Two Movies Make me Ponder the Nature of Showbiz Stardom: The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and Fame (1980)

On Sunday and Monday I watched the 3 hour marathon that is the 1936 film The Great Ziegfeld.  I taped this one off TCM a few days ago as I knew it co-starred William Powell and Myrna Loy, and I was pretty keen to see more of both now that I'm out of Thin Man films.  I was also actually very curious about the historical figure Florenz Ziegfeld who brought into being the Ziegfeld Follies and pioneered much of the modern showmanship of American big theater and the now lost art of "glorifying the American girl".

Top that off with some famously complicated technical numbers, and what wasn't there to want to see?


Well,again, the movie is three hours.

That doesn't mean it doesn't cruise along at a good clip, but, you know, block off three hours of your life for an absolutely stunning visual treat, the kind they quit making around the late 1950's.

One of the great lost commodities of the early 20th Century, a phrase that probably rings familiar but you aren't sure why, is Ziegfeld Girl.  Lifting his idea from Paris revues, Florenz Ziegfeld filled his shows with dozens of young women to dance and sing in a fashion that would be imitated in Hollywood musicals for years in huge chorus productions that, today, I suppose, is mostly associated with Busby Berkeley films.

What's amazing is how many names were once Ziegfeld girls, including Barbara Stanwyck, Norma Shearer, Lucille Ball, Joan Crawford, Louise Brooks and countless more.

The movie spanned Ziegfeld's adult life, from carnival barker at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair to his death in the early 1930's.  The movie bills itself as tracking the "romances" of Ziegfeld, and it does, at that, politely skirting around any shenanigans.  Less politely poking fun at is mismanagement of money.  Powell is actually pretty great, and if you've got the time to kill, it's not a bad way to spend your time.

Happy Birthday, Lee Marvin

Happy birthday to actor and US Marine Lee Marvin.

I believe today marks his 89th birthday.

I hear you, Lee

Marvin passed in 1989.

On behalf of all tall people, if you don't like standing behind us at concerts: tough luck

I saw this comic strip thing today, and it's actually very good.  It's about the annoying things people do at concerts (ie: why I quit paying money to go to shows in my late 30's).

I'd point to number 5, "The Sun Blocking Giant" and I thought I'd clear something up.

The world was built for smaller people.  Most of you are those smaller people, and I appreciate that most of you attend shows and expect to basically be within a certain height range.  I know you think that there's some great advantage to being a bit taller, but in a world that mostly relies on your ability to be a jerk in a board room or your ability to manage java code to get ahead, being bred for being the lynchpin in a goon squad of some barbarian hoard doesn't really pay off so much.

I was 6'3" by the ninth grade, and somehow put on two more inches by the end of my freshman year of college.  I didn't measure myself in between.  Tall people don't really know nor really care about how tall they are.

Since I was a kid, I also like(d) live music and attending shows.  I live in Austin.  It's sort of a thing here.

The average bar in Austin that would host a show (let's say, Liberty Lunch or La Zona Rosa) had three zones:

1.  The area right by the stage with the cow-eyed fans pressing up against the stage because that made them bigger fans and let them sing the lyrics right back at the singer's face.

2.  The mid-range where most everyone else stood with elbow room enough to hold a beer and still lift it to their face without putting out someone else's eye.

3.  The place in the back where, for reasons that baffled me, people would huddle and shout over the music, like it was a huge inconvenience that there were all these speakers blaring music when they'd come out to this music venue for a quiet night of conversation.  Also, they're usually trashed.

The cartoon bemoans:

Worlds Collide: The Online Comic Book Course

For a long, long time, what I did for a living was "distance learning" which came to be called "eLearning".  Or, likely, now, "learning".

In 1997 I took a job as a camera operator and switch-room operator for a distance learning outfit in the College of Engineering at the University of Texas getting paid what seemed a king's ransom of something like $5.75 an hour.  At the time I was a Radio-Television-Film student looking for work that related to my dreams of working in movie or TV production,* and handling a camera - no matter how out of date - and working with audio and switching equipment - no matter how lo-fi - was a welcome change of pace from the hours behind the counter at Camelot Records selling copies of Blink 182 to perfectly nice people.

Somehow, upon graduation, I became the guy running the studio (they offered me insurance).  Mostly, back then, we were making duplicates of tapes of classes and mailing them (I KNOW), or hooking up with remote location via ISDN lines, satellite, or using some really, really early days video streaming that its best not to talk about.

End of a Long, Long Week

I had a very odd week, and I'm not able to focus my chi enough to get any blogging done today or really engage in social media.

Here's to hoping you kids are having a good one.

Taking the Night Off - The League is Your Valentine's Evening Co-Pilot

It's Valentine's Day. I had a hell of a day, and I'm not social media-ing at all tonight.

That doesn't mean I can't provide all you good people with the finest in Valentine's Day music, sure to brew up some romance.

Ladies and gentleman, the Reverend Al Green.



