Month: July 2015

The Music Biz And I

Yeah, Another Blogger4 Comments
A typical concert scene at beautiful Pastorius Park.
A typical concert scene at beautiful Pastorius Park.

On a recent morning, the day’s threatening skies put me in mind of the music business mini-career that I enjoyed till not long ago. It was with the Pastorius Park Free Summer Concerts Series, in Philadelphia’s lovely and small townish Chestnut Hill neighborhood. For seven summers, the first two as a general helper and the following five as a co-organizer, I was part of a fine endeavor. My run ended in July 2014 with that summer’s final concert. Bad weather, or the prediction thereof, were among the reasons that I decided to step down. With rain a possibility for many concert evenings, I and another co-organizer often would find ourselves phoning back and forth hours before showtime, agonizing over whether or not to move the music indoors to our rain location, a school auditorium a mile from the park. It usually was a tricky matter. Sometimes we opted for inside and the rains never came. At least twice we stayed at bucolic Pastorius Park and downpours cancelled or prematurely ended the night’s entertainment. My constitution wasn’t strong enough to laugh along with the rain gods. Weather aside, though, the Pastorius Park segment of my life was terrific overall.

In 2008, knowing that I was approaching the end of my 30+ year tenure on the payroll of Pennsylvania government, I was looking around for a part-time activity that involved my main interest. Music. For 40 years I had been quite the music junkie, listening to albums and radio at home for hours on end, taking in shows at a wide variety of venues in the Philadelphia area and beyond. It had recently dawned on me that the next phase of my life might be pretty awesome if I could become more than an audience member by getting inside the music scene  But how would it be possible to find entry? I knew nobody in the biz and had never worked in music in any capacity whatsoever. Plus, I was not too far away from Medicare age. I figured that my chances weren’t overly bright. And then, to my delight and astonishment, a door opened.

Now, the music venture I became involved with wasn’t exactly Columbia Records or Live Nation Entertainment. The Pastorius Park series is low key and homey, which was fine with me. It runs under the gentle aegis of Chestnut Hill Community Association, an agency that aims for its community’s betterment. Volunteers are central to the series because the modest Pastorius budget has room for payments to musicians and audio crew, but not much more. As first a helper and later an organizer, I fell into the unpaid pool. That was fine with me too. I was more than happy just to be part of the process.

I went to my first Pastorius Park concert in summer 2007. On stage was Scythian, a rocking Celtic group that drove the crowd wild. This was before the notion of working in the music biz had crossed my mind. The next year, though, trying to figure out where my musical dreams possibly might come partially true, I dialed Chestnut Hill Community Association and was put in touch with one of the Pastorius Park organizers, Janine. She welcomed my offer to help. Next thing I knew I was at a planning meeting for 2008’s season. And a few months after that I was at the concerts themselves, setting up tables and chairs, helping to unload and load audio equipment, collecting concert donations from the audiences during intermissions. My energy seemed to swell on concert dates. I was having a wonderful time. The door had opened.

The door opened even more in early 2010 when one of the organizers, the fellow who scheduled and booked the acts, no longer had the time to continue his duties. He and Janine asked me to replace him. Me? Book acts? Negotiate contracts? Those for me were uncharted waters. Gulp, gulp. I said OK, I’ll do my best. And I was on my way. It didn’t take long for me to realize that my new position was close to being my dream job. There I was, a music lover given the keys from out of the blue to curate a small but well-regarded music series.

I had fun working with my organizing partners, Janine for the first two years and Julie for the next three, and with the other volunteers. I enjoyed chatting with the musicians before and after the shows. And I had a major blast scheduling each summer’s string of seven Wednesday evening concerts. In 2010 I reached past the Philadelphia area to hire two acts from afar, including, incredibly, Graham Parker. His solo show packed the park maybe tighter than ever before or since. But for the next four years I decided to stick entirely with artists from the Philadelphia region’s highly fertile musical ground. I liked the idea of supporting its progeny.

