Rich Mintz

I bought into the idea of satellite radio quite early, right around the time I moved to Atlanta in 1999. Often what brings us to try new technologies is the recommendation of others, but I didn’t need one for this, because satellite radio seemed like a no-brainer — commercial radio at the time was awful (maybe it still is, but who listens anymore?), I was living in a place where I couldn’t get consistent NPR, I missed the bluegrass and community programming on WAMU — and then this New Thing came along.

From the start, I was an XM loyalist, and not just because I knew several people who worked at their headquarters in DC (although that was part of it — and I loved the company’s roots in the District itself, where they outfitted studios in a then-ratty neighborhood off New York Avenue NE before it was obvious to everyone else that the gentrification of that part of DC would actually work). XM was the purist’s choice; in their founding narrative, which I’m sure was more than a little true, they amassed a stupefying collection of recordings, hired the world’s best music curators and on-air talent, and set out to make something worth our loyalty, in response to the appalling field of steaming manure that commercial radio had become in the ClearChannel era. Sirius, by way of contrast, always felt like a naked money play.

So XM raised a stunning amount of money (there were satellites involved, after all — and if I recall correctly, one of the early ones went off course toward Mars or fell into the sea or something, and they had to build a new one — I’m sure it’s on the Internet, you can look it up), and over the next several years, they stumbled in the direction of profitability without ever quite losing their soul. I remained a subscriber for 8 years (!), upgrading my radio once or twice. I’m no music snob — I’m not even that much of a connoisseur — but there’s music I just plain like that you can’t hear on commercial radio and that’s too much work to steal off the Internet or rip from CDs. And besides, part of the point of radio has always been that an intelligent editor programs it for you, at least in theory, so that you can learn about things you’ll like but wouldn’t have found otherwise. Services like Pandora achieve a similar aim in a different way, but I find they require too much thinking to make me happy.

With XM, I was able to indulge my love of legitimate bluegrass, and dance and electronica, and even (to my secret shame) kickass Nashville country music. (Anyone who doesn’t like Kenny Chesney after listening to this or this, or Tim McGraw after this, or Trisha Yearwood after this, needs their head examined.) I bought multiple boomboxes and accessories so I could listen in the car and at home and especially in my bookstore (Peachtree Highway Books, in Atlanta’s Candler Park, 2002-2004, R.I.P.), where I spent most of my waking hours for two years. (Yes, XM, I was an occasional terms-of-service violator, as were many, many other intown Atlanta small businesses in those exciting entrepreneurial years.)

When I moved briefly to Little Rock in 2003-4, I discovered other XM loyalists among my friends. So apparently it wasn’t just me! We traded tips and occasionally even shared equipment. XM kept me company on those long, long drives from Atlanta to Little Rock (usually with an overnight in Tupelo). And in 2005-6, as friends and I founded BusyTonight in New York and tried hard to make a go of our technology business, XM was one of the things that kept me sane during that turbulent period.

I ended up canceling my XM for a combination of cost reasons and lack of use — for a period of several months, I just wasn’t home much, in that way you can get in a city like New York before you get your grownup footing. But now I’m feeling the hankering. Among other things, I feel the lack of editorially programmed bluegrass in my life, and the podcasts I listen to aren’t doing it for me. So I think I’m going to resubscribe. I just passed four hours on JetBlue in the past 24 hours with satellite radio playing in my ears continuously — and I like it. I was worried that the Sirius/XM merger would wreck everything, but most of my old favorite channels are still there, so it’s time to give it another try.

And now, because I can, some Herbie Rides Again action. God, these Disney movies from the 1960s and 1970s movies were well made — well cast, well acted (with good-natured actors just short of caricature), well shot, visually rich, fun for people of all ages, and completely devoid of anything nasty or unwholesome (which doesn’t mean devoid of humor or villainy, both of which are in evidence throughout). And Ye Chicken Tournament Jousting Today! There is so little in popular culture nowadays that feels like this. And the scenery! They’re worth watching just for the backdrops, usually of a clean and tidy California (here it’s San Francisco) that isn’t around anymore.

