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Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/12/13/164236.php skippyExcuse my 60's activism coming out again, but the crack staff at Skippy wants to remind everyone in the SoCal area about the candlelight vigil in Hollywood tomorrow.Go to www.answerla.org for details, but briefly, there will be candle light vigil to Stop the War before it starts, at the corners of Hollywood and Highland Blvds. in Hollywood, on Saturday Dec. 14, beginning at about 7:30.See you there! Culture2262@blogcritics.org Fri, 13 Dec 2002 16:42:36 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/12/05/000617.php skippyAdaptation, the latest from the people who brought you Being John Malkovich, is chock full of hilarious moments. Lines fly fast and furiously as Nicholas Cage plays two roles: screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (who wrote both this film and Malkovich), and his twin brother Dave (who does not exist, no matter that he gets actual credit not only in the film but on all the ads and billboards).The story, if there is one, concerns Kaufman's struggle to write a screenplay for The Orchid Thief, an Oprah Book Club selection which was written by Susan Orlean (here played by Meryl Streep) and was a best seller a few months ago. It is a real book, Ms. Orlean is a real writer (for the New Yorker), and the main character of Ms. Orlean's book, Video2129@blogcritics.org Thu, 5 Dec 2002 00:06:17 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/11/16/204632.php skippyMy wife and I watched the entire season of 24 last year. We kept thinking, ok, so it's slipping, sooner or later it'll get back on track. No really. This week has got to be the week where they stop writing characters doing things for the sake of the plot rather than because that's how human beings actually behave. No, really, this is the week. I swear. Ok, maybe next week.We watched it all the way to the end. We watched Jack Bauer's wife Teri get killed in the last 2 minutes of the 24-hour period. We said to ourselves, "Boy, if there's anyone more pissed about the ending than us, it must be actress Leslie Hope, who obviously doesn't get her contract renewed next year." But, like an old friend who finished rehab, or a relative you haven't yet shut the door on, we again decided to give it one more chance.I mean, after all, you can't beat the excitement of real time drama with that little digital clock book-ending each sequence ("beep BOOM! beep BOOM! beep BOOM!) Like a high-tech heart beat, it pounds home just how high the stakes are for everybody, not only the characters, but the entire world.And so we tuned in again this year. And, like last year, the first episode of the season just blew us away. The pacing, the dynamic edge-of-your-seat plotting ("Mr. President, there's a live nuclear weapon in Los Angeles set to go off today!") the split-screen photography, the superb cast (anybody beside me willing to pay money for an all-black production of MacBeth starring Dennis Haysbert and Penny Johnson Jerald?) the sheer, raw energy beats anything on television this side of nascar racing, and it has much more complex stories.But alas, that's where it breaks down. And this season, it fell apart in the second show (9:00 - 10:00 am) unlike last year when it was the third or fourth hour before things started to fall apart.Call me picky, but I'd like to see the characters react like human beings instead of plot devices. This year, when Kim Bauer was running away with her juvenile charge Megan to escape the abusive daddy/husband she was employed by, why didn't the abused Mommy run away with her, instead of just handing her the car keys, and standing there in the hall way as Angry Awful Daddy rushed by her?Ok, make up something about Abused Victims Syndrome, I'll buy that. But then later, when Kim and the kid were sitting in the SUV in an alley, unable to back up, and Angry Daddy steps in front of the vehicle yelling, I'll Kill You Kim!, while unlocking the door with his remote, what did they do? Of course, they got OUT OF THE CAR and ran. Me? I would have said "Not if I kill you first a*hole," and stepped on the gas, knocking the summabitch into the Bernie Mac Show.Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland) meanwhile, is undercover with some nasty aryan or else just low life sleazeballs who plot to blow something up (turns out it's Jack's old job, the Counter Terrorism Unit - personally, I wouldn't mind if somebody wanted to blow up my old job, but, that's just me). These grease monkeys are holed up in a junkyard garage where they put together complicated things like bombs. Obviously they are mechanical. So what does Jack do when he doesn't want to leave the scene but has no excuse in the guise of his cover to stay? He floods his car and pretends it isn't working. Good thing none of those mechanic/bad guys know anything about cars, they might get suspicious otherwise!George Mason, District Director of the Good Guys, who always was a sleazy me-first kind of guy in the first season, outdoes himself in Hour 2 of this year. He decides to drive to Bakersfield to get out of range of the nuclear blast (sounds good to me, only why stop at Bakersfield? I'd make it Portland, Oregon). So he makes up an excuse, and nobody asks him about it, 'cause, like, he's the Deputy Director of the Good Guys! Only, on the way out, he gets a call, the Home Office wants him to stop by some place in LA (it's on his way to Bakersfield, so no big whoop) and check out something with the LAPD. So this guy, who has been established as a selfish save-his-own-skin type, decides he can't wriggle out of a phone call. He stops (and gets doused with legal radiation). It seems to me that if he were an actual human being acting like an actual human being, he would have said on the cell phone "Stop by the mumble mumble Buzz Buzz Buzz I can't mumber You You're Breaking Up" and tossed the cell out the window and high-tailed it out of the blast range.I could go on. Out of respect for leaving the past in the past, I won't mention 5 pm to 6 pm of last year (Jack, you've got to drive from Downtown LA to somewhere in Simi Valley in 15 minutes! And don't worry, it's only rush hour!)My problem with the show is, it seems as if it's being written on a piece-by-piece basis. A project with aspirations this high should be plotted out in advance, with attention to details, set-ups and pay-offs, rather than the willy-nilly nature that 24 is giving us ("But why did that girl stay at the computer when the evacuation alarm was sounding off for 3 minutes?" "Silly, because she's the only one who knows the code, and the plot needs her to be incommunicado to create tension, Duh!")But, like I said before, I'm going to give it one more chance this week. In fact, I bet this is the week where people start acting like real people and not plot devices! Yeah, I'm sure it'll be this week! Video1868@blogcritics.org Sat, 16 Nov 2002 20:46:32 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/10/25/223022.php skippyWe like to read Paul Krugman. Trust us, we like his stuff way more than we like to read Robert Reich. Krugman is wittier, easier to read, less pedantic. But fair is fair, metaphors are tracable, and if you don't have an original idea, why not just shut the hell up?We agree with Mr. Krugman's point entirely in this NY Times Op-Ed piece concerning Mr. Bush's veracity about the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and Iraq; to wit, there is none (neither links nor veracity). But we take exception with Mr. Krugman's metaphor."Reading all these euphemisms," Mr. Krugman says, "I was reminded of Monty Python's parrot: he's pushing up the daisies, his metabolic processes are history, he's joined the choir invisible. That is, he's dead. And the Bush administration lies a lot."Cute? Clever? Funny? Hip, with-it, great pop culture reference? Sure. And it was just as cute, clever, funny, hip, with-it pop-culture referential when Robert Reich used it (to better comic effect) to describe the Democratic Party a year and a half ago in the Washington Post (linked here to the American Prospect):"If I were a political consumer," Mr. Reich says, "I would -- with apologies to the late Monty Python parrot -- be going back to the store right about now and registering a complaint: 'This political party -- the Democratic Party. It's dead.' 'No, no, no no,' he replies. 