseball cards became much more desirable than the gum.

As the 80's went on, Fleer and Donruss both greatly improved their quality, and the baseball card boom continued. I would have liked to know more about how Topps responded to Fleer and Donruss entering the market. Did Topps do anything special to make their cards better? (Looking back at their 80's sets, it really doesn't seem like they did.) The only things I can think of are the 1982 Topps "In Action" cards, and that the 1983 Topps set features two player photos on the front. Jamieson focuses on the 1989 entry of Upper Deck into the baseball card market, which proved that fans were willing to pay more money for a higher quality card. As the card market peaked in the early 1990's, all of the companies were overproducing cards at a staggering rate, and there were simply too many sets on the market. The 1994-95 baseball strike didn't help sell baseball cards, and that was around the time that I really stopped seriously collecting new cards.

As the baseball card market tanked, so too did the companies. Fleer was bought out by Upper Deck, and Donruss lost their license from MLB in 2006. For the 2010 season, the only company authorized by MLB to produce baseball cards was Topps. So we're back where we started, with a Topps monopoly.

Jamieson writes that baseball cards have become much more of a business than they used to be, and he doesn't think this is a good development. I definitely agree with him. Sure, there's joy in finding out that you have a card that's worth a lot of money, but I also take joy in common cards that aren't worth anything. It might be just a player in a crazy uniform, like the Astros' "rainbow" uniforms of the 70's and 80's, or it might be a fond memory of a journeyman outfielder like Tom Paciorek, but those memories take me back to my childhood. I still enjoy my baseball cards, and I'm very happy that I still do.

"Bugsy" & Warren Beatty

I'm back, dear readers! Where was I? Well, nowhere in particular, just busy with schoolwork and not especially motivated to blog. I've been to some good concerts, like Chris Isaak, Rufus Wainwright, and Nick Lowe, and I would think, "I should write about this," but somehow it just didn't happen.

What topic am I about to tackle now? Well, Warren Beatty and his 1991 movie "Bugsy." (Okay, so Beatty didn't direct it, so it technically isn't "his" movie, but he produced and starred in it, and it sounds like he basically takes over every movie he makes, so I think it's fair enough to call it "his"movie.) Beatty is a fascinating man, he's an actor I've been aware of for a long time, ever since the summer of 1990 when 9-year-old me saw Beatty's movie "Dick Tracy." I was swept up in Tracy fever, and I was thrilled that someone made a movie out of the comic strip. I know that I saw it at least twice in the theater. The movie also got a lot of attention in the Twin Cities because Charlie Korsmo, who played the kid that Tracy adopts, was from the Twin Cities. And of course Beatty's romance with Madonna was big stuff at the time too. One thing I remember about watching the movie was seeing a close up of Beatty's hand and thinking, "That hand looks really old." I didn't really think Beatty was old, because I was 9 and had no concept of adult age. All I knew was that Beatty was older than me but younger than my grandmother. But I thought his hands looked old.

In high school I finally saw Beatty's iconic 70's movies "Shampoo" and "Heaven Can Wait." I was impressed. For whatever reason at that time I never saw "Bonnie and Clyde," I'm not sure why. I remember once it was going to be on a double bill at a revival movie theater with "Badlands," but the print of B&C didn't arrive. And by the time I was in college Beatty was off the movie scene, more often seen escorting Annette Bening to awards shows than making movies of his own. I've followed the Beatty biographies that have come out over the last ten years and I've watched him get awards like the Kennedy Center Honors, and the Golden Globes lifetime achievement award. I've often thought, he made so few films, it would be relatively easy to follow his whole career trajectory, and now I'm finally making the time to see those films.

Benjamin "don't call me 'Bugsy'" Siegel has many similarities with other characters Beatty has played. Like Clyde Barrow, Bugsy is a charming psycho. Like Clyde, Bugsy is an astute judge of people, he is able to size them up quickly and get them on his side. (This is also a trait that Beatty would seem to share as well.) Like John McCabe in "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," Siegel becomes obsessed with building a place of entertainment in a remote location. For McCabe, that means building a brothel in the Old West. For Siegel, that means building a casino, the Flamingo, in 1940's Las Vegas. I watched "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" a week or so before "Bugsy," and I was struck by the parallels between the two movies. Both McCabe and Siegel are visionaries, dreamers who most people consider a bit obsessive. They both anger people who have a great deal of power, and both pay for their independence with their lives. Obsessive might also be a good word to describe Warren Beatty. He is obviously a perfectionist when it comes to making movies, which is one explanation for his relatively small filmography. As Beatty once said about filmmaking:

"It is all detail, detail, detail. When...the person you are working with has to go home and return a call to his press agent, and lunch is being served, and the head of the union says, 'Well, you have to stay out there for another 10 minutes because they have to have coffee,' and then the camera breaks down, and there is noise, a plane flying over, and this wasn't the location you wanted...are you going to have the energy to devote to the detail of saying, 'That license plate is the wrong year'? That's where the stamina, the real fight comes in."

