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Beatles Get Back to Mono Vinyl (& The Lost Tribal Ritual of Reading Liner Notes)

9/10/2014

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BEATLES GET BACK TO MONO VINYL by Alan L. Chrisman

In honor of the recent re-release of the original Beatles on Mono LP’S set, I thought I’d write some reflections of all the changes that have happened, in how we listen to music.

It’s kind of ironic, because, there has been a real return to vinyl, even among whole new generations, let alone people like the baby Boomers who grew up with it.  Many people now get their music directly through downloading (and don’t even think of paying for it and helping support the artists who make it), so it’s actually become harder than ever for musicians to make a living.

“ Has the McDonaldization of music , with its constant accessibility, taken something away from the music itself”

I wrote the above words back in 1989, for an Ottawa, Canada Carleton University newspaper, when CD’s were supposed to be the new format, which would sound better and last forever.  And just today, I heard that Ottawa’s CD Warehouse (nominated once as the best music store in Canada) is closing their doors after 24 years.  Of course, as with the DVD video format, people have changed the way they consume music and film.  And “consume” is perhaps the fitting word.  Like fast food restaurants we, a lot of us anyway, want to just gobble it down 24/7.

But some of us still remembe, how we would, after saving up our money as kids, finally be able to afford the latest LP.  The Beatles’ especially, seem to have a new album out about every 6 months or so (groups today are lucky to get one out every few years).  Every Beatles’ record was a quantum leap from the previous one- from Rubber Soul to Revolver to Sgt. Peppers’ to The White Album to Abbey Road.  And the other leaders in rock at the time, like Dylan and the Stones, did the same thing, and we as fans had to make the jumps too.

But it was then a whole ritual we went through. You couldn’t wait to rush home, after waiting so long to finally have a copy and tear off the plastic wrapping, like it was Xmas, and gaze at the a cover.  For there was a real art to designing covers then,  especially after Sgt. Peppers’ psychedelic one, and as with the music inside, musicians were constantly trying to outdo each other artistically, but in a friendly rivals way, which made us all grow, artists and audience alike.  Then we would pop it on the turntable and play it for the first time.  But at the same time, we’d read  over the back cover and the often printed lyrics and liner notes, noting who’s singing what song  and who’s playing what instrument and which musicians are guesting on it, etc.  Albums were albums then, each one had a certain "flow" or feel to it; artists and producers worked hard to position each song for variety, etc. and sometimes with even an overall concept behind it.  Kids these days download songs separately and thus it doesn't have the same impact.  Instead of a three-minute statement, an artist had a  whole side or two of an LP to explore his or her expressions.  I think that's why so many of those albums still stand up.

I know it probably sounds strange to some people who didn’t grow up with it this way, like some fancy chef going on and on about the proper way to savor a fine wine or meal.  But that is what it was like for so many of us back then.  It was a ritual and rituals are important.  There is something to be said, even for having to wait for things in life, in the same way, which children still appreciate, after anticipating a present, getting up early Xmas morning, and finally getting it.  There’s just something about having to work and earning its reward.  Getting a new album, felt like that to us.  

I wrote those above words about the taking for granting our music, 25 years ago now.  And perhaps, we did lose something in the process, in this fast paced world of the internet and social media, where everything, for good and bad, is available to us all, anytime.  

Times change, and that’s just life too.  But as Marshall Mcluhan told us, each media also changes the message. There were first, Thomas Edison’s wax cylinders, 78 rpm’s, 33’s, 45 singles, LP’s, 8- tracks , cassettes, CD’s and now MP3’s, downloading, streaming-each for its time.   Analog vinyl, which several musicians like Neil Young have long maintained (Young has recently announced his own process), most experts now agree, has a “warmer” sound than digital (and these are the first re-releases that went back to the original mono analog masters).  Steve Berkowitz, one of engineers on the new project states, “the intention of these records is only realized in analog, because they made them in analog. People will feel it differently. There are sounds and feelings and spaces that the human animal reacts to, whether you know it or not. It's innate in us in as animals."

