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"content": "\u003caside class=\"aligncenter\">\n\u003ch4>Listen to NPR’s Arun Rath speak to voice actor Peter Cullen, the voice of Transformers’ Optimus Prime:\u003c/h4>\n\u003cp>http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/atc/2014/06/20140629_atc_behind_optimus_prime_and_eeyore_one_mans_signature_voice.mp3\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Transformers: Age of Extinction\u003c/em> has smashed its way to the \u003ca href=\"http://variety.com/2014/film/news/box-office-transformers-age-of-extinction-rules-with-100-mil-1201254336/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">No. 1 spot\u003c/a> at the box office. Director Michael Bay’s film franchise has consistently topped charts since the first film arrived in theaters in 2007.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The live-action films have embraced the latest in visual affects — but the movies have also called back to the series’ past, through the voice of Peter Cullen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cullen, 72, was the first actor to give voice to Optimus Prime — the leader of the Autobots, and the series’ metal, robotic heart — on the original \u003cem>Transformers\u003c/em> cartoon show in the 1980s. Other actors have played Optimus Prime in various iterations of \u003cem>Transformers\u003c/em> over the years, but Cullen happily returned to the role for the live-action film franchise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10138542\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen.jpg\" alt=\"Voice actor Peter Cullen arrives at the premiere of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in June 2009.\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10138542\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen.jpg 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Voice actor Peter Cullen arrives at the premiere of \u003cem>Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen\u003c/em> in June 2009. \u003ccite>(Kevin Winter/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In an interview with NPR’s Arun Rath, Cullen says playing Optimus Prime again was “like slipping into an old pair of shoes that you hid in the back of your closet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cullen got his big break as the announcer on \u003cem>The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>in the early 1970s, and famously voiced Eeyore in \u003cem>Winnie the Pooh\u003c/em>. He tells Rath that of the many\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>characters he has played over the years, a certain giant, extraterrestrial robot is still his favorite.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch3>Interview Highlights\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On when he realized he had a talent for doing voices\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I lived on a farm, and I worked the farm. And I remember the very first summer, I could imitate the cows, the calves, the chickens, the different dogs they had. And one of the greatest memories I have is, I had a full dairy barn where I would collect milk pails with my brother, Larry. I found one day that I made a loud noise and all the cows looked up to me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I did something like, “And now that I have your attention!” And they all looked up. And I walked down the center of that aisle with these cows looking at me and I said, “This is fantastic.” I must have been 8 years old … and I was the king of the cows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On landing the role of Optimus Prime in the 1980s cartoon\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I auditioned like everybody else. I was told it was a hero, and I was told it was a truck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was living with my brother Larry at the time. He had returned from service as a Marine in Vietnam, and I told him one day I was going out to audition for a truck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And he says, “A truck?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I said, “Yeah, but he’s a \u003cem>hero\u003c/em> truck.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is really good, Pete, yeah,” he said … “Well, if you’re going to be a hero, be a real hero. Don’t be a Hollywood stereotypical thing with the yelling and screaming.” He said, “Be strong enough to be gentle.” And Larry was that way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I had no idea what the script was going to be. But in effect, the lines just came out, and I just did my brother, Larry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On the characters he has most enjoyed playing\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10138541\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/Old-TRansformers.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/Old-TRansformers.jpg\" alt=\"Peter Cullen was the first actor to voice Optimus Prime, in the 1980s TV cartoon.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10138541\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/Old-TRansformers.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/Old-TRansformers-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/Old-TRansformers-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Peter Cullen was the first actor to voice Optimus Prime, in the 1980s TV cartoon. \u003ccite>(AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Well, Optimus Prime, No. 1. He’s my above-all favorite. The second one was Eeyore [from \u003cem>Winnie the Pooh\u003c/em>]. I enjoyed doing Eeyore because he was simply charming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I get an awful lot of reactions from, especially, young kids, when I go up and just say [in Eeyore’s voice], “Hello. Thanks for noticing me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And to see their faces light up, that to me is one of the great joys. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Behind+Optimus+Prime+%28And+Eeyore%29%2C+One+Man%27s+Signature+Voice&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"aligncenter\">\n\u003ch4>Listen to NPR’s Arun Rath speak to voice actor Peter Cullen, the voice of Transformers’ Optimus Prime:\u003c/h4>\n\u003cp>http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/atc/2014/06/20140629_atc_behind_optimus_prime_and_eeyore_one_mans_signature_voice.mp3\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Transformers: Age of Extinction\u003c/em> has smashed its way to the \u003ca href=\"http://variety.com/2014/film/news/box-office-transformers-age-of-extinction-rules-with-100-mil-1201254336/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">No. 1 spot\u003c/a> at the box office. Director Michael Bay’s film franchise has consistently topped charts since the first film arrived in theaters in 2007.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The live-action films have embraced the latest in visual affects — but the movies have also called back to the series’ past, through the voice of Peter Cullen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cullen, 72, was the first actor to give voice to Optimus Prime — the leader of the Autobots, and the series’ metal, robotic heart — on the original \u003cem>Transformers\u003c/em> cartoon show in the 1980s. Other actors have played Optimus Prime in various iterations of \u003cem>Transformers\u003c/em> over the years, but Cullen happily returned to the role for the live-action film franchise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10138542\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen.jpg\" alt=\"Voice actor Peter Cullen arrives at the premiere of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in June 2009.\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10138542\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen.jpg 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/PEter-Cullen-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Voice actor Peter Cullen arrives at the premiere of \u003cem>Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen\u003c/em> in June 2009. \u003ccite>(Kevin Winter/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In an interview with NPR’s Arun Rath, Cullen says playing Optimus Prime again was “like slipping into an old pair of shoes that you hid in the back of your closet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cullen got his big break as the announcer on \u003cem>The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>in the early 1970s, and famously voiced Eeyore in \u003cem>Winnie the Pooh\u003c/em>. He tells Rath that of the many\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>characters he has played over the years, a certain giant, extraterrestrial robot is still his favorite.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch3>Interview Highlights\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On when he realized he had a talent for doing voices\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I lived on a farm, and I worked the farm. And I remember the very first summer, I could imitate the cows, the calves, the chickens, the different dogs they had. And one of the greatest memories I have is, I had a full dairy barn where I would collect milk pails with my brother, Larry. I found one day that I made a loud noise and all the cows looked up to me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I did something like, “And now that I have your attention!” And they all looked up. And I walked down the center of that aisle with these cows looking at me and I said, “This is fantastic.” I must have been 8 years old … and I was the king of the cows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On landing the role of Optimus Prime in the 1980s cartoon\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I auditioned like everybody else. I was told it was a hero, and I was told it was a truck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was living with my brother Larry at the time. He had returned from service as a Marine in Vietnam, and I told him one day I was going out to audition for a truck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And he says, “A truck?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I said, “Yeah, but he’s a \u003cem>hero\u003c/em> truck.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is really good, Pete, yeah,” he said … “Well, if you’re going to be a hero, be a real hero. Don’t be a Hollywood stereotypical thing with the yelling and screaming.” He said, “Be strong enough to be gentle.” And Larry was that way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I had no idea what the script was going to be. But in effect, the lines just came out, and I just did my brother, Larry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On the characters he has most enjoyed playing\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10138541\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/Old-TRansformers.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/Old-TRansformers.jpg\" alt=\"Peter Cullen was the first actor to voice Optimus Prime, in the 1980s TV cartoon.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10138541\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/Old-TRansformers.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/Old-TRansformers-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/Old-TRansformers-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Peter Cullen was the first actor to voice Optimus Prime, in the 1980s TV cartoon. \u003ccite>(AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Well, Optimus Prime, No. 1. He’s my above-all favorite. The second one was Eeyore [from \u003cem>Winnie the Pooh\u003c/em>]. I enjoyed doing Eeyore because he was simply charming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I get an awful lot of reactions from, especially, young kids, when I go up and just say [in Eeyore’s voice], “Hello. Thanks for noticing me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And to see their faces light up, that to me is one of the great joys. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Behind+Optimus+Prime+%28And+Eeyore%29%2C+One+Man%27s+Signature+Voice&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Just before Dave Chappelle took the stage Monday as part of a sold-out series of shows at Radio City Music Hall, a song featuring a loop of LL Cool J’s famous opening line from “Mama Said Knock You Out” blasted over the sound system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Don’t call it a comeback!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You could take it as a suggestion that Chappelle had never really gone anywhere. Or you could read it as a coy reminder that none of us should get too comfortable, because Chappelle might bounce again at any moment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He stepped onto the stage wearing a black suit, taking drags from a cigarette and looking much more muscular than the lanky dude that most of us remember from the days \u003ca href=\"http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1061415,00.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">he walked away from his insanely popular show\u003c/a> on Comedy Central and a reported $50 million TV deal. He said he hasn’t been doing much during his time off, and said that there are details of some of his activities that he’s not permitted to discuss. “Like the Illuminati Christmas party,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listening to his hourlong set, it was hard not to wonder about how Chappelle would have weighed in on the constellation of racial controversies and developments that have dotted our popular culture over the eight years that he’s been mostly off the radar. When he walked away from his show at the height of his fame, Chappelle had probably become America’s most influential commentator on race — riffing on its absurdity and fluidity and consequence. His odd sensibility — thoughtful, irreverent and scatological all at once — is hard to replicate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not long into his set, he recaps a fictional phone conversation he had with Paula Deen, in the aftermath of her racial controversy last summer. He toggles between the two of them, imitating Deen’s famous twang. She thinks he’s calling to offer her support after he tells her he’s also said lots of impolitic things that could get him in trouble. After she thanks him for his support, he tells her that’s not why he’s calling: He knows that she’s unemployed and he’s in search of a good cook. Then he quickly ratchets up the absurdity, adding a typically warped, Chappellian twist that I won’t do justice. Suffice it to say, it involves a profane Deen dressed up like Aunt Jemima and kicking through a door, hurling racist invective at Chappelle’s family as she serves them delicious Southern cuisine for dinner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The guy who once imagined a black President Bush making the case for invading Iraq had been publicly quiet for almost the entire administration of the first black president, for most of peak Kanye. He went radio silent for his own complicated reasons, but damn it if we didn’t miss out on some transcendent comedy in the meantime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During that self-imposed exile, a bunch of writers went searching the country for the elusive Chappelle like he was some sort of hilarious cryptid. Fans wanted to know how Chappelle — whom many thought of as a personal friend — could have ultimately been so opaque to them. How did they not \u003cem>know\u003c/em> him? What made him tick? And, you know, how’d he walk away from all that damn loot?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10138495\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle2.jpg\" alt=\"Chappelle said he hadn't been doing much in his time away from the spotlight, and that he wasn't allowed to go into detail about other activities, "like [attending] the Illuminati Christmas party\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10138495\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle2.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle2-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle2-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chappelle said he hadn’t been doing much in his time away from the spotlight, and that he wasn’t allowed to go into detail about other activities, “like [attending] the Illuminati Christmas party \u003ccite>(Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.believermag.com/issues/201310/?read=article_ghansah\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">In a great essay that ran last year in \u003cem>The Believer\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah recounts her trip to Yellow Springs, Ohio, the small, hippie-ish town where Chappelle lived for his early life, and where he’d resettled during his hiatus from the spotlight. (The town’s motto: \u003cem>Find Yourself Here\u003c/em>.) She paints a picture of a dude trapped between the responsibilities of representing his race and the performance required by his act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ghansah spends some time with Chappelle’s mother, Yvonne Seon, a fascinating figure in her own right. (When she was younger, Seon had planned to head to the Congo to work with the independence leader Patrice Lumumba. After Lumumba’s assassination — both Belgium and the United States had wanted him dead — Seon went anyway. She went on to become a Ph.D. of African-American studies. She was also the first African-American woman to become an ordained minister in the Unitarian Universalist Church.) One area of her scholarly focus was the notion of Negritude, which Seon told Ghansah was “the process by which black people, who have been cut off from and made to learn to know themselves again, come to accept themselves, and begin to believe in (i.e. to value) themselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was the ideological stew in which Chappelle was raised, and it clearly informed a lot of his art.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Race — and specifically the idea of sliding in and out of different racial identities — has been a staple of Chappelle’s comedy. Remember\u003ca href=\"http://www.cc.com/video-clips/7nnosh/chappelle-s-show--frontline----clayton-bigsby-pt--1---uncensored\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Clayton Bigsby, the blind white supremacist who doesn’t know he’s black\u003c/a>? That skit is based on a story from his real-life grandfather, a blind and very fair-skinned black man who didn’t know that some young black kids who were talking about roughing up a white guy on the bus — and he agreed with the impulse — were in fact talking about \u003cem>him\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Radio City Music Hall show, he delivers an aside about his own mixed heritage — his mother, Seon, is half-white — as well as his mixed-race family. (Chappelle’s wife is Asian-American, and he has joked that his kids somehow turned out Puerto Rican.) “I know it doesn’t look like it … but if I grew out my hair, y’all would think you were at \u003ca href=\"http://ionenewsone.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/katt-williams-unretired.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a Katt Williams\u003c/a> concert,” he joked. “Just long, flowing, good hair.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While race is a major fascination of Chappelle’s comedy, he has often struggled with the burden of that megaphone. Ghansah again:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\n\u003cp>“But Chappelle, like Kanye West, grew up in a home where black activism and black leftist thought were the languages of the household. No wonder, then, that both Chappelle and West have wrestled so bitterly and publicly with their sense of responsibility to and also their failure to meet those same obligations. ‘It’s a dilemma,’ Chappelle told Kevin Powell. ‘It’s something that is unique to us. White people, white artists, are allowed to be individuals. But we always have this greater struggle that we at least have to keep in mind somewhere.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Chappelle has famously cited that pressure as a key reason he walked away from his show and dropped off the map. He’d written a sketch with a jigaboo character, and was unsettled by the way a white member of the crew laughed during the taping. “That concerned me,” \u003ca href=\"http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Chappelles-Story\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">he told Oprah way back in 2006\u003c/a>. “I don’t want black people to be disappointed in me for putting that [message] out there. … It’s a complete moral dilemma.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just like Ghansah, \u003cem>The\u003c/em> \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em>‘ Jason Zinoman went to Yellow Springs in \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Searching-Dave-Chappelle-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B00EK5ICLA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">his own search to figure out where Chappelle had gone and why\u003c/a>. Zinoman situates Chappelle in a larger tradition of black comedy, and underscores a concern that has long dogged black comics who achieved a certain prominence. Chappelle — who started his standup career at the ridiculously young age of 14 — was often pulled between performing in clubs that catered to black audiences and those that catered to mixed audiences. (Again: the idea of racial fluidity.) Chappelle had a really good showing doing a swaggery, more performative version of his early act on \u003cem>Def Comedy Jam,\u003c/em> the ribald show from the early ’90s that put a bunch of future stars like Bernie Mac and Chris Tucker on the map. But he didn’t want to be pigeonholed, and didn’t want to propagate the notion that that raucous style was the only way black folks could be funny. (Again: the idea of social responsibility.