Crusin’ played on Sunday, from six p.m till around a quarter till eight, at the Musser Public Library in Muscatine – part of the Second Sunday Concert series. We’ve been part of that concert series for about a decade, but previously we’d been on the patio, outside, at Pearl City Plaza. That space is now privately owned and being developed for a restaurant, so the series is now at the library.
We were supposed to appear outside, in the parking lot, with a Mississippi River view (as the patio had in the past provided), but the morning was rainy with the day bringing dark clouds, so we headed inside to a nice big air-conditioned room on the third floor.
Frankly, I thought this change in venue – two changes, actually, from Pearl City Plaza to the library and then from the parking lot to inside the building – would mean disaster. I’m happy to have been wrong – we had a capacity crowd, easily over one-hundred, with the overflow seated outside the room itself in the hallway.
It went well. In a way that’s frustrating, because I’ve been leaning toward making this my final summer playing regular gigs – even our schedule of six appearances has seemed too much. But we are planning to do an original material CD over the winter months, so maybe we’ll be back for a limited schedule to peddle our CD…three gigs, maybe.
We played five of our originals from that project and they were well-received. It’s tricky as hell for an oldies band to do original material, but we got away with it. That is encouraging.
For a long time I’ve wanted to do one last rock ‘n’ roll album, something that sounds like a really good record from 1967.
We’ll see.
Welcome to Spoiler-Ville, and continue on at your peril. Skip down quickly if you haven’t seen Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and the fourth season of Veronica Mars.
The world of Marshmallows (the cringe-worthy name for hardcore Veronica Mars fans, who have been, shall we say, a-twitter over the death of Veronica’s longtime love, Logan Echolls, portrayed by slow-burn actor Jason Dohring. Marshmallows want the show (assuming it comes back for a fifth season) to find a way to bring Logan back. Creator Rob Thomas and star Kristen Bell are speaking in terms of the finality of the character’s demise.
This is in concert with Thomas (and to some degree Bell) talking about freeing Veronica from her high-school-heavy past in Neptune, California, and (literally in the final episode) sending her off to solve mysteries in what appears to be a hip variation on Murder, She Wrote.
Look, Bell is great, and so is the character that the actress continues to love playing – she knows it’s her signature role. Thomas is a gifted writer and TV guy, and they presumably know what they’re doing. I believe part of the notion of leaving Neptune flows from the two painfully mediocre tie-in novels that Thomas co-bylined but almost certainly had little to do with. The Neptune setting and extended cast, in those novels, are burdens and baggage.
Veronica can lose all of those characters, except one – and that character is not Logan Echolls, who has ceased to be useful in her story. The essential secondary player is Veronica’s father, Keith Mars (as portrayed by Enrico Colantoni). Their chemistry – their verbal interplay – is the heart of the show. If Veronica leaves Neptune behind, including Keith, the character becomes just another detective, if the cutest on the planet.
So if Rob Thomas doesn’t find a way to keep Keith solidly in the mix, that could sink the show, whereas all Logan’s presence does is drag it down.
On the other hand, Logan is probably not dead.
Huh? What?
Logan is a Naval Intelligence Officer, who is established in season four as someone who suddenly leaves from time to time, to do dangerous spy stuff. Also, right before he marries Veronica (I told you not to look, Nate!), she receives a text from him that says, “Sorry.” But then he shows up to marry her anyway, and shrugs off the “Sorry” as meaning he was sorry he was going to be a little late for the wedding (not a big church one, after all).
Okay. So how hard would it be to write Logan back in? Not at all. He’s off on secret spy stuff, so secret and dangerous that it might come back on Veronica if he’s found out. Naval Intelligence could easily fake his (off-camera) death. Then why would he marry her and put her through this? Part of the cover for his disappearing into undercover spy stuff would be to seem really dead…and marrying Veronica would at once (a) show her how he feels, and (b) get her all the perks of having a dead husband in the military.
So here’s what could happen. When Rob Thomas knows Veronica Mars is finally at its end (and it’s a hard show to kill, let’s face it), Logan can return. All kinds of melodrama can ensue, because Veronica will be furious with him, and so on.
This reading of the Logan Echolls demise may not be new – I do not keep up in any with Veronica Mars fandom, not being a Marshmallow, although I do like Krispie Treats.
On to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
First of all, I have seen it a second time and like it even more. It’s a masterpiece. I was able to convince Barb to go, even though the Manson aspect put her off; but she loves violent revenge (always a bit unsettling in a wife) and loved it as much as I do.
Tarantino fills the screen and the soundtrack with references that will fly over many heads. I thought I’d caught plenty of ‘em, but new ones hit me this time.
For example, when a bus glides by with a banner promoting the Combat TV series, the star pictured is Rick Jason (not the better-known Vic Morrow). Jason, whose name is obviously similar to DeCaprio’s character, Rick Dalton, died a suicide. And Rick Dalton is a fading TV series lead who has suicidal tendencies (he’s somewhat patterned on Pete Duel of the TV western, Alias Smith and Jones, as well, another real-life suicide).
And when Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth stops to possibly give a ride to Manson girlie Pussycat (Margaret Qualley), his POV shot of her is ironically accompanied by a “Heaven Sent” commercial on the car radio; her POV shot of him includes a billboard with a big slab of meat advertising a supermarket.
Tons of that kind of stuff. I look forward to spotting more next time around.
The looming question about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is whether Cliff Booth killed his wife or not. But that question is not answered, although significantly the moment that seems to say he did has him pointing his speargun at his wife while seated before her on his boat deck – she looms above him, carping at him, and when we cut away from them, the thought that he might pull the trigger in the next instant is inescapable.
But…(and my son Nathan had already ascertained this) on second viewing, I could clearly see that the speargun is not loaded.
I continue to feel the purpose of the rumor about Cliff killing his wife is a commentary on Hollywood judging people by rumor and not fact, and is a sly critique of #Metoo gotten out of hand.
When I revealed here last week that I had not liked Tarantino’s early films, I was hit by a few folks who wondered how my taste could be so terrible. Surely everybody loves Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bills! Well, I didn’t, although I may revisit them. My problem at the time, mostly, was that I knew the references – and not the resonant kind in Once Upon a Time, but more I knew where he was stealing from.
I also found him to be an obnoxious interviewee, still the nightmare video store clerk who tells you what’s good and bad and ugly, and assumes you don’t know as much as he does. I still have that problem with Tarantino when I have to look at him and listen to him. It’s just, now I understand that behind that geek-made-good persona is a truly gifted storyteller and filmmaker.
I think he turned the corner, in a good way, with Inglorious Basterds. Barb pointed out something that shows how smart she is and how slow I am – she said, after viewing the slaughter of the Mansonites by Pitt, his well-trained dog, and DeCaprio, “Tarantino really likes to right wrongs, doesn’t he?”
That was it. The cult movie regurgitation of his early films was replaced by a real theme that generated compelling narratives, not just clever, dialogue-driven playlets not adding up to much (Jackie Brown, excepted…Elmore Leonard, after all). Now he’s giving Nazis what they deserve (Inglorious Basterds), and slave owners (Django Unchained).
And the Mansion family.
Also, Once Upon a Time is his best film because it addresses Hollywood in a different way than the fan boy/video clerk manner of his earliest, over-praised work.
You are now exiting Spoiler-ville.
This is a wonderful write-up in Booklist about the Mike Hammer novels that I’ve been completing.
Here’s another of those write-ups where somebody notices that Road to Perdition the film began as Road to Perdition the graphic novel.
And another.
Finally, here’s a short but sweet RTP write-up, acknowledging the great Richard Piers Rayner.
M.A.C.