Wow. That's focused. Beatty is well-known for shooting numerous takes of scenes. Buck Henry, Beatty's co-director on 1978's "Heaven Can Wait," once said, "Ideally, Warren would never, ever, ever finish anything, because there's always got to be a better way to do something-the shot, the edit, or the scene, or the line, something." One of the hardest parts in the act of creating is knowing when the act is finished, when to step back from it and say, "It's done." Can something always get better the more time you spend on it, the more takes you shoot? Beatty seems to think so. Billy Scharf, an assistant editor on Beatty's "Reds" had this to say about Beatty's methods:

"A lot of people say Warren overshoots. I know that not to be true. Directors who come back with insufficient material are doing a disservice to the opportunity. They get intimidated by stars. Warren does not. In the movie, when Reed wants to leave Russia and go back to America, Zinoviev tells him, 'You will never be at this place, at this time, again.' Warren felt that way when he shot. He believed that that was the time, and that was the place, and he had to exploit the opportunity to the hilt. He had the resources, and he wanted to use them, because he knew he would never get another chance."

All that Scharf says is true, you really only have one chance to capture what you need for a film. You have to do a certain scene on a certain day, and you have to nail it that day, that's your one chance to get that scene done perfectly. (Of course, you can always re-shoot, which of course Beatty is known to do.) But while you're shooting, no matter how many days or how many takes you do, you have to catch that lightning in a bottle, that magic that makes film such an amazing and powerful medium. It's a big responsibility. And if you're directing a big-budget Hollywood production, every shooting day costs a lot of money. Beatty's reputation as a perfectionist actor/director/producer might also carry over into his personal life. Dustin Hoffman related this story from the set of "Ishtar."

Hoffman asked Beatty, "Theoretically, is there any woman on the planet that you would not make love to? If you had the chance?"
Beatty: "That's an interesting question: Is there any woman on the planet that I wouldn't make love to? Any woman at all?" Beatty pondered the question a moment and finally said, "No, there isn't."
Hoffman asked, "You're serious?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because you never know."

And that, in essence, sums up Warren Beatty. Why shoot another take after you've shot 25 or 30 takes? Because you never know, the next one might be the perfect one. Why sleep with another woman when you've slept with so many already? Because you never know, the next one might be the perfect one.

So this post has turned into more of an exploration of Warren Beatty than the movie "Bugsy," but to return to the movie for a moment, there's another clear parallel between Beatty and Siegel. As Siegel builds the Flamingo in Las Vegas, he keeps going over budget and missing deadlines. Similar in many ways to a Warren Beatty movie. Siegel is a controlling perfectionist, just like the man who plays him on screen. Maybe the best scene in the movie is the one where Siegel, in a chef's hat, alternates between keeping his daughter's birthday party going and selling his mobster friends on his vision of Las Vegas as the new American paradise. The scene is funny, and it presents Beatty's charm at its best.

"Bugsy" is also a very significant movie in Beatty's life, as it was on the set of "Bugsy" that he met his wife, Annette Bening, who gives a great performance as Virginia Hill, Bugsy's girlfriend. It's a great movie, and it's definitely one of Beatty's best performances. So, even though I will never be at this time and place again, I'll end this post now. I'm going to step back and say, "It's done."

What Happened to this Book?

Back in 2008, I was looking forward to the publication of Ashley Kahn's book "Somethin' Else: The Story of Blue Note Records and the Birth of Modern Jazz." I had it on my Amazon wish list, but then one day it just disappeared. It's still listed on Amazon, but you can't buy it, it hasn't come out, and there's no new publication date. I googled the book, but I couldn't find any more info about it. I emailed the publisher, and they said the book has been delayed indefinitely. Which stinks. I've read one of Ashley Kahn's other books, "Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece," and it's quite great. (I have an earlier blog post about it.) I was really looking forward to reading "Somethin' Else" and learning more about my favorite Blue Note recording artists like Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan, and Horace Silver, to name just three. So, all you jazz fans, write to Penguin Putnam and tell them to publish this book!

Is Jamie Moyer a Hall of Famer?

It's baseball season, and since the opening of Target Field, I've been thinking about baseball more than usual. Yes, baseball really was meant to be played outdoors. Sorry, Metrodome, stadium of my youthful dreams and site of two World Championships, but Target Field is amazing!

I love baseball stats. I could read baseball stats for hours. Okay, maybe sometimes I spend too much time on baseball-reference.com...but it's fun. I've been following the Phillies' 47-year-old starting pitcher Jamie Moyer as he makes his way up the all-time wins list, he's currently in 40th place with 263 wins. Which leads to the question: is Jamie Moyer a Hall of Famer? (Apologies to baseball-reference, they had a blog post about this very topic just a week or two ago.) For those who would say no way, I say, look a little closer. Now, I'm not going to say that if he retired today, Moyer is, or should be, a definite Hall of Famer. I just want to examine his credentials. Clearly, there are worse pitchers than Jamie Moyer in the Hall of Fame. (Jesse "Pop" Haines, I'm looking at you.) However, as Bill James points out, this is not a good argument to use, since the Hall of Fame has made some pretty bad decisions regarding admittance. If we started admitting everyone who was better than the worst inductees, we'd have a huge Hall of Fame.