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, while most people saw Chappelle as the heir to the mantle of Richard Pryor — profane, subversive, topical — Zinoman posits that Chappelle’s approach is somewhere in the sweet spot between Pryor and the more conservative Bill Cosby, who has talked a lot about black folks’ responsibility to represent their race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Pryor-Cosby juxtaposition is often as heated and oversimplified as the Malcolm-Martin one, but it makes sense when you think about Chappelle. Both Pryor and Cosby are on the shortlist for the greatest comedians of all time. You could see echoes of \u003cem>both\u003c/em> in Chappelle’s routine at Radio City this week. Like Cosby, there were long, detailed stories about family life; they were punctuated by sharp, Pryor-esque detours into weirdness and debauchery. Chappelle tells a joke about how his wife treats him like a mischievous child, and, before she heads to bed each night, pleads with him not to eat the lunch she’s packed for their kids. Sounds like a Cosby joke, right? Then he talks about how he can’t help but murk all those perfectly wrapped sandwiches lying around the house after he’s smoked up in the middle of night. That’s \u003cem>all\u003c/em> Pryor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10138494\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle3.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle3.jpg\" alt=\"Dave Chappelle sold out the first five shows at his Radio City Music Hall minutes after the tickets became available. So he added more dates, where he would also be joined by musical guests including Nas, The Roots, and Erykah Badu.\" width=\"800\" height=\"466\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10138494\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle3.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle3-400x233.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle3-300x174.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dave Chappelle sold out the first five shows at his Radio City Music Hall minutes after the tickets became available. So he added more dates, where he would also be joined by musical guests including Nas, The Roots, and Erykah Badu. \u003ccite>(Kainaz Amaria/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The crowd spilled out onto Broadway after the show, all electric and sated. We wondered whether this was the beginning of a re-emergence that might endure, or whether the Radio City shows were just a valedictory. It’s not like his reputation needs burnishing; he’s already a legend. And it’s not like he needs the money. This was fun and funny, but it might not ever happen again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the exits, employees handed out black T-shirts emblazoned with Chappelle’s visage. The front read: \u003cem>Dave Chappelle; Radio City Music Hall\u003c/em>. The back read: \u003cem>I WAS THERE …\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=The+Elusive+Dave+Chappelle+Re-Emerges%2C+But+For+How+Long%3F+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Just before Dave Chappelle took the stage Monday as part of a sold-out series of shows at Radio City Music Hall, a song featuring a loop of LL Cool J’s famous opening line from “Mama Said Knock You Out” blasted over the sound system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Don’t call it a comeback!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You could take it as a suggestion that Chappelle had never really gone anywhere. Or you could read it as a coy reminder that none of us should get too comfortable, because Chappelle might bounce again at any moment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He stepped onto the stage wearing a black suit, taking drags from a cigarette and looking much more muscular than the lanky dude that most of us remember from the days \u003ca href=\"http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1061415,00.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">he walked away from his insanely popular show\u003c/a> on Comedy Central and a reported $50 million TV deal. He said he hasn’t been doing much during his time off, and said that there are details of some of his activities that he’s not permitted to discuss. “Like the Illuminati Christmas party,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listening to his hourlong set, it was hard not to wonder about how Chappelle would have weighed in on the constellation of racial controversies and developments that have dotted our popular culture over the eight years that he’s been mostly off the radar. When he walked away from his show at the height of his fame, Chappelle had probably become America’s most influential commentator on race — riffing on its absurdity and fluidity and consequence. His odd sensibility — thoughtful, irreverent and scatological all at once — is hard to replicate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not long into his set, he recaps a fictional phone conversation he had with Paula Deen, in the aftermath of her racial controversy last summer. He toggles between the two of them, imitating Deen’s famous twang. She thinks he’s calling to offer her support after he tells her he’s also said lots of impolitic things that could get him in trouble. After she thanks him for his support, he tells her that’s not why he’s calling: He knows that she’s unemployed and he’s in search of a good cook. Then he quickly ratchets up the absurdity, adding a typically warped, Chappellian twist that I won’t do justice. Suffice it to say, it involves a profane Deen dressed up like Aunt Jemima and kicking through a door, hurling racist invective at Chappelle’s family as she serves them delicious Southern cuisine for dinner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The guy who once imagined a black President Bush making the case for invading Iraq had been publicly quiet for almost the entire administration of the first black president, for most of peak Kanye. He went radio silent for his own complicated reasons, but damn it if we didn’t miss out on some transcendent comedy in the meantime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During that self-imposed exile, a bunch of writers went searching the country for the elusive Chappelle like he was some sort of hilarious cryptid. Fans wanted to know how Chappelle — whom many thought of as a personal friend — could have ultimately been so opaque to them. How did they not \u003cem>know\u003c/em> him? What made him tick? And, you know, how’d he walk away from all that damn loot?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10138495\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle2.jpg\" alt=\"Chappelle said he hadn't been doing much in his time away from the spotlight, and that he wasn't allowed to go into detail about other activities, "like [attending] the Illuminati Christmas party\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10138495\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle2.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle2-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle2-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chappelle said he hadn’t been doing much in his time away from the spotlight, and that he wasn’t allowed to go into detail about other activities, “like [attending] the Illuminati Christmas party \u003ccite>(Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.believermag.com/issues/201310/?read=article_ghansah\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">In a great essay that ran last year in \u003cem>The Believer\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah recounts her trip to Yellow Springs, Ohio, the small, hippie-ish town where Chappelle lived for his early life, and where he’d resettled during his hiatus from the spotlight. (The town’s motto: \u003cem>Find Yourself Here\u003c/em>.) She paints a picture of a dude trapped between the responsibilities of representing his race and the performance required by his act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ghansah spends some time with Chappelle’s mother, Yvonne Seon, a fascinating figure in her own right. (When she was younger, Seon had planned to head to the Congo to work with the independence leader Patrice Lumumba. After Lumumba’s assassination — both Belgium and the United States had wanted him dead — Seon went anyway. She went on to become a Ph.D. of African-American studies. She was also the first African-American woman to become an ordained minister in the Unitarian Universalist Church.) One area of her scholarly focus was the notion of Negritude, which Seon told Ghansah was “the process by which black people, who have been cut off from and made to learn to know themselves again, come to accept themselves, and begin to believe in (i.e. to value) themselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was the ideological stew in which Chappelle was raised, and it clearly informed a lot of his art.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Race — and specifically the idea of sliding in and out of different racial identities — has been a staple of Chappelle’s comedy. Remember\u003ca href=\"http://www.cc.com/video-clips/7nnosh/chappelle-s-show--frontline----clayton-bigsby-pt--1---uncensored\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Clayton Bigsby, the blind white supremacist who doesn’t know he’s black\u003c/a>? That skit is based on a story from his real-life grandfather, a blind and very fair-skinned black man who didn’t know that some young black kids who were talking about roughing up a white guy on the bus — and he agreed with the impulse — were in fact talking about \u003cem>him\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Radio City Music Hall show, he delivers an aside about his own mixed heritage — his mother, Seon, is half-white — as well as his mixed-race family. (Chappelle’s wife is Asian-American, and he has joked that his kids somehow turned out Puerto Rican.) “I know it doesn’t look like it … but if I grew out my hair, y’all would think you were at \u003ca href=\"http://ionenewsone.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/katt-williams-unretired.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a Katt Williams\u003c/a> concert,” he joked. “Just long, flowing, good hair.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While race is a major fascination of Chappelle’s comedy, he has often struggled with the burden of that megaphone. Ghansah again:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\n\u003cp>“But Chappelle, like Kanye West, grew up in a home where black activism and black leftist thought were the languages of the household. No wonder, then, that both Chappelle and West have wrestled so bitterly and publicly with their sense of responsibility to and also their failure to meet those same obligations. ‘It’s a dilemma,’ Chappelle told Kevin Powell. ‘It’s something that is unique to us. White people, white artists, are allowed to be individuals. But we always have this greater struggle that we at least have to keep in mind somewhere.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Chappelle has famously cited that pressure as a key reason he walked away from his show and dropped off the map. He’d written a sketch with a jigaboo character, and was unsettled by the way a white member of the crew laughed during the taping. “That concerned me,” \u003ca href=\"http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Chappelles-Story\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">he told Oprah way back in 2006\u003c/a>. “I don’t want black people to be disappointed in me for putting that [message] out there. … It’s a complete moral dilemma.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just like Ghansah, \u003cem>The\u003c/em> \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em>‘ Jason Zinoman went to Yellow Springs in \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Searching-Dave-Chappelle-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B00EK5ICLA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">his own search to figure out where Chappelle had gone and why\u003c/a>. Zinoman situates Chappelle in a larger tradition of black comedy, and underscores a concern that has long dogged black comics who achieved a certain prominence. Chappelle — who started his standup career at the ridiculously young age of 14 — was often pulled between performing in clubs that catered to black audiences and those that catered to mixed audiences. (Again: the idea of racial fluidity.) Chappelle had a really good showing doing a swaggery, more performative version of his early act on \u003cem>Def Comedy Jam,\u003c/em> the ribald show from the early ’90s that put a bunch of future stars like Bernie Mac and Chris Tucker on the map. But he didn’t want to be pigeonholed, and didn’t want to propagate the notion that that raucous style was the only way black folks could be funny. (Again: the idea of social responsibility.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, while most people saw Chappelle as the heir to the mantle of Richard Pryor — profane, subversive, topical — Zinoman posits that Chappelle’s approach is somewhere in the sweet spot between Pryor and the more conservative Bill Cosby, who has talked a lot about black folks’ responsibility to represent their race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Pryor-Cosby juxtaposition is often as heated and oversimplified as the Malcolm-Martin one, but it makes sense when you think about Chappelle. Both Pryor and Cosby are on the shortlist for the greatest comedians of all time. You could see echoes of \u003cem>both\u003c/em> in Chappelle’s routine at Radio City this week. Like Cosby, there were long, detailed stories about family life; they were punctuated by sharp, Pryor-esque detours into weirdness and debauchery. Chappelle tells a joke about how his wife treats him like a mischievous child, and, before she heads to bed each night, pleads with him not to eat the lunch she’s packed for their kids. Sounds like a Cosby joke, right? Then he talks about how he can’t help but murk all those perfectly wrapped sandwiches lying around the house after he’s smoked up in the middle of night. That’s \u003cem>all\u003c/em> Pryor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10138494\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle3.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle3.jpg\" alt=\"Dave Chappelle sold out the first five shows at his Radio City Music Hall minutes after the tickets became available. So he added more dates, where he would also be joined by musical guests including Nas, The Roots, and Erykah Badu.\" width=\"800\" height=\"466\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10138494\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle3.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle3-400x233.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/chappelle3-300x174.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dave Chappelle sold out the first five shows at his Radio City Music Hall minutes after the tickets became available. So he added more dates, where he would also be joined by musical guests including Nas, The Roots, and Erykah Badu. \u003ccite>(Kainaz Amaria/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The crowd spilled out onto Broadway after the show, all electric and sated. We wondered whether this was the beginning of a re-emergence that might endure, or whether the Radio City shows were just a valedictory. It’s not like his reputation needs burnishing; he’s already a legend. And it’s not like he needs the money. This was fun and funny, but it might not ever happen again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the exits, employees handed out black T-shirts emblazoned with Chappelle’s visage. The front read: \u003cem>Dave Chappelle; Radio City Music Hall\u003c/em>. The back read: \u003cem>I WAS THERE …\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=The+Elusive+Dave+Chappelle+Re-Emerges%2C+But+For+How+Long%3F+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>“All things flow from the sacred engine…The engine is forever.” The passengers on the titular train in Bong Joon-ho’s grim, post-apocalyptic sci-fi tale essentially deify the locomotive that is their salvation. This “rattling ark” carries the last remainders of humanity, after an attempt to reverse global warming goes terribly awry, plunging the planet into an extinction-event deep freeze. Extinction for all but those on this endlessly circling, perpetual-motion-driven train that can’t stop, or else these few survivors will meet the same fate. When the movie begins, they’ve been running non-stop for 17 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s nothing subtle about the allegorical implications of this messianic express, nor any of the other metaphors piled up like the ice and snow the train blasts through relentlessly. For the survivors, this technological marvel has become a religion, and as such, dictates appropriate behavior for its acolytes – be they willing followers or not. Science and religion become blurred here, both flawed, but flawed via their filtration through humankind. Even near extinction, humanity finds ways to continue perpetuating cruel class systems and authoritarian oppression of the many to benefit the few.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So it is that those designated poor live in the tail of the train in absolute squalor, sleeping on top of one another and subsisting on gelantinous brown “protein blocks.” (The revelation of their contents, while not people, still packs a disgusting Soylent Green-style shock.) They’re regularly beaten, arbitrarily tortured, and punished to maintain order, As one moves up towards the front, there are cars for the sick, for prisoners, for water management and food production, eventually leading to opulence and drug-addled decadence up front.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://youtu.be/nX5PwfEMBM0\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Curtis (Chris Evans, in brooding, dangerous contrast to his Captain America performances) is a tail resident with a plan to upset the order of things, planning a car-by-car push forward to take control of the engine from its creator and the Snowpiercer’s de facto king — a mysterious, Oz-like figure called Wilford (Ed Harris). No need to follow the yellow brick road; there’s but one way from back to front, and Curtis has a small army of tail section comrades, as well as a trio of more vital misfit sidekicks: Gilliam (John Hurt), a wizened multiple amputee who acts as mentor; Namgoong (Bong regular Song Kang-ho), a sprung prisoner who can hotwire the doors between cars; and Edgar (Jamie Bell), a hot-headed youth with no memories of life before the train. Their nemesis: a wicked witch of a bureaucrat, Mason, played by Tilda Swinton with blackly comic vigor and a fearsome dental appliance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The clownish comedy amid dire circumstances is a typical device for Bong, a director who delights in playing games within established genres, from a Godzilla-style monster movies (\u003cem>The Host\u003c/em>) to detective thrillers (\u003cem>Mother\u003c/em>). This foray into post-apocalyptic survival territory is the director’s first English-language feature, and it’s a pleasure to see many of his idiosyncrasies intact – even if he had to go through a much-publicized battle with The Weinstein Company to preserve his cut of the film.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That allows for rhythms that feel slightly off-kilter from those of an American action flick, with more attention paid to developing the unusual details of this hermetically sealed manufactured society, a lengthy conversational lead-up to the film’s climax, and characters that are far from stock — many even deeply strange, beyond just Tilda Swinton’s enhanced overbite. Thankfully, there is also no attempt to hold back for a PG-13 rating; Bong loves artful sprays of blood on train windows and a grisly hand-to-hand combat that feels like it has real impact. Whether or not everyone who dies here is named, no one dies anonymously or carelessly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s some evidence of the film’s wild ambition slightly outstripping its grasp: the complexity of all the plot’s moving parts makes for some muddled details in the climactic moments, and the CGI of the train’s exteriors often comes off as extremely shoddy, as if money ran dry before the film got to the digital artists. But very little happens outside. The interior, meanwhile, is a triumph of design, first in the claustrophobic industrial nightmare of the rear of the train (John Hurt’s character’s name is likely no coincidence, as a great debt is owed to Terry Gilliam’s dystopic visions), and then in the mishmash of 20th and 21st century luxuries in the front.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Idea-heavy science fiction hasn’t exactly been burning up the box office lately with films like \u003cem>Edge of Tomorrow\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Transcendence\u003c/em>. \u003cem>Snowpiercer\u003c/em>‘s limited release isn’t going to do much to change that, but this is exactly the sort of ambitious, audacious, and uncompromising filmmaking that deserves to be seen. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=The+Satisfying+Chill+Of+The+Audacious+%27Snowpiercer%27+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The clownish comedy amid dire circumstances is a typical device for Bong, a director who delights in playing games within established genres, from a Godzilla-style monster movies (\u003cem>The Host\u003c/em>) to detective thrillers (\u003cem>Mother\u003c/em>). This foray into post-apocalyptic survival territory is the director’s first English-language feature, and it’s a pleasure to see many of his idiosyncrasies intact – even if he had to go through a much-publicized battle with The Weinstein Company to preserve his cut of the film.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That allows for rhythms that feel slightly off-kilter from those of an American action flick, with more attention paid to developing the unusual details of this hermetically sealed manufactured society, a lengthy conversational lead-up to the film’s climax, and characters that are far from stock — many even deeply strange, beyond just Tilda Swinton’s enhanced overbite. Thankfully, there is also no attempt to hold back for a PG-13 rating; Bong loves artful sprays of blood on train windows and a grisly hand-to-hand combat that feels like it has real impact. Whether or not everyone who dies here is named, no one dies anonymously or carelessly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s some evidence of the film’s wild ambition slightly outstripping its grasp: the complexity of all the plot’s moving parts makes for some muddled details in the climactic moments, and the CGI of the train’s exteriors often comes off as extremely shoddy, as if money ran dry before the film got to the digital artists. But very little happens outside. The interior, meanwhile, is a triumph of design, first in the claustrophobic industrial nightmare of the rear of the train (John Hurt’s character’s name is likely no coincidence, as a great debt is owed to Terry Gilliam’s dystopic visions), and then in the mishmash of 20th and 21st century luxuries in the front.