"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.

Robyn Hitchcock Updates!

Sorry I haven't been entertaining you, dear readers, but I have been very busy lately with schoolwork. (I'm going back to school to become a teacher!) I have suffered from a little bit of homework shock, since I haven't been in school since I finished my undergrad in 2003. But the semester is almost over, and at that point I will work on some longer blog posts. But enough about me...Robyn Hitchcock has a new CD! It's called "Propellor Time," and it's quite good. I've only listened to it once so far, but it's lovely. And it also answers the question of what happened to some of those songs we saw Robyn working on in the documentary "Sex, Food, Death, and Tarantulas." There's also a fantastic interview with Robyn on his newly-redesigned website, here's the link to that:

http://www.robynhitchcock.com/propellortime/interview/

Robyn also has a new section of his website called "Phantom 45's." It's a place where he lets fans download two of his songs, an "A" and "B" side, for free. Robyn being so prolific and awesome, these are not just re-treads, but brand-new previously unreleased songs. Four songs have been issued so far, and they're all very good. Here's the link to that page:

http://www.robynhitchcock.com/phantom45s/

I'm enjoying all the new Robyn songs, I just hope he comes back on tour soon!

Concert Review: Leon Redbone at the Dakota

I don't like giving bad reviews. Life is too short to focus on the negative, and I would much rather use the limited power of my blog to champion artists I enjoy, rather than flinging arrows at artists I don't care for. That being said, I also feel like I need to be honest when I write, and not just blindly praise everything I read/hear/see. I have written some negative reviews on this blog, but honestly, a lot of them are reviews of pretty crummy Richard Burton movies. But I've also been critical of people whose work I usually admire, like Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer. Why this intro? Well, last night at the Dakota I saw one of the worst concerts I've ever seen. The artist in question is Leon Redbone, whom I like. I saw him in concert in 2002 and I remember it being a great show. He's a very talented guitar player, and he has his own unique style. Unfortunately, last night he was a caricature of himself. As I thought about it more, it struck me: Leon Redbone is really a performance artist. His whole persona is artifice, and you can never tell exactly when, if ever, the mask slips and you get a glimpse of the real person, whoever that might be.

Now I knew that I should expect a certain amount of shtick from Leon, I just didn't know quite how much we would get last night. From the time he walked out on stage until the time he started his second song of the night, fifteen minutes elapsed. Fifteen agonizing, boring, unfunny minutes. Leon complaining about the sound. Leon filing his fingernail. Leon playing the same riff on his guitar but not starting a song. Leon complaining about the lights. Leon wanting a "sing-along song." It was ridiculous and absurd. I understand now why people originally thought that Leon might be Andy Kaufman pulling another joke on people. Last night was Kaufman-esque in that Redbone seemed to be asking himself, "How far can I push this?" I like banter and jokes and goofing around on stage, but you have to be funny and you have to have a point. There are so many artists who put their whole heart into their art, and here's this guy coasting. Now, people have bad shows, I realize that. But compared to, say, John Hammond, who puts everything he has into every single song, Leon Redbone just looks lazy. Which is part and parcel of his shtick. And I get that. But you have to have an affection for your audience, and I don't get that feeling from Redbone.

While my Mom and I were thoroughly fed up with Redbone's antics, other audience members thought every single thing he did was funny. Which just proves that if you have the persona of being funny, sometimes you don't need to be actually funny. When Leon finally played some songs semi-seriously, he was good, but too many songs suffered from mumbled vocal lines. Maybe Redbone is finally showing his age. Since he claims to be the son of Paganini and Jenny Lind, he must be 170 years old at the youngest. Leon had a piano player with him, but he wasn't given very much to do, his main job was as Leon's straight man. All in all, it was a disappointing show. I was looking forward to hearing some laid-back 20's-30's ragtime blues, but I didn't hear very much of it.

"Macbeth" at the Guthrie

I saw the Guthrie Theater's production of "Macbeth" a few weeks ago, and it was quite impressive. I've read "Macbeth" before, I think in both high school and college, but for whatever reason, I had never seen it on stage before. The Guthrie chose to present it without an intermission, which made for an intense experience. With a running time of two hours, it definitely makes sense, because the play is so compact and thrilling, but it's so bloody that the tension level just goes up and up until finally, mercifully, the play is over.

