When you’re a Tiger, challenges aren’t trouble. They’re hors d’oeuvres.
What’s Up Doc? The Animated Art of Chuck Jones is on display in the LSU Student Union Art Gallery through July 29th. The exhibit is on loan from the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity in Cosa Mesa, Calif. The center’s missions are to share Jones’ artwork and inspire creativity in others, no matter how young or old.
I wonder if I should figure out a way to get to Baton Rouge for a day before July 29th…
Rock of Ages: The Retrophisch Review
In the interests of full disclosure: the soundtrack for this film was the soundtrack of my life in the 1980s. I was a closet metalhead–closet only in the sense that I didn’t have long hair and wasn’t allowed to go to the rock shows by my Southern Baptist-raised mother. These songs are the songs of my formative teenage years, and I was already biased toward liking this movie before I sat down in the theater to view it. So fellow ‘80s rockers whose iPods and iPhones hold Poison, Journey, Bon Jovi, Twisted Sister, The Scorpions, Guns N'Roses, and the like, you’re going to love this movie, despite its myriad shortcomings.
Oh, and shortcomings it has. For one: how do you leave out Motley Crüe from the soundtrack? Talk about your quintessential 1980s L.A. rock band. There’s not even a cut from the Crüe in the original musical. Granted, Rock of Ages is, despite its full-on '80s rock ensemble, a love story. And Motley Crüe didn’t make their bones belting out power ballads. Now it wouldn’t surprise me to learn, given Motley Crüe’s years-ago split-up, then later reformation, that there may have been some legal wrangling that proved too costly. Or maybe, being the quintessential 1980s L.A. rock band, the Crüe simply didn’t want their tracks being associated with a Broadway musical and its film spinoff.
One shortcoming which will come as no surprise: the plot’s really thin. The entire reason there’s even a plot is to give us reasons to have these songs performed. I’m sure if you took the original music videos for these songs, or video of their best live performances, strung them together one after another, and released that to theaters, we '80s rockers would be just as apt to shell out our ten bucks each to sit down and enjoy that hour and a half. One will note that Rock of Ages’s running time is just a hair over two hours, which tells you there’s about 30 minutes of nearly useless, music-less filler to slog through.
Casting: whew, we could be here awhile in this regard. But I’ll try to keep it brief. Alec Baldwin is amusing in his role as Bourbon Room owner Dennis Dupree, but you could easily interchange him with any number of actors. Malin Akerman is pure eye candy as a reporter from Rolling Stone. Really? A swimsuit cover model type cast as a reporter from Rolling Stone? The other supporting roles are as equally interchangeable among the Hollywood glitterati as Baldwin’s.
Julianne Hough is endearing as Sherrie, and we all know she can sing. (All the actors did their own singing, painfully obvious in a line of one song where Baldwin chimes in.) Mary J. Blige as Justice, the owner of The Venus Club, is a treat, and you want to hear more of her covering Pat Benatar and Quarterflash than to put up with another round of anything from Diego Boneta. My feelings regarding the lead casting of Boneta as Drew are best summed up by this line from Tom Santilli in his Examiner review (read after I saw the film):
He seems more suited for musical theater, which I guess this is, but he just seems like the kind of guy Stacee Jaxx would have beaten up in high school.
And speaking of Stacee Jaxx, this leads us to Tom Cruise. Like many, when I saw Cruise was taking the role of the fictional rock legend, I had serious doubts he could pull it off. And while I don’t think his singing voice is quite right for certain numbers (“Paradise City”, most notably), he sings well enough to indeed pull it off. I’ll also give Cruise points for giving an appropriately dark performace as a rock god who’s having trouble accepting his place in music history, and not knowing where to go next. I got the feeling he was channeling Axl Rose as the latter dealt with his own issues following Guns N'Roses’ ascendance from overnight success to rock institution.
There’s a lot to ding Rock of Ages for, but all in all, it’s a fun movie. And if the soundtrack of your life was like mine during that time period, you may find yourself wanting to go see it again.
patrickrhone / journal » Blog Archive » Remembering Rodney
patrickrhone / journal » Blog Archive » Remembering Rodney
Every year, on this day, I take some time out to remember my friend Rodney. Rodney committed suicide via a gunshot to the head on June 15th, 2002 after a long struggle with depression. He was a dear friend, Mac fan, and talented writer. I miss him dearly.
Every time Apple releases something incredible or posts record sales, I can’t help but think about how much he would have been enjoying it. That is, as much as depression or the medicines used to treat it allow you to enjoy anything.
Some who know me know that I live with bi-polar disorder (manic depression). I have spoken about it before. I have been hospitalized for attempted suicide myself many years ago.
There is no real cure. After many years of medication and therapy treatment that had varying degrees of success, I now use a combination of mindfulness meditation and non-violent communication to help me navigate through it. It has been the most successful of all.
That said, there are struggles. I would be a liar if I said that I don’t understand what it was that made Rodney ultimately pull the trigger. Despite having a successful job, a loving wife, a nice house, and being a respected writer for several sites, none of those things matter when the chemistry in your brain decides it is time to go and that it will never get any better.