Generations since then may not be aware of these differences, because they haven’t actually heard them, especially using the portable devices of today.  The Beatles themselves actually took part in the mixing of the original mono versions, whereas, the later stereo versions were usually mixed by engineers only. So this is the way the Beatles originally intended them to be heard.

People laughed at me when I wrote those words and when I even predicted a comeback for vinyl one day.  At the time, I was running a vinyl store called Get Back! Records (a take-off on both The Beatles and my hope that vinyl would come back one day).  I ran vinyl stores for 30 years, opening perhaps the first used one in Ottawa, Canada in 1972.  The owner of the Ottawa CD store that just announced its closing, said that vinyl sales have actually been increasing by two or three times every year, these past few years.  It’s still admittedly, a relatively small minority market, but many bands, both new and old (including McCartney’s latest), are now also available on vinyl.   The Beatles box set of 14 LP’s is $375 (and doesn’t contain Abbey Road, Let It Be or Yellow Submarine, because they were recorded in stereo) and is mainly for collectors (individual albums can also purchased though). 

All I can say is, I can still remember first hearing, The Beatles’ Yesterday and Today album , which Capitol Records complied from the British LP’s  and called it (and later withdrew the legendary, rare “Butcher Cover”),  growing up in the States in 1966.  And it was the original mono version (which I still have, amazingly) with “Day Tripper” coming out of my speakers in Mono and feeling like The Beatles were right there in my university room.  There’s something to be said, as I say, for these often tribal youth rituals which human beings still seem to need, and the somewhat surprising return to vinyl by many young people too, these past several years.  They remind us, that despite all the changes, some things are timeless.  Get Back to MONO!  Read Alan Chrisman’s other recent blog on his meeting several people from the Beatles Beginnings:  Meeting Beatles People from the Mono Days         www.beatlely.wordpress.com

OTTAWA CITIZEN ARTICLE on ALAN CHRISMAN’S “GET BACK! RECORDS” VINYL STORE, 1999:

 

 

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"BABY BLUE" & BADFINGER: THE AMAZING SAGA OF A BAND

9/4/2014

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”BABY BLUE” & BADFINGER: THE AMAZING SAGA OF A BAND by Alan L. Chrisman

Badfinger has always been one of my favorite bands. Badfinger was a Beatles-produced band in the early 70’ who had 4 albums  and 4 top singles on the Beatles’ label, Apple Records. Amazingly, one of my favorite songs by them “Baby Blue” had a resurgence in 2013, as it was chosen for the final episode of the popular Breaking Bad TV show, and it ended up back in the charts at no. 14.  Some people may not know they also wrote the song, ”Without You” which Harry Nilsson had a number one hit with in 1972 and Mariah Carey in ’94.

Originally called The Iveys, they were the first non-Beatles band signed to their new Apple label in 1968.  They changed their name to “Badfinger” after an incident when John Lennon had hurt his finger playing what was later to be the Beatles’ song, “With A Little Help from My Friends”. Paul McCartney wrote and produced their first big hit, “Come And Get It”, which was on their first Badfinger album, the soundtrack to the Peter Sellers movie Magic Christian Music, produced by Tony Visconti, later David Bowie’s producer.  Their next album, “No Dice” had the afore-mentioned “Without You” and “No Matter What” hits released in 1970.  Their 3rd Apple release was the solid “Straight Up” LP with “Baby Blue” produced by Todd Rundgren and “Day After Day”, produced by George Harrison.

The four members of the band were originally from Wales and  Liverpool ( Pete Ham, guitar, Tom Evans, bass and Mike Gibbons, drums, Joey Molland guitar).  Molland even looked similar to McCartney. They all four wrote songs so catchy that people often took them for the Beatles and their harmonies. They also played on several Beatles’ solo albums like Harrison’s All Things Must Pass and Ringo’s single,”It Don’t Come Easy”. And they played at Harrison’s Bangladesh Benefit Concert in ’71 and Ham with Harrison for his “Here Comes The Sun” duet.

