I just don't get it!

[miles]

Are there some things that everyone else just raves about, and you can't see what the big deal is?

These are a few of mine. Here come the flames.

1. Citizen Kane - a boring, self-indulgent mess by a fat guy
with a voice made for radio. Did I miss something?

2. "Friends" TV show. A Seinfeld ripoff with horny dumb guys, an
even dumber blonde, and some skinny ho who miraculously
grew new tits while on hiatus. I will admit that Jennifer
Anniston is very easy on the eyes.

3. The Grateful Dead - They made a few nice songs in the 70's.
came from the Bay Area. Their most memorable lyric:
"Livin on reds, vitamin C, and cocaine." I can understand
the reds and the coke, but vitamin C?


Glad I got that off my chest. By the way, no offense to any Dead Heads out there.

 

[willfulbrat]

1) Football

2) The Academy Awards

3) Survivor

 

[april-wine]

1) fargo can someone pleaseeeeeeeee tell me what was so wonderful about this movie......i even watched it twice thinking i missed something......


2) golf.....unless i want to snooze on a sunday afternoon then i will flick it on presto out in five minutes..........


3) asparagus...............if i wanted to eat sticks and twigs i'd live int he forest..............

 

[Starfish]

Are there some things that everyone else just raves about, and you can't see what the big deal is?

These are a few of mine. Here come the flames.



3. The Grateful Dead - They made a few nice songs in the 70's.
came from the Bay Area. Their most memorable lyric:
"Livin on reds, vitamin C, and cocaine." I can understand
the reds and the coke, but vitamin C?


Glad I got that off my chest. By the way, no offense to any Dead Heads out there.

I am not offended, just thinking you've never even come anywhere near a Dead show. Ahh..... what you'll never know.

A few nice songs. Ha. You are aware of what?
Memorable. That would depend on who many times your local radio station played Truckin over Days Between, or Alabama Getaway..... Hey or even Unbroken Chain or Well...... I could go on... there are around 156 of them. I have a book including all of the songs they've ever done and written with lyrics and tabliture that I'd love you to see. A Rainbow brother from Cincinatti spent the 80's and 90's writting it, from seeing shows and watching Bobby and Jerry as they swapped lead.

It isn't only the music but the community that formed around it, that still exists in that Ratdog (Bob Weir's Band) and Phil Lesh have annual tours as always, and try to make it like home.

You'll never really get it, so don't worry about it holistically, but you shouldn't assume that just because only certain songs aired radio time, that they aren't that good. It just means the band didn't allow mass exposure to their music. When that started to happen by word of mouth, many problems of people coming on the lot, not respecting the scenes ideals resulting in a sort of temporary social decay.... one you'll see common to a place like this.

People tighten up the force by uniting against the bad, and all will pan out in the end.

The big deal is that the Grateful Dead spawned a subculture that still thrives, yet has it's flaws, but is more comfortable, openminded and accepting than any other community in the United States, aside from the Rainbow Family.

"They aren't the best at what they do. They are the only ones who do what they do."

 

[miles]

Fishy, sweetheart

The big deal is that the Grateful Dead spawned a subculture that still thrives, yet has it's flaws, but is more comfortable, openminded and accepting than any other community in the United States, aside from the Rainbow Family.


I've already done the 60's thing in the flesh. We belonged to an accepting and openminded subculture, too. We did things like trying to levitate the White House (or Capitol, Pentagon, whatever).

I understand your love of the band. But don't feel sorry for me if I don't. It's only music.

 

[Starfish]

I don't even want to know what you see as good music than.


Like I said, I really doubt you've had the exposure to them that I have, or you'd have something a bit more significant to say about them... good or bad.

 

[shadowsource]

Whattttttttttttttttttt?

Miles:

We did things like trying to levitate the White House (or Capitol, Pentagon, whatever).

OK, Miles, you've got some explaining to do. Are you another boomer who tripped out, got naked, and tests your kids' urine?
PS: It was the Pentagon, '67.

