George Lucas's Favorite Star Wars Character Is Jar-Jar Binks

From Wired (from Vanity Fair):

[T]he most interesting thing VF got from the director is his choice for his favorite Star Wars character: Jar Jar Binks. In bringing up the most widely disliked character in the galaxy far, far away, Lucas was likely defending his past creations. But the choice also touches on why Lucas seems to have stepped away from helming Star Wars movies: freedom from one’s creations. “You go to make a movie and all you do is get criticized and people try to make decisions about what you’re going to do before you do it,” Lucas says. “It’s not much fun, and you can’t experiment … I don’t like that.”

Meesa no souprised. George Lucas didn't mind taking chances with Star Wars, either in tinkering with the originals or making a clownish CGI character a central figure in the first of the prequels. The same spirit that drives the Advanced to be so amazing when they are young drives them to be so confounding when they mature. It's a package deal: you have to take your Wookies with your Gungans. 

Prince to Tour With Piano and Microphone

From Rolling Stone:

[Prince will] be forgoing his guitar in favor of a more intimate piano for a just-announced, globe-spanning new tour. The Prince Spotlight: Piano & A Microphone Tour — which is rumored to make stops in a dozen countries in less than a month — will feature solo Prince performances where he only wields (you guessed it) a piano and a microphone. “Why do this now? For several reasons. For starters it is a challenge,” he told Cultura, who broke the news. “I rarely get bad reviews because this is something that’s been perfected for over thirty years. You have to try new things. With the piano it is more naked, more pure. You can see exactly what you get.”

As a fan of his guitar playing, I hate this. As a believer in Advancement, I love this. Then again, if his piano looks like this (below), everything will probably be okay.

Are Friends Acoustic?: Gary Numan Doesn't Care About Electronic Music

Take it away, NME:

Numan admitted in an interview with Bang Showbiz that the technology of modern electronic music still fascinates him, but emphasized that he's largely doing his own thing these days, and doesn't really relate to the modern style. The 'Cars' and 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' man said: "I don't really care [about Electronic music] to be honest. I just look after myself. I do my own thing and make sure I am doing what I want to do and the rest of it does what it likes. I'm not a flag waving champion for electronic music.'' 

 I'd really like to see him take up folk music, personally. Or maybe dixieland.

Danzig Covers the Everly Brothers, ZZ Top, and Others

This is really my kind of thing, let me tell you:

Glenn Danzig will dig up his musical influences on a new covers album titled Skeletons, which features the former Misfits singer putting his mark on tracks by Elvis Presley, Black Sabbath, ZZ Top and Aerosmith. The covers LP, Danzig's first album since 2010's Deth Red Saboath, will arrive on November 27th. Pre-order Skeletons now through the Nuclear Blast America site.

"These are my skeletons," Danzig said in a statement. "You may or may not know that I dig these songs. You could say that some of this music is the actual basis and skeleton of what I listened to growing up – ultimately informing the kind of music I like. It's the foundation. If you took Elvis and Sabbath out of my life, I probably wouldn't be the Glenn Danzig you know! I'm glad both sides are represented on this record."

It's always interesting to know what influenced artists whose output is pretty narrowly defined within a genre. When you first hear someone like Danzig and you're, say, 12, it's hard to imagine him sitting around listening to Fleetwood Mac or Leo Sayer, but when you get older you realize he probably knows at least the first verse of "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing."

Anyway, my favorite choices on this record are "Crying in the Rain" by the Everly Brothers and, even better, "Rough Boy" by ZZ Top. The album cover is pretty awesome, too (see below).

Terrence Trent D'Arby/Sananda Maitreya Talks About Dying at 27

Great interview at the New Statesman. Here are some good bits:

“Oh my God, I can’t believe you thought I was a socialist,” he says now. “I was nothing more than an opportunist. Any socialist tendencies I may have had were cured when I got my first tax bill. All artists are socialists until they see another artist with a bigger house than theirs.”

He talks about how at the time he thought the failure of his second record was to lack of support but now he says

“The good news is, most record company people are motivated by the same reason most of us are: greed,” he says. “So, no, when you look back at it, it didn’t make much sense for management not to want my second record to succeed.”

Thought he does add that Michael Jackson saw him as a threat and held "more power than the Pope." He says that Lenny Kravitz was a sort of replacement for him and says of the video of Kravitz's penis (with cock ring) coming out in a concert:

“Choreographed for sure. The only thing I could think to do with a cock ring now is keep my house keys on it.”

I recommend reading the whole thing. I'm not going to say that he is Advanced, but it's really interesting how he goes from being very realistic and pragmatic to neither (e.g., he says "angels named him Sananda" but that he needed a second name because he didn't want to "piss off" Madonna"). His new project is a concept album (double, of course), with songs like "Giraffe" (sample lyric: "Giraffe/can I have your autograph?/Please sign it to Sananda"), which was inspired by songs from Sesame Street and other children's music. Like I said, read the whole thing. Also please note what he is wearing in the photograph below.

Long hair, black leather jacket, sunglasses

Father John Misty's Overt Explanation of Overtly Taking Down His Overt Covers of Taylor Swift

Pitchfork has the story:

[T]he covers of "Blank Space" and "Welcome to New York" came together over the span of "like, an hour", when he passed by his tour manager's office and found her listening to Adams' 1989. Tillman says that he never heard Swift's originals prior to that day (although he concedes, "I’m sure I’ve been walking by a Cinnabon or something at the airport and heard it"). To record the new versions, he referred to a printout of Swift's lyrics.

After he uploaded the covers, Tillman became surprised by their immense popularity. "By the time I got back to the bus that night," he recalls, "my TM [tour manager] was like, 'It’s the top trend on Facebook! It’s on USA Today!', and I was like, 'this is ridiculous,' so I went and took them down, thinking, 'now that’s over'."

Except it wasn't. Media outlets (including this one) began reaching out asking why he took down the covers. Even Taylor Swift's camp got in touch to ask why they came down and encouraged him to put them back up.

So Tillman decided to troll everyone by issuing a statement that Lou Reed came to him in a dream and asked him to take down the covers. "I was annoyed at the media," he explained. "I was like, 'these people will print anything', so I went and gave them the most fraudulent, the most blatantly absurd, unprintable piece of surrealistic nonsense – and they printed it!"