But then fate was to turn on this storied band, for the Beatles broke up in 1970, just at the height of Badfinger’s success, with their record label in lawsuits and Badfinger’s money too tied up for years afterward. They released their final album for Apple, Ass, in 1973, with their goodbye song ” Apple of My Eye”. Afterwards, they got a deal with Warners Bros label, and released two decent albums Badfinger and Wish You Were Here in 1974. But they also met an unscrupulous new manager and he disappeared with the advance money the record company had given them and that put them on the financial hook for his actions and wouldn’t publicize their albums or release any future ones. .  They went back in Apple’s studio one last time to record Head First, but it wasn’t released until 2000.  And it was only the beginning of their troubles, for their main songwriter, Pete Ham, was found hanged in April, 1975.  The remaining members tried to carry on in various bands and solo projects for the next several years.   Molland and Evans recorded a “comeback” album Back on The Airways for Electra in ’79.  It’s actually, one of their best, I think, besides their Apple releases, with several quite good songs on it like the title rocker and the Beatlely ballad single, “Love Is Gonna Come at Last”; I recommend it if you can find it.

I actually met the remaining members and got their autographs when they played Ottawa, Canada’s Barrymore’s Hall in the early 80’s.  They released another decent album “Say No More” in ’81.  But soon they fell apart again and at one time, there were two rival touring bands, one led by Evans, one by Molland, both claiming to be Badfinger.  This led to more lawsuits and money woes and tragically, in Nov. ’83, Tom Evans also committed suicide, still evidently despondent over his earlier bandmate, Pete Ham’s, death eight years before.

Thus Badfinger’s story became more known for its tragedy than its music often, unfortunately. All the members had recorded various solo projects that were finally released over the years: Pete Ham’s 7 Park Avenue (’97) and Golder’s Green (’99); Tom Evan’s Over You: The Final Tracks(’95) and Molland has 4 albums After The Pearl (’85), The Pilgrim(’92),This Way Up(2001) and Return To Memphis (2013). Badfinger fans are advised to check them out for they all contain some well-written songs.  I met member, Joey Molland, again at the Connecticut Beatles’ Convention in’94 and he signed my beloved original Apple album Staight Up.  Goldmine collector’s magazine said that Straight Up was the most requested out-of- print album in 1988 their subscribers wanted released again.  Under pressure, Apple Records did re-release their Badfinger albums on CD , as Come And Get It: The Best Of Badfinger in 1995 and the Very Best Of Badfinger in 2000.

Finally in 2013, the surviving member of Badfinger, Molland, (drummer Gibbons died in Florida in 2005) and the other members’ families got their royalty payments settled in court.  Pete Ham’s song “Without You” alone was worth over a half million dollars for his in ’94, when Mariah Carey had hit again with it.  With Breaking Bad’s re-hit of “Baby Blue, 42 years after its first release, there would be no doubt more to come. 

So the amazing story of Badfinger was to be fated both good (produced by and played with The Beatles) and bad.  Dan Matovina’s book, Without You: The Tragic Story of Badfinger was written in 1998 and re-issued in 200O.

But to me, what’s important is their great music, that’s stood the test of time and I was lucky to get to meet them and hear them play their songs.  Badfinger remains one of my favorite bands and their songs have proven to last.   One of the bands I managed, played “ Baby Blue” , especially for me,  at the Ottawa Beatles’ Conventions I organized.   For You, Baby Blue.

 

 

 


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May 08th, 2014

8/26/2014

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Lewinsky,The Clintons, Donald Sterling & Political Correctness

An Essay about Our Times by Alan L. Chrisman, 2014

Monika Lewinsky says in the June issue of Vanity Fair that she is still being vilified over the Clinton affair.  And it’s created quite a reaction. How dare she drudge up this scandal again!  Media panelists’ have complained that she just move on with her life.  But she maintains she has tried, but has been unable to find jobs (despite going to the London School of Economics).  One female pundit said she could have volunteered to aid in Africa (like Bill Clinton and Bill Gates’ foundation) or changed her name, etc.   Male P.R. consultants said she should have just re-created a new public “narrative” as ex-President Clinton has done.  America just loves a comeback story.