If I hadn’t known it before, one thing became very apparent to me during my days as an organizer. To wit, there are an astonishing number of excellent musical acts based in the Greater Philadelphia area, and many of the little-known local performers are as good or better than many who make big noise in the mass marketplace. Success is a matter of luck, timing, backing, perseverance, who knows what. A few of the Philadelphia region’s performers whom I booked for Pastorius Park had found some degree of national and worldwide acclaim, folks such as singer-songwriters Jeffrey Gaines and Mutlu, and Celtic music greats RUNA. But the rest were talented bands on the lower rungs of success’s ladder. Some of them put on performances as enchanting as you’d ever hope to see.

Cheers Elephant and some young fans at Pastorius Park in July 2011. Photo by Kevin Kennedy
Cheers Elephant and some young fans at Pastorius Park in July 2011.
Photo by Kevin Kennedy

For instance: I’ve never been to a show like the one in 2011 involving Cheers Elephant, a pop psychedelic rock outfit with loud guitars and a free-as-a-bird and charismatic lead singer, Derek Krzywicki. Cheers Elephant’s music was magic to the ears of many youngsters who had come to the park with their parents. During the band’s second set, played under darkening skies, many kids aged five to 15 left the grassy seating areas and, seemingly magnetized by Elephant’s electric energy, made their way to, indeed onto the stage, which sat beneath a grove of tall trees. Bouncing and shimmying to the band’s powerful and catchy beats, they covered the stage, pushed the musicians onward and upward, in fact had the musicians mesmerized. The scene was surreal and transfixing.

Venissa Santi and her band at Pastorius Park in July 2014.
Venissa Santi and her band at Pastorius Park in July 2014.

And in 2014, Venissa Santi brought her Cuban-flavored jazz esthetic to the park. I’d hired Venissa once before for Pastorius Park, and had also seen her perform at another concert series. Last year, though, she and her band rose to a level I hadn’t known was in their command. Early in Santi’s first set my mind was captured. The music was complex yet malleable, expanding and contracting like strong bands of rubber. Venissa’s intimate and pitch-perfect vocals intertwined with the chordal onrushes of Tom Lawton’s piano, the now-I’m-here-now-I’m-there notes from Madison Rast’s bass, and the melodic assymetrical patterns of Francois Zayas’s drums. This, I thought, was music parallel to that of Miles Davis’s famed 1960s quintet. Was I imagining things? I don’t think so. Did others in the audience hear the music as I did? I can’t say for certain. But judging from their tremendous applause I’d guess yes.

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Ashes: Lindi Ortega’s Great Song Heard In The Great Outdoors

Yeah, Another Blogger16 Comments

This is a story about life’s little surprises, about how one thing leads to another. In this gentle instance an unexpected impulse to relocate my duff from indoors to outside resulted in my hearing a song that I can’t get out of my head.

There’s something naturally relaxing about sitting outdoors when the weather is pleasant. Some people sit in parks, some on beaches, some a few feet from doors to their homes. One of my pals lives in Philadelphia in an old comfortable house, a sprawling place with a front porch. On evenings when the Philadelphia Phillies are taking the field, my friend positions himself in a porch chair, balances a small radio on a table beside him and turns on the Phillies station. He remains there till the game is over. This routine helps him stay calm.

A scene at dusk: Cheez-Its, iced tea and portable radio on the deck table behind my house. Photograph by Sandra Cherrey Scheinin
A scene at dusk: Cheez-Its, iced tea and portable radio on the deck table behind my house.
Photograph by Sandra Cherrey Scheinin

I should emulate my friend’s fresh air example more often. I used to sit outside frequently, mostly on the deck behind my house, but haven’t much in the last few years. Most of my sitting and downtime in that stretch has taken place on the sofa in my living room. On a recent Monday night, however, a powerful urge to visit the great outdoors came out of nowhere, and so I stepped onto the deck as dusk was settling in, and sat at the deck table. The temperature was ideal, the evening peaceful. At least ten houses are within 100 feet of the deck, but they became less and less visible through the trees as blackness approached. These were conditions that agreed with my inner yearnings. That is, I felt isolated, away from it all. And three things made the scenario even better: Food, beverage and music. Munching on Cheez-Its,  sipping iced tea and, most important to this story, listening to my portable radio, I was as relaxed as I’m capable of becoming. The radio was tuned to WXPN.

