If, say, Descartes were to come back from the grave and host a talk show, I would watch it, daily. I would also occasionally watch an episode of Jerry Springer, but I would never watch Oprah, may her show rest in peace.

I have nothing against Oprah as a person. I have plenty against Jerry Springer as a person and, aside from the annoyingly mathematical miseries he caused for me in my younger days, I have no opinion whatever about Descartes as a dude.  But here’s my problem: If I watch TV, I want either brilliance or absolute melt-into-the-couch drivel — Cops, or World’s Dumbest, for instance. I can’t be bothered with middle-of-the-road quality in a TV show. Oprah is arguably a genius, in a lot of ways, but her show is pretty run-of-the-mill, on the intellectual scale. Not delightfully bad, not intellectually stimulating . . . just . . . there. [Read more →]

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo, television by Chris Matarazzo
No Comments »

I have known some stinky, sweaty, rude, intolerable, brutish, self-absorbed, pimple-faced, neurosis-addled musicians in my time and out of all of those cats, not one of them ever had a problem getting a date. Why? Because they are musicians. Because they close their eyes and soar over a fretboard and pour their souls into microphones. Because they do what everyone else in the room wishes they could do. (It works for girls, too, but my gentlemanly mien prohibits such arguably critical assessments, lest my readers begin suspect me of being both judgmental and rude.) [Read more →]

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo by Chris Matarazzo
No Comments »

Summer is finally upon us! After a winter full of shoveling snow, freezing my ass off, and cursing Al Gore, the warm weather and good times are here. To me, summer is all about barbecuing, going to the beach, getting sunburned, swimming, and according to Will “The Fresh Prince” Smith, it’s about hustling to the mall to get a short set. (Even though I still don’t know what the hell a short set is) But my favorite summer event is a good summer concert. There are few things I love more than packing up a car with beer and barbecue gear, tailgating with my friends, and seeing a good show on a warm summer night. But I am sad to say that this summer’s lineup is a massive disappointment. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, Marty digs by Marty O'Connor
3 Comments »

10. Your play about General Schwarzkopf is called The Book of Norman

9. At least twice a week, another Spidey stuntman is maimed or killed

8. Trying to cash in on jukebox musicals like Mamma Mia and Movin’ Out, your new musical is called Ice Ice Baby

7. The marquee reads “Pauly Shore Is Jean Valjean”

6. Your Feydeau farce features Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dominique Strauss-Kahn chasing the French maid

5. No matter how good it is, your fifth-grade production of Death of a Salesman is not eligible

4. Instead of “Author! Author!” audience shouts “Boo! Kill!”

3. All the dialogue has been translated into Portuguese, because it loses something in the original

2. Your choreographer is straight

1. Your one-man show dealt mainly with your tiger’s blood, Adonis DNA, and fire-breathing fists

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: art & entertainment, Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, television by Bob Sullivan
No Comments »

In discussions about art, we babble constantly about “quality” as if it is the determining factor in terms of what is “good” or “bad”. Some say that, for instance, Mozart was a better composer than John Williams could ever be. Or, we might dismiss Norman Rockwell (a mere illustrator) in comparison to, say, a VanGogh. We read a novel, and we nit-pick, saying: Steinbeck is sentimental; Dickens’s plots are too neat. A ballet choreographer might look at kids dancing for change on the street and he might say, “Unsophisticated. That’s not art. It’s ‘pop’ dancing.” But, in the end, what does all of this mean? As I have suggested lots of times, isn’t the measure of art in the way it directly affects us? How important is the “quality” of the work? One can (and I certainly do sometimes) marvel at an artist’s craft, but is great skill necessary for great art? Is skill necessary at all? [Read more →]

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo, getting older by Chris Matarazzo
No Comments »