If I were her publicist, I’m not sure I’d care for today’s profile of Jersey Shore cast member Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi in the NYT; writer Cathy Horyn calls Snooki out (in more or less so many words) for being shallow and superficial. Well, that’s a shocker!

Like everyone, I’ve watched a few minutes of Jersey Shore here and there to see what all the fuss is about, and I don’t really care for it, although the people who are offended by the whole thing are missing the mark. If you grow up the daughter of an auto salvage dealer, and someone wants to pay you $100,000 a year and put you on TV and get you talked about on the Internet, well, why not? These kids are harmless, and for the most part they seem to mean well. Sure, Mike Sorrentino has a somewhat higher opinion of himself and the options facing him in the future than “the Situation” warrants, but that’s not a crime, and if he actually is able to hold a career together for a while, it wouldn’t be the first time that sheer force of will was the deciding factor in someone’s American media success.

All that aside, it was kind of a relief to read in this surprisingly engaging report on the Jersey Shore contract talks that Sally Ann Salsano, the show’s creator, has no illusions about the longevity of these kids’ fame, and does her best to keep them focused so that when the opportunities dry up, some of their savings will still be left.

You know the movie Freaky Friday? With Jodie Foster and John Astin and Barbara Harris and Dick Van Patten and a passel of other B-listers from the 60s and 70s? (I’m talking about the real Freaky Friday (1976), not the superfluous remake with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan.)

Well, here’s a fun fact: the baseball game near the end of the movie was filmed in Encino Park, across from my elementary school — on the very same baseball diamond where we once played a “students vs. teachers” softball game when I was in the sixth grade — which was, incidentally, right about the same time the movie was made. In fact, if you squint, in one scene you can see my school across the street.

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Also filmed in and around Encino Park: parts of Where Have All the People Gone (1974), an unjustly forgotten low-rent sci-fi flick.

Incidentally, while Googling for that, I found this gem (click for more), courtesy of Encino realtors Marsia and Eugene Powers:

This week on a listserv I read regularly — which happens to be a place where a lot of smart people hang out, each of whom thinks he is smarter than all the others, and, let’s face it, most of them are right — one of those petty little bitchfights broke out that will break out from time to time in such a place. And one smart but impatient person said to another smart but impatient person, by way of ridiculing his harping on some point or other, “Toot that horn, Clarabell.”

I thought that was funny in itself, but Michael Rose pointed out that it’s a reference to “Howdy Doody,” which is something so old that I know about it only from hearing actual old people talk about it. (Employees of Blue State Digital, take note: I am not the oldest person in the world.)

Turns out Wikipedia now knows as much about Howdy Doody as the olds do. (Perhaps an old actually wrote the copy that follows!)

Clarabell the Clown was the mute partner of Howdy Doody…. Clarabell, who wore a baggy, striped costume, communicated by honking a horn for “yes” or “no.” Clarabell would also spray fellow cast member Buffalo Bob Smith with seltzer….

Buffalo Bob Smith and the Kids of the Peanut Gallery sang a song about Clarabell, sung to the tune of “Mademoiselle from Armentières”: “Who’s the funniest clown we know? Clarabell!” (etc.)

For the benefit of those of you who are as old as me but not older: “Mademoiselle from Armentières” is the “Hinky dinky parley-voo” song from World War I — you know, “The first marine found the bean, parley-voo?” — tap tap, is this on? — and World War I, for the benefit of those younger, is the one that has the Germans in it but not the Nazis, not the one with Robert E. Lee and Oliver North. But I digress.

So far so good, except that based on the video below, Clarabell (who, I reiterate, despite the name, is a man) looks like someone grabbed Popeye off the street during a bender and slapped some makeup on him. It’s amazing how ragged and experimental this all looks, fifty years after the fact.

Tonight we’re watching “So You Think You Can Dance,” tape-delayed from last night. It’s the top 11, this time paired with “all-stars” from previous seasons.