I always thought it strange that it was, ironically, the female feminists who most criticized her but forgave Bill Clinton, the womanizer.  Of course they were mainly Democrats and consider themselves and him progressive, so it could be excused.  And there is a whole history of ‘progressives’ like the Kennedy’s being womanizers and it being dismissed.  Of course, they can’t wait for Hillary to run for President in 2016.  I recommend you read Roger Morris’s “Partners in Power”: The Clintons and their America, to get another view.   CNN host, Don Lemmon, said Lewinsky should have been more mature, as he was when her age he hinted, than to have an affair with a married man.   Lewinsky was an intern at the White House but only in her early 20’s when she became involved with the most powerful “boss” on earth.  But we have long had a double standard for males and male politicians.  At the worse, they became jokes like Anthony Weiner and Elliot Spitzer or right-wing fundamentalists, caught with their pants down.  But as Lewinsky argues, we continue to blame the women.  I was surprised myself, when my own mother had said at the time of the Clinton scandal, that it was Lewinsky’s fault.

We live, and have for a while now, in a time of political correctness.  People outside the U.S .(as in Canada, where I now live) often have this view of America as a very religious, conservative place.  Canadians see themselves as more liberal and nice and less violent (despite their love of hockey fights).  But almost all the U.S. media is owned by big and ‘liberal’ corporations on the East and West coasts.  And of course, Hollywood wants to have a social conscious with its overpaid actors and executives.
The recent Donald Sterling incident, the L.A. Clippers owner, when he was      
caught making racist remarks, is also revealing.  He has evidently had these views for years and the NBA knew it and allowed it all this time.  It’s interesting:  he actually grew up in one of the poorest and mixed-race neighborhoods in L.A., as did his supposed girlfriend (she went to the same high school 50 years later), V. Stiviano or “Visor” woman as she has become known in the media.  And they both had created a new “narrative” in the American way: he changed his Jewish name to Sterling and she her’s too and has had plastic surgery, to hide her ethnic background.

So I think he’s genuinely surprised with all the controversy.  Afterall, he made the mistake of just saying out loud what he’s probably thought all along and those around him have dismissed ( even Stiviano says he’s not a racist).  Again, he’s just lived the American Dream and become a capitalist and escaped from the ghetto, like the rappers, and couldn’t understand why his girlfriend would want to dredge up the past by hanging around with a black athlete (even though the majority of NBA players are).  He’s just an old man who has racist views, but like a lot of us, nobody wants to admit we’re not as unprejudiced in all kinds of things, as we think we are.  
 


As I said in my own book, “It’s  A Long Way Home”, (see 'memoir/book' heading), after living both in the U.S. and Canada, I believe politics is really about both liberals and conservatives each thinking that the other has less morals than they do.  Liberals think conservatives are not “open” enough and conservatives think liberals are too “open”.  But to me, there seems a lot of hypocrisy on both sides and in both the Clinton affair and the Sterling incident. 

And the media is also guilty of its own.  

   







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THE BEATLES:  WHY THEY STILL MEAN SO MUCH

8/17/2014

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 “THE BEATLES EFFECT”:  WHY THEY STILL MEAN SO MUCH

 by Alan L. Chrisman

I just re-read Chris O’Dell’s book, Miss O’Dell:  My Hard Days and Long Nights with The Beatles, Stones, Dylan, & The Women They Loved, about working for many of rock’s greatest artists.  It’s been out a few years now, but you know how sometimes you don’t always fully get an album or book the first time.  But as Patti Boyd, says on the cover, “It’s a riveting, honest, brave account and I couldn’t put the book down”.  She would know because she was George Harrison’s first wife and O’Dell became one of her best friends.