'It's just resting.' But I know a dead party when I see one, and I'm looking at a dead party right now."Ok, ok, you say, but after a year and a half hasn't the op-ed metaphor-stealing statute of limitations run out? Perhaps. But gee whiz, it's not like Mr. Krugman would have had to go very far to find another, even better surreal British sketch comedy group metaphor to make his point:Hello, the United States says, we'd like peace and prosperity from our president please.No, you wouldn't.Yes, we would.No, you wouldn't.Yes, we would.No, you wouldn't...oh, sorry, will this be a regular disinformation PR campaign, or the supreme deluxe?Oh, we'd like the deluxe, please.Very good. Saddam Hussein is working with the Al Qaeda!No, he isn't!Yes, he is!No, he isn't!Yes, he is!Etc. etc.What's next? Mark Shields channeling Benny Hill? Books1517@blogcritics.org Fri, 25 Oct 2002 22:30:22 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/10/11/195323.php skippyWe watched the premiere episode of WB's fantasy Batman sequel, Birds of Prey. Why, you ask? Good question. The key to success in television, as in real estate, is Location Location Location. In this instance, the location is Wednesday night when it's biggest competitor is The Bachelor, which Skippy thinks is basically misogeny as Nielson Grabber, and refuses to watch (ok, ok, we admit, Mrs. Skippy made us change to ABC to see the big doofus pass out roses during commerical breaks of Birds).This show, based on a comic book we have never heard of (hey, we stopped reading comics in college), concerns the further adventures of Batgirl, aka Barbara Gordon (a fine Dina Meyer), who is currently a wheelchair-bound parapalegic, having taken a bullet (fired by the Joker) in defense of Batman seven years earlier. Barbara, also known as Oracle, is of course a genius, and holds up in a clocktower with neatso weapons and computers and stuff. She is the brains of this super-hero team.The brawn, if we can stretch the limits of the English language, is the fine looking Ashley Scott playing Helena Kyle (the Huntress), who, coincidentally, is the love child of Batman and Catwoman. (Stay with me folks, it actually works, no matter how it looks on paper). While Barbara stays up in the clocktower tracking crime on the web, Helena skulks through the dark New Gotham nights kicking villainous butt. The two ladies are "meta-human," which apparently means they can do stuff we can't. And if they all looked like Ashley and Dinah, we never meta-human we didn't like.Into this leather-bound duo stumbles young Rachel Skarsten as Dinah, a teenager who can get into people's heads just by touching them, or else can see the future or the past with dreams, or something. (Apparently she has seen Michael Anthony Hall redeem his past career on USA's Dead Zone).These three femme batales, ever so luscious and serious at the same time, stalk New Gotham City's villians, righting wrongs and staying one step ahead of the police, here represented by Shelmar Moore as Detective Jesse Reese. Mr. Moore actually looks more like an Calvin Klein model than a policeman, but we cut the show some slack and suspended our disbelief here, too, we were having such a good time. And, although Batman, Catwoman, the Joker, Commissioner Gordon and most other denizens of our fond memories of Gotham are not around, there still is that good old stalwart, Alfred the Butler, waiting on and helping out the 3 ladies for continuity's sake. Alfred is well-played by veteran character actor Ian Abercrombie (yes, it's Mr. Pitt from Seinfeld!).Well, what can we say? We dug it. The show was a great continuation in tone and style of the original Batman (no, not Bob Kane's DC comic book, the other original Batman (no, not the campy Adam West series of the 60's, the other other original Bataman (yeah, the Tim Burton Batman! That's the one! (hey do you think we can use any more nested paranthetical phrases? (we don't think so.).).).).).Rich and dark, both in mood and set design; fluid, frenetic and flowing camera shots; brooding and anxious, this show, more than any other on television now, evoked the sensibilities of what has become to be known as a "Graphic Novel," (what Skippy called a Comic Book when he was just a little Bush Kangaroo). We were reminded of Frank Miller's Dark Knight, the inspiration for Tim Burton's version. There was none of the self-absorbed smugness of Buffy or Charmed (and no Muppets, like on Farscape!) These women have issues. When Helena, aka the Huntress, trades quips with Det. Moore as why she's found at the scene of the crime, you didn't think it was writers showing off how clever they could write, but rather that Huntress was putting on bravado to protect her own vulernability. In fact, Helena sees a psychatrist, Dr. Harleen Quinzel (a taut Mia Sara). We don't think we were the only ones who guessed well before the end of the opening episode that Dr. Quinzel is going to be more trouble than help to our Birds of Prey.Uniformly fine acting. Nobody's self-conscious or self-referential. Everybody believes they are living in a Dark, Gothic, Crime-ridden World filled with Meta-Humans and Evil (gee, maybe that's not that much of a stretch these days). Rachel Skarsten as Dinah seems a little