"Gobbledigook"

Sigur Ros's new video, Gobbledigook, makes me believe in fairies, elves, and nymphs--creatures that will be saved through recycling, hybrid cars, and other attempts at minimizing our carbon footprint.

It looks like a camera man went on a nature hike (with his camera of course...what kind of camera man goes on nature hikes through virgin forests without his trusty gear?) and stumbled upon a fairy celebration complete with bonfires, stick-banging, a wooden swing, body paint, and skinny dipping. In fact, everyone that's participating in Ros's version of a woodsy rave is frolicking, jumping, and rolling around stark naked. While there are plenty of boobs and butts, the innocent glee on faces and childhood games like hide-and-seek depicts innocence instead of perversion. It's all good, clean fun without the danger of someone's eye--or anything else--getting poked.

"Football"

I had never seen my demure, British friend, Sophie act so loud and so vulgar before yesterday; but then again, I had never seen her root for her football team, Chelsea, as they fought Manchester United in the European Football Final, an event which parallels the spectacular displays of fanaticism of the Superbowl: It's kind of a BIG DEAL. The Londoner in Addison, TX was packed mostly with red jerseys for Man U even though there was a small, but boisterous, contingent of blue jerseys making merry at the other end of the bar. (It seems that even in a bar setting, the reds will always outnumber the blues in TX). It was my first futbol match and I was trying to figure out why the sport that is far more universal than American football.  Futbol spans the globe.  People in North Texas take off work to sit in a dark bar in the middle of the day to watch a match that's being played in Moscow thousands of miles away.  

It seems like everybody has a team, a favorite player, and knows the rules.  For example, in futbol, the ref just flashes a penalty card--yellow or red--and magistrates, officials, or registrars (I don't know what they're called) keeps tally and the offender is punished accordingly.  They are warned or if they commit a big no-no, they are ejected from the game immediately.  Chelsea's striker, Didier Drogba, was ejected before the penalty shootout after he slapped United's Vidic.  

In football, there's a litany of fouls--holding, blocking in the back, horse collaring, etc.--that fans have to watch out for.  Plus they have to match the foul to the ref's hand motions, a difficult task since sometimes the ref looks like he's trying to land a plane.  (Thank God for mics and friendly sports announcers).  Sometimes, the foul happens so quickly that the offense isn't noted until refs review the tapes, which could be days after the fact, and  subsequently delaying punishment.  

What I did understand was the camaraderie between fans of the same ilk  and the blind hatred between fans of opposing teams.  It doesn't matter what sport is being played on the field: There will always be some guy in face paint calling someone a wanker or a douche bag.  

The Guess Who

Carl Dixon on the big screen

Last Saturday, I didn't have to guess who was behind the classic rock hits American Woman, No Sugar Tonight, and These Eyes. Even though I could sing along when they were played on the radio, I had no idea that they were by the Guess Who; but plenty remembered the Canadian rockers and they were at the Wildflower Festival in Richardson, TX to hear the soundtrack of their youth. Before long, the Guess Who had the crowd up from their picnic blankets and lawn chairs and dancing. Each thrust of the hip and devil horn hand sign brought listeners back in time to the halcyon days of scenic overlooks, bell bottoms, and muscle cars. While my group enjoyed the music from the beginning, the close-ups of Carl Dixon, the lead vocalist and guitarist, posted on the giant screen above the stage, caught our attention: Dixon is sexy. His flat-ironed blonde hair caught the summer breeze and gently blew away from his lined, yet handsome, face, and his tight pearl-snap shirt showed off a taut physique. (He unsnapped towards the end of the show). Jenny, 25, kept asking if he had a son. The band finished with American Woman; and Mary, 31, thought that the #1 hit was written by Lenny Kravitz. She was joking, of course. Even is she wasn't, Kravitz has nothing on the Guess Who.

I heart Britney

We’ve all heard her story by now as each chapter of the Britney saga—a fairytale turned tawdry tabloid—has been meticulously recorded by the media. First, she was an innocent Mouseketeer, then the Bubblegum Pop Princess, and now she’s a pudgy has-been, a drug addict, and a bad mother. She’s gossiped about like the high school slut. People think she’s mentally ill. But as someone who has always been a fan, I’m rooting for her. I get sad when I watch her music videos because they’ve become a documentary of her downfall, her disgrace.

It seemed like Britney happened overnight. Her wave crested and all of sudden there was a deluge of saccharin sweet pop flooding the radio and TV airwaves. Then again, nobody notices the plates shifting on the ocean floor until the tsunami hits. When I saw the video for …Baby One More Time, I wondered whose genius idea was it to play up the Lolita, catholic school girl stereotype in order to sell Britney. With one video, Britney Spears usurped the Spice Girls to become my new guilty pleasure. I loved it and I wasn’t the only one. Baby debuted as No. 1 on the Billboard charts and to this day has sold 13 million copies. She was only 17 years-old when she became an international superstar.