Miss O’Dell, a girl from small-town Oklahoma, through a chance meeting with Derek Taylor, one of their close associates, gets a job possibility to come to London and work for the Beatles’   new company, Apple Corps., 1968.   Just the right amount of smarts and assertiveness leads her to become one of their most trusted inner-circle.  She stays at their homes and becomes good friends with their wives.  She does many things, especially, for George and Patti, including  the typing of George’s lyrics for his break-through solo album, All Things Must Pass and he writes a song for her,” Pisces Apple Lady”.  She attends Beatles’ recording session (something that even Beatle wives weren’t supposed to do, until Yoko) and sings behind “Hey Jude”.  She also meets many of their rock star friends like Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, and was briefly intimate with them as well as Ringo, even, at one point.  For she becomes their confidante, as well, something that rock idols seemed to need, as they have to live in often isolated worlds.

She tells these amazing inside stories and gives us a glimpse at what these larger than life personalities were really like and is especially good at capturing the complexities of each.  Miss O’Dell shows us what it’s like to be Rock Royalty.  We think their lives are so glamorous and they are, and they can indulge their excesses-drink, drugs, and egos more because they have the power and money to do so.  But it seems it’s just one less thing to worry about perhaps, for as human beings, there’s always something else wanted.  So each Beatle tried to find his own peace, in different ways.  At one point, George tells Miss O’Dell, that she’s “the lucky one”, a less complicated life perhaps and without all the increased expectations.  Many of them would also pay a price for their fast lives in the 60’s, as a list of their relatively-early deaths, at the end of her book reveals.

But when The Beatles fall apart and she has to find another job, she misses being in on the action, and becomes increasingly involved in heavier drugs herself.  She then becomes the tour manager for some of the top other rock acts, Stones, Dylan, CSNY, and many others.  Her organizational skills and abilities at satisfying rock star’s demands and egos come in handy.  It’s no wonder she later went back to school and became a Professional Personal and Abuse Counselor.  She remained friends with The Beatles and their wives and ex-wives and many others she knew closely.  So, Miss O’Dell is a fascinating and rare inside story of The Beatles and her own life.

You Never Give Me Your Money & The Beatles After the Break-up by Peter Doggett

Reviewed by A. Chrisman

I’ve always been most fascinated with two periods of The Beatles, especially, their beginnings in Liverpool and Hamburg and in their later years 1968-70, before their break-up.  The irony is that I think they made some of their most interesting music at those times.  Besides many of us being affected by them, The Beatles Story is, I think so intriguing, because it really encompasses a bit of everything-from rags to riches beginnings, youthful ideals, artistic success, love, later in-fighting, and perhaps even, eventually a kind of  redemption.  In other words, all the things, that all of us, as human beings probably go through in our own relationships and lives.  But their journey happens at a much higher profile and speeded-up rate.  After all, they as a group, The Beatles, only lasted about 10 years.   It’s hard to believe because so much happened in that time.  It truly was at a special time in history, “The Sixties: The Decade That Changed the World’, as some have called it.

They were a big part of that, for they revolutionized not only pop music and culture, but so much more.  I think that is why The Beatles continue to fascinate us, not only the Baby boomers who grew up with them, but also generations to come.

Peter Doggett points out in his book, You Never Give Me Your Money & The Beatles After the Break-up that their own company, Apple Corps. began in 1968 originally as a way, suggested by their financial advisors, to protect their money from the British tax system.  But The Beatles, being artists and not businessmen, saw it also as a way to help other up-and-coming artists. They never forgot how they themselves had been pretty well ignored by the music industry, until a little-respected branch of Britain’s EMI record label and a potential-seeing producer, George Martin, finally gave them a chance. 

They had this idealistic and youthful 60’s ideal that they could perhaps offer that chance to others at the same time.  But pretty soon, as with the excesses of the sixties, a lot of freeloaders started taking advantage of them and Apple.  And it was fast becoming a financial mess.  On top of that, The Beatles were going in different directions themselves, personally and creatively.   Always before they had, despite the differences between members, especially John and Paul, the creative-opposites and main songwriters on which they revolved, been able to come together.  There was always a bit of rivalry between John and Paul, as anyone who’s has had an older sibling can understand, and they needed the others’ approval, and it made for a balance in their song writing.  But now George too, was coming into his own as a songwriter, and felt unrecognized by the other two.  They were also, at the same time, fighting just to keep control of their song publishing, for which they had had to made deals in the beginning.  They had left all the business decisions to their manager, Brian Epstein, but he was no longer there to protect them and the businessmen and lawyers saw their chance.  So it was the perfect storm.  Soon The Beatles were divided into different camps.  There was street-wise, Allan Klein, that John & Yoko admired (and George and Ringo went along with) on one side and McCartney and his wife, Linda Eastman’s more refined lawyer family on the other.  Doggett documents, step by step, the long drawn out battle.   The interesting thing though is, it seemed nobody really did totally want to end their fruitful partnership, but like in a torn marriage, no one also wants to admit they’re wrong.  And the divorce proceeds.