I guess he thinks the people who printed that thought it was something other than surrealistic nonsense but I can assure him that was not the case. It must be interesting to live in a world where you assume people are so dumb. Anyway, this is pure Overtness all around: capitalizes on someone else's really good idea, gets embarrassed about it, tries to be clever/weird, and then finally can't just let that be the last of it because he's worried people might have thought he was serious, which really would have been better than recanting. Poor form, sir!

I'm so weird! You're so dumb!

The Best Version of Walk on the Wild Side: Gerty Molzen

It's by this lady, Gerty Molzen:

Don't  know why I thought of it today, but I learned about it on Dave, long ago...

And the whole thing goes like this...

Dappity doh, dappity doh...

Billy Corgan Says No to Twitter, Yes to People and Their Cars

From Consequence of Sound:

[Corgan's] latest left-field venture comes in the form of People and Their Cars, a new website filled with faded, vintage images of — you guessed it — people and their cars, along with additional pics of old bridges, ships, and bedrooms. It’s like a hipster’s Instagram account, but like, filled with the the real deal. The photography project is so near and dear to Corgan’s heart, that he’s even quit Twitter to focus on it more, per his very final tweet on Monday.

For those interested in keeping up with Corgan and his Cars (that sounds like a good idea for a weird documentary, no?), there’s a “Red Border Club” email list that folks can partake in. Club members will “not only the chance to receive additional images, but to be ‘first-in-line’ for updates on new merchandise and forthcoming People And Their Cars/Hexestential books. An it’s all for FREE: with no catch, fees, or obligation to buy.”

I really, really wish his early music were better because he just seems so damn Advanced sometimes.

People and Their Cars

Jeff Lynne Knows a Thing or Two About Commitment to a Look

Grace Jones Is Not Advanced

I love Grace Jones, and she displays many Advanced qualities. But I'm having a hard time with her recent criticisms of current stars like Kanye West and Miley Cyrus. And now there's this:

In another interview on SiriusXM, Jones recalls the first time she met Gaga in the flesh: "Gaga came to me, and I just could not find a soul. I come from Church — maybe that has something to do with it. I like to get to the soul of a person. I just didn’t feel a soul." Though Jones adds that Gaga "might have been freaked out with meeting me," their interactions never got any better. Jones says she met with Gaga through designer Philip Treacy three more times, each occurrence leaving a sour taste in her mouth. "I know Philip needed to make some money, but you know what, can you just wait until I finish my tour before you repeat what we are working on?" she says, referring to the headpieces he's created for Gaga.

The Advanced move is to partner with seemingly lesser artists, especially if your fans think they are awful, and sometimes even say they are better than you.

Bob Dylan's IBM Commercial Is Advanced Times Two

Bob Dylan has a new commercial, where he embraces technology while selling out:

Remember when you could barely understand him when he spoke? I wonder what that was all about.

Björk's Strings-Only Version Of Vulnicura Is Okay, But No Thrillington

Stereogum, take it away:

Björk’s been messing with her latest creation in interesting ways since its release, first through a three part remix project, and now through a special “strings-only” version of the record. The website’s also dubbing it the “acoustic” cut of the album, which I guess is technically true, but these songs sound just as grand with only the strings, her voice, and the viola organista in play.

That's pretty cool, I guess. But Paul McCartney beat this a long time ago with Thrillington:

In 1977, EMI released what has become Paul McCartney's most obscure and least known album of his career - Thrillington. The album, an instrumental, orchestrated version of his Ram LP, was hardly noticed by the press or the rest of the music world. Hardly surprising, considering the almost complete absence of Paul's name anywhere on the album. Even the artist was listed as someone else - somebody named Percy "Thrills" Thrillington.

Time has revealed that the man behind Percy was none other than Paul McCartney. As chronicled in the Spring 1995 issue of Club Sandwich, McCartney's official fan club newsletter, Paul and Linda dreamed up the idea of the fictional socialite, going as far as placing ads in British newspapers detailing his whereabouts and announcing his upcoming activities (there were, of course, none). But as much as Paul was behind the Thrillington persona, as well as being the source of the songs appearing on the album (which he also produced), there was another man who was as much responsible for what became Thrillington, arranger Richard Hewson.

The story of Thrillington begins nearly a decade before with the beginning of Apple Records. In the mid-60's, Richard Hewson was attending college at the Guild Hall in London. Though studying classical music, he had a strong interest in jazz. "We had a little band; there was only three of us," recalls Hewson. "I played guitar in those days. We had a drummer called Nigel Anthony, who's now an actor." The bass player was another friend of Hewson's, former Peter and Gordon member Peter Asher, who played upright bass in the combo. "We used to go around to his basement in Wimpole Street and practice. At the time, Paul was going out with Peter's sister, Jane, so I got to know him then."

Read the rest of the story and then kick back to listen...

Taylor Swift Inspired John Fogerty to Play Vegas

Vegas is big in the world of Advancement, and a lot of people just love it for some reason. Not me, but I guess that's just Overtness. Anyway, I still found it surprising that John Fogerty is taking his act there:

Fogerty is indeed going to Vegas, and bringing a new show with him. The 70-year-old rock icon describes Peace, Love and Creedence — set for eight performances at the Venetian Theatre, inside the Venetian Las Vegas, between Jan. 8 and Jan. 23 — as an extension of the "1969" tour he launched in 2014 to commemorate the year Creedence released the albums Bayou Country, Green River and Willy and the Poor Boys. "The production we've been doing certainly had extra elements, a lot of visual elements," says Fogerty, who plans to perform other band and solo favorites, from Have You Ever Seen the Rain? to Centerfield. "We're going to use that as a frame of reference, and see if we shake it up a little bit." Fogerty has taken daughter Kelsy "to see Taylor Swift, who I really love"

Even more surprising is how unsurprising it is that, like everyone, he loves Taylor Swift. Hates his old band, loves Taylor Swift. Really, he wasn't inspired to play Vegas because of his love for Swift, he was just commenting on all the choreography in her show and how his show would likely not live up to that, but it's still fun that he loves her.

Father John Misty Claims Lou Reed Appeared to Him in a Dream, Doubles Down on Overtness

His "statement," from Consequence of Sound:

I had a very strange dream that I abruptly woke up from around 3am early this morning. I was crab-walking around a neighborhood in New Orleans that, though it does not exist, is a recurring location in my dreams. My childhood friend Brian Kawamura was was telling me I still owed the tennis rental place $7000 when the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan was suddenly standing over me, saying over and over, “The only thing crazier than a peasant who believes he is King, is a King who believes he is a King.” He put one of those birthday Burger King crowns on my head and out of the clouds a sort of “Switched on Bach” version of “Ode To Joy” began to play. A crowd which had formed around me began to sing along, with tears streaming down their faces. The crowd was obviously hypnotized and I assumed if I crept away discreetly no one would notice. The earth become a sort of treadmill, and though the locations (The Great Wall of China, a McDonald’s where I had my 3rd birthday, the town from Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, Vignola’s restaurant in Rockville, Md.), “Ode To Joy” and the crowd remained all around me.