washed out compared to her two compatriots, but that might be a function of the early part of the story rather than of the actress. After all, she did just get into town; we'll let the dust settle before we decide.All in all, a fine show. We will definately fight over the remote with Mrs. Skippy to insist on watching Birds of Prey instead of The Bachelor again next week. Video1245@blogcritics.org Fri, 11 Oct 2002 19:53:23 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/10/04/204958.php skippyMrs. Skippy and I are big fans of CSI, so we were looking forward to the slough of new, gritty, procedural dramas from CBS this season. Sadly, none of the freshman programs measured up to our expectations.We started off the New Fall TV Season Preview Week with CSI: Miami, the new spin-off our favorite Thursday night forensic drama. Both shows, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, detail how mysteries are solved by the Crime Scene Investigation squads; the original, set in Las Vegas, the Miami-based one, based in, well, Miami.Or so the titles tell you. But the settings, cast, dialects, lighting, and obvious soundstage sets tell you something completely different. First of all, there are very few Latino or Cubans in this Miami; only one African-American, and so far, no Gays. It's like we're in some weird kind of Bizarro-dimension Miami populated by Pretty Yet Serious Caucasians. Sure, Khandi Alexander is the coroner, and Adam Rodriguez is one of the investigors, but to be truthful, they both come across like Pretty Yet Serious Caucasians, only with really heavy tans. And yes, there are outside establishing shots, trying to convince you that you're in southern Florida. Look, there's an alligator farm! Check it out, the Fountainbleu! But the lighting for the generic outside scenes is way too harsh for the Florida coast, and the Everglades shots were laughably backed by some sort of nebulous, murky light cloud, as opposed to an actual horizon. It seemed to be saying to the viewer: Hey, don't look back here, look up front where the investigation is, come on, it's the Everglades, really! Don't look for a cloud or a sky, there might be a crocadile right in front of you!And don't expect any dialects to help you guess what city you're in. The real Miami has a gamut of accents and speech patterns, running all the way from Fidel Castro to Jerry Seinfeld's Uncle Leo, retiring in Boca. But the closest thing we get to something that doesn't sound like Middle America is the Nordic-looking yet Alabama-sounding Emily Procter, who pushes her native Carolina accent so thickly that we expect pecans and mint julips to drip out of her mouth.And, last but certainly not least; if there was any worse chemistry between stars David Caruso and Kim Delaney, John Ashcroft would arrest them for bio-terrorism. It's not a good idea to put two actors from two different acting schools in the same scene (the smoldering, intense everything-is-portentous school versus the warm, compassionate please-won't-you-be-my-neighbor good girl theory of acting). Even worse, since both of them first made it big on NYPD Blue, I kept flashing back to that show. Kim looks rather lost without Jimmy Smits to return her passion, as if she is waiting for someone to exonnerate her from a drunk driving charge, and anytime she was talking with Caruso, I half-expected Dennis Franz to come in and show us his naked butt (which might have been more interesting).Plus, the supporting cast are also all well-established (Alexander from News Radio, Rodriguez from Roswell, Procter from West Wing). It looks so obviously like A TV PRODUCTION. The original had the advantage of a cast that was relatively unknown, except for Marge Helgenberger, who essetially was refining her same character from China Beach (where she starred with Kim's sis, Dana). Finally, for some reason, the CSI unit in Miami isn't content with little things like Murders. So far they have taking on Corporate Crime-induced Plane Crashes and the periennial Mad Bomber. The plots are so far out, in relation to the texture of the cast and sets which are so ordinary, as to make the resulting feeling disconcerting. It's as if a bunch of TV execs were in a hot tub, doing some strange white powder, and they decided to throw in a whole bunch of neat yet cheap-to-produce stuff, without thought to coherency. But we know that could never happen, could it? Video1098@blogcritics.org Fri, 4 Oct 2002 20:49:58 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/10/04/190024.php skippy It must be a general