So it comes to an end, tellingly, at the same time as the 60’s decade ends.  The split, especially in such acrimony, sends shockwaves throughout the pop culture.  For, as I say, The Beatles had become more than just a pop band.  They represented the hope of the Woodstock generation that we could all get along on just love and peace.  Then John Lennon, in one of his first Beatles-split solo albums sang, “ The dream is over” and that he didn’t believe in Beatles as well as all the other icons we had looked up to.   He said he just believed in “Yoko and me and that’s reality”.  He was no longer the Elvis-inspired, teenage wannabe rocker that had gotten him to start The Beatles.

Many fans still hoped, for years after, that somehow they (or our idealized vision of them) would somehow hold time at a standstill and re-unite.  But it was not to be. Times had changed and so had they. They had grown up and so would we. They continued in their solo albums and lives, Paul with Linda and Wings, John with Yoko, George fulfilled his acceptance as a songwriter, and Ringo just being himself.  But The Beatles were always more than the sum of their individual parts, as became apparent.  Ironically, they were still to compete with each other throughout their solo careers (and secretly meet with each other) and even came close a couple times to, possibly, re-forming.  By 1973, Klein was replaced as head of Apple by their long time loyal Liverpool assistant and got it back on track, Neil Aspinall (whom my Russ/Cdn. friend, Yury Pelyushonok, got to know a bit when they were discussing possibly publishing his book about the Beatles’ effect on the Soviet Union and he described Aspinall as their “guardian angel”).   But then John was assassinated by a fan and later George was stabbed by another mentally ill fan and then died of cancer.

So The Beatles’ Story, took on almost Shakespearian proportions.  As I said, it had everything-innocence, great achievement, even sadly, tragedy.  It also paralleled our own lives and journeys as many of us also went through our own innocence, loves and perhaps relationship break-ups.  But of course, there are the magnificent songs that have remained timeless.   True artists articulate a society’s and people’s feelings, often in advance, and perhaps when we hear or see them, we see our own reflections. The Beatles were able in their songs, more than any other group, perhaps, to capture a range of emotions with which a wide cross-section of us could identify. The energy, hope and innocence of their early “Yeah Yeah” songs to the experimental albums and songs of Rubber Soul, Revolver, Peppers, White Album, to the bittersweet/ break-up Let it Be and yet they were somehow to end with the beautiful harmonies of Abbey Road.  And their solo albums also reflected their and our more coming to grips with our maturity.  The Beatles were always able to affect people on many different levels at the same time.   “ I am he as you are he and we are all together”, as John Lennon sang on, “I Am The Walrus”.   “Imagine” is played every New Year’s Eve in Times Square and John Lennon is respected for his ideals and music and Harrison for his songs and his spirituality.  The Beatles finally released the documentary & The Anthologies in the mid-90’s, which Neil Aspinall had first conceived and had been compiling since 1970 and it sold 30 million copies and were the top selling albums in the world those years and showed their longevity.  50 years later and counting, Paul and Ringo are still performing and able to bask in their well–earned legacy.  And there’s even a kind of redemption in that.

