Gray scale

I am standing on a suburban train platform waiting for a train to take me to work. There are a few men here, and about a dozen women, most of them waiting for a train going in the direction opposite to mine, toward the great city. I notice that the women are all dressed in black. Head to toe. Black. Some are carrying backpacks or purses. Black. Sunglasses on, it is a bright morning. Black lenses, black frames. I glance at their shoes. Black. Oh, here is a young woman wearing running sneakers. They are gray and white. There is a letter 'W' sown onto the sides of her socks. It probably stands for 'Wilson', a manufacturer of sports equipment, and now apparently apparel as well. Is this 'W' blue? I strain my eyes to see. No, the 'W' is black.

No colors anymore
I want them to turn black

(The Rolling Stones)

Am I becoming colorblind, I think? Is this a black and white film? Am I watching this scene on an old RCA television set. Am I dreaming? I pinch myself. I must be in Sicily, surrounded by grieving widows.

I wanna see it painted, painted black
Black as night, black as coal
I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky
I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black
Yeah!

The women all wear trousers. Not one is wearing a skirt or dress. Trousers with zippers in front, like in men's pants. (A piece of trivia, in case you didn't know it: the purpose of zippers in the front of men's pants is so that the wearer can easily pull out his (?) member when standing at a modern urinal.)

I recall seeing photographs of the woman led from the raided Eldorado Texas Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints Church ranch last week, all wearing long dresses in pastel colors, and how someone told me he was shocked and disturbed to see them, that they looked like they had arrived from the early 2oth century.

Finally, lights of an incoming train become visible in the morning mist, an announcement on the loudspeaker, a tall, light skinned young black woman emerges from the up escalator. She is wearing a short dress. Her stockings and high heel shoes are black. The dress is bright pink.

Whiskey and cigarettes

I think it was John Lee Hooker (and every other bluesman) who sang of whiskey and cigarettes (and wild women, whenever possible), at one time not long ago. That was then, this is now. The National Transportation Safety Board investigating the collision of the Chinese freighter ship Cosco Busan with the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on Nov. 8, 2007, which spilled 53,000 gallons of fuel into the bay, disclosed a list of prescription drugs that the 60 year old local pilot of the ship was taking or had taken in the past (in addition to his past alcohol addiction.) Why such personal medical information is being disclosed to the public poses another question altogether, but in the meantime, let's set the particulars of this case aside for a minute to ponder an example of another overmedicated American. Here is the disclosed list of one man's medications:

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS AND SUPPLEMENTS:

-Provigil to ward off drowsiness. Known side effects include impaired judgment.

-Valium as a sleep aid. Side effects can include confusion, depression, lightheadedness or fainting spells.

-Lorazepam, an anti-anxiety drug. Side effects can include confusion, depression, double vision or abnormal eye movements, weakness or tiredness.

-Darvon Compound-65, a narcotic pain reliever. An expert doctor told the NTSB it was inadvisable to take with Lorazepam.

-Wellbutrin, an anti-depressant. Side effects can include confusion and agitation.

-Aciflux for heartburn.

-Lipitor for high cholesterol. Side effects can include tiredness.

-Alphagan, used to treat glaucoma. Side effects can include tiredness or blurred vision.

-Imitrex, a migraine drug. Side effects can include dizziness or faintness, seizures and tiredness.

-Synthroid for thyroid deficiency. Side effects can include difficulty breathing and sleeping.

-Potassium citrate for kidney stones. Side effects can include tiredness.

Whiskey and cigarettes anyone?

Between the buttons

My daughter tells me that she walked out of it. I stayed to the bitter end, playing hooky at a near empty IMAX theater, all the way to the final credits when a bad live performance of the song off the Exile on Main Street album that gave the film its title played, and only in a brief fragment. Here's its refrain, which I have always thought was ironic, the clue (in addition to the vocalist's melodramatic delivery) being "evening sun", because why "evening", and not "morning"?

May the good lord shine a light on you
Make every song your favourite tune
May the good lord shine a light on you
Warm like the evening sun

Martin Scorcese's documentary film of a Rolling Stones concert in a small New York City theater Shine a Light. One newspaper review I read was enthusiastic, another one, so so. I agreed with the latter. Scorcese, in an interview with the local newspaper, admitted that the film contained predominantly close ups. That was the first sign of trouble. There were others. The less than positive review noted that the director had used 18 cameras, and, the reviewer added, 17 of them must have been pointed at Mick Jagger. Indeed, the film consists pretty much of two hours of close ups of Mick Jagger prancing with the agility of a twenty year old.

"How could the Rolling Stones agree to this?" asks my daughter. All four are listed as "Executive Producers", who, one guesses, financed the film and will pocket some if not most of the profits. I admit that after the first half hour of the film I was considering walking out, my senses tired of the constant movement of the cameras, short, MTV editing cuts, and the proximity of the screen, as in an IMAX auditorium, which is taller than deeper, you cannot ever sit far from the screen. But, you can say, I suffered through it, so you don't have to, and in the end prevailed long enough to note Albert Maysles' name in the credits!

Interspersed throughout the film are fragments of old interviews with the current members of the Rolling Stones (ignoring the one who died and the two who quit), like the rest of the film, nothing revelatory. The band is introduced by a former president of the United States, who manages to insinuate himself into everything these days, and, customarily, makes the whole affair seem as if it was all about himself. A former president of Poland is seen briefly in the background, too, and is being introduced to somebody by the other ex-president!

There are guest stars, Jack White, Christina Aguilera, and Buddy Guy, who, despite their best efforts, manage to detract very little from the Rolling Stones, Jack filling the high notes that Mick can no longer hit, Christina, whoever she is, prancing like a Las Vegas go-go girl, and Buddy, whom my daughter liked very much, playing mostly a two note riff on an old Muddy Waters classic Champagne and Reefer and walks away with a Gibson guitar presented to him by Keith Richards.

When Mick puts on a Fender Telecaster and the band launches into a three guitar attack on Some Girls, you can hear why they are so powerful as a band. Later, Keith sings solo You Got the Silver, with Ronnie on slide, another highlight of the show.

But the sidemen, some of who, like saxophonist Bobby Keys have been with the band for decades, or like keyboardist Chuck Lovell are the musical director of the band, are ignored by the cameras, and the band as a whole is ignored by the camera of a director, who, in my opinion doesn't get the idea of what rock and roll is about. Bernard Fowler, the backup vocalist has been with them for at least twenty years, another backup vocalist Blondie Chaplin plays an accoustic guitar in the background, and has previously been a latter day member of the Beach Boys and some other prominent bands.

Last weekend, I was talking with a friend about the first rock and roll films from the 1950s, such as Don't Knock the Rock, with Bill Haley and the Comets, with bad scripts and story lines and lipsynching performers, but cameras focused on entire ensembles, not just on iconic stars. In Shine a Light, Keith launches into Connection, off a 1966 album Between the Buttons, originally sang by Mick, and the clueless director keeps interrupting the song, interspersing it with cuts from some past interviews. Why?

But hey, you have to see the film for the final Orson Wellesian shot, a sort of reverse Citizen Kane opening, helped in large measure by modern computerized effects. Just don't ask what it means!

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New Yorker magazine review.