Welcome to Big Hollywood’s monthly review of all things notable in the world of music.

This is Vintage Now, released a few weeks ago, is a retro music compilation that isn’t designed to cash in on nostalgia– rather, it’s a harbinger of a growing movement to revive not only the style but the values of classic culture. Featuring 10 songs from artists of all ages and nations, This is Vintage Now embodies the sound of classic jazz, rock, and pop music but doesn’t come off as pure nostalgia. Producer David Gasten, who appears on the record with his band The City Kids, explains the reason the disc doesn’t sound like a cynical ploy preying on older generations’ memories:

The Vintage Movement is a new social movement of people who are essentially trying to escape back to the 1940’s, 1950’s, and early-to mid-1960’s. Many times attempts at bringing a period back have been short-lived (e.g. the Nineties Swing Revival) because they were not rooted in a inside-out, values-based way of doing things. People come to these older styles because they want to escape. They want to visit an alternate world where class and quality are the rule, not the exception. They want to be excited about life and culture instead of slimed by the same old garbage over and over again. And they want to get along with others, have good conversations, flirt, dance, enjoy great music and movies, etc. The ladies want to be treated like ladies, and the gentlemen want to be able to be gentlemen.

Spanning a wide range of styles, from Beverley Kenney’s whimsical ’40s-era piano ballad to Big Jay McNeely’s raucous boogie-woogie to The Necro Tonz’s edgy jazz to Caro Emerald’s catchy neo-swing tune “Just One Dance” (see the YouTube Video below), This is Vintage Now is a well-paced, engaging listen, and its intent is exactly the type of culture-changing  media we need to combat the values-destroying narcissism and nihilism of the world’s currently dominant “artists.” TIVN is available from iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, and other online retailers, or you can order it directly from the compilation’s home website to get extra tracks from a special Release Party edition.

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When comedian Gilbert Gottfried was fired from Aflac for tweeting jokes mocking the Japanese Tsunami, I took a “free country” approach towards the issue. If he wants to make jokes, that’s fine. If Aflac wants to fire him, that’s fine too. Free country. Gallows humor, jokes about real-life, ongoing tragedies aren’t my personal cup of tea, but Jazz Shaw posted a terrific piece today that asks a bigger and more important question: Are we as a nation becoming too sensitive to this sort of thing?

Shaw:

[I]n today’s politically charged climate, [dark humor during a tragedy is] darned near a capital offense. We saw this in action this week when Gilbert Gottfried lost his job as the voice of the Aflac duck after tweeting some ill timed jokes relating to the tsunami in Japan. Shortly thereafter, Haley Barbour’s press secretary had to resign after e-mailing the following comment:

“Otis Redding posthumously received a gold record for his single, (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay. (Not a big hit in Japan right now.) “

Even rapper 50 Cent – not exactly known as a paragon of good taste and demure social commentary – found himself having to offer a half-hearted apology on Twitter after rattling off a couple of tsunami jokes.

What’s happening to us? Are we really that easily put off our feed? When faced with unspeakable tragedy such as we’ve witnessed recently, do we really prefer to gnash our teeth, rend our clothes and wander around in a daze? There are some people – including yours truly – who find relief from such horrors in dark humor and a “what the heck are ya gonna do?” sort of attitude.

The first “tsunami tweet” I came across was from “Family Guy” writer Alec Sulkin, who wrote (he later apologized):

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First there was an earthquake, then a tsunami, then a meltdown, and now, possibly a volcano.

At this point, a Mothra joke seems inevitable – but also lame. Frankly, I’m not sure there’s anything I can say that adds incite or comfort to anyone after such a horrendous event.

Living in Manhattan, I’m always reminded of man’s ugliness. But I’ve forgotten about the arbitrary viciousness of Mother Nature. Looking at the devastation, from my cozy apartment, I can only think that there was someone in Japan doing that exact same thing when the quake hit. Sitting at home, drinking tea, in boxers.

Then it’s over.

Disaster rarely calls ahead.

We are all vulnerable to the whims of catastrophe, and as far as I can tell, there’s little wisdom to be gained from it.

Well, other than info for future planning.

Yep – we all know life is precious. But it’s also a sentence featuring ever-more-brutal methods of mayhem, and the hell in Japan just added another exclamation point.

Anyway, you’d think there are no winners in this tragedy, but you’re wrong.

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Gilbert Gottfried isn’t the only celeb “joking” about Japan’s unthinkable tragedy.  Rapper 50 Cent:

“Wave will hit 8am them crazy white boys gonna try to go surfing,” the rapper wrote Friday morning, as the West Coast braced for a potential tsunami.

He followed it up with, “Look this is very serious people I had to evacuate all my hoess from LA, Hawaii and Japan. I had to do it. Lol.”

“Family Guy” writer/Producer Alec Sulkin (who later apologized):

“If you wanna feel better about this earthquake in Japan, google ‘Pearl Harbor death toll’,” he tweeted over the weekend.