In the Philadelphia region WXPN is the go-to station for rock, folk, blues and nearly any other non-Ariana Grande musical genre you can name. XPN plays everything from The Beatles to Mavis Staples to Caetano Veloso to Laura Marling. And the station makes it a mission to keep up with the continual avalanche of recorded music from established and never-heard-of-them-before musicians. Airing on XPN as I sat beneath the stars and amidst pulsating fireflies was a program showcasing nothing but new songs. And the tune that issued from my radio at about 9:00 PM swept me from my state of relaxation to a much higher plane.

There are certain songs over the years that infatuated me from the moment I first heard them. In 1968 it was Jumpin’ Jack Flash, by the Stones. To this day it stirs me up every time I hear it. California Stars, by Billy Bragg and Wilco (and lyrics by Woody Guthrie), brought me to my knees in 1998. I’ve added another number to the list of instant infatuations, all praise to WXPN’s new music show. The song is Ashes. Its singer and writer is Lindi Ortega. Ashes overwhelmed me on my deck. I think that the calm within and without me had unlocked fully the doorways to my emotions and ushered Ashes in. From its opening notes, Ashes in a good way made me shiver and melt. It went straight to my truest spaces.

I had come across Lindi Ortega’s name in print in the past but wasn’t familiar with her music. As I’ve learned, she’s a Canadian now living in Nashville and plays and composes smart country-hued material à la Emmylou Harris and Patty Griffin. With Ashes she and her production team have created a wonder, a stirring song about the need for love, the pain of loss. The heartbeat bass lines, the steady tension-inducing drumming, Lindi’s pleading and impassioned vocals that grow as the song develops, the soul-gripping guitar solo at the song’s three minute mark . . . Ashes to me is perfection. “Darling, this is madness, why don’t you come back to me?/Don’t leave me in the ashes of your memory.” Indeed. Indeed. When Lindi next appears in or around Philadelphia I’ll be at the show. For now, I’ll listen to Ashes on YouTube, where Lindi has gifted it to the world in advance of its release next month on her album Faded Gloryville. I recommend that you do the same. Here is Ashes:

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We Said “Cheese Please” At Iron Abbey

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I’ve grumbled before on these pages about the paucity of loveliness in the townships that surround my suburban Philadelphia home base. Stuck in the middle of a large section of this haphazard overdevelopment is a place that I think is a-ok. Iron Abbey is its name, and beer and good food is its game. It is a gastropub. Location: Horsham, Pennsylvania. My wife Sandy and I ate dinner there recently. One part of the meal, a cheese plate of all things, particularly opened our minds and eyes.

Part of the scene at Iron Abbey.
Part of the scene at Iron Abbey.

Iron Abbey is a large establishment. Its dining areas and bar are on ground level where the look is woody and stoney rustic. Kind of like, who’d have guessed, an abbey. Upstairs are an espresso café and rooms filled with beers for takeout purchase. The beer rooms are wondrous, packed with microbrews, many obscure, from the corners of the globe. For this article, let’s stay on the ground floor, where the beer selections are no less mind-blowing.

Sandy doesn’t like beer. She is a wine lady. Unfortunately for her, Iron Abbey does not cater to wine-by-the-glass ladies or gents. Those selections are slim. The two Sauvignon Blanc choices were overpriced at $10.50, so Sandy, a white wine devotee, instead sipped an eight dollar glass of Cielo Pinot Grigio, direct from Italy. Sandy says she has had better. I took a sample and approved of its dryness but quickly decided its flavor could be richer.

Enough about wines. The Philadelphia region has become a haven for beer geeks, and Iron Abbey is a top example why. I spent five minutes poring over the beer menu. The choices were nearly endless, around 40 on tap and 250 in bottles and cans. The pressure was on. Twice I told our waitress that I needed more time to decide. On her third visit to the table I was too embarrassed to ask for another extension. Firestone Walker Easy Jack IPA I said, pointing it out on the menu’s draft beer section. With craft beers, one usually can’t go too wrong, so skilled have the world’s brewers become. My selection, birthed in sunny California, was proof. Bitter and hopped-up it was, as all good IPAs should be. One of the hops varieties in the recipe imparted a husky tinge of grapefruit flavor to the brew. I liked that a lot.