I ‘m still amazed myself, how new generations are still affected by them, all these years later, a  half-century later now since their North American Invasion.  I was at a family get-together, recently, and a grand- nephew of mine came up to me to introduce his high school girlfriend to me.  Evidently he had told her that I knew some things about The Beatles.  She was all ga-ga (and not for Lady Ga-Ga evidently), but for The Beatles.  So I told her a couple of my own Beatles’ experiences and gave her a copy of my book, “It’s A Long Way Home” (& How Beatles’ Music Saved My Life).   I noticed that she was like those young awe-struck first Beatles’ fans or like we were when we first saw them on the Ed Sullivan show.  She could relate just as much to them, even all these decades later.  Somehow their songs were able to still capture all those moments in time and the emotions.  And it wasn’t just the Babyboomers, like me who had grown up with them, but for new generations to come too, it seemed.  The girl insisted on giving me a hug after, and I knew some things would always feel the same.  “Yeah Yeah Yeah”

 

 


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DIANE KEATON("ANNIE HALL") HAS STILL GOT IT!

8/5/2014

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DIANE KEATON (“ANNIE HALL”) HAS STILL GOT IT!

By Alan L. Chrisman

Like many men, I’ve long had a crush on Diane Keaton, especially since her defining role of Annie Hall in Woody Allen’s classic film of the same name in 1977.  But even before that, she stood out in his previous films, Play It Again, Sam (’72) Sleeper (’73) and Love and Death (‘75).

The accomplished actress has also been a director, producer, and photographer and writer.  She just released her 2nd memoir/ book, Let’s Just Say, It Wasn’t Pretty, after her previous one, Then Again.

I’ve always wondered though, how much she was really like her screen persona (or was she more of a Woody Allen-created character?).  She says in her new book that Woody Allen made Diane Keaton, the actress (her real name was Diane Hall).  He also had a relationship with her and its clear his Annie Hall film and character was partly based on their real relationship, which is why I think it rings so true still.

She made films and had relationships with Al Pacino (The Godfather ’72), Warren Beatty (Reds ’81) and Jack Nicholson (with whom she later made Something’s Gotta Give, 2003).  But these men were at the time, certainly, not the settling-down type of guys.  Although, as with Allen, who she says is still one of her best friends, she has remained good friends with them too.

But she has remained unmarried.  A large part of “Pretty” is about her present life as a single mother with her two adopted teen-aged children, Dexter and Duke.

So what is she really like?  She reveals in the book, she likes to buy and renovate houses (her dad was a real estate agent and engineer).  Her mother was a homemaker and creative and inspired her to pursue an artistic profession.  She has portraits on her wall of some of her favorite men’s faces: Abraham Lincoln, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Sam Shepard, (which may say something about her ideal of men, or perhaps, is reminiscent of her late father).

She’s 68 now and still wearing the thick belts, wide brimmed hats, etc. which she made fashionable in the 70’s.  She has a new film And So It Goes out now with another “silver fox”, as she calls him, Michael Douglas.  She’s resisted plastic surgery as so many other actresses her age haven’t; she says young people mix her up with everyone from Jane Fonda to Katy Perry!

In the book she even quotes some of the funny dialogue from two of my other favorite Woody Allen films with Keaton in them, Sleeper and Love and Death. There’s a scene in Sleeper, set in the future, where they’ve escaping from the bad guys and they’re hungry so Woody (Miles) finds these giant vegetables and fruit growing and he drags this gigantic banana for them to munch on, and Keaton (Luna), playing a spoiled woman of the future, says is that the best you can do?  In Love and Death, Russian Sonja (Keaton) wants to get Boris (Allen) to join in a plot to assassinate Napoleon; he just wants to have sex with her and says he might not be up to a performance, although he wouldn’t mind “rehearsing”.  In Everything You Wanted to Know about Sex, Allen playing a jester, finds a wife wearing a metal chastity belt and tries to break through it at her crotch using a large lance, as he says something like, “Yes, I shall try and openeth thy box with thy trusty shaft”.   In all these, Allen shows the lengths men (sometimes foolishly) will go for a beautiful woman like Keaton.  In Annie Hall, one of its many great scenes, is when Allen and Keaton are in a park just observing people go by and Woody asks people what makes relationships work- everyone has a different answer.  Soon they see a super-handsome couple, like out a Hollywood poster, and the couple says,” We’re both superficial and shallow”.   Allen, when at his best, has no equal when it comes to expressing both the pain and joy in relationships and yet making us laugh, hilariously, at the same time.