All of a sudden it was time to soundcheck, which I was late for, and Barack Obama offered to give me a ride on Air Force One. He told me he needed urgent advice regarding some important policy decisions, and we spent the day in Hawaii playing basketball, petting his dogs, golfing and the like when I, gripped with anxiety, told him I really needed to get to soundcheck so we needed to discuss the ruling of the free world. By this time he had turned into an obscene visage of my Father and said, “I have one injunction for you, son: That you enjoy life. It is by this mandate that all is ruled. It is the true tyranny; the equalizing force that binds us all.” I jumped out of Air Force One and landed on top of this massive pink, sparkly, glowing blob that stretched for miles beyond miles, covering entire cities, and I had to keep gulping down chlorophyll because the thing was emitting insane levels of EMF’s, so my mouth and hands were stained dark green.

Down inside the blob I could see thousands of familiar faces and one of them was Lou Reed on a catwalk hand-cuffed to supermodels who had adopted babies handcuffed to them and Lou said, “Delete those tracks, don’t summon the dead, I am not your plaything. The collection of souls is an expensive pastime.” Then I woke up.”

 My statement: this is really, really Overt.

Snoop Dogg's Startup to Merge Cannabis and Pop Culture, Finally!

From The Guardian: 

Entertainment icon Snoop Dogg and media entrepreneur Ted Chung have launched what they say is a marijuana-based media company.

The co-founders presented Merry Jane, a “premier media platform at the intersection of cannabis and pop culture” at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco on Monday.

Merry Jane plans to publish information on every facet of cannabis, including a video interview series called Deflowered that will profile innovators in the industry, cultural and lifestyle features and the latest news on cannabis policy, business and economics. Information about marijuana products and a location mapping service for dispensaries will also be made available

"After watching where the cannabis industry is headed, I wanted to create a platform that will take this movement further by creating a destination where people could find fresh content,” Snoop Dogg said. “Merry Jane is a game-changing platform for pop culture. It’s a new frontier y’all!”

Seth Rogen is also involved, but you knew that already. 

Father John Misty's Cover of Ryan Adam's Cover of Taylor Swift Is Overt

I haven't decided how to categorize Ryan Adam's cover of Taylor Swift's 1989 (I think it was just a straight-up fun thing to do), but Father John Misty's "reinterpretation of the classic Ryan Adams album 1989” is Overt. Spin gives you a listen of the song, which they say features a melody "inspired by Lou Reed’s drawling, disinterested vocal rambling circa the Velvets’ 1967 debut album." I would have rather heard the Pizza Underground's version.

Sorry, not buying it!

John Malkovich's Collaboration with Ric Ocasek: Good Old-Fashioned Weirdness

Not Advanced, necessarily, but I'm down with this:

John Malkovich: actor, director, portal vessel, sonic explorer. The performer has teamed with an eclectic group of musicians – including Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon, the Cars' Ric Ocasek, OMD, Young the Giant, Dweezil Zappa and the Dandy Warhols – to create Like a Puppet Show, a Record Store Day Black Friday vinyl exclusive. The album finds Malkovich reciting classical musician Eric Alexandrakis' version of Plato's Allegory of the Cave over original material composed and produced by Alexandrakis, paired with bizarre photos of Malkovich taken by Sandro.

 An eclectic group indeed! I just don't know how David Byrne wasn't involved.

Musicians Love Professional Wrestling, Amy Winehouse Edition

There is just something about professional wrestling musicians love, including Advanced ones. Amy Winehouse never got the chance to Advance, but if she had, we might look at this clip below (source: NME) as early evidence of her ascendancy. In it she "shows off a number of different accents and expresses interest in visiting The World, a WWE themed restaurant open in Times Square between 1999-2003. Winehouse appears particularly impressed that female wrestler Chyna had dined in the restaurant as had The Rock (Dwayne Johnson)." It's sad she never got to Advance or see The Tooth Fairy.

Stereogum Has a Dickish Take on a Potential New Rolling Stones Album

"Threaten." Get it? Such Overtness.

Metallica Making Limited Edition Beer with Budweiser

Let's let Metal Injection tell us all about it:

To commemorate their two shows in Qubec City on September 14 and September 16, where they will close out the Colisée Pepsi on the 14th and open up the new venue, Centre Vidéotron, the band will be giving out free cans of Metallica-branded Budweiser beer, brewed in Canada by Labatt. The beer will be available in cans, coming in cases of 15 and 24 with over than 91,000 black cans being printed.

At first I thought it would be better if they had chosen a better beer, but then I realized that this is the right partnership because it is the most American beer and is being brewed in Canada by Labatt and given to Canadians. Plus, you have to image that the guy in this photo would have thought it was pretty awesome to have his own brand of Budweiser.

Someday this will have my name on it!

Blues Magoos Version of "Tobacco Road" the Most Influential Song of All Time?

Maybe not, but I hear a lot of music I love in this song, including VU, David Bowie, Camper Van Beethoven, and so on. I think this is known by some, but I just discovered it recently (the record, not this live version) and was struck by how similar it is to my favorites. Another reminder that things that sound like they came from nowhere have some precedent that will make you question everything you ever believed. Luckily Advancement lets me live with that.

Velvet Underground Matrix Tapes To Be Released

From Music Tap:

On October 30, Polydor Records will release a 4CD The Matrix Tapes set with over 40 live performance tracks. Some have been heard on various prior releases including the Quine Tapes Box Set, the Super Deluxe Edition of The Velvet Underground, and 1969: The Velvet Underground Live. But there are a few previously unreleased tracks as well here.

Check out the site for the track listing!

Miss You, Lou!

Prince Is Better at Guitar Than Everyone

This is old, but I hadn't seen it until this morning. Note how he throws the guitar up in the air at the end.

Trainspotting 2, or Please Hammer Don't Hurt Me

Danny Boyle has confirmed that Trainspotting 2 is coming:

Up until this point in time, no concrete plans have come to fruition but speaking to Deadline at the first public screening of his latest film, Steve Jobs, Boyle confirmed that Trainspotting 2 (as it is currently called) will happen soon. In fact, the director is intending to make it his next project.