The best segment of the meal came next. Sandy and I were all set to bypass any starters and simply place our main course orders when I absentmindedly began to pay some attention to the menu section titled “The Board.” There, one may select from various cheeses and meats, all of which are accompanied by an eclectic mix of nibbly stuffs. Why not, we decided. When the waitress reappeared we picked two cheeses and sat back with our drinks. We’re not naïfs, but neither of us had ever before ordered a cheese plate at a restaurant.

The cheese board that we loved.
The cheese plate that we loved.

The cheese plate arrived and we couldn’t have had a better time. It came with salty olives, crunchy excellent French bread, fig and apricot jams, roasted Macadamia nuts,  pickled red onion slivers and membrillo. Yes, I hadn’t a clue either as to what membrillo is. Turns out that it is a firm soft paste made from quince pulp, sugar and water. Some post-Iron Abbey research told me it’s commonly found in Portugal, Spain and Italy. I caught what I thought were flavors from the apple and pear family. Quince, as additional research told me a little while ago, is indeed related to those fruits. Bottom line, the membrillo was delicious. The other accompaniments were too. As for the cheeses, we had selected  Ubriaco Classico from Italy and Ossau Iraty from France. As with membrillo, I’d never heard of either of those cheeses before. For the most part I’m a Kraft swiss and Cracker Barrel cheddar kind of guy. But I know there’s a world of cheeses out there to be explored. The Ubriaco was semisoft and hinted of wine and citrus. The Ossau Iraty was dense and dry and pungent. Sandy and I swooned over both of them and the bread and the nibbly stuffs. This was the most exciting platter of food we’d had in quite a while.

Crab cake entrée (top). Chicken burger (bottom).
Crab cake entrée (top). Chicken burger (bottom).

After the cheese extravaganza we’d have been happy to pay up and leave. We knew that it would overshadow the next course. Which it did. My grilled ground chicken burger, though, was awfully tasty, a comfort dish covered with melted Monterey Jack cheese and sautéed bits of red peppers and onion. The side salad I opted for in lieu of fries was fine too. Sandy’s crab cake entrée was done nicely. The grilled crab cake was charred outside, soft inside and good. Some extra doses of spices and flavorings wouldn’t have been a bad idea, though. It sat atop dreamy mashed potatoes, mushroom slices blended through. Blanched then sautéed itsy bitsy asparagus and carrot pieces, very flavorful, surrounded the mountain.

We had no room for dessert. We paid our bill and thanked our waitress, then squeezed past the crowds to the front door. Iron Abbey is a popular spot. Though it is by no means perfect, there are good reasons why it’s bustling.

(Photographs by Sandra Cherrey Scheinin. If you click on any photo, a larger image will open)

A Friday Frolic In Philly

Yeah, Another Blogger4 Comments

My wife Sandy and I lived in Philadelphia for many years, both before we met and subsequently. The year 2005 was a momentous one for us, because that’s when we made the leap from the city to the nearby northern burbs. In some ways I prefer living where I now do, in other ways I wonder if leaving the city was a brilliant idea. Our house is nicer than the one we used to occupy, the current neighborhood is cuter than its predecessor. On the other hand, automobile traffic around here is as blood pressure-elevating as in Philadelphia. And there aren’t enough fun things for us to do, which is why we head south a few times each month to check out the offerings in various sections of the City Of Brotherly Love.

My overall opinion of Philadelphia is a good one. Yes, the city has plenty of problems, like too much crime and a pitiful public school system. And yet it has so much going for it. Loads of history that we all know or should know about. Great parks big and small. Fabulous buildings from the late 1600s onward. More restaurants, music venues, theaters and such than anyone could wish for. I’m sounding like someone from Philadelphia’s official tourism bureau, but my feelings are legitimate. For physical beauty, culture and food, Philadelphia is world-class.

