quoperative

The unfortunate side of leaving for Cuba last Friday was that I had to wait a full week until we got back to see Michel Gondry‘s latest film Be Kind Rewind. I gotta shout from the rooftops… this is a fantastic movie. In case my in-depth review and ringing endorsement isn’t enough, I set forth a challenge to anybody who reads this… just try watching the trailer and NOT wanting to go see the movie when it’s done. It’s impossible.

You have to see the movie really to understand what I’m about to say, but Gondry totally gets the mash-up remix culture and I couldn’t help but draw some parallels between what the community ends up doing to save the store and the whole DIY culture of the web nowadays. Sites like YouTube and MySpace have basically liberated the web so that anybody can share anything… no matter how poor you are and how little talent you have. Be it music or video or photo or art, if you can make it there’s an easy way to publish it on the web and share it with the world. It’s fun, it’s cheap, and anybody can do it. It’s the whole user-generated content revolution and while it does produce more than it’s fair share of crap it’s all about empowering the little guy and leveling the playing field so amateurs can reach the same audiences as the big boys. I think that’s what I liked most about the movie – the message that anybody can create and be creative.

Plus Gondry just blows my mind with how inventive he is behind the camera… that finger piano was brilliant!

(Well this just confirms it… found this link right after I finished writing the post)

Mish and I went to see the New York Dolls last night at the Plaza.  Well, we saw original Dolls Sylvain Sylvain and David Johansen (who recently surpassed Mick himself as the best looking Mick Jagger in the world) along with a few much younger stand-ins, including a guitarist (3rd from the left) with an uncanny resemblance to Johnny Thunders and a bassist that looked like he belonged in the Traveling Wilburys.  We arrived too late to see opener We Are the Fury so the Dolls hit the stage pretty much 10 minutes after we walked in.  They played for about an hour and a half and offered up a nice sampling of the Dolls’ catalogue, including glam-tastic renditions of the Arthur “Killer” Kane co-penned tune “Private World” (dedicated to the late Dolls bassist) and an acoustic-electric “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory” dedicated to Johnny Thunders.  Despite a bit of a slow start from the band the crowd was really responsive and by mid-set NYD were really kickin’ it into high gear… possibly overdrive.  A quick encore of “Personality Crisis” and one last tune and they were done.  Off to suck down some prune juice and head into the hyperbaric chamber on the tour bus, no doubt.After a week on a resort in Cuba it was good to be back in civilization — watching NHL games and seeing a rock show.  And just to set the record straight, yes I smashed a rented scooter into the median right in front of our resort.  Yes, it fell onto my foot, essentially pinning me to the hot asphalt.  Yes, I needed to get help to get it off me.  Yes, I then had difficulty getting it started again.  And yes, after I got it started I realized the handlebars were totally crooked.  How do you say “shameful embarrassment” in Spanish?