Mr Stevie Wonder



Ms. Minnie Riperton



and the killer app of romantic musicians:  Sade





and, more Sade

Happy Valentine's Day to Superman and Lois Lane

Well, it's Valentine's Day, and we're here to talk about the one thing we're an expert on:  ROMANCE.

Just think of The League as your shifty bellhop of love

Aside from my folks, I honestly think my earliest ideas about romance probably came from movies and cartoons, and, later, comics.  I mean, I remember watching Hart to Hart and thinking those two had a pretty ideal relationship, but I don't recall much from TV for adults that informed my ideas about how to actually pursue the ladies or what blossoming romance might look like.

The Leia/ Han relationship of Empire attempted to teach me a lot of things.

1.  Sometimes a bit of verbal combativeness is flirting
2.  Carrie Fischer looks great in a snowsuit
3.  You can find romance when stranded inside a giant spaceworm
4.  When you're ready to make your move, turn off the droids
5.  When it looks like all is lost and it's time to express how you really feel about each other, when she confesses in front of a bunch of strangers, that she loves you, always say "I know".  That shit is COOL.

As much as I appreciated Kirk using the Enterprise as his personal chick-magnet, he never really had an ongoing romance for more than episode or two, and maybe there's something to be learned from that.  Space Bros before Space Ladies.

I was always a little sad that Marion Ravenwood only appeared in one Indiana Jones movie, that is until recently.  She was the only leading lady who seemed like a good match (clearly, Willie Scott was not up to the task).

But, going back further, I do think the Superman movies did a good job of setting up the romance for a strange being from another world and a career gal in the big city.  Aside from Han and Leia, I think the pair I remember pulling for the most in movies from back in the day was Lois and Superman.  Despite all his, frankly, totally awesome powers, it seemed Clark Kent was no better around women than any of us, and could be jut as quickly and totally swept off his feet by a woman who isn't going to notice him until he drops a yacht in front of the police station.

So, "The Internship" is coming out - How was I involved?

This Vince Vaughn/ Owen Wilson comedy was filming last summer. I happened to be in the building where they were filming, but it wasn't at Google in the Bay Area. The scenes on the steps there? That's a sort of union-like building at Georgia Tech.



I was scheduled to give a presentation after lunch, and I was delayed thanks to the scene you see in the trailer with Aasif Mandvi talking about how lucky they are to be interning at Google.

It was weird.  You kind of forget that when they're filming a comedy, the scene is funny to the audience but not to the characters, so Mandvi was improvising and trying different things, but to a room full of stone faced people in beanies.

The director, meanwhile, was laughing behind the camera, but nobody on the crew looked even mildly amused.  So, do with that what you will.

I know this, because I got trapped watching the filming when I was coming back from the men's room and trying to re-enter the room where I was presenting.

I think we were supposed to sign an NDA about this, but I didn't sign jack.

If that 0.5 seconds film you see has a little extra juice, that's The League you sense there.

By the way, everything about this movie makes me feel incredibly old.

Also, Vince Vaughn is about my height, which was surprising.  But he's in much better shape, which was less surprising.

The Orson Scott Card Conundrum - Social Ideals and The Purchase of a Superman Comic

All right, here we go.

I don't really want to write this post, but it's about Superman, it's in the news, etc..

Famed Sci-Fi writer Orson Scott Card has some social views that are well known within the comics and sci-fi "communities".  Card has written some highly successful work such as the famed Ender's Game (which I haven't read), and started working in comics a bit with Ultimate Iron Man several years ago now (also - haven't read).

Specifically, Card takes issue with homosexuality and gay marriage.  He sits on the board of an organization that is more or less dedicated to opposing gay marriage in the US, the National Organization for Marriage.

Last week, when the new Adventures of Superman was announced, Card was listed among the writers, and (if you're keeping score), specifically, he was one of the creators associated with the project that made me blink a bit while reviewing the roster of talent.

Full disclosure:  I am fully in support of marriage rights for the LGBT community and believe that this is the civil rights issue of our generation.  Fundamentally, I believe in extending the same legal privileges to all consenting adults in a free society, and am against legal loopholes or half-measures that would place legal or social restrictions on someone based upon race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.  </ lefty boilerplate>

The questions then arise:

Unky League says "Don't Forget: Thursday is Valentine's Day!"

Boy, Valentine's Day!  Who doesn't just LOVE Valentine's Day?

I am guessing many of us just got done paying off most of the Christmas bills, and now its time to buy yet another thing for your significant other.  Great.  She's a wonderful dame.  She deserves the world.  Unfortunately, most of us are both tapped out of money and ideas here at the mid-point of February.

And, let's be honest, when we say that we need to be thinking of something for our significant other - for those of us straight dudes with a straight lady, we know that it really means we're expected to buy something expensive for our straight lady friend, but we aren't getting @#$%.

I know that in other arrangements, things differ, but I have never, ever heard anyone of the female persuasion in a relationship with someone of the male persuasion pondering anything on V-Day except where they want to go to dinner and when.