“Are you watching children’s TV again?”
“No, of course not. I’m watching children’s TV in Spanish. This is improving my language skills.”
“What’s happening in the show?”
”I’m assuming that guy with a giant rear-end is going to fart on someone. I’m not really sure about the rest of the plot. They are talking too fast.”
“You just wanted an excuse to watch Captain Underpants.”
”El Capitán Canzoncillos. And, yes.”
Filed under Watching
I just watched Max Joseph’s video “DICKS: Do you need to be one to be a successful leader?” It’s 35-minutes long. It’s been out for a while now, but it showed up on my YouTube feed. I figured I would give it 3min because I was pretty sure it was going to be a group of alpha males talking about why they needed to be sociopaths to everyone.
Nope, it was a short documentary by a semi-famous director named Max Joseph (awesome name, by the way). In the world of Hollywood, many cinematic masterminds are often disagreeable, mean men. It’s kind of expected that most famous directors are dicks. However, Max was not a dick, or at least not usually, and he worried that not being one would hurt his career. So, he asked around.
The doc is absorbing not because you recognize most of his interview subjects (and you might recognize a few), but because the many conversations lead to a surprising conclusion. Being gruff and demanding may be a constant in the high-pressure world of Hollywood filmmaking, but there are dicks and then there are jerks.
As the documentary showed, being an uncaring dick who wants things her own way versus being a caring jerk who passionately wants to get the best outcome for everyone are two different things and can give you too different outcomes.
Anyway, don’t be a dick.
Filed under Watching
I stumbled across a strange and wonderful thing a few days ago. David Lynch, who lives only a few miles from my tiny neighborhood has started giving a daily weather report from his desk in Los Angeles.
Each day for the last few weeks, (presumably sometime early in the morning) Lynch stares at the camera, mentions the date and the day of the week, and then looks out the window. Often it is sunny, he tells us, with golden sunshine. Occasionally, though, LA’s weather will take him by surprise. “By golly, we’ve got rain,” he said this last Monday, which was indeed mildly stormy.
There is a resolute sameness to each morning, almost like a performance art piece. He mentions the weather, the temperature (both F° and C°), and ends with a hearty “Have a Great Day.”
With his signature wavy hair, deeply lined face, fully buttoned black shirt, and a steaming cup of coffee, I feel like I’m watching a small-time radio operator outside of Missoula, MT (Lynch’s home town) giving a local update between the farm report.
David Lynch has always been a deeply weird and interesting dude, so I feel compelled to keep tuning in. You can do the same on his YouTube page.
Filed under Watching
I’ve been a fan of Prince since I was a kid, but never with any real passion. His music was good, his output incredibly impressive, his style was… weird. He was never in my Top 5 favorite musical acts, but he would always be in the top 20 somewhere.
The estate of the late Prince Roger Nelson allowed the concert film of Prince and the Revolution’s Purple Rain Tour from 1985 to be streamed for a limited period. I watched it last night. Though I liked his music, I never saw Prince live. But after watching this concert film, I really feel like I should have invested a bit more time and energy into his music.
I think maybe I always thought that Prince’s biggest feature was his “look.” The costumes, the heels, the hair, and many, many sequins. But, after watching the concert, it finally struck home what so many people had said (for so long). There really was no one with the musicianship, the showmanship, the charisma, and ambition of Prince. His ability to play, sing, dance, and the effortless way he seemed to hold an audience’s attention were mesmerizing. His version of “Purple Rain” in the encore, which is essentially a 20-minute guitar solo, was worth the entire 120min run time.
You knew this.
I should have known this.
He really was one of a kind.
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FYI, if you missed the opportunity to see the concert film, you can hear the album on multiple streaming platforms, like this one.
Bark, Doggy! Bark! 