Which brings us to Friday, July 3. Sandy and I were itching to get out of the house. Not much that we knew about was going on in the burbs. Philadelphia it would be. Where in the city though? Sandy had noticed in the paper that July 3 was First Friday in Philadelphia’s Old City section. We hadn’t been to a First Friday in a year or two, and we decided to go.

Old City's Church Street is paved with grey bricks.
Old City’s Church Street is paved with grey bricks. They contrast nicely with plastic recycling bins.

Old City is a part of town that was full of homes, businesses and people in Colonial days. It still is, and many of those 1700s structures are with us today. The area is quaint and often lively, and plenty of streets retain their ancient paving bricks and stones. There are quite a few art galleries in Old City. In 1991, attempting to lure customers and imbue Old City with needed panache, some gallery owners began keeping their doors open in the evening on the first Friday of each month. They spread the word and a monthly mini-festival, a kind of happening, was born. All over the world, events similar to First Friday are taking place. They can be good.

You never know what you’ll come across on Old City First Fridays. Painters and crafts people and assorted vendors set up tables for their wares on the sidewalks and in alleyways, which are also where musicians set up their instruments and wail. And many art galleries, the original driving force, are open. Sandy and I strolled around Old City without a plan. Not having done advance research, we ended up missing a few blocks with galleries we’d have liked. Next time. Most of the action that we caught was on a two block stretch of 2nd Street between Market and Arch Streets, and on Arch between 2nd and 3rd. A small chunk of territory, actually, but enough.

Brass band wailing away in Old City.
Brass band wailing away in Old City.
The human caterpillar.
The human caterpillar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our eyes were open for human creations and human activities. Who wouldn’t have loved the brash New Orleans-style brass band occupying a niche where Cuthbert and 2nd Streets meet. Or the long-haired White dude who, catching some zzzs, was draped like a caterpillar over one of those large and ubiquitous green utility company sidewalk boxes. He was Mr. Flexibility personified.

Lady in blue with her colorful wares.
Lady in blue with her colorful wares.

Or the head-scarved lady in blue on 2nd Street whose tables and racks held as eye-popping a collection of pillows, fabric trivets, shoulder bags and cloth drapings as one would ever see in a 30 square foot parcel of sidewalk. Middle-Eastern and Asian patterns and color combinations burst from her goods, clashing outrageously, looking great together nonetheless. Henri Matisse, who threw wild design combos into so many paintings and never met a color he didn’t like, would have loved this lady’s display.

Artworks by Keith Sharp at 3rd Street Gallery.
Artworks by Keith Sharp at 3rd Street Gallery.
Artworks by Bettina Clowney at 3rd Street Gallery.
Artworks by Bettina Clowney at 3rd Street Gallery.

There were beautiful paintings, sculptures and crafts to be seen in the galleries. I’ll mention a few places. We liked just about everything we saw at 3rd Street Gallery. Two artists were showing there. Keith Sharp’s dark and dramatic photographic manipulations were intriguing, some a bit ominous. They were very different from Bettina Clowney’s spare paintings. Clowney uses a lot of whites in her depictions of fruits, of people, and in non-representational designs. Gazing at each other from opposite walls, the Sharp and Clowney artworks made a good marriage.

Leora Brecher with some of her sculptures at MUSE Gallery.
Leora Brecher with some of her sculptures at MUSE Gallery.
Paintings by Charles Newman at F.A.N. Gallery.
Paintings by Charles Newman at F.A.N. Gallery.

MUSE Gallery was filled with Leora Brecher’s small fired clay sculptures, all in white. Many were abstract suggestions of human movement, open and flowing. Very lovely.

F.A.N. Gallery on Arch Street is one Sandy and I visit occasionally. I wasn’t knocked out by its smorgasbord of works by gallery artists on this First Friday visit. We both liked the oils by one artist though, Charles Newman. He paints Philadelphia street scenes, focusing on old buildings, very well. The perspectives from which he views his brick and stone subjects are off-angle, giving the pictures a quiet tension, and his earthy subdued color choices are just right.

Prime Stache, where we had dinner.
Prime Stache, where we had dinner.