As mentioned in last quarter’s column, there have been a lot of “life-as-illusion” themed movies coming out lately. While I suspect that the success of Avatar and Lost are partly responsible for this trend, I think people’s fascination with 2012, drastic world changes, and a surge in our search for meaning are also fueling the recent string of films about alternate realities and simulated worlds. When airplanes are crashing into buildings, cities are submerged underwater, the Middle East is revolting, and the world economy is collapsing, real life almost seems more fantastical than our dreams. Jon Stewart summed it up perfectly at the 2008 Academy Awards: “Normally, when you see a black man or a woman president, an asteroid is about to hit the Statue of Liberty.” Yes, we are now officially living in the future, and we all know what kind of stuff happens in the future—exactly the kind of stuff that’s happening right now. But at least, thanks to Hollywood, we’ve been warned. And Hollywood’s heads up may even go much deeper than prophesies of events to come. They may help explain the reality we all find ourselves in. [Read more →]

Tags: movies, religion & philosophy by Marc Oromaner
No Comments »

I don’t know why I get so annoyed by clichés. Maybe it is my fiction-writing background. Maybe I’m just an early-onset curmudgeon. But one time, at a party, someone referenced the idea that you can’t play the blues well unless you lived the blues — whatever the hell that means.  Does he mean you need to be short of cash for the rent? A heavy drinker? Does he mean you have to be from a certain town? Do you have to be African-American? If that is what he means, I think he is simply buying-in to a tired cliché. Worse, he may be treading on prejudiced racial ground, just when he thinks he is being complimentary. [Read more →]

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo by Chris Matarazzo
2 Comments »

“After leaving the governor’s office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago,” Schwarzenegger told the Times in a statement that also was sent to The Associated Press early Tuesday.

The above quote was copied and pasted from an AP story (via yahoo!) regarding a certain “event” that occurred over a decade ago.

That “event”?

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has acknowledged that he fathered a child with a member of his household staff, a revelation that apparently prompted wife Maria Shriver to leave the couple’s home before they announced their separation last week.

Oh, that event. When he “evented” a member of his household staff. What kind of man is Mr. Schwaretc, that the act of copulation is for him an “event”? That’s actually pretty impressive. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, politics & government by Ricky Sprague
4 Comments »

Many, many parents think their kids are geniuses. Some of them are right, some of them are dead-wrong and some of them work hard to deceive themselves into believing that Einstein gobbles Cinnamon Toast Crunch at their breakfast table: “I know he fails everything, but I believe this happens because he is not challenged enough. So he needs to be in all the top classes, even though he has a test average of 6.”  [Read more →]

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo, family & parenting by Chris Matarazzo
5 Comments »

On Sunday, TLC ran two Christmas-themed episodes of the program “Sister Wives,” which follows the polygamist Brown family. The episodes were filmed four months after the Browns “came out,” and were being investigated by the Lehigh County sheriff’s department. It was this investigation that led to the Browns leaving Utah for Nevada, which is presumably less intolerant of polygamy, at least reality television polygamy.

Intercut with a montage of the numerous Brown children dressing their Christmas tree (at a treacherously placed cabin the middle of a forbidding area of snow-covered Utah), father Kody Brown tearfully explains that families convicted of committing the “crime” of polygamy are broken up. Third wife Christine tells us that her grandparents were jailed for polygamy, with the wives separated and children sent off to various foster families, with all contact broken off.

It was about as moving a scene as you can expect from a reality show, but imagine if the Browns lived in Broward County? [Read more →]

Tags: on the law, television by Ricky Sprague
11 Comments »

There are those who say that there are those who say that blogging is dying out. I put it this way, because I have never read an article explaining what, exactly, is meant by this, but the impression I get is that people think Twitter and the quicker (and, in my opinion, more anemic) forms of Internet communication are stealing all of the intellectual traffic from the good, old-fashioned (hey, it only takes a couple of months these days) blog. But the reason I can’t accept this is because I don’t know what the hell a blog is. Do you? [Read more →]

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo, books & writing by Chris Matarazzo
6 Comments »

I didn’t intend to do a part three on “artistic weirdness,” but sometimes weirdness just hits one in the face (not unlike that goose that once smashed Fabio in the schnoz at a Bush Gardens, but with less outrageous, bloody irony) when it comes to the arts. And so it happened this time: a former — and delightfully philosophical — student of mine started a Facebook discussion about a “Today Show” spot entitled: “Violin prodigy is ‘Viagra’ to classical music.” (Hat tip: Nick Tomasello).