As with all of her songs, Baby is overproduced, especially the vocals. Her alto voice deepened to evoke a sultrier tone. Sometimes her vibrato sounds like a bleat. None of her songs are vocally demanding because she’s not a strong singer. You want powerhouse vocals? Bop over the pop aisle and play Christina Aguilera. If you want to be entertained, stay with Spears. She has the ability to look past the camera and fix her brown-eyed gaze at the viewer. In all of her music videos, Britney uses tricks she learned from her small town dance studio to connect with her audience and each move is calibrated to appeal to young girls and to pervy old men. The exaggerated lip-synching conveys the agony of teenage of crushes and draws attention to her glossy, shellacked mouth.

Britney is a talented dancer and her gift is displayed in all of her performances. She moves through the music fluidly, confidently. The years of marking 8-counts have instilled rhythm in her bones; the result being that she’s never worried about getting off-beat. Her certitude gives her time to maximize and accessorize each movement with finishing touches—a wink, an impertinent lift of the chin, a giggle. She demands your attention. The choreography in the final dance combination of the Baby video is particularly demanding with a lot of level changes. In sixteen beats, Britney slides on the floor, where she does a knee spin that flows directly into a deep lunge, which launches her into a triple pirouette. She spots the whole time she’s stretching and spinning to maintain the connection with the camera.

In Baby, Britney captivates her audience but in Prerogative, her audience is confronted. As she states in the Gimme More introduction, “It’s Britney, Bitch.” In hindsight, the car crash in the opening scene of the My Prerogative video foreshadowed current news stories. We are bombarded with stories detailing Britney’s vehicular mishaps: driving with her baby on her lap, a fender bender, assaulting a paparazzo’s SUV with an umbrella. In Prerogative, the dancing and bubbly charm is replaced by fetishism. At one point, she’s wearing black lace lingerie and brandishing a whip as she poses in front of a screen which shows flashes of her writhing on a bed in matching white bra and panties. The tease has been replaced by a dominatrix. Prerogative is the beginning of the end of Britney’s reign. Her relationship with Justin Timberlake ended, her 24-hour Vegas marriage to a high school boyfriend was annulled, and people were taking bets as to how long her marriage to backup dancer Kevin Federline would last. Prerogative was her three-minute response to all the Britney haters: “The say I’m crazy, I really don’t care.”

But does she? Can you go from pop star to burnout and not care? I like to think that Blackout (2007 Jive Records) is evidence proving that she does. If she didn’t care about her career, she wouldn’t have agreed to do the album, especially one that caters to her fan base. The bass-heavy, danceable tracks and the half-sung, half-spoken come-ons are all for Team Britney. There are no PG-13 filler songs like Sometimes or Lucky that exist to suck up to parents and tone down her sex appeal. We like it when she’s sexy. We don’t like it when she’s white trash.

Which is the real Britney? The charming Louisianan or the one who walks barefoot around gas stations? I’m making the assumption, of course, that Britney the performer, and Britney Lynn Spears is the same person. But the dividing line separating the persona and person becomes more porous as we continue to be inundated with Britney news, both private and professional. In order for her to make a comeback, the line must be re-drawn which means the parasitic relationship between Britney and the paparazzi must end. Once that happens, I forecast a resurgence. At this moment, Britney is just off-beat, but I’m sure she’ll get back on rhythm.

NFL 2008 Draft Day, Radio City Music Hall, NYC

It was a cool day, overcast with a brisk wind. A man wearing New York Jets jersey jogged down the street, his sneakered feet maneuvering around pockets of tourists huddled around tables displaying handbags and cheap sunglasses. He turned right at the intersection of West 50^th St. and Sixth Ave. and looked both ways before crossing the busy thoroughfare to Radio City Music Hall. It was 2:50 P.M. He got in ten minutes before Roger Goodell, NFL Commissioner, kicked off the 2008 NFL Football Draft.

Football fans not lucky enough to score tickets into the music hall went down the block to the ESPN Fan Watching Center, a pigskin pick-watching party with video game consoles, raffle contests, and bikinied Philadelphia Eagles cheerleaders: Amy, Jamie, and Kristy. And of course no football party is complete without a monster sound system and a 60-inch HD flat-screen TV hoisted above an elevated stage between a yellow goal post. Kids and adults jumped on inflated bounce houses and tossed footballs while draft commentary boomed over their heads. Those not interested in playing games were busy managing their team’s future roster.

“With the fourth pick, in the 2008 NFL Draft, the Oakland Raiders select Darren McFadden, running back for Arkansas,” Goodell announced.

Brad Sample, 46, sported a Green Bay Packers jersey. He thought the Oakland Raiders made a good choice by choosing McFadden since they should see quick returns on their multi-million dollar investment. “Running backs take a shorter time to develop than quarterbacks. Look at Adrien Peterson and JaMarcus Russell,” he said. Russell, the 2007 number one pick, went to the Raiders while Peterson, the number 7 pick went to the Minnesota Vikings. While Peterson had an outrageous first year with 5.6 yards per carry, Russell only managed a 55.9 percent quarterback rating. It’s clear that the Vikings got the better deal. But now that Russell and McFadden are on the roster, Raiders fans should expect more points from the offense.