Dinner time. Off to Prime Stache, a few blocks from First Friday, on Chestnut Street. Atmospherically, it’s for lovers of exposed brick and stone walls, which Sandy and I are. A pubby place short on wines but decently long on beers, its food is good. Prime Stache has some fancy offerings, but we weren’t in a fancy mood. We both enjoyed our simple burgers, Sandy’s of the salmon ilk, mine of the turkey.

Race Street Pier and Benjamin Franklin Bridge.
Race Street Pier and Benjamin Franklin Bridge.

The best part of the evening lay ahead. We strolled northward from Prime Stache to Race Street Pier, one of my favorite spots in Philadelphia. I’ve been there in daylight and late at night, and late night is better. The pier lies near the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, and in darkened hours the illuminated bridge overhead is breathtaking.

Jutting into the Delaware River, Race Street Pier once was a commercial municipal pier. It has been converted into a serene and intimate two level public park with long walking paths, a lawn and oak trees. Much of the Philadelphia region’s population has yet to discover this park. It opened four years ago, the first and still the only of its kind in Philadelphia. At the tail end of our First Friday evening, Race Street Pier bewitched Sandy and me. We walked romantically. We were inspired by views of the Delaware. We shook our heads marveling at the beauty of the massive Franklin bridge. And then it was time to head home.

(All of the photographs in this article were taken by Sandra Cherrey Scheinin. If you click on any photo, a larger image will open)

Footing: It’s At The Center Of Two Recent Movies

Yeah, Another Blogger6 Comments

“Footing” is not a word you see or hear a lot. For some reason it jumped into my mind recently when I started to think about two movies I’ve watched in theaters of late. I hadn’t planned on writing about either of them, but wondering about “footing” — when strong, a balanced outlook and approach that allows a rewarding life — has nudged me to confront my PC’s keyboard.

I didn’t comment on these movies till now not because they aren’t worthy. Rather, time-wasting little ol’ me simply didn’t find the time. In fact, these are fine movies. I’ll See You In My Dreams, and Me And Earl And The Dying Girl premiered in January at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Both went into theatrical release this spring. The movies are serious, with a light touch that keeps things friendly and personable. I’ll See You earns a three (out of four) star rating from me. I’ll bestow four stars on Me And Earl.

For much of the world’s masses, just staying alive is more than enough of a challenge. Footing is among the least of their worries. But for billions of others, middle class Americans for example, the pastures are open and the possibilities for a good life are real. Still, gaining one’s footing isn’t necessarily easy even for them. Nor is maintaining what has been gained. The slings, the arrows . . . who knows what’s coming around the bend? Most of us, luckily, eventually find our footing. And if we stumble somewhere along the line, we’re apt to get it back.

I’ll See You In my Dreams and Me And Earl And The Dying Girl are about a lot of things, including death, but footing I think is quite key. I’ll See You looks at the life of one Carol Petersen, a 70-ish California lady whose traction is pretty good at the movie’s beginning but definitely is in need of adjustment. Me And Earl’s primary character and narrator, Greg Gaines, is, as the movie opens, a high school senior in Pittsburgh whose feet have yet to be planted firmly on life’s terrain. Despite their age gap, Carol and Greg aren’t all that different. If their movies could cross-populate, they’d probably become pals, observing the potentially fixable weak spots in each other’s psyche.

My wife Sandy and I saw this movie with friends in Philadelphia. We all liked it very much.
My wife Sandy and I saw this movie with friends in Philadelphia. We all liked it very much.

Blythe Danner plays Carol, and does so very well. It’s a role that Danner, deep into her career, never saw coming. I watched Danner interviewed on television not long ago and she bowed down to the screenwriters and producers who brought the script her way.

A widow for 20 or more years, Carol is comfortable with her life. Money isn’t a problem. She spends time with a few close friends, sunbathes beside her pool behind her modern pad, and adores maybe more than anything her dog. But Carol drinks too much and doesn’t have all that great a relationship with her adult daughter. Something is missing. Her footing is somewhat tenuous. She’s a little dead inside.