I like SYTYCD because it involves genuine talent, of a type that you can’t fake. Creativity and innovation count for something here, but you also need native ability and the willingness to learn and hone a craft. These young people aren’t just putting one over on America — on “America’s Got Talent,” a schlocky ventriloquist might make it to Vegas, but you’re not going to crack the top 20 on SYTYCD unless you’re a star across the board. And you won’t survive elimination unless you keep up your game.

Now, when I first came to this show, I knew almost nothing about dance — possibly even less than you do. But after three seasons of this — and the judges, though they have their quirks, are pretty dedicated and legit — I’ve learned a lot about both how to recognize good dance and how to enjoy it.

On the whole, the contestants’ partners (the all-stars) were visibly better than the contestants — smoother, snappier, cleaner, more effortless. The contrast was obvious, for example, in Melinda’s and Pasha’s routine. Even when they were doing the same step side by side, your eyes were mostly on him. But Robert’s and Courtney’s African jazz routine was an exception. He matched her move for move, and brought a grace and a bounce and a flexibility and a confidence of his own. Nigel called him a dark horse, but I think he’s going to turn out to be more than that — he’s the one to beat. It’s on!

Kent, in his cha cha, wasn’t the best ballroom dancer I’ve ever seen. But wow! I can’t remember when I’ve seen a dancer having so much fun. And isn’t that the whole point?

One final comment: for two of these dancers, Alex and Robert, this was probably the best day of their entire lives. Look at their faces as the judges give their notes! Aside from everything else, the humanity of this show is what gets me.

Straight recap here. Bitchier recap, with video links, here.

… make up the opening scene of the “Three Valentines” episode of Frasier, which I saw this morning while getting ready for work, and which you can see right here. I’m not sure that a more sublime 6 minutes of comedy starring a single actor have ever been shot in the history of television.

I know that’s a strong claim. But after watching The Room last night (in a group of film nerds who called my attention to every plot hole, continuity lapse, and character problem in the film’s 90 minutes, I’m not sure it isn’t justified. This movie is the biggest hodgepodge of bad acting, appalling directing, unbelievable dialogue, and implausible plot points I’ve ever experienced, despite the fact that it apparently cost $7 million to produce and promote — and yet it’s watchable and even endearing. After seeing it I understand the cult following, I understand why it has a professional following in Hollywood (and why Paul Rudd, when asked for comment by Entertainment Weekly, declined to “mock someone else’s stuff”).

Somehow I missed this film when it came out in L.A. (disclosure: I was really busy in 2003, running a money-losing small business), and missed it when it hit New York (disclosure: I was a partner in a startup at the time, and living in the office), and missed it last year when it started to go cult (disclosure: I work a lot, and don’t go to of movies). But I’ll be ever grateful to our friends for bringing it to my attention, and I’ll be at the next “participatory screening” (think Rocky Horror) in Brooklyn.

The EW story and the Wikipedia article are worth reading in full. The movie’s available from Netflix; if you’d like a YouTube clip or two to give you a sense of what you’re in for, start here and here.

I’m rewatching Good Bye, Lenin (2003) for the first time since I saw it in the theater during its US first run. What a richly realized film!

The conceit is simple: a patriotic East German woman goes into a coma just before the Communist system falls, and wakes up only after capitalism has taken over the only world she knew. Out of concern for her fragile health, her children create for her the illusion that everything is still as it was, complete with tattered old furniture rescued from the dump, obsolete canned goods, and the like.

It could have been made silly, it could have been made sad, but instead writer-director Wolfgang Becker and co-writer Bernd Lichtenberg struck a very human balance. The film is at times hysterically funny, very often light, even though the wistfulness inherent in the passing of a former time that was reassuring and beautiful in its way comes through clearly. I particularly like the visual experience of the film; throughout, you see Eastern Bloc coffeepots and linens, contemporary commercial art, and 30-year-old interiors and street scenes that are richly realized.

And it doesn’t hurt that in the lead (as the woman’s son) is the expressive Daniel Brühl, who appeared most recently in Inglourious Basterds (2009) — which I haven’t seen yet… but it’s on the list.