As owners bang their heads against the salary caps to get the high profile draft prospects and free agents, the expectations from coaches and fans for a vetted player to perform become bigger. Miami fans are expecting to win at least two games now that Jake Long, Offensive Tackle from Univ. of Michigan and number one overall draft pick, signed up for a five-year pleasure cruise with Bill Parcells and the Dolphins. The contract is worth $57 million. “He’s making more money than veterans,” Sample said. Having never played one down as a pro-football player, Long became the highest paid lineman in the NFL.

There are great NFL players that don’t go in the first round: Tom Brady, for example. Brady went in the sixth round and was the 199^th overall draft pick. Tony Romo was invited to Valley Ranch as a free agent. Both quarterbacks led their team to the playoffs last year.

“With the fifth pick in the 2008 NFL draft, Kansas City Chiefs select Glenn Dorsey, Defensive Tackle, LSU,” announced Goodell.

During the commercial break following the Chief’s pick, the emcee introduced Tony Richardson. It was Richardson’s first time at the NFL drafts but he wasn’t there to sign a contract. He was there to sign autographs. In 1971, Tony Richardson signed with the New York Jets as a free agent after failing to get drafted out of Auburn University. His 6-1 frame, stuffed in a lilac button-up, looked small onstage. “It doesn’t matter how high you go in the draft,” Richardson said before signing autographs. “You have to bust your butt, you gotta work hard. You have to put your head down and go to work.” During his 14^th NFL season, he carried the ball 7 times and rushed for a total of 13 yards, averaging 1.9 yards a carry. The median average of productive running backs is between three and four.

“With the sixth pick in the 2008 NFL draft, the New York Jets select Vernon Gholson,” announced Goodell.

The TV cameras zoomed in on the green and white painted faces of the Jets fans screaming for their rookie. By picking Gholston, the Jets made NFL draft history. For the first time, the anointed six went as the first six picks. Who could forget the panicked on Brady Quinn’s face as one by one, his competitors were chosen and he was left alone, a worried kid with shaggy hair dressed in a nice brown suit? He finally went to the Cleveland Browns as the 2007 22^nd overall draft pick.

Football fandom doesn’t end in February. After the Superbowl, there’s the draft, followed by training camp, and then preseason. Then sideline tidbits—team politics, trades, rumors, supermodel girlfriends, court trials—keep devoted followers chained to the media for the latest news about their team. Some fans will waste an entire spring afternoon watching the draft. Sample got to the ESPN festival well before the first pick and he will be glued to the screen, waiting for the Packers’s selection. “My feet are killing me,” he said. “But I gotta be here at least until 30^th pick.”

Carly Simon, Starbucks at Astor Place, NYC

On this sunny May Day afternoon, I was fortunate enough to grab the last neon green wristband to Carly Simon's five-song acoustic set at Starbucks on Astor Place. The cavernous space was packed with fans hoping for a musical afternoon delight, and they noshed on complimentary pastries as they waited for the show to begin. After a short introduction, Simon came up and sat on a stool at center stage wearing a black blazer and beatnik poet sunglasses. Her four-piece band, which included a barefoot bongo player, framed the blonde singer. She eased into her set with three mellow songs from her new album This Kind of Love which dropped this Tuesday. While slow, the bongos and the wooden hinge box Simon played added a Peruvian groove as bold as the coffee beans brewing in the background. During the second song, Hold Out Your Heart, Simon and her bongo player, perhaps inspired by the coffee house setting, began to snap their fingers to the beat. But the crowd knew things were going to pick up when Simon exchanged the box for a guitar. "It's fun to redo songs when they take on new meaning," Simon said before launching into Anticipation and You're so Vain. They didn't have an electric guitar wailing in the background but it didn't stop Simon and her crew from rocking out Vain. (I didn't know the cowbell could produce such a strident and angry sound until this afternoon). The song started out slow but forceful, with Simon spitting out the scornful lyrics. Soon the whole band joined in, which increased the volume and attitude during landmark phrases like "clouds in your coffee" and "wife of a close friend." It was a good move on Simon's part to close with the karaoke favorite—something old to promote something new.

Sheryl Crow at Irving Plaza, NYC

Some shots taken with my handy-dandy Blackberry

Sheryl Crow
February 6, 2008

Strumming her guitar and decked out in weathered jeans and a vest the color of ripened pomegranate, Sheryl Crow looked seventies-hippie chic. Crow portrayed a confident and engaging persona. She shook her ass and entertained the crowd with sassy and sarcastic banter. Her set consisted of songs plumbed from past albums and her new one, “Detours,” a politically-laced and personal record, which she promoted during the gig. “You can buy it or steal it. I don’t care, just listen to it," she said. The show climaxed to “Gasoline,” a song about a future society free from oil and political manacles—an obvious nod to the Bush administration. Her parting words show that her last two years didn’t break her: “All I wanna do is have some fun, no matter how fucked up things are.” A fierce flower child for sure.