feeling of post-9/11 America to play it safe. I know Mrs. Skippy and I aren't flying anywhere these day; and we have taken what little money that's left in our stock portfolios out and put it in cash. Nobody seems to want to take a risk now. And who can blame them? Unfortunately for the television consumer, the same feeling apparently is permeating the executive suites in Hollywood. We have watched a few of the new shows to find out which ones are 'Must See TV,' however, most of them turned out to be 'Musty TV.' We watched two episodes of the new show Push, Nevada on ABC during the special preview two weeks ago. We had high expectations (well, high for TV, at least), because two of the show's producers are Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. We like quirky, unusual stuff, we like murder mysteries, we like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck (we love his commericials with the duck); plus, this show had the added bonus of being a mystery that viewers at home can solve for a prize (the sum of one million dollars. Now, that's a prize!) However, Push, Nevada certainly left us wanting (mainly, wanting two hours of our life back). If we had wanted to see bad Twins Peaks, we would have just rented the second season of that show. Push, Nevada started with a good sign, literally; on the desk of the main character, well-played by newcomer Derek Cecil, sat a placard naming him as one "James A. Prufrock." We smiled, assuming the "A" stood for "Alfred." But that's as clever as it got. And it didn't even attempt to reach that level of hipness thereafter. Quirky? If you count weird camera angles and unnecessary film speed changes as quirky, yes. Not much "heat." Not much suspense. We are big fans of X-Files, Prey, The Night Stalker, the first 3 hours of 24, things with real edge-of-your seat squeamy oddness. Push, Nevada's idea of quirky was killing off a man who suffered from hypothermia by dumping shaved ice on him while he was handcuffed naked to a bed (trust us, it reads a lot quirkier than it was). Very little plot movement, no surprises, nothing to maintain our interest. Perhaps our problem was that we did not sit with a lap top at our fingertips connected to the web at the same time we were watching, so we had no way to "interact" with the show on its website. Geez, we spend hours at the computer blogging, we can't expected to be on line during our tv time! Cut us some slack, ABC! Also seen on ABC that same week, the first 15 minutes of John Ritter's new show, 8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teeenage Daughter. This show is apparently based on a best-selling humor book of the same name, although we had no idea about that until we researched this review (that it was based on a book, not that it was supposed to be humorous. We knew it was supposed to be humorous). Mr. Ritter's new sitcom was so painful to watch, we switched off halfway through, missing Bonnie Hunt's new show, Life with Bonnie. We'll try to catch up with her at a later date, as we find her to be engaging and funny. But we just couldn't sit through John Ritter's bad imitation of an impotent Ozzie Nelson. And it was simply painful to watch Katy Segal, so was so arch and witty as Peg in Married with Children, here reduced to simply, "the wife." A waste of good talent. And John should either lose some weight or go the route of big Hawaiin shirts, ala Donal Logue in Grounded for Life. 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter? Rule number one: make sure your new sitcom is funnier than Three's Company. More new reviews of the same old stuff, sorry, we mean, new television shows, to follow later. Video1094@blogcritics.org Fri, 4 Oct 2002 19:00:24 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/10/03/165241.php skippyLast night marked the first appearance of sitting Senator Fred Thompson as the new district attorney, Arthur Branch, on NBC's plow horse Law And Order.Senator Thompson is no novice thespian. He costarred in a number of major Hollywood productions before running for Al Gore's deserted Senate seat in 1996. He replaced the inexplicably boring Dianne Wiest as the district attorney (she herself had replaced the incomparable Steven Hill, who is answer to the trivia question "Who led the Mission Impossible Force during the first year of that show?" Extra points if you know the name of the character Mr. Hill played on IMF).For some reason, Dianne Wiest, who is a great actress, really sucked on that show. Her character, Nora Lewin, was very uninvolving, and nothing about her