From The Street we learn comedian Gilbert Gottfried has been fired by Aflac for his “jokes”:

Gilbert Gottfried was fired by Aflac on Monday after the comedian made a number of distasteful jokes about the devastation in Japan.

“Japan is really advanced,” Gottfried tweeted on Monday afternoon, “They don’t go to the beach. The beach comes to them.”

Aflac quickly cut ties with the comedian following a string of similar comments. 

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Some light-hearted vignettes from my new book: Hollywood Stories: Short, Entertaining Anecdotes About the Stars and Legends of the Movies!

Hope and Roosevelt 

Democrat Franklin Roosevelt was the first of eleven presidents Republican Bob Hope entertained. The commander-in-chief loved the comedian on the big screen and appreciated Hope’s efforts entertaining the troops during World War II. Their paths crossed when Bob emceed a dinner in the president’s honor, a few months before Roosevelt won an unprecedented fourth term in 1944. In front of a crowd of luminaries, Hope told a story about a Marine in the South Pacific who was disappointed that he had not encountered an enemy combatant. (more…)

By Christmas of 1964, nowhere was safe for thirty-four-year-old Sean Connery.

It started with the fan letters — fifteen hundred per week. Then came the mobs rushing gates at movie premieres and personal appearances — screaming, fainting, tearing at his clothes, all demanding time, autographs, kisses, and more. Soon, even walking down the street incognito or taking his family out to dinner became perilous endeavors.

“The whole damn thing took over,” said his then-wife, the Academy-Award nominated actress Diane Cilento. “He really didn’t know who he was. People would call over to him things like, ‘Hey, Bondy, where’re you off to next?’ or ‘See any Soviet agents lately?’ It became impossible to have any sort of life. . . .It got madder and madder with each film.”

Every time it looked as if matters couldn’t get any worse, they did. In Tokyo (where they greeted him with screams of  “Bondo!”) Connery was using a bathroom urinal when he heard a quiet click. Startled, he glanced up to see a Japanese photographer peeking around his shoulder with a Nikon. On another occasion, after graciously signing his name for an elderly lady at the airport, she reacted with a look of horror. “No, no!” she said, “I wanted James Bond.” Director Terence Young, who was with Connery, remembers that “Sean sort of crumpled. It suddenly occurred to him that he was no longer a human being, he was a symbol.” (more…)

Victor Davis Hanson:

Much has been written of the recent Tom Hanks remarks to Douglas Brinkley in a Time Magazine interview about his upcoming HBO series on World War II in the Pacific. Here is the explosive excerpt that is making the rounds today.

“Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as ‘yellow, slant-eyed dogs’ that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what’s going on today?”

Hanks may not have been quoted correctly; and his remarks may have been impromptu and poorly expressed; and we should give due consideration to the tremendous support Hanks has given in the past both to veterans and to commemoration of World War II; and his new HBO series could well be a fine bookend to Band of Brothers.  All that said, Hanks’ comments were sadly infantile pop philosophizing offered by, well,  an ignoramus.

Hanks thinks he is trying to explain the multifaceted Pacific theater in terms of a war brought on by and fought through racial animosity. That is ludicrous. Consider: (more…)

So, when it came time for our little girl to watch her first grown-up movie, I was torn between Saving Private Ryan and a film I have loved since I was a kid, Godzilla, King of the Monsters.  Now, Private Ryan teaches important, practical lessons that every American should learn, like how to maneuver your infantry company across a beachhead under fire to wipe out a Nazi crew-served weapons bunker. On the other hand, Godzilla has a hideous dragon with radioactive breath.  Tough call, but we decided to save Private Ryan for when she’s six – better late than never.

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What is the enduring fascination with a 55-year old flick that stars a fake Japanese reptile stomping Toyko into matchsticks?  The first thing is that Godzilla is a truly entertaining movie.  Actually, it’s two movies.  The version most Americans have seen on TV is the 1956 re-cut version of the 98-minute original Japanese movie, Gojira.  Some American producers decided it could make them a bundle, but it needed a bit of familiarization before the American audience would accept it.  They hired a pre-Perry Mason Raymond Burr to film some awkward footage as American reporter “Steve Martin,” cut out a lot of draggy filler, and shipped the slimmed down 80-minute final product to drive-ins all over the fruited plain. (more…)

The Military
by Victoria Jackson

Thank you for being so unselfish to fight for freedom for me.

I admire your devotion and bravery.

I think of you often and every time I see a flag

I ask God to protect you and then I brag,

“THE U.S.A. HAS THE BEST MILITARY IN THE WORLD!”

Thank you.

Dad on his car (1950).

My Dad was in the army at the end of WWII.  He didn’t have to fight.  He was lucky, the war was just ending.  He was stationed in Japan.  He worked on his handstands.  He could hand-walk up and down stairs!  He must have had a lot of Japanese girlfriends because the only words he remembers are “Watta-kushi-wa Ana-tyo Aishimasu.” (spelled phonetically). It means, “I love you!”

I’m one of the few men in my family not to serve in the military.  I am proud to say that I am not proud of this distinction.  I regret not showing the valor of my Uncle Walter, who was captured by Germans, escaped, then allowed himself to be recaptured in order to spring some high level Resistance fighters from a concentration camp.