"Macbeth" is quite a fascinating play. Does Macbeth have free will over what happens, or is he doomed by the witches' prophecy that he will become king? There's no easy answer to this question. Macbeth could simply wait and see if somehow he will become king without killing Duncan, the current king. Macbeth even alludes to this, saying, "If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me without my stir." (Act 1, Scene 3) But then he and Lady Macbeth decide to go ahead with their evil plan and slay Duncan as he sleeps in their castle. It could be that the witches merely plant the idea of becoming king in Macbeth's head, that they tap into the latent ambition that is already inside of him. Reading the introduction to my handy Bantam Classics edition of "Macbeth," editors David Bevington and David Scott Kastan say something similar. Bevington and Kastan remind us that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have discussed killing Duncan before, thus "the witches appear after the thought, not before." Furthermore, "Elizabethans would probably understand that evil spirits such as witches appear when summoned, whether by our conscious or unconscious minds." According to this reading, Macbeth's murderous thoughts summon up agents of evil, which in turn strengthen his ambition to become king, whatever the costs. And since the witches say that Macbeth is to be king, who is he to argue with them?

In a way, "Macbeth" reminds me of "Oedipus Rex." Both characters are faced with a prophecy. The prophecy that Oedipus hears is that he will kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus's reaction is to run as far away from the prophecy as he can, but he unwittingly fulfills it. Macbeth, on the other hand, runs as fast as he can towards the prophecy that he will be king, and, of course, fulfills it. The problem is that both men do not know how to interpret the prophecies. After Macbeth is king, he is told by the witches that he cannot be killed by a man "of woman born." Macbeth then becomes full of hubris, blind to the fact that there might be a loophole. (The loophole is Macduff, who was "from his mother's womb untimely ripped.") Does hearing the prophecy change Macbeth's actions, or would he have acted in the same way even if he didn't know of the prophecy? Perhaps the prophecies just bring to the surface the evil that lurks under Macbeth's surface.

The Guthrie's production was quite good, with a number of striking visual tableaux that seemed very cinematic to me. The blood on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's hands in the murder scene was disturbing, it made me nearly sick to my stomach. It made the murders seem much more real. The acting was fine, with a particularly good performance from Michelle O'Neill as Lady Macbeth. Erik Heger was good as Macbeth, but he didn't bring a lot of charm or personality to the role. There is a wonderful quote from a poem, "The Cup," by Alfred, Lord Tennyson that was included in the program:

"I heard a saying in Egypt, that ambition

Is like the sea wave, which the more you drink,

The more you thirst-yea-drink too much, as men

Have done on rafts of wreck-it drives you mad."

What fitting lines for this strange and terrifying play.

Oscar Peterson-Exclusively For My Friends

I finished listening to Oscar Peterson's 4-CD set "Exclusively For My Friends" last week, and it is a great introduction to this very talented jazz pianist. These recordings, which date from 1963-68, were taped in Germany at the private home of a record producer. For whatever reason, they were apparently some of Peterson's favorite recordings of himself. Considering that Peterson recorded heavily from the early 1950's into the late 1990's, that's really saying something. So what separates these sessions from the other 100 or more records that Peterson made? I don't have an easy answer for that, but it sounds like Oscar was very relaxed when these sessions were made, and maybe he felt that these sessions captured his style better than any others. (One album from these sessions was called, "The Way I Really Play.") They're certainly my favorites of all the Oscar Peterson CD's that I own. It feels like he and his trio have more room to stretch out than on his 1950's sessions for Verve.

Oscar Peterson was a true virtuoso. He was probably most influenced by the playing of Art Tatum, and he is probably the pianist who comes closest to replicating Tatum's style. Which means that Oscar played a lot of notes, very quickly, and he wasn't afraid to show off now and then. Oscar Peterson and Ahmad Jamal are kind of at opposite ends of the jazz piano spectrum. Where Ahmad would play one note, Oscar would play ten. Personally, I tend to prefer Jamal or Dave Brubeck's playing over Peterson's, but that's just a matter of taste. There is no denying the immense talent that Peterson brought to the keyboard. Peterson's playing was always impeccable. Like Tatum, his technique was almost overpowering. There's almost too much going on in his playing. Listen to his solo rendition of "Someone To Watch Over Me," on Disc 4, for a great example of his style. As the song starts, Peterson keeps interrupting the melody with fancy fills and expansive runs up and down the keyboard. It's as if so many ideas are simply pouring out of him at the same time that he can barely get the melody out. It's incredible to listen to.

The last CD on this set is all solo piano, which is a rarity for Peterson. I would think that, given his virtuosic technique, he would have recorded more solo albums, but he almost always worked in a trio format. (How other players kept up with him, I don't know!) His solo version of "Lulu's Back in Town" is another great example of his blindingly fast skills. But Peterson was also a skilled interpreter of ballads, as his lovely version of "Emily" on disc 3 shows. This whole set features great interplay between Peterson and his trio, which includes Ray Brown and Sam Jones on bass, (but not at the same time) and Ed Thigpen on drums. It's 4 CD's of great trio playing, and if you're an Oscar Peterson fan and you don't own this set, you really need to pick it up.