I'm excited about this for a very specific reason: once or month or so, I wish that someone would hit me over the head with a hammer to erase my memory of seeing Trainspotting so I could watch it again for the first time. Now I can just watch the sequel and save myself that brain damage. But wait, you might be thinking, aren't sequels always terrible? And doesn't this terribleness ruin the first movie for you? And wouldn't it be better to have a completely new original movie?

As for the first objection, some are good and I'm an optimist. I think Danny Boyle will pull it off, and I like that he isn't overly reverent of the original. I don't think Boyle is Advanced, but not being afraid to mess with your "legacy" is an Advanced trait

If it turns out to be bad, that won't affect my feelings about the original. Why should it? If anything it might make me appreciate the first one even more, so I can't lose.

And while yes, I would love there to be another totally new movie as good as Trainspotting, there can be both this sequel and another good movie. A lot of movies come out every year!

Maybe We Can Find Out What Happened to Ziggy Pop

Miley Machine Music (or Dead Petz Sounds)

I don't know about you, but this review makes me want to listen to, and like, Miley Cyrus's Dead Pets:

I don’t want to write the whole project off, because there are actually a few moments where Coyne’s influence benefits Cyrus. A few of these songs, taken out of context, are actually lovely. The second one, “Karen Don’t Be Sad,” is simple, glum, and sweet — a Beatles-esque ballad that sounds like the Lips would have had Miley fronted them circa Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (you know, back when she was 9).

What does "taken out of context" mean here? I guess that means if you don't know who is singing? And is there something bad about her being 9 at some point in history?

The part that really gets me excited about this record is:

But on the whole, Dead Petz is a difficult record to enjoy — or even endure.

That describes a lot of my favorite albums! 

The reviewer seems like she wants to like this album, but she also wants it be something it's not (a noble project, striving for spiritual insight, carnal pleasures, and creative liberation) and wants Miley to mature ("I suspect it’s something Cyrus had to get out of her system before finding a more mature middle ground between shapelessness and structure").  It may be that the album is not good, but I suspect that if the reviewer just listened to it rather than tried to be its producer, she might get more out of it.

Billy Corgan's Embrace of Donald Trump Is Not Advanced and Here's Why

So Billy Corgan is into what Donald Trump is doing for politics, saying

“I think what’s cool, and I’m not saying I agree politically, but I think what’s cool is Trump’s running chaos theory. He’s forcing a lot of things out into the open, so they can’t control this, whatever that control is. It’s like the music business, everybody gets controlled, and somebody comes along that fucks it all up."

This is not Advanced because it's not Trump's policies he agrees with but his disruption of the normal political process. So that's just an Overt "stick it to the man" position if you ask me. Here's more:

“I would argue at this point is there any difference between politics and entertainment?"

Yes, because if you vote for a bad contestant on The Voice, nothing happens. If you choose a bad president or governor, the consequences are real. Of course there is an element of entertainment in politics, but that has always been the case.

I would have expected more from a man with a deep love of professional wrestling, cats, and Disneyland.

You Can Do Better, Billy

Bad News for Keith Richards Fans

This is sort of surprising (from NME):

Ahead of his upcoming solo album release, the guitarist spoke to New York Daily News, saying, "Millions are in love with Metallica and Black Sabbath. I just thought they were great jokes." Turning his attention to hip-hop, Richards added, "Rap – so many words, so little said. What rap did that was impressive was to show there are so many tone-deaf people out there." "All they need is a drum beat and somebody yelling over it and they’re happy. There’s an enormous market for people who can’t tell one note from another."

This is some major Overtness coming from someone I thought was closer to Advancement. I know he has a history of slagging groups, but this seems just out of touch. The Advanced find good in the new (rap used to be new and might seem new to him still, like Supergrass seems like a new band to me), and certainly don't broadly condemn a genre, especially when your complaints are so completely off base and outdated. Luckily he will never die, so he has plenty of time to discover the error of his ways.

C'mon Keith!

 

Morrissey Does Waylon Jennings

This belongs here, I'd say.

What Kind of a Phil Collins Fan Am I?

Like the British Empire, the sun never sets on the music of Phil Collins. He was everywhere in the 1980s, and he has earwormed himself into regular rotation on the "why did I wake up with this song in my head" playlist for anyone who lived during that era. But of course before that he was in Genesis, an authentically weird band, then was in Genesis again, changing them into a differently weird band.

Authentically Weird

Differently Weird

He is a great drummer, but people who don't like him tend to focus on his drum machines. And there are some who appreciate his solo career more because it is more commercial and therefore more satisfying.

As for me, I think I've eventually liked every one of his singles. Whether that is just Stockholm Syndrome, I can't say, but I do know that he is a lot more interesting than people tend to give him credit for. Because of that, I have no idea where he fits in the world, Advanced or otherwise. Is he a joke? A genius? Who knows?

Anyway, he is reissuing some of his albums, complete with "hand-selected demos and b-sides" that show how the work evolved from demo to studio to stage. There must be a market for this, but I don't know who is in it. Shouldn't I be, since I like all his songs? Is this (land of) confusion a sign of his greatness or a sign that on some deeper level I think I shouldn't like all his songs? The more I think about Phil Collins, the less I understand him. And the more I learn about him, the more I learn about the Alamo.

Spin Doesn't Believe that the New PiL Album Is Good on Purpose

The headline Spin uses in its review of PiL's new album: "Public Image Ltd. Accidentally Make an Enjoyable Record With ‘What the World Needs Now…’" Rather than rant about this--"accidentally"?--I'll just give you some promising bits:

“The toilet’s f–king broken again / I repaired that, I told ya / Get the plumber in again and again and again” is no nostalgia trip; that’s age and decay all the way. More importantly, his band of whoevers — this time containing an ex-Spice Girls sideman and an ex-Neneh Cherry husband — plays rock, with permutations ranging from spy-surf-Goo licks under “Bettie Page” and ’70s boogie rock on the literal and qualitative centerpiece “The One,” which is a love song, brought home by an ersatz Edge guitar hook that should offend Pistols and PiL fans alike.

I like the sound of all this! But there's something even better:

The bending synths that underscore “Know Now” recreate the over-incanting title histrionics of the Sex Pistols’ “Liar?” Piece of cake. This whole record is, really, even the burbling, eight-minute “Big Blue Sky,” which flirts with reggae Peter Gabriel.