First, I would like to make a sassy point: Beethoven’s music don’t need no stinking Viagra. If this is all about some clichéd perspective that classical music is wimpy, somebody needs to listen to Holst, Richard Strauss, Respighi, Dukas . . . need I go on? (Ever hear the Prelude of La Péri, for heaven’s sake? Viagra, my elbow.) [Read more →]

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo by Chris Matarazzo
5 Comments »

Today I want to start out by saying I had an almost perfect week  – a day trip to NYC, two Buffalo Tom shows,  good times with friends, a bunch of playdates with Jack, two date nights with Cailin, and dinner in Atlantic City with my parents. It was an action-packed, beer-soaked, raucous, and tiring few days of pretending like I was 22 years old all over again. Life is good in Marty Digs Land. And to top it all off, Osama Bin Laden is at his final resting place along with the Roswell Aliens, Tupac, and McDonald’s recipe for secret sauce. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, Marty digs by Marty O'Connor
1 Comment »

In the most recent issue of Action Comics, the fictional superhero character Superman, who flies around in a blue leotard with red underwear on the outside and a big red cape, renounces his US citizenship.

The key scene takes place in “The Incident,” a short story in Action Comics #900 written by David S. Goyer with art by Miguel Sepulveda. In it, Superman consults with the President’s national security advisor, who is incensed that Superman appeared in Tehran to non-violently support the protesters demonstrating against the Iranian regime, no doubt an analogue for the recent real-life protests in the Middle East. However, since Superman is viewed as an American icon in the DC Universe as well as our own, the Iranian government has construed his actions as the will of the American President, and indeed, an act of war.

Superman is going to finally take a real stand. At the UN.

Superman made his first appearance in the first issue of Action Comics in 1938. Since that time, the United States government has rounded up and jailed people because of their Japanese heritage, dropped atomic bombs on Japan, knowingly infected Guatemalans with STDs to study their effects, fought against the civil rights of its own black citizens, entered the Vietnam war based on the “Gulf of Tonkin” lie, used chemical warfare against the Vietnamese, provided millions of dollars to Middle Eastern dictators in the name of “stability,” and fought a “war on drugs” that allows government agents to break into peoples’ homes and is directly causing the deaths of tens of thousands of people all over the world every year. Our current president has engaged the United States in yet another war in the Middle East, and claims to have the power to kill US citizens without a trial. And that’s just off the top of my head. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, politics & government by Ricky Sprague
8 Comments »

Economics has long been referred to as the “dismal science” because, well, most people find it all so dry. Some creative economists over at George Mason University and elsewhere are challenging that view and having a little fun making rap videos full of economic lessons. I’ve linked the most recent installment below.

Granted, if you’re completely clueless of the arguments they’re making, a lot won’t make sense, but they’re fun to watch regardless.

Fight of the Century: Keynes vs Hayek (Rd 2)

Tags: art & entertainment, politics & government by Jay Baldwin
3 Comments »

The other night, I caught the last hour of a movie masterpiece on TV: Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men. It is an inspiring film to watch, in and of itself, and it is full of that 1950’s mixture of sinewy intellect and bongo-driven, twelve-tonal avant-gardeness. It is a film that simultaneously, as much of the art of that period did, praises and condemns the register of human action and tendency. 