Plus I think Citizen Kane is a superb flick; it just gets tiresome after so many viewings and so much adoration.

Saw the Dead twice, long ago, and found them rather dull. Never saw Friends (I don't know if she did; I didn't).

 

[Merelan]

Vitamin C kept them going without bottoming out to harshly when the drugs started wearing off. Too many pills, too many other things can cause serious crashing. The C kept that from being too terribly bad. Besides, even then they knew how important C is when you don't get a hell of alot of sleep and live on stale crackers and peanut butter, oh, and those wierd ass peanuts you get at a bar.

 

[Merelan]

At least that's what my family says.

 

[Mistress]

If I start to bitch about the things there will end up being pages of posts of me being bitchy. I got to be at work at 9 AM, I don't have th time to type it all out

 

[GuyJD]

THE UNGRATEFUL DEAD

Jerry receives a new fucking liver to allow his alcoholic ass to live a little longer. What thanks does he give? He drinks more and dies a year later. Oh gee, just think. Someone had to die for him to get that liver. It should have gone to someone who really wanted to live.

WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THAT?

 

[miles]

Starfish

I don't even want to know what you see as good music than

So much for Dead fans being open minded and accepting?

Jesus, give it a rest. You don't need to attack me because I don't like something you do. Find something important to get mad about.

 

[Merelan]

Like whats up with putting fewer chips in my bag, and not telling me!!!!!

Or, or.... making me pay to buy toilet paper? I will just start using all that damn junk mail I get.

And whats up with people that don't use deoderant when it is freaking 100 degrees and 85% humidity? They should get a ticket.

 

[Expertise]

A few.......

Bob Dylan- Why is THE WORST vocalist in the world so revered??? Oh right "the message".

B&D/S&M- Getting the fuck beat out of me is supposed to make me sprout wood????

WWF (Professional Wrestling in general)- Check your intellect at the door and call me when something believable comes on..... like "Passions".

Rock climbing- Hellish physical exertion while attempting not to go splat on a piece of ganite......WOOHOO sign me up!

Cocaine- A drug that makes you destitute, impotent and a blathering asshole GOTTA' GET ME SOME OF THAT!

 

[*Lazer*]

Here's mine.....

Breast Implants, I mean come on you all gonna drool over some plastic goo filled cushions even if they are covered up with adipose tissue.

Nascar, oh yeah like it is so exciting to watch someone drive around and around a little track.

Football.

Guns and Roses, lame lame music and the band that believes their own hype the most.

Julia Roberts, I think she looks like she just gave 200 blowjobs.

 

[Dillinger]

Grateful Dead... boring.

Levitating the Pentagon - DAMN dude, wish I had been there for that - though I did eventually get to meet Abbie and Jerry and others. Pigasus for President! I wish I could have seen the looks in the eyes of the soldiers when they put flowers in the business ends of their rifles.

 

[registered "^^"]

LMAO

lmao,lmao,lmao,lmao,lmao,giggle,lmao,lmao,lmao,lmao


You nuts are nuts, i love it.......keep it up!

 

[KillerMuffin]

Vitamin C kept them going without bottoming out to harshly when the drugs started wearing off. Too many pills, too many other things can cause serious crashing. The C kept that from being too terribly bad. Besides, even then they knew how important C is when you don't get a hell of alot of sleep and live on stale crackers and peanut butter, oh, and those wierd ass peanuts you get at a bar.

I thought "vitamin C" was slang for methamphetamines. You know, crank. *shrugs* I guess not cause it's not listed in the slang terminology database for druggies. http://www.pride.org/slangterms.HTM

 

[thumbs2_ca]

Fargo.. I did not think it deserved an oscar because it is one of the few movies I actually turned off and hit rewind.
Television in General. I hate watching television. I would rather spend my time learning and experience true life on the internet.
Any politician.. they are all crooked

 

[shadowsource]

Miles is hiding....

I've already done the 60's thing in the flesh. We belonged to an accepting and openminded subculture, too. We did things like trying to levitate the White House (or Capitol, Pentagon, whatever).

so, what - you were too high to remember which one you raised?

LAZER: Add TV golf (or any golf) and your list will be sooo compelling.

Dillinger: They WERE amusing folks. And Hugh (Wavy Gravy) Romney - got him stoned on the Frying Pan shortly before he croaked....

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Citizen Kane - a boring, self-indulgent mess by a fat guy with a voice made for radio. Did I miss something?

Only everything. LOL

-------------

CITIZEN KANE

BY ROGER EBERT

``I don't think any word can explain a man's life,'' says one of the searchers through
the warehouse of treasures left behind by Charles Foster Kane. Then we get the
famous series of shots leading to the closeup of the word ``Rosebud'' on a sled that
has been tossed into a furnace, its paint curling in the flames. We remember that this
was Kane's childhood sled, taken from him as he was torn from his family and sent
east to boarding school.

Rosebud is the emblem of the security, hope and innocence of childhood, which a
man can spend his life seeking to regain. It is the green light at the end of Gatsby's
pier; the leopard atop Kilimanjaro, seeking nobody knows what; the bone tossed
into the air in ``2001.'' It is that yearning after transience that adults learn to
suppress. ``Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn't get, or something he lost,''
says Thompson, the reporter assigned to the puzzle of Kane's dying word.
``Anyway, it wouldn't have explained anything.'' True, it explains nothing, but it is
remarkably satisfactory as a demonstration that nothing can be explained. ``Citizen
Kane'' likes playful paradoxes like that. Its surface is as much fun as any movie ever
made. Its depths surpass understanding. I have analyzed it a shot at a time with more
than 30 groups, and together we have seen, I believe, pretty much everything that is
there on the screen. The more clearly I can see its physical manifestation, the more I
am stirred by its mystery.

It is one of the miracles of cinema that in 1941 a first-time director; a cynical,
hard-drinking writer; an innovative cinematographer, and a group of New York
stage and radio actors were given the keys to a studio and total control, and made a
masterpiece. ``Citizen Kane'' is more than a great movie; it is a gathering of all the
lessons of the emerging era of sound, just as ``Birth of a Nation'' assembled
everything learned at the summit of the silent era, and ``2001'' pointed the way
beyond narrative. These peaks stand above all the others.

The origins of ``Citizen Kane'' are well known. Orson Welles, the boy wonder of
radio and stage, was given freedom by RKO Radio Pictures to make any picture he
wished. Herman Mankiewicz, an experienced screenwriter, collaborated with him
on a screenplay originally called ``The American.'' Its inspiration was the life of
William Randolph Hearst, who had put together an empire of newspapers, radio
stations, magazines and news services, and then built to himself the flamboyant
monument of San Simeon, a castle furnished by rummaging the remains of nations.
Hearst was Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates rolled up into an enigma.

Arriving in Hollywood at age 25, Welles brought a subtle knowledge of sound and
dialogue along with him; on his Mercury Theater of the Air, he'd experimented with
audio styles more lithe and suggestive than those usually heard in the movies. As his
cinematographer he hired Gregg Toland, who on John Ford's ``The Long Voyage
Home'' (1940) had experimented with deep focus photography--with shots where
everything was in focus, from the front to the back, so that composition and
movement determined where the eye looked first. For his cast Welles assembled his
New York colleagues, including Joseph Cotten as Jed Leland, the hero's best friend;
Dorothy Comingore as Susan Alexander, the young woman Kane thought he could
make into an opera star; Everett Sloane as Mr. Bernstein, the mogul's business
wizard; Ray Collins as Gettys, the corrupt political boss, and Agnes Moorehead as
the boy's forbidding mother. Welles himself played Kane from age 25 until his
deathbed, using makeup and body language to trace the progress of a man
increasingly captive inside his needs. ``All he really wanted out of life was love,''
Leland says. ``That's Charlie's story--how he lost it.''

The structure of ``Citizen Kane'' is circular, adding more depth every time it passes
over the life. The movie opens with newsreel obituary footage that briefs us on the
life and times of Charles Foster Kane; this footage, with its portentous narration, is
Welles' bemused nod in the direction of the ``March of Time'' newsreels then being
produced by another media mogul, Henry Luce. They provide a map of Kane's
trajectory, and it will keep us oriented as the screenplay skips around in time,
piecing together the memories of those who knew him.

Curious about Kane's dying word, ``rosebud,'' the newsreel editor assigns
Thompson, a reporter, to find out what it meant. Thompson is played by William
Alland in a thankless performance; he triggers every flashback, yet his face is never
seen. He questions Kane's alcoholic mistress, his ailing old friend, his rich associate
and the other witnesses, while the movie loops through time. As often as I've seen
``Citizen Kane,'' I've never been able to firmly fix the order of the scenes in my
mind. I look at a scene and tease myself with what will come next. But it remains
elusive: By flashing back through the eyes of many witnesses, Welles and
Mankiewicz created an emotional chronology set free from time.

The movie is filled with bravura visual moments: the towers of Xanadu; candidate
Kane addressing a political rally; the doorway of his mistress dissolving into a
front-page photo in a rival newspaper; the camera swooping down through a
skylight toward the pathetic Susan in a nightclub; the many Kanes reflected through
parallel mirrors; the boy playing in the snow in the background as his parents
determine his future; the great shot as the camera rises straight up from Susan's
opera debut to a stagehand holding his nose, and the subsequent shot of Kane, his
face hidden in shadow, defiantly applauding in the silent hall.

Along with the personal story is the history of a period. ``Citizen Kane'' covers the
rise of the penny press (here Joseph Pulitzer is the model), the Hearst-supported
Spanish-American War, the birth of radio, the power of political machines, the rise
of fascism, the growth of celebrity journalism. A newsreel subtitle reads: ``1895 to
1941. All of these years he covered, many of these he was.'' The screenplay by
Mankiewicz and Welles (which got an Oscar, the only one Welles ever won) is
densely constructed and covers an amazing amount of ground, including a sequence
showing Kane inventing the popular press; a record of his marriage, from early bliss
to the famous montage of increasingly chilly breakfasts; the story of his courtship of
Susan Alexander and her disastrous opera career, and his decline into the remote
master of Xanadu (``I think if you look carefully in the west wing, Susan, you'll find
about a dozen vacationists still in residence'').

``Citizen Kane'' knows the sled is not the answer. It explains what Rosebud is, but
not what Rosebud means. The film's construction shows how our lives, after we are
gone, survive only in the memories of others, and those memories butt up against the
walls we erect and the roles we play. There is the Kane who made shadow figures
with his fingers, and the Kane who hated the traction trust; the Kane who chose his
mistress over his marriage and political career, the Kane who entertained millions,
the Kane who died alone.

There is a master image in ``Citizen Kane'' you might easily miss. The tycoon has
overextended himself and is losing control of his empire. After he signs the papers of
his surrender, he turns and walks into the back of the shot. Deep focus allows
Welles to play a trick of perspective. Behind Kane on the wall is a window that
seems to be of average size. But as he walks toward it, we see it is further away and
much higher than we thought. Eventually he stands beneath its lower sill, shrunken
and diminished. Then as he walks toward us, his stature grows again. A man always
seems the same size to himself, because he does not stand where we stand to look
at him.

 

[WriterDom]

Hillary Clinton's book
Bill Clinton's book
the designated hitter

 

[miles]

Shadow

Are you another boomer who tripped out, got naked, and tests your kids' urine?

Nope - never tested my kids' urine. They know they are responsible for their own actions. We have an "Instant Karma" rule in our house - everything you do comes back to you. They turned out to be great people - except for the one doing 20 years in the joint for distribution of crack. (Just Kidding.)

 

[shadowsource]

Okay, luv those comix!

Peace, Miles. You sound like a good, libertarian Dad.