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Idea-heavy science fiction hasn’t exactly been burning up the box office lately with films like \u003cem>Edge of Tomorrow\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Transcendence\u003c/em>. \u003cem>Snowpiercer\u003c/em>‘s limited release isn’t going to do much to change that, but this is exactly the sort of ambitious, audacious, and uncompromising filmmaking that deserves to be seen. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=The+Satisfying+Chill+Of+The+Audacious+%27Snowpiercer%27+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The first film to point a camera at the graffiti movement in New York City was \u003cem>Stations of the Elevated\u003c/em>, which debuted at the New York Film Festival in 1981.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film hasn’t been seen much since, except by generations of graffiti fans and writers who watched it on VHS tapes. Now it’s being re-released on the big screen, with a showing Friday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It will hit screens around the country this fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Stations of the Elevated\u003c/em> is not a documentary in the usual sense. It’s only 45 minutes long; there’s no narrative and hardly any dialogue. The camera follows subway cars painted from top to bottom with vibrant graffiti compositions over a soundtrack of jazz by Charles Mingus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One critic compared \u003cem>Stations\u003c/em> to a nature film, in which director Manny Kirchheimer stalks graffiti-covered subway cars in their native habitat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He went big-game hunting, and he caught the big game, you know?” says graffiti writer Lee Quinones, whose work is featured prominently in the film. He says there have been other movies about the art movement, including \u003cem>Style Wars, \u003c/em>but those came later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the first film of its kind that captured a beautiful golden age where a lot of these cars were being painted, and that urgency,” he says. “He was able to capture that, and way before the established art world even got a pulse that this was going on underneath their feet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kirchheimer is not the guy you would expect to make a movie about graffiti. He was born in Germany and fled to New York with his parents in 1936. He was in his late 40s when he shot \u003cem>Stations of the Elevated\u003c/em> in 1977. He didn’t know anyone who wrote graffiti, and he’d never given it much thought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As a matter of fact, there was a great deal of graffiti around that I didn’t pay much attention to,” Kirchheimer says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then he found himself driving up to the Bronx early in the morning, and he saw the trains running overhead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They would come by and it would be screaming full of colors — just gorgeous,” he says. “The smart thing I did was shoot it all outdoors. Most of the lines are indoors, and the way most people see these paintings was indoors. Doing it outdoors gave a whole other perspective.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a grittier time in New York’s history, when the city could barely afford to clean subway cars, inside or out. Most straphangers considered graffiti writers a nuisance, or worse. But Kirchheimer was focused on “elevating” their work, as the title of the film suggests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The genre, if there is one, is one that goes back to the beginning of cinema. That’s the city symphony,” says Jake Perlin, who is reissuing \u003cem>Stations of the Elevated\u003c/em> through his company, Artists Public Domain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says Kirchheimer also asked a profound moral question: “How does this artwork that was deemed illegal coexist in a city with advertising that is deemed legal [and] that is possibly more offensive?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Stations of the Elevated\u003c/em> contrasts the painted subway cars with outdoor advertising on billboards — giant images of cigarettes, alcohol and semi-nude women. Artist Quinones says the film captures something essential about a moment in the history of the graffiti movement, and of New York City, which is long gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s something really magical about when you see a train coming around a curve with a beautiful painting on it, and that painting is moving in more ways than that train is actually moving,” Quinones says. “It’s in and out, all over the place. And it’s mind-boggling. And that film captures that. It’s something majestic that I can’t even explain completely.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=After+Decades+On+VHS%2C+Graffiti%27s+Golden+Age+Returns+To+Big+Screen&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The first film to point a camera at the graffiti movement in New York City was \u003cem>Stations of the Elevated\u003c/em>, which debuted at the New York Film Festival in 1981.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film hasn’t been seen much since, except by generations of graffiti fans and writers who watched it on VHS tapes. Now it’s being re-released on the big screen, with a showing Friday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It will hit screens around the country this fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Stations of the Elevated\u003c/em> is not a documentary in the usual sense. It’s only 45 minutes long; there’s no narrative and hardly any dialogue. The camera follows subway cars painted from top to bottom with vibrant graffiti compositions over a soundtrack of jazz by Charles Mingus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One critic compared \u003cem>Stations\u003c/em> to a nature film, in which director Manny Kirchheimer stalks graffiti-covered subway cars in their native habitat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He went big-game hunting, and he caught the big game, you know?” says graffiti writer Lee Quinones, whose work is featured prominently in the film. He says there have been other movies about the art movement, including \u003cem>Style Wars, \u003c/em>but those came later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the first film of its kind that captured a beautiful golden age where a lot of these cars were being painted, and that urgency,” he says. “He was able to capture that, and way before the established art world even got a pulse that this was going on underneath their feet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kirchheimer is not the guy you would expect to make a movie about graffiti. He was born in Germany and fled to New York with his parents in 1936. He was in his late 40s when he shot \u003cem>Stations of the Elevated\u003c/em> in 1977. He didn’t know anyone who wrote graffiti, and he’d never given it much thought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As a matter of fact, there was a great deal of graffiti around that I didn’t pay much attention to,” Kirchheimer says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then he found himself driving up to the Bronx early in the morning, and he saw the trains running overhead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They would come by and it would be screaming full of colors — just gorgeous,” he says. “The smart thing I did was shoot it all outdoors. Most of the lines are indoors, and the way most people see these paintings was indoors. Doing it outdoors gave a whole other perspective.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a grittier time in New York’s history, when the city could barely afford to clean subway cars, inside or out. Most straphangers considered graffiti writers a nuisance, or worse. But Kirchheimer was focused on “elevating” their work, as the title of the film suggests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The genre, if there is one, is one that goes back to the beginning of cinema. That’s the city symphony,” says Jake Perlin, who is reissuing \u003cem>Stations of the Elevated\u003c/em> through his company, Artists Public Domain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says Kirchheimer also asked a profound moral question: “How does this artwork that was deemed illegal coexist in a city with advertising that is deemed legal [and] that is possibly more offensive?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Stations of the Elevated\u003c/em> contrasts the painted subway cars with outdoor advertising on billboards — giant images of cigarettes, alcohol and semi-nude women. Artist Quinones says the film captures something essential about a moment in the history of the graffiti movement, and of New York City, which is long gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s something really magical about when you see a train coming around a curve with a beautiful painting on it, and that painting is moving in more ways than that train is actually moving,” Quinones says. “It’s in and out, all over the place. And it’s mind-boggling. And that film captures that. It’s something majestic that I can’t even explain completely.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=After+Decades+On+VHS%2C+Graffiti%27s+Golden+Age+Returns+To+Big+Screen&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Just as there are those who seek to drag Mr. Jackson’s name through the mud, there are those who insist that he was a saint, an angelic figure to be put on a pedestal. He was neither. Michael Jackson was, like all of us, a complicated human being. —\u003c/em> “Remember The Time: Protecting Michael Jackson In His Final Days”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When my \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Code Switch\u003c/a> cousins called me over and handed this book to me — telling me my whole Michael Jackson fan-life was preparing me for THIS book and this moment — I shifted to major side-eye mode. My fandom had prepared me for a \u003cem>Thriller\u003c/em> or \u003cem>Smooth Criminal\u003c/em> dance-off in the NPR newsroom, not a book by two former security guards for Michael Jackson. \u003cem>You Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’\u003c/em>?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, I didn’t push this to the top of my reading list. Not until Sunday, when I finally had a good chunk of time to sit down with the book and discovered … I liked it. I was mad that I had to put it down Monday morning and come to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story begins in December 2006, when Michael and his three kids, Prince, Paris and Blanket, return to the States after a long stint in Bahrain, and settle in Las Vegas for several months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two security guards — Bill Whitfield and Javon Beard — are assigned to protect him and, as you read along, it’s obvious that they are fans and great admirers of the King of Pop. But still, their account (I should note here that they partnered with \u003ca href=\"http://tannercolby.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">author Tanner Colby\u003c/a> to write the book) of the day-to-day job of providing security for Michael Jackson is a fascinating peek at his sad and, honestly, depressing life:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Michael insisted that his family members make appointments to see him, with the exception of his mom, who could come and go as she pleased. (\u003cem>Leave Me Alone\u003c/em>!)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Even though he was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, he celebrated Christmas because he wanted the kids to have the experience.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Younger brother Randy Jackson rammed the security gate with his car because Michael wouldn’t see him, and then cussed everybody out and refused to leave for hours until dad Joe Jackson came over and made him leave. (Who’s \u003cem>Bad\u003c/em>?)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The kids wore masks when they were with him so that they wouldn’t be recognized, which would allow them to be able to go out without him at other times with no masks and be “normal.”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Michael’s business and financial affairs were messy, and he distrusted everyone around him. (\u003cem>Human Nature\u003c/em>?)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>He refused to go back to his Neverland Ranch (which is \u003ca href=\"http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6128664/michael-jackson-neverland-ranch-frozen-in-time\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">still “frozen in time,”\u003c/a> apparently).\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The isolation. Michael had few friends. He didn’t get calls from people just wanting to shoot the bull or inquire about his day. (\u003cem>You Are Not Alone\u003c/em>)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Because things would often get so out of control when he was spotted in public, he was rarely able to enter hotels or businesses through lobbies or the front door, or even during business hours, which means he was always escorted through these dark and dirty tunnels, and back elevators. (\u003cem>Ain’t No Sunshine\u003c/em>, indeed.)\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>This book is not what I expected. \u003cem>\u003c/em>In fact, some of the lyrics from “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGWPE1FevJE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Destiny\u003c/a>,” one of Michael’s songs when he was still singing with his brothers, come to mind:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>If it’s the rich life, I don’t want it\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem>Happiness ain’t always material things\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem>I want destiny\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem> It’s the place for me\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem> Give me the simple life\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem> I’m getting away from here\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem> Let me be me, c’mon let me feel free\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Remember The Time \u003c/em>describes a lonely man whose life — and the lives of his children — was severely limited because of his fame. I don’t know if all of these stories are true but, even if just some of these things happened, it’s more than many of us may ever have known (or even wanted to know) about the \u003cem>Man in the Mirror\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>BONUS:\u003c/i>\u003c/b> Listen to Michael Jackson’s vocal demo for “Beat It,” where he sings all the parts, even the instruments: \u003ca href=\"http://lacienegasmiled.tumblr.com/post/77598143356/demo-of-beat-it-composed-using-only-michael\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Here on Rhythm of the Tide\u003c/a> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Tanya Ballard Brown is an editor for NPR.org who often sings Michael Jackson songs at her desk. Loudly. You can reach out to her on \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/TanyaBallardBrown?ref=hl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://plus.google.com/u/0/+TanyaBallardBrown/posts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Google+\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://tballardbrown.tumblr.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tumblr\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/TdoubleB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Michael+Jackson%2C+We+Barely+Knew+You&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Just as there are those who seek to drag Mr. Jackson’s name through the mud, there are those who insist that he was a saint, an angelic figure to be put on a pedestal. He was neither. Michael Jackson was, like all of us, a complicated human being. —\u003c/em> “Remember The Time: Protecting Michael Jackson In His Final Days”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When my \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Code Switch\u003c/a> cousins called me over and handed this book to me — telling me my whole Michael Jackson fan-life was preparing me for THIS book and this moment — I shifted to major side-eye mode. My fandom had prepared me for a \u003cem>Thriller\u003c/em> or \u003cem>Smooth Criminal\u003c/em> dance-off in the NPR newsroom, not a book by two former security guards for Michael Jackson. \u003cem>You Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’\u003c/em>?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, I didn’t push this to the top of my reading list. Not until Sunday, when I finally had a good chunk of time to sit down with the book and discovered … I liked it. I was mad that I had to put it down Monday morning and come to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story begins in December 2006, when Michael and his three kids, Prince, Paris and Blanket, return to the States after a long stint in Bahrain, and settle in Las Vegas for several months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two security guards — Bill Whitfield and Javon Beard — are assigned to protect him and, as you read along, it’s obvious that they are fans and great admirers of the King of Pop. But still, their account (I should note here that they partnered with \u003ca href=\"http://tannercolby.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">author Tanner Colby\u003c/a> to write the book) of the day-to-day job of providing security for Michael Jackson is a fascinating peek at his sad and, honestly, depressing life:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Michael insisted that his family members make appointments to see him, with the exception of his mom, who could come and go as she pleased. (\u003cem>Leave Me Alone\u003c/em>!)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Even though he was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, he celebrated Christmas because he wanted the kids to have the experience.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Younger brother Randy Jackson rammed the security gate with his car because Michael wouldn’t see him, and then cussed everybody out and refused to leave for hours until dad Joe Jackson came over and made him leave. (Who’s \u003cem>Bad\u003c/em>?)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The kids wore masks when they were with him so that they wouldn’t be recognized, which would allow them to be able to go out without him at other times with no masks and be “normal.”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Michael’s business and financial affairs were messy, and he distrusted everyone around him. (\u003cem>Human Nature\u003c/em>?)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>He refused to go back to his Neverland Ranch (which is \u003ca href=\"http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6128664/michael-jackson-neverland-ranch-frozen-in-time\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">still “frozen in time,”\u003c/a> apparently).\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The isolation. Michael had few friends. He didn’t get calls from people just wanting to shoot the bull or inquire about his day. (\u003cem>You Are Not Alone\u003c/em>)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Because things would often get so out of control when he was spotted in public, he was rarely able to enter hotels or businesses through lobbies or the front door, or even during business hours, which means he was always escorted through these dark and dirty tunnels, and back elevators. (\u003cem>Ain’t No Sunshine\u003c/em>, indeed.)\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>This book is not what I expected. \u003cem>\u003c/em>In fact, some of the lyrics from “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGWPE1FevJE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Destiny\u003c/a>,” one of Michael’s songs when he was still singing with his brothers, come to mind:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>If it’s the rich life, I don’t want it\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem>Happiness ain’t always material things\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem>I want destiny\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem> It’s the place for me\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem> Give me the simple life\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem> I’m getting away from here\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem> Let me be me, c’mon let me feel free\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Remember The Time \u003c/em>describes a lonely man whose life — and the lives of his children — was severely limited because of his fame. I don’t know if all of these stories are true but, even if just some of these things happened, it’s more than many of us may ever have known (or even wanted to know) about the \u003cem>Man in the Mirror\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>BONUS:\u003c/i>\u003c/b> Listen to Michael Jackson’s vocal demo for “Beat It,” where he sings all the parts, even the instruments: \u003ca href=\"http://lacienegasmiled.tumblr.com/post/77598143356/demo-of-beat-it-composed-using-only-michael\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Here on Rhythm of the Tide\u003c/a> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Tanya Ballard Brown is an editor for NPR.org who often sings Michael Jackson songs at her desk. Loudly. You can reach out to her on \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/TanyaBallardBrown?ref=hl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://plus.google.com/u/0/+TanyaBallardBrown/posts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Google+\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://tballardbrown.tumblr.