Spice Girls, boogie rock, offended fans, and reggae? Now that sounds like some classic Advancement to me.

I guess a lot of people, not just Spin, would be surprised that this would be good. But we know better.

Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard Making a Move Toward Advancement?

I'm not a fan of Alabama Shakes because I'm old so I don't like new things or people making loud noises. But a lot of people think a lot of Brittany Howard, and I do recognize that she is an original voice (but why so loud?). So I was intrigued when I read this in Consequence of Sound:

Alabama Shakes frontwoman extraordinaire Brittany Howard has dropped a new album under her Thunderbitch side project. The group — which also features members of Fly Golden Eagle and Clear Plastic Masks — surfaced back in 2012, but this self-titled effort marks their first proper full-length release. Among the 10 tracks included are “Leather Jacket”, “I Just Wanna Rock n Roll” (which we know Howard can do, no problem), and “Wild Child”. It also includes the band’s early cuts “I Don’t Care” and “My Baby Is My Guitar”.

 A black leather jacket is one of the hallmarks of the Advanced, as is embracing rock 'n' roll, especially in song lyrics. Now if she can go truly solo, I'll really be intrigued.

shhhh

Don't Even Think About Using Prince's Ping-Pong Paddle

This was is a good article about true Advancement (not like that Kanye) found by someone in the Facebook group. It's about Prince and a young man who has "worked himself up to a prime position in the Paisley Park hierarchy." But here's the good part:

Forget the “Chappelle’s Show” skit about the blouse-wearing, basketball-playing Purple One, because table tennis is now the preferred pastime at Paisley Park. “Prince can beat pretty much everyone at pingpong,” says Welton. “He’ll stand in the same spot the whole time — sometimes with one hand behind his back!” He points over at Prince’s paddle, which no one else is allowed to touch. It’s well-worn, the rubber frayed, “because it’s always on fire,” quips Welton. (Sadly, it’s green, not purple.)

Admit it, you also immediately thought the paddle was purple, right? Anyway, there's lots of good stuff about how Prince maintains an aura of mystery.

Kanye Not Advanced Yet and His Appearance on the VMAs Proves it

Kanye West comes up a lot in discussions in the Advanced Genius Facebook group and I'm asked by people on Twitter whether Kanye is Advanced. I lean that way, but this morning I realized what holds me back: If Kanye were Advanced, he would be not be involved in the VMAs. At least, not right now. The Advanced don't need your love or approval, but it seems like he still does. He is so much more than the VMAs, so why would he stoop to being a part of it? Sure, it could be Advanced to be there, but I don't think that applies for him. Prince, yes. Leonard Cohen, maybe. But Kanye, no. I feel this to be true but I can't prove it.

Stephen King Can Write a Book in a Week, and That's Fine

Interesting piece by Stephen King in the NY Times. He asks, "Can a novelist be too productive?" Here's a good part:

No one in his or her right mind would argue that quantity guarantees quality, but to suggest that quantity never produces quality strikes me as snobbish, inane and demonstrably untrue.

 Of course he would say that, you might think, he writes a ton of stuff. But:

This is not a roundabout way of justifying my own prolificacy. Yes, I’ve published more than 55 novels. Yes, I have employed a pseudonym (Richard Bachman). Yes, I once published four books in one year (shades of James Patterson … except mine were longer, and written without the aid of a collaborator). And yes, I once wrote a novel (“The Running Man”) in a single week. But I can say, with complete honesty, that I never had any choice.

People just write differently. When I wrote my book, I would sit down with a cup of coffee and knock out 1000 words on Saturday afternoon while my son was napping and then do it again on Sunday exactly the same way. Most of the words stayed in the final version of the book, for better or worse. Some people struggle over every word, and the output is amazing, but sometimes it feels like it was labored over so there is no life to it. I don't know why we feel the need to think there is a better or correct way to make art, but maybe it's just that we think if only the writer or director or whatever would have put a bit more time into something, that would have fixed all the things I don't like about it. Maybe there is a sweet spot between "The Running Man" and "Chinese Democracy," but I suspect it is different for everyone.

John McEnroe Covers Nirvana

I really wanted to add "You CAN be serious," but I just couldn't do it.

Happy Friday

Salon Thinks It's Possible to Pick the Best Songs of the 1980s

The Overt Salon asks, "Are these really the best songs of the ’80s?" in response to the Pitchfork list that came out the other day.

Here's a bit:

The list excels at documenting of the years when hip hop evolved from Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” to pop pastiche like De La Soul and word-drunk one-offs like the Beastie Boys’ “Paul’s Boutique.” The descriptions of how various kinds of ‘80s production shaped what we hear from music today – or the way the music and vocals of Yoko Ono’s “Walking on Thin Ice” echoes through contemporary bands — shows some very good ears among the site’s staff. The nods to music outside the Anglo-American axis (a bit of Brazilian and West African) are well chosen. The shaping up of Prince as the artist of the decade makes sense, whether you look at today’s musical landscape or just look at the ‘80s in isolation.

But if you reject the list’s contrarian/ Poptimist subtext – if you think that music played mostly on guitars, that comes out of country and folk and acoustic blues still matters and had a pretty good run in the ‘80s – the list is less satisfying and full of holes.

For a few seconds I was surprised by the lack of more songs by the music I like, but then I remembered: these lists mean nothing, are more or less arbitrary, but people like to read about them. When I was working at Spin, I saw firsthand how these things are assembled, so I can tell  you that a lot of choices, and their rank especially, were basically "sure, why not?"

It's fine to have this reaction of course, and a reaction is what Pitchfork wants. But here's the part that bothered me:

Okay, I know — there’s only so much room, even on a list of 200 songs. But was it really so urgent to put George Benson’s “Give Me the Night” (just about all of his jazz guitar songs are better and less overplayed), Michael McDonald’s “I Keep Forgettin (Every Time You’re Near),” Tears for Fears’ “Head Over Heels,” Hall and Oates “I Can’t Go For That,” or Phil Collins’ drum machine nightmare “In the Air Tonight”? Okay, part of this list is really great. But I just can’t forgive them the Phil Collins.

First of all, rejecting the premise of your own article is never a great idea. Of course there is only so much room, so why are you nitpicking? And no, it was not urgent, they just though they were making good choices, or good enough choices to provoke some discussion. Finally, after starting out rejecting the premise, he finishes by saying it's one song he really has a problem with. Well, my problem is that he has a problem with Phil Collins! So I will see his pointless article and raise him a pointless blog post.

