Me.

But with these chairs.


Otherwise it's just a tacky space to park your Maserati.

Porsche Geek Heaven

The title says it all, so here it is, the advert for the latest from Porsche:



... and here are the behind the scenes vids (special features for a commercial?), just to show that the cars were all there together in one hot, sunny place. I'm no expert but here's what I saw: a host of 356s in Pre-A, B C, and Carrera form, a Speedster, a 901, a red 959, a 917 short-tail in Gulf livery, both a vintage Spyder as well as the modern RS Spyder racer, a Martini Racing 930, a 962, a 917 Can-Am, a red 944 or 924, a 928 GT, a 997 GT3 RS in orange, a Carrera GT, Jerry Seinfeld's blue 993 turbo (the last of its type to roll off the line, the end of a generation), and all manner of 911s in coupe, convertible, and targa styles. The implication is quite clear: "You bet your sweet ass it's a Porsche", as if in anticipation of controversy.





The controversy, of course, is the front-engined, water-cooled sedan laden with every luxury this side of bucket seats front and rear, designed and built by the marque in question. Controversial because it is so far from the roots and intent of the first car that appears in the ad that the Porsche Purist Dicks have the temerity to tell Porsche that it's not a Porsche. I don't like this car, called Panamera, any more than they do but to them I say "Whatever." You can file this under "Not as good as it was, but better than it will be."

Grab a Piece of Something That You Think is Gonna Last

Here's one of my all time favorite bands, doing one of my all time favorite songs.



There's a lot going on under the surface of this video. This marked the beginnings of Steely Dan, and by the end of the decade, the rest of the musicians would be tossed aside by the founders and lead songwriters, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, famously friends from their college days at Bard. They would be sacked in favor of session players. Ironic since lead guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter and drummer Jim Keltner are a pair of very sought after session musicians themselves, and second guitarist Denny Dias was no slouch either. Then Fagen and Becker themselves would stop touring not long after, and ultimately cease to write Steely Dan music altogether for over a decade. Part of the reasoning, they claimed, was to let recording and performance technology catch up to their exacting musical standards.

I'm sure this is true to some extent, because the releases Fagen made solo were benchmarks (especially The Nightfly), and when a new Steely Dan recording finally came out, 2000's Two Against Nature, it raised the bar again and won critical acclaim. Becker and Fagen hadn't missed a beat in almost 20 years time.

But for all their uncompromising standards, Steely Dan will always be a band of the Seventies to me, and that's why this appearance on the Midnight Special (a show I was too young to appreciate, much less be allowed to stay up to watch) has so much going for it. Fagen's voice is incredible, either because of it or - more likely - despite his youth. There's more, though. In addition to their acid-hair look, the performances and showmanship of Baxter and Dias would lead one to believe that these guys are imitators of the Allman Brothers twin guitar attack style. Nothing could be further from true. In less than a couple albums' time, great guitar soloing could still be found on Steely Dan records, but this was no guitar-hero band. Far from it, Steely Dan had more in common with jazz combos in style, performance, and configuration than any other rock n' roll band of the time.

And what of their look? Their grooming standards certainly leave much to be desired, particularly Denny Dias's purple crushed velvet pants (Denny, they're not slimming by a longshot, Denny). These guys don't look too far away from the Partridge Family, but by God, they sure sound light years' distant.

Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes)

Cameron Crowe is one of the more deserving of media darlings. I'll spare you the backstory, just watch the autobiographical Almost Famous. His movies are always more satisfying than the five movies that I watch before or after. Each one is special, even the smash hit from whence he got the money, Jerry Maguire. His other Tom Cruise movie, Vanilla Sky, offers one of the great opening eight minutes in recent memory. Keep in mind that Crowe intended this movie to be one non-stop pop culture allusion from beginning to end.

This is just a cursory list of things Crowe has crammed into the first eight minutes that make it both great and OnceWereBachelorean:

1. New York City from a God's eye view;
2. Central Park;
3. The Dakota;
4. Bachelor Pad;
5. Penelope Cruise's voice in her native tongue;
6. Audrey Hepburn, from Sabrina (and therefore a hint of Humphrey Bogart);
7. Disappearing plasma screen;
8. Mahogany wainscoting;
9. A Bout de Souffle poster;
10. IWC Schaffhausen Spitfire Mk XV pilot watch on leather with deployant buckle;
11. Smashed Gibson SG under glass (could be Pete Townshend's);
12. Ferrari 250 Granturismo Omologato;
13. Times Square, completely empty (I say again: Times Square, completely empty);
14. The mother of all anxiety attacks, amidst the most amazing billboards west of Tokyo (there's a panoply of relevant images that flash at this point, but I'm not going to try);
15. Repeat;
16. Cameron Diaz under the covers;
17. 1967 Ford Mustang 390GT (trust me, I can tell from the V8 burble);
18. R.E.M.; and
19. Cameron Diaz dancing to R.E.M. in leather pants.

It doesn't stop at minute eight, and the whole movie is worth multiple viewings. Just ignore the critics and the box office. And ignore that Tom Cruise is in it.

Hip To Be Square

"I have to go return some video tapes."
- Patrick Bateman
American Psycho
1991

Back in the summer of 1991, many of you will remember the brouhaha kicked up by Bret Easton Ellis' novel American Psycho. It's in my canon. In a sentence, the novel was about a Wall Street yuppie obsessed with serial killers, pornographic sex, and Gianni Versace. In a sentence, the brouhaha was about how most people in America didn't get it. They were repulsed by its misogynistic themes and extreme violence, and the novel's detractors vilified Ellis himself as misogynistic and extremely violent.

But here's the thing: I got it. I can't honestly say I figured out, almost 10 years before everyone else, that the novel was satirizing to the extreme the conspicuous consumption and me-first mentality of the yuppie species. But I did believe, back then, that most of its critics - ranging from the liberal lefty feminazis to the right wing moralists - would have found something to agree on with Ellis if they'd only read the book.

Fast forward ten years and an art house satirist (Mary Harron) and a Sarah Lawrence lesbian (Guinevere Turner) joined forces to commit Ellis's once-despised book to film. And thanks to them, everyone got it.

Here's my favorite scene from the movie. Patrick Bateman, the American Psycho, shows off his business card to his so-called friends, only to become bottom man in a game of oneupsmanship. Hilarious.



Following that scene, if I remember correctly, Bateman eviscerates a homeless dude.

And here's the climactic scene that clearly reveals the story's satirical DNA. Perhaps not verbatim, but it mimics perfectly Ellis's juxtaposition of dorkiness, style, and brutality. I hesitate to call it brilliant, but its pretty neat to behold.



And here's the introductory sequence, a meaningless and shallow internal monologue.



When Harron talked about her film in the commentary of the DVD I watched last night, she referred to the triumph of "surface" over "depth". I loved that. But here's my conclusion: there's no need for you to read the book or see the movie after reading this. What I've written here is all you need to know about American Psycho.