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tumblr\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/TdoubleB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Michael+Jackson%2C+We+Barely+Knew+You&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Star Wars\u003c/em> creator George Lucas has chosen Chicago as the location of a planned museum of his art and movie memorabilia, snubbing San Francisco despite the push to build it adjacent to Crissy Field in the Presidio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesman for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/lucasculturalartsmuseum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lucas Cultural Arts Museum\u003c/a> will be built in the Windy City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Associated Press says: “It was unclear for weeks whether Chicago or San Francisco would be selected. Some people thought Chicago might have the upper hand because Lucas’ wife is from Chicago and because of Emanuel’s powers of persuasion. But Lucas is a California native, his visual effects division is based in San Francisco and the headquarters for LucasFilm and Skywalker Sound is in nearby Marin County.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10138271\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/LucasMuseum.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/LucasMuseum.jpg\" alt=\"Artist’s rendering of proposed Lucas Cultural Arts Museum in San Francisco’s Presidio. The body governing the former Army base has rejected the museum and two other proposals.\" width=\"800\" height=\"442\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10138271\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/LucasMuseum.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/LucasMuseum-400x221.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/LucasMuseum-300x165.jpg 300w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/LucasMuseum-672x372.jpg 672w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist’s rendering of proposed Lucas Cultural Arts Museum in San Francisco’s Presidio. The body governing the former Army base has rejected the museum and two other proposals. \u003ccite>(Photo: Lucas Cultural Art Museum presentation, January 2014))\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/sneed-exclusive-chicago-get-george-lucas-museum/tue-06242014-346pm-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Sun-Times describes the museum as a $1 billion investment\u003c/a> and \u003cem>Chicago Business\u003c/em> says, quoting a task force set up by Emanuel to study the project, it “would \u003ca href=\"http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140624/NEWS09/140629914/chicago-to-get-george-lucas-museum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">generate between $2 billion and $2.5 billion\u003c/a> of additional tourist spending and significant tax revenue over ten years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in March of 2013, Lucas announced plans to build the center. Although it’s being described as the “\u003cem>Star Wars\u003c/em> museum,” \u003ca href=\"http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140410/BLOGS03/140419998/george-lucas-eyeing-chicago-for-museum-after-san-francisco-snubbed-him\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lucas says the facility would feature, among other things, a wide selection of populist art he owns\u003c/a>, including “a number of Norman Rockwell paintings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t have enough walls, which is why I want to build a museum,” Lucas told \u003cem>The San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> in March.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AP says:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\n\u003cp>“The city offered up a slice of real estate along the Lake Michigan shore that is near other attractions, including the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum of Natural History. At the same time, San Francisco suffered a setback when the city rejected Lucas’ first choice of a location near the Golden Gate Bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Emanuel has long been trying to portray Chicago as a global destination, and throughout the decision process, a spokesman for Lucas praised Chicago for the attention it heaps on culture, architecture, innovations and education — some of which are the themes Lucas’ museum will seek to promote.”\n\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Read more of KQED’s coverage of the plans for the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/06/24/george-lucas-art-museum-headed-for-chicago\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lucas Museum at KQED’s News Fix.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>KQED’s Kevin Jones contributed to this article.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=%27Star+Wars%27+Museum+Lands+In+Chicago&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Star Wars\u003c/em> creator George Lucas has chosen Chicago as the location of a planned museum of his art and movie memorabilia, snubbing San Francisco despite the push to build it adjacent to Crissy Field in the Presidio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesman for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/lucasculturalartsmuseum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lucas Cultural Arts Museum\u003c/a> will be built in the Windy City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Associated Press says: “It was unclear for weeks whether Chicago or San Francisco would be selected. Some people thought Chicago might have the upper hand because Lucas’ wife is from Chicago and because of Emanuel’s powers of persuasion. But Lucas is a California native, his visual effects division is based in San Francisco and the headquarters for LucasFilm and Skywalker Sound is in nearby Marin County.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10138271\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/LucasMuseum.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/LucasMuseum.jpg\" alt=\"Artist’s rendering of proposed Lucas Cultural Arts Museum in San Francisco’s Presidio. The body governing the former Army base has rejected the museum and two other proposals.\" width=\"800\" height=\"442\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10138271\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/LucasMuseum.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/LucasMuseum-400x221.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/LucasMuseum-300x165.jpg 300w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/LucasMuseum-672x372.jpg 672w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist’s rendering of proposed Lucas Cultural Arts Museum in San Francisco’s Presidio. The body governing the former Army base has rejected the museum and two other proposals. \u003ccite>(Photo: Lucas Cultural Art Museum presentation, January 2014))\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/sneed-exclusive-chicago-get-george-lucas-museum/tue-06242014-346pm-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Sun-Times describes the museum as a $1 billion investment\u003c/a> and \u003cem>Chicago Business\u003c/em> says, quoting a task force set up by Emanuel to study the project, it “would \u003ca href=\"http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140624/NEWS09/140629914/chicago-to-get-george-lucas-museum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">generate between $2 billion and $2.5 billion\u003c/a> of additional tourist spending and significant tax revenue over ten years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in March of 2013, Lucas announced plans to build the center. Although it’s being described as the “\u003cem>Star Wars\u003c/em> museum,” \u003ca href=\"http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140410/BLOGS03/140419998/george-lucas-eyeing-chicago-for-museum-after-san-francisco-snubbed-him\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lucas says the facility would feature, among other things, a wide selection of populist art he owns\u003c/a>, including “a number of Norman Rockwell paintings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t have enough walls, which is why I want to build a museum,” Lucas told \u003cem>The San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> in March.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AP says:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\n\u003cp>“The city offered up a slice of real estate along the Lake Michigan shore that is near other attractions, including the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum of Natural History. At the same time, San Francisco suffered a setback when the city rejected Lucas’ first choice of a location near the Golden Gate Bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Emanuel has long been trying to portray Chicago as a global destination, and throughout the decision process, a spokesman for Lucas praised Chicago for the attention it heaps on culture, architecture, innovations and education — some of which are the themes Lucas’ museum will seek to promote.”\n\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Read more of KQED’s coverage of the plans for the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/06/24/george-lucas-art-museum-headed-for-chicago\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lucas Museum at KQED’s News Fix.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>KQED’s Kevin Jones contributed to this article.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=%27Star+Wars%27+Museum+Lands+In+Chicago&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Film director David Wain’s work has always been hard to describe. In some ways, it’s straight-up spoof: His most famous film, \u003cem>Wet Hot American Summer\u003c/em>, lampooned the summer camp films of the 1980s; and his more recent TV show, \u003cem>Childrens Hospital\u003c/em>, sends up shows like \u003cem>Grey’s Anatomy\u003c/em>, where the female lead is living inside an inner monologue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Wain’s newest film, \u003cem>They Came Together\u003c/em>, takes on the genre of rom-coms. But even he has a hard time describing it. He tells NPR’s Rachel Martin, “One very shorthand way I’ve come up with is to say it’s a purposefully dumb romantic comedy, or a purposefully terrible romantic comedy. But that could really scare people away, so I don’t want to say that. … Another way to say that is it’s a grand, huge, funny, crazy spoof movie in the tradition of movies like \u003cem>Airplane\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wain tells Martin about his feelings toward rom-coms, brazenly copying from \u003cem>You’ve Got Mail, \u003c/em>and the most divisive scene in his new film.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Interview Highlights\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On whether there’s a part of him that likes romantic comedies\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s all of me that absolutely loves, loves, loves rom-coms. It’s probably my favorite genre of movies. … So many of my favorite movies are rom-coms of sorts, whether it’s all the Woody Allen movies or \u003cem>Tootsie\u003c/em> or \u003cem>The Graduate\u003c/em>. And then, when you get to understand something really well, you also find all the flaws, and that’s a lot of what we’re having fun with in this movie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On the parallels between Wain’s film and \u003cem>You’ve Got Mail\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the main through lines we just brazenly lifted from \u003cem>You’ve Got Mail\u003c/em>. Amy Poehler plays the quirky, you know, independent candy store owner. And then Paul Rudd is an executive at the huge, corporate Candy Systems and Research, and they’re gonna take her down. But then they meet otherwise. So it is like \u003cem>You’ve Got Mail\u003c/em> in that way, but the truth is that the story is so beside the point. If you talk about this movie by talking about the storyline, then you’ve missed the point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On the layers of jokes in the film’s basketball scene\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, there’s so much going on, actually. [It’s] Paul Rudd playing basketball in the local playground with his friends after work. And, you know, we feel like [in] every rom-com the guy always has this random group of best friends who he does some big sport with — usually it’s basketball — and they have real discussions while also playing basketball at the same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People never just talk; they have to be doing something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then, of course, each of his friends is a “type.” So you have the sort of wistful poet, and then the sex-crazed, you know, Lothario. And of course, the visual of it … is that every time they shoot the ball and Ken Marino says “swish,” the ball goes not even close to the net. Like, [it] doesn’t even go within 5 feet of the net.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So it’s actually a good example of every scene in our movie filled with like four or five different layers of jokes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On the scene in which Rudd’s character, who is depressed about his relationship problems, has a conversation with a bartender\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, the bartender says, “Hard Day, huh?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Rudd] says, “Yeah, you can say that again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so the bartender says it again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Bartender: “Well, you came in here looking like crap and you haven’t said very much.”\u003c/em> \u003cem>Rudd: “Tell me about it.”\u003c/em> \u003cem>Bartender: “You came in here looking like crap and you haven’t said very much.”\u003c/em> \u003cem>Rudd: “Yeah, you can say that again.”]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paul Rudd keep[s] repeating, back and forth, “You can say that again” and “Tell me about it,” which then causes the bartender to not only say the exact same thing — we actually just splice in the exact same footage of the bartender’s response over and over. … It’s just literally on a loop. …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s interesting because I know that in screenings, pretty much every time, what happens is people start laughing, then they get annoyed and stop laughing. Then it keeps going and they start laughing all the harder, and it becomes, for many, the favorite scene of the movie because they’re like: I can’t believe you actually did that. But even in our test screenings, it was one — and this happens in every movie — there’s always that one scene that is at the top of both lists of what was the audience’s favorite scene and what was the audience’s least favorite scene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On whether the scene’s distinction as the audience’s favorite and least favorite scene pleases him\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It does. It means that there’s passion. And I’ve always felt that way. And most of the work that I have done over my career has been that. … It’s their favorite thing, or they really hated it. And the middle ground is not so much what we get, and I’m very happy with that. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=+%27They+Came+Together%27+Is+A+Terrible+Rom-Com+On+Purpose&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Film director David Wain’s work has always been hard to describe. In some ways, it’s straight-up spoof: His most famous film, \u003cem>Wet Hot American Summer\u003c/em>, lampooned the summer camp films of the 1980s; and his more recent TV show, \u003cem>Childrens Hospital\u003c/em>, sends up shows like \u003cem>Grey’s Anatomy\u003c/em>, where the female lead is living inside an inner monologue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Wain’s newest film, \u003cem>They Came Together\u003c/em>, takes on the genre of rom-coms. But even he has a hard time describing it. He tells NPR’s Rachel Martin, “One very shorthand way I’ve come up with is to say it’s a purposefully dumb romantic comedy, or a purposefully terrible romantic comedy. But that could really scare people away, so I don’t want to say that. … Another way to say that is it’s a grand, huge, funny, crazy spoof movie in the tradition of movies like \u003cem>Airplane\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wain tells Martin about his feelings toward rom-coms, brazenly copying from \u003cem>You’ve Got Mail, \u003c/em>and the most divisive scene in his new film.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Interview Highlights\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On whether there’s a part of him that likes romantic comedies\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s all of me that absolutely loves, loves, loves rom-coms. It’s probably my favorite genre of movies. … So many of my favorite movies are rom-coms of sorts, whether it’s all the Woody Allen movies or \u003cem>Tootsie\u003c/em> or \u003cem>The Graduate\u003c/em>. And then, when you get to understand something really well, you also find all the flaws, and that’s a lot of what we’re having fun with in this movie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>For the final credits of \u003cem>Jersey Boys\u003c/em>, director Clint Eastwood sends the whole cast into a backlot street to dance to the Four Seasons’ most recent chart-topper, 1976’s “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night).” \u003cem>Hmmm\u003c/em>, the confused viewer might wonder, \u003cem>perhaps this is supposed to be a musical\u003c/em>….\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The movie is, of course, derived from the long-running Broadway hit, and includes numerous Four Seasons songs. But this adaptation, as reworked by original writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, adds dialogue and subtracts music. Large sections are devoted to the drama of making it, or of keeping it after initial success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eastwood may not be the project’s ideal director. He’s known for working quickly, which could explain why parts of \u003cem>Jersey Boys\u003c/em> feel undercooked. (The rear projection in car scenes is particularly cheesy.) But the movie is engagingly lively, if not always graceful, and often surprisingly comic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://youtu.be/tL2iILHUsG0\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The laughs can be incongruous, since the backstory is grim: Future Four Seasons Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza), Nick Massi (Michael Lomenda) and Frankie Castelluccio (John Lloyd Young) are inept small-time criminals in a crummy Newark suburb. They’re under the protection of a local mob boss (Christopher Walken), a devotee of sentimental ballads, although that doesn’t keep Tommy and Nick from doing time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such hits as “Walk Like A Man” arrive after Castelluccio renames himself Valli, songwriting prodigy Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen) joins the lineup and veteran producer Bob Crewe (Mike Doyle, teetering on the edge of gay caricature) plumps the arrangements. Crewe and Gaudio are also Jersey boys, although the latter is suspect because he’s from the right side of tracks. (Another local, future tough-guy actor Joe Pesci, plays an amusing role in all this.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Top 40 triumph is scarred by a broken marriage, a fatal drug overdose and massive embezzlement, among other woes. Some of these developments are foreshadowed; others just pop up, as if inserted carelessly from a much longer cut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The stage musical was divided into four chapters, each narrated by a different Season. The movie keeps that device, but scatters each member’s commentary throughout the story. You never know when Frankie, Bob, Tommy or Nick will turn to the camera and start talking to the viewer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such direct address is a little jarring, since the movie often aspires to naturalism. Eastwood includes enough f-words to guarantee an R-rating for a movie about G-rated pop, and deploys careful period details and sepia-tinted images to evoke the days before day-glo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when was that? Onscreen dates identify early scenes as happening in the 1950s, but most of the story occurs out of time. Aside from an appearance by the Angels, who sing their pre-Beatles “My Boyfriend’s Back,” there’s little sense of context, either social or musical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time the Seasons released “Rag Doll” in 1964, they occupied the same universe as Motown, Bob Dylan and the British Invasion. Yet the movie never hints that the group’s doo-wop style had become dated. Still, the fact that the Seasons were older than their Top 40 competitors suits the cast, some of whom have a couple of decades on the teenagers they initially play.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although \u003cem>Jersey Boys\u003c/em> rarely presents an entire Four Seasons number without interruption, the music does propel the movie. The group was known for martial drumbeats as well as Valli’s stratospheric falsetto, and the songs still have juice, even when presented in snippets or as background music. But they may not pack enough Jersey swagger to attract moviegoers whose earliest pop memories are of Katy Perry or Justin Bieber. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=You%27re+A+Little+Flat%2C+%27Boys%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cp>A short time ago, in a city not far away, \u003cem>Star Wars\u003c/em> creator George Lucas decided to build a museum to house his movie memorabilia and his art collection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s just one looming question: Where should it go?