Gogo Wifi Sucks, and Such Small Portions!

Not much going on in the Advanced world today, so I'll talk a bit about a technology I would love to embrace, but haven't been able to.

One of the hallmarks of the Advanced State of Mind is humility (ironically, I guess, since it sounds so grandiose). By that I mean, you have to accept that some things seem terrible only because you don't fully understand them. This article about Gogo in-flight wifi made me think of that because I absolutely hate Gogo more than just about anything in the world.

I'm a fan of Louis C.K. so I know that I'm supposed to just appreciate the miracle of being able to log in from the skies, but that doesn't help. Basically, it feels like Gogo breaks the promise of wifi (you can get on the Internet and do stuff), and I don't care about the technical issues that prevents them from keeping that promise, especially now that it is more expensive. After reading this article in Bloomberg Business, I understand why maybe I should. Perhaps unsurprisingly, getting wifi on airplanes is complicated! There aren't that many airplanes so testing is limited. The hardware is hard to update/replace. And the more people use it, the worse it is.

The ideal solution is to just make it better--and satellite service is coming--but until that happens, the best option is to charge even more for the lousy service until so many people stop using it that it becomes good again (it's called price optimization).  If you're sitting in your middle seat with no legroom and want to write a blog post, this may be infuriating, but deciding not to pay for something that doesn't work that well is a good thing. Still, for some reason I want the price to be affordable even though I know the service will suck.

Part of that is that I don't like that rich people (or corporate-card holders) benefit from the high price, but again, paying just enough for something terrible is worse than paying nothing while someone gets something wonderful. There is certainly some value in sticking it to other people, but not enough to offset the anger you feel when you lose service or have to sign in again.

Anyway, nothing earth shattering, but I did find the article interesting and I almost felt sympathy for Gogo, which I never thought would happen. Kind of like I never thought I'd like anything by Stone Temple Pilots.

And now, Woody Allen in Annie Hall telling a joke about elderly women complaining about wifi, I mean food.

Are Magazine Covers "Worse" Now? It's JFK vs. Amy Schumer

boingboing has a link to a piece in Medium called The Evolution of Magazine Covers ("A look at how we've changed in the past 100 years"). In the original piece you'll find this sort of thing:

Cosmopolitan covers started out with women dressed conservatively. Then they started showing some skin. Then more skin. Finally, they started posing in sexy positions. As women have earned more rights throughout the years, they’ve also earned the right to wear whatever they damn well please. Or maybe that just sells more magazines?

And

The Seventeen logo has stayed the same, but almost everything else about the design has changed. There was a time when the cover was delightfully simple. Then things just got more and more cluttered. The magazine cover’s job is to sell the magazine — it has to stand out in a rack full of other magazines. So the design starts to get louder and louder.

And about the GQ covers comparing JFK in 1962 to Amy Schumer's Star Wars cover from earlier this year (see below), the comment is:

“Hey, we can sell more magazines with women in bikinis instead!”

The writer at boingboing, David Pescovitz, says, "I don't like the old ones because they're old, I like them because they're better." That statement is hardly believable. How does he know that's why he prefers one to the other? The JFK cover seems bland to me (the Great Man at his desk), and the text that accompanies it is "new fashion frontier in the American manner." So a boring picture of a president and an article about fashion using a cliche ("new frontier") is better than a memorable image of one of the funniest comedians working today subverting not only the world's most popular movie but also the idea of women appearing in bikinis on the cover of men's magazines. (I don't know how successful she is at getting her message across, but it's certainly more interesting than a man standing at a desk.) But that has nothing to do with nostalgia? I don't buy it.

But speaking of buying, the writer at Medium was exactly right about what covers are supposed to do: attract attention on the newsstand and sell magazines. Occasionally you hit on a great cover (like Caitlyn Jenner for Vanity Fair) that not only sells magazines but is art as well. That has always been the case, though, as you can find plenty of terrible magazine covers in any Golden Era.

Today in Overtness: AV Club's "HateSong"

I really enjoy much of what A.V Club (and of course the Onion) does, but there is one regular feature that bothers me. It's "HateSong," in which someone talks about a song they hate. Among the hated:

• One Direction
• "Broken Wings" (Mr. Mister)
• "Happy"
• "Wonderful Christmastime"
• How Three Men and a Baby "ruined 'Groove Is in the Heart"

It would be one thing if the object of the feature was to challenge the way people think about a song, but instead it's just a bunch of people not liking something for some reason. What bothers me about it most is that unlike the Onion, which is so successful because it satirizes without judging the people it is satirizing, this is just another place for people to say they hate something other people love. There is no wit or originality, just common negativity, which is pretty much taken care without A.V. Club helping it along.

In their defense, they have a feature, "Hear This," which is a celebration of songs people love. Of course the reason people love these songs is as arbitrary as why others hate other songs, but I ask you: is your life better reading about how Three Men and a Baby "ruined" one of the all-time great songs for someone (and maybe, as a consequence of reading the article, it will ruin it for you), or to revel in the beauty of Ween's "Buenas Tardes Amigo"?

Not Advanced: Daft Punk to release new action figures costing £100 each

From NME:

Daft Punk has released a new line of action figures, featuring the all-white outfits they wore during their 2015 Grammy Awards performance. The figurines will be released by Medicom Toy and Daft Punk's official merchandise company Daft Lite in March 2016 and will cost 21,600 Japanese Yen (roughly £100) for each figure of Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter.

They are just the Banksy of the French robot space disco scene.

BuzzFeed Wants to Know How Overt You Are (Paraphrasing)

BuzzFeed asks you, "How Much of a Music Snob Are You?" but it could have easily been "How Overt Are You?" Some sample questions are have you ever...

Shamed a younger person for not knowing a musical reference that was before their time?

Been dismissive of someone for buying a greatest hits album?

Made a point of telling people that you preferred an artist's earlier work?

Stopped liking an artist because you're embarrassed to be associated with their fans?

Shamed someone for buying music at a chain store?

And so on. My guess is that you are supposed to want to get a high score on this (you answer "yes" to these questions), but so many of these questions point to making someone feel ashamed about what they like or not allowing yourself to like something that you would like to like. Maybe I'm a snob about snobs, but that sounds pretty sad to me.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the Barnes & Noble music section to buy Bob Seger's Greatest Hits 2.