To the rescue come two new entries into her social stream, one much younger than she, one maybe a little older. Both become her good friends. The young guy, Lloyd, (nicely portrayed by Martin Starr) and the cool, calm and charismatic older gent, Bill, (a beautiful turn by Sam Elliott) in their own ways widen Carol’s eyes to life’s possibilities. Love, needless to say, falls into that category. Carol’s footing, before the credits roll, is looking better.

My wife Sandy and I saw Me And Earl And The Dying Girl in Warrington, Pennsylvania.
My wife Sandy and I saw Me And Earl And The Dying Girl in Warrington, Pennsylvania.

I found Me And Earl And The Dying Girl irresistible. It is colorful, witty and perceptive. And very human. The plot, dialog, camerawork, editing — ooh la la. Ditto for the acting and the balance at the movie’s heart between comic exaggeration and sadness. Thomas Mann portrays Greg, a young man of extremely bright mind who is badly in need of self-confidence. There are people who love him — his parents, at least one school teacher, at least one peer (Earl Jackson, marvelously acted by RJ Cyler) — but Greg barely realizes or believes that he is loveable. Quick-thinking and creative as the dickens, self-doubting Greg thinks little of the amateur careers that he and Earl have as clandestine film makers. For a few years the two have retitled classic movies and then filmed zero budget versions whose plots idiotically and hysterically fit the new titles. The Third Man becomes The Turd Man. Midnight Cowboy becomes 2:48 PM Cowboy. You get the idea.

Greg does his best to get along with the various cliques in his high school, working hard to have only peripheral relations with all. His degree of self-worth doesn’t allow him to commit to more than that. One day, though, his world is shaken. His mother comes to him with the news that a classmate whom he barely knows, Rachel Kushner, has been diagnosed with leukemia. Greg’s mother and Rachel’s mother are friends, and Greg’s mom wants him to visit Rachel (the excellent Olivia Cooke), to reach out to her. Greg isn’t big on reaching out, doesn’t really know how. Reluctantly and awkwardly he tries, and over time there is a payoff. The payoff is love, which flows between the two teens obliquely and in spurts, just as with many folks at any age. Rachel, the wiser one, helps Greg to start pointing his compass northward. Greg’s footing begins to take hold. I left the theater feeling certain that, years later, Greg would be doing just fine in life.

Me And Earl And The Dying Girl, I’d say, is a pretty perfect movie. Not quite the case for I’ll See You In My Dreams. One thing that struck me wrong about I’ll See You is the drinking. Carol seems to have a wine glass grafted to her right hand, even when her world expands for the better. The movie never questions her desire to self-numb. And one or two scenes in I’ll See You drift too lazily. Other than that the movie rings true. The characters are real and full, and the script’s magnifying glass brings out the details of a life moving out of neutral.

Yeah, Another Beach Boys Article

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The Beach Boys early in their career. Photo: Capitol Records Photo Archives
The Beach Boys early in their career.
Photo: Capitol Records Photo Archives

Since The Beach Boys broke big on the charts in late 1962, media coverage devoted to them, collectively and individually, has been enormous. And now with the theatrical release of Love And Mercy, a biopic not so much about The Beach Boys as about their once-brightest star, Brian Wilson, the attention has been renewed. At first I was reluctant to add my puny thoughts to all these decades’ worth of Beach Boys coverage. But I’ve maintained a very warm place in my heart for the Boys, and viewing Love And Mercy has inspired me to set my fingers on a keyboard.

The Beach Boys’ history is immensely complicated and convoluted. I’ll summarize what I know fairly briefly: Three of the five original Beach Boys were siblings. From oldest to youngest they were Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson. Add one cousin, Mike Love, and one pal, Al Jardine, and the recipe is complete. Brian, the band’s leader and creative pulse, was a gifted composer and orchestrator whose talents burgeoned, though for only a few years, as the 1960s progressed.

