Can't Miss

There are a couple of filmmakers out there that I'll go see whatever they do. One in that category is Woody Allen. I have always loved his comedies (Small Time Crooks, Everyone Says I Love You, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Mighty Aphrodite, Celebrity. There's always a somewhat similar plot, well, not so much that as that there are recurring themes. Smart, attratictive neurotic people that have problems in their love lives. That's a bit of an oversimplicaton, but that descriptor does characterizes many of his films, like Annie Hall, which won the Best Picture Oscar the year I was born.

No one will likely ever call Larry David attractive(pictured left with director Allen), but he does anchor Allen's newest movie, Whatever Works. In it, David portrays a hateful, spiteful man who falls in love with a girl from Mississippi. I really don't know all the plot details because I want to be suprised when I see the film. The film has not garnered stellar reviews, but I'm expecting a lot. Maybe not laugh out loud funny but merely amusing will do. This is ever all Woody Allen teamed up with Larry David, one of the creators of Seinfeld and star of the current HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiam

Also on the horizon is Sascha Baron Cohen's Bruno.

I'm mos def looking forward to this film, though I wasn't so crazy about Borat, Cohen's 2006 smash comedy about a Kazhakstani journalist looking for love in America.

But Bruno, as he explains in the clip below from The Today Show, is about a gay, in-your-face, Austrian fashionista on a quest to become "uber-famous"

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(My only critique of this interview is that Matt Lauer, serious journalist, is conducting an interview with a character, Bruno, which is essentially promoting the film. I saw an earlier interview conducted with Bruno on The Tonight Show, which made a little more sense. That show's host is a comic, not a journalist.)

Remembering Michael

There was a moment a few years ago--I believe it was the summer of 1993--when I was a young driver, and I had done the unthinkable. I was parking one of my family's cars when I accidentally hit my mom's new car with the one I was driving.

When I got out and surveyed the damage, all I could think was You done did it now. there was our new car with what turned out to be a $500 hit on the right, back seat door while the car I had been driving, an older car made in 1975, had been left without a scratch.

For a few moments I was pleading with God: let me go back in time just a few seconds and undo whatever damage I had done. That way the accident would have never happened, and life could resume as normal.

It seemed like a simple request.

I was thinking the same thing yesterday when I found out that Michael Jackson had died.

So came another simple request: Would it be possible to go back in time to prevent his death?

Of course the news was a total shocker. Michael, 50, had been in the news lately, and it seems that things were looking up. A concert engagement in London had sold out, and there was talk that he might do shows in the US in the coming year.

As a kid, I might not have known who the president or vice president was, but I always knew who Michael Jackson was.

It had all started back in 1984 when I was in the first grade. One of my best friends, Robert Threadgill, had a collection of records. One of them was "Rockin Robin," a song from Jackson's first solo album. I was hooked.

I don't exactly know if I wanted to be Michael Jackson, but I certainly wanted to be like Michael Jackson. I'm still striving to be as good at something as he was at being an entertainer.

Now whether he knew it or not, Jackson was someone that had been with me "in the beginning." I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't know who he was. The memories of him color my childhood. His image towered from a poster in my bedroom wall (see image above). He was simply the most famous man that had ever lived.

I had cherished him for his music and his celebrity. Who else was that dynamic? Who else was that popular? Who else could sell out stadiums in Asia? The fainting girls, all the histronics. And all for Michael.

He was amazing.

The Return

So, what've I been up to in the two months since I Last posted?

Nothing, much really. The same old same old with a few twists and turns tossed in. In May, I took an eight-day class that threw me off my usual schedule. I saw a great movie--Star Trek--and came up for a great headline for a post--Sci Curious. the movie was great, which astounded me because I'm not one of those sci-fi geeks. I'm just a regular geek.

At the end of May, I flew to Phoenix for three days of rest and relaxation, which was more like three days of 100-degree heat, boredom and Burger King. But at least I got the chance to walk around in flip flops and shorts. This was followed by buckets of ice cream, a loss of inspiration, and a return to the comeback trail.

The most suprising thing of all is that the world kept on spinning without me posting. But I must say the world had been a little less interesting.

But now I'm back, so here we go.

Island Letter

This is one of the most romantic songs, and at first might seem like an unlikely candidate for such a title because of the words it doesn't use.

Love isn't uttered a single time.

But "Island Letter," does evoke a particular feeling.