This day also happens to be my wedding anniversary so it is always a bit bittersweet. In fact, I normally wait until the 16th to post this but, for some reason, that did not feel right this year. I guess because the fact is that he died today. That there is no glossing over it. That denying such is in some way denying that life is filled with both things gained and loss. That both are OK and deserve all of the emotions appropriate for each.
Finally, if you or someone you know is suffering from a mental disorder, I urge you to use compassion and empathy when speaking with them about it. But, please do so. Ask them to seek whatever help they can. Let them know how you feel.
Not sure what more to say other than thank you for listening to me fight through the tears once again.
Fuck suicide. Fuck it to hell.
P.S. The best way to celebrate a writer is to read his writing, most of which is linked or archived on Low End Mac.
Note: For a few who have asked, here is the book that has guided me on using mindfulness meditation to treat my mania and depression: The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, Jon Kabat-Zinn
Also, I would be an idiot for not mentioning… National Suicide Prevention Lifeline - With Help Comes Hope
I had the pleasure of several e-mail exchanges with Rodney, and had hoped to meet up with him at a Macworld Expo some time in those very early Aughts. I wouldn’t say we were friends, but I certainly miss his wit and writing.
I will echo Patrick: suicide is not the answer. There are people who want to help you. Please utilize those resources.
Recent Bounciness And When It Will Stop (Pinboard Blog)
Recent Bounciness And When It Will Stop (Pinboard Blog)
Openness like this is why I’m pleased to support Maciej.
Voices of Reconciliation | Jeremy Cowart
Voices of Reconciliation | Jeremy Cowart
Jeremy traveled to Rwanda in August 2011 with filmmaker Laura Waters Hinson to document survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide who have reconciled and are living life together peacefully in the same community. Inspired by my Jeremy’s “Voices of Haiti” photo essay, the portraits in this series capture the survivors of the genocide standing with the killers of their families, whom they’ve now forgiven.
PEBKAC: The Normals' View of Apple and the iPhone
This column originally appeared in the February 2012 issue of About This Particular Macintosh.
The last Macworld Expo I attended was in January 2009. This also happened to be the last Macworld Expo Apple attended. While in the Bay Area, I and some friends took advantage of the location and made the short trip to Cupertino, and the Apple Company Store. For those who’ve never been, the Company Store differs from your average Apple retail store in that it offers a variety of Apple-branded items such as clothing, hats, and paper and office products, in addition to the hardware and software you’d expect to see. I left with a black fleece pullover with a silver Apple logo on the left breast (on clearance, no less).
By now you’re wondering why this is at all important, and after all, aren’t I simply bragging? The Apple fleece has become my go-to sweatshirt. It’s comfortable and as we fashionistas all know, black goes with everything. So it’s not uncommon during the two or three days of winter we have here in north Texas to see me sporting the Apple fleece. It’s also a mainstay when I take our oldest son to the rink for hockey.
At a recent practice, a pair of fellow hockey dads were standing by the glass a few feet from me, discussing the iPhone, Apple the company, and Steve Jobs. One of them had obviously recently finished Walter Isaacson’s biography on Jobs, given some of the material he was regurgitating. This led to more material on Apple as a company, both under Jobs and without him at the helm, and about the iPhone and iPad. As I watched our sons practice and half-listened to their conversation, I was struck yet again at how differently I view the technology world, and specifically Apple and its products, than normal people.
Please understand when I say “normal” people, it is not a term of derision, like, say, muggle. I worked in IT for a decade and a half, nearly ten of those years exclusively on Macs. You wanted to know why Mac OS 8 wasn’t behaving properly once the Finder appeared on screen after boot? Why, you may well have a rogue extension or control panel installed, let’s take a look. What’s this, Mac OS X is actually based on UNIX and there’s now a command line? Oh, goody, something new to learn so we can better exploit the ease with which things can get done and we can get back to our game of Doom 3. Or Modern Warfare 3. Or whatever game’s the latest and greatest. (Because that last part is what normal people think IT people are really doing when we’re not actually working on a computer.)
As I said, I see these sort of things differently, as do many of my friends, including colleagues on this very publication. Normal people don’t buy black Apple fleece sweatshirts. And if they happen to, normal people usually don’t make a special trip out of their way to do so.
What I have noticed about wearing the fleece in the three years I’ve had it, is that fewer and fewer people will ask if I work for Apple. Or used to, if they know what my current occupation is. The why is easy to answer: today, more than ever, Apple is such an important part of people’s daily lives, it’s not an oddity any more. Apple is no longer the alternative-to-Windows company. Apple is now the iPhone company. And it seems every where I look, someone’s using an iPhone.
And interacting with normal people who use iPhones, I’ve quickly learned they use their iPhone much differently than we more-plugged-in techie types do. For instance, they usually only have one Twitter client, the official one from Twitter–if they have a Twitter client at all!
I realize that a lot of this sounds like common sense, but it’s hard for us techie types to sometimes understand how differently we see the technology world versus normal folks. Those people who just want stuff to work, just want to get stuff done so they can get on with their lives. For us, the tech stuff is our life. Those who can make the transition back and forth easily are the ones who do very well in the IT consulting arena. And normal folks, it’s always great to have someone like that in your corner.
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This. Changes. Everything.
What he said.
wait, what?
GENIUS.
The more you know…