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lucas says he’ll spend $300 million of his own money to build the proposed Lucas Cultural Arts Museum and will provide a $400 million endowment after his death. In addition to holding Skywalker artifacts galore, the museum would also host Lucas’ private art collection, featuring works by Norman Rockwell and N.C. Wyeth, among others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after Lucas’ original planned location fell through, it’s not clear where the museum will be located. San Francisco and Chicago are both trying to win the right to host the museum, and Los Angeles just entered the fray as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Francisco: ‘It Is Our History’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story begins in San Francisco, not far from Skywalker Ranch, Lucas’ moviemaking center in Marin County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lucas originally wanted to build his museum in the San Francisco Presidio — a federal park near the Golden Gate Bridge. But park officials rejected that idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now San Francisco officials are scrambling, trying to persuade Lucas to consider another site. They’re offering a scenic waterfront location along the Embarcadero, the road that runs along the San Francisco Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor Ed Lee points to the area’s \u003cem>Star Wars\u003c/em> history to explain why the city wants to persuade Lucas to stay in the region. Lucas’ ranch is nearby, and the Letterman Digital Arts Center, LucasFilm’s headquarters, is located in the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Digital Arts, through George Lucas’ wonderful works, started here,” Lee says. “To have that museum right here under his name would be a wonderful tribute to that. It is our history, and that’s why we want George to be here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Lee knows that first rejection, of the Presidio location, opened the door to competition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chicago: Lucas’ Second Home\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Chicago, city leaders say they’re up to the fight to bring the Lucas Museum to \u003cem>their \u003c/em>city. Kurt Summers, co-chairman of the task force that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel directed to find a location for the museum, casts the struggle in familiar terms — like the dark side of the Force against the light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are the protagonist in sort of a good versus evil,” Summers says. It’s not hard to imagine whom he sees as the Evil Empire. “We engaged fully … and that created real competition. The result of that [is] we saw San Francisco step up its game as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The potential home of the Lucas Museum is near Chicago’s lakefront, on the city’s Museum Campus. The city would convert 17 acres that are currently home to two parking lots behind Soldier Field, the stadium home of the Chicago Bears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chicago would lease the land to Lucas for $1. City officials believe adding his museum to the Field Museum of Natural History, the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium on the campus would bring in a couple of million additional visitors to the city each year, along with millions in tourist and tax revenue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lucas calls Chicago his second home, and he’s married to influential Chicago businesswoman Mellody Hobson. That’s a plus, says Summers, who believes that while San Francisco might once have had home field advantage, Chicago has a very compelling case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Summers says he’s not talking smack. But he does have a message: “I believe the Force is with us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco would say the same thing. And so would Los Angeles, which has offered a museum-campus plan like Chicago’s, at the site of the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in the city’s Exposition Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as the small Jedi Yoda would say, “Impossible to see, the future is” — until the decision, which is expected sometime this summer. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Never+Tell+Them+The+Odds%3A+Cities+Vie+To+Host+%27Star+Wars%27+Collection&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "\u003cem>Star Wars\u003c/em> creator George Lucas wants to build a museum full of movie memorabilia and fine art. But where? Both his hometown of San Francisco and Chicago, his \"second home,\" are vying for it.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A short time ago, in a city not far away, \u003cem>Star Wars\u003c/em> creator George Lucas decided to build a museum to house his movie memorabilia and his art collection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s just one looming question: Where should it go?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lucas says he’ll spend $300 million of his own money to build the proposed Lucas Cultural Arts Museum and will provide a $400 million endowment after his death. In addition to holding Skywalker artifacts galore, the museum would also host Lucas’ private art collection, featuring works by Norman Rockwell and N.C. Wyeth, among others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after Lucas’ original planned location fell through, it’s not clear where the museum will be located. San Francisco and Chicago are both trying to win the right to host the museum, and Los Angeles just entered the fray as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Francisco: ‘It Is Our History’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story begins in San Francisco, not far from Skywalker Ranch, Lucas’ moviemaking center in Marin County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lucas originally wanted to build his museum in the San Francisco Presidio — a federal park near the Golden Gate Bridge. But park officials rejected that idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now San Francisco officials are scrambling, trying to persuade Lucas to consider another site. They’re offering a scenic waterfront location along the Embarcadero, the road that runs along the San Francisco Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor Ed Lee points to the area’s \u003cem>Star Wars\u003c/em> history to explain why the city wants to persuade Lucas to stay in the region. Lucas’ ranch is nearby, and the Letterman Digital Arts Center, LucasFilm’s headquarters, is located in the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Digital Arts, through George Lucas’ wonderful works, started here,” Lee says. “To have that museum right here under his name would be a wonderful tribute to that. It is our history, and that’s why we want George to be here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Lee knows that first rejection, of the Presidio location, opened the door to competition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chicago: Lucas’ Second Home\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Chicago, city leaders say they’re up to the fight to bring the Lucas Museum to \u003cem>their \u003c/em>city. Kurt Summers, co-chairman of the task force that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel directed to find a location for the museum, casts the struggle in familiar terms — like the dark side of the Force against the light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are the protagonist in sort of a good versus evil,” Summers says. It’s not hard to imagine whom he sees as the Evil Empire. “We engaged fully … and that created real competition. The result of that [is] we saw San Francisco step up its game as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The potential home of the Lucas Museum is near Chicago’s lakefront, on the city’s Museum Campus. The city would convert 17 acres that are currently home to two parking lots behind Soldier Field, the stadium home of the Chicago Bears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chicago would lease the land to Lucas for $1. City officials believe adding his museum to the Field Museum of Natural History, the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium on the campus would bring in a couple of million additional visitors to the city each year, along with millions in tourist and tax revenue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lucas calls Chicago his second home, and he’s married to influential Chicago businesswoman Mellody Hobson. That’s a plus, says Summers, who believes that while San Francisco might once have had home field advantage, Chicago has a very compelling case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Summers says he’s not talking smack. But he does have a message: “I believe the Force is with us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco would say the same thing. And so would Los Angeles, which has offered a museum-campus plan like Chicago’s, at the site of the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in the city’s Exposition Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as the small Jedi Yoda would say, “Impossible to see, the future is” — until the decision, which is expected sometime this summer. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Never+Tell+Them+The+Odds%3A+Cities+Vie+To+Host+%27Star+Wars%27+Collection&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Legendary Pianist Horace Silver Dies at 85",
"headTitle": "Legendary Pianist Horace Silver Dies at 85 | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Pianist \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15404943/horace-silver\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Horace Silver\u003c/a>, whose potent and catchy combination of blues, funk and Latin sounds shifted the jazz landscape in the 1950s and ’60s, died Wednesday morning at his home in New Rochelle, N.Y. He died of natural causes, according to his son, Gregory Silver. He was 85.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a bandleader, Horace Silver mentored some of the hottest musicians of his era. As a composer, he devised numerous jazz standards still played today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Silver grew up in Norwalk, Conn. He was 11 when he and and his father stumbled upon a swing band one warm Sunday night. It was the orchestra led by Jimmie Lunceford.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I saw all these black guys getting out of the bus with their instruments, and I said, ‘Dad, can we stay and just hear them play one number? Just one number,'” he told NPR in 1996. “‘No, you gotta go to school in the morning, gotta get up early.’ … I begged and pleaded, begged and pleaded, so he’s, ‘OK, one number.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His dad let him stay for three tunes. Silver credits that one event for a lifetime chasing jazz as a pianist and bandleader.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By his early 20s, he was a good enough pianist to be hired by saxophonist Stan Getz. That was 1950. He moved to the jazz hub of New York City the next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon after, Silver co-founded the Jazz Messengers with drummer Art Blakey. It was a hothouse for young talent and future stars. Some later joined Silver’s bands — musicians like saxophonist Hank Mobley and trumpeter Blue Mitchell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Silver signed to Blue Note Records, and the label gave him free rein as a house pianist and arranger for nearly three decades. He created a sound that provided the blueprint for countless jazz quintets in the 1950s and ’60s: bluesy, soulful, funky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I got the impression that sometimes some of the bebop players thought it beyond them to play funky, you know?” he said. “Just kind of take your shoes off and get down into the real nitty-gritty of the music and get guttural, sort of. Get basic, you know?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The title of Silver’s memoir, \u003cem>Let’s Get to the Nitty Gritty\u003c/em>, says it all. His style was jazz’s next big thing: It was called hard bop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dan Morgenstern is Director Emeritus of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University. Morgenstern says Silver had great melodies, sophisticated harmonies and rhythms you could dance to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were very catchy,” Morgenstern says. “There’s themes of Horace’s that stay in your ear. He just had a knack for that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Horace Silver’s music was just as affecting in person. Dan Morgenstern says he recalls hearing the pianist at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“His hair would be flying,” Morgenstern says. “You know, his head was bobbing side to side and up and down, and he would be wringing wet when he came off that stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drummer Roger Humphries drove Silver’s music into the mid-1960s. Humphries says he saw Silver as not just an inspiring pianist, but as a mentor — “like a wonderful big brother.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He treated me very well,” Humphries says. “He made me want to be in his band. He made me want to play for him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1CilMzT55M\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humphries backed Silver on the pianist’s most famous work. It’s the tune almost everyone knows: “Song for My Father” was written for the man who nurtured Silver’s career in the first place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My dad said to me one time when I was a little boy,” Silver said. “He said, ‘You know, I’m not a rich man, I’m a factory worker. But if you want to go to college, I’ll try my best to try to put you through college.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t want to go to college — I want to become a famous jazz musician. But whether I become a famous jazz musician or not, I just want to play music. If I play in just a local bar all my life — I just want to play music. That’s all I want to do.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Horace Silver did become a famous jazz musician. And he got to play music for more than 60 years. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Legendary+Pianist+Horace+Silver+Dies+At+85&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Pianist \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15404943/horace-silver\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Horace Silver\u003c/a>, whose potent and catchy combination of blues, funk and Latin sounds shifted the jazz landscape in the 1950s and ’60s, died Wednesday morning at his home in New Rochelle, N.Y. He died of natural causes, according to his son, Gregory Silver. He was 85.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a bandleader, Horace Silver mentored some of the hottest musicians of his era. As a composer, he devised numerous jazz standards still played today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Silver grew up in Norwalk, Conn. He was 11 when he and and his father stumbled upon a swing band one warm Sunday night. It was the orchestra led by Jimmie Lunceford.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I saw all these black guys getting out of the bus with their instruments, and I said, ‘Dad, can we stay and just hear them play one number? Just one number,'” he told NPR in 1996. “‘No, you gotta go to school in the morning, gotta get up early.’ … I begged and pleaded, begged and pleaded, so he’s, ‘OK, one number.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His dad let him stay for three tunes. Silver credits that one event for a lifetime chasing jazz as a pianist and bandleader.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By his early 20s, he was a good enough pianist to be hired by saxophonist Stan Getz. That was 1950. He moved to the jazz hub of New York City the next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon after, Silver co-founded the Jazz Messengers with drummer Art Blakey. It was a hothouse for young talent and future stars. Some later joined Silver’s bands — musicians like saxophonist Hank Mobley and trumpeter Blue Mitchell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Silver signed to Blue Note Records, and the label gave him free rein as a house pianist and arranger for nearly three decades. He created a sound that provided the blueprint for countless jazz quintets in the 1950s and ’60s: bluesy, soulful, funky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I got the impression that sometimes some of the bebop players thought it beyond them to play funky, you know?” he said. “Just kind of take your shoes off and get down into the real nitty-gritty of the music and get guttural, sort of. Get basic, you know?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The title of Silver’s memoir, \u003cem>Let’s Get to the Nitty Gritty\u003c/em>, says it all. His style was jazz’s next big thing: It was called hard bop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dan Morgenstern is Director Emeritus of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University. Morgenstern says Silver had great melodies, sophisticated harmonies and rhythms you could dance to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were very catchy,” Morgenstern says. “There’s themes of Horace’s that stay in your ear. He just had a knack for that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Horace Silver’s music was just as affecting in person. Dan Morgenstern says he recalls hearing the pianist at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“His hair would be flying,” Morgenstern says. “You know, his head was bobbing side to side and up and down, and he would be wringing wet when he came off that stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drummer Roger Humphries drove Silver’s music into the mid-1960s. Humphries says he saw Silver as not just an inspiring pianist, but as a mentor — “like a wonderful big brother.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He treated me very well,” Humphries says. “He made me want to be in his band. He made me want to play for him.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/S1CilMzT55M'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/S1CilMzT55M'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Humphries backed Silver on the pianist’s most famous work. It’s the tune almost everyone knows: “Song for My Father” was written for the man who nurtured Silver’s career in the first place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My dad said to me one time when I was a little boy,” Silver said. “He said, ‘You know, I’m not a rich man, I’m a factory worker. But if you want to go to college, I’ll try my best to try to put you through college.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t want to go to college — I want to become a famous jazz musician. But whether I become a famous jazz musician or not, I just want to play music. If I play in just a local bar all my life — I just want to play music. That’s all I want to do.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Horace Silver did become a famous jazz musician. And he got to play music for more than 60 years. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Legendary+Pianist+Horace+Silver+Dies+At+85&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Who can I be now? How David Bowie Spent 1974",