performance really jumped out at the viewers. The most exciting thing she ever did on that show was be introduced, in her first episode, by America's mayor, Rudy Guiliani (who set the precedent for politicians moonlighting on Dick Wolf productions, we suppose). She was so uninteresting, we'd rather watch Steven Hill on his TD Waterhouse commercials.But that's not the point of this rant, if there even is one. Last night as we watched Sen. Thompson trade barbs with DA Jack McCoy and Assistant DA Blondie Barbie, or whatever her name is, Mrs. Skippy remarked "Gee, do you think Bill Clinton will try to get a job on this show too?" (Mrs. Skippy is just as funny as Skippy, and that's why he married her. We have no idea why she married him).That got us to thinking. Sen. Thompson is still a sitting senator, working in Congress, until the end of this year. We have spoken about Sen. Thompson's TV duties interfering with his day job here. Now, when rumors about Bill Clinton negotiating for a talk show were flying around the great echo chamber, there was such an indignant hew and cry coming from the screeching heads that you could fry an egg on your overheated TV set.As it turns out, those rumors were just that: rumors. Of course, that didn't stop anyone from decrying Mr. Clinton's lack of taste or dignity for contemplating something that it turned out he was never contemplating in the first place.But Mr. Clinton was a private citizen when this was supposedly taking place. Sen. Thompson, if you'll notice our use of the title "senator," is still a senator.Take it from us, many of Skippy's staff have worked on television shows (not Law and Order, but, Buffy, fer shure!). It takes a lot of work and focus and energy and time and commitment. To be fair, none of us have ever been a senator. But we bet that takes at least as much work and focus and etc. as being a television actor. We are very unsure how anyone could do both at the same time. Trust us, it's hard enough to hold down a day job typing for insurance companies while trying to be in show biz, we can only imagine how difficult it would be to be a sitting senator (Uh, Mr. Daschle, I can't be here for the vote on the resolution to invade Iraq, I've got a...a dentist appointment. Yeah, that's it. A dentist appointment. A 2 week dentist appointment. See yah.")But we were unable to find any article or editorial online even approaching the reprimands that Bill Clinton got for maybe doing something in the future (which he never even was contemplating). With the exception of a piece that we ourselves first posted on Sept. 2, which is no longer available online. This is an excerpt from James Brosnan, writing in the Memphis Commercial Appeal:" New episodes debut in late September. Even though the part would require only two days a week of shooting in New York City, it could mean Thompson would miss votes, committee hearings and other work. Acting, like writing books, is one of the few exceptions to the Senate Ethics rules that bar outside earned income. But Thompson has a moral obligation to voters to finish the job he hired on for six years ago. If he can't fulfill that role full-time, he should resign and let Gov. Don Sundquist appoint an interim senator. Or Thompson should at least return a portion of his $150,000-a-year salary to taxpayers." (Copyright 2002 The Commercial Appeal)That's it. That's the only objection we could find to a sitting Republican Senator using his time as an actor. Now, please don't misunderstand us. We think Fred Thompson is a fine actor, and we are looking forward to his work on Law and Order; maybe it will make it interesting again (we can dream, can't we?) He certainly can't be any worse than Ms. Wiest was.But we just find it amazing at how the American media holds Democrats to a different standard than Republicans. Oh, what the hell are we saying? We don't find it amazing at all. It's par for the course. What we find it as, is depressing. Where's the fairness and balance? Who stole America's sense of fair play?Where's Goren and Eames when you need them? Video1061@blogcritics.org Thu, 3 Oct 2002 16:52:41 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/09/29/180016.php skippy DICK DALE IN CONCERT Mrs. Skippy and I were privileged to see a concert by Dick Dale at the Redondo Beach Lobster Festival this weekend. Mrs. Skippy had wanted to go for the lobster; I knew from posters around town that Dick Dale, King of Surf Guitars, was playing there. So we showed up Saturday night, cracked open a couple of delicious crustaceans from Maine and