But the old stream-of-consciousness kicked in when I again saw Lee J. Cobb, the disgruntled father who wants a young man to hang as a result of his own feelings against his own rebellious son. Seeing Cobb made me think of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, in which he played the first Willy Loman. [Read more →]

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo, creative writing by Chris Matarazzo
No Comments »

I have been waiting for this week for months. On Thursday, my friend John L. and I will be traveling to New York City and meeting my buddy Johnny to see Buffalo Tom play at the Bowery Ballroom. Then on Friday I will be seeing them in Philly with my buddy Dennis Doc. This is my favorite band of all time and I will be seeing them twice with some of my closest friends. The nostalgia is kicking in so hard that I might not bring my cell phone and bring a disposable camera to get a genuine 90’s feel. And to kick things off, last night Cailin and I ordered take-out food from the Colonial Diner – which was the ultimate late night after party destination in South Jersey for me from 1992-2007. [Read more →]

Tags: Marty digs, music by Marty O'Connor
No Comments »

I’m not going to review the film. That’s been done and done and done.

And it’s true, the movie is just ok. The characters are one dimensional. The script is overly didactic. The cinematography made-for-TVish.

Instead I’m going to share my reaction to the film, my emotional reaction: frankly, it depressed me. Not because of my disappointment in the film’s quality, or because of the film’s all-too-real dystopian setting.

No, it depressed me because, unlike most movies wherein one must rely on the suspension of disbelief to accept the hero’s actions, this movie portrays heroes acting in ways many of us could achieve. It depressed me because I haven’t started a successful business; therefore, I haven’t benefited society as much as maybe I could have. It depressed me because I haven’t honored or appreciated as I should those entrepreneurs who have.

The bottomline message of Atlas Shrugged part 1 is that if you want to help the poor, start a business; create wealth; create jobs. If you haven’t done this, it might depress you; but don’t assuage your depression by supporting government redistribution schemes. Do it by encouraging and supporting entrepreneurs and small business owners–and thank them for their service just as you do those men and women in our armed forces. They deserve it.

Tags: art & entertainment, movies, politics & government by Jay Baldwin
No Comments »

Aren’t Hall and Oates gay? I think so though perhaps not with each other. By acclamation Hall is just out of Oates’ league. But whatever the domestic situation these two men’s men have written passionately about women for decades. This one is from ’73 and we all remember many others. Was homophobia so rampant back then that only Freddy Mercury could openly flaunt his glory in denim chaps? Maybe. Maybe Sarah Smile was really Sammy Slim. Or maybe it is that everyone with a serious claim to humanity pretty instinctively imbues all things valuable, fragile, volatile and tragic with a female animating force. Ships get the treatment. Hurricanes did for years until some pansy somewhere decided either women were being insulted or men were being slighted and gave us Hurricanes Andrew and Gustav but it fools none but the  foolish. We have Mother Earth and the naked Muses. Those in the habit of cursing or coaxing their cars almost always see them as female. America, of course, is the Big She; the land of milk and honey to a starving globe. The mother. The teacher. The sister. The whore. And baby, she’s gone. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, politics & government by Ken Watson
No Comments »

Last weekend, the pay cable channel Starz ran the three “Toy Story” films back-to-back. Watching them one after the other provided roughly the same experience as when you’re forced to sit through an hours-long corporate meeting at which a compelling, entertaining, but ultimately hollow speaker hectors you about how much more you could be doing to help the corporation succeed. And then telling you that, for your efforts, you should expect nothing more than the personal satisfaction of knowing you’d helped the CEO make an extra $20 million. Oh, and you’re supposed to find the entire proceeding poignant.

The “Toy Story” trilogy is a perfect encapsulation of anxiety in the post-modern world. Corporate anxiety. The films promote groupthink, and the acceptance of the purveyors of mass entertainment and consumables as benevolent entities never to be questioned. In a world in which new technology is giving consumers more control over how they consume their entertainment, the big corporations want you to remember who it was who gave you your Woody.
[Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, trusted media & news by Ricky Sprague
1 Comment »