"headTitle": "Who can I be now? How David Bowie Spent 1974 | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>To say that 1974 was a year of change and challenge for David Bowie and his fans is an understatement as extreme as the lurid outfits he’d worn as his just-abandoned alter ego, Ziggy Stardust. The incubator for the evolution was Bowie’s U.S. tour that year, which began in Montreal on June 14 — 40 years ago this weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In July of 1973, at the peak of his success, Bowie unexpectedly retired Ziggy — the character and vehicle he’d ridden to fame after nearly a decade of trying. In the months that followed, he abandoned his band, his home and the city (London) and country that spawned him. By the spring of 1974, he’d ditched the zipper haircut, platform heels and vivid glam fashions that he, more than anyone, had brought to the mainstream. And by the end of that year he’d basically abandoned rock ‘n’ roll altogether.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Beatles had acclimated the even-then largely complacent rock audience to changes of sound and vision, at the fateful age of 27, Bowie — fueled by exploding creativity, success and not least the white powder to which he’d become addicted — would try the patience of even his most dedicated fans, producing music that wasn’t dauntingly strange and experimental (that would come later), but instead \u003cem>too\u003c/em> normal and everyday for many of his fans: the R&B that saturated FM radio at the time. That style might have seemed exotic to a Brit, but it was the exact sound that most American rock fans were trying to escape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That the two studio albums associated with the tour — \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em>, released in March of ’74 was already a departure, being musically more subtle than its comparatively garish predecessor, \u003cem>Aladdin Sane\u003c/em>\u003cem>, \u003c/em>and \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em>, put out a year later and featuring Bowie’s first U.S. No. 1 single, “Fame” — made him into a star in America is perhaps the strangest twist of all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 73-date tour also underwent a stylistic change every bit as tectonic as the one Bowie’s music was undergoing. At its outset, the \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> tour was by far the most extravagant and expensive rock outing ever mounted: designed by Broadway veterans Jules Fisher and Mark Ravitz and choreographed by Toni Basil, it featured a towering set depicting the post-apocalyptic city in which the loosely conceptual album was based. It included a catwalk that lowered from the rafters to stage level and a cherry-picker that lofted Bowie 40 feet above the first dozen rows of the audience (and occasionally failed to bring him back). But after 10 weeks of shows, due to expense or boredom, he abandoned the set and the setlist, going for a more stripped-down presentation and an overhauled R&B sound.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I sunk myself back into the music that I considered the bedrock of all popular music: R&B and soul,” Bowie recalled to writer David Buckley years later. “I guess from the outside it seemed to be a pretty drastic move. I think I probably lost as many fans as I gained new ones.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s one of the most drastic image/sound changes in the modern era, and it was just the beginning of the transformations Bowie would make over the next several years. Over the course of the tour, Bowie would drive himself, his band and his audience to the brink: himself to the edge of exhaustion via the physical challenges of the show, overwork and drug abuse; his band to the brink of its musical abilities, energy and salary requirements; his audience to the brink of its patience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I went to the \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> show [in June] expecting something like Ziggy Stardust,” said fan John Neilson, who caught both incarnations of the tour in Detroit. “And then in October I expected to see something like \u003cem>Diamond Dogs,\u003c/em> and it was the soul revue. It might as well have been a completely different artist.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>The basis for the tour and its initial extravagant set lay in \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em>‘ post-apocalyptic world of street urchins and nefarious characters, like Halloween Jack; the album was the end result of an unsuccessful attempt to create a rock musical from George Orwell’s \u003cem>1984\u003c/em>, which had been blocked by Orwell’s widow. While the album — and its classic lead single, “Rebel Rebel,” which was finishing a Top 5 run in the U.K. at the time Bowie arrived in New York on April 11 — retained elements of the aborted musical, like \u003cem>Ziggy Stardust\u003c/em>, it’s a loose concept album not bound to a straight storyline; the songs act as signposts around which listeners can create their own narrative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10137767\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/482119303_master_vert-69d403a3c9185e94733faff07a6c88c8e8cbd2a4.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10137767 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/482119303_master_vert-69d403a3c9185e94733faff07a6c88c8e8cbd2a4-400x533.jpg\" alt=\"David Bowie in February 1974 in the Netherlands.\" width=\"400\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/482119303_master_vert-69d403a3c9185e94733faff07a6c88c8e8cbd2a4-400x533.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/482119303_master_vert-69d403a3c9185e94733faff07a6c88c8e8cbd2a4-1079x1440.jpg 1079w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Bowie in February 1974 in the Netherlands. \u003ccite>(Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I had in my mind this kind of half \u003cem>Wild Boys/1984\u003c/em> world, and there were these ragamuffins, but they were a bit more violent than ragamuffins,” Bowie told Buckley. “They’d taken over this barren city, this city that was falling apart. … I had the Diamond Dogs living in the streets. They were all little Johnny Rottens and Sid Viciouses, really.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That storyline carried over to the show. Framed by towering skyscrapers, Bowie moved from one elaborate scenario to another: He performed “Sweet Thing” from the catwalk as it gradually lowered to the stage floor; was projected over the audience via the cherry-picker as he sang “Space Oddity” into a red telephone microphone; French-kissed a skull during “Cracked Actor”; sang “Time” behind a giant hand festooned with blinking light bulbs that dropped to reveal Bowie inside a neon light box; performed an elaborate walking mime during “Aladdin Sane” very reminiscent of Michael Jackson’s world-famous Moonwalk, unveiled a decade later (Jackson attended one of Bowie’s shows in Los Angeles in September). The Ziggy-era platforms and costumes were replaced by a suave new Bowie, clad in an Yves St. Laurent suit and flat shoes, with a bright orange but calm soul-boy haircut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bowie’s new band was equally state of the art. Herbie Flowers — who’d worked with Bowie since the mid-’60s and played the timeless bassline on Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” — and drummer Tony Newman were veteran British session musicians who’d played on \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em>. Virtuoso pianist Michael Garson and backing singer Geoff MacCormack (aka Warren Peace) remained from Bowie’s 1973 band. Classically trained New Yorker Michael Kamen — a future Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated film composer whose scoring work for the Joffrey Ballet had impressed Bowie — was enlisted as musical director. Kamen brought along two musicians from his former rock bands: future superstar jazz saxophonist David Sanborn and 22-year-old guitarist Earl Slick, who would work with Bowie many times in the coming decades, and also performed on John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s \u003cem>Double Fantasy\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latter got a call from Kamen one day in April and was told he’d be hearing from an important musician he refused to identify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I get a phone call from the Bowie people the next day and they set up an audition — which is the weirdest f- – -ing thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Slick, who speaks in a Brooklynese as rapid-fire as his solos, recalls. “David’s personal assistant meets me at RCA Studios in New York, and she walks me not to the control room, which is dark, but into the main studio. I get out my guitar and I hear a voice with an American accent saying, ‘Hey, how ya doin’? Put the headphones on. We’re gonna play you some tracks, just play along.’ I say, ‘What key are they in?’ He says, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ And he just starts rolling tape! I’m playing over tracks from \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em>, which [hadn’t been released yet] — I’ve never heard these songs, I don’t know what I’m doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m out there for maybe 15 minutes and there’s a little bit of chatter between me and this American guy — who turns out to be [longtime Bowie producer] Tony Visconti — and about two minutes later Bowie walks in,” he continues. “We hung out for about half an hour, fiddling around with guitars. His assistant says, ‘We’ll call you in the next couple weeks.’ But the phone rang the next day and they said, ‘If you want it, you got it.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the following weeks, the band — filled out by saxophonist Richard Grando, percussionist Pablo Rosario and backing singer Gui Andrisano — worked up radically new arrangements of Bowie’s catalog, which were strongly influenced by New York City nightlife. Bowie had become friends with guitarist Carlos Alomar — a veteran of James Brown’s and Wilson Pickett’s bands, as well as the Apollo Theater’s house band — who took the singer to the Apollo and elsewhere to see The Temptations, The Spinners and Marvin Gaye; he also hit Latin clubs and other nightspots in the city’s budding disco scene, as well as rock haunts like Max’s Kansas City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That influence was immediately felt not just in the soul covers the band played on the first leg of the tour — Eddie Floyd’s 1966 classic “Knock on Wood,” the Ohio Players’ 1968 song “Here Today and Gone Tomorrow” — but also in the reinventions of Bowie’s catalog, which went far beyond the blistering power-trio rock of the Ziggy era. “Aladdin Sane” received a Latin treatment driven by Garson’s manic piano; “Jean Genie” slowed to a lounge crawl on the verses and completely dispensed with its signature riff; even the brand-new “Rebel Rebel” got a looser tempo and jazzy backing vocals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was hanging out a lot in New York,” fan Kathy Miller recalls. “I remember seeing him and his entourage snowed in during a blizzard at a [April 22] New York Dolls show at Kenny’s Castaways, and friends of mine saw him at Puerto Rican discos, black discos. So it was not such a shock to New Yorkers that he gravitated toward that kind of music.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After dress rehearsals at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, N.Y. — “Two days? Maybe more, because that was one complicated f- – -ing thing,” Slick says — the entire production headed up the Northway to Montreal for the first of what would ultimately be 30 dates of the initial leg of the \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> tour. Not surprisingly, the opening night had more than a few rough spots. The sound system was distorted, and the catwalk plummeted dangerously to the stage floor with Bowie on it, a problem that happened more than once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The kinks were gradually worked out and the tour carried on across the Northeast and South, playing major venues — Cleveland’s Public Auditorium for two nights, Detroit’s Cobo Hall, Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium — but also many smaller, less-likely markets and theaters, like Charleston, W.Va.; Dayton and Toledo, Ohio; Norfolk, Va. While most nights went off without a hitch, the complexity of the set continued to cause problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Norfolk show, Rob Holland, then 14, recalls, “I remember the cherry-picker got stuck: It moved for a minute and then it moved again to the side of the stage, but then it got stuck and he had to get off of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On at least one other night, the cherry-picker extended to its full length but failed to retract, leaving Bowie stranded over the audience. “When he finished the song he had to shimmy along the [cherry-picker’s hydraulic] arm back to the stage,” Tony Visconti writes in the \u003cem>David Live\u003c/em> liner notes. “Members of the audience were standing on their seats trying to grab him and pull him down. On that night, this was perceived as part of the show: David made it seem to look that way, climbing back in a dramatic, purposeful way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many were dazzled by the stage and the theatrics, some weren’t so impressed. “I really liked the set, but I’ve always felt it would have been a much better show if they had really exploited it, doing \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> semi-theatrically and really using the staging,” John Neilson says. “He did use it for ‘Sweet Thing,’ but the rest of the time it just sorta loomed in the background. It was a kind of wasted opportunity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brad Elvis, formerly of The Elvis Brothers and currently in The Romantics and The Handcuffs, caught shows in Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio. “It got a good reaction, but it wasn’t like pandemonium,” he remembers. He and a couple of friends did, however, spend time with Bowie and band members at a hotel-room party after the Toledo show — where he witnessed the growing R&B influence firsthand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were about five other people in this cramped little room, and they had this big boombox,” he says. “Kind of dancey R&B was playing, and one of the [backing singers] was showing Bowie these dance moves. Everybody’s dancing, having fun, getting loose, except us — we’re watching, wide-eyed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10137766\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d-400x532.jpg\" alt=\"David Bowie onstage at Madison Square Garden in New York City on July 20, 1974\" width=\"400\" height=\"532\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-10137766\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d-400x532.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d-225x300.jpg 225w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d-1080x1440.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Bowie onstage at Madison Square Garden in New York City on July 20, 1974 \u003ccite>(Ron Galella/WireImage)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Occasionally parts of the set would be too large for a venue, forcing the crew to scale down the show, but only once on the tour’s first leg did Bowie perform without it completely. En route to Tampa, Fla., one of the drivers was stung by a bee and crashed a truck carrying key elements of the set into a swamp. Cancellation was considered but “David would not hear of it,” according to an announcement made to the crowd, and the show proceeded. During the set Bowie apologized for it not being “the show I’d hoped to bring you” and played a rare encore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the tour’s first leg reached its home stretch in mid-July, with a run of six shows at Philadelphia’s fabled Tower Theater, the show was beset by a problem that had nothing to do with technology. Eager to get a live album on the market before the tour concluded, Bowie’s then-manager, Tony Defries, arranged to have the Tower shows recorded. Live recordings ordinarily entitle the musicians to a much higher fee than Bowie’s touring group was receiving (Slick recalls getting $300 per week), but Defries attempted to sidestep that issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Back in the day, if you were recording, there were two microphones on everything: one would go to the [venue’s] sound, and one would go to the [mobile recording] truck,” Slick says. “At sound check, I didn’t think anything of it, but Herbie picked up on it right away. Tony Defries was one of the biggest f- – -ing shysters on the planet, and [earlier that day] I had gotten a letter pushed under my hotel door offering me $300 basically to give my rights over. Not long after that, Herbie is on the phone with everybody saying, ‘This is bulls- – -, we’re not gonna do this.’ Basically, with Herbie being the spokesperson, we said we ain’t going onstage until we get an agreement for X amount of money, period. They agreed to it, we signed it — and we didn’t get paid, so we sued David. We won, but it took a long, long time to get the money. I know David pitched a serious fit on Herbie, and I think he was kinda s- – – -y for a couple of days, but then everybody got past it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the bad vibes come through on \u003cem>David Live\u003c/em>, released in the fall. Bowie’s voice is strained, and the band, while competent, played better on other nights of the tour, as bootleg evidence shows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tour wrapped with two nights at Madison Square Garden, Bowie’s first performances at the venue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The stage show got a lot of advance buzz,” Kathy Miller remembers. “We couldn’t wait to see this set, and it really lived up to the expectations, it was gorgeous. But the [cherry-picker] reminded me of a telephone repairman — it was not glamorous; it was actually very \u003cem>Spinal Tap\u003c/em>! It looked dangerous and rickety — there really was a sense of, ‘Oh, my God, is this going to work?'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The shows were a triumph, and an after party was held at The Plaza, during which Bowie, Mick Jagger and Bette Midler reportedly disappeared into a walk-in closet for an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was quite an unbelievable, unbelievable headache, that tour, but it was spectacular,” Bowie told Buckley. “It was truly the first real rock ‘n’ roll theatrical show that made any sense. A lot of people feel it has never been bettered. It was something else, it really was.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite its enormous expense and problems, the tour helped drive \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> to No. 5 in the U.S. — by far his highest chart position at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>In early August, many of the band members gathered in Philadelphia to begin work on the album that would become \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em>, which is where the R&B transformation truly took hold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Bowie had originally intended to work with the house band at the city’s Sigma Sound — which had spawned hits by The O’Jays, Lou Rawls, The Three Degrees and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes — they were unavailable due to a scheduling conflict, and he brought in several members of his touring band, as well as some key new collaborators who would play a huge role in the album: Alomar; his wife, soul singer Robin Clark; and a young friend, future R&B superstar Luther Vandross. The latter two, along for the ride, were playfully riffing on one of the songs in the studio; Bowie loved it and had them sing on nearly every song. It was the first high-profile work of Vandross’ career.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although Bowie was raised on American R&B, like most British musicians of his generation — and he’d even performed James Brown’s “You Got to Have a Job” during the Ziggy Stardust era — the resulting sessions produced music that resembled nothing he had ever done before. Alomar, Sanborn and the singers became Bowie’s primary musical foils, often working in a soulful call-and-response role with him on songs like “Fascination” (a rewrite of Vandross’ composition “Funky Music”), “Somebody Up There Likes Me” and the title track. Bowie, fueled by cocaine, taxed the energy of the musicians by working largely from 11 p.m. until late the following morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(The album sessions, which resumed in November and again in January, featured two more star appearances. Bruce Springsteen, whom Bowie had admired since seeing a New York performance in 1972, visited the sessions but ultimately did not contribute to Bowie’s cover of his “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City.” More fruitful was a visit from Bowie’s new friend John Lennon, who was lured to the studio by being asked to contribute to Bowie’s excruciatingly overblown cover of Lennon’s “Across the Universe,” but ended up co-writing “Fame” — a studio creation conjured from Bowie’s cover of the Flares’ 1961 R&B hit “Footstompin’.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While he dismissed the album as “plastic” not long after its release, Bowie later recanted. “In 1976 I spouted some nonsense about the album being ‘synthetic radio stuff.’ I don’t believe that for one moment now,” he told Buckley. “I was living and breathing soul and R&B at this time. I listened to nothing else. It became America for me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>While Bowie’s cocaine appetite was severe before the ’74 tour began, it had escalated dramatically by the time dates resumed at the end of the summer. A brief second leg of the tour kicked off with a seven-night run at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, and it was at this time that director Alan Yentob interviewed Bowie and filmed the shows for the hourlong BBC documentary \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnIBBkgkO5o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cracked Actor\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. The Bowie on display there is an unsettling sight: fidgety, awkward and alarmingly thin and pale, he’s intelligent but remote and removed; at other times he’s in the throes of cocaine paranoia, wondering whether his car is being followed, sniffling and licking his gums. At one of the Universal concerts, captured on the \u003cem>A Portrait in Flesh\u003c/em> bootleg, Bowie speaks to the crowd almost exclusively in a bizarre pseudo-Italian accent, making inscrutable jokes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bowie that emerges in the documentary is so odd and otherworldly that it convinced Nicolas Roeg he’d found the perfect person to portray the alien in his forthcoming film \u003cem>The Man Who Fell to Earth\u003c/em>, which would mark Bowie’s feature-length debut the following year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the set and setlist were retained for the Universal shows and a few more Southwest dates, the show was completely re-conceived during a break over the second half of September. The city set was abandoned, and the new staging relied on dramatic lighting and clever use of silhouettes (a 50-foot shadow of Bowie was projected onto a screen behind the stage for “1984”). Bowie changed his wardrobe and hairstyle yet again, adopting a sweeping pompadour, jackets embellished with shoulder pads, a thick checkered tie, suspenders, baggy pants and occasionally a cane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of all, the band was overhauled to re-create the \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> sound: Alomar, Vandross, Clark and three other singers who performed on “Young Americans” were brought on board; and Bowie recruited his fifth different rhythm section in a year’s time: rock-solid drummer Dennis Davis (who, like Alomar, would be with Bowie for the rest of the decade) and bassist Emir Ksasan. Garson was made musical director, and Bowie’s revamped backing band became the opening act for the tour, cruising through a 30-minute set of smooth takes on songs like “Stormy Monday,” The O’Jays’ “Love Train” and Vandross’ “Funky Music” before concluding, strangest of all, with a lite-R&B treatment of Bowie’s own “Memory of a Free Festival,” a hippie anthem from his 1969 \u003cem>Space Oddity\u003c/em> album. The crowds hated them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Bowie set that followed kicked off reassuringly with either “Rebel Rebel” or “Space Oddity,” it then headed straight into R&B and ballad territory: a funked up version of “John I’m Only Dancing,” a samba-fied “Sorrow,” “Changes.” Rocked-up versions of “Moonage Daydream” and “Diamond Dogs” were thrown in, but a huge dollop of the unreleased \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> was aired on most nights — along with “Footstompin’,” which would form the basis of “Fame” — before the shows concluded with a one-two punch of “Suffragette City” and “Rock and Roll Suicide.