Yes, Jon Stewart Qualifies for Advancement (And Hosting the SummerSlam Event Is a Great Start)

Jon Stewart's decision to be a part of SummerSlam reminds me of a joke from an old SNL skit. Norm Macdonald played Burt Reynolds, who was coming off the success of "Boogie Nights." He was on the Barbara Walters (Cheri Oteri) show, and she says, "One thing's for sure, after your critically acclaimed performance in 'Boogie Nights,' directors from Gus Van Sant to Quentin Tarantino will be banging down your door. Burt, what's your next project?" His response is: "I'm doing a, ah, car picture with Dom DeLuise. Funny guy."

Stewart is one of the most powerful men in America (sure, why not), and he follows up the "Daily Show" with SummerSlam. Not only is this awesome, but it is perfectly in keeping with the Advanced tradition. The Advanced love wrestling. A lot.

Really looking forward to seeing what's next.

Are We Are Selfies? What Selfies Say About Our Culture (Nothing)

Selfies strike some weird chord with right wing lunatics and journalists. They are absolutely sure that they are evidence of, well, whatever they think is wrong with whoever they think is the sign that Rome is about to fall. Narcissism is the thread that ties it together, but what could be more narcissistic than writing op-ed columns telling people what to make of their world?

The latest comes from Molly Haskell in the Washington Post. The op-ed, called "No more selfies, I promise (if you’ll do the same)," is about how selfies make her feel:

I just received an e-mail, photographs attached, from a friend in Maine, who with another friend of mine is undoubtedly having a great time. I don’t know for sure because I didn’t open the attachment. I didn’t need to. Because it is a selfie, it goes without saying that it does not picture my friends frowning or frustrated by bad weather or not getting along. Instead, there will be bright smiles on their side and resentment on mine. I have just realized why I dislike selfies. There is a huge gap between what the sender intends (to include you in the fun) and the receiver receives (excluded from the fun).

The next and last sentence should be, "I realized that it is silly for me to resent that my friend is having fun, so I decided to be happy for them and move on to more productive things." Instead, we get this: 

You are sitting at the computer or on the bus with your iPhone, editing out promotional e-mail from Yoox.com and Library of America and TCM and West Elm and eBay, or opinion nuggets from Bloomberg, when along comes this intrusively vivid reminder of what you are missing and can’t even buy. You may not be on the bus; you may even be in a fabulous place such as Rome or Wimbledon, having a great time . But the moment you open the picture you are immediately assailed by an acute sense of something missing in your life. This is ignoble and feels terrible. Do other people experience this, and if so, how can I have done this to them? The picture I sent from outside a revival theater on Paris’s Left Bank! Or the view from my terrace of the ocean at sunset!

She goes on to say:

this form of electronic epistle is doomed by its very nature to erode communication and therefore friendship. The rarely resisted impulse to send our latest thrill-filled moment reveals the narcissist in all of us, the failure of empathy, the inability to remember our own feelings of resentment when the time comes for us to unleash an update on the world.

A tad overblown, I'd say. Selfies are not eroding communications and definitely not friendship. With real friends, we spend time together in the physical world and we communicate just fine. Sometimes we take pictures of ourselves and send them to other friends or post them on facebook. Some of those people say, "how nice" or "I'd like to see them again sometime soon" or "that looks like fun, maybe I'll go there someday." I guess some, like this writer, say, "I hate that they are having fun, and I hate them for rubbing it in." She is worried about a failure of empathy purely on the part of the sender,  not her own inability to feel others' happiness. I should note, too, that I would love to write op-eds in the Post, so why is she rubbing it in that she gets to write this when she knows how much others would like to? What a selfish thing to do!

She concludes by saying that it is okay if friends send pictures of their grandchildren reaching milestones or having a good time because "I don’t feel I’m missing anything." This is the person who thinks her selfie-snapping friends lack empathy.

I've tried not to write that articles about selfies reveal more about the writers than the people snapping selfies, but it's just too true to leave out. I imagine some terrible people are weaponizing their selfies to make others feel bad, but they were terrible before selfies came along and will be terrible when something new comes along. But for almost everyone, selfies are just pictures we take because we all have cameras with us wherever we go, and nothing more.

Now, the Fixx:

No, Banksy Is Not Advanced (Yet)

Everyone is loving on  Banksy for his Dismaland "bemusement park," and probably for good reason. Almost everyone I went to college with had an idea like this (maybe even exactly this, it's so hard remember), but none of us got it together to actually do it, so while the idea itself is so-so funny (Disneyland is an easy target), the execution of it is good. It also sounds like it came about, at least partially, because he has an affection for the location: "I loved the Tropicana as a kid, so getting to throw these doors open again is a real honour." But still, it's Overt because the idea is just the opposite of something (bemusement, not amusement, get it?), which is not Advanced. Banksy is not even an Advanced Irritant because people are so delighted with the work.

I have to confess to an Overt dislike of Banksy, but it could very well be because the name irritates me. My attitude is changing, so maybe he was just ahead of my time and he will Advance one day.

Napster Didn't Make Metallica (or You) Poor, and Other Things You May Not Have Guessed About the Digital Economy

There is an interesting article in the NY Times Magazine that is relevant to us. It's called The Creative Apocalypse That Wasn't. The gist of it is that Napster and things like Napster, were supposed to kill the music industry and, more generally, "In the digital economy, it was supposed to be impossible to make money by making art." But that hasn't happened for a variety of reasons, some of which were not on anyone's radar at the time. Here are some good bits:

The problem with the culture industry is no longer its rapacious pursuit of consumer dollars. The problem with the culture industry is that it’s not profitable enough. Thanks to its legal troubles, Napster itself ended up being much less important as a business than as an omen, a preview of coming destructions. Its short, troubled life signaled a fundamental rearrangement in the way we discover, consume and (most importantly) pay for creative work. In the 15 years since [Napster hearings, for which Lars Ulrich gave testimony], many artists and commentators have come to believe that Ulrich’s promised apocalypse is now upon us — that the digital economy, in which information not only wants to be free but for all practical purposes is free, ultimately means that ‘‘the diverse voices of the artists will disappear,’’ because musicians and writers and filmmakers can no longer make a living. 