Teen and twenty-something idols, the Boys knocked out hit after hit right from the start (Surfin’ Safari, Surfin’ USA) through 1966 (Wouldn’t It Be Nice, Good Vibrations). But Brian was a victim of mental and emotional demons that caused him to begin losing his grip in 1967 during sessions for the high concept album Smile. Brian guided the band, and many studio musicians, part of the way through Smile, which was meant to be a celebration of earthly and universal creation. But his troubles brought the work to a sputtering end. Unfinished, the album was shelved. At that point, age 24, Brian’s best musical days were behind him. Though he remained a Beach Boy, his songwriting and studio session contributions to the band soon grew fewer, and his appearances with them on stage over the next several decades were sporadic. The Beach Boys soldiered on nonetheless, churning out many albums and nabbing a few more hit singles. And they toured the world (usually sans Brian) over and over.

As started to become public knowledge in the mid 1960s, Brian’s problems hardly were the only painful situations within The Beach Boys. Their story, beyond the music, is a messy one of endless internal conflicts and legal disputes, drug abuse and, ultimately, death. Very sadly, two Beach Boys passed at youngish ages. Dennis Wilson drowned in 1983 soon after his 39th birthday.  Carl was taken by lung cancer in 1998 when he was 51. Carl many years before had become the band’s chief, taking over from the no-longer-able-to-lead Brian. The band fell apart after Carl’s death.

Hey wait, you say, The Beach Boys are on the road every year, just as always. Well, Mike Love and Bruce Johnston (who had joined the group in 1965) have continued to tour as The Beach Boys. But without any of the Wilson brothers the Love-Johnston unit is hardly the real thing. In 2012, though, Brian (and Al) joined Mike and Bruce for a 50th year reunion tour that went well, only to conclude on a sour note.  Love refused to add additional concerts beyond the tail end of the original schedule and in effect booted out Wilson and Jardine. As usual, fun fun fun might have been the image The Beach Boys wished to project, but reality was a whole different ballgame.

Love And Mercy, playing at the Ambler Theater.
Love And Mercy, playing at the Ambler Theater.

Who, then, in 2015 would have expected the release of Love And Mercy? Not me. At first I didn’t want to see the movie. I’ve read more than enough about The Beach Boys over the years, spent many hundreds of hours listening to their music. No offense to the Boys or their legacy, but my limit, or so I thought, had been reached. Until a friend told me that the movie is really really good. And thus my wife Sandy and I found ourselves on a recent Saturday at our favorite suburban art house, the Ambler Theater. There I learned that my friend was correct. Love And Mercy is really really good. Three and a half out of four stars.

Love And Mercy has the feel of truth. And from what I’ve read, its portrayal of events actually is quite true. The acting by the leads is nuanced and impressive. The script is tight, the direction too. There are a few cardboardy plot and dialog lines here and there. The rest, however, is gold. One need not be a Beach Boys freak to enjoy this movie. Sandy isn’t. She doesn’t know much about their musical history or their problems. She found the movie to be what in fact it is, a powerful drama. She agrees with my rating.

As I’ve mentioned, the movie is only partly a full examination of the Beach Boys. Dennis, Carl and Mike are portrayed a good bit, but they aren’t central to the story, and the actor playing Al Jardine is barely on camera. Love And Mercy largely is the tale of Brian Wilson and Melinda Ledbetter, the lady who loved Brian and brought him back from agony’s door and the clutches of manic psychotherapist Eugene Landy (potently depicted by Paul Giamatti) in the 1980s. The main action takes place in two time periods, 1965 through 1967, and 1985 through 1989 or so. The movie jumps back and forth between those eras. Paul Dano portrays the younger Wilson, John Cusack the older. Both are wonderful, as is Elizabeth Banks as Melinda.

A good number of the movie’s sequences with Dano realistically and clearly show Brian’s studio wizardry. The Cusack sections often touchingly shine a light on the developing romance between Wilson and Melinda, whom Brian met in 1985. I think that to tell any more about Love And Mercy wouldn’t be fair. Putting the movie aside, what to me is quite astonishing is that Brian Wilson is above ground and going strong. He has dealt with abusive forces that no decent person deserves to encounter, and has rebounded from low-as-you-can-go points to a most active musical career. He’s on tour right now. With a lot of courage and strength, and with a lot of help, he has survived.