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tour, beginning on Oct. 5 in St. Paul, Minn., soldiered across the Midwest, East and South over the ensuing seven weeks, setting up residencies in several cities — seven nights at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, six in Detroit, three in Boston — before closing in Atlanta on Dec. 1. Bowie’s precious voice, ravaged by cocaine abuse and months of touring, was hoarse on at least a few occasions. Audiences were nonplussed at best by the new production.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d bought a really glam outfit: a top with bell sleeves, skin-tight jeans and mile-high, red-leather platform boots,” recalls Lisa Seckler-Roode, who attended one of the Radio City shows. “People came dressed as Ziggy Stardust, with the Aladdin Sane lightning bolt on their faces. It was sort of like Wigstock: I remember the cops looking at the crowd and shaking their heads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But when Bowie came out in that suit,” she sighs, “I mean, he looked glorious, but it was such a change that the crowd was totally thrown — the atmosphere was just, ‘\u003cem>Huh?\u003c/em> What’s he doing now?’ In retrospect it was a very bold move, but the initial reaction was really confused. I remember going to school the following Monday: ‘How was the show?’ ‘It sucked!'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8TnXRBkYt8\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neilson recalls a similar reaction in Detroit. “The soul show threw everyone, since the album wasn’t out yet and there was a lot of new material,” he says. “The audience reaction was more polite than [hostile], for the most part, because obviously everyone loved Bowie and gave him the benefit of a doubt. But it was muted appreciation at best and probably some quiet disapproval.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least one musician onstage shared the sentiment. “I gotta be honest with you, I wasn’t terribly thrilled with it,” says Slick, whose guitar roars out at a searing volume on bootlegs during the rare occasions he got the spotlight. “[During the opening set] there wasn’t a whole lot for me to do. For the Bowie set I was back on it, but even with that, the way it was being played wasn’t rock ‘n’ roll anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bowie’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8TnXRBkYt8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">appearance on \u003cem>The Dick Cavett Show\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, taped early in November during the Radio City stint, is fascinating, mixing new, (relatively) old and obscure: The band charges through a fast “1984,” Bowie straps on his Ziggy-era 12-string acoustic as the singers groove for “Young Americans,” and concludes with the still-unreleased “Footstompin’.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Bowie is in strong form, if a bit hoarse, when performing, his interview with Cavett could function as an anti-cocaine ad. He fidgets relentlessly with a cane he used as a prop during the performance, sniffles and appears completely ill at ease — at one point Cavett asks him if he’s nervous. “Um … oh, let’s carry on talking,” he replies. “Don’t ask me that. Otherwise I’ll wonder, you see. I’d rather not know if I’m nervous until … ” he trails off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the interview, he’s perhaps most cogent when explaining his rationale for his new look and sound. “We did the \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> tour and took it from New York to Los Angeles, and I felt that that was enough, really. Rather than come back with the same thing, I wanted to give myself an opportunity just to work with the band. … I got a lot of fulfillment from working in productions like \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> or \u003cem>Ziggy Stardust\u003c/em>. But now that I’m working with just a band and singing, which is something I haven’t done for years, I’m finding a new kind of fulfillment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Judging from the reaction of fans and the tepid-to-negative reviews the show received, Bowie’s audience was not yet ready for that new kind of fulfillment.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>Somehow, from such unpromising origins, from such a turbulent, tumultuous, drug-addled year — one that saw Bowie poised for enormous success yet opting not just to challenge his audience but almost to defy it — after 73 concerts and against daunting odds, the tour helped accomplish the ultimate goal: breaking David Bowie in America. \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> reached No. 5 on the Billboard charts. \u003cem>David Live\u003c/em> went to No. 8. The \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> album hit No. 9, and the title track was his first U.S. Top 40 single, peaking at 29. And “Fame” was a global hit single, became Bowie’s first U.S. No. 1 and made him into a superstar. In 1975, he relocated to Los Angeles, launched his movie career, and became an all-around entertainer who appeared on both \u003cem>Soul Train\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Cher\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Despite its now-legendary status, Bowie’s 1974 tour is tragically ill-documented. Apart from fan-filmed super-8 footage, the only video documentation of the Hunger City set that has surfaced is Fisher and Ravitz discussing this scale model in the 1996 \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qKP4oVraDA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BBC documentary \u003cem>Hang on to Yourself\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. (the \u003cem>Cracked Actor\u003c/em> documentary shows frustratingly little of the stage). Likewise, apart from a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjoiIcF6s6Q\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">one-minute-long, professionally filmed segment from a Radio City show\u003c/a> that aired in a VH1 \u003cem>Legends\u003c/em> episode, no footage from the soul concerts has emerged, although the \u003cem>Cavett\u003c/em> show at least documents some performances. While some sources say Bowie filmed rehearsals and the Garden shows, and the VH1 footage suggests there’s more somewhere, Slick says he has no recollection of any shows being filmed.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while many, including this writer, consider \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> to be his weakest 1970s studio album, that is hardly an insult. In terms of influence, it’s hard to know where to begin: Virtually every artist bearing a trace of white soul since its release — from Robert Palmer to Duran Duran, from George Michael to Robbie Williams and far beyond — owes more than a “sho’nuff” and some hair gel to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> and the Soul Tour were way stations: like everything Bowie had done before, he ingested and used them as a foundation for what came next. In this case, it was the pioneering ice-funk of \u003cem>Station to Station\u003c/em>, arguably one of his two best albums, and one that paved the way not only for thousands of artists who were influenced by it, but also for the brilliant wave of experimentation that followed over the next five years: \u003cem>Low, Heroes, Lodger\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Scary Monsters\u003c/em>. But that’s another story …\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sources: David Buckley’s stellar liner notes to the deluxe editions of \u003c/em>Diamond Dogs\u003cem> and \u003c/em>Young Americans\u003cem>, and Tony Visconti’s for \u003c/em>David Live\u003cem>; Kevin Cann’s \u003c/em>David Bowie: Any Day Now, The London Years 1947-74\u003cem>; Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray’s \u003c/em>David Bowie: An Illustrated Record\u003cem>; Chris Carter’s “\u003ca href=\"http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gouster/introduction.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Young American” site\u003c/a>; Chris O’Leary’s “\u003ca href=\"http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pushing Ahead of the Dame” site\u003c/a>; and especially Roger Griffin’s “\u003ca href=\"http://www.bowiegoldenyears.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Golden Years” site\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Special thanks to Ira Robbins, Jennifer Kennedy, Julian Stockton and especially everyone who took the time to be interviewed for this article.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Who+Can+I+Be+Now%3F+How+David+Bowie+Spent+1974&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>To say that 1974 was a year of change and challenge for David Bowie and his fans is an understatement as extreme as the lurid outfits he’d worn as his just-abandoned alter ego, Ziggy Stardust. The incubator for the evolution was Bowie’s U.S. tour that year, which began in Montreal on June 14 — 40 years ago this weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In July of 1973, at the peak of his success, Bowie unexpectedly retired Ziggy — the character and vehicle he’d ridden to fame after nearly a decade of trying. In the months that followed, he abandoned his band, his home and the city (London) and country that spawned him. By the spring of 1974, he’d ditched the zipper haircut, platform heels and vivid glam fashions that he, more than anyone, had brought to the mainstream. And by the end of that year he’d basically abandoned rock ‘n’ roll altogether.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Beatles had acclimated the even-then largely complacent rock audience to changes of sound and vision, at the fateful age of 27, Bowie — fueled by exploding creativity, success and not least the white powder to which he’d become addicted — would try the patience of even his most dedicated fans, producing music that wasn’t dauntingly strange and experimental (that would come later), but instead \u003cem>too\u003c/em> normal and everyday for many of his fans: the R&B that saturated FM radio at the time. That style might have seemed exotic to a Brit, but it was the exact sound that most American rock fans were trying to escape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That the two studio albums associated with the tour — \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em>, released in March of ’74 was already a departure, being musically more subtle than its comparatively garish predecessor, \u003cem>Aladdin Sane\u003c/em>\u003cem>, \u003c/em>and \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em>, put out a year later and featuring Bowie’s first U.S. No. 1 single, “Fame” — made him into a star in America is perhaps the strangest twist of all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 73-date tour also underwent a stylistic change every bit as tectonic as the one Bowie’s music was undergoing. At its outset, the \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> tour was by far the most extravagant and expensive rock outing ever mounted: designed by Broadway veterans Jules Fisher and Mark Ravitz and choreographed by Toni Basil, it featured a towering set depicting the post-apocalyptic city in which the loosely conceptual album was based. It included a catwalk that lowered from the rafters to stage level and a cherry-picker that lofted Bowie 40 feet above the first dozen rows of the audience (and occasionally failed to bring him back). But after 10 weeks of shows, due to expense or boredom, he abandoned the set and the setlist, going for a more stripped-down presentation and an overhauled R&B sound.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I sunk myself back into the music that I considered the bedrock of all popular music: R&B and soul,” Bowie recalled to writer David Buckley years later. “I guess from the outside it seemed to be a pretty drastic move. I think I probably lost as many fans as I gained new ones.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s one of the most drastic image/sound changes in the modern era, and it was just the beginning of the transformations Bowie would make over the next several years. Over the course of the tour, Bowie would drive himself, his band and his audience to the brink: himself to the edge of exhaustion via the physical challenges of the show, overwork and drug abuse; his band to the brink of its musical abilities, energy and salary requirements; his audience to the brink of its patience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I went to the \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> show [in June] expecting something like Ziggy Stardust,” said fan John Neilson, who caught both incarnations of the tour in Detroit. “And then in October I expected to see something like \u003cem>Diamond Dogs,\u003c/em> and it was the soul revue. It might as well have been a completely different artist.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>The basis for the tour and its initial extravagant set lay in \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em>‘ post-apocalyptic world of street urchins and nefarious characters, like Halloween Jack; the album was the end result of an unsuccessful attempt to create a rock musical from George Orwell’s \u003cem>1984\u003c/em>, which had been blocked by Orwell’s widow. While the album — and its classic lead single, “Rebel Rebel,” which was finishing a Top 5 run in the U.K. at the time Bowie arrived in New York on April 11 — retained elements of the aborted musical, like \u003cem>Ziggy Stardust\u003c/em>, it’s a loose concept album not bound to a straight storyline; the songs act as signposts around which listeners can create their own narrative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10137767\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/482119303_master_vert-69d403a3c9185e94733faff07a6c88c8e8cbd2a4.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10137767 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/482119303_master_vert-69d403a3c9185e94733faff07a6c88c8e8cbd2a4-400x533.jpg\" alt=\"David Bowie in February 1974 in the Netherlands.\" width=\"400\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/482119303_master_vert-69d403a3c9185e94733faff07a6c88c8e8cbd2a4-400x533.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/482119303_master_vert-69d403a3c9185e94733faff07a6c88c8e8cbd2a4-1079x1440.jpg 1079w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Bowie in February 1974 in the Netherlands. \u003ccite>(Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I had in my mind this kind of half \u003cem>Wild Boys/1984\u003c/em> world, and there were these ragamuffins, but they were a bit more violent than ragamuffins,” Bowie told Buckley. “They’d taken over this barren city, this city that was falling apart. … I had the Diamond Dogs living in the streets. They were all little Johnny Rottens and Sid Viciouses, really.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That storyline carried over to the show. Framed by towering skyscrapers, Bowie moved from one elaborate scenario to another: He performed “Sweet Thing” from the catwalk as it gradually lowered to the stage floor; was projected over the audience via the cherry-picker as he sang “Space Oddity” into a red telephone microphone; French-kissed a skull during “Cracked Actor”; sang “Time” behind a giant hand festooned with blinking light bulbs that dropped to reveal Bowie inside a neon light box; performed an elaborate walking mime during “Aladdin Sane” very reminiscent of Michael Jackson’s world-famous Moonwalk, unveiled a decade later (Jackson attended one of Bowie’s shows in Los Angeles in September). The Ziggy-era platforms and costumes were replaced by a suave new Bowie, clad in an Yves St. Laurent suit and flat shoes, with a bright orange but calm soul-boy haircut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bowie’s new band was equally state of the art. Herbie Flowers — who’d worked with Bowie since the mid-’60s and played the timeless bassline on Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” — and drummer Tony Newman were veteran British session musicians who’d played on \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em>. Virtuoso pianist Michael Garson and backing singer Geoff MacCormack (aka Warren Peace) remained from Bowie’s 1973 band. Classically trained New Yorker Michael Kamen — a future Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated film composer whose scoring work for the Joffrey Ballet had impressed Bowie — was enlisted as musical director. Kamen brought along two musicians from his former rock bands: future superstar jazz saxophonist David Sanborn and 22-year-old guitarist Earl Slick, who would work with Bowie many times in the coming decades, and also performed on John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s \u003cem>Double Fantasy\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latter got a call from Kamen one day in April and was told he’d be hearing from an important musician he refused to identify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I get a phone call from the Bowie people the next day and they set up an audition — which is the weirdest f- – -ing thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Slick, who speaks in a Brooklynese as rapid-fire as his solos, recalls. “David’s personal assistant meets me at RCA Studios in New York, and she walks me not to the control room, which is dark, but into the main studio. I get out my guitar and I hear a voice with an American accent saying, ‘Hey, how ya doin’? Put the headphones on. We’re gonna play you some tracks, just play along.’ I say, ‘What key are they in?’ He says, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ And he just starts rolling tape! I’m playing over tracks from \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em>, which [hadn’t been released yet] — I’ve never heard these songs, I don’t know what I’m doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m out there for maybe 15 minutes and there’s a little bit of chatter between me and this American guy — who turns out to be [longtime Bowie producer] Tony Visconti — and about two minutes later Bowie walks in,” he continues. “We hung out for about half an hour, fiddling around with guitars. His assistant says, ‘We’ll call you in the next couple weeks.’ But the phone rang the next day and they said, ‘If you want it, you got it.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the following weeks, the band — filled out by saxophonist Richard Grando, percussionist Pablo Rosario and backing singer Gui Andrisano — worked up radically new arrangements of Bowie’s catalog, which were strongly influenced by New York City nightlife. Bowie had become friends with guitarist Carlos Alomar — a veteran of James Brown’s and Wilson Pickett’s bands, as well as the Apollo Theater’s house band — who took the singer to the Apollo and elsewhere to see The Temptations, The Spinners and Marvin Gaye; he also hit Latin clubs and other nightspots in the city’s budding disco scene, as well as rock haunts like Max’s Kansas City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That influence was immediately felt not just in the soul covers the band played on the first leg of the tour — Eddie Floyd’s 1966 classic “Knock on Wood,” the Ohio Players’ 1968 song “Here Today and Gone Tomorrow” — but also in the reinventions of Bowie’s catalog, which went far beyond the blistering power-trio rock of the Ziggy era. “Aladdin Sane” received a Latin treatment driven by Garson’s manic piano; “Jean Genie” slowed to a lounge crawl on the verses and completely dispensed with its signature riff; even the brand-new “Rebel Rebel” got a looser tempo and jazzy backing vocals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was hanging out a lot in New York,” fan Kathy Miller recalls. “I remember seeing him and his entourage snowed in during a blizzard at a [April 22] New York Dolls show at Kenny’s Castaways, and friends of mine saw him at Puerto Rican discos, black discos. So it was not such a shock to New Yorkers that he gravitated toward that kind of music.