And:

The trouble with this argument is that it has been based largely on anecdote, on depressing stories about moderately successful bands that are still sharing an apartment or filmmakers who can’t get their pictures made because they refuse to pander to a teenage sensibility. When we do see hard data about the state of the culture business, it usually tracks broad industry trends or the successes and failures of individual entertainment companies. That data isn’t entirely irrelevant, of course; it’s useful to know whether the music industry is making more or less money than it did before Ulrich delivered his anti-­Napster testimony. But ultimately, those statistics only hint at the most important question. The dystopian scenario, after all, isn’t about the death of the record business or Hollywood; it’s about the death of music or movies. As a society, what we most want to ensure is that the artists can prosper — not the record labels or studios or publishing conglomerates, but the writers, musicians, directors and actors themselves.

And:

It turns out that...Napster did pose a grave threat to the economic value that consumers placed on recorded music. And yet the creative apocalypse he warned of has failed to arrive. Writers, performers, directors and even musicians report their economic fortunes to be similar to those of their counterparts 15 years ago, and in many cases they have improved. Against all odds, the voices of the artists seem to be louder than ever. 

What follows all that is a bunch of data and talk about how different industries have fared. It seems like the music business has suffered, but not when it comes to performances, and that business was always kind of awful. Movies, TV, and books are all in good shape. ("But contrary to all expectations, these stores have been thriving. After hitting a low in 2007, decimated not only by the Internet but also by the rise of big-box chains like Borders and Barnes & Noble, indie bookstores have been growing at a steady clip, with their number up 35 percent (from 1,651 in 2009 to 2,227 in 2015); by many reports, 2014 was their most financially successful year in recent memory.")

I love this article because it doesn't take what seems intuitive (if content is free, artists can't make a living) as the truth. It seems like every time something new comes around, someone can only see it as the death of the old thing. In the last few years, I've tried to read books by economists, engineers, and mathematicians because they see the world in a very different way than artists. Ironically, they seem to be far more adaptable to changes than artists because they are grounded in universal principles that aren't subject to trends or fads. Linear algebra isn't going anywhere, but if you are in the Soul Stirrers, Little Richard is going to seem like a sign of End Times.

The Advanced are never sentimental about the way things used to be, which is why they embrace technology as they do. In a way this is maybe self-defense--if you don't stay current, you seem old-fashioned--plus replacing sentimentality with novelty. Yet I think it is more likely the result of experience--they killed some old way of doing things, after all, and thrived. It's similar to how an economist will be fine with robots taking over Mel's Diner because they know that someone has to build the robot and that's probably a better job than taking orders and getting yelled at.

One thing will never change: making a living as an artist is next to impossible. The digital revolution hasn't changed that, it's just given us new excuses why we have to have a day job.

Marlon Brando Wanted to Play a Dolphin in the Island of Dr. Moreau, But I Ain't Mad At Him

I just got around to watching Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau last  night. As you might expect of documentary about the making of a movie starring Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando, Advancement was rampant. But was there "madness" as the headline for this article says? Let's see what happened...

Richard Stanley had had some success in a couple of small movies (Hardware and Dust Devil) and had an idea to make a version of H.G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau. Stanley, is should be said, is quite an Overt weirdo, and I mean that in the best sense. For instance, he may have relied on witchcraft to convince Brando to sign on and later, after he was fired, he disappeared into the countryside only to come back as an extra in the movie (he was in a beast mask). Delightful! He also seems to have been quite the pothead, but there's Overtness for you.

Anyway, he lost control of the film for a lot of reasons, but it seems like he just wasn't prepared to direct a movie with a huge budget with big stars. Also, he wouldn't leave his house to go to meetings, but that's just another fun quirk. The movie is falling apart and Brando's daughter killed herself, so he left to deal with that, which means he couldn't protect Stanley. They fire Stanley and bring in John Frankenheimer, who had a reputation as someone who could handle big egos. He also yelled a lot because that's what "old school" directors did. This is where things get interesting in terms of Brando:

Finally, Brando arrived on set, and filming recommenced … after a fashion. From that point on, a typical working day ran as follows. Brando would arrive at 9am or thereabouts and go directly to his trailer. Frankenheimer would follow, and the pair would discuss the film in private. Around an hour before lunch, the duo would emerge and tour the set, while Brando suggested various ideas he’d had for the general improvement of the movie, and the script would be rewritten to accommodate.

Okay, that's not that unusual. Stanley's script was being rewritten anyway, so you could see this being necessary. Only...

Some [ideas] that made it into the finished film include: Moreau covering his face in thick white make-up outdoors, Moreau occasionally wearing an ice bucket on his head, and Moreau never appearing without an identically dressed midget – the original Mini-Me, right down to the tiny grand piano – after Brando took a shine to a two-foot-tall actor in the supporting cast. One of the few Brando brainwaves that did not end up on screen was the actor’s suggestion that Moreau would wear an elaborate hat throughout the film. In the final scene, this would be removed – revealing him, in a dramatic twist, to have been a dolphin all along.

Madness! But maybe not. Fairuza Balk says in the documentary that she approached Brando about how their characters should interact. He told her something like, "Darling, no one is going to watch the movie, so just relax and have a good time. Don't worry about it." There are two possibilities here (as I see it): one, he was trying to get a young actress to relax because he knew she was nervous to work with him. The other is that he knew that the movie wasn't working and his advice was perfect. Or maybe a combination of the two.

Let's assume that the second explanation is true and he knew the movie was a lost cause. What were his options? Soldier on and make a middling movie that no one would ever remember or do what he could to make the movie at least interesting. The latter is the Advanced move because mediocre is safe, and the Advanced are rarely safe.

The point I'm trying to make, again, is that what often looks crazy or lazy or easy, is really just an artist making a decision (unless they are on drugs or mentally ill). If you decide to focus on the oddness of the decision, it's easy to dismiss whether it was a good idea. The "mini me" approach was successful, in my opinion, because it created some of the most memorable scenes in any movie I can recall. As for the dolphin, my guess is that he wasn't talking about turning into Flipper, but perhaps some kind of human-dolphin hybrid, which wouldn't have been that far out considering the movie was filled with mutants. Or he was just saying something completely ludicrous to make it easier to convince the director to let him use the ice-bucket bit. It's very easy just to laugh at Marlon Brando's eccentricity and say he was just a crazy former genius, and the documentary certainly plays up that element. But it seems worthwhile to at least entertain the notion that he knew exactly what he was doing and achieved exactly what he hoped for. After all, no one would be talking about this movie all the years later if the part would have been played by someone who never would have though of playing a dolphin, say, Dolph Sweet.

I recommend the documentary, even if you just want to think Brando was nuts and Kilmer was an asshole.