This is another song from Shuggie Otis' overlooked masterpiece "Inspiration Information."

An Other Anniversary

A few months ago, when I told a lady I'd been living in Maryland almost two years, she offered as reassurance, "You're one of us now."

That I am not.

I was remembering those words yesterday as I marked the second anniversary of my move from New York.

When I was speaking with a friend on the phone, he'd remarked, "Has it been two years already?"

The answer is: unfortunately yes. Two years of the surreal life, which is often more like imitation of life.

It's not even about NY anymore, but something more that my niece Keel would simply describe as "comfort."

Anyway, it was a good day for me. I didn't dwell on darkness, but was wide awake because I have a plan of action of how to ease out of Maryland. And by ease out, I mean this entire area. This plan is called, simply but accurately, Get the Hell Out of Maryland.

And because every revolution needs an anthem, I've included a clip of Van Hunt's "Down Here in Hell (With You)." The lyrics are pointed and appropriate.

Rallying!

The stock market has been rallying lately, but no one seems to really know why. It can't be because the economy has turned around. Things have just been inexplicably better.

Ditto my mood. Last week began like a disaster. But by the middle of the week, I had recovered. I don't know why. Nothing had really changed in my life. Things just seemed better.

In fact, today's Thursday and I'm still flying high.

I'm trying to tell myself that it had nothing to do with my weekend trip to New York. But I really think it did. Like always, it was a mix of the good with the bad. And toward the end it was a race against the clock.

But it definitely was memorable, and I'm just not saying that because I heard a song called "Big Ups to Jesus" in church on Sunday.

Then most jarring occurrence happened as my trip was coming to a close: My phone died on Monday morning. This was doubly upsetting because i had planned this to be a photo blog with pics taken on my cam phone.

...Okay, It's gonna be a photo blog anyway. Just use your imagination:

The Troubadour: This is me strumming an acoustic guitar at a friend's apartment in Astoria, Queens. I walked in and there was a guitar in the living room. I knew it was only a matter of time before I'd be singing a nonsensical song.

The Bride: I did make it to the Queens Museum of Art as I wrote about in "Queens for a Day." It was a really lovely area, next to the Unisphere. There was a park with people riding bikes, playing soccer and just generally relaxing. As I got closer to the museum, there was a bride having her picture taken. It's relatively common to see brides being photographed in New York. I used to see wedding parties all the time along Museum Mile and near Grand Army Plaza. But this was a touching scene, so I snapped a picture with my camera.

The Crowd: After I finished with the museum, I got swept up in the crowd from a Mets baseball game (the museum and the Mets' new home, Citifield, share the same subway stop). But I must say, New York knows how to handle a crowd. There were tens of thousands of people, but there were ample cops and subway personnel on hand to handle the situation. One subway employee had her script down in a rap:

"Express down stairs/Local to the right. Express down stairs/Local to the right."

I couldn't help but think about DC and the fiasco that was the transportation for the inauguration. It really wasn't well coordinated. The L'Enfant Incident will live in infamy!

The College: This is a photo of the main administrative building on the campus of Medgar Evers College. I just happened upon the school while walking in Brooklyn. The school is named for Medger Evers, a fellow Mississippian and civil rights leader who was assassinated in 1963.

Waiting for Lauryn

Lauryn Hill is set to take the stage at two European jazz festivals this summer, and I hope this is an indication that she's not only returning to the concert stage, but the recording booth as well.

According to Billboard.com, Hill will play the Stockholm Jazz Festival and Montreaux Jazz Festival. She's set to play a total of 10 European dates in all.

Though she has no appearances scheduled stateside, one can only hope!

She rose to fame as a member of the Fugees, but achieved solo stardom with her sole solo album, 1998's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. It won five Grammy Awards, topped year-end best of lists, and established for Hill a place in the pantheon of great artists.

Then it was pretty much lights out, as she started a family and had five children.

It must be a testament to her prodigious gifts that people are still interested. After all, when someone releases an album, there's never a promise that they'll release another. But there is an expectation. And with Hill, expectations had been great. Miseducation had become a cultural hallmark, like Carole King's Tapestry a generation before. With its mix of love songs ("Nothing Even Matters") to heartbreak ("I Used to Love Him") to testimony ("To Zion"), I was captured by the first note and hooked until the last second of the bonus songs.

I'm ready for an encore.

Photo: The cover of Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill