MERRY CHRISTMAS!

BYE-BYE, BOSTON LEGAL

I came in late to the "Boston Legal" tea party. Though I had never watched it’s parent show, "The Practice", I had always meant to watch the spinoff since I heard William Shatner talking about it on Howard Stern (when the new series had the working title of "Fleet Street"). I caught it midway through season two, and then it wasn’t for series stars Shatner, James Spader, but episode guest star Michael J. Fox. To my pleasant surprise, the series regulars included some old TV friends: Rene Auberjoinois (“Benson”), Candice Bergen (“Murphy Brown”) and the delicious Julie Bowen (“Ed”). So I stuck with it, and enjoyed the three seasons to follow.

“Boston Legal” ends Monday night with back-to-back episodes on ABC, ending an abbreviated fifth season. It’s a leaner cast, down to just six lawyers from last year’s nine. Cast changes were the norm, and the only survivors from season one are show stars William Shatner and James Spader. Their roles brought both actors their largest acclaim, with five Emmy nominations and two wins for Shatner as Denny Crane, four Emmy nominations and three wins for Spader as Alan Shore. My wife, Jill, always asked me while I watch this show. It's the polar opposite of my politics. In fact, it continually assaulted and insulted my beliefs and ideals. It went out of its way to make liberal ideas and causes seem like the obvious choice and those who do not agree are idiots. This was particularly on display when Alan Shore made his extensive closing arguments. I've fast-forwarded through most of them. The only right-wing character is Crane, portrayed often as a buffoon who's losing his mind.

That said, what keeps me watching are the people, not just the regulars but the recurring wacky judges (like Henry Gibson and Shelley Berman) and Betty White as a perpetual scofflaw. But "Boston Legal", for all it's in-your-face politics, is really the love story of two men, two friends, Denny Crane and Alan Shore. There friendship is implausible, unconventional, but honest and uplifting to both. It's also been a great showcase for Candice Bergen (Shirley Schmidt) and John Larroquette as the sane wardens of a bin of lawyer loonies. The best character, for me, is Christian Clemenson as Jerry Espenson. Jerry started out as a recurring character nicknamed 'Hands', because he was most comfortable always keeping his hands on his thighs (even while walking). He went from taking a senior partner hostage at gunpoint to becoming a partner himself with the firm. Clemenson's Emmy-winning portrayal of this sympathetic, troubled man gave us a character for the viewer to root for each week.

I'm glad we got a last chance with these characters. We even got the contrived TV Thanksgiving episode where the co-workers have dinner together, causing Shirley to exclaim, "Do we have to fight? Can't we just eat and make small talk and pretend we like each other?"

CANIFF AND THE 10-CENT PLAGUE

The Beat hipped me to the fact that you can now search the photo archive of LIFE Magazine via Google. I'd link to it right now, but you'd go there and never come back. The archive includes pictures labeled "comic book hearings". Several hearings were held in the 1950s to study the supposed link between juvenile delinquency and the negative effects of comic books. Last year's book by David Hajdu - The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America - explored these attacks on comic books, highlighting the scary consequences of the mob mentality, such as comic book burnings that were held across the country. This comic book fervor caught the attention of civic groups and eventually Congress, who felt something must be done about these comic books for the sake of the children.

Milton Caniff and his fellow artists of the National Cartoonists Society became concerned about the implications of this witchhunt. While they toiled in comic strips, not comic books, there was some crossover of material. Indeed, the first comic books were simply reprints of comic strip dailies, and Caniff's own strips, 'Terry & the Pirates' and 'Steve Canyon' had been adapted into the comic book format. Per Hajdu's book, Caniff testified at hearings in 1950 and 1954. However, these pictures create something of a mystery. They are dated December, 1951. Hajdu wrote that Caniff testified before Senator Estes Kefauver's committee in 1950 and that Kefauver's report was issued November, 1950. In R.C. Harvey's Caniff biography, Meanwhile..., Harvey writes that Caniff went to another hearing in New York in December 1951. This was the New York State Joint Legislature Committee to Study the Publication of Comics hearing. New York was at the forefront of the war on comics, with the legislature passing a bill to have comics approved before distribution by the state's board of education. Per Hajdu, the committee was established after the governor vetoed the bill. Per Harvey, Milton Caniff did not testify at this hearing. He was merely accompanying fellow artist Alex Raymond as representatives of the National Cartoonists Society. But in these pictures, Caniff is clearly testifying.

LIFE's full gallery file of pictures from the hearings can be found here. So, I need your help, dear readers. If you can identify other folks in the pictures, please let me know. It will aid in narrowing down the events taking place. I like them because they depict the normally jovial Caniff looking very pissed off.




All photos are by Yale Joel for LIFE Magazine. LIFE Magazine's photo archive on Google can be searched here.

CANIFF OHS EXHIBIT - A Year Later

...And here my blogging began


About a year ago I started this blog after I visited Hillsboro, Ohio, the Ohio Historical Society and the Cartoon Research Library. OHS and OSU both had exhibits on Hillsboro-born cartoonist Milton Caniff. Last week I went back to Columbus. OHS still has their Caniff exhibit running and the Cartoon Research Library is home to Caniff's personal collection of letters, papers and artwork.

At the Ohio Historical Society, I talked with Connie Bodner about the Caniff exhibit. Bodner is the Director of Education and Interpretive Services. One of the things that struck me about the OHS exhibit is the lack of artwork, which seems odd for a famous artist. Bodner explained that the museum was more geared toward 3-D objects while the Cartoon Research Library excels at displaying art. Whatever Caniff art they had is now at the Library and the 3-D objects the Library had were transferred to the museum. The OHS exhibit, 'Spotlight on Milton Caniff', is really about the man. Included are furniture, toys and other objects from his childhood, as well props and apparatus used in drawing. Bodner told me that when school groups come through they focus on Caniff as a famous Ohioan. The children relate to the childhood objects (apparently Caniff's mother saved everything) and learn about a little boy who loved to draw and was able to make a career out of it.

Complimenting the Caniff exhibit are new exhibits on Currier & Ives prints and Norman Rockwell's magazine covers. I'll admit that I knew zippity-zoop about Currier & Ives, other than their namecheck in "Sleigh Ride". I knew they made prints, but I didn't know they weren't the artists. I learned that Nathaniel Currier was a lithographer who, in the 1830s, started making making artistic renderings of current events into prints for newspapers and public consumption. Hiring accountant James Ives, the two began a successful partnership of selling decorative art prints to the masses. These hand-colored prints look remarkable for their age. Witness the vibrancy of the print shown here, which is over 150 years old. It's interesting to me that the successful use of photography in newspapers didn't come of age until the 1930s. Papers were still using a staff of artists to depict the news and newsmakers of the day. This is how Milton Caniff got his break. Aside from cartooning, he was also doing spot news illustrations for the Columbus Dispatch and then the Associated Press.

The Norman Rockwell exhibit, Rockwell's America, was a thrill for me because I was nuts about his art back when I was in high school. You might infer, then, that I was one of the popular kids, but you'd be wrong. I read his autobiography, asked for books of his art of Christmas and did my junior history fair project on his work. My Rockwell fervor has abated since then, but was reinvigorated by this exhibit. The Rockwell illustration work that is best known are the 322 covers he painted for the Saturday Evening Post, a weekly magazine founded by Benjamin Franklin. The exhibit uses these iconic images to tell the story of the technological and social changes in America from World War I to JFK (Rockwell's tenure on the Post). Some of the covers are recreated in statuary (see the cover the picture came from here. There are even some live performers, like Rosie the Riveter (below).
There's no original art in the exhibit, but rather the atmosphere of being inside Rockwell's paintings and his vision of American life. The most impressive part to me was the gathering in one room of the 322 Post covers, hung chronologically.


'Spotlight on Milton Caniff', 'Currier & Ives: Illustrating America' and 'Rockwell's America' all run through March 1st. To plan your visit, check out the Ohio Historical Center's website. And if art isn't your thing, they still have the two-headed calf...

BEATLES NEWS ROUNDUP

PAUL McCartney was the recipient of the Ultimate Legend Award from MTV Europe, in a ceremony that took place at the Liverpool Echo Arena. This is unlike the time in 2002 when Michael Jackson accepted the Artist of the Millennium award from MTV, only the award didn't exist and they weren't giving it to him.

'ALL Together Now' is a documentary about the Cirque Du Soleil show 'Love', a collaboration with the Beatles. The film had limited release in theaters and is now available on DVD, exclusively from Best Buy. The documentary includes Paul, Ringo, George Martin, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison.



Can you hit buttons on simulated musical instruments at the same time the Beatles played notes? You'll get your chance as the video game Rock Band has just licensed the Beatles' music for their video game, due Christmas of 2009.




JOHN Lennon: The Life is a new biography by Philip Norman, author of the 1981 Beatles biography, Shout!. Adding to the pile of a kabillion Beatle bios, this one made headlines with Norman's assertions that Lennon had a thing for his own mum. The book has already been panned by Yoko, Macca and Lennon's sister, Julia, who has her own book, The Private John Lennon", out this year.




MCCARtney has recorded a third album under the name The Fireman, his ambient/electronica side project with Youth. Electric Arguments is out November 25th. I have the two other Fireman albums and I'm warning you - not only is this not for the casual McCartney fan...it's barely for the McCartney completist! Sir Paul also guests on the new album from Indian-born pal Nitin Sawhney, 'London Undersound', due in November. Macca sings the vocals on the track "My Soul".

THE Ringo Starr goodwill tour continues. Having recovered from his badmouthing of hometown Liverpool, Starr gave a special message on his website telling his fans to piss off. Well, not that he doesn't want fans, he just doesn't want to hear from them. "...no more fan mail," says the beleaguered drummer, "It's just going to be tossed." Starr later tempered his statement by saying he was upset by the practice of individuals sending him objects to sign and send back. He did this willingly for his fans, but felt taken advantage of when he later saw the items on Ebay.

PRESIDENTIAL COMICS

With the presidential election finally happening, it's probably past time to take a look at how the leading presidential candidates are portrayed in the comics. The most obvious place to find them depicted is in the editorial cartoons. I chose cartoonists who are among the recent winners (past ten years) of the Best Editorial Cartoonist Award from the National Cartoonist Society. I find it interesting that no matter the political viewpoint, John McCain is jowly and usually angry; Barack Obama is skinny, usually with big ears. I think the now retired Borgman has the best Obama, so it will be worse for us if Obama wins (though that will be the least of our worries).


Comic strips have long been political, 'Pogo' and 'Doonesbury' being notable examples. Comic books, though, are an atypical venue for politics. Unlike this overt example to the left, I think most writers and publishers fear alienating readers. I personally have dropped a title or stopped buying a writer based on their politics. It's not that I think politics have no place in comic books, I just don't need a primer from the Justice League on why they think the Iraq war is bad. There are a few political biographies that have been released in the past month. This is territory no one's covered since 1968 with LBJ and Barry Goldwater.



IDW released 'Presidential Material' last month, with an issue for Obama and one for McCain, as well as a two-sided flip book with both stories. Each comic is well-researched and portrays the life story of each man. I think both are fairly balanced, though not without bias. Entire speeches by Obama are reprinted, while McCain's story is told almost totally in narrative. Obama, after overcoming childhood adversities, is almost squeaky clean. McCain, however, is rocked by scandal and controversy, with almost as much ink given to the Keating scandal as it is to his POW term.

I guess the election has captured many imaginations. Alex Ross has given us this image, now available on posters and t-shirts. I guess he's fighting the forces of capitalism, or something. "I'm off to spread the wealth...up, up and awaaaaay!!"

MATT'S MUSIC REPORT

Recent Releases of Note - for titles in red, there is a review in the last section of the post.

• Beatles - All Together Now [documentary DVD]
  
• Beck - Modern Guilt
  
• Johnny Cash - Christmas Specials 1976-79 [4 DVD]
  
• Johnny Cash - I Walked the Line [book]*
  
• Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison [2 CD/1 DVD – 10/14]
  
• Elvis Costello - Taking Liberties [digital reissue]**
  
• Elvis Costello - Out of Our Idiot [digital reissue]**
  
• Elvis Costello & the Impostors - Momofuku
  
• CSNY - Déjà Vu Live
  
• CSNY - Déjà Vu [DVD documentary]
  
• Bob Dylan - Tell Tale Signs: Bootleg Series v.8
  
• Stacey Earle/Mark Stuart - Town Square [StaceyandMark.com]
  
• Genesis - 1970-1975 [7 CD/6 DVD box]
  
• Mitch Hedberg - Do You Believe in Gosh?
• John Hiatt - Same Old Man
  
• Billy Joel - The Stranger [2-cd reissue]
  
• Billy Joel - The Stranger [2-cd/2-dvd box]
  
• Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
  
• Nils Lofgren - Yankee Stadium [nilslofgren.com]
  
• Moody Blues - reissue of original 7 albums***
  
• Move - Looking On [reissue w/bonus tracks]
• Mudcrutch - Mudcrutch
  
• Graham Nash - Songs for Beginners [CD/DVD reissue]
  
• Willie Nelson - Stardust: 30th Anniversary Ed.
  
• Willie Nelson/Wynton Marsalis - Two Men with the Blues
  
• Randy Newman - Harps and Angels
  
• Roy Orbison - Soul of Rock and Roll [4-cd box]
  
• Amy Ray - Didn’t It Feel Kinder
  
• Frank Sinatra - Nothing But the Best
  
• Frank Sinatra - Sinatra at the Movies
  
• Bruce Springsteen - Magic Tour Highlights [iTunes]
  
• Mark Stuart - Left of Nashville
• Loudon Wainwright III - Recovery
  
• “Weird Al” Yankovic - Whatever You Like [iTunes]
  

Upcoming Releases

• Beatles - Monopoly [board game – 11/20]
  
• Johnny Cash - Johnny Cash’s America [CD/DVD – 10/28]
  
• Stacey Earle - The Ride [TBA]
• Indigo Girls - untitled [Feb ‘09]
  
• Elton John - The Red Piano[2 CD/2 DVD–10/28]
  
• Alison Krauss - A Hundred Miles or More [DVD-11/11]
  
• Mudcrutch - Live EP [11/11]
  

On Tour in the Tri-State

• Micky Dolenz - 11/22–Grand Victoria
  
• Stacey Earle & Mark Stuart - 3/6 – Louisville; 3/7 – Lexington
  
• Jim Gaffigan - 12/12 – Louisvlle; 12/13 – Clevlnd
  
• Nanci Griffith - 11/15 – Kent
  
• Herman’s Hermits - 10/31 – Cleveland
  
• John Hiatt - 2/14 – Danville 
  
• Gordon Lightfoot - 3/14 – Belterra 
  
• Willie Nelson - 12/7 – Evansville
  
• Amy Ray - 10/31 – Cleveland
  
• Jerry Seinfeld - 11/5 – Columbus
  
• Smothers Brothers - 11/15, 11/16 – Indianapolis 
  
• B.J. Thomas - 1/23 – French Lick
  

footnotes

*This is an autobiography of Johnny Cash’s first wife, Vivian, who felt herself unfairly portrayed in ‘Walk the Line’. She and daughter Roseanne thought she came off as a nutjob. I thought she was more a wife at her wit’s end with an immature husband who treated her like crap.

**Costello issued two albums of his own rarities – Taking Liberties (1980) and Out of Our Idiot (1987). They’re out of print on CD but are made available again as download-only albums. The collections were basically obsolete when all of the tracks were made available as bonus material when both Ryko and Rhino reissued the entire Costello catalog. If you didn’t get those reissues, these are worth a listen.

***The Moodies celebrated original seven albums have been reissued yet again. Not to be confused with the 1997 remastered reissues or the 2006 Europe-only 2-disc reissues from Universal. These are apparently improved remasters with bonus tracks. It’s hard to make a recommendation. On one hand, the 2-disc imports are out of sight, price-wise, but on the other, U.S. fans are getting cheated out of more bonus material.

MITCH HEDBERG – DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOSH? – A few years ago, I went to a local comedy club to see my then-favorite comedian, Mitch Hedberg. The sign on the door said the show had been cancelled. It would have been my only chance to see him, as he died of a drug overdose not long after. Until now, all we had left were some late night appearances on YouTube and two comedy albums. This posthumous release is a welcome listen, though it falls short of the other two in terms of laughs. Hedberg’s best bits here are interactions with the crowd, calling himself out on jokes that don’t work and flights of fancy (“What if a drummer accidentally picked up two magic wands instead of drum sticks?”). Someday someone smart at Worldwide Pants will put his ten Letterman appearances on DVD.


RANDY NEWMAN – HARPS AND ANGELS – Newman caused a minor stir last year when he released “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country”, a downloadable single that was excerpted by the New York Times. I found it odious, with it’s comparison of George W. Bush to Hitler and Stalin, as well as it’s insulting of Clarence Thomas and, by extension, conservative blacks. It’s included here in this otherwise enjoyable set of ten songs, in which Newman satirizes immigration, class warfare and his own aging and mortality. The only song where he hits the satirical mark spot on is “Korean Parents”, in which he *gasp* blames parents for poor performing children and suggests they hire Korean parents to make their children study hard. Newman also finally gets around to recording “Feels Like Home”. It was written for his 1993 musical, ‘Faust’, where it was performed by Bonnie Raitt (it was also my first dance with my wife at our wedding reception). Newman has said his non-satirical love songs, like this one, will probably be the ones that endure the passage of time.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN – MAGIC TOUR HIGHLIGHTS – I’ve seen the Boss in concert, so I know this mixed bag of four tracks couldn’t have been the highlights of his latest tour, particularly the one supporting ‘Magic’, the best album of 2007. Rather, the first three tracks have Bruce inviting a surprise guest onstage. “Always a Friend” with Alejandro Escovedo is the best of these, with Bruce and the E-Street Band basically backing Escovedo on his own song (from 2008’s ‘Real Animal’). Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello guests on “The Ghost of Tom Joad”, which begs for spare treatment and flounders under Morello’s squealing guitar and cue card vocals. There's also a cover of "Turn! Turn! Turn!" with Roger McGuinn himself which I initially judged to harshly as 'unlistenable'. Now I'll just categorize it as 'would've been better 20 years ago'. The only real keeper is the version of ‘Sandy’ that prominently features E-Streeter Danny Federici on accordion. Federici died from cancer the next month after this show.

JENNY LEWIS - ACID TONGUE (by guest reviewer Jim Bates of A Scale Canadian) In 2006 Jenny Lewis broke free from the reins of Rilo Kiley and released 'Rabbit Fur Coat', not only one of the best albums of 2007, but also one of the best solo debuts of all time. 'Rabbit Fur Coat' was a flowing masterpiece of county rock/folk singer-songwriter tunes with great lyrics and nice harmonies provided by the Watson Twins. After the success of 'Rabbit Fur Coat', Jenny returned to Rilo Kiley for an attempted pop cash-in with 'Under the Blacklight'…a highly uneven effort with both some great songs ("15" and "Smoke Detector") and some bad (the woeful "Dejalo") Now, Jenny returns with her next solo album, 'Acid Tongue'. It doesn’t have the flow of her debut and at times comes across as a disjointed set of songs.

Jenny opens up the album with her little girl voice on the pretty "Black Sand". "Pretty Bird" could be a Neil Young and Crazy Horse song…but without the guitar freak-outs…and…well, with a girl singer. Next up is the slinky and shape changing "The Next Messiah". Here, Jenny drops the little girl voice and starts to rock out. The song is eight minutes and forty seconds of Bo Diddley beat rock and male/female sing-alongs. If Jenny wanted to be less generous it almost could have been broken up into two or three songs. Other highlights include the “interesting family dynamic” tempo-shifting rocker "Jack Killed Mom", and the energetic country-rock pop of "See Fernando"…no not the ABBA tune. "Carpetbaggers" starts out strong and only stalls when Elvis Costello starts mumbling his way through the second verse. Jenny recovers, but she really should just have excised Elvis from the song. Also, don’t miss the stunning title track with Chris Robinson on backing vocals. Here Jenny strips down to just acoustic guitar and vocals and comes out with an amazing song about a hole in her shoe, liars, acid, and love. A few of the lesser songs echo 70s pop/rock/country/jazz with a few chamber music touches…nothing bad, they just aren’t that memorable.

This is a good album and it is growing on me, I just don’t think Jenny has equaled Rabbit Fur Coat…yet.