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After dress rehearsals at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, N.Y. — “Two days? Maybe more, because that was one complicated f- – -ing thing,” Slick says — the entire production headed up the Northway to Montreal for the first of what would ultimately be 30 dates of the initial leg of the \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> tour. Not surprisingly, the opening night had more than a few rough spots. The sound system was distorted, and the catwalk plummeted dangerously to the stage floor with Bowie on it, a problem that happened more than once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The kinks were gradually worked out and the tour carried on across the Northeast and South, playing major venues — Cleveland’s Public Auditorium for two nights, Detroit’s Cobo Hall, Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium — but also many smaller, less-likely markets and theaters, like Charleston, W.Va.; Dayton and Toledo, Ohio; Norfolk, Va. While most nights went off without a hitch, the complexity of the set continued to cause problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Norfolk show, Rob Holland, then 14, recalls, “I remember the cherry-picker got stuck: It moved for a minute and then it moved again to the side of the stage, but then it got stuck and he had to get off of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On at least one other night, the cherry-picker extended to its full length but failed to retract, leaving Bowie stranded over the audience. “When he finished the song he had to shimmy along the [cherry-picker’s hydraulic] arm back to the stage,” Tony Visconti writes in the \u003cem>David Live\u003c/em> liner notes. “Members of the audience were standing on their seats trying to grab him and pull him down. On that night, this was perceived as part of the show: David made it seem to look that way, climbing back in a dramatic, purposeful way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many were dazzled by the stage and the theatrics, some weren’t so impressed. “I really liked the set, but I’ve always felt it would have been a much better show if they had really exploited it, doing \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> semi-theatrically and really using the staging,” John Neilson says. “He did use it for ‘Sweet Thing,’ but the rest of the time it just sorta loomed in the background. It was a kind of wasted opportunity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brad Elvis, formerly of The Elvis Brothers and currently in The Romantics and The Handcuffs, caught shows in Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio. “It got a good reaction, but it wasn’t like pandemonium,” he remembers. He and a couple of friends did, however, spend time with Bowie and band members at a hotel-room party after the Toledo show — where he witnessed the growing R&B influence firsthand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were about five other people in this cramped little room, and they had this big boombox,” he says. “Kind of dancey R&B was playing, and one of the [backing singers] was showing Bowie these dance moves. Everybody’s dancing, having fun, getting loose, except us — we’re watching, wide-eyed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10137766\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d-400x532.jpg\" alt=\"David Bowie onstage at Madison Square Garden in New York City on July 20, 1974\" width=\"400\" height=\"532\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-10137766\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d-400x532.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d-225x300.jpg 225w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d-1080x1440.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Bowie onstage at Madison Square Garden in New York City on July 20, 1974 \u003ccite>(Ron Galella/WireImage)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Occasionally parts of the set would be too large for a venue, forcing the crew to scale down the show, but only once on the tour’s first leg did Bowie perform without it completely. En route to Tampa, Fla., one of the drivers was stung by a bee and crashed a truck carrying key elements of the set into a swamp. Cancellation was considered but “David would not hear of it,” according to an announcement made to the crowd, and the show proceeded. During the set Bowie apologized for it not being “the show I’d hoped to bring you” and played a rare encore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the tour’s first leg reached its home stretch in mid-July, with a run of six shows at Philadelphia’s fabled Tower Theater, the show was beset by a problem that had nothing to do with technology. Eager to get a live album on the market before the tour concluded, Bowie’s then-manager, Tony Defries, arranged to have the Tower shows recorded. Live recordings ordinarily entitle the musicians to a much higher fee than Bowie’s touring group was receiving (Slick recalls getting $300 per week), but Defries attempted to sidestep that issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Back in the day, if you were recording, there were two microphones on everything: one would go to the [venue’s] sound, and one would go to the [mobile recording] truck,” Slick says. “At sound check, I didn’t think anything of it, but Herbie picked up on it right away. Tony Defries was one of the biggest f- – -ing shysters on the planet, and [earlier that day] I had gotten a letter pushed under my hotel door offering me $300 basically to give my rights over. Not long after that, Herbie is on the phone with everybody saying, ‘This is bulls- – -, we’re not gonna do this.’ Basically, with Herbie being the spokesperson, we said we ain’t going onstage until we get an agreement for X amount of money, period. They agreed to it, we signed it — and we didn’t get paid, so we sued David. We won, but it took a long, long time to get the money. I know David pitched a serious fit on Herbie, and I think he was kinda s- – – -y for a couple of days, but then everybody got past it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the bad vibes come through on \u003cem>David Live\u003c/em>, released in the fall. Bowie’s voice is strained, and the band, while competent, played better on other nights of the tour, as bootleg evidence shows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tour wrapped with two nights at Madison Square Garden, Bowie’s first performances at the venue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The stage show got a lot of advance buzz,” Kathy Miller remembers. “We couldn’t wait to see this set, and it really lived up to the expectations, it was gorgeous. But the [cherry-picker] reminded me of a telephone repairman — it was not glamorous; it was actually very \u003cem>Spinal Tap\u003c/em>! It looked dangerous and rickety — there really was a sense of, ‘Oh, my God, is this going to work?'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The shows were a triumph, and an after party was held at The Plaza, during which Bowie, Mick Jagger and Bette Midler reportedly disappeared into a walk-in closet for an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was quite an unbelievable, unbelievable headache, that tour, but it was spectacular,” Bowie told Buckley. “It was truly the first real rock ‘n’ roll theatrical show that made any sense. A lot of people feel it has never been bettered. It was something else, it really was.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite its enormous expense and problems, the tour helped drive \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> to No. 5 in the U.S. — by far his highest chart position at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>In early August, many of the band members gathered in Philadelphia to begin work on the album that would become \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em>, which is where the R&B transformation truly took hold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Bowie had originally intended to work with the house band at the city’s Sigma Sound — which had spawned hits by The O’Jays, Lou Rawls, The Three Degrees and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes — they were unavailable due to a scheduling conflict, and he brought in several members of his touring band, as well as some key new collaborators who would play a huge role in the album: Alomar; his wife, soul singer Robin Clark; and a young friend, future R&B superstar Luther Vandross. The latter two, along for the ride, were playfully riffing on one of the songs in the studio; Bowie loved it and had them sing on nearly every song. It was the first high-profile work of Vandross’ career.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although Bowie was raised on American R&B, like most British musicians of his generation — and he’d even performed James Brown’s “You Got to Have a Job” during the Ziggy Stardust era — the resulting sessions produced music that resembled nothing he had ever done before. Alomar, Sanborn and the singers became Bowie’s primary musical foils, often working in a soulful call-and-response role with him on songs like “Fascination” (a rewrite of Vandross’ composition “Funky Music”), “Somebody Up There Likes Me” and the title track. Bowie, fueled by cocaine, taxed the energy of the musicians by working largely from 11 p.m. until late the following morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(The album sessions, which resumed in November and again in January, featured two more star appearances. Bruce Springsteen, whom Bowie had admired since seeing a New York performance in 1972, visited the sessions but ultimately did not contribute to Bowie’s cover of his “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City.” More fruitful was a visit from Bowie’s new friend John Lennon, who was lured to the studio by being asked to contribute to Bowie’s excruciatingly overblown cover of Lennon’s “Across the Universe,” but ended up co-writing “Fame” — a studio creation conjured from Bowie’s cover of the Flares’ 1961 R&B hit “Footstompin’.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While he dismissed the album as “plastic” not long after its release, Bowie later recanted. “In 1976 I spouted some nonsense about the album being ‘synthetic radio stuff.’ I don’t believe that for one moment now,” he told Buckley. “I was living and breathing soul and R&B at this time. I listened to nothing else. It became America for me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>While Bowie’s cocaine appetite was severe before the ’74 tour began, it had escalated dramatically by the time dates resumed at the end of the summer. A brief second leg of the tour kicked off with a seven-night run at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, and it was at this time that director Alan Yentob interviewed Bowie and filmed the shows for the hourlong BBC documentary \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnIBBkgkO5o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cracked Actor\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. The Bowie on display there is an unsettling sight: fidgety, awkward and alarmingly thin and pale, he’s intelligent but remote and removed; at other times he’s in the throes of cocaine paranoia, wondering whether his car is being followed, sniffling and licking his gums. At one of the Universal concerts, captured on the \u003cem>A Portrait in Flesh\u003c/em> bootleg, Bowie speaks to the crowd almost exclusively in a bizarre pseudo-Italian accent, making inscrutable jokes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bowie that emerges in the documentary is so odd and otherworldly that it convinced Nicolas Roeg he’d found the perfect person to portray the alien in his forthcoming film \u003cem>The Man Who Fell to Earth\u003c/em>, which would mark Bowie’s feature-length debut the following year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the set and setlist were retained for the Universal shows and a few more Southwest dates, the show was completely re-conceived during a break over the second half of September. The city set was abandoned, and the new staging relied on dramatic lighting and clever use of silhouettes (a 50-foot shadow of Bowie was projected onto a screen behind the stage for “1984”). Bowie changed his wardrobe and hairstyle yet again, adopting a sweeping pompadour, jackets embellished with shoulder pads, a thick checkered tie, suspenders, baggy pants and occasionally a cane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of all, the band was overhauled to re-create the \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> sound: Alomar, Vandross, Clark and three other singers who performed on “Young Americans” were brought on board; and Bowie recruited his fifth different rhythm section in a year’s time: rock-solid drummer Dennis Davis (who, like Alomar, would be with Bowie for the rest of the decade) and bassist Emir Ksasan. Garson was made musical director, and Bowie’s revamped backing band became the opening act for the tour, cruising through a 30-minute set of smooth takes on songs like “Stormy Monday,” The O’Jays’ “Love Train” and Vandross’ “Funky Music” before concluding, strangest of all, with a lite-R&B treatment of Bowie’s own “Memory of a Free Festival,” a hippie anthem from his 1969 \u003cem>Space Oddity\u003c/em> album. The crowds hated them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Bowie set that followed kicked off reassuringly with either “Rebel Rebel” or “Space Oddity,” it then headed straight into R&B and ballad territory: a funked up version of “John I’m Only Dancing,” a samba-fied “Sorrow,” “Changes.” Rocked-up versions of “Moonage Daydream” and “Diamond Dogs” were thrown in, but a huge dollop of the unreleased \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> was aired on most nights — along with “Footstompin’,” which would form the basis of “Fame” — before the shows concluded with a one-two punch of “Suffragette City” and “Rock and Roll Suicide.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tour, beginning on Oct. 5 in St. Paul, Minn., soldiered across the Midwest, East and South over the ensuing seven weeks, setting up residencies in several cities — seven nights at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, six in Detroit, three in Boston — before closing in Atlanta on Dec. 1. Bowie’s precious voice, ravaged by cocaine abuse and months of touring, was hoarse on at least a few occasions. Audiences were nonplussed at best by the new production.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d bought a really glam outfit: a top with bell sleeves, skin-tight jeans and mile-high, red-leather platform boots,” recalls Lisa Seckler-Roode, who attended one of the Radio City shows. “People came dressed as Ziggy Stardust, with the Aladdin Sane lightning bolt on their faces. It was sort of like Wigstock: I remember the cops looking at the crowd and shaking their heads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But when Bowie came out in that suit,” she sighs, “I mean, he looked glorious, but it was such a change that the crowd was totally thrown — the atmosphere was just, ‘\u003cem>Huh?\u003c/em> What’s he doing now?’ In retrospect it was a very bold move, but the initial reaction was really confused. I remember going to school the following Monday: ‘How was the show?’ ‘It sucked!'”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/P8TnXRBkYt8'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/P8TnXRBkYt8'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Neilson recalls a similar reaction in Detroit. “The soul show threw everyone, since the album wasn’t out yet and there was a lot of new material,” he says. “The audience reaction was more polite than [hostile], for the most part, because obviously everyone loved Bowie and gave him the benefit of a doubt. But it was muted appreciation at best and probably some quiet disapproval.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least one musician onstage shared the sentiment. “I gotta be honest with you, I wasn’t terribly thrilled with it,” says Slick, whose guitar roars out at a searing volume on bootlegs during the rare occasions he got the spotlight. “[During the opening set] there wasn’t a whole lot for me to do. For the Bowie set I was back on it, but even with that, the way it was being played wasn’t rock ‘n’ roll anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bowie’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8TnXRBkYt8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">appearance on \u003cem>The Dick Cavett Show\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, taped early in November during the Radio City stint, is fascinating, mixing new, (relatively) old and obscure: The band charges through a fast “1984,” Bowie straps on his Ziggy-era 12-string acoustic as the singers groove for “Young Americans,” and concludes with the still-unreleased “Footstompin’.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Bowie is in strong form, if a bit hoarse, when performing, his interview with Cavett could function as an anti-cocaine ad. He fidgets relentlessly with a cane he used as a prop during the performance, sniffles and appears completely ill at ease — at one point Cavett asks him if he’s nervous. “Um … oh, let’s carry on talking,” he replies. “Don’t ask me that. Otherwise I’ll wonder, you see. I’d rather not know if I’m nervous until … ” he trails off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the interview, he’s perhaps most cogent when explaining his rationale for his new look and sound. “We did the \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> tour and took it from New York to Los Angeles, and I felt that that was enough, really. Rather than come back with the same thing, I wanted to give myself an opportunity just to work with the band. … I got a lot of fulfillment from working in productions like \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> or \u003cem>Ziggy Stardust\u003c/em>. But now that I’m working with just a band and singing, which is something I haven’t done for years, I’m finding a new kind of fulfillment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Judging from the reaction of fans and the tepid-to-negative reviews the show received, Bowie’s audience was not yet ready for that new kind of fulfillment.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>Somehow, from such unpromising origins, from such a turbulent, tumultuous, drug-addled year — one that saw Bowie poised for enormous success yet opting not just to challenge his audience but almost to defy it — after 73 concerts and against daunting odds, the tour helped accomplish the ultimate goal: breaking David Bowie in America. \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> reached No. 5 on the Billboard charts. \u003cem>David Live\u003c/em> went to No. 8. The \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> album hit No. 9, and the title track was his first U.S. Top 40 single, peaking at 29. And “Fame” was a global hit single, became Bowie’s first U.S. No. 1 and made him into a superstar. In 1975, he relocated to Los Angeles, launched his movie career, and became an all-around entertainer who appeared on both \u003cem>Soul Train\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Cher\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Despite its now-legendary status, Bowie’s 1974 tour is tragically ill-documented. Apart from fan-filmed super-8 footage, the only video documentation of the Hunger City set that has surfaced is Fisher and Ravitz discussing this scale model in the 1996 \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qKP4oVraDA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BBC documentary \u003cem>Hang on to Yourself\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. (the \u003cem>Cracked Actor\u003c/em> documentary shows frustratingly little of the stage). Likewise, apart from a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjoiIcF6s6Q\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">one-minute-long, professionally filmed segment from a Radio City show\u003c/a> that aired in a VH1 \u003cem>Legends\u003c/em> episode, no footage from the soul concerts has emerged, although the \u003cem>Cavett\u003c/em> show at least documents some performances. While some sources say Bowie filmed rehearsals and the Garden shows, and the VH1 footage suggests there’s more somewhere, Slick says he has no recollection of any shows being filmed.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while many, including this writer, consider \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> to be his weakest 1970s studio album, that is hardly an insult. In terms of influence, it’s hard to know where to begin: Virtually every artist bearing a trace of white soul since its release — from Robert Palmer to Duran Duran, from George Michael to Robbie Williams and far beyond — owes more than a “sho’nuff” and some hair gel to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> and the Soul Tour were way stations: like everything Bowie had done before, he ingested and used them as a foundation for what came next. In this case, it was the pioneering ice-funk of \u003cem>Station to Station\u003c/em>, arguably one of his two best albums, and one that paved the way not only for thousands of artists who were influenced by it, but also for the brilliant wave of experimentation that followed over the next five years: \u003cem>Low, Heroes, Lodger\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Scary Monsters\u003c/em>. But that’s another story …\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sources: David Buckley’s stellar liner notes to the deluxe editions of \u003c/em>Diamond Dogs\u003cem> and \u003c/em>Young Americans\u003cem>, and Tony Visconti’s for \u003c/em>David Live\u003cem>; Kevin Cann’s \u003c/em>David Bowie: Any Day Now, The London Years 1947-74\u003cem>; Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray’s \u003c/em>David Bowie: An Illustrated Record\u003cem>; Chris Carter’s “\u003ca href=\"http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gouster/introduction.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Young American” site\u003c/a>; Chris O’Leary’s “\u003ca href=\"http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pushing Ahead of the Dame” site\u003c/a>; and especially Roger Griffin’s “\u003ca href=\"http://www.bowiegoldenyears.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Golden Years” site\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Special thanks to Ira Robbins, Jennifer Kennedy, Julian Stockton and especially everyone who took the time to be interviewed for this article.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Who+Can+I+Be+Now%3F+How+David+Bowie+Spent+1974&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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},
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"info": "The day's top stories from BBC News compiled twice daily in the week, once at weekends.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BBC-World-Service-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
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},
"californiareport": {
"id": "californiareport",
"title": "The California Report",
"tagline": "California, day by day",
"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
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"order": 8
},
"link": "/californiareport",
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},
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"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
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"order": 10
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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},
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"order": 1
},
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
},
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"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"source": "NPR"
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 18
},
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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