Moyer's career has been an up and down one, he started out as a starter for the Cubs in 1986, then turned into an ineffective reliever for the Rangers, a poor starter for the Cardinals, and didn't pitch at all in the majors in 1992. His career seemed to be over at the age of 29. But somehow Moyer rejuvenated himself, and made his way back to the majors. He didn't really get going until he was traded to the Seattle Mariners in 1996. In 1997 his record was 17-5, the first time he had ever won more than 13 games in a season. At the age of 34, he was finally a great starter. Moyer won 20 games in 2001, and 21 in 2003, suffered through a lackluster 2004 season, but rebounded to go 16-7 for the Phillies in 2008, at the age of 45. His career record is 263-199, and on May 7th, he became the oldest pitcher to ever throw a shutout.

How does Moyer stack up against other Hall of Fame pitchers? He is not, and never has been, a superstar. He hasn't won any Cy Young Awards, and has only been selected to the All-Star team once. He's never led the league in wins or strikeouts, and he's not a power pitcher. He's just been consistently good, and now he's at a point where the Hall of Fame debate can start to happen. Of the starting pitchers in the Hall of Fame, Moyer has more wins than 31 of them. And I didn't count any relievers, just every HOF starter from guys like Addie Joss, Dizzy Dean, and Sandy Koufax, whose careers were cut short by injury, (or death, in Joss's case) to HOFers like Don Drysdale, Jim Bunning, Juan Marichal, and Bob Gibson. Moyer has fewer wins than 27 HOF starting pitchers, so he's right in the middle of the pack. While this doesn't prove that Moyer is in the upper echelon of HOF starters, it proves that, just looking at wins, he is more than qualified for the HOF.

While reaching 300 wins is considered a benchmark for HOF pitchers, I looked at every pitcher with more than 250 wins. Every post-1900 pitcher who is eligible for the HOF with more than 250 wins is in the HOF, except for Bert Blyleven, who fell just short this year and will make it in next year, Tommy John, Jim Kaat, and Jack Morris. So, with 263 wins and counting, does this mean that Moyer will eventually get in? Perhaps, although the sportswriters voting for the HOF have been tough on Kaat and John, the two pitchers most similar to Moyer. Kaat and John never got very close all 15 years they were on the ballot, and they can now only be voted in by the Veterans' Committee, which has been very stingy lately with who they let in. Kaat and John were similar to Moyer in that they were not power pitchers who put up big strikeout numbers, and they pitched forever, Kaat for 25 seasons, John for 26 seasons. (Moyer is in his 24th season.) Kaat and John also had very short "peaks" of performance, as did Moyer, and all three pitchers were very durable and had more than their share of 14-12 seasons which don't look that outstanding taken season by season. None of them had very many great seasons, the best is probably Kaat's 1966 season, in which he was 25-13.

The charge could be leveled that Kaat, John, and Moyer are merely "compilers," guys who hang around for a really long time and pile up impressive stats, but who aren't truly "great." I can understand this argument, but I would also argue that anyone who wins 250 games has to be a pretty great player. If these players weren't truly great, they would not have played as long as they did. And also, once you "compile" a certain amount of stats, you are a lock for the Hall of Fame, no matter what. Don Sutton won over 300 games, but he never won a Cy Young Award. (Neither did Nolan Ryan, for that matter.) Sutton only won 20 games in a season once. But what Sutton lacked in peak performance, he made up for in longevity. But Sutton is in the Hall, and he was a great pitcher, he just wasn't as dominant as some of his peers like Steve Carlton or Tom Seaver.

So, where does this leave Jamie Moyer? I think Moyer needs more wins to solidify his HOF candidacy, and honestly, I think he needs 300 wins. If writers are not willing to vote for Tommy John at 288 wins, and Jim Kaat at 283 wins, Moyer is a long shot at 263 wins. The writers have shown that the line is drawn at 300. Give John back his missed 1975 season, give him 13 wins for a total of 301, and he's in. Give Kaat back his partial 1972 season, (he missed time due to injury, he was 10-2 in 15 starts) and a few more starts at the end of his career, and he would be over 300 wins easily. Of course, we can't do that, and it starts us down a slippery slope if we do. But, the point is, Kaat and John are very close to 300 wins and they aren't in, so I don't see Moyer getting in with fewer than 300 wins. It even took Don Sutton 5 tries before he made it in the Hall!

Good luck Jamie Moyer, I'll be watching your starts and I hope you get closer to 300 wins.