Is Diane Keaton really like Annie Hall?  From her books and interviews on late night TV shows, she sure seems to be a lot like her-that same unique, quirky, but lovable character of a woman.  It’s easy to see why Allen and so many others of we men have fallen for her.

LA-DI-DA!  Diane Keaton still has It!

I had my own sort of “Annie Hall” moments in a relationship.  This is a short excerpt from my own recent memoir, “ It’s A Long Way Home”:  CHAPTER 19: LADY IN RED pt. 2 (“Annie Hall”)

I had over the past two years, since I’d first noticed that “LADY IN RED” walking down the street, seen her around my neighborhood.  A couple of times, I saw her with a cute little girl.  I figured she must be a single mom.  I was still very curious about her, but had been trying to make my marriage work.  Finally, one day, when I was divorced and separated again, I saw her walk by my store.   I just ran up to her on the street.  I didn’t know what to say, so I mumbled, believing somewhat in astrology, the worst pick-up line, ”When’s your birthday?’  She replied, ”Why it’s tomorrow!”  I had guessed someone’s sign again.  I mentioned that I had a little record shop in the neighborhood and maybe she would like to drop by sometime (thinking I had probably blown it).

But the very next week, to my immense surprise, she did come in.  And she was wonderful-very intelligent, warm, had a great laugh, and was beautiful (my ideal).  We hit it off from the first time.  She said her name was Anne and that she was a photographer.  She continued coming in on a regular basis.  We didn’t always agree, but she was always stimulating.  I started buying her lunches from a take-out pita place next door when she would drop in, as well as our usual tea.  It was good to have someone to treat once in a while. Like I said, she was full of surprises.  It was nearing Christmas and I asked her what I could get her and she asked for a certain book.

I now called her Annie, the same as one of my favorite Woody Allen characters, played by Diane Keaton in “ANNIE HALL”.

But sometimes the pressures would build up and we’d argue over books, movies, music, anything, and she’d withdraw for a while.  Once, early on, she hadn’t talked to me for several weeks.  I saw her go by my store and next door to the pita place.  I had been rehearsing a joke in case I did run into her, from a Woody Allen movie:  “A man goes into a bar, and he notices a guy with carrots in his ears.  The man asks the bartender, “Why?”   The bartender says, “Why don’t you ask him when he comes in tomorrow at 5 p.m.?”  Next evening, sure enough, the guy comes in, but this time the guy has bananas in his ears.  So the man asks the guy, “Why the bananas in your ears?”  The guy replies, ”Because I ran out of carrots”.  

Woody Allen said that relationships are like that; they often don’t make any sense, but we need them.  So I tell her the joke while she waits for her pita.  And she laughs.  It works!  And she drops by my store right after and we talk.

Another time, she cuts off me for 6 months!  It’s the worse winter in years; record snowfalls.  She won’t even talk to me, but each pay check, I leave a little gift in her mailbox-a book, DVD movie, music, etc.  Finally, one time I leave a note.  She angrily calls me back and says never to leave a note again.  But I asked her if I could still leave gifts, and she said, ”OK”.  I knew she was keeping the door open a little.  Soon after, I ran into her in a parking lot.  I had changed cars, I didn’t think she recognized me, so I rolled down the window and said,  ”You know you could call me sometime”.  The next morning, she calls me and we discuss it very briefly.   And she always did it this way; she puts the phone down and then calls right back.  I ask her if she’d like to go for lunch.   We meet and it’s soon forgotten and we’re back on track again.  So it was never dull.  People outside, even friends, can try to judge, but nobody can really understand anybody else’s relationships.  Sometimes even the people inside them don’t even know how they work or don’t.  The old carrot and banana joke again.

 

 “Some drink deeply from the river of knowledge.       Others only gargle”.      Woody Allen.

 

 

 

 

 

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    Alan Chrisman went to Purdue U. and U. of Ill.(International Relations), came to Canada, was influenced by The Beatles, and became involved in many aspects of music and writing.

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