stood around in the misty weather by the beach waiting, with a crowd of about 300, to hear the man who taught surfers how the guitar should be played. Dick Dale, for those of you under 30, is the guy who played the theme song from Pulp Fiction, "Misirlou." Even if you can't place that in your mind, once you hear his signature rapid staccato on his electric guitar, you'll recognize him. Dick's fingers move on his instrument faster than anybody else's, before or since. Where most people will pick the note once and let it reverberate, Dick will churn out 8 rapid plucks in a row. There's no room for half- or eighth-notes in Dick's oeuvre; thirty-second notes are his mainstay. Accompanied only by a bass guitarist and a drummer, Dick took the stage amidst the audience's catcalls of "Dick Dale! Dick Dale! Dick Dale!" The trio opened with a loud, rockin' semi-improvised number, which this reviewer did not recognize. Dick then introduced the next piece, called "Eliminator," from his new album, Spacial Disorientation. Mrs. Skippy, who likes to study interior design, chuckled at the title of the album. I myself, just rocked out, along with the rest of the mostly over-50 crowd. The next song, "Eliminator," had a recurring line sounded like "Satisfaction" turned on its head, and Dick took it and ran with it, wailing all over the stage, recalling some of the heavier heavy metal sounds from the 80's. Then after that, they went into a dense and fast rendition of "Ghost Riders in the Sky." Through the set, Dick and his boys took us into the strange rock and roll milieu that lies halfway between psychedelia and the blues, with the decibels turned up to 11 and more reverb than God talking to Charlton Heston. Every number was played with Dick's signature pizzicato sliding down, triplet by triplet, the high end of the register, turning out more individual notes than Mozart used to bore Joseph II. There were bits reminiscent of Jimi Hendricks here, Faith No More there; some Stone Temple Pilots over here, BB King over there; and even Louie Armstrong thrown in for good measure (trumpet included). The man, who has got to be in his 60's by now, showed an amazing amount of energy that would put Britney Spears' back-up dancers to shame. He was running all around the stage, flirting with the audience, figuratively dueling (or else making love) with his bass player, having what looked like the time of his life. One audience member behind me remarked "I wouldn't have that much energy at that age if I was running." At one point in the middle of "Bo Diddley" (which started out as "Hava Nagilia") Dick put his guitar down, picked up some drum sticks, and helped his drummer out with the drum solo, banging the skins with the same enthusiasm that he bangs his guitar strings. Then he walked back around to Tommy, his bass player, who held the bass guitar up to Dick. Dick used the drum sticks to bang out the notes on the bass, with Tommy fingering the chords on the fret. But he wasn't finished yet, folks. As Dick picked his own guitar back up, the tune segued into a rockin' blues number, with Dick singing the recurring line "I got my fingers on you, Mama, better do what Daddy says." At one point he then took out the aforementioned trumpet and played it with Satchmo-like raunch, singing the refrain in between the lines of melody. Of course, early in the concert he played "Misirlou," the theme from Pulp Fiction, at which point the entire crowd suddenly realized they knew who he was, and let him know they knew with a roar. There was an especially loud contingent of people (again, over 50) down front, who apparently follow him from concert to concert, a la the Grateful Dead's Deadheads. Dick proudly pointed them out as the Dickheads, to which they all cheered. Somehow he seemed to inspire the crowd into an energetic teen-age rapture. Everywhere we looked there were huge pockets of folks over 50 dancing like Uma Thurman and John Travolta. That in itself was worth the price of admission, although it made it hard to keep the lobster down. Unfortunately for Mrs. Skippy and me, the rain really started to drizzle on us, just as Dick's 10 year old son Jimmy came on stage with his Stratocaster to play his own rendition of "Misirlou." The Skippys decided to call it a night, and headed back to find the car in the parking lot. As we drove out, heading back to L.A., the sounds of Dick Dale accompanying his son on the theme from Pulp Fiction wafted through the night, reminding us how surreal reality is. Music983@blogcritics.org Sun, 29 Sep 2002 18:00:16 EDT