I feel less of a man because I did not lead my platoon through a leech infested swamp in the Pacific as my Uncle Lawrence did.  I feel like a wuss because I did not, as my Uncle Zig did, capture an entire division of German soldiers.

My father was an Army sniper, his father was a member of the last active Cavalry unit, my other grandfather developed missile guidance systems.  Cousins, uncles, great uncles, great-great uncles all served our country or currently serve.

Yet, despite this amazing bravery, this amazing willingness to self-sacrifice, the men in my family rarely talk about it.  No bragging.  No boasting.  No condescension to the other “dandy lads” in the family like myself who have never had the honor of wearing our nation’s uniform. (more…)

I did my teen-age years in World War II. War news was a constant. We kept the radio on in our house to hear Edward R. Murrow broadcasting from the rooftops of London, describing the blitz. Newsreel photographers, flying with Allied bombers over Europe, delivered raw footage to waiting planes at Heathrow Airport. The planes, flying dark rooms, would take off for America and fly overnight to New York. Technicians would edit and develop the film during the trans-Atlantic flight and Movietone News would have the footage ready for showing in movie theaters within hours. “Imagine,” we’d marvel. “These pictures were taken only two days ago!”

My high school pal Parker Swan and I would go to the Translux Theater in Boston which featured non-stop newsreel coverage of the war. When bombings of German cities were shown, we’d cheer. After V-E day, when the battle moved to the Pacific, newsreels featured G.I.s using flame throwers to dig Japanese soldiers out of their caves on Iwo Jima and Wake Island. When the enemy came screaming from his dugout, Parker and I would cheer. I sold newspapers, The Globe and Herald, in Harvard Square by the entrance to the subway station. When the A-bomb, about which we had been told nothing, was dropped on Hiroshima, the headline read New Kind of Bomb Devastates Japanese City. Everyone was elated. (more…)

The tin-pot dictator, Kim Jong-Il (who has turned his entire country into a Communist Gulag) has snatched a couple of American journalists, dragging them across the border from China to be tried on trumped-up spy charges and sentenced to twelve years of hard labor.  Here is how the North Korean news agency reported it: “The trial confirmed the grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing as they had already been indicted and sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labor.” Isn’t that a great line, “Reform through labor…”?   Given that almost everyone in North Korea is already starving, I suspect that Euna Lee and Laura Ling are not likely to survive twelve years of “reforming” big rocks into gravel.

At the same time, dictator Kim Jong-Il rattles his puny saber and threatens that if any of his ships carrying nuclear materials to other rogue nations are stopped on the high seas, he will consider it an “act of war.”  Well, gee… There was a time not too long ago when the kidnapping of American nationals would have, in itself, been considered an “act of war.”  I imagine that had Teddy Roosevelt or even Ronald Reagan been at the helm when Kim Jong-Il took two American nationals hostage, the response would be quite different.   More likely it would have gone along the lines of: “You have 24 hours to return our citizens before we start obliterating your military bases – one every hour until the hostages are set free.  If we run out of military bases and you still continue to hold them then, unfortunately, we’ll have to start on your cities.  Have a nice day.”  Then, like any good parent, we would follow through with our pledge. (more…)

You know, people, I really wish I knew what the story was regarding President Obama’s puzzling diplomatic approach to Islamist Iran. Inquiring Minds Want To Know. This ain’t no movie, and I really don’t like the storyline to date. Haven’t since 1979. So what’s the script? White House Productions seems to be holding the storyline in blackout mode, and at this point I’m ready to put former FOX reporter Roger Friedman on the job of rooting it out. He sure did a bang-up job on “Wolverine.”

To be fair, I actually gave the President credit in this March 26th opinion piece entitled “Is President Obama Turning The Tables on Iran?” See, it occurred to me that the President might be undertaking a very brilliant strategy toward the Islamic Republic. If the President offers the Iranian regime nothing but carrots and gets nothing but sticks in return, then the regime is exposed as the hard case it really is. Nobody could say the President hadn’t tried every means at his disposal to make peace. (more…)

Disclaimer: What you are about to read is fiction. It is a story about peace. Peace at any cost.

THE WORLD TODAY: A News Summary

May 2009

BONN (EU News) – The current CSPEU administration has decided to increase productivity by lowering the age that children are required to enter the workforce from nine to eight years of age. The EU Vice Minister for the Interior states the lowering of the work age is due to an increased shortage of youthful workers. “It’s a reflection of the ongoing fighting between our peaceful union and the obstinate Russians.”

Citizens and subjects in the 18-25 age bracket have seldom been seen in recent years. The Vice Minister commented on this by stating, “This temporary downturn in our youthful population is insignificant compared to the tremendous loss of life on the Russian side. Though our rockets delivering Vemork V weapons obliterated St. Petersburg and most of Moscow years ago, the Russians, though scattered and ill equipped, still choose to resist to this very day. It staggers the mind why they wish to continue their own misery. ” (more…)